Parchment and Pen

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. Welcome to The Dividing Line quick programming note. As soon as we are done here on The Dividing Line, I would like to let you know that Sam Shamoon is going to be joining

Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron, which is 3 o 'clock Eastern Time. I was on yesterday and Sam will be on in an hour with Chris Arnzen.

So what we're going to do here is as soon as we finish up with our discussion, I will just be firing up the feed from WNYG for Iron Sharpens Iron.

And you can just keep your feed going here and you will be able to listen to that program as well.

Or, of course, you can just go over to that feed yourself if, you know, you're persnickety or something. That's OK.

But I will just fire it up on my laptop here and we'll pipe it on out to you so that a maximum number of folks can listen to Sam Shamoon on Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron today and call in with your questions and comments and so on and so forth.

Get a chance to listen to Sam. So you would think if I was discussing Islam on Iron Sharpens Iron yesterday, we've been listening to the

Shabir Ali -Mike Licona debate that we'd be continuing. But actually, though I do have it queued up, instead,

I want to talk about something that's really weighing on my heart. In 2005,

Mark Noll, who is the McManus Professor of Christian Thought at Wheaton College, published a book co -written with freelance writer

Carolyn Nystrom, published by Baker Academic and Paternoster Press concurrently, which

I find interesting. And it is titled, Is the Reformation Over? An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism.

Those of you who get the CRI Journal know that the summary review of that book, which appeared in the

CRI Journal, was written by yours truly. And it was titled, The Reformation Denied, Mark Noll's Imbalanced Portrayal of the

Protestant -Catholic Divide and the Continuing Validity of the Reformation. I would like to read major portions of that for you.

If you have not had the opportunity of reading, Is the Reformation Over? I would like to introduce it to you, make some critiques of it, and then make some application in light of current conversations taking place on a blog called

Parchment and Pen in regards to Roman Catholicism.

And I think we see here the next step in what

I can only describe as the degradation of post -evangelicalism and the continuing narrowing of the spectrum of those who recognize what the issues of the

Reformation were, why they're important, and how those aspects are applicable to our day, our time, the church today.

And the rapid influx of a worldview into post -evangelicalism that simply cannot maintain the kind of strong confessional

Christianity that freed Europe from the bondage of Rome. In fact, it's not even willing to talk about the bondage of Rome any longer at all, to be perfectly honest with you.

And that's what I would like to discuss. In reviewing

Is the Reformation Over? I gave some idea of what the book was about. I'll read that section so you'll have an idea, and then we will go into some of the discussion of it.

The book begins with a rather lengthy and at times laborious overview of elements of the past conflict between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, mainly in the

United States. While there is always a theological element given the topic, it rarely nulls emphasis.

The first two chapters go into the great divide, and chapters three and four document the changes that have taken place since Vatican II.

The fifth chapter focuses upon, of course, the 1994 Catholic Catechism, providing numerous citations from the work, while the sixth chapter provides a full discussion, including background information on the various documents produced as part of ECT, the

Evangelical and Catholics Together movement. The seventh chapter documents various kinds of responses to the new situation that has arisen since Vatican II, from, quote, antagonism, end quote, and critics,

John MacArthur, R .C. Sproul, Michael Horton, to partners, to converts. Converts mentioned by name are

Thomas Howard, Dennis Martin, Peter Kreeft, Scott and Kimberly Hahn, John Michael Talbot, Christine Franklin, and Robert Sungenis.

The eighth chapter provides an American, primarily a political -cultural assessment of changes, and the final chapter provides the answer to the question contained in the title of the book itself,

Is the Reformation Over? The answer comes from an oddly selective, very questionable reading of the Catholic Catechism, and from a document that does not carry dogmatic authority, the

Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification from 1999. You may want to go back into our archives for the responses

I gave to that at that time. Noll concludes, if it is true, I'm quoting here, quote, if it is true, as once was repeated frequently by Protestants, conscious of their anchorage in Martin Luther or John Calvin, that justification is the article in which the church stands or falls, then the

Reformation is over, end quote, page 232. Any continuing differences, this work claims, are not about Scripture, justification, the papacy,

Mary, the sacraments, or clerical celibacy, quote, but the nature of the church, end quote, page 238.

Noll goes on to claim, quote, if relatively important, relatively important theological differences still divide

Catholics and evangelicals, nonetheless, the contemporary world needs to hear more about what Catholics and evangelicals share in common than about their legitimate disagreements, end quote, page 248.

That, I would suggest to you, is the new mantra of the post -evangelical, is we got to talk about what joins us and not what divides us.

And the question then becomes, the question then becomes, throw me completely off the train there, brother.

The cruise has nothing to do with what I'm talking about right now, my friend. I'm normally good at getting notes and staying where I'm going, but that time it was just like, wahoo, just blow up the bridge and the train just fell in.

Okay, we're going to get back on here, sorry about that. By the way, what did we need to talk about the cruise?

We didn't, I was contributing to your point. So if it's over, if the dispute is over, who won?

What does that have to do with our cruise? I wasn't talking about the cruise, I was talking about your, I was following your train of thought.

Okay, I'm sorry, I'm looking at studio chat. Don't forget to mention the cruise. That was, I put that up there before we even started the program.

Just now saw it, just now saw it. See how you are, I was pointing to the chat room, I was asking the chat room. That's why, I just completely fell off the, there you go.

