Today we kept swinging away at the Patrick Madrid debate from San Diego

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence
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Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix reformed
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Baptist Church This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with dr.
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White call now 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll -free across the
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United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five three Three three four one and now with today's topic.
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Here is James white Hey, good morning. Welcome to the dividing line
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Tuesday morning Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one last time we were together was a completely collar driven program
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Well, almost I had a few comments that I felt needed to be made, but we'll be going back
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Simply because I See the phone call. I'll go has gone into spasms and He needs his
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Madrid fix today We will do that I Was just thinking how fast stuff is heading at me.
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I was just giving information on the November 20th debate at Duke University to Hasim the king of graphics and So hopefully we will have
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We got we got to keep his identity secret because you know He's what puts all that gorgeous graphical stuff out there and he'd be a high priority target
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So we got it. We need to besides that it's probably freaking him out Haseem Haseem where is
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Haseem? Are you doing this Haseem? I?
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Can just hear Haseem laughing wherever he is anyway Which I'm not going to tell you where he is at all.
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In fact, I'm not going to give you Joking information as to where Haseem is, but today actually he's
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Hakeem So I'm not really sir sure if that's just his cousin three times removed or just what but anyhow
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We should have the information on the debate with Zulfikar Shah at Duke University up Maybe even as early as today.
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Hope so we will see and so please Make plans to attend and to be a part of the battle for the truth conference as well
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That is going on that weekend Very appreciative of those of you who have signed up they were concerned about the conference and we're concerned about the debate and Your response has helped to allay some of those fears.
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So If you have not yet done that and you're planning on doing that, please make sure that you get that done Because we're coming up this is gonna be honest so fast
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I will have at least three four debates Coming at me like a freight train here, and I'm still working on the
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King James Only Conduit I'm making good progress, but pray that I really make like complete progress and finish the work
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One of the things I've been doing is going through and removing quotation marks. My goodness. I was in a quotation marks phase back then it's been almost 15 years 14 years and my goodness,
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I use quotation marks everywhere and You know, it doesn't bother me, but I can see it would bother other folks.
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And so I've been Really removing lots and I'll shrink the book down. Not really
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We're actually a lot. They're actually allowing me to do some additions and things like that So I think it will be well worth a folks investment in the second edition.
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In fact I've written an entire section on trustworthiness in the New Testament that I've added
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I've explained the concept of multifocality in the New Testament and the why that's important and it's relevant to the
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Objections that are raised today, and I'm even throwing in quotations from Bart Ehrman and so on and so forth
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So it will be definitely worth getting hold of the second edition and then right afterwards very very quickly an update of the
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Potter's Freedom and We're gonna be doing I've got to do that really really quick because they need to do a new printing and so they're gonna hold off and Hold off too long as I could be left at all
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And so I've just got a dive on that and then I've got all this work to do for the the upcoming debates
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So it's gonna be It's uh, I'll tell you it's a challenging time
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But very enjoyable and of course with all the other pressures in the world I just it's nice every once in a while to just get so Entrenched what
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I'm doing that I'm not thinking about the rest of stuff. I'm not thinking about our cultural slide into oblivion and Into third world status and so on and so forth.
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So It's it's good. So with with that I just very briefly wanted to mention the rather odd experience over the weekend where one of my future
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Islamic opponents sort of Got very upset with me and it was an education for me.
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It was it was an education for me. I need to realize and and I Because it's so far removed from my way of thinking.
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It's difficult for me to Contextualize and to follow this but I need to understand it from And I've known this it's one thing to know thing something intellectually, but then to experience it
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Islam is not just a religion. In fact, Islam is not even really primarily a religion.
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It's a political system It is an all -encompassing way of life and it includes one's political viewpoints
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And there is no, you know, I know that Osama bin Laden and others are consistent on this point.
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They see that they get that And they live in light of it the the
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Muslim Brotherhood Sayyid Qutub people like that if you're familiar with those names great if not,
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I'm not gonna take time today right now But I've discussed sometimes in the past these people recognized the
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Intimate connection between state and religion that is inherent in Sharia and the whole concept of submission to Allah and So it never crossed my mind.
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Honestly, it never crossed my mind When I got that email from the soldier who's overseas and I've had a little more correspondence with him
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I can't tell you maybe in a month or two I'll be able to tell you a little more because hopefully we'll get to meet in in Durham in November and then maybe
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I'll be able to tell you a little bit more because when you know a whole story it makes the reaction of Samy Zafari even more amazing.
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Of course, he doesn't know it but still He doesn't even allow for the possibilities of what some people are doing over there but anyhow
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It never crossed my mind when I got that email from the soldier that's
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That posting that would cause an explosion on the part of in the
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Muslim mind All I saw, you know from my perspective here is a Christian. He's doing a dangerous job, but he's a
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Christian It doesn't mean all soldiers are Christian soldiers or anything of the type
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But you know that's that's all I was thinking of it never even crossed my mind that that this was would be an issue and have that kind of explosive response of Bigotry and and that I'm a bigots and I'm hypocrites and you know all the rest of stuff.
