The Eucharist, Sola Scriptura and Tradition - White vs Akin

Opening Remarks and the Need for Light Rather Than Heat

In studio with me today, two special guests, friends, people that I admire and respect, and two men that I trust will give you, as a listening audience, a greater perspective on the issues which not only unite Catholics and Protestants, but the issues on which we separate.

The purpose for this broadcast is to create, not heat, but light. I am quite frankly disturbed by the fact that too often in this debate, people set up straw men and knock them down instead of dealing with the real issues, and that serves to repel as opposed to reach, and our goal is to reach people, because we know that every one of us one day will stand in the greatest size with people from every tongue and tribe and nation.

We will give an answer, and therefore we must do what we do in a way that glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, I would like to introduce my friend James Aiken of Catholic Answers, and he is someone that is an extremely thoughtful Christian, someone that I certainly love as an individual.

He is the author of an upcoming book, What Catholics Believe and Why, he is an apologist for Catholic Answers, he is a contributing editor to This Rock Magazine, and his religious autobiography was recently published in the collection Surprised by Truth, edited by Patrick Madrid, and available from Catholic Answers.

James Aiken, it is a delight to have you with us today.

I am delighted to be here.

And we also have another James in studio today, someone that is familiar to all the listeners of the Bible Answer Man broadcast. He was in studio for three separate shows in which we dealt with the issue of King James Version-only controversy, and before I even introduce you further, James, you did a marvelous job, and I want to express to you my appreciation on behalf of our listening audience.

We have gotten a lot of wonderfully positive comments about the program, I think it did.

A lot of good.

I am sure that it did, and you are, of course, the founder of Alpha and Omega Ministries. You have written various books, including a book on this whole issue of Roman Catholicism which is called The Fatal Flaw, but now you are doing a more comprehensive work for Bethany on that subject as well.

Right, they are out next year.

These are two thoughtful men, folks, and I am certain that as a result of this program we are going to have, as I said, light as opposed to heat. A couple of things that I want to deal with at the very start, obviously I want our listening audience to have an opportunity to ask you questions directly, but I think perhaps the primary issue that we need to begin this broadcast with is the issue of Sola Scriptura, or the Bible alone as our only standard for testing what is claimed as a revelation from God, as opposed to the Roman Catholic claim that both the Bible and the authoritative traditions of the Church ought to be the standards by which revelation is tested.

James Akin, why don't you give your understanding in sort of a capsule form of this issue and.

Why it is important. Well, the things a person needs to know when one is deciding what to do with one's life is, of course, what God wants from a person, and the only way we can know that is by looking at God's Word.

God's Word is the only infallible source of information we have on earth about what God wants of us, what God wants to give us, what God wants to save us from, and it is the only thing that we must model our lives after in that sense.

It is the only thing we can put our ultimate confidence in. However, one of the differences between Protestants and Catholics is Protestants believe that the Word of God has been passed on to us in only one form, namely in the Bible.

At least that is the way the issue is commonly phrased. Catholics believe that the Word of God to us has been passed on in two forms, in the Bible, the books that were written by the prophets and the apostles, and in sacred tradition, which is those teachings which are also passed down to us from the prophets and the apostles.

Now.

Just as one has to distinguish the apostolic books of Scripture from non-apostolic writings, from things that are merely writings of men and were not written under the inspiration of God, one also has to distinguish between traditions that come to us from the apostles and things that are merely the traditions of men that are not written, not taught under God's inspiration.

And so just as we have to separate canonical from non-canonical scriptures on the one hand, we also have to separate canonical from non-canonical traditions on the other hand. And once we have, once we, you know, in going through the evidence and so forth, listening to the Church's voice in deciding that issue, we are then able to come to a proper understanding of everything God wants us to know, not simply limiting ourselves to one mode that His Word has been passed down to us, but embracing both of them.

At least that's the Catholic viewpoint.

James White, your particular understanding of this issue from a Protestant perspective.

It is indeed the foundational issue in my opinion, and unfortunately it is a difficult issue to address for a number of reasons. First of all, there's a number of different understandings amongst Roman Catholics in regards to what tradition refers to.

Many Roman Catholics today, especially in the United States, would like to limit tradition to merely the interpretive ability of the Church. Others more traditional would assert that there is actually a body of oral tradition that is passed down separately, that contains revelation from God that is not found in.