Right off the rails. Yep, right off the rails. Don't forget to mention the cruise. Folks, you've got a cruise coming up, it's going to be a good one, go on it.

Okay, back to what we were talking about here. So if the dispute is over, who won? Yeah, well, anyway, the work concludes by encouraging evangelicals to follow

Nathaniel's example and come and see and look at the situation as it has actually come to exist in the

Roman Catholic Church so we can be in the proper position to consider whether the Reformation is over. Those are quotes.

And so there is a clear agenda on the part of Mark Knoll in this presentation.

And now my response. Knoll's work represents a milestone in the continuing movement away from historic

Protestant belief and thought. The work is highly imbalanced in its presentations and perspectives, surprisingly so.

The reader who is familiar with historical and theological issues relating to Roman Catholicism and especially the revitalization of Roman Catholic apologetics over the past 20 years in America cannot be but shocked at the perspective

Knoll presents. No mention is made of this resurgence. Groups like Catholic Answers, men like Carl Keating, Patrick Madrid are not to be found anywhere in Knoll's work, which, given how far it encompasses land and sea to find positive references to Catholic -Protestant relations, is most notable.

The fifth chapter of Knoll's work is a glowing endorsement of and promotional advertisement for the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Extensive citations of biblically sound passages are provided. But while areas of disagreement are noted, it is the perspective of this book that things like purgatory, the mass as a perpetuatory sacrifice, and all the related theological aberrations that have been dogmatically defined by Rome over the centuries are merely ancillary issues and are not to be seen as definitional.

In fact, one can take Rome's statements on justification at face value without seeing them in light of these manifestations of Rome's fundamentally different view of grace and salvation.

The fact that there are more individual sections on indulgences in the Catechism than there are on justification might be relevant, but does not appear in this chapter.

The imbalance of the book can be seen throughout the text. Even citing men like Jack Chick, without making any reference to Chick's counterparts on the

Roman Catholic side, is highly inflammatory. Sproul and MacArthur get rough treatment. At one point, prior to a few citations of Sproul, the writers opine, but rejecting

Catholicism is not limited to Evangelicals who are paranoid or ignorant. Throughout the work,

Roman Catholics are portrayed as open -minded, deep -thinking, and literate, while Protestants, especially those who would stand firmly against Rome's teachings, are seen as barren and shallow.

Roman Catholic authors like G .K. Chesterton are presented in a very positive light, while Calvin, Edwards, Machen, or Warfield are not even mentioned.

Amazing statements such as, quote, Neophyte Evangelical Students of Church History are almost always startled to find that Christians of the early centuries were

Catholic, end quote, page 206, appear with sufficient regularity to cause the knowledgeable reader great concern.

Surely no one knows such statements fly in the face of reality. Not a single bishop at Nicaea believed what

Rome has dogmatically defined about such topics as the papacy, Mary, the Mass, purgatory, indulgences, and a host of other matters.

The litany of converts to Rome is given without even an attempt at correcting the errant assertions and falsehoods contained in the personal testimonies of those profiled.

While these stories are allowed to stand on their own, not a single example of conversion from Roman Catholicism is offered.

The authors recognize how imbalanced this is and offer an explanation, but in doing so, the real perspective of the work comes to light, quote,

Were it a different book, it would be important to hear from the many who convert from Catholicism to various branches of Protestantism, heeding the reasons why people find

Christ or see Christ more clearly in one tradition instead of the other involves questions of great importance.

But this shared love of Christ also prepares for eternity, where, at least in the hopes expressed by Peter Kreeft, evangelicals will teach

Catholics to sing and Catholics will teach evangelicals to sculpt and to dance, all in praise of God, end quote, pages 207 through 208.

Clearly, for Noll and many who think in this fashion, the Reformation is indeed over because the issues that separate

Roman Catholics and Protestants simply do not touch upon the definition of the gospel any longer. Justification has been taken care of, mainly by disconnecting it from everything else

Rome teaches on the subject. Note these words, quote, The needy of the world care little whether the

Christians before them, whether the Christian before them is evangelical or Catholic, but much whether they might encounter the love of Christ and the truth of the gospel that can redeem the soul, end quote, page 207.

Clearly, the love of Christ and the truth of the gospel can be found, from Noll's perspective, in evangelicalism or in Catholicism.

The difference is no longer defined in the gospel. Belief in purgatory, indulgences, propitiation to the mass, priestly absolution, the treasury of merit, none of these things are allowed to hold the relationship to the gospel that even

Rome insisted they bore only a hundred years ago. Finally, the normative role of scripture itself, the great doctrine of sola scriptura, which has been the true foundation of the necessary division between those who believe it and those who reject it, is in essence swept under the rug.

I quote, More specifically, such Catholics and evangelicals trust equally in the full inspiration and final authority of the

Bible. For many Catholics and evangelicals, however, it has become important to insist that continuing differences in how best to interpret scripture arise not from significant differences about the character of divine revelation in the

Bible, as such, but from different customs, habits, or principles associated with understanding and putting to use a divinely authoritative

Bible. End quote. Pages 231 to 232. Such a perspective represents the collapse of biblical authority in many

Protestant bodies. The perspicuity of scripture has been sacrificed upon the altar of ecumenical dialogue and cooperation.

Evidently, our forefathers were in error to think the word spoke with such clarity to the issues of the gospel.

