Catholic Answers

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.

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.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the

United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now, with today's topic, here is

James White. Arg! Correction already? No. Ha!

I gotta start off with a, you know, it's not a correction when things change after you say something in a book, but it's just sort of frustrating that someone says it, like, you know, two weeks after your book comes out that changes something.

I made a reference in an endnote to Sheikh Yasir Qadhi, and I said that he is generally associated with the

Salafi movement, which he always has been. In fact, I remember reading an article about him and his struggles against the more militant forms of Salafism, oh,

I don't know, just last year. Well, this morning, someone popped into the channel and gave me a link to InterfaithRadio .org

and about a 28 -minute program with that one lady on NPR that I just don't,

I don't understand why she does radio because she messed up his name and just is not a radio person, but she does a radio program anyways, and basically, the headline was,

Yasir Qadhi, not a Salafi, no longer a Salafi, no longer, and unfortunately, she didn't know enough about what she was talking about to really press him on that, to ask him meaningful questions, but I would like to know, okay,

I've listened to many, many, many, many hours of Sheikh Yasir Qadhi's lectures. He is the

Dean of Academic Affairs at the Al Maghrib Institute and he teaches at a college and he's an adjunct professor, and I'd like to know what's changed.

I've listened to his, a couple times, to his light and guidance CD set and read his book on Shirk and stuff like that and listened to his lectures on Hadith and all those things.

And what of that material would he now say, I shouldn't accept as being accurate?

I listened to the whole program this morning on a ride and I didn't hear an answer to that question, unfortunately.

So, footnote number 13 on, I think, page 57 or something like that, will say he is associated, generally associated with the

Salafi movement, and now he says, nah, not so much anymore. So there you go. That's what happens when you mention names and two weeks later they go, well, not so much, but really doesn't make any big difference.

But I might actually play some portions from that another time. It might be interesting.

Of course, the news today all over the place, people still don't have a clue what's going on as to what happened in Boston.

I am tired of hearing about the tragedy in Boston.

It's not a tragedy. A tragedy would have been if the grandstand had collapsed on top of people.

That's tragedy. This was an act of violence. It was an act of, it was, who knows why yet.

We don't know why it was done, but it was a purposeful act of evil violence.

It's not a tragedy. Why doesn't anyone use the language properly anymore? I mean, I don't even, I get angry at myself sometimes at how lazy

I've become when it comes to vocabulary and things like that, but we, it was not a tragedy.

And you look, you look at the little boy losses, I lost tragedy. No, he was a victim of evil, but we can't talk about evil.

Can't talk about that. No, no. Can't, can't do that. So anyways, all sorts of stuff on, on the news about that.

I heard about it fairly, as actually in the morning, cause I was in Hawaii.

So it's really weird. I mean, you are shifted six hours from the East coast over there. It's a, it's like being in completely, you just really do feel like you're always behind everything.

You just started catching up to things only as, as, as the clock moves along,

I guess. But it, it takes a while to, to get caught up. Speaking of the book, by the way,

I just, I just read my first review. Actually I saw an Amazon review, five stars.

Whoa, just wait till, till five minutes from now, there'll be 21 star reviews by people who've actually never read the book.

I find Amazon reviews utterly, completely 1000 % irrelevant. So that includes the five star ones.

But I did see one from someone who actually did start the book and I just wanted to respond to it.

I'm not upset about it. I fully understand what Laura Langley is saying. On Goodreads, goodreads .com,

she gave me three out of five stars, but she, you know, after the general introduction, she says, having had quite a few

Muslim friends over the years, I was excited to see his book for sale. I truly wanted to better understand my friend's faith, look for ways to bridge the gap between our faiths and find ways to share

Jesus with them. Honestly, I only made it halfway through chapter five of this book. I've picked it up countless times over the course of two weeks trying to wade through it.

I am interested in the topic and I know the importance of understanding others' faith, but I find the book so, so academic that it'd be difficult for every

Christian to follow. I suppose I was caught up by the title of the book and assumed it would be in plain English for a lay person like me.

It is not. Without a doubt, White is well studied and knows the subject well. It is obvious from each chapter's end notes and from the bibliography, has done his research, is also well equipped in apologetics and reasoning.

But this is no lay person's guide. It is a guide for apologists. While every Christian may need to know about the

Quran and the Muslim faith, for me, the language, the depth, the reasoning and logic, and the academic treatment of the material are far beyond what every

Christian is willing to read or attempt to digest. I do recommend the book for anyone who is an apologist or academic and wants to gain an academic understanding of the

Quran. But for those of us who slog it out in the day -to -day world, who happen to have Muslim friends, this isn't user -friendly and it's not an easy read.

You can't pick up and plan to use it in conversation with a friend over coffee tomorrow. Well, you know what?