The Bible.

Others would say, no, at least in some semblance it's all found in the Bible, and so it's a very difficult issue. I'm afraid a lot of people do not really know what the argument is actually all about.

I like to go back to the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 15, and in Matthew chapter 15 he encountered individuals who believed that their religious tradition had sacred traditions from God. They believed these sacred traditions had been passed down, that they were divine in origin, and they were authoritative.

And when the Lord Jesus encountered these individuals, the scribes and the Pharisees, and they used these traditions to accuse him of wrongdoing, I think we need to follow his example of what he did. We all know what happened in Matthew chapter 15 when the tradition of the elders was thrown up in the face of the Lord Jesus.

How did he respond? He said, Jesus replied, this is verse 3 of chapter 15, and why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, honor your father and mother, and anyone who curses his father and mother must be put to death.

But you say that if a man says to his father and mother whatever help he might otherwise have received from me as a gift devoted to God, he is not to honor his father and mother with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your traditions.

You hypocrites, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, etc., etc. Now remember, these individuals thought that the tradition they were using was divine in origin. They had used their best efforts, shall we say, to determine whether this extra-scriptural tradition was in fact from God or not.

The point is, the Lord Jesus Christ subserviated all traditions, whether claimed to be divine or human, to the ultimate authority of Scripture. And the question then comes down, are the Roman Catholic traditions subserviated to Scripture, and does the Roman Catholic system, as it is set up at the teaching magisterium, have the ability to honestly apply Matthew chapter 15?

And I would submit that that is not what takes place, and I would submit that when we look at the doctrines that have been defined on the basis of tradition, doctrines such as the Immaculate Conception, or the Bodily Assumption of Mary, or Papal Infallibility, we see that Matthew chapter 15 cannot be functionally applied.

The Protestant position is that the Scriptures, being God-breathed, are the ultimate authority for the man of God, that they are able to thoroughly equip the man of God for every good work. That does not mean that we don't believe that the Church has a role in teaching.

It does not mean that we throw the Holy Spirit out the door. It does not mean the Church cannot grow in its understanding of what the Scriptures teach. What it does mean is that there is no authority higher than Scripture.

It should be noted that you have written that Athanasius fought a sometimes lonely battle in defense of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and when he did, he stood against the full weight of the Church of Rome.

He, at that particular point in time, refuted his enemies, not by reference to oral tradition, but by a logical, insightful exegesis of Scripture.

Right, and I use Athanasius because of the simple fact that he was dealing with, really, what was at the time the fundamental defining aspect of what Christianity was to be. Were we going to have the truly divine Savior, or were we going to have a Savior that was very much like the religions of the world?

And Athanasius, in his defense of the faith, I think is a glowing example of the very same type of apologetics that we see going on today when a Jehovah's Witness calls in to this.

Radio program.

The very same type of passages are going to be cited. The very same passages are going to be cited. You don't find him saying, well, Mr. Arius, or followers of Arius, you are in error because the Church of Rome says this, the teaching magisterium says this, we have these extra-biblical traditions that say this.

No, you find him exegesing these things from the Scripture and presenting that as the final authority that these individuals will or will not bow to. That's the issue for him.

James, your comments. By the way, just so I don't confuse everybody here, we have a James White and a James Aiken, so I may refer to you as Mr. Aiken, not because I don't personally care for you, or Mr. White, just so that the listening audience knows who I'm talking to.

Again, Mr. Aiken, who represents Catholic Answers, your comments.

Okay, well, I'd have to say a number of things. Just in regard to the Scripture text that Mr. White referred to, Matthew chapter 15, and you cited verse 3 and so forth, that I'm afraid, I'm afraid you engaged in a little bit of exegesis there.

If you continue reading in that passage and you get down to verse 9, you find Jesus giving a quotation from the book of Isaiah and applying it to his pharisaical opponents, and it says that in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.

And so the problem here was not simply that they were using traditions. Jesus did not here condemn all traditions. All he condemned were traditions of men. Mr. White, in fact, talked about the tradition of the elders.

Well, the tradition of the elders was wrong. And so merely the fact that Jesus said in this case that this tradition is wrong, the traditions of the elders are wrong, they're teaching as doctrine the precepts of men, that doesn't mean all traditions are wrong.

