The Roman Catholicism Debate on BAM (White vs Staples - I)

In studio today, a couple of special guests who are going to be conducting a debate this

Saturday. James White, he is the founder of Alpha and Omega Ministries, he's an author, he's a friend, he's written,

I think, what is the best book out right now in the King James only controversy, in fact, that is the title of his book, as well as the

Roman Catholic controversy. And he is a guy that I think is someone that I respect, not only for his scholarship, but the testimony of his life.

And it is a delight to have you. It's good to be back with you, Hank. You've been hanging out with your kids. Hanging out with my kids.

Riding your bike. Riding the bike, working on all sorts of things, the Lord's been very good, teaching, in fact, my systematic theology class at Golden Gate Seminary is sitting right now, listening to the radio, and listening to us, and getting a chance to teach them is a real privilege for me.

Teaching is a wonderful thing. Now, you're also involved with the NASD, a critical consultant on the

American Standard Bible, and working on that, there's an edition of that out that we're working on. Actually, most people would say

I've got a little bit too much to do to get it done, but it's hard for me to say no, and the

Lord opens doors, and it's hard not to walk through. And, of course, he is an incredible debater, and he'll be debating

Tim Staples, Director of Apologetics for St. Joseph's Catholic Radio, and it's the first time

I've met Tim Staples, and I'm glad to have you in the studio. Well, it's great to finally meet you. I've heard a lot of you on the air.

Nice to meet you. And you have a radio broadcast as well. That's right. St. Joseph's Catholic Radio. We air on AM 1190, if I can do a little commercial there, from 5 to 6 every

Saturday evening, and we're now on, we're excited about being on every week for two hours on a live worldwide broadcast on Mother Angelica's WEW, and so we're able to take calls from all over the world.

It's kind of exciting. We had our inaugural broadcast last week, and it was very exciting. Well, great.

It's nice to meet you. Glad to have you in the studio. Obviously, you feel passionately about Roman Catholicism.

You are a Protestant, in fact, a youth pastor in the Assemblies of God, and you became a Roman Catholic in a nugget.

Give me the reasons why you converted to Roman Catholicism. Well, Hank, as we were talking before the broadcast,

I was what I would term a rabid anti -Catholic. I led quite a few, led my share of Catholics out of the church, being raised a

Southern Baptist and later becoming an Assemblies of God youth pastor, as you mentioned. I didn't have a lot of nice words about the

Catholic faith. I believed the Catholic Church was the whore of Babylon, you name it. I was into it.

I was more along the lines of a jack chick, though, in those days, and I don't say that with any sort of pride.

And by the way, just to make a clarification here, obviously you respect James White, and you like him as a person.

You wouldn't put him in that category. Oh, no, absolutely. In fact, I've been very impressed with him, just talking with him before the broadcast, and I'm very impressed with his work as well.

That's why I wanted to debate him. But as for me in those days, I was very anti -Catholic, and what happened, basically, is that I met a

Catholic who really knew his Bible, really knew his faith, and he got me started studying, and I really dug in.

I started to read the Church Fathers. I started to study Catholic apologists rather than just reading the anti -Catholic literature and such, and I was surprised by the truth.

I thought I'd get that title in there, James. Yes, but there's a fatal flaw. Yeah. Obviously, when you look at a president like myself or James White, you make no bones about it.

You believe that we are lost. Well, objectively speaking, I believe...

Not that you are subjectively judging us, but objectively, based on the views that we hold, you would say, our soteriology stands.

Well, I would want to qualify that a bit, just a tad, by saying that, yes, when we're talking about these issues, and I think it's very important for us to state this at the outset, not only for right now, but also for our discussion coming up on Saturday.

We are talking about issues that divide us. These are things we cannot look past. When we're talking about disagreeing, about justification, how a person is saved, as we were talking about before the broadcast, we're talking about a disagreement over Jesus Christ and who

Jesus is, because Jesus Christ is what he says. 1 Corinthians 1 .30 says that Jesus has become for us wisdom, justification, sanctification.

So, yes, objectively speaking... If we hold to Protestant distinctives, consistently, you would say we cannot be saved.

But I have to qualify that, and I was getting to that, by saying that if, in fact, we have a said

Protestant, I will use myself as an example. A 10 -year -old kid who got saved at a

Baptist church answering an altar call. I love Billy Graham and my Baptist pastor.

The qualification, invisible ignorance? Exactly. I believe, and I don't know this, we don't have the certainty of faith on this, but I believe that that is a good example of someone that we would term invincibly ignorant.

They can be saved by following the light of truth that they have where they are.

James, your position, I ask you the exact same question that I asked Tim Staples. If, in fact,

I were to ask you about Tim or any Roman Catholic that holds consistently to Roman Catholic distinctives, materiality being probably the centerpiece, what would you say?

It would be a little easier if Tim was not a convert, because I'd like to ask, does he feel that he actually was truly born again in that experience when he was 10 years of age?