In summary, Noel's work is a modern reminder that while many who are non -Catholic have lost focus upon the real issues of the

Reformation, those who are passionate for Reformed truth must remain vigilant and firm.

That is, in essence, what I wrote for the CRI Journal in response to Mark Noel's book.

Now, over on Parchment and Pen, the web blog, it's called

Parchment and Pen, a theology blog, reclaimingthemind .org slash blog, if you're looking for that.

There have been a number of articles that have appeared over the past week that are relevant to this very issue and I think represent very much the same mindset as Mark Noel.

In fact, Noel's book has been cited and cited positively in the context of these conversations.

Now, one of those who has written is a gentleman by the name of C. Michael Patton. I do not know

C. Michael Patton at all. I don't know the gentleman. I can't comment on his background or anything else.

But the other gentleman who has written, I do know well and consider to be a friend and a brother in Christ, and that is what has caused me to especially be concerned about some of the statements that I have seen here.

And that is my friend Dan Wallace of Dallas Seminary. Dan Wallace, his work on Greek grammar, his work in textual criticism, his ongoing work in New Testament manuscript photography, currently right now is working very, very hard at obtaining high -quality digital photographs of New Testament manuscripts, ancient

New Testament manuscripts, that have never been photographed before, have never been accessible before. Very important work, no question about all of these things.

But all of those other things, I would suggest to you, fundamentally exist so that we may proclaim a clear, true, perspicuous gospel to the world.

And as I preached Sunday evening, and I put the links on the blog recently, preached

Sunday evening at the Phoenix Forum Baptist Church, there is this thing called the truth of the gospel.

And the Apostle Paul was very clear in saying that they did not put up with false brothers.

These would be people who claim to be Christians, but who twisted the gospel, distorted the gospel.

We would not put up with these false brothers for even a moment, for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you.

I think maybe Galatians chapter 2 verses 5 and following is going to have to become somewhat of a watchword for those in our culture these days who are observing this rather rapid movement to say that the issues that separate us from Roman Catholics are not definitional, and that the gospel can be defined without defining the issues of justification, the finishedness of the work of Christ, purgatory, indulgences, all these things are just ancillary issues.

You can believe those things and it's okay. I think we're going to have to be looking more and more often at Galatians chapter 2 in regards to them.

Now just today, so we're nice and up to date, just today Dan Wallace posted an article on Romans chapter 3.

But then at the end he provided a paragraph and it's certainly a paragraph that expresses a sentiment that we have addressed many, many, many, many times on this program.

And I believe that it represents a sentiment that I think completely misses the point, but it's very, very common and we're going to have to respond to it again.

Let me read what Dr. Wallace said. Now the question we need to wrestle with is this, is it essential to believe that faith alone saves in order to be saved?

That is, is it faith in faith that saves? Or is it rather that we must embrace Christ alone as our

Savior to be saved? I take it that the latter is the truth. I do believe that faith alone saves us, but whether one consciously holds the soul of Fideh is a different matter.

If we put our faith in Christ and understand that he is the God, man was able to offer the perfect sacrifice for our sins, and that God has raised him from the dead, we can be saved.

I believe that Paul's gospel is the clearest articulation of salvation in terms of God's justice, but it is not the only way to explain the gospel.

Most of the other New Testament writers did not speak of it in the same way. Did they understand it the same way as Paul did? That's difficult to tell.

Paul puts an emphasis on the legal issue of our standing before God as judge. James, Matthew, Peter, etc. focus on our organic connection to Christ.

Both of these are right and they are compatible with one another, but some Christian groups emphasize one to the neglect of the other. Hence confusion, accusations of anathema, and division of the result.

How do we balance these two views of salvation? Or to put it more bluntly, where is grace in our discussion of grace?

Well, allow me to respond to these statements. It has often been said that those who insist that soul of Fideh is definition of the gospel are saying that instead of believing in Christ, you're saying you need to believe in faith.

Faith and faith alone rather than faith in Christ. I think that there's a fundamental misunderstanding here.

And it is a distinction that I have made. I recall very clearly, even when we still were on a radio station many years ago, we followed the

Bible Answer Man broadcast on Saturdays on KPXQ. And Hank Hanegraaff's guest that time was

Norman Geisler. And Geisler, right toward the end of a program, and I remember this very clearly, had made the statement that we certainly cannot emphasize the forensic aspects of justification as being definitional or there was no one before Luther who was saved.

And he was making reference to the medieval period and things like that. Now I think he's completely wrong about that. I don't think that the medieval period or the early church period was as barren of such an understanding as he might like us to think.

But I immediately made the distinction at that time. I said there is a vast difference as we face the situation today.

The truth has been clearly proclaimed. The truth of what Paul speaks, and of course

I view the New Testament as an inspired document, inspired by one spirit, and therefore

I do not set Paul against Peter or Matthew. There is one spirit speaking through these men.

They address different aspects of the gospel, but I do not believe there is any foundation or reason whatsoever to place them in opposition to one another.

But I view the teaching of the New Testament as an organic whole and the teaching concerning justification and the means by which one is made right before God, found in Romans 3,

Romans 4, Romans 5, Galatians, Ephesians, etc., has been so clearly proclaimed in our day that it is not a matter of being ignorant of Sola Fide.