This comes out even more clearly in the Mark in parallel to this in Mark chapter 7, verse 8, where Jesus says bluntly, you leave the commandment of God and hold fast to the tradition of men. So the problem is tradition of men, not all traditions, and we can easily show that by referencing it to, for example, the Apostle Paul's writings.

If you look, for example, at 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 15, Paul says,. So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.

So Paul here is exhorting people to hold on to traditions. And in fact, if you read a little bit further into chapter 3, he in fact commands us to stay away from those who don't live by the traditions he imparted.

And so the problem is not all traditions. That's something, you know, I'm afraid I have to say that Protestants insert into the Methaian text. The problem is traditions of men versus traditions of the Apostles.

If it's a tradition that came to us from the Apostles, if it's something that the Apostles taught, then it is binding on us. It has the authority of the Apostles behind it, regardless of whether it's written or.

Not.

The mode in which we receive the tradition is irrelevant. If we receive the tradition in writing and scripture, that's fine. If we receive it orally, that's fine too. The key thing is, does it have apostolic authority behind it?

So Jesus certainly was not condemning all traditions or he couldn't have commissioned his Apostles to then go out and pass on tradition. Now in regard to Athanasius, again, there's a bit of a flaw in the argument to say Athanasius reasoned from scripture in dealing with the Arians, therefore that means Sola Scriptura is true or that Athanasius taught Sola Scriptura is true.

In fact, he didn't. If you look in his writings elsewhere, he has a very healthy respect for tradition. I have to say that I'm afraid Mr. White is out of sync with some early church scholars such as the great Protestant early church historian J. N. D. Kelly when he talks about how we don't find in the early Christian writers appeals to traditions when combating heretics.

In fact, in Dr. Kelly's book, which I have right here, Early Christian Doctrines, he makes precisely the point that in the early conflicts with heretics, it was tradition that was appealed to primarily because the heretics used the same scriptures by and large.

And so they would both just put their own interpretation on it just like a JW does today, the Arians did in the fourth century, the Gnostics did in the second century, and the appeal was, well, wait a minute, I mean, we are living in a church whose leaders have come down to us from the Apostles and they have passed on these teachings from the Apostles and that tells us what the correct interpretation of the scripture is.

If you're teaching some novel interpretation of the scripture that no one's ever heard before in church history, then it's not in accordance with the apostolic tradition and so you must be wrong because the Apostles did not only give us their teachings and writings, they also gave them to us orally and the two have to sync up.

Okay, I want to give James White an opportunity to respond to that. Unfortunately, we're coming up to a station break, so as soon as we come back from the break, James White will be responding to that and then what I'd like to do is kind of conclude the remarks on this particular issue and give callers an opportunity to ask you questions.

In subsequent shows, we're going to be dealing with such substantive issues as justification as well because that obviously is one of the real important issues for us to settle right here on the Bible Answer Man broadcast.

We're going to be back in just a few moments.

Stay tuned.

Tradition, Scripture, and the Authority of the Church

And welcome back to the Bible Answer Man broadcast. I'm your host, Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute, in studio today with James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and James Aiken of Catholic Answers.

We're talking about the issue right now of Sola Scriptura or the Bible alone versus the Bible in tradition. Before you respond to James Aiken, James White, the Council of Trent in 1565, November 13th, actually 1565, said that all faithful Catholics must agree, quote, I shall never accept nor interpret Holy Scripture otherwise than in accordance with the unanimous concept of the Fathers.

Consent of the Fathers.

Consent of the Fathers.

Excuse me. Yes, the consent of the Fathers. What did I say?

Concept.

Concept.

Oh, I'm sorry. Consent of the Fathers. Yeah.

Well, and that, of course, brings us into a whole other area that I could barely even touch upon, and that is the fact that Rome does claim in Vatican II and in other places that the office of interpreting Scripture, the role of interpreting Scripture, has been entrusted solely to the teaching magisterium of the Church.

And when Trent said that similar words earlier on while Calvin was still alive, his response was basically, well, the war is over, because in reality there is no longer any basis upon which we can have any meaningful dialogue based upon Scripture.

Because if you say that the only one who has the right to interpret Scripture is Rome, then how can we have any biblical discussion on any of these issues? For example, if we turn to Matthew chapter 16, Rome tells us what this means, and that is the end of the discussion as far as that goes.