She's exactly right. You cannot pick it up and expect to use it over coffee with your

Muslim friend tomorrow. But here is, this is the question that I asked someone at Bethany House when

I actually sent them this information. Here's the question.

If a Muslim wrote what every Muslim needs to know about the

Bible, would we have the same standard? Would Laura Langley appreciate a 70 -page simplistic presentation from a

Muslim perspective of the Bible? And would she want that Muslim friend that she's talking to over a cup of coffee to read that and trust that as their source of information about our

Bible? I don't think so. I don't think so. So it just makes me wonder.

Now, is it as simple and,

I'm trying to think of, it's definitely on the same level as the

King James Only Controversy, the Forgotten Trinity, Scripture Alone. I don't think it's nearly as complex in most of its writing as the

God Who Justifies. So I'd say it's pretty much along the line of where I've been all along, yes.

Someone who's read the Forgotten Trinity, it's, you know, and I'm not someone to read all these major, you know, academic novels or certain systematic theologies.

I didn't find it hard. No. I found it, you know, it became easier once I learned some Greek so I could learn how to pronounce the words as I'm reading, but that's about it.

Well, I think a lot of, if there are complaints like this,

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that there is just so little understanding on the part of the vast majority of Christians of any of the background of the

Quran. It's, can you, again, I use the illustration, can you imagine trying to explain to Muslims who only know the

Quran, the background of the Old Testament sacrifices or the military campaigns of Moses or what was going on in Corinth that Paul has to write to the

Corinthians? I mean, there's a lot of stuff there. And if you're going to handle the subject accurately, then yes, you're going to have to call people up to a little higher standard than something that's very, very simplistic.

Mutado was just asking if, who was speaking there, is that Ayo Min's teenage son?

No, no, no, that wouldn't, that wouldn't be, would not be him. So I will, you know,

I fully understand if you don't have any knowledge of any of the backgrounds and you don't want any knowledge of the backgrounds and you just want something real simple to talk to your

Muslim friend over coffee, may I suggest that the problem isn't with the book, it's with what you think you need to know to talk to your

Muslim friend over coffee. Because unless your Muslim friend isn't much of a Muslim, something real short and brief like that isn't going to cut it.

It's just not going to do it for you. And so there you go. But just thought

I would point that out. One article that I saw a number of times, it was sent to me in email this morning, but a number of times sent, it's all over Twitter and Facebook if you follow those things as most people do today, is a

Robert George article on First Thoughts called What Few Deny Gay Marriage Will Do.

And so we have a quotation from Masha Gessen.

Masha Gessen is a self -identified lesbian and a leading activist in the

U .S. and Russia. She holds citizenship in both countries. At last year's meeting of the

Sydney Writers Festival, she spoke plainly, and here is what she said.

It's a no -brainer that homosexuals should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it's a no -brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist.

Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there. Because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie.

The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don't think it should exist. And I don't like taking part in creating fictions about my life.

That's sort of not what I had in mind when I came out 30 years ago. I have three kids who have five parents, more or less, and I don't see why they shouldn't have five parents legally.

I met my new partner, and she had just had a baby, and that baby's biological father is my brother, and my daughter's biological father is a man who lives in Russia, and my adopted son also considers him his father.

So the five parents break down into two groups of three, and really, I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality, and I don't think that's compatible with the institution of marriage."

End quote. Okay, so obviously, when you have just wildly immoral people who just completely throw out everything,

I mean, I just, I keep thinking of all of the homosexual activists who tout their chastity and their monogamy and all the rest of that stuff, and then you listen to something like this and go, really?

Okay, wow, what a royal mess that is. But at least, you know, she's honest.

If we are allowed to marry, it will change the institution of marriage. Well, duh, it's completely redefinition.

And as Doug Wilson said to Andrew Sullivan, when you change the direct object of the verb, you change the meaning of the verb.

To marry a woman is not the same thing as to marry a man, if you're a man. And this is quite straightforward.

And Robert George goes on to say, just imagine the uproar had, say,

Rick Santorum said, fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what they are going to do with marriage when they get there, because they lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie.

Now, of course, the media would have a feeding frenzy, but they probably didn't hardly even report what is said here, because a homosexual in this context, especially an activist, published lesbian can say whatever she wants, and there will be no outcry.

But if Rick Santorum says, the sky is blue, you terrible person, there's a tint of white in it, you are so bigoted,

I mean, that's MSNBC, you know, and then you get a tingle down your leg and everything goes crazy from that point onwards.

In fact, I didn't have it up here, but there was an article someplace I saw last week about Rick Santorum trying to speak at a school.

I had it in my file, and I'm not sure why I didn't bring it up. But the amazing thing was that, at first, the principal of the school decided they weren't going to allow it.

Now, anybody, again, that is on the approved NEA list of speakers would be allowed to speak, and all the students would come, and everything would be fine, obviously.