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Whoa, man alive Okay, you know whatever you say, I guess but There there does seem to be just an amazing willingness to be offended at the drop of a hat on the part of so many and it was
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It was educational indeed for me at that particular point in time but again Someone might say well, man, what a what a wide range of debates you're doing.
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You're debating Zulfikar Shah. He's he's a scholar He's gonna be presenting the standard liberal arguments against Christianity in essence, and of course my response is going to be
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I'm still looking for the consistent Muslim Because dr. Shah is does not use these this type of scholarship in his study of the
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Quran But he uses it in the study of the Bible Is that even consistent for a Muslim to do not only just on a worldview basis?
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but given what the Quran itself says about the Torah and the Injil as Books sent down from God that we are to believe in and that existed in the days of Muhammad Is it even consistent for a
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Muslim to take that position? So that's one thing it's going to be more presuppositional in the discussion of the comparison between the
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Quran the New Testament But then I'm debating Sami Zadri and and Sami like Osama Abdullah Will grab any argument?
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He refuses to distinguish between quote -unquote Christian groups He refuses to grant to us the the right of the ability to define
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Christianity He wants to hold us responsible for anything it calls itself Christian and has zero discernment in the
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Matter of what kind of argumentation he uses he will use one argument and 30 seconds later use another argument that has come a completely different foundation to it comes from a completely different perspective shows that he's not even familiar with the foundations of the arguments that he's using and someone might say
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That's an awful wide range of debate to be engaging and you're right if If there was a
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Mormon on the same level of argumentation as Sami Zadri or Osama Abdullah and some of these others
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I would not debate them. There's no reason to do so because Mormons are not currently persecuting
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Christians in other lands But as I've said many times the reason that I do engage these level of folks in Muslim dialogue is because they are more representative of the
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Argumentation that is being used in the streets of Iraq or Egypt or Saudi Arabia or Pakistan against our persecuted brethren then
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Zulfiqar Shah or Shabir Ali and So I want to debate the entire range of the expressions of Islam not just the top end
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We'll do that seek to do that and we'll do that in a scholarly fair respectful manner but we also must engage that kind of Islam that is responsible for the persecution of the persecuted church and The arguments that are taking place in that context as well, and we've already begun to do that do that and we'll continue to do so as well and So that is my apologetic my apologia
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For engaging in debates with some folks that really their arguments are really really bad, but they don't know that and They don't even know that after the debates over That's the amazing thing to me is that that they can be so thoroughly refuted and they don't get it.
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They you know I honestly don't believe that there's any secularist who
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With any level of fairness could view either of the debates that I had with Osama Abdullah and not go that wasn't those weren't even
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Debates that that that wasn't even close One side didn't even show up, you know wandered all over the place couldn't stick to the topic, you know arguments are self -refuting refused to accept
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Clear counter documentation of their errors, etc. Etc. It's it's not even close debate done on both instances probably by the end of the opening statements and yet the next day
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I saw his opening debate with Opening of his debate with David Wood and he starts off by talking about how clearly he had proved his case day before so You know
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You you cannot go on that basis. You have to debate for people who are going to have some kind of Spirit -born desire to know the truth
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I suppose and that of course is is what we will be doing. So anyway
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We continue with a completely different subject and not really completely different subject because in both instances
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I am defending the sufficiency of Scripture for the people of God and going back to the 1993 debate
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With Patrick Madrid in San Diego. We've been covering this for quite some time But we continue on now with the debate and we're
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I believe in the question and answer period now Hmm Why does that look?
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like the wrong one, I Do believe I'm at the wrong point here I'm glad I looked over here because we're only supposed to be in the second portion of the three and I just realized in looking at this that I have the third portion
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Which would be the closing statements queued up and that would not be a good thing It'd be exceptionally confusing for people to try to pick up in the middle of the closing statements
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Or maybe even do we have we didn't have audience questions. No, the audience had melted into pools and They're very hot and sticky
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Folding chairs by that point in time. It was ah, it was it was so hot I was so glad to get my suit and tie at the end of that one
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It was it was it was really ugly But anyway, let's go to the right one here make sure we've got the right one.
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This is number two yeah, we're at the right one now and we're 37 minutes of 53 seconds into it if Any of you are following along on your iPod or something?
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I'm not sure why in the world you'd be doing that. But anyways, so I should be right here let's let's expand this just a second and eeny -meeny -meeny and Yes, stretch stretch stretch.
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Well, you know people know that this is sort of how we do things What happened to oh, and it would help.
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All right, thirty seven fifty three It's about right there. It's close enough Let's pick it up the overall life of the church and see how the church interprets it.
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I'd go further and say that The very fact that you asked that question at least the implication of that question proves my point
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You're saying that the Catholic position on the biblical authority of the vision of the story of the
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Bishop of Rome The Catholic position based on scripture is erroneous You're saying and I've heard you say many times in debates with geriatrics and and other things that you've done that the
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Catholic Position is simply wrong that these scriptures don't in fact teach that well that now let me give you a you know
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The background that in case you've forgotten where we were a couple weeks ago. I had asked a rather obvious question and That was how if in point of fact?