But if he was a person, and this was the only gospel he had ever heard, the gospel that is promulgated by the

Roman Catholic Church, then I would say most definitely that what Rome teaches about grace, what Rome teaches about justification, is not what the

Bible teaches. In fact, it would be a lot easier for me. You can imagine this. You've probably taken a lot of flack for dealing with the issue of Roman Catholicism yourself.

It is very politically incorrect to discuss this issue as a Christian apologist. Go talk about the Mormons. That's great.

Go get them rah -rah, but don't talk about the Roman Catholics, because Aunt Molly down the road is a real nice Roman Catholic. I don't want you talking about that.

It would be a lot easier for me if the book of Galatians was not in the New Testament. It would be a lot easier for me if I did not read that book and see what

Paul teaches there, and if I was not convinced by studying the text of that book and studying

Roman Catholic theology as closely as I have, that what Rome teaches goes far beyond the error that is found in the book of Galatians.

And since that book is there, and since I am under the authority of that which is

God -breathed, then I must deal with those teachings. Tim and I, I think, agree, and it's somewhat refreshing, because I think at least now dialogue can take place on the basis of at least some commonality of agreeing the other guy is wrong, but at least a discussion can take place because we're saying, look, what you're preaching and what we're preaching is different.

That's been one of my biggest problems, when people come up to me and say, well, why not cooperating things and so on and so forth?

I say, look, it's not a matter of cooperation. Here is the issue, and I'd like to see if Tim agrees with me on this. Tim, if you and I are standing outside an abortion clinic, and Joe Q.

Public walks up and asks both of us the same question while we're standing right next to each other, what must

I do to be right with God? Would you agree with me that we are going to answer, if we are faithful to our own positions, we are going to answer very differently?

Absolutely. And so we're setting the table here very clearly and saying that we're not talking about peripheral issues, we're talking about central issues upon which salvation hinges.

So this is not some kind of a squabble about some peripheral stuff. This is about the very heart of Christianity.

Notice, Hank, look at the subtitle of my book. It says, Catholic and Protestants, do the differences still matter?

When I was at the CBA convention just last summer, you know the single most common comment

I got was people would look at the book and they'd go, what differences? It wasn't even a matter anymore of discussing, are they even weighty enough to discuss?

There aren't any differences anymore. And this was primarily from Roman Catholics who came to me while I was at the booth, at the convention, looking at the book and saying, oh, there aren't really any differences.

Now, safe to say that you both believe that we can work together on common cause issues.

But as far as the gospel is concerned, we're trying to evangelize one another. In fact, our present holy father emphasizes, as does the church all over the world, that we need to work together on issues like abortion.

We hang together or hang separately. Exactly. I was so happy to see him wearing a rush tie there.

It tells me there is hope for James. But we need to cooperate and we need to see the things that we agree on and that we can work together to try to impact our culture.

But ultimately, folks, and this is crucial, we are talking about two different gospels and only one can be the true gospel.

Let's talk about that for just a moment. We're talking about the gospel. James, in as brief a period as you possibly can, articulate the distinctive from the

Protestant perspective. I believe the distinctive from the Protestant perspective, and I certainly believe that Tim will disagree with me initially, but I wanted to attempt to defend the thesis.

The distinctive from the Protestant perspective is that we believe that Jesus Christ saves completely in and of himself.

Tim mentioned 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30. What precedes immediately that is the statement on the part of the scriptures that it is because of him that we are in Christ Jesus.

Salvation is the work of God. It is undertaken by the grace of God. The grace of God is sufficient to accomplish the means that he has, the end that he has for that grace.

And so when I talk about being made right and having peace with God, the peace that I have is based solely upon the work of another.

That is the perfect atoning work of Jesus Christ. The righteousness that I have is only the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

The good works that I do in a quote -unquote state of grace, whatever that might be, any good works that I do as a Christian, are not works that increase my merit.

They are not works that give me merit so that I may obtain eternal life having fulfilled certain conditions to be justified.

They are works that I do that flow out of the changed heart that I have as a believer. And the main issue to me is, when

I stand before God, I will stand before him clothed solely, only, and singularly, in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is mine by faith,

Romans chapter 4, verses 3 and following. The Roman Catholic who believes in their system of grace and the sacraments and the concepts of indulgences, supererogation, the treasury of merit, the excess merit of Mary and the saints and so on and so forth, the

Roman Catholic who stands before God someday, will be able to say that only through the grace of Christ was

I able to do these things, but I did x, y, and z, I had merit from the treasury of merit, so on and so forth.

The position that I have as a Christian is sure and final because it is solely the work of Christ.

The Roman Catholic, and I have some quotes here from Tim and from other sources, that talks about the necessity of fulfilling requirements to gain justification.

Jesus Christ fulfilled them in my place. He doesn't just merit the grace of justification, he actually justifies me.

Now that goes to the nature of man, sin, ability, sovereignty, there's a million issues there, but you asked for a very, very brief one.