But not Rick Santorum, because he's not on the NEA approved list of speakers. His worldview is not the

NEA's worldview, and therefore, you know. But then pressure came to bear, and so it was decided that he would be allowed to speak.

However, any student who would want to observe this has to have a signed permission slip from their parents, a signed permission slip from their parents.

So in other words, to listen to Rick Santorum, you have to have more parental approval than to get an abortion in some states.

The world has gone insane. Absolutely, indefensibly, irrationally insane.

I don't even know where to go from there. It is amazing.

I'm going to go ahead and slide in a quick call here, and then I want to review a thread that has appeared on the

Catholic Answers Forums about yours truly, of course. It's the only time I know anything about threads in the

Catholic Answers Forum, is that James Swan comes along and says, hey,

I mean, he sent me a picture of some guy who's selling a book, and one of his advertising things is a picture of my book,

Scripture Alone, that's been defaced with anti -Catholic traditions of men or something across the front.

If you've ever read Scripture Alone, that's not even about Roman Catholicism, it's sort of like, eh, okay, well, anyway.

But we will get to that. Let's first talk to Russ in Illinois. Hi, Russ. Hello. Hello.

I've been studying the Church Fathers, at your suggestion, and in reading the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, the seven letters he wrote,

I see some criticism saying that, well, this was added to because he speaks of being loyal to bishops and all of this, and I wondered what your opinion was on all that.

Well, there are two versions of Ignatius' letters. First of all, there are a number of other letters, pseudo -Ignatian letters, that are available out there.

Now, I'm not sure what source you're using to read them, but if you read either Lightfoot or Holmes...

These are Lightfoot. Okay. Holmes is newer, but you'll notice that in Lightfoot you'll have an indication of the difference between the much longer

Latin versions and the much shorter Greek versions. And so, most would feel that the

Greek versions are the original form and the Latin is a later expanded form, and then there are other letters, aside from those, that are not considered to be

Ignatian. But the specific seven letters to which you refer, written on his way to martyrdom, in the

Greek would have very strong attestation. But remember, you know, just like when we look at New Testament manuscripts, when you're looking at early church writings, they have undergone transmission over time, and generally we have significantly fewer manuscripts that have a significantly longer period of time between the original writing and the first manuscripts than we have for the

New Testament. And so, that's where the footnotes come from, things like that.

Even though Ignatius clearly does hold to a monarchical form of church government, what's interesting about Ignatius is that when he writes to Rome, he does not refer to a bishop of Rome.

He doesn't have a single individual that he writes to there at the church at Rome, because at that point in time,

Rome did not have a monarchical episcopate. That developed later on. That's obviously real relevant to Roman Catholic claims in regards to the ancient nature of the papacy.

But anyways, that's one of the things that makes Ignatius rather important. And ironically, I will be talking a little bit about Ignatius in reviewing the

Catholic Answers thread that I'm just about to be looking at. So you might find some of that to be interesting. But that would explain the footnotes, and you stick with the

Greek version of the seven letters and you're good. All right. Thank you for your help. All right. Thank you very much.

All right. Bye bye. As I said, James Swan sent over a link to a this one actually is about, let me see here,

April 13th of 2013. So this was just a few days ago. And a new member,

I'm not sure why they're considered new because they've been around since 2011, but I guess it's the number of posts you have.

I don't know. Anyways, Aruvanda writes, I'd really appreciate some help in response to a lot of James White apologetic output.

My husband is really into him and I'm finding it hard to respond to a lot of what he says. I'm still really interested in Catholicism and want a coherent answer of the things he comes out with.

Is there a Catholic apologist who has addressed James White comprehensively? So this was just a few days ago.

Now, I didn't even have to look at the rest of it. I'll be perfect honest with you. I did, but I didn't have to because I know exactly what's going to happen.

Phil Provoznik is going to trot out all of his old, decrepit, shallow, thoroughly refuted, he would never defend them in my presence articles, and he's going to post them all again and flex his muscles and go, and that's how

Phil is. He'd never, like I said, do that in my presence, but that's just how

Phil is. And then there's going to be some other folks and eventually, you're going to start getting into all the ad hominem because that's what the

Catholic answers forums are all about. In fact, I think the last time I even addressed this, somebody had made accusations on the

Catholic answers forums that we edit the debates that we have had with Roman Catholics.

So we take out their smashing information and provide these.

And of course, frequently we're the ones that are providing the unedited masters to the other side. I mean, if you actually want to go that direction, you might want to ask why it is that the videotapes of my first two debates with Mitchell Pacwa don't exist anywhere, why

Scott Butler has sat upon them or required that we pay $5 ,000 to get them for all these years now.

And you may want to ask why Catholic answers itself had its staff apologist, one of the foremost biblical scholars in the world.