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The Scriptures Are able to thoroughly equip the man of God for his teaching work in the church
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How the scriptures equip Patrick Madrid to teach? papal infallibility My point me of course papal infallibility is by definition a tradition
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There is nothing in scriptures comes even close to defining the Bishop of Rome who's never mentioned
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As being the head of the church or as being infallible This is a tradition that develops the vast majority of the reason for this tradition is twofold
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It is historical development the fall the western portion of the of the
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Empire The fact that there is only one monarch one patriarchal bishop in the West and there were five in the east and then the rampant use of Forged documents the nation of Constantine the pseudo -isidorean decretals
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Through the Middle Ages to establish the position of the papacy and even those who recognized for being what they were
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Didn't matter the papacy already existed so it continued on Self -perpetuating in essence and so that's where that came from it does not come from the
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Bible. There is no way That you can torture the Bible into having reference to the papacy in Rome and alleged infallibility
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It makes the word implicit So broad that you could say the
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Bible implicitly Can teach you how to build a computer and implicitly teach you how to do open -heart surgery and implicitly teach you how to program a space probe to land on Jupiter I mean
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Implicitly right I mean you know if we're gonna go that far then then that's really what we're stuck with and So that was the question that I had asked and he's now attempting to respond to that who's my point if scripture were
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Sufficient formally sufficient mr. White because remember I did say it was materially sufficient if it was formally sufficient
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Then there would be no dispute if scripture couldn't now again Love this one if the
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Bible were formally sufficient if It were sufficient in of itself without the teaching magisterium the
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Roman Catholic Church No one would ever argue about what's in the Bible Can you imagine someone standing in front of a public audience like Patrick Madrid and making that argument?
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Patrick Madrid debates Mormons and Patrick Madrid knows there is absolutely nothing that can be so clear in the
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Bible that someone will not deny it I Mean what is what is the most basic revelation of Scripture, but there's one true and eternal
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God But the Mormons deny that and say they believe the Bible and so what what an
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Absurdity it is to say well if it's formally sufficient formal sufficiency means that everything is plain on the surface and somehow somehow
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It's so plain that the very madness of man Will be restrained by the clarity of what it says
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I? I Again I really feel so sad
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For all those Roman Catholics who remember we started this because Patrick was crowing about you know how he's basically undefeated against me and how clear this debate was and so on so forth and that was after the veneration debate the painfully obviously veneration debate and These Catholics, you know it let's say he's telling the truth these a
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Catholic who listens to this and thinks he's actually accurately representing solo scripture And that's why
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I wrote the article I did post the article where they admit well We weren't using your definition of soul. We don't need to use your definition of soul scripture.
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We can use any definition. We want to you Now if the Protestant were to do that with them and papal infallibility
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I mean, what's the first thing you hear every single time you attack the doctrine papal infallibility. What is the first thing you hear?
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Well papal infallibility doesn't mean all the Popes are sinless and besides that only means when they're defining doctrine and and You know it doesn't really matter even if the
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Pope was writing a letter on a doctrinal subject He's got to use this particular formula. You see and it's it's completely non falsifiable because nobody ever knows whether what the
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Pope is saying is infallible or not until after the Pope's dead and gone and Generations maybe even centuries have passed and It's no longer an issue now.
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We can have some confidence the Pope is infallible and what he said, but as to the Pope now You you don't have a clue as to whether what he's saying is infallible or not
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What good is that kind of a guidance anyways? You know people always say well. We have the living tradition of the church
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What does that mean? They can't tell you what it means. They can't it's non -functional. It's just a it's just a vapor.
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It's a fog It has no substance you reach for it. It disappears There's nothing there interpret its own meaning for us there wouldn't be this debate tonight pastor
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Wagner would not be holding to a doctrine of infant baptism which you reject that very fact disproves your question about or your claim about the formal sufficiency of Scripture Now you notice we got no answer to the question because he can't answer the question
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The scriptures don't equip him to do that he made vague references to text But he's not going to offer him because they're so obviously not about what he's trying to attach
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To as far as meaning that it would really defeat his purpose Well first of all of course the point is the teaching of the infallibility of the
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Bishop of Rome is a traditional teaching It comes from tradition primarily does not found in scripture
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You'll never find a reference to the Bishop of Rome or anything even regarding that in Scripture the early church didn't believe it
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And I've debated that be glad to have I've been more debates on that But notice what was again just said and I I did address this in what you know mr.