It is a matter of rejecting Sola Fide. There is a vast difference between being ignorant of the issues regarding false gospels and hence not being able to articulate a particular

Latin phrase such as Sola Fide, and there are many Christians who could not articulate the phrase

Sola Fide, and knowing what Sola Fide is and specifically, knowingly, rebelliously rejecting

Sola Fide. This is a distinction that is lost on most people today, because they want to say, well, you're saying that every person has to have a perfect profession of faith like you claim to have a perfect profession of faith to be saved, and anyone who has heard me, for example, responding to Hyper -Calvinists and attacking them for making perfection of theological confession the means of salvation knows that's not what

I'm saying. But at the same time, no one can tell me that the

Roman Catholic Church, from the time of Trent onwards, has not fully and completely known exactly what it is we are saying, exactly what it is we're saying

Paul was saying, and that they have and continue to reject that. Now, point me to the 1999 document all you want.

It's not dogmatic, A, and believe me, I've done enough debates with Roman Catholics to know that they don't appreciate it when you use non -dogmatic sources to try to find their faith, which is going to be another issue that's going to be coming up here.

It's not dogmatic, A. B, it doesn't actually say anything, because one of the things that's truly troubling to me, but it shouldn't be, it's not that it's all that new, but it's troubling to me to see people doing this who should know different, should know better, saying, oh, we all believe in salvation by grace alone through faith.

That's what ECT said. That's what the 1999 document says. But everybody knows that by utilizing that formulation and just skipping the discussion of the word alone in Sola Fide, you aren't answering any questions.

There's tons and tons and tons and tons of books and arguments and debates sitting there about what that means, and by just closing your eyes and going, eh, not going to worry about that, you're not answering any of the questions.

And to say we agree on something that says nothing is to say nothing. It accomplishes nothing.

And if you try to apply that, if you actually try to get cooperation going, the application is going to demonstrate you don't believe the same things, and this alleged unity and harmony doesn't exist.

If you can't apply your gospel, if your gospel is so vanilla, so stripped down to the bare essentials that you can try to create some unity, you can't apply that in real life situations.

You can't apply that in the construction of the church and the building up of the saints and the proclamations of the word.

You can't do it. It's just not possible. That's why the New Testament isn't one page long. There's a reason why there's enough of it there that these things are fleshed out.

So saying we believe by grace alone through faith, what does that matter?

That's not accomplishing anything. And honestly, I don't think that shows much respect for either side. And none of this shows much respect for those who've come before us.

To be honest with you, liberal Catholics, and let's put it, let's say Protestants who are moving away from their conservative

Protestant heritage, basically have the view that people up until this century were just a bunch of narrow -minded dogmatists who didn't really think these things through very far.

They did think these things through. That's the problem. They well knew what the ramifications were, and I don't think you're respecting the popes since Trent, those who produced, for example, the catechism of the

Council of Trent. You're just basically having to sort of laugh those folks off at the clarity of their dogmatic definitions and their insistence that, hey, you know what?

If you're going to define what I believe, at least do it on the basis of what I've officially said reflects my faith. Now, all this goes back to another issue we'll get to in a few moments if I get enough time to get to it today, and that is the assertion that's being made.

I'll go ahead and read it here just so you can hear what's being said. Dr. Wallace also said these words.

He said, quote, Again, I continue to be misunderstood about a fundamental point, something

I've underscored over and over again. Quote, and listen to this, Just as an evangelical is not defined by majority opinion about what evangelicals believe, a

Catholic is not defined by official pronouncements about what Catholics believe. End quote. Now, I, you know, first of all, the statement is not balanced in the sense that on the one side it has majority opinion, on the other side it has dogmatic pronouncements.

Those are not the same things. I would say that I, as an elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, am defined by what my church confessionally states we believe.

And if I stop believing that, that means I'm no longer a Reformed Baptist. If you're a

Reformed Baptist who denies the imputed righteousness of Christ, denies election, and denies eternal punishment, that person, while he has the political freedom to call himself whatever he wants to, is dishonest.

He's not a Reformed Baptist. That phrase is definable. There are documents that define what a

Reformed Baptist is or isn't. That's why there are folks who, since they don't buy into everything that the confession says, don't call themselves that.

They'll call themselves Sovereign Grace Baptists or whatever, but they're just being honest that this is the historical definition and I don't agree there, and so I'm going to use a different term.

Fine. Wonderful. And I'm standing shoulder to shoulder here with John Paul II, who, when he came to the

United States in the mid -1980s, and I know this because I was standing outside where he was going to be doing

Mass at Sun Devil Stadium, passing out tracts to the many people who were standing there waiting to go in.

When he went to Los Angeles, he preached against cafeteria -style

Catholicism, where people pick and choose what they will and will not believe.

And so I'm just standing with him, okay? You know, Rome has never been shy, at least not in the last century, in saying what she believes and in documenting what she believes.

Okay? So, anyway, I think you can determine what

Catholicism teaches, and while there are many, many, many, many, many, many, many in Western culture who no longer believe what

Catholicism teaches, who still call themselves Catholics, that majority, even if it is in the

United States, a majority viewpoint, that's not what defines Roman Catholicism. If you're into a Roman Catholic who says, hey,

I believe in soul -defeating, and I don't believe in the Mass as a perpetuatory sacrifice, okay, deal with him where he is, but don't make that representative

Roman Catholicism, because it's not Roman Catholicism. And I know many a

Roman Catholic who would agree with exactly what I'm saying.

Every Roman Catholic I've ever debated would agree with exactly what I just said. No question about it.

