Veneration of Saints & Images Part 1

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the seventh annual

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Great Debate. My name is Chris Arnzen. I am the founder and president and high exalted mystic ruler of the

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Great Debate. I am also the token Calvinist at WMCA radio.

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As I like to call myself, the token Christian. Again, my friend

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Rob Davis there, who also works with me, will probably attest to that. Anyway, thank you very much for coming.

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I've got a lot of people to thank who have made this event possible. Calvary Press Publishing, Family Life Christian Store of Wanton, New York, Great Earth Vitamins of Melville and Roosevelt Field, New York, Good Old Gold in Massapequa Park, New York, the

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Lachman Foundation, translators of the New American Standard Update Bible, Smith Brothers Brick Patios and Landscape Design, Dantona Industries in Wanton, Long Island, the law firm of Buttafuoco and Associates, the original boy named

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Sue, Dan Buttafuoco, very good friend of mine, the Worldwide Church of God in Suffolk County, Long Island.

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Embarrassed yet, James? Calvary Baptist Church of Medford, New York, New Village Congregational Church of Lake Grove, New York, North Shore Baptist Church of Bayside, Queens, New York, Massapequa Church of God, Massapequa, New York, Grace Reform Baptist Church of Merrick and Amityville, New York, Trinity Fellowship of Toms River, New Jersey, Hillside Baptist Church of Franklin Square, New York, Bethlehem Bible Church of West Boylston, Massachusetts, the

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Long Island Catholic Newspaper. By the way, is my good friend Pete Sheehan, journalist for the

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Long Island Catholic? This is a good friend of mine, Pete Sheehan, who's doing a story on the debate tonight. I've been over Pete's house numerous times, of course, the majority of those times without his knowledge or consent, but Pete was actually my first choice for a moderator here, even though he's a

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Catholic and I'm a Calvinist, he was my first choice as a moderator, but believe it or not, it was the

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Catholics that objected to that. They said that Pete's articles turned more Catholics into Protestants than James White, so I had to do a little bit of an adjustment there,

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Pete. The Wanderer Catholic Newspaper, the

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National Catholic Register, Americans United for the Pope, and the American Family Association.

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I also wanna thank some really helpful volunteers that have been a godsend to me. Mary Madonna, no ministry could have prayed for a more dedicated assistant and volunteer.

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Brian McLaughlin, Rich Wozniak, Susan Feely, Karl Hetzel, and John Kleiss of New Hyde Park Baptist Church.

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I wanna thank all of those folks for sponsoring. Let's have a big round of applause for them. I am very excited about tonight's event.

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This, in fact, if you give me just one second to pause and contemplate this.

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A debate with two of the finest apologists in the world.

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That would have been nice, anyway. Just kidding.

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I really believe that these two men are among the finest representatives of their respective sides of this debate.

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And I forgot to thank a dear friend of mine, Bruce Clark, also from Family Radio. I saw him out there, and sorry that slipped my mind,

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Bruce. Family Radio, WFRS, despite the evil king of that organization, we have a good friend back there,

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Bruce Clark, who promotes not only these debates, but who also promoted

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James White's seminar, Refuting Harold Camping, believe it or not. Thank you, Bruce. I'm gonna introduce my dear friend,

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James White, first of all, before I introduce Arnold Pilsner of Americans United for the

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Pope, who was a great help to me in this debate, as he is every year. Dr. James White is director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a theologically reformed evangelical

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Christian apologetics organization in Phoenix, Arizona, where he also pastors the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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James is a professor at several seminaries and the author of almost 20 books, including The Roman Catholic Controversy, Mary, Another Redeemer, and Dangerous Airwaves, Harold Camping Refuted and Christ's Church Defended.

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Due to his scholarship in New Testament Greek, James was appointed critical consultant for the

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New American Standard Bible update version. He is heard frequently as a guest on national radio broadcasts, such as the

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Bible Answer Man with Hank Hanegraaff and Janet Partial's America. Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. James White.

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By the way, many of you may have noticed a metamorphosis in Dr. White over the last seven years. How many here were at the first debate seven years ago?

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By the way, how many evangelical Protestants do we have here tonight? And how many

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Roman Catholics do we have here tonight? Oh, very good, looks equal. Looks pretty equal, right?

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Looks very equal. When I first met

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Dr. White, he was a mere slip of a man. He was quite small, would you say, in stature, and some might even call him frail.

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And his first, when he was first here, he sort of looked like the curator of the

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Cornelius Van Til library here. Now he looks like a steroid -crazed serial killer that you'd see on America's Most Wanted.

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You know, it's kind of funny. We've been friends for eight years now, and when

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I first met him, he was a humorless man, dry as a bone, quite dull, actually.

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Always brilliant, I always granted him that. But over the years, he's bulked up to a rather impressive and frightening stature, and he's actually developed a sense of humor.

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So I recognize that in this friendship, I've been able to share with him some things that he's absorbed, and I'm wondering, where's the give in this give -and -take relationship?

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I mean, why am I still a moron? I don't understand that.

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Well, the greedy soul that he is, I still love him, and I am excited about this debate.

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And before I introduce Arnold Pilsner of Americans United for the Pope, who will introduce Patrick Madrid, I just wanna say a word about Patrick.

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Despite the fact that I am a committed Protestant, there's no two ways about it. In fact, as I've said before, it is my hope that every

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Catholic leaves here a Protestant, every Protestant leaves here a Calvinist, and every Calvinist leaves here a Reformed Baptist.

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That is my wish. But despite that fact, I have a little bit of a problem with sympathies here, because Patrick Madrid, this is not a lie, was the first person on September 11th to call me to see if I was okay.

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Very first person. And I must quickly add, though, that James White was the second person who called me on November 11th,

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I believe it was. And in fact, the conversation went something like this.

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Hey, Chris, you know that stuff I have, the winter clothing that I have for my trips to New York, you got that still?

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Yeah, you might wanna send that back. Oh, you're good, that's good. Well, anyway, I gotta go, bye.

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Anyway, no, James is a dear friend, and of course, he was also very quick to find out how

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I was doing on that day. But I would like to introduce Arnold Pilsner, who will be introducing to you

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Patrick Madrid. Arnold Pilsner is Director of Americans United for the Pope. He has been a very valuable friend in these debates every year, helping organize the

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Catholic side of this. And Arnold Pilsner, where are you? I'd like you to come up and introduce Patrick Madrid. After that wonderful introduction that you gave to Dr.

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White and Patrick, thank you for not introducing me. Oh, okay.

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Thank you, Chris, for your introduction and for all the work that you do every year to make this debate a great success.

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I also extend my greetings to Dr. White and to his staff. It is a distinct honor and pleasure to introduce to you

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Mr. Patrick Madrid. Patrick Madrid is the publisher of Envoy Magazine, an award -winning

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Catholic journal of apologetics and evangelization. Patrick is the best -selling author of several books, including

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Surprised by Truth, Surprised by Truth II, Pope Fiction, Any Friend of God's is a

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Friend of Mine, Where Is That in the Bible, Search and Rescue, Why Is That in Tradition, and the forthcoming book,

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Friends in High Places. He is also a co -author of Not by Scripture Alone, and is a contributor to the forthcoming

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Ignatius Press Encyclopedia of Catholic Apologetics. Active in apologetics for the past 15 years, he was the vice president of Catholic Answers from 1988 to 1995, and co -founder of that apostolous flagship magazine,

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This Rock, in January of 1990. Patrick is not a convert. He was raised in the

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Catholic faith. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business management from the

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University of Phoenix, and has done graduate studies in theology at the

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University of Dallas. In addition to his work as an author, Patrick is also the host of two

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EWTN television and radio series, Pope Fiction and The Truth About Scripture and Tradition, and he is the executive producer of the

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Envoy Communications radio program, Right Here, Right Now, which is aired on Catholic stations across the country.

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He has conducted hundreds of apologetics and evangelization conferences in English and Spanish at parishes and universities across the

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United States, throughout Europe and Asia, and in Latin America. He is a veteran of several formal public debates with Protestant ministers,

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Mormon leaders, and other non -Catholic spokesmen. Patrick and his wife, Nancy, have been blessed with 11 healthy and happy children.

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Their most important goal as a couple is to one day hear the Lord Jesus say to them and their children, well done, good and faithful servants.

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You have been faithful over a little. Now enter into the joy of your master. Matthew 25, 21.

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Please join me in giving Patrick Madrid a warm welcome. One thing

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I wanna make clear tonight also is that both sides are usually very spirited and committed to their respective sides of this debate.

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We ask you please not to call out, not to make noises, groans and moans.

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I mean, you can do that after I say something, but not during these guys while they're debating because that just detracts from the whole spirit of the debate.

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It distracts from the content of the debate. So we just ask of you to please keep, oh, thank you.

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We ask of you to please keep your outbursts out of the room. We don't need them.

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I mean, you can obviously applaud after a debater has finished speaking and so forth, but while there is actually speaking going on during the debate, please no outburst from the audience in any way.

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I also want to draw your attention. In fact, I'm gonna call Arnold up here real quick in a second so he can point you to some of Patrick's books.

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I think he forgot to do that. But I wanna call your attention to two books by James White that are available for sale out in the lobby out there that both sides of this debate may find interesting.

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The first one is Dangerous Airwaves, Harold Camping Refuted and Christ's Church Defended.

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It's a book that James White wrote, obviously, refuting the recent heresies of Harold Camping, who was saying that the church no longer exists.

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And another book that he wrote with Jeffrey Neal called The Same -Sex Controversy, which is a book refuting the liberal theologians' attempts to defend homosexuality biblically.

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And please, this book is not to be confused with the book that I wrote about my tragic struggle with colorblindness called

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The Same -Socks Controversy. It's a totally, totally different, totally different book, completely different.

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There's also a three -volume set, a three -volume set by a dear friend of both

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Dr. White's and mine, actually two dear friends of mine and Dr. White's, Bill Webster and David King have a three -volume set on the historicity of the doctrine of sola scriptura.

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It is probably the most exhaustive collection of writings on this subject in perspective of the early church fathers and so forth.

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So, and it's worth selling them cheaper than you're gonna get them anywhere else, including his website. $15 a volume.

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$15 a volume here, very dirt cheap. I mean, you can attest to that, can't you? Very dirt cheap.

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I stand before you folks, a liar and a man who is going back on his word, but I apologize,

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I just can't help myself tonight. I hope that all here forgive me for doing this, especially our

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Orthodox Presbyterian moderator, but I just can't, I can't control myself, excuse me, but let's get ready to rumble.

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Sorry, I had to get that out of my system, I apologize. I apologize. Now I'm gonna introduce to you our esteemed moderator who

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I'm sure does not want to know me anymore. When I was trying to find a moderator for this debate, in order to be fair,

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I had to think a minute and say, I have to find somebody who despises Catholics just about as much as he despises

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Baptists. So who better than a Presbyterian moderator? Bill Shishko is one of the most brilliant men that I have ever met, and that is,

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I say that in total sincerity and honesty. He is a dear friend, he is the pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, Long Island, and I'd like to introduce him to you,

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Pastor Bill Shishko, our moderator, ladies and gentlemen. Now Arnold, I just wanna,

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I just wanna quick at Arnold, do you have any books that you wanted to highlight about Patrick, or do you want Patrick to do it, or? Patrick, do you wanna just quick, highlight any of your books?

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Okay, that's fine. All right, now we're just going to, before Bill comes up and takes over the evening, which

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I'm sure you'll all be thankful for, we're gonna bow for a word of silent prayer, amen.

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Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, and here again is Pastor Bill Shishko. Chris picked a

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Presbyterian because we're known for doing everything decently and in order, and we're gonna start that right now.

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The thesis for the debate this evening is prayer to and veneration of the saints, as well as the veneration of sacred images that represent them, is compatible with scripture and Christian tradition.

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Mr. Patrick Madrid will defend the thesis. Mr. James White will deny the thesis.

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Here is the order for the speeches for the evening. The opening speech will be led by Mr.

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Madrid, and then followed by Mr. White. Each opening speech will be 27 minutes long.