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Madrid said I didn't but I did What we're hearing here is if the scripture was sufficient to equip the man of God then there would be what no difference of opinion
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Everybody would just lock step in line Right that's what we're being told
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Seemingly that not only ignores issues that are not Central to the faith, but also ignores the fact that as I said the man of God studies the
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Word of God and Men of God have to study the Word of God throughout their entire lives
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And they grow and they learn and that's the work of the Spirit in their lives Seemingly someone wants to short -circuit that entire process
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Why was that was right? I I'm not trying to short -circuit anything. I'm simply trying to explain that you
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Have you have failed I guess to grasp the importance of your question because it undercuts your position
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The fact is God's inspired word does not rely on us for its inspiration does not rely on us
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For the fact that it is inerrant, and I believe that it is inspired and inerrant But the fact is God gave us the scriptures to be used
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Now that presents a problem because you want to use scripture and the only way you can use it is by interpreting it
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Now you now by the way again, this is this is something that that Catholic apologists try to get away with It's one of the reasons that they've really backed off on doing debates against knowledgeable Protestants because we've caught him on this and it's no longer working for them
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Anything has to be interpreted if the Pope speaks in Rome today it has to not only be translated but interpreted and It's interpreted in many different ways and so this entire argument is fallacious and bogus on its face
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Yes, the Bible must be interpreted so must the canon decrees the Council of Trent so must
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Vatican too so must any Apostolic Constitution and as anybody knows who even briefly peruses
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Roman Catholic scholarly journals Once you put those things in writing guess what they can be interpreted as well and interpreted in a wide variety of means
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I mean it's a little bit like I Put up that little thing.
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I just noted in passing I was directed to a review of Religious the
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Bill Maher thing and That the reviewer had said that one of the most Enjoyable parts of the film was him talking these two
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Roman Catholic priests assigned the Vatican and They were in essence just dismissing
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Historical Roman Catholic doctrine and I pointed this out and of course
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Patti over at the envoy forums Patti scissorhands She's the one who runs along and edits all of our simple stuff to get all the offensive stuff off The Protestants can save it to their hard drives and post it on blogs stuff like that It's funny, but anyway
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Patti scissorhands responded to my to my mice my statement in saying well, it's
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Those things are clearly laid out in the Catholic Catechism. I know they are
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That's the point if this stuff was so plain and so clear using
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Patrick Madrid's argument right here, then you wouldn't have Catholic priests who by the way by their sacramental authorities priests are significantly more relevant than art
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Sippo Patrick Madrid or Patti scissorhands all put together because none of them hold official positions in the church certainly not in the
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Vatican You wouldn't have Catholic priests dismissing
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The plain Teachings the Roman Catholic Church. I know the Catholic Catechism says that but you've still got to interpret the
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Catechism And if you put certain presuppositions in place then
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All of a sudden the Catechism doesn't say what you thought it said you can allegorize stuff
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And you can you can make certain things symbolic and and blah blah blah blah It's real easy to do just go to Boston College attend the theological class there you'll find out all about it
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So my point is when your arguments defeat your own side and so far all of Patrick's do
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Then you lost the debate. I know that we could go back in time and we could find very clear
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Roman Catholic teachings on a lot of subjects and That there was no question in the days of Trent about what the the
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Roman Catholic Church believed in XY or Z the fact that there is question today is part and parcel of the problem and For Patrick to have engaged in the oh, let's set the
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Baptist against the Pato Baptist argument here when his own
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Communion is subject to the exact same argument is The whole point and Hopefully now patty has been able to figure that out as well are fallible
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God's Word is infallible The problem is that when you approach God's Word, and you want to interpret it over against what the church teaches
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You are in effect saying that your Interpretation should be trusted what
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I want to know is why should your interpretation be trusted you talk about men studying for many years of? Catholic study for many years for the same purpose the fact is ultimately it comes down to your opinion against someone else's opinion
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We know what the Bible says mr.. White Really do we know what the Bible says well
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Once again, we have this rabid skepticism that turns the text of the Bible into something that cannot communicate anything with clarity
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We really don't know what the Bible says until Rome tells us, but Rome won't tell us Rome won't give us the inspired interpretation, and so we're left with just Forget the
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Bible get rid of the Bible ignore the Bible Don't need the Bible let's just let's just go with whatever the church says and Functionally, that's how many
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Roman Catholics have existed for a long time and by the way. I said well You know we study the Bible too. Yeah, but if you study the
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Bible in the Roman Catholic context You're studying it as being insufficient in of itself to answer these questions.
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Are you not I mean isn't that you're starting presupposition and How much of Roman Catholic teaching is actually on the subject of being able to do exegesis?
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over against Canon law and the philosophers and the so on and so forth that so often get in the way
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Okay, I So many times in one space of time aren't you glad that at least in this debate it was mr..
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White and not Jim Yeah, that's I would rather hear mr..