At least that's what they said for a while, and then they changed that. Right here on the dividing line, we did a debate on first Corinthians chapter three in purgatory and we make it available.

And I've said to Haseem, son of Ramallah, we need to do a, some of our banner ads are getting a little old.

You know, I've been seeing Bart Ehrman for way too long now. I thought we'd get rid of Bart Ehrman and replace that with a banner ad that is about the debate that Catholic answers doesn't want you to hear or something like that.

Because in this thread again, in this thread again, they trotted out and I knew this would happen.

That was the next prediction. The next thing is going to happen is you're going to have somebody say, well, you should listen to the

Jimmy Akin debate on the Bible Answer Man broadcast. And somebody did that. So I just knew it was there.

So, but the first one was really interesting. A guy named Catholic Dude, which has 6 ,096 posts, so he's a senior member.

And we have read some of his stuff in the past. Among the more dubious arguments

White has made, I think is, I think this is one of the top three. James White was correcting

Catholic Steve Ray's claims of the Sola Scriptura, but White ended up saying something very devastating to the

Sola Scriptura. Now what, again, the forums at Catholic Answers feed on ignorance.

They feed on repeating the party line and the amazing thing to me is the unwillingness of these people to actually listen to what is being said.

So many of these folks just want a reason not to question and not to follow the information to its logical conclusions in regards to Roman Catholicism and its claims.

And so they'll believe anything they're told, no matter how outrageous, how insane it is, they'll believe it.

And that's, you can just tell that that's what the majority of people, well, there's an exception over here.

There's someone who said this over there. Okay, fine, whatever. But the majority of the folks here, they just want reasons to continue to believe.

And it's not about truth. And so here's what

I said. This is the quotation that's given. The main element of Catholic apologist

Mr. Ray's misrepresentation of Sola Scriptura can be seen in just this. The doctrine speaks of a rule of faith that exists.

What do I mean by this? One will search high and low for any reference in any standard Protestant confession of faith that says, there has never been a time when

God's word was proclaimed and transmitted orally. You will never find anyone saying during times of inscripturation, that is when new revelation was being given,

Sola Scriptura was operational. Protestants do not assert that Sola Scriptura is a valid concept during times of revelation.

How could it be since the rule of faith to which it points was at that very time coming into being? One must have an existing rule of faith to say it is sufficient.

It is a canard to point to times of revelation. C, Sola Scriptura doesn't work there. Of course it doesn't. Who said it did?

To which he says, as many Catholics have noted, James White has effectively conceded Sola Scriptura, especially via 2

Timothy 3 .16f, is false. The very doctrine he strongly defends. Now, I just sit here and I go, you all aren't listening, are you?

It's no wonder that Guardian and all these folks, they'll say things on here. They won't call in.

They won't do anything like that. Because what

I'm saying is, okay, was Sola Scriptura valid for Adam? Well, they would say, well, if it's true, then it must be.

See, I'm not talking about the reality of the fact that divine revelation is absolutely necessary.

And I believe that divine revelation has always been superior to natural revelation.

Adam received divine revelation, do not eat from that tree. That superseded anything else for Adam.

But Adam did not have the book of Romans. So to even argue the point means you're not thinking through what is being said.

Now I would argue that while Rome actually claims that revelation has ceased and that the canon is closed and that we're not to expect further revelation, that functionally she does not actually believe that.

I think the Marian dogmas demonstrate pretty much beyond all question that Rome functions with her malleable, stretchable, bendable, reformable doctrine of reform as in, not reform as in, say,

I got something wrong, but push it into another shape to be convenient with whatever you want to do.

Her view of quote -unquote tradition, she has no revelation. I mean, the last two

Marian dogmas are not a part of Scripture or tradition, period. End of discussion.

No one can argue that. You can't. So, if it's dogma, don't even try the implicitly contained in the

Scripture or tradition of the church thing. It's not there. So there has to be some kind of further revelation.

But officially, she says, there's no more revelation. So the question is, if there isn't any more revelation, what is the ultimate authority?

And we have always argued it is that which is theanustas, and to say that what I said there has anything to do with my exegesis, 2

Timothy 3 .16, is just a demonstration that Catholic dude has no idea what he's talking about, once again.

And we've explained these things over and over and over again, but let's face it. Every time

I look into the Catholic Answers Forums, I am amazed at the fact that they will be satisfied with the old, old, old stuff that has been refuted and shredded, and they just don't care.

As long as Mama Church has said it's good, it's good.

And I've said many, many times, while those of us who deal with apologetics on a regular basis are continuously seeking to improve in our understanding and our argumentation,

I just don't get that from the Roman Catholics. I just don't get that. I listen to Patrick Madrid, I listen to Tim Staples, I listen to Carl Keating, and I just —

I suppose one possible exception is once in a while Jimmy Akin comes up with something really interesting.