How can we have any further discussion of it all? And so I would say that on this issue of authority, and maybe we'll have to let you respond to that and then let me respond to other things, but on this issue of authority, I think we do develop a very circular situation, and that is that while Roman Catholic apologists such as the folks at Catholic Answers, Mr. Aiken here, may present to us biblical arguments on the basis of the exegesis of the passage of Scripture, in reality there are passages of Scripture where Rome has said, this is it.

There can be no other opportunities, there can be no other interpretations than this interpretation. And how can we...

And there are about eight of those passages.

And a very small number, which in and of itself is rather intriguing to me too, but the point is those passages have been infallibly defined. Rome says we have the final authority to interpret these passages, and there can really be no discussion beyond that point.

And I would say that illustrates a situation where you have an authority that has been placed above Scripture, especially when you talk about the unanimous consent of the Fathers. Look at Matthew Chapter 16, there's no more glowing passage than that, where you can demonstrate that the majority of the early Church Fathers did not take the position that has now been infallibly defined by Rome.

Oh, no, that's clearly inaccurate. I mean, the early Church Fathers were strongly of the opinion that Peter was the rock that Christ was referring to there. There is no way you can say that a majority of the Fathers didn't teach that.

Well, not only do most Church historians say that, but most Roman Catholic Church historians would say that the interpretation infallibly defined by Rome is not the interpretation of the majority of the early Fathers.

You've read Launor, you've read these people who have tallied these things up, and I don't know when you want to cut off the point.

And there is a biased... They're misreading the way the early Fathers approached that passage, and I could debate.

That at further length, but we'd be glad to do so.

What do we do about this whole issue? There seems to be, in my estimation, a lot of revisionism going on, at least by one side or the other. And I won't put myself on one side or the other, but just to say that it...

How do we resolve that issue from either one of your perspectives?

I think we're doing it in the sense that I just did a four-and-a-half-hour debate at Boston College on the papacy. I did a six-hour debate during the papal visit in Denver. I'm, and obviously Catholic Answers agrees with me on this, I'm one of those really backwards people that isn't into all the political correct stuff, in the sense that I think...

Neither are we.

Well, that's the point. I think that there is a real need for public, open, moderated, scholarly debates on these issues to get the facts out. And it's real easy for one side or the other, if there's not a counterbalance there, to make everything look like everything supports them.

But when you put people with an even amount of time face-to-face, unfortunately, sometimes it draws a lot of folks, and sometimes it doesn't. But I think that's one of the best ways to handle it.

I agree. The solution to the problem of the two sides distorting the history in their favor can only be solved by the other side having its chance to respond. For example, Fox's Book of Martyrs is a classic illustration of that.

Fox's Book of Martyrs is a grossly distorted historical work, which even Protestant scholars will admit is very ahistorical, but there hasn't been a Catholic response to that in recent years. In fact, as one of my future writing projects, I want to write a...

Not an equivalent. I don't want to have the same level of invective, but I want to write a balance piece called The Protestant Inquisition about the persecution of Catholics by Protestants.

But is that really going to help?

And the reason I'm doing that is not to say Protestants are bad, or that Protestants...

Because you once were one.

Exactly. It's not to say Protestants are bad, or Protestants are tyrannical, cruel servants of the devil, and similar things that John Fox said about Catholics. But just to balance a playing field and say, look, there were errors on both sides, and they're approximately equal, and it's really not going to do any good to keep dredging that stuff up.

It doesn't get us to the truth of the theological system to say, well, gee, have people not lived the way they should have? If you had used that standard in the Old Testament and looked at the Jews and said, are these people living like they should, and used that as a test for the true religion, you would have missed the true religion.

And so I would say that, you know, let's just level the playing field and move on from that.

I would only comment that I think the relevance of the Inquisition in those situations has to do with Rome's claim to infallibility on doctrinal matters, not to the issue of impeccability. But should I take a second or two to just address those three issues before we totally lose the conversation?

In terms of equal time, I have several things I'd like to respond to that Keith said.

Well, you know, obviously, I think both of you know that my desire is to be fair with both of you on the Bible Mentor Man broadcast, because I think that you're both thoughtful, reasonable, and also two guys that have really done their homework.

And so I want to treat both of you as fairly as possible, and if there's any inequity, we'll try to make it up whenever we can. Go ahead, James.