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White than the the Mr.. White I'm holding in my hands a copy of an early work known today as the book of Thomas the contender
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You may be familiar with it it claims to have been written by the Apostle Matthew You probably would not say that this book belongs in the
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Bible since if I open your Bible It would probably not have it there given your assertion that scripture is self -authenticating
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Would you regard this book as self -authenticating there now? No we're gonna take our break and just right now, but but notes immediately
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He does not understand what we mean by self -authenticating We are not talking about the
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Canon just you know pops into into my mind personally and that the Canon is
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Self -authenticating in that sense We're talking about the nature of scripture not the extent of scripture at this point, and so here comes the you know
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Let's let's Get away the soul scriptura. Well. Here's the Catholic answers. Let's go the Canon issue and Make sure that that no one can actually point out that our
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Answer on the Canon is purely authoritative It's just a it's just well the Canon is what it is because we say it is that's the end of that and we can
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Move on from there Hope that no one actually is able to bring that up and make sure to do it when they only have about 60 seconds to Answer your question anyways, and we will continue with this examination of the bait for 1993 right after this break
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Today So many stars strong and true quickly fall away
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Public crimes the criminal mishandling of God's Word may be James White's most provocative book yet White sets out to examine numerous crimes being committed in pulpits throughout our land every week as he seeks to leave no stone unturned
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Based firmly upon the bedrock of scripture one crime after another is laid bare for all to see
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The pulpit is to be a place where God speaks from his word. What has happened to this sacred duty in our day
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The charges are as follows Prostitution using the gospel for financial gain pandering to pluralism cowardice under fire felonious eisegesis entertainment without a license and Cross -dressing ignoring
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God's ordinance regarding the roles of men and women is a public crime occurring in your town Get pulpit crimes in the bookstore at a omen org.
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What is dr Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book chosen, but free a new cult secularism false prophecy scenarios
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No, dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent
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Philosophically insufficient and morally repugnant in his book the potter's freedom James White replies to dr.
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Geisler, but the potter's freedom is much more than just a reply It is a defense of the very principles upon which the
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Protestant Reformation was founded Indeed it is a defense of the very gospel itself in a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate
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James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme Calvinism Defines what the reform faith actually is and concludes that the gospel preached by the reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture the potter's freedom a defense of the
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Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's chosen But free you'll find it in the reform theology section of our bookstore at a omen org
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Hello everyone. This is Rich Pierce In a day and age where the gospel is being twisted into a man -centered self -help program
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The need for a no -nonsense presentation of the gospel has never been greater I am convinced that a great many go to church every
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Sunday yet. They have never been confronted with their sin Alpha Omega Ministries is dedicated to presenting the gospel in a clear and concise manner making no excuses
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Man is sinful and God is holy That sinful man is in need of a perfect Savior and Jesus Christ is that perfect Savior We are to come before the
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Holy God with an empty hand of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ Alpha and Omega takes that message to every group that we deal with while equipping the body of Christ as well
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Support Alpha and Omega ministries and help us to reach even more with the pure message of God's glorious grace.
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Thank you And we continue with the cross -examination period question -answer really not really cross -examination but question -answer period from the 1993 debate with Patrick Madrid mind that it attempts to authenticate itself by claiming to have been written by the
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Apostle Matthew Thank you There are a whole host of course of books
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That were written primarily in the second century. In fact, almost all of them were written in the second century that Were the
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Gnostic Gospels and various other sundry things like that And we're being asked well, why don't you accept this as scripture and this all goes back to the whole issue of canon
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And we need to recognize what's being said here. We told that well, you see without a church authority.
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You can't know what the canon is Without an infallible authority. You can't know what the canon is
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And of course, I would say well How do you know it's an infallible authority to begin with because we get on this long big circle that goes around around around never actually answers the question
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Because you might find another church that claims infallible authority up in Salt Lake City that has a different canon and that which mr.
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Madrid has But they claim infallible authority too. But anyways We are told that you know, you're asking me.
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Why don't I believe this is a part of scripture? Well First of all, I believe canon is determined by inspiration
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God is the author of canon Men are not the author of canon. God is the author of canon.
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So God is the one who determines the can So the issue is not whether this is canonical scripture or not The issue is how do we as human beings recognize what is and what is not inspired scripture?
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We need to keep these things straight because there are some people who seem to think that the church has the power to create canon now
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I Again it's impossible in I'm not sure what time period
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I had here. Was it two minutes 90 seconds? I can't tell on the waveform right here, but let's say it was two minutes
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It's impossible for me to go through the material that I presented in scripture alone a few years ago in my book on the subject where I go through and discuss the difference between Canon one and canon two canon one being
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God's knowledge of the canon It's the artifact of revelation since God has revealed some books
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But not all books then the canon comes into existence by necessity it is an artifact of the activity of inspiration and then canon two, which is man's knowledge of What God has done inspiration which is directly related to God's purpose in providing scripture if God has a purpose in providing scripture, which is specifically to be a guidance and Edification to the people of God then he is going to extend the same level of effort supernatural energy
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To make sure his people possess what he has given to them as he did in inspiring it in the first place but once again
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This wasn't the subject of the of the debate because we weren't even debating For example the differences in the
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Old and New Testament are the Old Testament canons between their acceptance the apocryphal books And our rejection thereof.
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We have no differences in the viewpoint of the New Testament This is as I said a standard Catholic answers attempt to especially when they are
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Not doing well in other fronts to raise an issue. That is impossible for anyone to meaningfully address in 60 seconds 90 seconds 120 seconds
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Whatever else it might be and it does allow for sound bite Presentations and Rome is very good at soundbite presentations.