He seems to be continuing to read and trying to, in some way, improve his apologetic answers, but he's unusual in that way.

He really is. So anyway, so after that, then he says — also, this is in the next post —

James White has never touched the issue of Legitimae. Did you hear that, folks?

I've never touched it. Disgusted in the

God who justifies, but never touched it! I must have just brushed my fingers over the keyboard or something.

I'm a firm believer that when White openly and objectively addresses Legitimae, then he will no longer in good conscience be able to support

Protestantism. That is why no Protestant apologist has dared to touch this issue as well. That is pure standing down on the sideline, jumping up and down for your team that's down 56 -0 in the fourth quarter going,

We're the best! We're coming back! Come on! No one can ever beat us! And you're actually 0 -11, that kind of thing.

But he links over to something that we actually have addressed in the past in regards to the article, a study on imputation of righteousness, and a fellow by the name of Nick.

I'm sure these guys really think that blog articles are enough to do this. I don't think any of them —

I mean, let me just put it this way. I hesitate to even say this because I can just see certain people in Georgia posting a -contextual

YouTube video clips of what I'm about to say. But anyway, I don't get the feeling that these guys who write blog articles where they've used

Strong's exhaustive concordance or maybe even fired up Bible works or something like that, I don't think those guys really would be able to dialogue real well with NT Wright.

I just have a feeling there's a little step beyond that. Remember when the discussion happened of hellos who?

And we had one Catholic apologist who says, I'm going to write a book refuting this and demonstrating that it's wrong from the

Greek. But first I have to learn Greek. And people were taking it seriously.

And you're just like, wow, okay, all right. All right, there you go. What can

I say? They're, it's just, I don't know. Then of course, we had another guy immediately linking to philvaz .com.

And then I'm just looking at a few others here.

The lady said, well, thank you. That's nice. And then the stuff started in about, and here's where Ignatius came in.

Traber 135 says, well, one thing to bear in mind is he can't deal honestly with the writings of the early church fathers.

St. Ignatius of Antioch testifies the very early Christian believing in the Trinity incarnation. This is very useful in debates with Muslims because they always find a way to interpret

New Testament passages which support these doctrines and consider the Bible to be a corrupt book anyway. Yet the same martyr also testifies the very early

Christian believing in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This is very useful for Catholics and Orthodox and debating with Calvinists and evangelicals because they consider the

New Testament not to teach this doctrine. So in the context, responding to a couple of Islamic apologists, he then quotes me about John 20, 28, and where I mentioned

Ignatius of Antioch. And then he says, but to the best of my knowledge, this Reformed Baptist apologist has never argued that Christians should look to St.

Ignatius of Antioch for guidance on the Lord's Supper. If he did, James White would have to become a Lutheran or Anglicatholic, and that ain't going to happen.

And of course, I go, boy, I guess I wasted all that time putting together that entire video series on the actual teaching of Ignatius of Antioch and the context of proto -Gnosticism at his point in time and all the rest of that stuff that's out there.

It's still there, but I mean, he'll take time.

In fact, what's the link to what he's linking to here? An article from 2006.

So he quotes from an article on my blog, but then doesn't seem to be aware of the material that we have posted and produced on Ignatius and why

Roman Catholics abuse Ignatius and read into Ignatius material that is nowhere to be found in Ignatius, that Ignatius could never have even begun to understand what it is that modern

Roman Catholics are anachronistically reading into. So again,

I keep looking for those folks who actually have actually taken the time to look at our stuff.

And again, all these folks have written blog articles. And then there was a guy, let me see here.

There's a computer science guy. Yeah, here we go. Just a word from experience. That kind of talk.

Well, quoted Aravande, he says, Thank you for all your responses. I had kind of got the impression of his website.

The Catholics just run scared from his indomitable debating prowess. And thus he was right about things.

Oh, yeah. Y 'all remember how often I use that particular argument? I'm right about 1

Corinthians chapter 3 because Catholic answers won't advertise the debate. No, I was right about 1

Corinthians chapter 3 because we won the debate. Tim Staples and he wasn't able to deal with the exegesis of the text and could not give consistent responses.

Neither could Peter Stravinskis or anybody else we've dealt with. And we point out the

Catholic answers hiding it because they know that. And they're the ones constantly talking about Tim Staples is this great debater and all the rest of stuff.

And then he does a debate with me and it just silence. Poof. Never happened.

Uh, in fact, I don't think, you know, Catholic answers. I think the yeah, the

Jimmy Akin thing would be the only thing they'd make available, wouldn't it? I mean, I suppose they could make the Patrick Madrid ones available.

But they certainly can make any of the Jerry Matitox ones available. And the ones with Staples, 96 and 2000 were with St.

Joseph's. And I don't think they have the best relationship with them. So they may have very, very little information actually available.

