Roman Catholicism, Phone Calls, and Norman Geisler

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 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll-free across the United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five three Three three four one and now with today's topic.

Here is James White.

Opening Comments, Harold Camping, and Blog Interaction

And good afternoon. Welcome to the dividing line on a Thursday afternoon. Don't forget next week Tuesday and Wednesday. Iron sharpens iron. I'll be on with Harold camping. Yes, indeed, it's gonna be interesting.

I've Just looking at his book on how the end is near and trying to figure out his mechanism for coming to The conclusion that the world's gonna well judgment comes on May 21st, 2011 and And Again if you've seen a that, you know 88 reasons in 1988 and all the rest that kind of stuff you've seen this kind of stuff before, you know mathematical equations and Somehow he comes up with 23 years Times 300 and this is really funny because it's 23 years times 365 plus leap years.

World would have thought that way but hey from his perspective doesn't matter because God's only now opening our eyes to understand all the stuff. Anyway, see it's this new revelation. It's it's literally in the same level of Gail Rippling er, you know Why did you call that new new American Standard? Version instead of Bible.

Well because that's what God calls it. You can't argue with that. You know ones when someone has direct revelation You know There you go. Not much you can you can do about that. I Was looking at a comment Left on an article I I had taken the time to respond to a gentleman who Know why isn't Firefox opening a new a new thing.

It doesn't want to open a new tab using ctrl-t. I'm not sure why but it wants to know it just once in a while. It just decides that it's just simply I'm not going to do that anymore I've done that for you too many times and I'm just not gonna do it anymore.

And that's Anyway, I commented on a fellow by name of dev man J st. Joseph's Vanguard and our ladies train is the is the blog rich is completely lost about that but it's a Roman Catholic thing just just get used to it and I noticed as soon as I clicked on it again this morning.

There's a new addition to it since I linked to it it says Welcome visitors from James White's blog, please Feel free to comment on this or any other post or ever I ask that you keep your comments respectful and charitable.

Also note that you do not need to be registered to comment. But the first time you comment the blog will hold your comment in moderation till I approve it. Subsequent comments are posted immediately. Thank you and God bless so I'm sort of wondering I Had seen someplace before what had shown how many times it had been viewed and I I didn't See that any anymore, and I I thought that that might be Useful and interesting to to see that but it's not coming up for some reason.

I'm not sure why Because I have a feeling it's probably picked up a few readers, but anyway a David Bamber BAM BER left comment on After I left a comment and I left comment just linking to my blog. And I wanted to read it and respond to it here on the program and then maybe post the video of this and we'll go To our calls and then I want to get back to the Norm Geisler sermon.

We haven't been at Since I was in where was I again back east someplace? Back in New Jersey was the last time we tried to do this. So it's been a little while. Here's what he says. The problem is thus with mr. White.

He acts as though if any Catholic fails to engage with him properly or if he defeats any person debate. That means Rome's position is somehow wrong. Being a good debater which undoubtedly white is doesn't equal truth.

Well. Okay. But isn't the fact that we consistently See the same problems no matter who we're debating. Isn't that what sort of communicates what the real problem is? Isn't the fact that we've tried to get the best people we can to debate and any more can't get anybody to debate basically.

Doesn't that also say something? Why is it a problem with me when on the other side? I've heard lots of Roman Catholics claim that their guys have won and that proves that we're wrong. So when Rome wins Whenever that was I don't know look that moment.

But when Rome wins then Rome is right, but when Rome loses Rome isn't wrong. I've seen people reasoning this way before that that we're right and Even if we lose the debate, we're still right because the debate doesn't actually impact whether we're right.

Even though when we win that proves that we are right because we're right. Okay. Then it says I mean it is not as if Protestant apologists are regularly beating Catholics and moderated debates. Well exactly how many moderated debates are taking place these days.

I Mean I've you know been asking Tim Staples and you know Scott Hans had a standing challenge for I don't know how long as has Carl Keating and Jimmy Akin and la la la la la la we keep trying but so Who who do you think are regularly getting beat up on?

I mean are you talking about, you know, some little thing where some You know pastor someplace decides to do something silly and take on gerrymatitics or something. Well, you probably wouldn't consider gerrymatics Catholic anymore.