Well, going back to the first one, we don't believe that it is faith in faith that saves, but we believe that a person who, knowing what sola fide is and who rejects it, that's where the definitional necessary aspect comes in.

Yes, when I was saved, I didn't know what sola fide meant. I didn't know anything about purgatory indulgences or Masses or anything like that, so I'm not in any way, shape, or form jumping onto the rationalistic, hyper -Calvinistic bandwagon here.

And I have been in print for a long, long time that I believe that there are people who, on a regular basis, walk through the door of the

Roman Catholic Church who are going to go to heaven. But I have always said, I have always said, you can go back to the first time

I started to address this. I have always said, if a member of the

Roman Catholic Communion is an heir of eternal life, it is in spite of the teachings of the

Church, not because of the teachings of the Church. If there is a little

Guatemalan grandma who just believes Jesus can save her and that she needs to be saved and that she doesn't need anybody else to save her, well, then she's going to be saved.

And all she may know is priests and Catholicism, never seen a missionary or anything else, and God's Spirit can get all that stuff out of the way and give her a pure faith in Jesus.

Now, of course, if someone comes along and she's exposed to the truth, I think if she's truly regenerate, she's going to respond to that truth, but I can't guarantee that's always going to happen.

So the point is, I'm not saying the name over the door is what determines whether you go to heaven or not. It's the

Gospel that determines that. And yes, there can be a very simple understanding of the Gospel that can be believed.

But the problem is the Bible tells us plainly there are false

Gospels. And when we go to Galatians, we find that these men, they taught you you had to have faith in Jesus.

I see no evidence to believe that there is... Paul doesn't raise any other issue with them other than they added one thing to faith.

That's the only thing he raises. That's the only basis upon which he anathematizes their

Gospel. And if you can seriously read what

Rome says about transubstantiation and the mass, perpetuatory sacrifices, the concept of indulgences and purgatory and the treasury of merit, if you can seriously read all that stuff and go, oh, that's not nearly as bad as what the

Judaizers did, then I don't know which planet you're on. I really don't, because it's very clear to me that Rome has gone much farther, much farther out than the

Judaizers ever dreamed of going. And therefore, Paul warned about false

Gospels. You can't just boil the Gospel down to a bare -bones core and say, well, it doesn't matter what else you pile on top of that.

Where do we get that from the New Testament? Not from our cultural desire for unity and all that.

Where do you get that from the apostolic presentation? You don't get it from Paul. You don't get it from John.

You don't get it from Peter. You don't get it from Luke. Where does it come from? That's what

I want to know. Where does that come from? So, it continues on.

There seems to be, in this statement, I believe that Paul's Gospel is the clearest articulation of salvation in terms of God's justice, but it's not the only way to explain the

Gospel. In terms of God's justice, how about mercy, grace, purposes, eternal decrees, the whole nine yards?

I mean, Paul's explication of the Gospel is the longest, fullest, didactic discussion of the subject in all the

New Testament. And so, when the question is asked, did they understand it the same way as Paul did?

If by asking that question, we are asking the question, did all the apostles believe that the

Gospel had been revealed with clarity, could be defined, and was believed by all of them?

Yes, no question. No question at all. If what you're asking is, does each of the apostles in the epistles that we have today put the same emphasis on the same aspects of the

Gospel in their particular audiences, well, obviously not, because they're not addressing the same audiences, the same issues, the same problems.

John puts more of an emphasis, for example, on a concern about Christological aspects and false Christs in the sense of Gnosticism, Gnosticism, early forms of that.

And Paul's not addressing that, though he'll get fairly close to that in Colossians. So, but if the idea is here that they have a different understanding, they actually have a different emphasis, so much so that they're a little bit more like the

Orthodox, or they're a little bit more like the Catholics, and that's the same situation we're in today, and that this is reflected in the

New Testament, I could not agree less. I could not disagree more with that. So, the final line is, or to put it more bluntly, where is grace in our discussion of grace?

It seems to me that the assertion is that if you insist that you need to interpret

Trent in the light of what the people who wrote the documents then interpreted them to mean in context historically, and if you insist that you need to be consistent with the stream of historical theology of the

Roman Catholic Magisterium, and you need to allow dogmatic statements to be first and foremost a definition of Roman Catholicism rather than any particular individual

Roman Catholic, even a Pope, let alone just a non -clergyman in some place who just comes up with an idea of what

Rome is, it seems that if you insist on all those things, and if you insist from the non -Catholic side that the

Bible must be made normative, you defend Sola Scriptura, if you engage in apologetics as a whole, you're not gracious.

You're not gracious. The idea is, and we hear this all the time in our society, that if you believe in absolutes, and you import those into this area, then you're being narrow -minded, unkind, and ungracious.

I of course reject any idea that to address these issues and to address them firmly and fully and passionately is to lack grace.

I don't believe we show love for God, His Word, His Church, our fellow believers, and those that we believe to be lost by engaging in either compromise, muddled thinking, or inconsistency.

That is not the way that you show God's grace.

So, I hope that's not what's being suggested, but if it is, I disagree.

I disagree firmly, and I've already explained why I disagree with the other statement that an evangelical is not defined by majority opinion.

No, an evangelical is defined by the historical doctrines of evangelicalism which can no longer really be defined, sadly. That's why

I have said I don't really consider myself an evangelical in that sense anymore, because if T .D. Jakes is an evangelical and Joel Osteen is an evangelical and Pat Robertson is an evangelical, what does the term mean?