You can actually listen to stuff. But anyway, and so in response to that comp science guy says just a word from experience.

That kind of talk is usually a very clear indicator of insecurity. Of course, I've never actually said that, but they don't mind that part.

He probably thinks that because the majority of Catholics who have debated him generally do not use the same degree, if any, of the aggressiveness slash rudeness that James White uses in his debates.

Ah, there you go. The aggressiveness slash rudeness. That must have been he must have listened to the art simple debate.

Oh, wait a minute. Simple was the one that was aggressive. He must have listened to the

St. Janice Scott Butler. That was Scott Butler. That was aggressive and rude there. Maybe he listened to the

Mitch Pacwa debates. No, because there wasn't any aggression or rudeness in any of those. Wow, that's hard to know.

Who knows? So a guy named Ponnavino says,

I have listened to his podcast fairly regularly for roughly four years. Hi, Ponnavino. Nice to have you listening.

He has expressed a view on a number of occasions that he considers there to be no peace in the gospel found in Catholicism. I have expressed that many times.

Will continue to express that many times because it's true. If you can approach the sacrifice of Christ 20 ,000 times in your life and still die impure and have to undergo satis passio and could actually lose the grace of justification and go to hell.

Yeah, exactly right. That's exactly right. And that he has not received a suitable answer explanation to the contrary.

Well, I've received all sorts of answers and explanations. Just all of them have confirmed what

I was saying. That's all. Predominantly, he has identified this with the example of having unconfessed mortal sin and then being hit by a car or deathbed.

Not sure if you get hit by a deathbed. Never seen one moving very fast, actually, but I know what he meant.

Anyway, but I understand this to be a strong man given God's mercy recognized outside the normative means and the sacrament of reconciliation in a desire slash intense slash repentant heart without ability to receive the amazing sacrament.

What does that mean? Again, are you saying that everyone's going to be saved as long as they desire to sacrament?

Or what about purgatory? What about the commission of mortal sin? You know, these are if he's heard me describe these things or maybe looked at what

I at the arguments as I've published them in books that have been in print now for 1996 is when the

Roman Catholic controversy came out. So we're coming up on 17 years. Well, about 17 years now.

The book's been in print. Thank you, Bethany House, for keeping books in print for a long time. Anyways, he goes on to say,

I normally enjoy listening to him prompting me to think and study more. And as we predicted.

I hear that he eats kittens. Joke from one of his shows. Well, thank you,

Bonavino. I appreciate the fact that you were listening close enough, at least to catch that joke. The problem is how many people here?

It's going to it's going to show up someplace, some little old Catholic lady three years now, and besides that,

I heard he ate a kitten once. And no Christian could ever eat a kitten. In fact, computer science guy responded that by saying nothing wrong with that.

No need to let perfectly good meat go to waste. So there's a little there's at least a little sense of humor over there, which is good, which is good.

And then a guy named PR Merger Forum Elder requotes the

Catholic dude, complete misunderstanding of solo scriptura and the insistence that solo scriptura has to be true at all times, even before there's a scriptura or when the scriptura is being given and says very, very interesting.

It appears that Mr. White is indeed unwittingly rejected solo scriptura in an attempt to proclaim solo scriptura. Not even close.

Not even close. But again, you would think that these folks would go, maybe it's our understanding of solo scriptura that's wanting here and they don't they don't do that.

And then on the next the next page. Well, actually,

Traber 135 then kindly said, I have no interest in defending someone who teaches and spreads heresy.

That would be me, especially denial of the sacraments. I'd like to ask for some concrete examples in which

James White exhibited aggressiveness and or rudeness. Asking a question like that in the

Catholic Answers Forums could be very interesting.

Aravonda, the original person who asked the question, responded to that by saying, I don't know about aggressive, but I find him quite intimidating because he seems to have a fearsome intellect and knowledge of original language that and I have neither.

OK, well. I just would point out that I've debated numerous

Roman Catholics with multiple PhDs from Ivy League schools and didn't find them very intimidating.

In fact, just go watch the debate with Peter Stravinskis and you you tell me. Anyways, Traber responded.

That's quite understandable. James White looks intimidating. No, I don't. I'm a little white -haired grandfather type man, unless you're riding a bike in front of me.

I'm sorry. James White looks intimidating, but only until you take his beliefs to their logical conclusion.

All right, here we go. Logical conclusion time from the Catholic Answers Forums. No real

Christians, as he defines the term, live from 1 to 200 AD to 1500 to 1550

AD, because the historical record does not point to there being Calvinists or Baptists, let alone

Calvinistic Baptists during that period of 1 ,500 years between the death of St.

John and the birth of Protestantism. Wow. Ah, you know, it just strikes me that if you're going to attribute a belief to somebody, you might just want to do a little digging around.