But anyway, I'm not sure what that means he goes on to say Let's see here in fairness white has won a lot of his a lot a lot of his against Catholics. Apart from his ones with St. Genes and Madrid in my opinion now we have recently reviewed Both of the Patrick Madrid debates and I think the listening audience can sort of judge from that.

I posted links I put two of the interactions with mrs. genis on this particular blog article that he that I mentioned and I Actually queued one up here. I don't know if I'm gonna go to it, but I I do have this I'm gonna play this we haven't ever gone through this but After we had the mass debate and you can see just how nasty st. Genes was during that debate it was just it was ugly.

We tried as best we could to sort of sign a peace agreement to to say, you know, that was extremely unpleasant and so let's let's try it. Let's try to be nicer next time and. And so when we debated justification it was somewhat nicer.

But I just want to play one just one question from the cross-examination period. Between myself and st. Genes now, I wasn't aware that the sound was so bad at this point. Evidently, we had sound problems his microphone or something during the cross-examination.

I don't know because it sounds muffled to me. But I asked him a question. Regarding what it means to be a son of God and this is where st. Genes in that debate now I also yesterday put on the blog a place where st. Genes criticizes Pacwa and Han and others and their views of justification and This is another one of those areas where it seems that he holds views that are very different than other people do.

I thought Rome was supposed to be so unified because they don't have sola scriptura, you know. We just keep pointing out that you know, everybody who says solo scriptura is a blueprint for anarchy might you know, notice that.

All the disagreement on their side Would necessarily have an argument to it, but be that as it may. Let's just play this one section and Listen to this question. I only get to ask the question have 60 seconds to respond but listen to what he says about what it means to be a son of God and That a son of God can go to hell.

Here's here's from the justification debate one of those that this fellow thinks that I lost In light of the Roman Catholic position that you can be justified lose your justification become Rejustified and in light of one of the statements you made right toward the end of your little closing statement where we are in a gracious Relationship with God as a son is with a father.

How can the commission of mortal sin and then the sacrament of penance cause a person to be a son not be a son be? A son.

And in verse 2 of Psalm 32 is one in whom no peace this is the quality of righteousness that God is looking for in a person and that is infused by God's grace. It's not because of David's own righteousness although David himself says and after he has God's grace and does his works and he claims that it's his righteousness because he's been cooperating with God's grace.

So the same thing I want to zero in on is when David says take not thy Holy Spirit from me and that's that we don't want to happen. But that's what happens when we give people sin. Alright. Dr. White you have one minute to rebut.

I don't believe the Bible teaches anywhere that a person who is a son of God who has been sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise would ever find himself in the pits of hell. A person who may have once claimed to be a son of God might indeed be there but the fact of the matter is those that Jesus sends into eternal punishment.

He says depart from me for I never knew you. Not I knew you once and I don't know you any longer. Not I knew you but you haven't remained faithful to me. The statement the Lord Jesus makes is depart from me for I never knew you.

The Spirit of God testifies to our spirits that we are the sons of God and if we are sons then we are joint heirs and the Spirit is the down payment that is placed upon us. And God is the one who promises that he will redeem his own possession.

We again see the difference between seeing salvation as something that God does by his power or the cooperative effort of two different people. I would just invite folks to look at our bookstore number 491 is the mp3 of that particular encounter and listen for yourself.

Yes sir. Yeah. I think as I recall.

I remember editing that debate and it became very frustrating because I think there was some microphones that the videographer was using that he had closed circuit and he had them next to the room. Microphones.

And next thing you know between Chris and Andy Anderson you and Robert St. Genes people start grabbing microphones and moving them around from table to table and next thing you know St. Genes didn't have a mic for the camera so what was happening was you had an open mic for the camera and so did Andy Anderson but St. Genes' mic is now going over the PA system and bouncing right back in through yours and that's why that got so messed up.

Well that happens at times but anyway I think folks would find that to be an interesting exchange. It was considerably nicer than the mass debate was. But anyway he goes on let's see. White is also careful at always setting the parameters in any discussion, in any dialogue with him so he can convince his minions of followers.