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This will be followed by a second speech by each person. Mr. Madrid and Mr.

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White will speak each for 14 minutes in that order. Following that, there will be a 15 -minute break.

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Now, my experience has been in past debates that 10 or 15 minutes has become 30 minutes.

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I am moderating this this evening. It will be a 15 -minute break. At the 13 -minute mark, you'll be given a two -minute warning, and you will be in your seats if you want to hear the next part of the debate, and we're doing that so that you will have time for questions following.

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After the break, there will be a cross -examination period of 12 minutes, led first by Mr.

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Madrid, and then by Mr. White, and that will be followed by two rebuttals, each of eight minutes, again,

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Mr. Madrid leading and Mr. White following. Closing remarks will be for 10 minutes each with the same succession of speakers.

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That, including the 15 -minute debate, should be approximately two hours and 40 minutes, or two hours and 45 minutes, which should leave about 30 minutes for questions, and it will be a question time, not a time for preaching from the gathered people, so that we must be out of here by 11 .45.

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I want to reiterate what Mr. Aronson said. We are strictly going to observe the time limits.

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I ask that you do not applaud in the middle of the speeches of the people. If you're applauding the man that you favor, you're only taking up his time.

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You're not going to help him at all. You may applaud at the end, and certainly at the end of the entire debate, both men will be deserving of our applause.

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I am insisting on decorum. This is a debate. It is not a baseball game. Thankfully, neither of our men is involved in a union, so I don't think they'll be going on strike, but you are not to boo.

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You are not to hiss. You are not to make cat calls or loud sighs. Again, I will call for order, and one other thing that I ask, if you have a cell phone, either turn it off or turn your ring mechanism to vibrate only.

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We don't want any interruptions by cell phones at all this evening. If you have to make a call, do not make it from your seat.

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Go out to the back, but please turn off your cell phones or only use the vibrator.

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We'll begin this evening with Mr. Madrid. Thank you all.

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Well, greetings to all of you, and my thanks to the organizers of this debate, to Jim White, to Arnold Pilsner and his group, to all the people who have helped put this on.

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I didn't realize this was the seventh of these debates in a row, but I can tell you that after all the things that I've heard about this debate and how fierce

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New Yorkers are and how strenuous these events sometimes get, I feel as though I'm sort of the main course at a banquet here, but I hope

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I taste good this evening. At least I hope the information that we present to you is palatable.

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I'm also aware that the Great Debate Series has a well -deserved reputation for bringing in only the finest and the best debaters to this venue, and since none of those people were available this year,

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I'm also grateful that they were willing to call on me as a backup. Now, as our moderator pointed out a few minutes ago, the thesis topic tonight is, and I'll just repeat it, prayer to and veneration of the saints, as well as the veneration of sacred images that represent them, is compatible with Scripture and Christian tradition, and my job tonight is to present the

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Catholic case, and not just the Catholic case, but the Orthodox case as well, to the extent that the Orthodox will tolerate me presuming to make the same case for them, but Catholics and Orthodox share the same views on this subject, so I'm going to be doing my best to present the information that will help you see whether or not this is not a reasonable proposition.

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I believe it is a reasonable proposition, that the evidence in Scripture and the evidence in sacred tradition, in fact, tell us that the veneration of the saints, veneration of their images, and asking for their intercession is compatible with Scripture and with Christian tradition, and in order to do my job properly, one of the things that both

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I and Jim have to do is we have to stay on topic, as we were told earlier, and so that means that we're not going to be able to veer into tangential related issues, such as Mary's perpetual virginity, we won't have time to talk about purgatory, or whether or not we should call

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Mary the mother of God, we won't have time to talk about her immaculate conception, and those are all other debates for future forums, but tonight we have to concentrate on this very strict sense, the very strict theme of whether or not it is proper for Christians to honor the saints and to invoke their intercession and to venerate icons of the saints, and so we're going to do our best to stay on that topic and really take a look at the evidence that serves to verify the hypothesis, that's my job, and then

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Jim is going to present his information, his evidence that he sees as denying or falsifying this hypothesis, and you know, when

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I was coming out here, we drove all the way out from Columbus, Ohio, my son and his friend and I came out, and as I was coming out here, it dawned on me that today is

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July the 11th, and here I am, standing in front of you in the greater

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New York area, and the more I thought about it, the more I think

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God is being very poetic in having this date fixed through his providence for a debate on the question of the communion of saints, because consider what was happening just a few miles from here at the

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Twin Towers on September the 11th, there were many thousands of people who were losing their lives, you and I all watched it on television in horror, some of you perhaps were even in the city at the time, you may have seen the devastation up close, and one of the things that has come to my mind as I've thought and prayed and prepared for this debate is what we all did,

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I'm certain, as normal human beings, when we turn on the television and found out about the hijackings and the buildings falling down, we prayed, and I won't ask for a show of hands, but I think if we were honest and looked into our hearts, we did pray for other people, we prayed for the victims of the planes, hoping that maybe somebody would survive, we prayed for those that were trapped in the buildings, we prayed for the brave firefighters and the rescue workers who went into the buildings to protect them and to save them, but the point is we prayed, we prayed for the people who lived in the area, and we didn't know if they were hurt or not hurt, killed or alive, and really, that is a very sad, a very tragic, but also,

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I think, a very helpful backdrop for us this evening, because it typifies very well, very vividly for us, what the communion of saints means.

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Now, I realize that there are many things that divide us theologically here, Catholics and Protestants, but one thing

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I think it's safe to say is that we are all striving to love and serve Jesus Christ, and part of that desire to know, love, and serve him involves doing what he told us to do, and that is to love our neighbor, and in the

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Catholic Church, that commandment to love your neighbor includes such things as clothing the naked, giving drink to the thirsty, et cetera, but also, and perhaps even more importantly, it involves praying for your neighbor, seeking after his spiritual well -being, building him up in Christ, that is even more important than feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, et cetera, as important as those things are, and so what

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I'd like to do is to present some biblical information. We won't have time to cover a mountain of information, but let me begin with a definition or two just to help us get situated.

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First of all, the Council of Trent, in its 25th session in 1563, it declared that the saints who reign together with Christ offer up their own prayers for men, and it is good and useful suppliantly to invoke them, and to have recourse to their prayers, aid and help for obtaining the benefits from God through his son,

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Jesus Christ our Lord, who alone is Redeemer and Savior. That was the Council of Trent. At Vatican II, we see something a little bit more expansive.

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Vatican II says in the document Sacra Sanctum Concilium, by the hidden and kindly mystery of God's will, a supernatural solidarity reigns among men.

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A consequence of this is that the sin of one person harms other people, just as one person's holiness helps others.

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In this way, Christian believers help each other reach their supernatural destiny.

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The great intimacy of the union of those in heaven with Christ gives extra steadiness and holiness to the whole church, and makes a manifold contribution to the extension of her building.

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Now that they are welcomed in their own country and are at home with the Lord, through him, with him, and in him, they intercede unremittingly with the

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Father on our behalf. That would be a very concise statement with regard to what the communion of saints is all about.

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So now let me go through some particular evidence that I think will help us see at least what the Catholic Church is saying and teaching on this subject.

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And I'd like to present to you seven points for your consideration with regard to this thesis tonight about the communion of saints.

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First of the seven points is that the church is Christ's body. And I believe we could all agree on that.

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The church is the body of Christ. We read about that in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12,

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Ephesians 2, 3, and 4. We're told such things in Romans 12, verses four through five for as in one body, we have many parts and all the parts do not have the same function.

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So we though many are one body in Christ and, now listen to this last phrase, and individually parts of one another.

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So there's this cohesive unity between all the members of the body of Christ. We are in Christ, but we are also, as St.

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Paul says here, individually parts of one another. We have a share in each other's welfare. We read about this also in John 17, verses 22 through 23.

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Jesus says essentially the same thing when he says, may they be one as we are one, speaking to the

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Father, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one.

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And in John 15, verses one through five, the Lord amplifies this through his use of the metaphor of the vine and the branches.

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You and I are branches, part of the body of Christ. He is the vine. And interestingly, although you and I as branches have communion and fellowship with the vine itself,

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Christ, we also have communion and fellowship with one another. So keep this in mind, the church is

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Christ's body. Point number two, Christ has only one body. He doesn't have a body on earth and another body in heaven.

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It's just one body of Christ. And it's an eternal, perpetual, united body.

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And Christ so identifies with us that, for example, when Saul, who was persecuting the

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Christians in Acts chapter nine, gets knocked off his horse, Jesus confronts him and he doesn't say,

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Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting my followers? He says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Meaning that there is this intense and mysterious connection between Christ and his body.

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So if we keep that second point in mind, that Christ has only one body, not one body in heaven and one body on earth, we realize that when

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St. Paul says in Ephesians two, verses 13 through 16, that Christ has made peace for us, he has made us one.

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He has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two.

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This is unity. Galatians three, verses 27 through 28, St. Paul says, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ and have put on Christ, there is neither

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Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

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Now we can enumerate many different examples of these passages that tell us the same thing, but what this is getting us to is the question between Catholics and evangelical

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Protestants and others, for that matter, and that is we may be able to agree that there is one body of Christ, we may be able to agree that the church is the body of Christ, as we're told in those passages, but the real question is, as members of the body of Christ, is there some type of connection between those of us who are saints here on earth and the saints who are in heaven?

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That's the real question that's set before us tonight. And what we have to look at now is point number three, which will help us address that question, because that's one of those big dividing issues.

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Point number three is that death does not separate the members of the body of Christ.

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So just as St. Paul said, those of us who are baptized into Christ are one body, as he also says in Romans chapter eight, verses 35 through 39, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

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And he lists many different things, not nakedness, famine, the sword, peril, et cetera. He says none of these things can divide us from Christ and from his love.

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He says, in fact, we conquer overwhelmingly through these things, but it's not just the love of Christ that he is referring to here, he's also referring to Christ himself.

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So those of us who are in the body of Christ can't be separated from either Christ himself or from any other member of the body.

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Otherwise, Christ would not have conquered death. And if you believe, as I do, that Jesus Christ conquered death once and for all and destroyed death and it sting and took away any power that it has over his followers, then that's the real question.

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If Christ conquered death, then the body of Christ is not separated by death. We have to consider that since death has no power to sever the bond of Christian unity, the relationship between Christians remains.

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And as we go a little bit further tonight, we're going to see how scripture intensifies this relationship for us when it speaks about the different duties that Christians have toward one another.

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In 1 Corinthians 12, St. Paul says, God placed the parts, each one of them in the body as he intended.

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If they were all one part, where would the body be? But as it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand,

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I do not need you, nor again can the head say to the feet, I do not need you. And this is very important for us to remember that those who say that we should ignore or even deny that the saints in heaven, the members of that one body of Christ, can and do pray for us and that we can invoke their intercession, they are actually violating 1

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Corinthians 12. St. Paul says very clearly, no member of the body can say to any other member,

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I do not need you. And tonight, as the evidence is being presented by Jim or the opposing side,

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I want you to keep 1 Corinthians 12 in mind, if you would, and ask yourself if that argument is consistent with St.

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Paul's admonition that we need one another. Point number four, Christians are united in charity. This is, you might say, the point where the rubber meets the road in the

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Christian life. We are called to love and serve one another. Romans 15, verses 30 through 32.

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I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in the struggle by your prayers to God on my behalf.

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2 Corinthians 1, 10. In him we have put our hope that he will also rescue us again as you help us with prayer.

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Colossians 1, 4 and 9 through 10. We always give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we pray for you, we do not cease praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding to live in a manner worthy of the

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Lord. Another question we should ask is, if St. Paul says that he always prays for us, he yearns to see us and so on, does it make any sense at all, given what we know from the earlier points, to imagine that once St.

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Paul died, that those thoughts and that intention to pray for and supplicate on our behalf would go out the window and that suddenly now he wouldn't be doing those things?

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We could quote many other verses. Galatians 6, 2. 1 Corinthians 10, 24. 1 Thessalonians 4, 9 through 10.

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2 Thessalonians 5, excuse me, 1 Thessalonians 5, 11. And 1 Thessalonians 5, 14 through 15.