Now, I think, if I could, I'd like to make an analogy, and I think the error of what James has just said, and I must say, we agree to a great extent with what he just said, inasmuch as the

Council of Trent said that we can do absolutely nothing to merit, in any way whatsoever, the initial grace of justification.

We believe in the fact that we are saved totally.

Now, I'm going to make an analogy here. I believe James is falling into, and please don't hit me,

James, I'm too far away to hit you. He's falling into an error that is analogous to the error of the

Aryans or the Jehovah's Witnesses in this regard. They will say, they will say, they will take verses of scripture, and I believe that James and the

Protestant Reformers do exactly the same, take scriptures out of context. One scripture, and you know,

Hank, the Jehovah's Witnesses love to use. I mean, having known James White, and you know him as well, one thing that he does not do is take scripture out of context and develop a pretext.

He knows the Pentateuch, but I believe that he does, and let me finish my analogy.

It goes like this. The Jehovah's Witnesses will look at verses like John 20, 10 and 1 Timothy 2, 5 that emphasize the humanity of Christ and say, see, we don't need to go any farther.

Jesus is man. There's one God, one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ. Now we agree, we say to our

Jehovah's Witness friend, we agree, absolutely, Jesus is God. He is in fact totally

God, Hank. This is very important. Totally, he is, he's not totally Hank, he's totally man, but he is also totally

God. He is not 50 % God, he's not 50 % man, he is totally God, totally man. So he's totally

God, but he's not solely God. He's totally man, but he's not solely man.

In the same way, we would say as Protestants, that though we merit absolutely no sense of the word, anything, as far as the initial grace of justification, once we are in a state of grace, then absolutely, the scripture,

I believe, is very clear, we can and must merit things, including eternal life. Now, so I think the error that James...

Could you repeat that? I'm actually wanting to stop you and say, please make sure everyone heard exactly what you just said.

Okay, repeat it, and you get about 30 seconds, because we're coming up to a station break. Well, I'll just use Romans chapter 2, verse 6, that says exactly that, that through works, we merit reward from God, and the reward mentioned in Romans 2, 6, and 7 is eternal life.

One of the rewards is, in fact, eternal life. But now, the point is, I believe that James takes verses out of context that says, it's grace, it's grace, and he's falling into the same error of saying, it's solely grace.

No, it's totally grace, as St. Augustine teaches, as Thomas Aquinas teaches, but it's not solely

God. We are involved as well. We're coming up to a station break. We'll be back in just a few moments.

Please stay tuned. And welcome back to the

Bible Interim Broadcast. I'm your host, Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute. Delighted that you've joined us for the broadcast today, inviting you to join us on air with your question, the

U .S. or Canada, by simply dialing 888 -ASK -HANK. I want to go back to Tim Staples.

You wanted to clarify what you were saying with regards to sola gratia, and then there was going to be a brief rebuttal by you, and then we're going to get into another topic, and then we'll get to phone calls.

Okay. I wanted to just emphasize and make clear here that when we're talking about justification in the

Catholic Church, we believe in justification by grace alone through faith.

But now, we have a different understanding of grace and faith. Faith, saving faith, we say, is a faith that is formed by charity, or formata caritatis in Latin, formed by charity.

Charity by its nature is an act. It's an act. It's not a warm, fuzzy feeling. It's an act of the will.

So we're talking about a faith that's formed by charity. But remember, when I say solely by grace, it's grace alone.

That's what the Catholic Church sees, and I think a lot of Protestants don't understand that. However, we don't exclude man's cooperation, even though, as Augustine said, even our cooperation itself is a gift from God, and Thomas Aquinas agrees.

All of these things are gifts, so much so that when we get to Heaven, God will, as it were, crown his own gifts.

However, what we say is that though it is grace alone, it's not totally

God, because man is also involved. It's totally God and totally man, and the classic verse used among the many is

Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 and 13. Work out your salvation. That's you. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do according to his pleasure. So it is both. I believe what

James is doing is he's emphasizing one to the exclusion of the other in the same way that the

Arians do, and they miss it on Christology. I believe James is missing it on Soteria. James, your response?

Well, as Paul said in Romans 11, 6, it was on the basis of grace. It's no longer the basis of works, so that is grace is no longer grace.

The very term grace itself excludes the concept of meritorious action, even the idea of adding human works that are caused by grace that can then create merit upon which eternal life is given.

I think Tim will have to agree, the vast majority of people who sort of observe the

Roman Catholic -Protestant debate are not aware of what the specific issues are. I want to read very briefly from Ludwig Ott, where he says, the meritorious cause of justification is

Jesus Christ, who has mediated between God and man, has made atonement for us, and then catch this phrase, Hank, and merited the grace by which we are justified.

That's a very important issue. What the work of Christ does is merit the grace by which we are justified.

And then later on he says that the reason for the uncertainty of the state of grace lies in this, that without a special revelation, nobody can with certainty of faith know whether or not he has, and here's the operative phrase, fulfilled all the conditions which are necessary for achieving of justification.