Minions of followers now I thought you could have minions or you could have followers but I didn't know you could have minions of followers that he somehow always is gentlemanly in debate and the other person can't answer his question.

Now how exactly would I do that? I don't know what a minion is. I don't know how I get minions and things like that. I'm not looking for followers either. But how do I. Is that somehow part of the thesis of the debate?

I set up these crazy subjects so that I can always pull this off or something. I'm sorry that's a little bit silly. He doesn't allow any comments to be posted on his webpage. He deleted the comments people put on his YouTube videos and then blocked them off completely.

And only engages people on his radio show. Yes that is exactly right. I do not waste my time producing internet ignorance aggregators. I make myself very very available to folks. No one is more available than I am.

So I find this constant repeated argument utterly fallacious and indicative of a person who has no meaningful argument to make. He then requests people ring him there. And if they don't then somehow they're hiding in fear.

Well if you've got some evidence that I'm somehow wrong about something why not? Everybody listened to an hour long discussion I had with Matthew Bellisario on the papacy just a couple weeks ago and I imagine that drove some people absolutely nuts because they know that while they could hide behind their keyboards and make snide comments on blogs and waste my time having to try to moderate those things they will never call this program toll free because they know their argument cannot hold water.

This is all there is to it. The internet creates a tremendous amount of very brave people who don't have any reason to be brave. So again yeah I think that's great. He says the fact is Christ never set up James White to be the protector of the deposit of faith.

Well he didn't set up any guy in Rome to do that either. Nor did he say. Well if someone beats you in debate or provides better arguments on their radio show you will know the truth of the gospel. No.

Christ promised to guide his apostles and their successors into all truth. Where did that successors part come from. I thought it said something about the apostles which James White is a reformed baptist and a separated brethren is certainly not part of.

James White has been given ample opportunities to express his views with Catholics over the years and it's about time that he encouraged his fellow reformed friends using his line of argumentation to come out of hiding also.

So we can't get any Roman Catholics to debate. But they want to debate somebody other than me. I wonder why that might be if I'm so bad. You know I keep bringing this up. You know Patrick Madrid thinks he's 2 -0.

Why not. You know he's still a mainline Orthodox Roman Catholic. Two of the people that I have debated many times aren't even mainline Orthodox Roman Catholics anymore. They're way off of center and so it would be great to do some more debates.

But we keep trying to get these folks to do radio programs and things like that and they're just not really interested. So he goes on to say I mean why have David King, William Webster, John MacArthur and R .C. Sproul and other reformed apologists refused to engage in moderated debate with Catholic apologists over the years.

Using your line of argumentation again is because Calvinist sophistry would be exposed. Mr. White. Why aren't the reformed people that are listed above engaging Catholics in live debate. Can you please answer the question engaging who?

We can't get anybody to debate. It's not like they're standing out there in line going. Oh well but we just don't want to debate James White. We'll debate somebody else. Who do you want them to debate.

And why would they only debate those folks and not me. Are you saying that these folks have better arguments than I do. Don't you want to debate the people who have the most experience. I mean let's face it I've debated John Dominic Crossan and Bart Ehrman and Shabbir Ali and Zulfikar Ali Shah.

I've got a little experience in this debating stuff and it's not just with Roman Catholics. So I don't see a parallel here. Because aren't the people that I want to challenge actually called apologists.

And this is what they do for a living. So why would apologists who do apologetics for a living. Why wouldn't they do debates when I've proven that I can do them and do them in a scholarly, fair, moderated, serious fashion.

And that can't even be questioned by anyone with even a semblance of fairness. So why would somebody else who they don't even do apologetics full time. Why would they need to do that. I mean R .C. Sproul is the head of Ligonier Ministries.

He hardly ever does any debates. John MacArthur doesn't believe in doing debates. Just doesn't believe it's the proper thing to do. You notice I've never done a debate there. He doesn't believe you should do it.

I disagree but fine that's his position. So I don't see a parallel there, do you? I don't. So anyways so there you go. There's a comment that was left there. I found it rather interesting and I wanted to record this and I'll try to find the time to put it up on YouTube.

So this gentleman has a response to his questions let's grab a phone call here real quick. There is a toll-free phone number at 877 -753 -3341 877 -753 -3341. Let's talk with Rob. Hi Rob, how are you doing?