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That is you know we make these massive overarching claims of authority and we can just simply repeat them real quickly and It's easier for us to do that than to actually seriously engage the subject and that's exactly what's going on here
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And of course it does not No council that ever sat in the first in the early church said we by choosing these books are making them
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Canon scripture, they didn't say that Okay, but in 18 seconds.
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How do I know it's not well first of all it's contradictory that which is the only sauce And since it is contradictory that which is the only sauce and inconsistent therewith it is not testified historically
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I do not know of any Christians who ever accepted it, and it is contradictory that which we have I don't accept the scriptures
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As well you shouldn't mr. White as well you shouldn't I found it interesting though that you Part of your appeal was to tradition that nasty word again
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You you said it was not testified to by other Christians now notice the redefinition here
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History now becomes tradition Now Rome gets to choose what parts of history qualify to be tradition
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But when it's convenient then we can just change definitions and say oh you're appealing to tradition
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No, I was obviously appealing to the historical reality that such works are Fundamentally contradictory to the nature of inspired scripture they speak of a different God they speak of a different gospel
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They speak from different worldview the Gnostic Gospels etc. Etc. Are are clearly
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Of a completely different mindset a completely different view of the world than what you find in the
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Old and New Testaments That's not an appeal to tradition evidently I think the idea is well you should just be able to appeal to scripture to answer these questions again another false idea that scripture
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Answers every possible question that can be asked it doesn't Scripture does not directly answer the question of how
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I can of whether I should choose coherence mode or single window mode for parallels on a
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Mac Doesn't answer that question and so if you're gonna ask that question and think that what we're actually claiming is
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That the Bible is an exhaustive compendium of all human knowledge
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Well, then you just disproved sola scriptura, right? Well as long as you want to put up a straw man like that and actually suggest that that's what we're saying
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Sola scriptura is well, okay, but obviously that's not what we're saying anyway. It was not historically regarded as scripture
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Here again, mr. White is engaged. Mr. White is engaging in filching Catholic tradition, but not admitting that he's actually taking it now notice what has has been done here
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Patrick is falsely claiming all of history for his
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Catholic tradition and Then on the basis of that accusing me of filching from it
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It's bad argumentation, but I guess the idea is you know You throw out anything you can see what's what's gonna stick but it's it's just horrific for him to assume that all of history including the simple fact that a that Gnostic Gospels are
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Contradictory to the Bible is Catholic history. Let me turn this around and give you a little something you might want to think about Especially as I know there are a number of you who take this information and you take it into your
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Conversations with those who've been infected with Catholic answer stuff and I get lots of emails of people saying man.
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They had no answers Well, it's because they don't have answers. This is all very surface level stuff that they throw out there why don't you point this out and That is if you want to talk about the
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Gnostic Gospels do a little digging as to the original sources of many of the
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Marian dogmas and you will find that the first place where they
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Crop up shall we say are in the Gnostic Gospels themselves.
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For example, the perpetual virginity of Mary is very clearly lends itself to docetism and Gnostic dualism and that's first place.
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We find it in we don't find biblical Christians Making this kind of argument this kind of belief
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We find Gnostic Gospels Gnostic writings heavily influenced by a completely different worldview and yet that gets picked up especially because the rise in monasticism and the ascetic life and and a
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Horrible collapse in a biblical view of marriage and sexuality and so on so forth The end of second century in the third and fourth centuries.
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We see these things being picked up eventually and eventually dogmatized by whom
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By the Roman Catholic Church and so For for Madrid to say
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I'm filching is just of course completely bogus And it has no merit to it whatsoever.
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He's using it, but he won't admit it. That's what's going on here Second of all, he says it without an infallible authority.
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You can't know what the canon of Scripture is Well, mr. White says this is our only infallible authority.
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So mr. White here it is Where does the Bible tell you which books belong in the Bible? I see there you go.
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Let's let's point out again This is our only infallible authority for what?
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for the Christian faith for teaching For rebuking exhorting so on so forth.
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And so what Madrid now wants is he wants the golden index? he wants a
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Infallible canon to be placed in the Bible This is why a lot of people have been a little confused why
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RC scrolls are the things he did many many years ago When he said the canon is an infallible is a fallible list of infallible books
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He wasn't saying that he has any question about the can itself What he's saying is is that our recognition of it comes from us not that the canon itself is a 28th book of the
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New Testament and Since Rome itself Again, what's the result of this from Rome's perspective?
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What is the only way for Patrick to answer his own question? He's sitting there pounding on his table. You know, he's getting he's getting all the emotions going.
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He's getting his followers listening, right? But let's step step back and examine his scholarship and his rationality the only way
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For Patrick's objection to be consistent with his own position is for him to claim
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Not only that no one knew what scripture was until April of 1546 because there was no dogmatic definition of the canon
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So then from his own perspective from his own communion but that the declaration on revelation there in the
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Council of Trent is They are ustas it is divine revelation.