I say in response to that, first of all, Jesus Christ does not merit grace.

Jesus Christ justifies by his death those people who are united to him by faith. Secondly, the conditions of justification have been fulfilled completely and perfectly in my place by my

Savior Jesus Christ. That is the issue to me. But would you agree, Hank, help me, we have to do something.

We have to accept Jesus. Would you agree with that? We receive Jesus. So we don't do anything.

Even Augustine said that saving faith, which was discussed, is the gift of God. Again, we very vastly disagree.

What was the first debate of the Reformation? It was between Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus on the issue of the will.

We believe that men are dead in sin and must be spiritually regenerated by the sovereign work of God.

This is really where the issue is. It's always been this issue. I'll be the first one to complain about it and admit many

Protestants today are doing what I call treading water in the Tiber. Tim probably understands what that means if he's been to Rome or anyone knows

Roman geography. The Tiber River flows along the city of Rome and there are a lot of Protestants today who, not knowing what the issues of the

Reformation were, tread water in the Tiber. They're not Roman Catholics, but they no longer really believe the fundamental and substantial things that caused the

Protestant Reformation, those solas. Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Sola Deo Gloria, Solus Christus.

All those solas, they figure those things really don't matter anymore. They do matter and there was a reason why they were emphasized back then.

James, I think you've hit on something extremely important. You've just illustrated a very important disagreement amongst

Protestants between the Augsburg and Westminster Confession here and between perhaps, now

I'm not sure, Hank, where you stand on this, but I know Dr. Walter Martin, whom

I used to, as I said, I was kidding with these guys before the broadcast. I used to worship Dr. Martin when I was in the presence of God.

I made a little statue. What I would see as a serious disagreement between you guys is on the will and is grace resistible?

Does a person have a choice here? Can this person choose to accept or reject

God's grace? There is a profound disagreement, and I believe it's been kind of swept under the rug between the eternally secure

Baptists and the predestined Calvinists. Let's get to the issue of authority.

That's another one of those foundational... If I could, because I think that's a real good segue for me.

I believe that one of the keys for me, in my experience, James, as a

Protestant, who I didn't want the Catholic Church to be true. As a former Protestant.

I was seeking and seeking. One of the things that really expedited the process, to be honest with you, is the plethora, the enormous amount of disagreement amongst

Protestants on essential, on key issues. We're not just talking about bingo on Thursday.

We're talking about disagreeing on the nature of Jesus Christ. We were talking before the broadcast about Dr.

Walter Martin and the Kingdom of the Cults, which I read. You know he taught that the

Son is not the Eternal Son. He's the Eternal Word who became the Son. We have disagreements like that that we as Catholics would say, my gosh, are you kidding me?

That's absolute heresy. But amongst Protestants, we're talking major theologians and so forth.

Dr. Walter Martin, I'm sure that we would all agree, was a man of God. He taught this.

Where do we go? Where do we go when we disagree over issues like this that are central to not only soteriology, but even who

Christ is? Or, most importantly for me, in my process, where do we go if we're in the 2nd or 3rd century and we disagree like Origen did over the inspiration of 2nd

Peter? I'm not too sure, he says, about the inspiration of 2nd

Peter. I've got a list here of the different canons from bishops in the early church that disagreed over which books of the

Bible were in fact the Bible. Where do we go if we're dealing with the main and the plain things?

Why do we need some external authority when the main and plain things are, by definition, main and plain?

I'll tell you why, Hank. You know this is no offense to you, but I don't agree with the statement, the main things are the plain things, the plain things are the main things.

I would say that that is a tradition that is nowhere found in Scripture. We're talking about those essentials that are so obvious that a child can understand them.

Well, you made a leap there. Augustine did say the essentials are crucial and liberty on the things that are not essential.

No, he said there had to be unity around the essentials. Exactly, and I agree. But what he didn't say, and what

I believe the Sacred Scripture exactly says the opposite, is that the main things are often not plain.

In fact, in 2nd Peter 3, verses 15 and 16, St. Peter, in talking about Paul's writing, and what is he talking about,

James? Soterion, in Greek. Salvation. He says St. Paul, writing about the long -suffering of the

Lord, salvation, writes in them, many things that are hard to be understood and the unlearned, that is, amatheis, the undiscipled and ignorant, twist them unto their own destruction.

This is a main thing, soterion, and Peter says many of these things are hard to understand. Folks, we need an authority, and I believe the

Bible plainly teaches us that the church is that authority. But what if you have an authority like the church that says purgatory is something that you, as an individual, need to believe in, and you have absolutely no biblical warrant for that whatsoever?

Well, obviously I disagree that there is absolutely no biblical warrant for that. I believe in the tradition you find many writers such as Cyril of Jerusalem, Tertullian, St.

Augustine himself, who teach purgatory, talk about purgatory, and use many, many scriptures of Scripture to demonstrate.