It has no more definitional value than saying we are all human. What does it mean?

The evangelical movement had been defined by the evangel, and it is ironic that it is just here the evangel is being said.

We don't know what it means. We can't define it so clearly anymore that we can't tell the difference between what

Rome teaches and Eastern Orthodox teaches and any of the Protestant denominations teach. We just have so much in common.

Well, Paul had a whole lot in common with the Judaizers too, but I don't see a single positive reference to them.

Do you? Do you see any evidence of an ecumenical spirit with those who have a false gospel in Paul's part?

He calls them pseudo -adelphoi, false brethren who sneak in. Those are not kind words.

And many today would, oh well, someone posted some words from Jonathan Edwards, and they had to start off with a paragraph before and a paragraph after apologizing for how nasty

Jonathan Edwards is about Rome, but he still makes a good point. Okay, I understand that I'm not going to be using quite the same language that Luther did, but the fact of the matter is there's a reason to be passionate about some of these things, and Paul certainly was.

And let's face it, there are very, very few today who would use Paul's language. Why? Oh, well, our culture's changed.

Might I suggest that one of the major reasons there are few people who would use Paul's language today is not just because culture's changed, but because people no longer have the same confidence in the clarity of the revelation of the gospel that Paul did.

That's the primary reason. I'm just not going to be so dogmatic on this, because there's just been so many good men who've disagreed.

And so God's truth becomes slave to our whims and our opinions as to what good men have said.

Now, there is a there is another one here, and I think this goes to, and this is from C.

Michael Patton. This is very important, because we've addressed this subject over and over and over again, and that is solo scriptura.

If in point of fact we've been arguing about something that's not really relevant all along, I'm not sure why

I keep having debates on solo scriptura. And I wonder why it is that when you read the stories of converts to Catholicism over and over and over again, they cite solo scriptura as the mechanism that brought them to recognize the futility of non -Catholic faiths and so on.

Look, if Catholicism can be defined just any way you feel like it, and I don't want to believe in papal infallibility,

I don't want to believe in the Marian doctrines, I don't want to believe in the mass, but I'm still going to be a Roman Catholic. No, you're not. Now, if that's possible, then why even argue about issues like solo scriptura?

What does the Roman Catholic system give you if you can look at her official dogmatic statements, and then just reject them, and go, eh, don't happen to like that one.

Why convert? What does that offer you? Just, well, you know, the church is closer to my house, so I can get there faster on Sunday morning, don't have to spend as much time on this religion stuff,

I guess. I don't know, but I haven't been able to figure that out. But C. Michael Patton, utilizing, it seems to me, he certainly talks a lot about Scott Hahn, he's obviously been exposed to Scott Hahn's presentations and the like.

He, likewise, seems to have read Keith Mathison's stuff, and so he sort of takes the nuda scriptura and solo versus sola issues and things like that, puts it all together, and here's what

I read from the blog. Therefore, there are many Catholics whose view of authority can be said this way, quote, the scriptures are the final source of authority for the

Christian, but not the only authority. They contain all that is necessary for salvation. Let's compare this to the historic

Protestant understanding described above, quote, the scriptures are the final and only infallible source of authority for the

Christian, but not the only authority. They contain all that is necessary for salvation. So you'll notice that the two representations have been made to be as similar and close as possible.

The only difference being only infallible source of authority in the

Protestant version is not found in the Roman Catholic version. Now, I don't have any problem with the

Protestant version. It's very similar to what I've presented myself, because I have discussed the role of secondary authorities, confessions of faith, whatever they might be, that are always under the authority of scripture, because it is

Theanostas, it is God -breathed. I recognize there are many

Catholics that wouldn't mind the Catholic definition given here, but let's face it, I don't know that I've ever debated a

Catholic who could have functioned with this definition. That is, the scriptures are the final source of authority of the

Christian, but not the only authority that contain all that is necessary for salvation. That sounds real great, but there's one major, major, major, major problem, and that is it completely ignores all of Roman Catholic history and dogma.

Why do I say that? Simple. The Roman Catholic Church claims to define what is and what is not scripture.

The Roman Catholic Church claims to define what is and what is not tradition. And so, the

Roman Catholic Church, then, let's ask a simple question. If the scriptures are the final source of authority of the

Christian, but not the only authority, and what follows is that anything you teach must be able to be established by the final authority, which is the scriptures, all of Rome's most recently dogmatized beliefs would evaporate for lack of foundation.

In fact, the very things that define the Roman Catholic Church over against anyone else, all would become matters of mere taste.

I mean, what have been the last things that have been defined dogmatically by the Church? Marian dogmas, such as the

Immaculate Conception, the Bodily Assumption of Mary, papal infallibility itself at Vatican I.

Now, is someone going to seriously suggest, would these Protestants seriously suggest that these concepts can be demonstrated to be a part of the apostolic teaching found in the pages of the

New Testament, or the scriptures as a whole? Well, certainly we've seen some of the attempts that have been made by Roman Catholics to establish some kind of a scriptural basis, but they are all, at best, the most amazing leaps.

You know, well, there's a parallel here, and while you've got Solomon and his mother, and the

Queen Mother, and the throne, and just, you know, trying to find parallels to Caleb.

Just listen to Gerry Matitix. We've done this many times in the program before. Listen to it. You can't establish these things based upon this concept of authority.