Well, just back to...

This is James White.

That is going to become very confusing. But back to the issue of Sola Scriptura, just a few things, and I'll be very, very brief. First of all, I didn't feel that James Aiken's response to what I had said dealt with what I had said.

I wasn't talking about all traditions. I was saying that Jesus, when he addressed the issue of traditions, and he addressed individuals who made the claim that their traditions were divine, subjected them to the authority of Scripture.

And that's what we need to do with anyone who claims that their traditions have a divine origin or source. The issue is, even when, from his own people's perspective, these were divine traditions, he subjected them to the authority of Scripture and demonstrated, no, they are not.

Therefore, when someone presents to me on the authority of tradition, the concept of the infallibility of the Pope, I am going to subject that tradition to Scriptural scrutiny. That was my application of Matthew 15.

I'm going to try to be brief. Second Thessalonians 2 .15, I believe, is badly misused by Roman Catholic apologists at this point. First of all, I wasn't trying to say that the New Testament does not use the term tradition.

I would assert that in Second Thessalonians 2 .15, the term tradition that is used there, in its context, if we would exegete the passage in its context, is not referring to some extra biblical revelation of doctrines that may not even be known for 1 ,800 years.

But in that context, it is referring to the Gospel itself, if you look at the context itself. And in regards to Athanasius, Mr. Aitken said, well, Mr. White is saying, we don't find appeals to traditions.

That's why I asked for the chapter. I've written a chapter in a book on the Sola Scriptura that will be coming out in February from Sola Deo Gloria, and one of the main things I focus in upon is, when people like Irenaeus use the term tradition, what do they mean?

Do they define what the term tradition is? I am in no way, shape, or form in conflict with J. N. D. Kelly. The fact of the matter is, the tradition to which he appeals to is not an extra biblical tradition of some other revelation.

When you look at what he defined the tradition to be, it is firmly and solely based upon Scripture itself. It is the concept of the fact there is one God, and you and I both know, if the Scriptures teach anything with clarity, it's the fact there's only one true God.

And so, my problem there is, I was not saying that you will not find appeals. What I was saying is, you will not find appeals to tradition as it is interpreted today by Rome. Big difference between the two things.

James Akin.

Okay, well, there's more on my plate than I can respond to at the moment, but just to nail down a couple things. One of the things about 2 Corinthians 2 .15 is Paul doesn't limit it to just traditions concerning the Gospels.

He says, therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold to all of the traditions you have received. Whether by word of mouth or by our epistle. So, you can't say this is just traditions on a certain topic. Anything that Paul has taught the Thessalonians in person or by writing is up for grabs in terms of that verse.

That is part of the all traditions he refers to. Now, as Mr. White is using an assumption which, when he deals with the term tradition, he is assuming that the term tradition means something that has been passed down from the Gospels that is not written in Scripture, okay?

Some extra-biblical revelation. And he can't simply facilely make that assumption because one of the open issues in Catholic theology right now is a debate over whether Scripture is materially sufficient.

The position of material sufficiency claims that all theology, all the material you need to use for theology, is either contained or implied in Scripture. And the difference between that and the Sola Scriptura position is that it says that even though Scripture is materially sufficient, it has all the material you need, it contains or implies it all, it's not formally sufficient.

The material isn't in the form you need to do theology in all cases. And so you need to use tradition as an interpretive grid to help you understand which passages gain primacy. Does Jesus saying, before Abraham was I am, gain primacy?

Or does Jesus saying, why callest thou me good, there is none good but God, gain primacy? Which passage do you use as the foundation of your interpretation? Which do you then harmonize with it? That's the role tradition plays for you in the material sufficiency view.

So when Mr. White says that Catholics have to come up with some extra-biblical revelation in order to validate their view of tradition, he's simply wrong. Because some Catholics say there are no extra-biblical traditions in that sense.

There are no extra-biblical revelations that have been passed down and everything's either contained or implied in the Bible. Now I wanted to touch just for a minute on the passage you read from the Council of Trent.

This is often misunderstood in Protestant circles. The teaching of that passage is not that we can't interpret the Bible for ourselves. We can and we must. That's why God gave us intellects. This was something that Thomas Aquinas, with his big emphasis on natural law and the divine gift of the human intellect that separates us from animals and so forth, the rational soul that separates us from the sensitive souls that animals have, is something that requires us to read and study God's Word.