Well, give me one. Well, for example, 1 Corinthians 3 -11 -15, and also

Matthew 5, but let me just, to get things started here, 1 Corinthians 3 -11, and James looks like he is excited over there.

Salivating as a matter of fact. St. Paul tells us, and just so we don't take all day here,

I think what he teaches plainly here is he is teaching obviously on the final judgment.

Now, I believe that we could also talk about the particular judgment here as well.

So, you are reading 1 Corinthians what now? Chapter 3, and I am beginning at verse 11.

Okay, let's read it. 10 -15 is the main passages normally used. For other foundation can no man lay but that which is laid which is

Christ Jesus. Now, if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stone, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be manifest, for the day of the

Lord shall declare it. Because it shall be revealed in fire, the fire shall test every man's work of what sort it is.

If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss.

But he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. Folks, that is an excellent definition of purgatory.

We are talking about a place, Hank, that is after death, it is not heaven, and it is not hell.

Now, you call it the final judgment. You wouldn't say that that is an explicit statement. You would say that that is an implicit teaching.

Yes, purgatory is implied there. But remember, things like the trinity, homoousios, they are not explicit.

The word itself, as James knows, the Council of Nicaea, homoousia. Your response to that.

We are talking about a passage that is frequently used by Catholics to say, look, the

Bible implies that there is a place called purgatory, and as a prophecy, you would say that purgatory denies the sufficiency of Christ atonement upon the cross.

I would not only say that, but I would point out that 1 Corinthians 3 has nothing to do with the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory.

In purgatory, you are a saved person who goes into this place with temporal punishments of sin still clinging to your soul.

You must have these temporal punishments for sins cleansed before you can go into the presence of God. You must undergo what

Ludwig Ott calls sadaspatio, the suffering of atonement. Without this suffering on your part, you will not enter into the presence of God.

James, it is not only suffering for sins, but it is also venial sins as well. Thank you very much.

That is true. I just wasn't emphasizing the venial sins. The simple fact of the matter is, when you die, your process of sanctification is not yet completed, and hence you must undergo sadaspatio, the suffering of atonement.

Now, 1 Corinthians 3 is talking about the judgment of your works, not your soul. There is nothing about merit there. There is nothing about suffering to gain merit.

It has nothing to do with any of those things, but it does take us to the main issue, and that is this. You see, the

Roman Catholic and I am going to make this point at the debate, the Roman Catholic is not able to do biblical exegesis, not because he lacks the ability, but because he does not believe that the scriptures are the final and ultimate authority.

There are two positions being presented here. I believe in sola scriptura, the scriptures, the God -breathed revelation of God in the scriptures, are sufficient to function as the sole and infallible rule of faith of the

Church. The Roman Catholic, I will argue, believes in sola ecclesia, that is, that the

Church is the final authority, and I demonstrate this by this. In Roman Catholicism, the

Church defines the canon of Scripture, tells you what Scripture is, and then tells you the interpretation of Scripture.

So the Church defines the extent of Scripture and the meaning of Scripture. The Church defines what is and what is not tradition, whatever tradition might mean to individuals, and what tradition does and does not teach.

Hence, since the Church defines all these things, these things cannot be a superior authority to her.

They do not exist separate from her and above her to correct her. So the two positions are sola scriptura and sola ecclesia.

Those are the two positions that are in this debate. Very rarely do Roman Catholics bring out clearly the sola ecclesia part.

They like to attack sola scriptura. Now, Tim said that, well, you know, there are all these different viewpoints. You know, you've got all these disagreements amongst

Roman Catholics. Well, we know there are all sorts of disagreements amongst Protestants. There are all sorts of disagreements about Roman Catholics.

For example, Tim has told me he believes in what's called material sufficiency view of Scripture. But Jerry Matitix believes in the partum -partum view of tradition that was part of the

Council of Trent. The point is, they don't know. The Church hasn't defined that. There's Augustinians who emphasize the sovereignty of God.

Dominicans who take another viewpoint. There's all sorts of controversies that the Church has not solved.

Therefore, if it is an argument against the sufficiency of Scripture that men disagree about what it teaches, men disagree about Vatican II.

They disagree about the Council of Trent. They disagree about everything the Church has taught. Does that make those sources insufficient?

You see, it is not a valid argument against the sufficiency of the Bible to point out that men disagree about it.

Because that assumes that we come to the Bible with some perfect knowledge. We come to the Bible with our sins, our traditions, and things like that that cause us to have those disagreements.

And we're coming to a station break. My in -studio guest, James White, the founder of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and Tim Staples, director of apologetics for St.

Joseph's Catholic Radio. Be back in a moment. And welcome back to the

Bible Answer Man broadcast. I'm your host, Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute. Delighted that you've joined us for the broadcast today.

Inviting you to join us on air with your question, U .S. or Canada, by simply dialing 888 -ASK -HANK.