I mean, maybe one thing, I'm going to say, well, I would think that he would have to believe this. You know, at least you can get away with saying, well,

I didn't say he actually says it. But no, he doesn't do that. Now, we're going to have to,

I don't know if Razor's Kiss would even want us to do it because his servers would probably get hammered.

But a number of years ago in the

Sunday school class at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, I taught, and I forget how many

MP3s there are, but I taught a church history class. And it lasted for a pretty lengthy period of time.

And they are available somewhere online. The first class that I taught, the first class

I taught, I had just graduated from seminary in 1989. And in 1991,

I taught a class at Grand Canyon University, and I taught church history.

And we went from the patristic period all the way through the period of Augustine and the fall of the

Roman Empire and the medieval period. And we talked about Gottschalk and Peter Abelard and the development of medieval scholasticism and all of the many things that came together to form the multifaceted foundation of the

Reformation, the rise of nationalism and the Renaissance, and especially focused on Erasmus and all sorts of stuff like that up through the

Reformation. And in fact, I remember showing that class, The Radicals.

Excellent movie, if you ever get a chance to track it down. I mean, its production values are understandably dated and not overly super cool and stuff like that.

But it's a great film. Anyway, and so I've addressed all of this stuff.

And the reality is, and I think most honest people would understand, or at least people who want to accurately represent things, that I've never even intimated.

In fact, I have many, many times in various contexts castigated the publication of date lists that say things like, you know, purgatory comes into vogue at such and such a date.

Look, all the perspectives that led to the development of the doctrine of purgatory and its dogmatic definition, all sorts of different streams of development over time.

It didn't come into existence at one point in time. It's a naive, simplistic and childish view of church history that says it does.

And I think there are a lot of anti -Catholic Protestants that have a naive view of church history.

And unfortunately, the members of the Catholic Answers Forums seem to have enforced upon them an incredibly anachronistic, naive and childish view of church history.

As Traber135 has just demonstrated here. Because I've, first of all, never limited Christianity to Calvinistic Baptist or to Calvinist or to Baptist separately.

In any way, shape or form. And it is absolutely absurd to credit such a belief to me.

But that's the kind of thing you get in the

Catholic Answers Forums. Then CompScienceGuy says, in response to Traber135, asking for some concrete examples which

James White exhibit aggressiveness and rudeness. He says, this has always been my impression of him from having witnessed his

YouTube debates with Catholics, including Father Mitchell Pacwa. Yeah, the best debates we've done.

The most. And in fact, some of the greatest criticism that Mitch Pacwa got for those debates was that they were so kind and respectful and, you know, all the rest of that stuff.

But you just throw it out there. And I think one of the reasons you can get away with this kind of stuff is because you know most of the people who are reading you are not going to go check you out.

Not going to check you out. Then Eric Filmer jumped in and I actually had to look in my email.

I tracked it down eventually. He had written me two things.

He invited me to come to the Catholic Answers Forums. Now, this makes as much sense as Peter Lumpkin saying, let's have a debate over on my website.

Okay, yeah. Let me just explain because I don't know, a lot of people don't understand this, but we have a staff of two.

Okay, and Rich does all the stuff I don't do. And so if you've already gotten your copy of Whatever Christian Needs to Know About the

Quran and you're reading it, you can thank Rich. Well, you can thank me, I suppose, if you're signed because I did dive right into that and get them all signed as quick as I could.

But he's the one that kept track of all the orders and ordered in the mailing materials and printed out all the labels and put the books in them and got them in the mail to you.

Okay, we got two people. And if you look at my schedule right now, just over the next year, let's just talk about travel.

I'm debating Justin Lee, part of the Gay Christian Network in a month, back to a month from today, in Montana.

I am speaking in Omaha in two weeks. I just got back from Hawaii, where I spoke on a number of different topics there at Central Baptist Church.

And may I once again thank all the folks there for their tremendous kindness toward me and Shane Sowers. By the way,

Shane Sowers crushed me on Tantalus Drive. Tantalus is one of the most awesome climbs in the world, in my opinion.

And I've seen a lot of them. And yes, I did give Shane a head start, but he set his own

PR getting up Tantalus Drive and hence crushed me in the rain. This past Monday.

And so congratulations to the king of Tantalus, Shane Sowers. I'll get you next time. But anyway,

I will be going to Boston, speaking in Boston, flying directly from Boston to Germany, where I'll be teaching a class on textual criticism in Berlin, along with some apologetics material there.

I preach in August a good bit because that's

Pastor Fry's vacation time. So a couple of weeks worth of preaching there. We're looking at South Africa in September, debating

Yusuf Ismail. I've got at least two trips in October and another one in November.

And I'm writing a book. Yes, I'm working on another book already, again on the subject of Islam, a co -authored book this time, however, exciting one.

And of course, I do this program and I'm very close. I'm six, only six books.