Hey Dr. White, how are you doing this evening? Doing good.

Good, glad to hear it just before I get started. I mentioned I really enjoy camping and I think that's really going to help a lot of people for when they and some other, you know.

Then everything changed went downhill, yeah a little bit but I wanted to mention and I don't know if you know a couple things maybe this might help you in your debate but I remember back.

Oh, was he? Yes, actually that was actually his fallback that he said well, he said like, oh, you know 99 .9 and that apparently what he's saying now and also he also, I don't know if this but now he teaches he teaches annihilationism.

Yes, uh-huh. Are you aware of that? Yes and he also teaches that and I don't know apparently he does believe in the Trinity but.

Well, yeah, I mean there have been more than him that have said that Jesus is Michael. They don't believe that in the sense of a created angel. Even Calvin made comments along those lines but they see Michael as a Christophany in the Old Testament.

Oh, really? Because I had never heard that outside of a Watchtower context. Right, right. Well, of course the Watchtower likes to use those but those Christian scholars who in the past have said that are not making Jesus into anything like a created being that Michael the Archangel is.

But they sort of traffic on the fact that their people aren't going to look into that. But they view those as Christophanies in the Old Testament. In essence is what they do there. But yeah, I he also takes the section in Revelation the Lamb slain from the foundation of the earth and actually says that Jesus died before creation.

Oh, wow. And that the cross was just a demonstration of the suffering he had already gone through. I was just listening to this. This happened. I had not listened to Harold Camping in ages and so I listened to his July 1st radio program.

I'm not sure why I chose that. I just decided let's listen to the open forum from July 1st. I couldn't believe the amount of stuff that I got out of that. Not in the positive way but just this discussion of somehow Jesus on the cross was just representing what he had already done in eternity past which was really weird.

Yeah, yeah.

And I actually I hadn't heard it in years either and I it was a young man who called up and was saying you know there's business. Yeah, yeah. And he brought and you know and Camping got very sort of. That's the real thing.

Oh, yeah. And I just have to say this one thing in Harold Camping's defense is that you know back when I was hearing him it cured me.

Well, I have to admit that it would be difficult to listen to Harold for long periods of time. I wonder if that's how like. Maybe he gets some of his followers. Maybe like they're hypnotized or like you know.

Thank you for calling in. Well, let me tell you something. I don't. I don't want to be too mean but I listened to some people who called in. It was frightening. These people. He is their cult leader He is their.

He is their voice of God. Whatever he says it is just the final authority. I mean it makes the most the follower of Rome who is just just dying out of love for the Pope look like they are catatonic in comparison to these followers.

It's scary. It really is. I want to get into my question here. I want to get back to that. I was recently. I was so. I know you know. And. Okay and and and.

And not just a professional but a true one and and minister. And actually and you know this being John 3 3 Acts 2 30. Well I don't know that we would even have time to address all that. That's a tremendous amount of material.

But I I don't profess to actually understand much of Lutheranism. There There are a number of different Lutheran groups and I have had Lutherans profess many different things to me. I've also had Lutherans pretty much anathematize all sorts of other Lutherans.

And the fact of the matter is that Luther went through a fair amount of theological evolution. Calvinists tend to like the early Luther and not so much the later Luther. Melanchthon went away from many of the formulations that Luther came up with from both periods of his life and so you have a wide variety of things you can you can choose from shall we say.

In Luther's writings you know a lot of people point to the the bondage to the will and go. Oh this is you know this is great stuff. And at the time it was did he remain consistent with those viewpoints later on.

Well it doesn't seem like he did. But trying to figure out a consistent interpretation of Luther is one thing. Then recognizing Melanchthon's change is another thing. And then seeing the various permutations that have come with Wisconsin Synod and Missouri Synod is far beyond any of the time frames that I have to even try to keep those things straight.

So it's. I've had Lutherans you know very firmly condemn me and my Calvinism as being mere humanism and so on and so forth and affirm a.