My in -studio guest, James White, Alpha and Omega Ministries, Tim Staples, director of apologetics for St. Joseph's Catholic Radio.

They're going to be doing a debate this Saturday. Tim, perhaps you can give us the address and the time.

The doors will open at 6 p .m. And it will be at the Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton.

And if you want tickets, can I give the phone number? Call at area code 714 -744 -0336.

One more time. That's area code 714 -744 -0336.

They'll be able to get tickets at the door, won't they? Yes, and if in fact you can't pick up your tickets tomorrow or whatever, there will be tickets at the door.

You guys are going to debate or is there going to be an opportunity for the audience to ask you questions as well? Yeah, absolutely.

The topic is, the resolution is, does the Bible teach Sola Scriptura? Actually, the thesis that has been sent to me is, is the

Bible the sole infallible rule of faith in the church? Well, I'll debate that. They'll debate anything that comes up that night.

By the way, I want to mention, James Aiken has just come out with a new book. James Aiken? Excuse me. I'm sure he's coming out with a new book as well.

Anyway, James White has come out with a brand new book. It's called The Roman Catholic Controversy. James White.

Radio offer number 388. Suggests a donation of $15 or more to the ongoing work of the

Christian Research Institute. More than at any other time in the past, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals are working together. They're joining across denominational boundaries in renewal movements.

Many Evangelicals are finding the history, tradition, and grandeur of the Roman Catholic Church appealing. In fact, Tim Staples is one of them.

The newfound rapport has caused many Evangelicals to question the age -old disagreements that have divided

Protestants and Catholics. One of the things that these guys are saying is, look, those differences are there.

They're distinct. They're real. They're important. James White lays those differences out and argues for the solos.

I want to go to the actual phone calls because our phone lines are jammed.

In fact, let me tell everybody that's calling right now, we're not going to be able to get to all of your calls in this hour. We are going to stay in studio for an hour once we go off the air.

We'll continue taking your calls, and we'll take that extra off -air hour and broadcast it tomorrow.

This is an important subject. We've got two very capable debaters in studio.

Your questions. First up, Angelo, Vancouver, British Columbia, KGNW. Hi, Angelo. Hi. Your question.

I'm from a Catholic background, and I have family that are Catholics right now. I was just wondering if Revelation 17 refers to the

Catholic Church. What about that, James? It's so often we have people within the present church.

Dave Hunt is a classic example. Take Revelation 70. This is a new argument. It's an old argument. And uses it to demonstrate that the

Roman Catholic Church is the whore of Babylon. Well, any argument from the book of Revelation must be taken first historically.

Historically, one can certainly make a case that Rome is being discussed there, but it must be understood in the context of the persecution of the early church, which was centered in the city of Rome, where the emperor was causing people to have to buy the libelous, the little thing that allowed them to buy and sell, and so on and so forth.

There's historical fulfillments of a lot of that, and obviously what eschatological positions you take is going to color how you see this.

I do not ever utilize a prophetic interpretation of the book of Revelation as an argument against Roman Catholicism.

Is it helpful in any sense? I don't find it to be helpful at all. No, I don't. I think that if one reads the context of Revelation, you'll see in the early part of the book,

John refers to the Jews as being in the synagogues of Satan, and it's a historical fact that the

Jews persecuted. We read about it in Hebrews 10, 32 -34, and all over the place.

The Judaizers were persecuting these Jewish Christians. The whore of Babylon is Israel that later did, in fact, team up with Rome, the

Roman Empire, to persecute the Christians. That's a novel view.

I want to go to Mike in Rochester, New York, WZXV. Hi, Mike. Hi. Hi. It's nice to talk to you.

Good to talk to you. Yeah. I was in the Catholic Church for 32 years, so I sort of have a background in it, and when

I witnessed the other way, we've got Tim Staples going from the Protestant Church, A .G.,

in the Catholic Church, and you went from the Catholic Church into the Protestant Church. My brother said, you know, read it for yourself, gave me a

Chuck Smith tape, and I want to thank God, the Holy Spirit. When I started to read the Bible about Hebrews, no more sacrifice for sin, it is finished.

It just boggled my mind because I think I can talk from this because priests were my friends, you know, and if they're so wrapped up on traditions and doctrines

Do you have a specific question? Yeah. About transubstantiation.

Okay. Okay. When Jesus talked about that, okay, when I was witnessing to a

Catholic, this is my question, they say that they don't even, the ones I witnessed who said that they don't even believe it's the body and blood, but isn't it in the canons of the

Church that says that they're a person? Well, what about transubstantiation? Yes, the Catholic Church believes, and I might add that there are a number of Protestants, such as Martin Luther himself, who at least believe in the real presence of our

Lord in the Eucharist. To quote Martin Luther, in fact, he said that this is a unanimous, this is a teaching that is taught by all of the fathers without exception.

And I make that same argument. And I might add, this is one of the reasons why I became Catholic, is when I investigated, especially in the church fathers in the early centuries, not let alone scripture that is very plain.