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All of these are good examples of what is called in theological circles a standing command.

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This is a command that Scripture gives us to pray for, to help one another, to seek the spiritual welfare of our fellow members of the body of Christ.

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And nowhere in Scripture is this command to the members of the body of Christ rescinded. The next point, point number five, is that we are able to imitate the saints.

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And part of what we as Catholics and our Orthodox brothers do when we have icons is to have pictures of them to remind us of their virtues, to remind us of the sufferings that the martyrs underwent on behalf of Christ, to remind us of purity and truthfulness, et cetera.

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And as Saint Paul says in Philippians 3, 17 and in Philippians 4, 8 through 9, he tells us to imitate him.

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And he says, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

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Now ask yourself, among all the people that you know, who do you think is the most gracious, the most pure, the most honorable, et cetera, if not the saints who are in heaven and glory?

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Hebrews 12 tells us that they are the spirits of the just made perfect in righteousness. So if anything is presented to us by Scripture for us to meditate upon, in addition, not to the exclusion of course, but in addition to meditating upon Jesus Christ, that would be the friends of Jesus Christ, the saints.

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If we go a little bit further, we get to some of the statements that we get from the early church fathers.

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But before we get to those, we're just going to talk about one final, two final points, point number six, that we are able to invoke the intercession of the saints.

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This is another area that divides Catholics and Protestants. I'm here to say, I'm here as a friend, I'm not your enemy, but I'm here to represent the

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Catholic teaching, which is simply that those of us on earth can pray for one another. As St.

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Paul said in 1 Timothy 2, verses one through four, first of all, brothers, I ask that prayers, supplications, petitions and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life, for this is good and pleasing to God our

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Savior. St. Paul says that when we pray for each other, supplicate for one another, intercede for one another and offer thanksgivings,

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God is pleased by that. And one question that I hope Jim will be able to answer for us tonight is, how is it that suddenly when the saints who can pray, supplicate and intercede for us here on earth, and that pleases

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God, how is it that when they get to heaven and they stand before God face to face, they are perfected in righteousness, that suddenly now that is no longer pleasing to God?

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Or that it is no longer pleasing to God for us to ask them to pray, supplicate and intercede for us?

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And notice it's just right before 1 Timothy 2 .5 that we read those words, and in 1

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Timothy 2 .5 we see St. Paul reminding us, for there is one mediator between God and man, the man

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Christ Jesus. So these saints in heaven are not somehow doing something that Jesus is only supposed to do, or they're not trying to take away or rob something from Christ who is our one mediator, he is the only one that could effect a union between where we are stranded in sin and where God is in all holiness, he is the one mediator.

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But now because we have that access through Christ, we are able to pray for, supplicate, intercede for one another.

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Another interesting point, Matthew 25 .21, Jesus in that passage tells us that the saints are put in charge of many things.

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In heaven they are put in charge of many things. That means there must be some activity in addition to praising the

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Lord, which is of course the primary activity, but I'm going to tell you that they are put in charge of many things, and one of those many things that they're in charge of is to continue that effort to pray for and supplicate for us.

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There are many passages in the Old Testament, but because of time I don't have the ability to go into those passages where we see supplication and we see intercession on the part of Old Testament figures such as Abraham or Job, perhaps in the

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Q &A period we can cover those, but I'd like you to listen to the church fathers and what they say on the subject of the value and the importance of the intercession of the saints.

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For example, listen to St. Jerome writing around the year 406. He says, you say in your book that while we live we are able to pray for each other, but afterwards when we have died the prayer of no person for another can be heard, and this is especially clear since the martyrs, though they cry for vengeance for their own blood, have never been able to obtain their request, but if the apostles and martyrs were still alive in the body while still alive in the body can pray for others, a time when they ought to still be solicitous about themselves, how much more will they do so after their crowns and victories and triumphs?

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He writes that in his work against Vigilantius. Augustine of Hippo says in his Sermon 159, there is an ecclesiastical discipline as the faithful know when the names of the martyrs are read aloud in the place at the altar of God where the prayer is not offered for them.

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Prayer, however, is offered for other dead who are remembered for it is wrong to pray for a martyr to whose prayers we ourselves ought to be commended.

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He also says in Sermon 172, for the whole church observes this practice which was handed down by the fathers that it prays for those who have died in the communion of the body and the blood of Christ when they are commemorated in their own place and sacrifice itself and the sacrifices offered also in the memory of them and on their behalf.

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So we see there again, not only does St. Augustine tell us that the saints in heaven can pray for us, but also that we pray for the souls of the faithfully departed.

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Catholics would refer to that as purgatory, people who are there. Unfortunately, purgatory is not our debate theme tonight as tantalizing as that might be for both of us, but perhaps a future opportunity will present itself.

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St. John Damascene mentions the same thing. We could go repeatedly through these different points, but I want to just finish up with point seven and then we'll turn briefly to icons.

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The last point is that we can praise and honor the saints. And when we have icons in the

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Catholic church, that is for the benefit of praising and honoring the saints. They're there to remind us of these holy men and women, and they're also there to serve as memorials to their honor.

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Romans 8 .18, St. Paul says, for the sufferings of this time are not fit to be compared with the future glory that will be revealed in us.

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Notice he doesn't say that this is future glory that will be revealed to us, but in us.

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In other words, God is going to infuse us with his own glory. And when we have icons and sacred images of the saints, the blessed

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Virgin Mary, that's a way to remind ourselves of that. Romans 13 .1

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-7, we read that classic passage where we're told to give honor to whom it is due. St.

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Paul says that we are to, let me just flip here to it, that we are told to pay taxes to the people that we owe taxes to.

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We're to give respect to the authorities here on earth. In verse six, he says, this is why you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, devoting themselves to this very thing.

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Pay all their dues, pay taxes to whom taxes are due, tolls to whom toll is due, respect to whom respect is due, and honor to whom honor is due.

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And I ask you, my friends, to whom is more honor due than the friends of Jesus Christ?

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Those who love him, those who obey him, those who are with him in heaven and glory. If anyone deserves honor, it's not the justice of the peace down the road.

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It's not the people you see on C -SPAN passing laws. And they do receive a certain amount of honor, but the honor that we are justly to give to the saints is told to us here by St.

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Paul. So in point number seven, we see that we can indeed honor the saints.

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Now we see examples in the New Testament, for example, 1 Corinthians 11, verses one through two, where St.

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Paul praises and gives honor to the Christian community that he was writing to. He says, be imitators of me as I am of Christ.

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I praise you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions just as I have handed them on to you.

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So there are just an innumerable wealth of examples of how we can give honor and praise in a proper sense, not detracting from the honor and glory that we give to God alone.

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But I'd like to close this section with just a few quotes from some people that you might recognize. For example,

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Martin Luther, in 1534, he wrote these words. She, referring to Mary, is the lady above heaven and earth.

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She must have a heart so humble that she might have no shame in washing the swaddling clothes or preparing a bath for St.

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John the Baptist like a servant girl. What humility. It would surely have been more to have arranged for a golden coach pulled by 4 ,000 horses and to cry and proclaim as the carriage proceeded.

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Here passes the woman who raised above the whole human race. She was not filled with pride by this praise, this immense praise.

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No woman is like unto thee. Thou art more than an empress or a queen, blessed above all nobility and wisdom and saintliness.

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Now, you Lutherans in the audience may feel your skin crawl, as I'm quoting Martin Luther at that. But just remember, in the times that Luther wrote, there was a certain extravagant way of speaking about the saints.

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And he still had that very Catholic sense of offering proper veneration to Mary and the saints.

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John Calvin said, it cannot be denied that God, in choosing and destining Mary to be the mother of his son, granted her the highest honor.

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He goes on, but the point of his section there, and this is taken out of his writings on the question of the saints, we see that he is not saying that we can't give any honor to the saints, but it has to be proper honor.

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And that is exactly what we as Catholics believe. Martin Luther, in his sermon at Christmas, in 1531, he said, referring to Mary again, she is the highest woman in the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ.

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She is nobility, wisdom, and holiness personified. We can never honor her enough. Now, we ask ourselves, how do we honor

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Mary and the saints? And I have to switch now to the question of icons and the question of what the early church says for us.

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Now, we see in the early 200s, the early 200s, there's a prayer that was discovered, and this is the oldest known version of it, but the prayer is called the sub tuum presidium, which means we fly to your patronage.

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And this was found in Egypt. It dates, it's a Christian document dating from the mid 200s. And here's what the Christians were writing about Mary and by extension, the saints at that time.

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We fly to your patronage, oh, holy mother of God, despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, oh, glorious and blessed virgin.

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That type of praise is something that many Protestants are unaccustomed to hearing, but the early

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Christians were quite accustomed to honoring and venerating Mary and the saints. Now, listen to this in the remaining moment that we have.

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We have many quotes from the early church. Some of them I'm going to have to save for the next section, but I want to read to you a couple of them from St.

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Augustine. In his sermon 313, he says, what after all are the praises of such a great martyr?

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But the praises of God. Or to whose credit is it that Cyprian was converted to God with his whole heart, but the one to whom it was said,

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God of powers convert us. So we don't move away from praising God when we praise the works of God, referring to the saints, or the battles of God in the soldier's heart.

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He says, so let blessed Cyprian be praised in the Lord because he has overcome these things.

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He too certainly rejoices. He rejoices for us, not for himself, when he is praised in the

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Lord. In the Lord shall my soul be praised. Let the gentle hearing be glad. He was gentle.

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He wishes his soul to be praised in the Lord. Let his soul be praised in the Lord. Now, the time is against me, so I'll have to stop now, but in the remaining sections this evening, we're going to talk more about what the early fathers had to say on that subject, and I thank you for your patience.

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Good evening and welcome. It is very good to see all of you here this evening. A wonderful crowd here tonight.

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It was interesting listening to all the debating taking place before we got started, even before the debaters were here to start doing the debating.

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This evening's debate, however, is really rather simple in its fundamental thesis.

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That is, is the holy, inerrant, preserved, living word of God sufficient to define what is and, this is the important part, what is not proper worship so that we can avoid in any way, shape, or form displeasing

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God in the matter of worship? Is the Bible able, in of itself, to tell us how

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God would be worshiped and what is pleasing before God, or is that pretty much an issue that man has to decide for himself?

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Is man left up to the task of determining what is right and proper worship before God?

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Now, I'm going to ask you this evening to focus in upon those two elements of the thesis. First are these practices.

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Prayers to, invocation of saints and angels. These things, are they consistent with what the scripture teaches, and are they consistent with what is called

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Christian tradition, which of course opens up the whole hornet's nest of exactly how you define what in the world that is in the first place.

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But most importantly, I would like to ask you, if you have your Bibles, to look at some passages.

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We're both going to be throwing out some passages this evening to you. Obviously, that's why we're videotaping and audiotaping, so that you can go back over these things, but I hope you will take the time to look at what the scriptures say.

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Turn with me to Exodus chapter 20. This, of course, the place where God gives us the 10 words, the 10 commandments.

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And it's not an issue, really, the enumeration of these things. Every word of God is binding upon us, and how you divide it up really isn't the issue this evening.

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What I would like to address this evening, especially, is what I believe the heart of the matter is in regards to prayers to and veneration of saints, angels, and images, so on and so forth.

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And that is the fact that the Roman Catholic Church says, we are not giving to creatures what is due only to God.

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When you see the Roman Catholic bowing down before the statue of Mary, when you see the lighting of candles, when you hear the offering of prayers, we are told that this does not violate any commands of scripture, because we only give to God, and they would also say to the

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Eucharist and to images of Christ, so on and so forth, but we only give to God what is due to God.

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And the term that is used there is latria, adoration, true worship of God.

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What we give to saints is different. It is called dulia, and that is service.

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That is a different term, and when the person is bowing before the statue or praying to Mary, Mary, in fact, receives hyperdulia, the highest form of dulia, and only she receives that.

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But this distinction between latria and dulia is at the very heart of what we're talking about tonight, because if that distinction is unbiblical, if that distinction does not exist, then everything else becomes irrelevant.