What Trent is saying is that when the fathers unanimously interpret a passage one way, that's when you can't go against it. So if you have a case where every church father has said, this is what this passage means, that's when you can't go against them.

But if there's disagreement among the fathers, if there's not a unanimous consent, then you can go against it. Just to give an example of the passage where there is unanimous agreement among the fathers, I would point to John 3 .5.

Every single early church father there is, from the second century on, said that when Jesus said, you must be born of water and spirit, he was talking about baptism. Water baptism. A unitary baptism involving both water and the spirit.

Every single church father from the second century on said that. That is something that I have searched diligently, trying to find references to early church fathers who didn't say that, and I can't. There aren't any.

Every single one I've checked says that, and that is a tradition that was accepted by all Christians up until the time of the Reformation, at least all mainstream ones. You had Augustine saying that, you had Aquinas saying that, you had John Wycliffe saying that, you had Martin Luther himself saying that.

The first person to really deny that, as far as mainstream theologians would go, would be John Calvin. Everyone before him said that that is talking about baptism. And so that would be a passage where a Catholic would say, well no, the fathers are unanimous on this.

I can't go against this.

A couple of things, just really quickly.

Okay, and that's going to be 30 seconds.

30 seconds.

I'm going to wrap up, and then we're going to come back, the last segment of this broadcast. We're going to take calls, but I want to give both of you an opportunity just to summarize the importance of the issue that we're dealing with.

Go ahead, just 30 seconds.

Well, the issue that he brought up in regards to the open question in Roman Catholic theology right now, I would just invite anyone to read the Council of Trent in the fourth session. Read the background of what they were talking about.

It's an issue called partly, partly, some in tradition, some in scripture. And just be warned of one thing. Many of the modern Roman Catholic theologians who are affirming material sufficiency, their view of scripture is far removed from what a conservative Protestant's view of scripture.

Would be.

And in fact, they are farther away from us in many of their views of what revelation is than the conservative Roman Catholic would be.

And we're coming up to a station break. We're going to be back in just a few moments with more of the Bible Answer Man broadcast.

Don't touch that dial.

The Meaning of Justification, Grace, and Faith

And welcome back to the Bible Answer Man broadcast. I'm your host, Hank Henegraaff, President of the Christian Research Institute. I'm involved right now in a very special conversation with James White of Elfin and Macon Ministries, representing the Protestant perspective, and James Aiken of Catholic Answers, representing the Roman Catholic perspective.

And I do, before we go on, want to commend both you guys for the fact that you are able to communicate with one another in a respectful manner. You are modeling what ought to be happening in this very essential debate.

The differences between you, we can't minimize. They are profound. And yet, you are great examples of how we ought to treat one another in this kind of debate. I am kind of interested, James Aiken, in your perspective on some of the literature that comes out from Protestant publishers, like even a book that just came out by Dave Hunt.

How do you react to that kind of literature?

Well, concerning Dave Hunt's book, I'd have to say it's a joke. I mean, the man's scholarship is appalling. In fact, I learned an interesting term from William F. Buckley that I think aptly describes the kind of writing Dave Hunt does.

The term is sciolist, S-C-I-O-L-I-S-T, and a sciolist is a person who has the affectations of scholarship without the substance. And people have the idea that if you just have a lot of footnotes to your book, it makes you a scholar.

But the problem is, if you're footnoting idiots, then it doesn't make your book scholarly. And Dave Hunt's book, I thought, was just a joke in terms of scholarship. There was one, just to name one example in it.

He made the claim at one point that Pope John XXII, back in the 1300s, had dogmatically defined that Jesus and the Apostles were wealthy men, and thus you had the Pope teaching the health and wealth gospel and so forth.

And I said, that's nuts. And so I reached across my bed and grabbed my book of official papal statements, and I looked up the encyclical he referenced. And what John XXII actually said was that Jesus and the Apostles possessed some property at least in common.

So he was dealing with a controversy in his day where there was a group of radical spiritualists who were going around saying that the epitome of spirituality was not owning any property at all, not even communal property.

No private property, no communal property, no property. And therefore, since that's the epitome of spirituality, Jesus and the Apostles must have not had any property even in common. The problem is, Scripture says they did.