So to try, it seems to me, and I've said this about Scott Hahn, and he goes on to say, he refers to Scott Hahn and his prima scriptura perspective and things like that.

I've said many times, there are Catholic apologists, and now we have our evangelical non -apologist, or whatever, and their idea is to bend

Rome as far our direction as they can, and then bend our views as far toward Rome as they can, so the distance you have to leap becomes much smaller.

But never miss this point. They still want you to make the leap.

Now, why is that? I mean, if we're really that close, then why do you want to make the leap at all?

Why does Mark Knoll only talk about the people who've jumped one direction, only emphasize them, only praise them as these clear -thinking, brave individuals?

Why not those who go the other direction? There are a lot of them, you know. Yesterday was the birthday of one from about 500 years ago.

It made a big impact on things, but people still continue to go the other direction as well. Why not address them?

Because there's a purpose here. There is an agenda here. And I would suggest to you, when it says...

Now, he concludes here. Let me make sure that we get the whole idea here. He says,

If this is the case, then Protestants and Catholics are much more alike in their view of authority than most realize. Can Catholics affirm

Sola Scriptura? No. But they can affirm Prima Scriptura with material sufficiency.

Does this mean that if a Catholic does not affirm Prima Scriptura with material sufficiency, that I think they are bound for the flames? No. Even these affirm the authority and inspiration of Scripture.

Well, the problem is, what do they do with that? By rejecting Sola Scriptura.

And by elevating non -inspired authorities to a position equal to, and I would argue, greater than that of Scripture themselves, that's where you get the foundation of teaching people that they can approach the sacrifice of Jesus Christ 20 ,000 times in their lives and die impure.

Folks, these are all connected. And it's frustrating to me to raise these issues and to say, well, you are aware of purgatory.

Ah, you know, that indulgence stuff, that's not really relevant anymore.

This came up as well. I even commented in one of these threads. And I said, look, folks, I have the catechism of the

Catholic Church here in my hand. You go to these sections and they're pretty straightforward, starting section 1471 under indulgences.

And indulgences are remission before God, the temple of punishment due to sins, whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed, gains under certain prescribed conditions to the actions of the

Church, which is the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.

And it goes on to talk about the treasury of merit and all these other things.

And this is the doctrine of indulgences. The thesaurus meritorum, the treasury of merit, and satisfatio, the suffering of atonement and purgatory, and all these things.

And it's right here in the Catholic catechism. And I've got people saying, well, you know, but I talked to a

Catholic who said, no one really cares about that anymore. Um, okay.

So, does that mean that if you talk to a member of my church, and for some odd reason they tell you that they don't really care about election anymore, that that's representational of what my church actually teaches?

Well, of course not! That's a personal, private opinion which happens to be contradictory to the official, stated beliefs of the church, of the

Roman Catholic Church, in the case of indulgences. It's not that Rome has been at all, um, you know, confused here.

I want to read just a couple more things here. I know I've never even given out the number today because I wanted to get through this stuff, but, um,

I suppose we do have a little time. 877 -753 -3341. Council of Florence. It has been said, you know, you have to allow modern

Rome. In fact, I do need to get into this, so I might not be able to get to a phone call even if we get one. I recognize that there is a massive crisis, epistemologically speaking, in Rome today.

That's why, even though I don't respect him as a debater because he's a dirty debater and he uses bad arguments,

I at least respect Gerry Matitix for being consistent. You see, what converted

Gerry Matitix was a collapse of his faith in Sola Scriptura, which was replaced by an ultimate overriding presuppositional belief in the necessity of a continuing revelation via apostolic succession in the bishops of the

Church. And that continuing presuppositional nature of thinking in Gerry Matitix's mind has driven him out of Rome.

He is now a sede -vacantist. He does not believe that there is a valid pope. That's what sede -vacantism is.

Sede -seat -vacantism, there is no obviously vacancy. That has driven him out of Rome.

Why? Because it is plain to see that the majority of the curia, the liberals that came out of Germany, especially in the 1940s and 50s, and who greatly impacted

Vatican II, that the viewpoint that they hold, and certainly if you were to look at most priests in the

United States, if you were to get an honest summary of most priests in the United States, they no longer believe what

Rome has taught concerning such things as eternal punishment or hell. They've become at least inclusivists, and certainly

Vatican II gave the basis for that. Look what it says about Islam. But they've at least become inclusivists, if not universalists.

And there is no question that that is not the historic teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. The Council of Florence, Denzinger, 694, we likewise define that the

Holy Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold the primacy throughout the entire world, and that the Roman Pontiff himself is the successor of Blessed Peter, the chief of the apostles, and the true vicar of Christ, and he is the head of the entire church, and the father and teacher of all

Christians, and that full power was given to him and to Blessed Peter by our Lord Jesus Christ to feed, rule, and govern the universal church, just as it is contained in the

Acts of the Ecumenical Councils and in the Sacred Canons. Now, of course, I would point out Canon 6 of Nicaea, which contradicts that, but anyway, and that then leads that ultimate authority, the authority claims of Rome, an infallible church.

I mean, if these Roman Catholics want to throw out infallibility, fine. They need to start debating the people who still believe in it, because that's been a historical position.