That sounds like a lot, but books are fairly short in this. Only six books out of the 30 -some -odd away from finishing

Sahih Muslim, which is the second largest of the Sahih Hadith collections.

So I'm almost there. And I'm going to do Sunan Abu Dawud after that. So I'll have gotten

Bukhari, Sunan Abu Dawud, the Muad of Malik, and Muslim down, which is more than the vast majority of Muslims in the world.

Takes a lot of time to do that. If you just think of just the preparation for all of that, preaching in Hebrews, teaching textual criticism, studying

Islam, debating homosexuality, doing this program, just put that together and ask yourself a question.

Does this man have the time? To go to the Catholic Answers Forums and deal with the flood of stuff that would be sent at him by people who will not take the time to listen to or read anything that I have published or produced before.

The answer is obviously no. And by the way, there's a bunch of other.

I just accepted an invitation to write some stuff on homosexuality and just throw it all in there.

And I'm about, if I had hair, I'd be pulling it out. No, I do not have time to go to the

Catholic Answers Forums. And even if I had a staff, I don't know that I could keep up.

And I can guarantee you the moderators of the Catholic Answers Forums are not going to want me posting multiple posts every day filled with references to my materials.

Ain't going to happen. Ain't going to happen. So he wrote to me and my point was not that I should have the right to respond to the

Catholic Answers Forums. My point was what's said about me in the Catholic Answers Forums just demonstrates a mindset that's absolutely absurd.

But you know, the other bad, bad, horrible, nasty thing that Eric Fulmer pointed out was that I was being, by being aggressive and rude, he wished me

Merry Christmas and I didn't return his wishes. Merry Christmas in my response to his email. There you go.

Someone actually went, well, he doesn't think you're a Christian, so why should he? No, actually,

I was just responding to the fact that he was missing the point of my blog article.

And you can go on there and see it for yourself. But anyways, then of course,

Marco Polo eventually showed up with all of his very old silly links that have been refuted many, many times before.

It just, I don't know. Oh, I did mention this one. I do need to read it.

We've got just enough time here. Bonnie then said, let me first admit that my memory ain't what it used to be.

What little of my memory remains believes there was a debate some years back between Jimmy Akin and James White moderated by Hank Hanegraaff.

And Hanegraaff kept jumping in to help James White with his answers because he was getting trounced by Jimmy. That's not the correct role for a moderator, but he did it anyways.

If you want to hear it, look at the Bible Answer Man tapes with the above name. Anyone who's listened to that knows that Bonnie's memory is a little bit on the fanciful side.

In fact, it's very much on the fanciful side. We took the time to go through all this because Catholic Angels kept calling it a debate. It was not a debate.

It was a radio program. And in the second hour, if I recall correctly, the numbers are on the blog. You can look it up.

We timed it exactly. Jimmy Akin, if I recall, got 63 % of the time.

That's not a debate. That's not a debate. And Hank Hanegraaff was not doing that.

Hank Hanegraaff did jump in in one debate, but it wasn't the Jimmy Akin debate. It was a different debate.

And there you go. What can I say? I think it was on the

Alpha Omega Ministries website. There was a scathing criticism of Peter Kreeft accusing him of having primitive spirituality.

It was referencing his awe of St. Patrick's Cathedral as a young child. I thought the accusation was ridiculous. I have no earthly idea.

Would someone do a quick search on the blog for primitive spirituality or Peter Kreeft?

Because I don't remember any of that. And I suppose maybe it'd be nice to point out that I'm not the only one who posts on our blog.

Maybe it might be somewhat relevant to look at that and make sure that it wasn't me.

And that's where it had ended. Today at 8 12 a .m. Bonnie says,

Peter Kreeft accused James White of having primitive spirituality or the other way around. Either way, children can be in awe of all sorts of big things.

When I was a child, banks and libraries were gorgeous marble temples of money and books. Okay, well, that probably will end that particular thread.

Who knows? But again, it just seems to me that every time

I look into the Catholic Answers forums, I see people who want to play at apologetics but not do apologetics.

In other words, to do apologetics means actually exposing yourself to what someone else is saying and taking on their best arguments.

And that is not what you get from the Catholic Answers forums or Catholic Answers apologists.

That's what strikes me as being so vitally important to realize. And one of the major differences between us and those who promote

Roman Catholicism, we will be back on Friday. Right now, the plan is, unless you're here otherwise, this is what we're going to do.

On Friday, we will do the program at the morning time. 11 a .m.

Mountain Standard Time, which currently is 2 p .m. Eastern Daylight Time on Friday.

So we'll still get our two dividing lines in to shift it over by one day and flip -flop by time and stuff like that.

I appreciate your allowing me to do that because of jet lag yesterday. But anyway, so we'll see you on Friday, Lord willing.

God bless. You can also find us on the world wide web at aomin .org.

That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G. Where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.