Jesus said, this is my body. He never said, this represents my body. This is my body. And we see right from the outset, the connection made from the

Didache forward, between verses like Malachi 1, 7 -11, that prophetically speak of this sacrifice, the sacrificial language itself in Matthew 26, and Mark chapter 14, make it very obvious that Jesus Christ is, in fact, instituted.

And I might add here, not only is the real presence taught by the church, but we also believe that Jesus instituted a priesthood, when he said, this is my body.

And I had to comment on the verse that our caller quoted. I don't know if he realized, he quoted

Hebrews chapter 10, verse 26, when he says, there is no more sacrifice for our sins.

Well, gee, there you have it. There's no more sacrifice for sin. So what about the sacrifice of the mass? In context,

Hebrews is talking about the Old Testament temple sacrifices. He is not saying there is absolutely no more sacrifice.

In fact, the Bible is replete with examples of the fact that there is sacrifice in the New Testament. James, this is an egregious error.

I believe it's an egregious error for many reasons. First of all, historically, when Tim says this is a universal belief of the church, he's confusing real presence with transubstantiation.

Transubstantiation is a doctrine that, I would like to ask Tim sometimes, if we have the time, and I know we're pressed for time today, but when the first tabernacles ever began to be used in the

Roman Catholic Church for the reservation of hosts that have already been transubstantiated, when the host began to be worshipped, things like this,

I'd invite him to look into the history of the church and discover that one can believe in real presence without believing that the host after communion is something that should be the object of worship.

But most importantly, from my perspective, Hebrews chapter 10, we want to talk about that. Hebrews chapter 10 says the repetitive sacrifices of the

Old Testament were an anamnesis, a reminder of what? Sin.

The anamnesis that Christians do in 1 Corinthians chapters 10 and 11 is not of sin, but of a savior.

And what's the difference between the two? Because the sacrifices of the Old Testament were repetitive. They're being over and over again.

There's one sacrifice and a new. Rome says, oh we're not re -sacrificing Christ, we are re -presenting the one sacrifice that is

Calvary. My point is that in Hebrews chapter 10, we are told that those who draw near to God through those old sacrifices had to keep coming back.

Because their consciences weren't cleansed. They still had that knowledge of sin. They had a reminder of their sin.

What makes the New Testament different? The believer who comes to Jesus Christ has faith in him, has his sins, all of them imputed to Christ.

Christ's perfect righteousness is imputed to us so that when we have that anamnesis, that remembrance meal, we're not remembering our sins because they're gone.

We're remembering the Savior. In Roman Catholicism, the mass is said to be a propitiatory sacrifice.

And I love the fact that you brought up that anamnesis is used in the context of sacrifice.

Not only in Hebrews 10 too, but also in the Old Testament you find. So when Jesus said do this in memory of me, in fact if you look at the language that he used, the poieta as well, we find that in the

Old Testament, this is sacrificial language. Jesus is speaking, not always, but it is. Poieta is a common

Greek verb that sometimes can have that. And I can give you many, many examples. What about Tim's argument?

Jesus is speaking in the context of the Passover sacrifice. There's no question about that.

Again, in the context of the Passover sacrifice, there is no way on earth that the apostles sitting there would have ever understood the words of Jesus in the way that modern

Roman Catholic dogma demands that we do so. First of all, it requires Aristotelian concepts of substance and accidents that would have been utterly unknown to these men.

They would have had no idea whatsoever what this is even talking about. They're sitting in the middle of the

Passover meal. What's the Passover meal all about? It's about symbols. What do the bitter herbs represent? They represent the sufferings of the people of Israel.

And so when Jesus says this is my body, this is my blood, in the context of that symbolic meal prior to his death, he's not transubstantiating that bread and that wine into his body and blood.

He is saying this is the new covenant. My body is to be broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

He is not saying that we represent the sacrifice of Christ, the one -time sacrifice. James, first of all,

I can't believe you would say that they wouldn't have understood the word transubstantiation.

My gosh, Jehovah's Witnesses will make the same argument. They wouldn't know what you were talking about if you used the word Trinity. The problem is

Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong about the argument. These are symbols. In the development of the church, of course, we use words like homoousias, like Trinity to describe the reality that we see now.

In the context of John 6, Jesus is speaking, if you look at John 6, 4, in the context of the

Passover, and it's not accidental, Jesus says you must eat my flesh and drink my blood to have eternal life.

He is the sacrificial lamb, the Passover lamb. We agree there is symbolic value in the bread and the wine, but we also believe in what

Jesus said in the way that Luther did. When he said, this is my body, we believe he means what he says.

To quote St. Hippolytus from the apostolic traditions, which is written about 200

AD, when the priest says the words, he Eucharists that bread and wine into the anti -type of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.