But then Denzinger, 714, also Council of Florence, says, it firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the

Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, hello, that's us, cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart into everlasting fire, which we prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock, and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the church of benefit for salvation, and do fastings, almsgivings, and other functions of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the

Catholic Church. Now, folks, I'm sorry, but words have meaning, and we know what the Council of Florence meant.

We know what they meant. We can go back, and we can see how these words were interpreted by the people who wrote them, how they were applied at that time.

How did Rome apply those things over the next 300 years? Can you say Inquisition?

Can you say that? Can we allow history to... At least that proves one thing. That's how they interpreted these words.

Now, I feel for modern Roman Catholic apologists who have to somehow create a bridge between that exclusivism and the inclusivism of the majority of modern

American priests. It can't be done. That's why

I say Matityx is at least consistent, because he recognizes words have meaning.

This is what was taught. It's changed. Therefore, if it's changed, if this was true back then, and now it's changed, well, guess what?

The modern can't be right. And so we have to adopt a view of truth that just becomes goo in our hands if we don't recognize these issues.

We have to allow Rome to define Rome's own position, Rome's own teachings, and I fully recognize that there are many

American Catholics who are not Orthodox Roman Catholics and yet are still, and there's priests and bishops to boot.

Rome doesn't do church discipline much anymore. I recognize that. No question about it.

Some might say, well, what if Rome's changing? We should embrace the change. When Cardinal Ratzinger, when

Benedict XVI stands on his balcony there at St.

Peter's, there at the Vatican, and he says plainly,

I, as the bishop of Rome, disavow on the part of the

Roman Catholic Church any claims to infallibility, and I submit all of my teachings to the ultimate authority solely of the

Word of God, then I'll start listening. Then I'll go, now something's changed.

But as long as Rome continues to claim to be infallible, even while wiggling around, well, we're sorry about what we did, but notice there was never anything, even what

John Paul said, that what we did represents false teaching, that we have taught improperly in the past.

Never said that. Once you reject papal infallibility and the infallibility of the

Church as a whole, and subject yourself to the Word of God, fine! Great!

Wonderful! Now we can start talking. But as long as that claim of infallibility stands without compromise, as long as the dogmas that have arisen because of that claim to authority, in violation of sola scriptura, continue to be taught and practiced by the

Church, then we really haven't gotten anywhere other than the people who used to be very clear in pointing these things out, aren't very clear in pointing these things out anymore, because they don't really think they need to.

It's one of the reasons I posted that little quote from Spurgeon. I bet you that caught a lot of people by surprise. Ooh, that was barely, that was barely 130 years ago.

Wow! He's talking about praying that potpourri would not be spread around the world.

Ooh, that's so unloving. Ooh, he was harsh. You know how many lives have been destroyed by a false gospel?

I really, really wonder how much of this is the result of an influx of a postmodern way of thinking.

I know that functionally it comes out because of what happens when evangelicals who are evangelicals by tradition and not by historical conviction, in other words, evangelicals who've been raised in the evangelical church, they've never had any interest in where it came from, they don't know anything about church history, church history goes back 50 years, starts with Billy Graham, that's just all there is to it.

I understand how it is that if you're not non - Catholic by conviction, that is you know what the issues are, you know what

Rome teaches, and you go no way. I'm not going to blaspheme the cross of Christ by making it something that's represented on an altar.

I'm not going to respect this priesthood where these people claim to be an alter

Christus, another Christ. I'm not going to respect this stuff knowingly because it contradicts what the word of God says here.

I understand how those who've never done that, they've just, you know, Catholicism is sort of weird, they wear funny clothes, and there's the Pope dude, and I've just been taught not to worry about those guys.

I can understand how they get out in the world and they start rubbing shoulders with knowledgeable, nice, kind Roman Catholics, but all of a sudden it's like, whoa, wow,

I really like this guy, I'd like to be able to say that we're brother and sister in Christ, and so, does this stuff really matter?

Does this justification thing really matter? Does it really matter if somebody believes that you know, when the priest says hocus corpus meum in Latin that Jesus is, there's this thing called transubstantiation and all this

Aristotelian philosophy and all the rest of the stuff takes place, and this is a perpetuatory sacrifice, and that's why there's this light on in front of this tabernacle and they bow down before it because God's actually physically there, does that really matter?

Well, if Christian truth is not organic, if Christian truth is just a scattergun stuff where you can have a little bit over here, nah, guess not, you can sort of forget that, but as I was just reading from the

Council of Florence, these things are all connected to one another, you can't separate them out, it's not possible, and any unity that you create, it's a phantom, it doesn't exist, you can't apply it in real life, just can't be done.

So, I've said my piece, well, for now, those are the things I've been wanting to say for a few days, but putting them in print takes a long, long, long, long, long, long time, and so I decided to take the program today to do it, and we'll link to it, and hope that get some people thinking, get some people talking, because it seems right now at least the perspective that I present is not very popular, not very popular at all, and that's sad to me, but that's the way it is.

Don't forget, as soon as you hear the last bit of our program today, you are going to probably hear a brief silence, and then

I'm going to fire up WNYG and Iron Sharpens Iron, because in about three minutes

Sam Shamoon will be joining Chris Arnzen discussing Islam, and so we're going to echo that feed so that those of you who are listening right now, you can just keep it right where it is, and you'll be able to listen to that for the next hour.

We appreciate you listening, and of course, I imagine there's probably going to be some comments about what I had to say today. We'll be taking those comments on Thursday on The Dividing Line, a regular time.

We'll see you then. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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