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All the other argumentation becomes irrelevant, because if latria and dulia are, in fact, biblically the same thing, then the excuse that is offered for offering, for example, prayer, prayer is an act of worship.

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How do you pray to a saint without worshiping? Well, not all prayer is worship, we're told, and in fact, we're just giving dulia to that particular saint, or if it's to Mary, hyperdulia.

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It's not latria. We don't give that to anything but God. If that distinction's not biblical, then in reality, everything else is pretty much irrelevant, because even if you wanted to establish that this is consistent with the entirety of Christian tradition, what is more important?

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What God has said in his inspired word, or what is found in what is allegedly defined as a tradition, we'll discover that the historical sources are not united on these issues at all.

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So how do we determine whether this distinction between latria, given to God alone, and dulia, given to saints, and hyperdulia, given to Mary, as the mother of God, is in fact biblical?

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Well, we can look at what the scriptures say. Now, of course, latria and dulia aren't words that existed when the

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Bible was first written. The Bible was written in Hebrew in the Old Testament, with a little bit of Aramaic, Greek in the

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New Testament, but latria and dulia are Latin terms that come from two Greek words. Latruo, to worship, and it's the verbal form, and duluo, to serve, that is the verbal form of that as well.

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And we are very blessed to have in our possession, not only the

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Hebrew originals, in the sense of the Hebrew language of the Old Testament, but we also have the translation of the

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Old Testament that the New Testament writers themselves used, called the Greek Septuagint.

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And when we look at how that translation and how the

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Old Testament uses words, we discover that the attempt to make a distinction, and say latria is worship, you give that only to God, dulia is not worship, it's reverence, it's veneration, you give that only to the saints, that distinction is unbiblical and contradicted by the regular usage of those words in both the

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Old and New Testaments. And therefore, I submit to you, that on the issue of worship, when you go to where God has defined his own worship in his own word, that word tells us that you are not to engage in any type of activity.

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That it would be based upon that distinction that in fact, to offer prayers to any creature other than God, to offer veneration in the form of bowing down and worship to anyone other than God is the grievous sin of idolatry.

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That is the biblical teaching. Well, where does it teach this? Well, let's look. Exodus chapter 20, verse five, you shall not worship them or serve them for I, the

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Lord, your God, and I'm a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me.

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Those are not really kind or politically correct words. God talks about his wrath here.

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He talks about visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations for what?

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For violating his proper worship. But the key is to look at those two terms.

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You shall not worship them or serve them. What are those words?

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Well, in the Hebrew language, shatach means to bow down and it's the first word translated their worship.

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And then very importantly this evening, avad means to serve them in this passage.

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Now that term avad is key. Why? Because in the

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Greek translation of the Old Testament, which comes into the New Testament in its citation, in that translation, that one term avad is translated both by both the

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Greek terms that come into the Latin, latria and dulia. The Greek sepulchrant does not differentiate between those two terms in translating this one

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Hebrew word and we are forbidden from avading to sort of mess up the

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Hebrew language there. We are forbidden to avad anyone other than God.

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That includes latria and dulia, both. Now in this particular passage, the term avad is translated by latrua, which becomes latria.

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This very passage right in the 10 commandments says, you will not give latria.

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And Roman Catholics would say, yep, see, we don't. And yet, look at, for example,

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Exodus 23, 33. If you don't have a Bible with you, I'm gonna read the passages. Exodus 23, 33, they shall not live in your land because they will make you sin against me.

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For if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you. That's avad as well.

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But guess what the Greek translation is? Dulio, dulia. Same thing in Deuteronomy 28, 64.

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Moreover, the Lord will scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. And there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known.

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Is that not worship? Is this not describing what idolatry is all about?

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And yet, in the translation of the Bible that was used by the early church, that's dulia.

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The very distinction that the entire practice of the Roman Catholic Church in offering veneration to saints and angels is based upon, here, contradicted in that very translation the early church used.

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Judges 10, 10. Then the sons of Israel cried out to the Lord, saying, we have sinned against you, for indeed we have forsaken our

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God and served the Baals. That's dulia. Would anyone argue that's not idolatry they're talking about?

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In reality, if we were to accept the Roman Catholic distinction between lottery and dulia, this would be an excuse.

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Lord, we didn't give lottery to the Baals, we only gave dulia to the Baals. So we didn't really sin.

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No, that distinction doesn't exist biblically. Because you see, folks, in the

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Hebrew mindset, you cannot worship him that you do not serve.

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You see, it's only in Western thinking that we can come up with the idea that, well, you can honor someone in the sense of worshiping them and adoring them without serving them.

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No, you can't. Not biblically. You see, true biblical worship involves both concepts together.

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That's why the Greek Septuagint doesn't translate it by one particular word, because the

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Hebrew word is richer than that. And what God said in the 10 Commandments, you shall not do this, is the whole concept of adoring and serving.

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First Samuel 7 .3, then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, if you return to the Lord with all your heart, remove the foreign gods and the

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Ashtaroth from among you and direct your hearts to the Lord, and serve him alone. Dulia, serve him alone.

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Well, how does that fit when the Roman Catholic prays those prayers? To Mary, and gives her hyper -dulia, hyper -veneration, and says, into your hands

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I commit my spirit. Deliver me from my sins, the devils, and from the wrath of Jesus.

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You know which prayer I'm referring to. How is that consistent with what is found here? 1

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Kings 9 .6, but if you or your sons indeed turn away from following me and do not keep my commandments and my statutes, which

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I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them. Folks, when we get into the historical section, we're gonna discover that there were writers half a millennium after the time of Jesus Christ, 500 years removed from the apostles, who said it's okay to worship saints, and they used the term proscuneo, proscuneo, which means to bow down before, and their arguments became the foundation of the

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Second Nicene Council, considered the seventh ecumenical council, that dogmatically defined that it's okay to have statues and images and to venerate them.

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And that council based its decision very clearly on what it called unwritten traditions.

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Well, folks, what someone said 500 years after Christ, who probably couldn't read either

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Hebrew or Greek, did not deal with the biblical text, and in fact, violates the biblical text.

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If that becomes the foundation of a dogmatic decree, then we are left with the choice of choosing between what

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God has said in his word and what men say in their decrees. That term

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Latruos used of Avad, just to give you a few more passages in like in Exodus 4 .23,

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Exodus 12 .31. Just listen to some of these, how they're put together. Exodus 23 .24, you shall not worship their gods, nor serve them.

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See how they're together? They are put together to explain to us that you cannot make the very distinction that is at the heart of the

01:02:20

Roman Catholic dogmatic definition of these issues. Deuteronomy 4 .19,

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and beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon, the stars, all the hosts of heaven and be drawn away and worship them and serve them.

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Is anyone gonna suggest as long as you don't do the first, it's okay to do the second? Of course not.

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These are not two separate things that refer to two separate concepts. They go together to express one attitude.

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Now, there is simply no way to say that any of these passages hold to or teach the

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Latria -Dulia distinction. And of course, from my perspective, I want to believe what God's word tells me.

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And if the God's word does not teach it, then I'm not going to believe it. And it does not present this distinction.

01:03:14

But some might say, well, that's just your Sola Scriptura part speaking. But where does the

01:03:19

Bible contradict it? Well, I think we've seen that as well. Because by putting these two terms together and then using them interchangeably, these passages obliterate any such anachronistic distinction.

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The New Testament likewise shows no hint of the Latria -Dulia distinction that is created by Rome.

01:03:42

Let me look at a few passages in the New Testament. Romans 14, 18, for he who in this way serves

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Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. Would anyone suggest that service to Christ does not involve worship?

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That it's somehow a lesser thing that you can also give to Mary or give to saints? That's the term

01:04:00

Dulia in the verbal form. Listen, this is especially important because John Calvin was brought up.

01:04:08

John Calvin hammered in the Institutes upon this very issue of the lack of distinction between Latria and Julia.

01:04:16

And here's one of the passages he used. Galatians 4, 8. However, at that time when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods.

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That phrase, you were slaves, translates duluo. You served them.

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You were enslaved to them. Now is anyone gonna suggest that what

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Paul was saying here is that these people in the churches in Galatia were not involved in idolatrous worship?

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That it was somehow better that they at least just served idols rather than worship them? Of course not.

01:04:57

What he's saying is you were engaged in idolatry. And he uses duluo.

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Colossians 3, 24. Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.

01:05:14

Is that less than Latria? It is not. Finally, 1

01:05:20

Thessalonians 1, 9. For they themselves report about us what kind of reception we had with you and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true

01:05:29

God. You turned to God from idols to do what? To give dulia to a living and true

01:05:38

God. Is he not saying you turn from idolatry to true and proper worship?

01:05:46

Of course. And so the first point that I would like to make is that it's very heart, the concept of praying to saints, venerating saints, honoring saints, building statues of saints, icons of saints, bowing before them, lighting candles, to say, well,

01:06:11

I'm not violating the command of Scripture because I'm only giving dulia, not

01:06:17

Latria. That distinction does not stand up to biblical examination.

01:06:25

And in Mark 7 and Matthew 15, the Lord Jesus gave every one of his followers, and hence everyone here this evening who claims to be his follower needs to hear this, gave every one of his followers a clear and abiding example of how we determine the difference between what is true and false in matters of tradition.

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Because in that passage, he's dealing with individuals who claim to have a tradition that comes directly from Moses.

01:06:58

God gave it to Moses and it was passed down orally in an unwritten form outside the writings of the

01:07:05

Old Testament called the Korban rule. These Pharisees had first come to Jesus and say, you're disciples, they don't wash their hands properly.

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And Jesus says, well, look at you. You've got this Korban rule. And you nullify, you make void the very word of God for the sake of your traditions through your

01:07:27

Korban rule. Now, they claim that came from Moses. They claimed it was divine in origin.

01:07:35

And Jesus rebuked them because they made the word of God of no effect for the sake of their traditions passed down to them.

01:07:48

And Jesus said many other things like this you do. We need to test whatever is handed onto us, no matter what it is, the way

01:07:58

Jesus taught us to. And when we test the very heart of the distinction that is offered by Rome in regards to what the difference between worship and veneration is, we find that it is unbiblical.

01:08:17

Isaiah 820 tells us to the law and to the testimony, if they do not speak in harmony with this word, there is no light in them.

01:08:25

So I unashamedly direct you to what the word of God says on these issues.

01:08:31

Now, before moving to the issue of the concept of Christian tradition, and maybe it'll work out best this way, because it will sort of stay on the same topic as we're going back and forth, it's probably a little bit easier for the audience.

01:08:43

Before moving to that issue, allow me a moment to address a common fallacy regarding 1

01:08:48

Timothy 2 .5, which did come up, but I was going to address it anyways. Jesus' work of mediation.

01:08:57

The Roman Catholic Church tells us that having Mary as an mediatrix, as Vatican II referred to her, the movement in the world today centered at the

01:09:10

University of Steubenville, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Dr. Mark Miravalli and those people who are pushing to have the fifth

01:09:16

Marian dogma defined, for example, Mary as co -redemptrix and mediatrix and so on and so forth, that this in no way violates the teaching of 1

01:09:27

Timothy 2 .5 that Jesus Christ is the only mediator, between God and men. Very frequently, the idea is, well,

01:09:34

Jesus is sharing his mediation with us. He asks us to intercede and pray for one another.

01:09:41

That obviously is not a violation. In fact, in this very context, he's saying prayers will be offered for kings and those in authority.

01:09:50

What that should tell us is that the work of Jesus Christ in mediation is significantly different than our privilege of by prayer interceding for our brothers and sisters.

01:10:04

Because you see, when the son as mediator intercedes as high priest before the father on behalf of his people, he does so on the basis of his finished work in their behalf on the cross of Calvary.

01:10:23

No one else has that foundation.

01:10:30

His is a unique work of mediation because of his unique character, his unique work upon the cross, and his unique role as high priest.

01:10:46

That is why Paul says there is one mediator and he's just said there is one

01:10:53

God. He uses the exact same Greek term. Many Roman Catholic apologists today will say, actually, the term heis, it's used there, it doesn't necessarily mean unique, it just means first or primary.