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It's the 20th book of the New Testament It should be seen as being the 28th book of the New Testament That's the only way to be consistent
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And if he doesn't want to do that, then he should admit that he's making demands of me that his own position cannot sustain and If you use arguments against the other guy that refute your own position
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You are not speaking the truth and how many times have we seen that with mr.
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Madrid and mr. Staples and mr Matics and all the defenders of the
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Roman system. Well, he can't tell us that there's no inspired table of contents It's like a dog chasing his tail.
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He says I believe scriptures inspired. It's the only infallible authority Well, how do you know that infallibly well because the scripture well, where does the scripture tell you that?
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Well, it doesn't so he just has to go around in circles and he won't admit that he's appealing to the tradition of the church
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The fact is he has those 27 books in his Bible because the Catholic Church said those were canonical
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I have the 27 books in my Bible because the Holy Spirit of God Inspired them long before there is ever a man in Rome called the salt of the
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Christ The Catholic Church now to catch that I didn't catch this while I was right while I was writing no argument no argument
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But what he's gonna say is but you don't know that they were inspired until that man appears in Rome to tell you they are
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Okay. See that's that's that's the argument that he would make at that point is That yes, they were inspired but You don't know they're inspired until this office arises in Rome that they don't speak of to tell you they're inspired
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That's in essence where where he'd be going with that did not give me that in any way shape or form
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He says I'm filching tradition. No, I love the term tradition I just don't like the way that the Roman Catholic Church centuries after the early church redefined it to substantiate their own claims to supremacy
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The meaning of the tradition in the Bible in the early church is not what the Roman Catholic wants to say it is
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It means something completely different And then he said that I had somehow said without an infallible authority
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You can't know or something. I didn't even recognize what I supposedly was saying, but we go back again to what's being said
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Mr. Madrid wants to say well look you need some some golden index here And you're relying upon me to tell you what scripture was no
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I am NOT relying upon him to tell us what scripture was in fact I think what I'll do is in my next question
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I'll illustrate exactly how that is so I ran a time what I would what I would would have done today first and foremost would have been to point out the functional result of Madrid's argument and that is everybody in The Aryan controversies and the civilian controversies in the
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Christological controversies in the early years everybody Who appealed to scripture and everybody did but go down the list?
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Athanasius and Gregory and and Basil and all the rest of Augusta and all these people the people who appealed to scripture
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Could not have done so because nobody knew what scripture was until April of 1546
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Nobody knew what scripture was until April 1546 all they had was what well
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Madrid would like us actually I guess to believe that all they had Was the tradition of the
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Roman Catholic Church though they had never heard of the Roman Catholic Church Though none of them believe what modern
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Roman Catholics believe about papal infallibility and all these things. That's all they had and and What what an amazing historiography
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Mr.. Madrid have asked this before How did the Jewish man? Fifty years before Jesus Christ know that the books of 2nd
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Chronicles and Isaiah were scripture Would you like me to repeat that I? Remember about 1996
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Someone sent me an audio tape I think Staples was on with somebody
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I forget. That's my recollection of it is this is about 1996 about three years later and They someone called in with this question.
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They called it the white question and I suppose I should Give you the background to this after my debates with Jerry Matta ticks of Boston College in 1993
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I think that was the 93 Yeah, I think it was 93.
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I don't remember is before after this but 1993 I believe is when I had the debates of Jerry at Boston College and Well, I had to have been before this so yeah,
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I guess it was in spring of this year I had debates with Jerry Matta ticks of Boston College. We did two debates.
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We did a debate on justification and debate on the apocrypha the apocrypha debate ended up being far more spirited than justification debate for some odd reason and We had been on W EZE in Boston Jerry and I had and We were supposed to be back on Janine Graf show
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But I was told at the end of the debate that the show had been canceled Janine was not gonna be able to have us on a second time
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Okay so My hosts out in South Bridge, Massachusetts.
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We were driving around on that following Monday it happened to turn on the radio and tuned in W EZE which you could barely hear that far out and There's Jerry Matta ticks on the air and they're wondering where I am
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So we went rushing back and we called into the program and so I had at least some amount of time to Respond as I'm sitting in a in a bedroom.
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I've got almost nothing around me as far as materials or anything like that and the issue of the cannon has has been brought up once again, and so I Just out of thin air just out of thin air
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Jerry said something if I could ever find the You Know the
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Tapes of it, which we never had. I've never possessed them. But you know, who knows maybe somebody taped. I don't know but Jerry said something that Made me come up with this question and I asked
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Jerry this question on W EZE. I said Jerry If what you're saying is true, and we have to have your authority
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We have to have the authority of Rome to know what is and what is not scripture. Then please tell me how the believing
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Jew Knew that Isaiah and 2nd Chronicles were scripture 50 years prior to Christ Now my thinking obviously is
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Jesus obviously held men accountable for what the scriptures said Nobody ever got away with tell you
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G is going. I try to know that was scripture Wow, so I'm supposed to honor my father and mother, huh?