Strong concept of baptismal regeneration while at the same time shouting sola fide and I think that's one of the things is that likewise with Anglicans there there are Anglicans who interpret the 39 articles in one way and interpret them in another way and these groups that attempt to say sola fide justification by grace through faith alone but then have these other what seem to me to be contradictions I think put themselves in a difficult spot obviously as far as being consistent goes but Luther himself had to develop this concept of infantile faith to try to hold together this idea that you're justified by faith but there's also this role of baptism and I think historically the peasants revolt in 1525 had a lot to do with what was going on at this time.

Both Luther himself had made the comment that a free church a church that you didn't just join by being born into a culture or into a society would be the only type of church that could possibly have any meaningful holiness to it and so there's all sorts of things that go into that and it's very, very complicated very, very difficult to figure out exactly where all the groups are coming from but the people that I know of who attempt to on the one hand affirm sola fide while at the same time having these types of practices generally will either go one of two ways either they will jump the one direction and in essence the justification by faith becomes sacrifice and that does become a problem or they'll go the other direction and the activity of baptism and the effect of baptism becomes significantly more symbolic than it would in a dogmatic position such as what you would find in Roman Catholicism so obviously as a convinced Reformed Baptist I think that these are important issues and I think it's one of the reasons that there is significantly less meaningful apologetic response to Rome or to these other groups from those perspectives because I think they're carrying along some real baggage but at the same time I know people who are in these groups that are on the side of the truth in the sense of affirming justification by faith and these other issues they then downplay so as to find a way in their own thinking to harmonize these things so it's you know for me it's obviously important because it does end up causing stumbling blocks but at the same time there are those you know there's inconsistencies for lots of folks.

I mean we could make the argument that the consistent Arminian would have to abandon any meaningful profession of Sola Fide as well so thankfully there are a whole lot of inconsistent Arminians too. Right.

I had one other real quick question ask you about and it was something I had seen somebody was No.

In the well well I look at the Nessie Olin text here real quick. I didn't have that up but it's in the text I'm looking at. That's not there. So Ephesians 2 8. Well yeah there is a textual variant there.

There's the majority text actually has it but it's Sinaiticus Vaticanus. Wide range of others do not have an article before the word faith so you wouldn't want to build anything major on it. But so I don't.

What were they attempting. Well what they were saying. Because well yeah it would strike me as odd. I mean I don't know what the what the application would would be. I mean for by grace you have been saved through faith.

And that not of your own doing what the Christian faith was. Not of your own doing. I mean yeah. I mean I don't know what the difference supposedly would make. I mean it wouldn't even if it read would be different.

Would it. No. Especially because the rest of the sentence it's saying it's the gift of God not as a result of works that no one may boast. So the point is to demonstrate that the faith that saves is commensurate with grace which is the same thing we have in Romans.

Not that this somehow is the faith that has saved us. That would just disrupt the entire argument of the entire sentence. That wouldn't. That wouldn't make any sense. So whether the article is there or not that wouldn't shift the meaning of faith away from the discussion of works and grace to salvation.

I mean there are places where truth and faith mean those things primarily in the pastoral epistles. But this would Ephesians 2 would be a parallel with Romans 3 and 4. And that's not what the meaning of the term would be there.

Ok. I hope everything is going to be very instructive for a lot of people. Well it's going to be a little frustrating because it's going to be by phone. And the fact of the matter is that Harold Camping doesn't speak very quickly and so I would like to be able to cover ten times more than I will be able to.

But I'm just curious. Did he. I mean how did that come about. Did he approach you. Or did you approach him. Or how did that come about. No Chris Arnzen just called him up and his home phone number is listed.

And so he just called him up. And he always answers on the first ring he sits next to the phone. I think people just call him all day long and he just dispenses his spiritual wisdom I guess. And and Chris just called him.

Chris just called him said hey. Would you be on my program. We wanted to debate and so that's.

How it happened. Ok thanks a lot. Alright bye. Bye. Alright we went right past the break there but that's ok. We'll try to get our phone calls in and still get to Norm Geisel. Let's talk with Jamie in Phoenix.

Hi Jamie. Howdy doc. Hi. Um I have a question concerning um actually it's two passages. One's in John 3 others in John 9. Um the first one's John 3 17. I actually hear often from people who want to say that you know that you know you know Christ came to save all men.