01:11:06

That's actually found by such Mariologists as O 'Carroll and Miravalli uses the same argumentation.

01:11:13

Think of what that results in. There is one God, that means first or primary God, and one mediator, first or primary mediator.

01:11:22

I'm sure I know a bunch of folks up in Salt Lake City that would like it if that were the case, but that's not what it means, does it?

01:11:31

Context defines meanings of words and just as there is only one unique God, there is only one unique mediator, and that is

01:11:37

Jesus Christ. The New Testament does not present to us any examples of the apostles, it would be

01:11:50

Paul or Peter or anyone else, saying to us, pray to the saints, that there were already individuals who had gone on at the time of the writing of the

01:11:59

New Testament were there not? Stephen had gone on, no one ever prays to Stephen.

01:12:06

No one ever seeks Stephen's intercession. Of course, the very distinction between the idea of saints who have excess merit and who end up directly in the presence of God and others who go into purgatory is unknown in the

01:12:20

New Testament, it's an unbiblical concept, that was our debate topic last year, but there is nothing in the

01:12:27

New Testament that would begin to suggest to us that the apostles, as they taught the church what it means to sojourn here upon the earth, that they taught believers that the communion of saints meant that when saints die, you can still communicate with them.

01:12:45

How would they know if it's the Holy Spirit who searches the hearts of men and communicates the intents of our heart to God the

01:12:53

Father, is the Holy Spirit also involved in communicating the intentions of our heart to saints? You say, well, 1

01:13:01

Corinthians 12 says that no one can say I have no need of you or I have no need of you, that's quite true, but notice

01:13:07

Paul does not apply that to those who have left this world. He never makes an application to saying, now that means that we believe in the communion of saints and that includes those who've gone into heaven, and he never says that, he's talking about the people have different gifts within the functioning of the local body of the church.

01:13:24

That's the context, 1 Corinthians 12. But isn't it fascinating?

01:13:31

We all recognize that something's changed when someone passes away. Do we pray, if I pray for someone, if I pray for Brother Arnzen, and boy, do

01:13:42

I need to pray for Brother Arnzen, if I pray for Brother Arnzen, that God would help him to strive against sin?

01:13:52

Let me ask you something. Once Chris is in the presence of Christ, do I keep praying that for him?

01:13:59

Of course not. Why? Because his status has changed.

01:14:07

Death does not divide the body of Christ up, but it does divide us from those who are described as being asleep in Christ.

01:14:15

I wonder why they use that term, asleep in Christ. Maybe it's because they're resting. The New Testament does not give us any hint, even

01:14:24

Revelation 5 .8, the 24 elders have the bowls of the prayers of the saints, there's nothing there that says they were the objects of those prayers.

01:14:33

There is nothing in the New Testament that leads us to believe this, and there's much to lead us away from it, and that is, of course, the fact that prayer is an act of worship.

01:14:45

When I pray, I am acknowledging God's sovereignty over me.

01:14:51

As a creature, I'm acknowledging he's my creator. I cannot do that with anyone but the one who gave me life and breath.

01:15:02

Thank you very much. There will now be two 14 -minute addresses, what would be formally known as the second constructive address,

01:15:22

Mr. Madrid first, and then Mr. White. There is far too much ground to cover, even though we have all this time tonight, it's frustrating,

01:15:40

I think, for all of us that we can't get deeper if we had more time we would, but let me try to cover a few points that were left undone in my last remarks, and then also try to talk about a few of the things that Jim mentioned a few minutes ago.

01:15:55

First of all, we have to set the record straight on the question of equivocation. Jim is equivocating on the term pray, and I realize that as a

01:16:04

Protestant, he is entitled to using terms that apply to Protestant theology in that vein, but the

01:16:13

Catholic Church has always distinguished between prayer, which is the worship and glory and honor that's due to God alone, and the word prayer, with a small p if we can say it that way, that refers to communication, not worship.

01:16:27

Now you can accept that or not accept it, but that is the official way in which the Catholic Church has always used the word pray.

01:16:34

Now we're using the word in English, of course, but the fact is that when a Catholic prays to a saint, for example,

01:16:41

Mary or one of the saints, Jim mentioned Stephen earlier, we'll talk a little bit about what St. Augustine had to say about praying to St.

01:16:47

Stephen in particular. St. Augustine was not referring to worshiping or adoring

01:16:53

St. Stephen. When the early church celebrated the feast day of St. Stephen, it was invoking the prayers from St.

01:17:00

Stephen, who reigns in glory with God. So for a Protestant, okay, sure, I agree,

01:17:06

Jim, that when you pray, you're worshiping God. But for a Catholic, there is prayer that is worship, but we also use the word pray in a different way.

01:17:14

The second thing we have to remember too is that this is not about Sola Scriptura tonight. This is not a debate on whether or not the

01:17:21

Bible is sufficient to teach us these things. Jim and I had that debate nine years ago. And if anybody would like to see just how definitively we settled the issue that the

01:17:31

Bible does not teach Sola Scriptura, I refer you to the debate tapes that are out on the table. We're not talking about whether or not the debate is sufficient tonight, or whether Scripture is sufficient.

01:17:40

We're talking about whether or not the early Christians understood Scripture to mean that we can venerate and ask the intercession of the saints in heaven.

01:17:51

That is going to be the key tonight. Because James can stand here all night and tell us his interpretation of Scripture, and he will.

01:17:59

I, of course, can tell you mine. But I think it's very beneficial if we consider what the original

01:18:04

Christians themselves had to say on the subject. And I want to watch my time so I don't leave them out.

01:18:10

Another thing that we have to remember is that the question of a distinction between dulia and latria, this is certainly a very interesting point, but one of the things that we have to keep in mind is that the words dulia and latria are used in Scripture sometimes to refer to human beings, other times to refer, in the case of latria, to God, and, of course, dulia is used with regard to God as well.

01:18:36

And I picked out a couple of, actually I picked out quite a few passages to look at this, but we see, for example, that in Acts 7, verse 7, which is the only passage in Scripture, in the

01:18:47

New Testament at least, that I'm aware of, we see that the verbal forms of latria and dulia are used here in the same phrase, in the same sentence.

01:18:58

Here we see St. Luke saying, "'And the nation to whom they shall be in bondage "'I will judge,' says

01:19:04

God, "'and after that they shall come forth "'and serve me in this place.'"

01:19:09

So here we have, referring to the Egyptians, we have dulia being referenced to their

01:19:15

Egyptian overlords, to human beings. And, of course, that was a very bad situation that they were in, but there they were referring to human beings, and then, of course,

01:19:25

God is saying, you are going to serve me. Catholics agree, as Jim pointed out.

01:19:30

Latria is always and only service that is due to God alone. It is never rendered to human beings.

01:19:37

Dulia is also a service that we render to God, but at times it can be rendered to human beings.

01:19:43

Listen to what St. Augustine said in the City of God. He said, "'For this is the worship "'which is due to the divinity, "'or to speak more accurately, to the deity, "'and to express this worship in a single word, "'as there does not occur to me "'any

01:19:57

Latin term sufficiently exact, "'I shall avail myself, whenever necessary, "'of a Greek word,

01:20:02

Latria. "'Whenever it occurs in Scripture, "'it is rendered the word service. "'But that service which is due to men, "'and in reference to which the apostle writes "'that the servants must be subject to their own masters, "'is usually designated by another word.'"

01:20:17

He's referring to dulia in Greek. "'Whereas the service which is paid to God alone by worship "'is always

01:20:23

Latria in the usage of those "'who wrote from the divine oracles.'" And then he goes on a little bit further to describe how this term is often misunderstood, but he really gets to the heart of the matter in his letter against Faustus the

01:20:39

Manichaean. He says, "'It is true that Christians pay religious honor "'to the memory of the martyrs, "'both to excite us to imitate them, "'and to obtain a share in their merits, "'and the assistance of their prayers.

01:20:50

"'But we build altars not to any martyr, "'but to the God of the martyrs. "'Although it is to the memory of the martyrs, "'it is to the

01:20:58

God of the martyrs. "'No one officiating at the altar "'of the saints' burying place ever says, "'We bring an offering to thee,

01:21:04

O Peter,' "'or O Paul, or O Cyprian. "'The offering is made to God "'who gave them the crown of martyrdom, "'while it is in memory of those thus crowned.

01:21:13

"'The emotion is increased "'by the associations of the place. "'Love is excited both toward those who are our examples,' "'referring to the saints, "'and the martyrs, with the same affection and intimacy "'that we feel towards holy men of God in this life.'"

01:21:28

So what he's saying there is, we revere great Christians in this world. So much more so do we revere the great

01:21:36

Christians when they are finally in heaven, perfected in righteousness. He says, "'What is properly called divine worship, "'which the

01:21:43

Greeks call Latria, "'and for which there is no word in Latin, "'both in doctrine and in practice, "'we give only to God.

01:21:51

"'To this worship belongs the offering of sacrifices, "'as we see the word idolatry, "'which means the giving of the worship to idols.

01:21:58

"'Accordingly, we never offer or require anyone "'to offer sacrifice to a martyr, "'or to a holy soul, or to any angel.

01:22:05

"'Anyone falling into this error "'is instructed by doctrine, "'either in the way of correction or caution.

01:22:11

"'For holy beings themselves, "'whether saints or angels, "'refuse to accept what they know "'to be due to God alone.'"

01:22:18

Now he goes on and on and on. I want you to listen to a couple of points here with regard to this issue of honoring the saints.

01:22:30

If we take a look at the writings of the early church,

01:22:35

I know that a minute ago, Jim was disparaging the writings of the church fathers in, let's say, the fifth century.

01:22:45

But we can go much earlier than that. But more importantly, I want you to listen to what Jim has also said himself on the subject.

01:22:52

On his website, in the section dealing with the pre -existence of Christ, he says, "'The body of writing of the

01:22:57

Nicene "'and post -Nicene fathers is large indeed. "'The series edited by Schaff "'takes up 28 large volumes alone.

01:23:04

"'Hence, to overview all the literature "'would be far beyond the scope of this paper. "'Therefore, the three main exegetes "'of the century after Nicaea, "'Chrysostom,

01:23:15

Athanasius, and Augustine, "'will be examined briefly "'to determine how they understood "'the focal passages listed above.'"

01:23:23

Now, this is in his section dealing with scripture. And he's appealing to these men,

01:23:29

Chrysostom, Athanasius, and Augustine, to support his contention that his understanding of scripture is consistent with theirs.

01:23:38

You see what's going on here? Now, look at what some of these men say. St. John Chrysostom, and he lived around the year three, he was writing between the year 347 and 407.

01:23:48

He says, "'Calling to remembrance "'all our holy, immaculate, "'and most blessed and glorious lady, "'Theotokos, and ever

01:23:53

Virgin Mary, "'with all the saints, "'let us commend ourselves in each other "'and all our life under Christ our

01:23:59

God. "'We give thanks unto thee, O Lord, "'who lovest mankind, "'benefactor of our souls and bodies, "'for that thou hast vouchsafed this day "'to feed us with thy heavenly and immortal mysteries, "'make straight our path, "'establish all in thy fear, "'guard our life, "'make firm our footsteps "'through the prayers and intercessions "'of the glorious Theotokos, "'and ever

01:24:18

Virgin Mary, "'and of all thy saints.'" We read in Athanasius, homily on the papyrus of Turin, he says, "'O noble Virgin, "'truly you are greater than any other greatness.

01:24:30

"'For who is your equal in greatness, "'O dwelling place of God the Word? "'To whom among all the creatures "'shall

01:24:35

I compare you, O Virgin? "'You are greater than them all, O covenant, "'clothed with purity instead of gold.

01:24:41

"'You are the ark in which is found "'the golden vessels containing the true manna, "'that is the flesh in which divinity resides.'"

01:24:48

So Athanasius is honoring Mary, not improperly, but he's honoring her and the saints by extension.

01:24:55

Arnobius, he writes, "'We by no means adore the martyrs, "'but we honor them as the true adorers of God.'"