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I didn't know that I didn't have you know, the Bishop of Rome haven't told me that that was scripture see and I've gotten all sorts of wild answers to this
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I've gotten the Jewish Magisterium. Well problem is Jewish Magisterium rejected the very books of Rome is added
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So that mean they weren't inspired initially, but then they became inspired later What does that mean? one of the more interesting ones was the
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The only way you could know you could know so certain was to toss the holy dice the
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Urim and the Thummim and Consult of God directly that was the only way you could know what the canon was
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Everybody was should have been going up to high priest and borrowing the Urim and the Thummim and tossing the dice and finding out What the can was that one that was interesting
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Then you have the people saying you couldn't because at least at least that's consistent for them The problem with that being of course that if you say that then you you wonder how was that Jesus preached the way that he preached and Held men accountable to those very scriptures.
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And of course historically, it's rather silly to make that kind of argument as well And so it's it's tough question but it's only a tough question for the person who is ignoring the historical reality of how the canon came about as Far as Canon 2 is concerned our recognition of what the books of Scripture are
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So my given what I just said to him and said that I'd asked him this before I think
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I asked him this in in writing and so This this comes from the 1993
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W EZE things, let's see how the response goes No, I think I got that. Okay. Thank you It was a short question.
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Okay, I appreciate that The Jewish man of the 50 -year period before Christ knew that that's that Scripture first and second
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Chronicles was inspired because the Old Testament Church the Old Testament people of God regarded it as scripture it had the the official of The official pedigree of coming from an apart from a prophet and it had always been regarded that way
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So he would draw not only on what his internal testimony was of what those books say but he would also base what his position was on what the
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Constant teaching of the Old Testament people was as well as you remember They regarded first and second
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Chronicles as scripture what I'd like to ask you though is Excuse me, you get to ask your questions later so Patrick's response is the
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Old Testament Magisterium the people of God in the Old Testament would tell you so Okay, then those very same people rejected the books that Rome has said are canonical
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So what do you do with that? It I'm sorry. The answer fails. We know they rejected those books
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We we know that that is a historical reality despite all the fanciful things that people like Steve Ray come up with but You can't change history.
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Even Jerusalem Jones can't do that. So How is how does that work?
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It doesn't work it It's it's a non -answer. So he goes on to a question and whether we do it now or later is
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Is your choice later in the debate tonight? You keep going back to this issue of of how does he know how does he know?
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Well, that's what I want to throw back at you. How do you know, but let's take it out of the Old Testament Mr.
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White bring it back to the New Testament and let's yeah, let's settle once and for all Know that those 27 books belong in Scripture.
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How do you know? I remember Patrick has no answer to this Patrick's answer is a non -answer
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Well, I know those 27 books are because we're on television. So well, that's nice my
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Mormon my Mormon missionary friends know the Book of Mormon is the Word of God because Because the
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Prophet says so Arguments from authority are not really good arguments.
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Are they Patrick? I don't think that they are but hey, you know, there's There there's how it works.
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Oh that they are inspired. How do you know Matthew wrote Matthew? Patrick does not know that Matthew wrote
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Matthew as we documented last week in reference to of course the issue of The subject of the authorship of Matthew that the papal bond pontifical
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Institute The pontifical Institute of Biblical Studies so on so forth has left that open has been one of the last religions
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To finally decide that that particular aspect Is not really relevant any longer.
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So Patrick doesn't know How does Patrick know his own leaders say they don't know so how does he know so why is he asking me what is your
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Authority to know that you if you reject the Catholic Church, that's fine. That's your choice I think you do so at your own peril
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But you reject the Catholic Church You have to furnish us with some other source upon which you base your testimony that those words
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In that Bible in that 27 books of the Bible now, I remember he's already done. He's already appropriated all of Christian history for himself
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He's he you know that that's the the awesome arrogance of Rome is to remember when
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Pope John Paul II died and what was what was everybody was 2 ,000 years of consistent
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Christian teaching and blah blah blah and they believe their own PR. They really do That's what that's why they get so upset
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That that's why Scott Hahn got so upset and Jerry Mattox got so upset in the debate in the papacy the first one
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I did on that subject in 1990 December of 1990 at City of the Lord in Tempe, Arizona They just how dare you quote the early church fathers to us.
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They're ours All of church history is ours And if and if you're quoting it, you just must be twisting it, you know, and this is this is the religion that came about and so much of its authority structure came about through the use of fraudulent documents and faked patristic citations
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But history's ours you can't use history So so if you're gonna reject our authority, then what are you gonna turn to to come up with yours in?
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infallible certainty about the content of the Bible Even though what that means, of course is that no one actually had a
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Bible until April of 1546 which he doesn't really want to tell us all about there at that particular point in time
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So that's a bit of a problem. So we will continue on. Hopefully I'll go has stopped quivering and shaking and we will continue on with the 1993
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Sola Scriptura debate and all the things, you know, you notice we end up talking about church history We end up talking about a lot of things that are relevant to all sorts of other areas
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Not just Roman Catholicism, but Mormonism and Islam and Bart Ehrman and everything else ends up coming in here somewhere along the way
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So hopefully that is of use to everyone who's listening. Thanks for listening. We'll see you on the next time of the dividing line.
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