Et cetera et cetera when it says for God did not send his son into the world to judge the world but that the world might be saved through him. And then well you know the rest of the context there but I was reading through John 9 and I came across when Jesus is talking to the Pharisees after he healed the blind man and they say for judgment I came into this world so that those who may not see and those who may become blind.

I'm just wondering how we can you know earlier Jesus it seemed I know this is not the case you know that seems Jesus saying I did not come to judge and later it says that he did come to judge. And I'm wondering how we can how those two work together.

Well obviously the context of both is different and so the the presentation that is being made in John chapter 3 is to Nicodemus in regards to the purpose of the sending of the son that he has been sent so that eternal life might be given to those who believe that his sending in regards to them is that the world might be saved through him.

That the person who believes in him.

Is not condemned he was not believed but notice it says whoever believes in him is not condemned. But whoever does not believe is condemned already because he is not believed in the name of the only son of God.

And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world. The people love the darkness rather than light because their works are evil. So you have condemnation and judgment language right there. In John 3 the only reason it says God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world is because the world is already condemned.

The sending of the son does not bring that condemnation. The condemnation is already there because of sin. Now in John 9 the context is the fact that you have the blind and those who see. And this is in specific reference to the claims of the people of Israel who claim to be able to see but they are actually the ones who are blind and you have this healing.

That then brings this out in stark contrast these individuals who see themselves as being spiritually wise and insightful and having this ability to see and vision and so on and so forth. But in reality they are unable to see at all and that God is going to bypass them because of their self-righteousness and so as is very common in the gospel of John he will utilize words like hearing and he will utilize them in multiple ways.

People can hear Jesus preaching but they can't hear. They can see but they can't see light, darkness. These are themes that he runs through the entire gospel and each time that it comes up and each time that it's brought into a particular context you have to allow for that context to find its usage.

So unfortunately people who just proof text the Bible and they are not actually looking to handle the text in a meaningful fashion but are just simply looking for isolated text to pull out of the gospel of John could very easily create contradictions and things like that on a surface level.

But again you can't stop people from abusing scripture. You can only demonstrate they are doing so by handling it accurately. And that's what I was trying to prove. So you are saying that actually if they try and throw out verse 17 and John 3 we should take them through verse 19 and then compare that to 39.

Oh yeah. I mean the judgment language is right there. This is the judgment light is coming to the world. And people love the darkness rather than the light because their works are evil. It's right there the statement is made.

Those who do not believe are condemned already. His sending him does not bring about their condemnation. Their condemnation is due to their sin. But then with the Jews specifically who claim to see then their blindness is demonstrated by the fact they cannot see the identity of the one that this blind person as soon as he identifies himself will bow down and worship.

So that's the glorious nature of John chapter 9.

Is the revelation it makes of that. Yeah I agree. I was trying to make sure I was thinking correctly through that so thank you.

Ok you're welcome. Thanks for calling. Bye. Bye. 877 -753 -3341 is the toll free phone number. I saw we had a caller but caller didn't stick around huh. Ok. Alright. Well anyways let's let's. In the last twenty minutes we've got here get back to Norm Geiser.

Now my understanding was that when I tried to play some of these clips from New Jersey for some reason due to Skype or the way that the volume was set up on the Mac that it was something I don't know.

You just couldn't hear him it just just couldn't follow. So I'm probably going to be repeating something here but hey that's just the way it is and probably nobody listening right now will see that anyways or remembers anyhow.

So for those of you who are not aware of what we were doing Norm Geiser preached a sermon on why he's not a five point Calvinist. He has preached this a number of times and we have been listening to it and we've been listening to the entirety of it.

Lots of folks like to say that I like to take things out of context and stuff like that. By the way it was interesting that there was a textual variant there. I mean it's I was learning something. I was getting appreciate that learning those things.

That's why we do this. It helps me. I have not seen every textual variant in the world yet. And even if I had sometimes I don't remember them. Isn't that an amazing thing. That's why they actually publish these things.

It's very useful. Anyways I'm playing the whole thing not only so that people can't say I'm taking it out of context but because there is a flavor to this sermon that I'll be perfectly honest with you it is a very shallow sermon.