01:25:02

He also says in an earlier statement, he says, "'We keep through every age "'their bodies decently enshrined "'as most precious pledges, "'vessels and benedictions of benediction.

01:25:14

"'The martyrs defend the church "'as soldiers guard a citadel. "'The people flock in crowds from all quarters "'and keep great festivals to honor their tombs.'"

01:25:22

He goes on and on describing how the early church understood the scriptures that Jim was referring to later.

01:25:31

Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Saint Ambrose, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, all of these different saints say these things to us and we see

01:25:40

Saint Augustine saying in his letter, Sermon 313, referring to the martyr

01:25:45

Cyprian, "'What after all are the praises of such a great martyr "'but the praises of God? "'Or to whose credit is it that Cyprian "'was converted to God with his whole heart, "'but the one whom it was said, "'God of powers, convert us.'"

01:25:56

So Saint Augustine is telling us that the early Christians did in fact praise the martyrs.

01:26:03

He says, "'The justice of the martyrs is perfect "'because they have been perfected by their sufferings. "'That's why they aren't prayed for in the church.

01:26:11

"'The other faithful departed are prayed for, "'not the martyrs, they have left the world. "'So you see, they have perfected themselves "'that they are not our dependents, but our advocates.

01:26:22

"'And this too, not in themselves, "'but in the one whom as their head "'they have stuck as close as his members.

01:26:29

"'You see, indeed, he is the one advocate "'who intercedes for us, "'seated at the right hand of the

01:26:34

Father.'" We go on and we read many different passages from Augustine, but keep in mind what

01:26:40

Jim has written. He's saying that these men, Chrysostom, Athanasius, and Augustine should be examined to see how they understood scripture.

01:26:49

And if you go through and read Chrysostom, Athanasius, Augustine, not to mention the host of other early church fathers, you'll find that universally the early

01:26:59

Christian church understood scripture to contain a prohibition against idolatry, which is the worship of any false god, and yet it included the fact that we are able to honor, venerate, and seek the intercession of those blessed in heaven who are members of the one body of Christ.

01:27:17

Now earlier, Jim said that the members of the body of Christ are separated from us. That is not true.

01:27:23

Romans 8 says that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, and that includes all the members of the body of Christ.

01:27:29

We're not separated by death, Jim. We're not separated by the fact that we can't see them.

01:27:35

They are in heaven, united with Christ. They love us still as they always have. They're praying for us still as they were on earth.

01:27:42

Another section here. On James's website, he has an article referring to what he calls whitewash, and he says, it does not seem that any discussion of ancient theology can be pursued without invoking the great name of Augustine.

01:28:01

Surely, by now, Roman controversialists should be aware that Augustine is no friend of their cause. Well, a moment ago, we were told that we should look to Augustine and Chrysostom and Athanasius to see how they understood scripture, and we see repeatedly that they invoke the intercession.

01:28:15

They honor the saints. That is how they interpreted scripture. We see some other passages from Saint Augustine that tell us the same thing, but the key to all of this is to remember that the early

01:28:28

Christians made a distinction between dulia and latria. In scripture, dulia and latria appear, latria appears only with regard to worship of God, never to human beings.

01:28:41

Dulia appears all over the place in its verbal forms and in its noun forms, over 200 times, in fact, by my count, and some of those instances refer to service to human beings.

01:28:52

Some refer to service to God, but the early church understood that we should never cross the line into idolatry by giving worship and honor to a saint, a mere creature, that we would be rendering only to God, our creator.

01:29:09

And so all of the emphasis upon those two words, as interesting as it is, it really doesn't solve the problem for Jim tonight because he has to explain to us how the thesis statement in the debate tonight goes against me and for him.

01:29:23

How is it that the early Christians believed in and taught universally the veneration of the saints if in fact they were the true followers of Christ?

01:29:35

Thank you. I would like to correct very quickly the misapprehension that anywhere on Alpha Omega Ministries website did

01:29:53

I in any way, shape or form set up Augustine Athanasius and John Chrysostom as extra biblical authorities.

01:29:59

If you'll actually read the reference that is given, what I was saying is, let's look at what they taught about scripture and see if it's consistent with what

01:30:07

Rome teaches. That is a very different thing to saying, oh, we should look at them and then give them a special status to where we should believe what they have to say.

01:30:17

I don't do that with anyone today. I don't do that with reformers. In fact, I don't do that with any uninspired person.

01:30:23

It doesn't matter who's writing about Christian truth. I hold them to the standard of God's word. And that's what all of us should in fact be doing.

01:30:31

Now, Mr. Madrid speaks about the early church. Let me give you just a couple of quotations while I'm at it because we were just told there was this universal perspective.

01:30:42

Well, why did these words appear as early as the middle of the fourth century?

01:30:52

Here we have someone traveling, Epiphanius. He's the Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus. And he says, asking what place it was and learning it to be a church,

01:31:01

I went in to pray and found there a certain hanging on the doors of the said church, dyed and embroidered.

01:31:06

It bore an image either of Christ or of one of the saints. I do not rightly remember whose the image was. Seeing this and being loathed that an image of a man should be hung up in Christ's church, contrary to the teaching of the scriptures,

01:31:18

I tore it asunder and advised the custodians of the place to use it as a winding sheet for some poor person.

01:31:25

I don't think he appreciated its presence there. Lactantius said, these, the demons, are they who taught men to make images and statues, who in order that they might turn away the minds of men from the worship of the true

01:31:38

God, caused the countenances of dead kings fashioned and adorned with exquisite beauty to be erected and consecrated and assumed themselves their names as though they were assuming some characters.

01:31:48

Why aren't these the containers of the alleged Christian tradition? Indeed, let me point out that the

01:31:56

Council of Elvira in the year 300 in Spain, specifically forbade the use of pictures and churches, saying, so that that which is worshipped and adored shall not be painted on the walls, end quote.

01:32:12

That's before the Council of Nicaea. That's almost five centuries prior to the second

01:32:18

Nicene Council, where the veneration of images was defined as being proper.

01:32:23

Why isn't that definitional of Christian tradition? The historical picture is clear in history as we look at the surviving writings.

01:32:35

First comes prayer to martyrs, then saints in general, then angels, and finally the veneration of images.

01:32:40

There is, of course, no universally agreed upon belief in the first centuries of the church. Many fathers passed without ever making mention of such things.

01:32:49

It is just assumed that they believed such things. Scholarly Catholic sources clearly recognize that various early fathers spoke against, for example, the use of images in worship.

01:33:03

That is not something that is denied. In fact, at the second Nicene Council, where the veneration of images was defined on the basis of tradition, in the fourth session, the bishops read passages that allegedly promoted from the

01:33:20

Bible the veneration of images and then quotations from early fathers that supported this.

01:33:27

They then presented the dogmatic decree. Two sessions later, no reading of the

01:33:34

Bible, a list of early church fathers who opposed this began to be read, but they didn't even finish reading the list.

01:33:43

They just rejected it and then placed an anathema upon anyone who would write against the veneration of images, which

01:33:52

I guess would include the early church fathers whose list they didn't finish reading. Now that is the thinking and the activity that went into the providing of the dogmatic teaching in an allegedly infallible council.

01:34:06

I'd like to point out that I'm not aware of anyone. I'd like to ask Patrick if he knows. Was there anyone at the second

01:34:15

Nicene Council, 787 years after the birth of Christ, eight centuries removed from the apostles who could even read the

01:34:26

Hebrew language, who could even read the New Testament Greek with proficiency and compare it with the

01:34:34

Greek Septuagint or the Old Testament so that they could know whether this was consistent with what the

01:34:40

Bible said, which we've already seen in so many passages. What about that? Now, we have been told, well,

01:34:50

Augustine, who, by the way, knew no Hebrew, could not read the

01:34:57

Hebrew language, would have been completely unaware of the fact that avad, the very word used in the

01:35:06

Ten Commandments, is translated by both Latria and Dulia.

01:35:13

He quotes Augustine, whose Greek wasn't very good either.

01:35:20

It's interesting. He had an argument with Jerome on the subject of the canon of Scripture. Jerome, who was cited earlier, who, if he is a container of tradition, why wasn't his rejection of the

01:35:31

Apocrypha tradition? I mean, once we start asking this issue of tradition, going to the early church fathers is like going to the

01:35:39

Christian bookstore today. Are you going to find one single thing one single teaching at your

01:35:45

Christian bookstore today? I sure hope none of you walk in there and think these are all equally good books.

01:35:52

There's a few good books in there, but there's a whole lot of bad books in there. And there's books written by people who are very ignorant in there.

01:35:59

And if you actually read the fathers, not just selections, but actually read the fathers, you'll find all sorts of statements that quite simply are very ignorant.

01:36:08

Are we supposed to just simply bow down to that as if that's somehow a binding authority upon us?

01:36:18

Even in the citation quoted from Augustine, Augustine was wrong in regards to Galatians 4 .8,

01:36:28

where there Paul clearly utilizes the term dulia in regards to what can only be understood as a word that would have been translated latria in the

01:36:39

Septuagint. It's clearly worship. Augustine or Athanasius or anyone else, me, reformers,

01:36:50

Fitzmyer, Brown, it doesn't matter who they are, men stand corrected by the word of God.

01:36:58

Now, as I said, I did not establish Athanasius, Augustine and Chrysostom as some sort of standard in the citation that was provided.

01:37:08

I do cite from them to demonstrate that the assertion of a universal tradition on the part of Roman Catholics is fallacious.

01:37:16

There are the three volumes that were shown to you earlier, 1100 plus pages by Bill Webster and David King, demonstrating without any question that a fair and full reading, and those books are fully documented, frequently giving you both the

01:37:30

Greek and Latin and the references where you can look them up for yourself. A full reading of those patristic sources will not give you the universal perspective of the

01:37:41

Roman Catholic Church in regards to the authority of scripture and its sufficiency. Instead, when

01:37:48

I cite from the early church fathers, I can see them just like I see men whose writings I respect today.

01:37:54

You accept what is in harmony with the word of God and that which is not simply comes from the heart of man.

01:38:01

That is the nature of what we experience in this life as believers.

01:38:10

So when we look at what Christian tradition is, why are the citations

01:38:17

Mr. Madrid has read tradition and the citations that I read are not tradition?

01:38:26

Fundamentally, because Rome says so. Fundamentally, because Rome says so, sola ecclesia.

01:38:34

Rome defines what the Bible is. Rome defines what the Bible says. Rome defines what tradition is.

01:38:41

Rome defines what tradition says. That makes the Roman Catholic Church the ultimate authority in all things.

01:38:46

And so fundamentally, the second assertion in this particular thesis for the Roman Catholic is a given.

01:38:53

It must be believed by definition because if Rome has said this is the tradition, then it is.

01:39:00

The problem is a person who wants to believe truth and understand truth would have to come to the conclusion that the only way to do that is first and foremost as your first act to accept the ultimate authority of the

01:39:14

Roman Catholic Church. And there's all sorts of reasons not to do that, first and foremost being that the

01:39:20

Lord Jesus and the apostles never told us to do it. When Paul told

01:39:28

Timothy, you turn to that which is theanustos as your source, he did not in the next breath say, oh, and once the

01:39:35

Bishop of Rome has been established, then you can go there to determine what is right and what is wrong. That is not a biblical teaching.

01:39:41

And so when we ask, well, Rome has said this is tradition, well, why aren't these other citations tradition? Why isn't the

01:39:46

Council of Elvira 500 years earlier? Why doesn't that represent apostolic tradition?

01:39:53

There is only one answer for the Roman Catholic and that is because Rome says so. Very similar to the debate that I had with a fellow by the name of Jerry Matitix at Boston College in 1993, same year that Patrick and I last debated in San Diego, and at least it's cooler in here than it was then.

01:40:15

A lot cooler. That was on the Apocrypha. And the fundamental argument there was the

01:40:23

Old Testament, Canada Roman Catholic Church is right because the Catholic Church says so. Well, that's an argument from authority.

01:40:31

And that's a circular argument. Once you start diagramming it out, it really does not hold any rational weight

01:40:37

The same thing is true here. When we talk about the use, for example, the word prayer,

01:40:44

Mr. Madrid got up and he said, you're equivocating on the word prayer. I would actually say the equivocation is going the other direction.

01:40:51

I'm very consistent in my use of the word prayer. My use of the word prayer is the biblical use. Prayer is communication.

01:41:00

It's communication between the creature and his creator. It is communication that is brought about because God's spirit communicates to the father, the thoughts and intentions of my heart.

01:41:15

I can simply bow my head right here. I don't have to say a word and I can pray. How does a saint know what we're praying here on earth?

01:41:24

And if I pray to a saint, see, if I walk up to a person and say, I'd like you to pray for me,

01:41:31

I'm using normal human communication. But you see, to pray to a saint, who's going to communicate that to them?

01:41:38

Do they somehow gain some special ability to be able to read the hearts and minds of men, which by the way, is only a divine capacity?

01:41:49

Or does the Holy Spirit somehow not only become the comforter who intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered in his work of communicating that deepest desires of our heart, does that somehow, he now somehow becomes the one who communicates these to saints as well?

01:42:09

You see, saints in the New Testament are described as those who've entered into rest in Jesus Christ.

01:42:16

Oh, what a tragedy it would be if any of those saints had any idea of the woes that are constantly laid upon their doorstep by so many people today.

01:42:31

How could they be at rest? How could they be at peace when constantly the diseases and sicknesses of the life from which they have been delivered are laid upon their doorstep?

01:42:50

I'm very thankful my Lord Jesus hears those prayers. We have seen the assertion that we are equivocating when we talk about prayer.

01:43:04

No, I'm being very consistent. It's the Roman Catholic that equivocates by saying, when I pray to God, that's one thing, but I pray to a saint, it's something else.

01:43:11

I'm just communicating to the saint, but I'm communicating adoring God. Now, if you are acknowledging that that saint has some means of in some way aiding you, and you well know the prayers that are out there,

01:43:26

I even mentioned them. To you, I commit my spirit, prayed to Mary.

01:43:33

That is not just communication. That is worship. And biblically, as we have seen, that is wrong.

01:43:43

Thank you. I want to remind all of you and our debaters of what the topic is.

01:44:02

The topic is prayer to and veneration of the saints, as well as the veneration of sacred images that represent them is compatible with scripture and Christian tradition.

01:44:14

That is our topic for the evening. We will have now one further hour of the debate.

01:44:20

It will be broken down in this way. We will have cross -examinations led by Mr.

01:44:25

Madrid. Those cross -examinations will be of 12 minutes each. The purpose of a cross -examination is to ask questions and to receive further information from the other speaker.

01:44:38

Following that, there will be a rebuttal with each person speaking for eight minutes.

01:44:46

And then following that, there will be closing statements of 10 minutes each. Following that, there should be approximately 50 minutes for your questions.

01:44:56

Your time to ask questions will be limited to 30 seconds, and that will be rigidly enforced.

01:45:02

I would suggest that if you have questions, you write them down so that when you get the microphone, you can read the question and sit down and let

01:45:10

Mr. Madrid and Mr. White respond. We will now begin with the first cross -examination led by Mr.

01:45:17

Madrid. Jim, over here.

01:45:30

Yes, yes, Patrick, I see you. All right, there you are. Could you name for us a single ecclesiastical document from any era,

01:45:43

Catholic document, in which the Catholic Church says that the terms dulia and latria are supposed to indicate the same reverence of attitude, the same reverential attitude toward the saints that would be proper to God alone.

01:45:56

In other words, is there any church document where the Catholic Church says that the reverence that we owe to the saints is somehow the same as that which we owe to God?

01:46:08

I don't understand that question. It sounds like you're asking me where the Catholic Church has said latria and dulia are what the

01:46:16

Bible reveals them to be, and that is interchangeable? Is that what you're asking? No. In other words, the church uses the terms in particular ways.

01:46:26

Now, I recognize that it's not the way that you use them, and in fact, the church recognizes that scripture uses the terms in different ways, that dulia can be used for humans as well as for God.

01:46:37

But I'm wondering if you can point to any place where the Catholic Church says that the veneration that Catholics and Orthodox give to the saints in heaven is somehow the same as the veneration that is given to God alone.

01:46:51

Well, first of all, I would say that in the context of what you just said, that dulio is in a religious context only given to God, not in any other context.

01:47:01

But if you're asking me where that has been addressed prior to, for example, the Second Nicene Council or something like that,

01:47:08

I don't believe that it was. I believe that at least the first dogmatic distinction that is drawn is drawn there, even though I don't know that that was actually included in the dogmatic decrees, but at least in the deliberations of the council.

01:47:23

And so I am unaware of any discussion of this in a conciliar setting outside of Elvira.

01:47:30

And I don't know what the original terminology of Elvira was when it spoke of worship and service.

01:47:39

I've not been able to find an original source that would tell me what those original terms were. So no. Just to follow up, and this will lead into my question here.

01:47:49

The reason that I'm asking that question is because the assertion that I'm making here tonight is that the

01:47:54

Catholic Church has drawn a distinction between the way in which we offer

01:48:00

Dulia and Latria to God and the Dulia that would be offered to the saints. So that's the context of this next question coming up.

01:48:07

And that is, can you name for us any early Christian liturgies? And we know they abounded from the end of the first century forward.

01:48:14

Can you name any of the early Christian liturgies dating from the end of the apostolic era that did not contain elements of veneration of Mary and the saints and references to their intercession on our behalf?

01:48:26

Well, actually, the early liturgies, you're assuming both in the assertion that you just made, you continue to assume the identity of the modern

01:48:35

Roman Catholic Church with the ancient Catholic Church. And that is an issue that has not been established.

01:48:40

That is a presupposition on your part that I would reject for many reasons. And we can go into that if you wish to do so.

01:48:48

Secondly, as far as what you define as a liturgy and will be accepted as liturgies, they're in the most primitive liturgies.

01:48:57

You would not find whole elements of these kinds of concepts of veneration.

01:49:05

It's not until the martyrs begin to appear in the roles of the liturgies that you begin to see requests being made of them.

01:49:12

It is a development over time. But obviously, I believe the most important source of liturgy is the inspired scriptures.

01:49:21

And I would say that every single example of worship of God in the inspired scriptures lacks all of the elements that you just mentioned.

01:49:29

Well, as a follow -up question in the cross exam, the early liturgies abound. Actually, every single one of them that's extant contains elements of requesting the intercession of the saints and also a commemoration that is venerating of them.

01:49:46

And the real question behind that question is, how do you account for the fact that universally in the early church from the earliest days, the liturgies, and that's the term that the church herself used, contain these elements of veneration, honor, and asking for the intercession of the saints.

01:50:06

How do you account for that? A couple of things. I would reject the assumption that every single one of them, that means that there is no liturgy in Ignatius, that there's no example of worship, and there is.

01:50:16

I mean, his letter to the Ephesians is filled with liturgical phrases and would be identified as an ancient form of liturgy.

01:50:23

And there's nothing about any of that in Ignatius. There's nothing about in Polycarp, Clement of Rome. There's all sorts of sections in Clement of Rome that would be identified as early liturgical statements.

01:50:34

And so evidently you're functioning with a meaning of the term liturgy that is significantly different than what

01:50:41

I would use in that way, because it would in essence dismiss all the earliest patristic sources we have.

01:50:47

But as to finding elements of these things, no one questions that. I said in my presentation that you will find this development over time.

01:50:55

What I asserted was that you have to test any development, and in fact, any activity by anyone, especially when it's in regards to the worship of God, by what

01:51:05

God has revealed as pleasing to him. Moving on, 1 Timothy 2, 1 through 4 tells us, as we talked about earlier, that we are told to pray for, supplicate, offer petitions for everyone, because this sort of charity and prayer is good and pleasing to God, our

01:51:20

Savior. It's good and pleasing to God, our Savior, when we do this. Could you explain to us how it is that our praying, supplicating, and offering petitions to God on behalf of our fellow

01:51:30

Christians on earth, while we are on earth, if that is good and pleasing to God, how is it that it somehow is forbidden and not pleasing to God when the saints in heaven do those very things on our behalf as Scripture commands from all

01:51:44

Christians? Well, it's interesting when you cite 1 Timothy 2 that Paul makes no mention here anywhere of prayers and petitions to saints or that they are praying and petitioning for us.

01:51:55

Secondly, when you ask what is praying and petitioning for, for example, it says here, kings and all those in authority, that we may live, you know, godly and peaceful lives, so on and so forth.

01:52:06

So this is talking about, for example, petitioning God that those who are persecuting the Christians would stop persecuting them.

01:52:13

You're not persecuted any longer in heaven. Therefore, that's not going to be something you're going to need to do. So there are many things that are good that we do here on earth.

01:52:20

As I mentioned, it is good to pray for your brothers and sisters. They will strive against sin.

01:52:26

That is not something you're going to be doing in heaven because you're in the presence of God. Excuse me. Can you give us a passage in scripture that tells us that the saints in heaven cannot or will not pray for us?

01:52:37

There is no reference to what the saints in heaven are doing in regards to prayers here on earth because there is no reference to their being involved with having knowledge of the sinful actions of human beings here upon the planet.

01:52:49

The only references that I'm familiar with that anyone would put forward to that in the book of Revelation in reality are apocalyptic passages that require all sorts of assumptions rather than those clear passages

01:53:00

I'm sorry, the pastoral epistles or passages where Paul's talking about living the

01:53:06

Christian life in Romans 12 or things like that where you'd expect such things to appear. They do not appear.

01:53:11

Instead, passages, as I said in Revelation, have to be brought into play to try to bring those things up. I think you're referring to Revelation chapter 5 verses 6 and 4 and also

01:53:20

Revelation chapter 8 in which we see the elders standing before the throne of God offering to God the saints of the prayers of the holy ones here on earth.

01:53:31

Now, there's nothing unclear about that and there's nothing that we should take in those passages to impugn these clear readings of scripture.

01:53:41

I mean, the plain meaning of scripture is that these men or these elders are standing before the throne of God offering like incense the prayers of the holy ones here on earth.

01:53:51

So how is it that we should disregard those passages as somehow being not consonant with our discussion tonight?

01:53:58

I've never said that they are in any way, shape, or form to be disregarded. I have said that they have nothing to do with the idea that there are saints in heaven who are receiving prayers from people on earth and they are then interceding before God on the behalf of people on earth who have prayed to them.

01:54:13

If you'd like to show me where in Revelation chapter 5 it is said that, for example, these elders are saints themselves or that they are the ones who receive these prayers or these prayers were prayed to them, that is not the clear reading of the text at all.

01:54:27

At least I would not assert that it is. I would assert that it is. The plain reading of the text, Revelation 5, 8, when he took it the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the

01:54:37

Lamb. Each of the elders held a harp and gold bowls filled with incense which are the prayers of the holy ones.

01:54:43

Now this is repeated in Revelation chapter 8. So clearly the plain reading of the text is that they did receive these prayers of the holy ones and they are now presenting them before the throne of God.

01:54:53

So that is the plain reading. Well, I completely and totally disagree that it's the plain reading because that would mean that, for example, when the angels who have seals and bowls that are filled with the wrath of God, that means the angels receive the wrath of God.

01:55:05

Obviously not. These are individuals who have a special place before God. Nothing identifies them as being glorified saints in the first place.

01:55:13

In fact, in Revelation chapter 4 they are seen as being with the living creatures and they're constantly bowing down before God.

01:55:20

There's no identification of them as being glorified saints, A, which destroys the parallelism to begin with.

01:55:25

And secondly, there is nothing saying that it says each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints, means that they received those prayers directed to them.

01:55:36

There's nothing in the text that even begins to suggest that. Oh, it does begin to suggest it. As a matter of fact, the only way that they have those bowls of prayers is because they did receive them.

01:55:45

Otherwise, they would have no way to have those prayers. The prayers came from the earth. They came from the holy ones and it came to them.

01:55:51

Next question. Jim, if you died tonight, how do you like the start of that one? If you died tonight, would you still be a fully functioning member of the body of Christ, according to 1

01:56:01

Corinthians 12? And if you would be, could you show us where the Bible places any restriction on your participation in the body of Christ after death with regard to prayers, intercessions, supplications, and thanksgivings that are proper to the body of Christ and were commanded in 1

01:56:17

Timothy 2, 1 through 4? Can you show us where the Bible... Two questions. Would you still be a fully functioning member of the body of Christ?

01:56:23

And where does the Bible place a restriction on your ability to do the things described in 1 Timothy 2, 1 through 4?

01:56:29

A, yes, not only would I be a fully functioning, I'd be a more fully functioning member of the body of Christ because I'd be in the presence of the

01:56:36

Father. And B, the second question begs the issue because it assumes what has already been refuted.

01:56:43

And that is that the position that one is in has nothing to do with the activities that one takes place.

01:56:49

For example, you just used 1 Timothy 2. As I already pointed out, that defines as prayers for those in leadership and things like that, which would not be relevant...

01:56:57

That passage says... Can I finish my point, please? Which would not be relevant to a person who is in heaven.

01:57:03

Therefore, there is a distinction that is drawn in the text itself. That same distinction is found in 1

01:57:08

Corinthians 12, the other passage you brought up, where Paul is talking about the different gifts given to people in their functioning in the local body.

01:57:16

I will no longer function as one of the elders of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church if I were to meet my end this evening.

01:57:25

You had a heart attack there, buddy. I was paying attention to him. Actually, I think we should ask if you don't make it through the evening.

01:57:38

Why did you put him on my side? He volunteered. Thank you.

01:57:46

And I will warn you, when we get close to 12 minutes, you can turn around before that happens again. I will.

01:57:52

I'll stand back there. Mr. Madrid, is it your position that the distinction between Lotria and Dulia would have been a valid excuse had a

01:58:00

Jewish man been found in his tent bowing before a statue of an ancestor and when brought before Moses, had claimed that he was not giving the statue or the ancestor

01:58:08

Lotria, but only the lesser concept of Dulia? No, it would not be my position. Okay.

01:58:14

If that is not a valid concept in the case of someone before Moses, what has changed that it would be a valid concept today?

01:58:23

Well, a lot has changed, Jim. See, at the time of Moses, if we go back to the book of Exodus, we see that the

01:58:28

Israelites had a particular problem with worshipping idols. And so the revelation from God in Exodus 20 was a prohibition, not simply of worshipping graven images, but worshipping anything that would be a false god in place of God himself.

01:58:44

So in that particular context, it would be especially problematic given what had just happened with the golden calf and all of the dangers and inclinations towards idolatry.

01:58:57

But what we have to recognize, Jim, is that since that time, not only has God revealed himself more and more fully, but the church in the church age has contemplated and understood the meaning of these passages and also the meaning of what the incarnation is all about.

01:59:13

So that, although it would be problematic for somebody in the time of Moses, as the great

01:59:18

Eastern father, St. John Damascene said, Christ is the icon, the image of the invisible

01:59:24

God. So he showed us through the incarnation that the ability now to depict heavenly realities is no longer something that would be dangerous in the way that it would have been at the time of Moses.

01:59:37

So is it your position that we don't have the same problems and propensities with idolatry today that the Jews had so long ago?

01:59:43

No, quite the contrary, Jim. I would say that we have all the same propensities and tendencies toward idolatry, but ours tend to be somewhat different.

01:59:52

Let me ask any Catholics in the audience here worshiping statues? No, I don't worship statues.

01:59:58

I don't know any Catholic who worship statues, but I do know people who have a lot of different false gods.

02:00:03

There are people perhaps in the room tonight, perhaps some of you, your false god is internet pornography.

02:00:10

Maybe the false god is NASDAQ, worshiped every day on the big board. There are people who place all sorts of things, alcohol, new cars.

02:00:20

There are so many different ways in which we can worship a false god. So today, yes, Jim, we have all the same inclinations and all the same temptations that they did at that time.

02:00:30

It just so happens that at the time that Exodus 20 was written, the particular propensity that the

02:00:36

Israelites had dealt with graven images. That is no longer a propensity for anyone that I know or anyone

02:00:42

I've ever heard of living in the modern era. So the commands of God in the 10 sayings and the 10 commandments are contextually determined as to whether we are to be applying them today or how we're to apply them today?

02:00:54

Not exactly contextually conditioned, but rather we have to understand the way in which a passage applies to any person at any given time.

02:01:02

I'm not done. So in the case of Exodus 20, the application there is specifically with regard to bowing down to and serving idols, false gods.

02:01:11

But the general context of the passage, Exodus 20 that you cited, deals with idolatry in any form.

02:01:18

He just gave it a particular form as an example of what the Israelites had to avoid. Pat, do you know of any references to Christians invoking the names of angels in prayer in the inspired scriptures?

02:01:30

In the inspired scriptures, none comes to mind right offhand. Are angels members of the body of Christ? Angels are members of the body of Christ in the sense that they are part of the communion in heaven, but they are not members of the body of Christ in the way in which you and I are, because we have been baptized into the body of Christ.

02:01:46

So the mystical body of Christ, in the sense that we're speaking of in the New Testament, does not extend to angels.

02:01:52

So how can any of the arguments you've used this evening concerning the communion of saints and communion between Christians be relevant to a prayer where you seek the invocation of Michael the archangel?

02:02:02

Yes, well, it's relevant in the sense that the angels are the ministering servants of God. And just as we recognize the power and the ability of the saints in heaven to intercede on our behalf, we also recognize that God's ministering servants, the angels, also have power.

02:02:19

And they also have duties to perform, such as in Luke chapter two, when the angel Gabriel comes to the blessed virgin

02:02:25

Mary. God could have done that act directly, but yet he sent an angel to do it.

02:02:32

And similarly, Mary, who is a woman of God, could have responded to God directly, but yet her yes to the incarnation was carried back to God through the offices of an angel.

02:02:42

So the angels are very important, and they do fulfill offices of guarding, protecting, praying for, guiding human beings here on earth.

02:02:50

The second Nicene Council, convoked nearly half a millennium after the first, after promulgating its dogmatic decree on the veneration of images, provided the following canon.

02:03:00

If anyone rejects all ecclesiastical tradition, either written or not written, let him be anathema.

02:03:07

That's Denzinger 308, if you'd like to look at it. I've got all those canons right here. Okay. Now, if I could ask you, how could anyone in that day or hours know if they are rejecting an unwritten tradition of the

02:03:19

Roman church so as to avoid anathema? They would simply have to listen to the church that told them what the traditions were.

02:03:26

And you were disparaging the idea of Catholics assenting to the authority of the church.

02:03:32

Well, I am proud to ascend to the authority of the Catholic church. The reason is the Catholic church is the church that Christ established.

02:03:38

And in passages such as Luke 10, 16, where he said, he who listens to you listens to me, I recognize that the church has an authority to speak with Christ's own authority.

02:03:47

So when the church says, we must do this, we must not do that, then I believe that this is

02:03:53

Christ speaking through the church. You may call it sola ecclesia, but I recognize that this is Jesus Christ acting authoritatively through his church.

02:04:00

So if at the time, let me ask you, let's look at another thing that since we're talking about tradition here and an unwritten tradition, was at the time of the

02:04:11

Second Nicene Council, the bodily assumption of Mary, for example, an unwritten tradition and would not, not believing this unwritten tradition amount to a rejection of it at that time?

02:04:23

You may be having difficulty with the phrase unwritten tradition. Unwritten tradition doesn't mean that it's not something that is not written down.

02:04:30

For example, the church fathers write about various things that we would assign to tradition.

02:04:36

Rather, tradition in its proper sense means the lived understanding of the church, of the deposit of faith that had been once for all handed on to the saints.

02:04:45

So a doctrine such as the doctrine of Mary's assumption, which

02:04:50

I think is the one that you're raising. If the church said, as it did, that this is worthy of belief and this is something that is part of the deposit of faith, and a

02:05:00

Christian were to deny that and say, I will not believe in that, then that person would be, as you say, refusing to assent to one of those traditions.

02:05:09

So was it a part of the deposit of faith at that time? It's always been a part of the deposit of faith. Did anyone at that time believe it?

02:05:16

At the time of the Second Nicene Council, definitely. Who? This is not a debate on the assumption of Mary.

02:05:22

Otherwise, I would have brought copious notes and given you some examples. The point that I'm making is that the council anathematizes anyone who would reject unwritten traditions.

02:05:32

The problem is when you try to find out what those unwritten traditions are, you cannot find a constant answer through church history.

02:05:40

Instead, and I'm contrasting that with the fact that when the Bible anathematizes someone, it does so on the basis of a very clear knowledge of what it is that they're rejecting.

02:05:51

Yes, I agree with that. But I just wrote a book on tradition. I'd be happy to send you a copy. It's called

02:05:56

Why Is That in Tradition? And I address that very issue. A signed copy, by the way, Jim. In the book,

02:06:05

I point out the fact that many non -Catholics have a misunderstanding of what tradition actually is.

02:06:11

It's not this amorphous cloud of, you know, this guy over here said this and that fellow said that. And, you know, what seems good to us now?

02:06:18

Rather, it is a consistent and persistent handing down of what the church understands the original deposit of faith to be, including inferences drawn from the explicit evidence that we find in scripture.

02:06:34

So for example, when Jesus says in John chapter six, if we can use this as an example, my flesh is real food, my blood is real drink.

02:06:40

The question is not so much are those words in the Bible, but rather what do those words mean? And so with regard to Marian issues or the saints, the communion of saints,

02:06:49

I just laid out a rather specific and concise seven point explanation of why the

02:06:56

Catholic church recognizes the saints being able to be venerated. And it is the lived understanding that the church has always had.

02:07:03

So I could furnish for you, if there were time, copious examples from the early centuries of the very church fathers that you yourself turned to in your book to defend the

02:07:14

Trinity, showing them as being authoritative. And the main exegetes, as you said,

02:07:20

I could show you from all these fathers and many more that they did indeed hold the Catholic view, not the view that you are representing here tonight, that we should not venerate and that we should not seek the intercession of the saints in heaven.

02:07:32

The council of Elvira meeting even before the first council of Nicaea said, it is ordained that pictures are not to be in churches.

02:07:39

That which is worshiped and adored shall not be painted on walls. Given that this statement is nearly 500 years earlier than the statements of the second

02:07:45

Nicene council, why is this not a part of Christian tradition? Actually, the council of Elvira is part of Christian tradition, and it's invoked with some frequency.

02:07:55

The particular canon that you're referring to, let's remember for one thing that the council of Elvira took place in Spain.

02:08:02

And at that time, Spain was predominantly pagan. And so the scholars who have studied this issue have pointed out that there are different ways in which we can understand that particular canon.

02:08:15

We don't have any ancillary material from the council itself that tells us with more exactitude what they were referring to.

02:08:22

But the pagans in the area worshipped images, they worshipped false gods. So it's very possible that this canon was there to discourage

02:08:30

Christians from aping the pagans. It was a pastoral move designed to prevent them from falling down the path of the pagans.

02:08:38

There's another way to look at it too. And that is that it was possible that the pagans themselves would wind up giving false worship and thinking that Christians were doing the same thing.

02:08:50

So as a way not to cause the pagans to be scandalized, it was a pastoral move designed to make sure that this problem didn't arise.

02:09:00

But interestingly, if I could just put this final touch, this is the only example in the early church where you will find a regional synod of this nature saying that Christians were not to have icons or not to paint them on the walls in the church.

02:09:14

I find that very interesting. But is that not then an illustration that there is no universal tradition to which you have appealed before in light of that?

02:09:23

Not at all. Because if you look at the different regional councils that existed here and there before and after the different ecumenical councils.

02:09:33

Like Hippo and Carthage. Yes, for example. You'll find variations and opinion on things that were not later accepted by the ecumenical councils.

02:09:41

What was stated at the Council of Elvira was not accepted. OK. I'll end it there.

02:09:50

Thank you. I didn't think you'd handle that twice in one night. Thank you for the warning.