This was always believed by Christians. Here is an excellent example of why the debate topic

Saturday night must be the first one in any series that is done. Because I would assert that if I sat down with Tim, and we started at John 6, 1, and worked our way all the way through all the verses of John chapter 6, that I could present to him numerous teachings in the lips of the

Lord Jesus Christ that are directly contradictory to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, but Tim can't do that because of this.

The church tells him what verses 50 and following mean. That is the ultimate authority.

I do not believe that Tim can sit down with Matthew 16, 18 and come to a conclusion other than what

Vatican 1 tells him to believe. There is an authority above Scripture that even though Tim is always talking about context,

I don't believe that context is the ultimate authority. Unfortunately, I have to leave it at that. If you can give me one more plug for the debate, because this obviously is going to be substantive, informative,

Tim Staples. Well, I really think we need to get to that solar. We are going to have another broadcast tomorrow.

If you have liked what you have heard, there is going to be a lot more of it on Saturday and I am convinced,

James, we are going to have a lot more coming in the future as well. Saturday, 6 o 'clock at the

Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton. The number is 714 -744 -0336.

Should we mention we are going to wrestle as well? One of the things is there is a lot of energy in the studio, obviously.

One thing I can say, having spent time with both these gentlemen off air, they like each other as people.

They profoundly disagree from the perspective of a central Christian doctor.

In the studio with me today, James White, founder of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and of course an author.

He is involved in many projects. He is a professor. We also have in the studio Tim Staples, Director of Apologetics for St.

Joseph Catholic Radio. Both of them are involved in a very significant debate.

Yesterday we talked about the fact that there are profound differences between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.

Both guys say, look, these are not issues that we can sweep under the rug. These are substantive issues.

They don't deal with the peripheral doctrines but they deal with the essentials of the historic Christian faith.

Both of them would look at one another as prospects to be evangelized. I am delighted to have both of you in the studio.

James White. It's good to be with you again. And Tim Staples, new friend. Great to be back. Now you guys profoundly disagree, but you like one another.

Absolutely. I must emphasize though, it's solely due to the rush time.

And of course, this is a modeling of what ought to happen in the debate.

We can profoundly disagree. But that does not mean that we have to be disagreeable.

Now yesterday, we started the broadcast. We talked about a lot of issues, primarily soteriology.

We talked about authority. We got into purgatory, a number of other issues. And we can get into some of those issues. I didn't get into purgatory,

Hank. I'm not going there. You don't plan on going. But one of the things, of course, that happens every time we have this kind of a forum on the

Bible Answer Man broadcast is we are jammed with phone callers. And as I promised yesterday, we're going to get right to the phone calls.

As we move along, we'll give you guys some opportunities to expand on the debate, clarify issues, et cetera.

I want to go to our first caller today, Steve in Anaheim, California. KKLA. Hi, Steve. Hi, Hank. How are you? I'm doing okay.

Good. I hope they get into Kepha and Kepha. And my question would be,

Hank, I heard you describe the difference between the Catholics and Protestants that call no man father.

I think Matthew 23, verse 9, I'd like to get Tim's response and hear James as well. On call no man father.

Yeah, that was actually one of the first areas I was cleared up on.

That was one of my first one -liners when I went after Catholics. Call no man father. That's what

Scientologists do. They get you the position of cleric. There you go. Well, the way you respond to that and the way we respond as a

Catholic is to understand the context. We must not take Scripture out of context. We can make it out of context.

We can make the Bible say just about anything. The Scripture is clear in other places. Now, if Jesus meant that in an absolute sense called no man father, then he contradicts himself because in Luke 16, 24, he calls

Abraham Father Abraham. And notice that's a title. He calls him with a title Father Abraham as St.

Paul does in Romans chapter 4. In 1 Corinthians 4, verse 15, Paul says you have 10 ,000 instructors in the

Lord Jesus. You have not many fathers. 1 John 2, 13, John refers to the elders as fathers.

So, we have people all over the place. We have father, father, father. So, what gives here? Well, whenever we see two

Scriptures, and James, I hope we remember this, whenever we see two Scriptures that appear to contradict each other, we know

Scripture is the openness. There is no contradiction. We need to dive a little bit deeper and get to the bottom of it.

And when you do, you find in context what Jesus is saying is that we are to attribute to no man that which is due

God alone. That is the context. Do not call any man father, or master, or teacher.

And we do not. What about? Well, of course, I would agree with almost everything he said.

It is not an absolute command in that sense. All those passages are quite valid. He is quite right.

The reason I do not use the term father is because it is normally understood in a spiritual sense. The Roman Catholic priest is not my spiritual father.

I do not believe that he has any authority over me in Christ. I do not believe he has any sacramental authority in any way, shape, or form over me or to aid me in any way, shape, or form.

So in regards to what was just said, do not ascribe to a man that which is to be given only to God.

We were having a discussion before the program with regards to the use of titles of the

Bishop of Rome. Holy Father, a term only used of God by the Lord Jesus in John 17. Vicar of Christ.

Who is the Vicar of Christ? Vicarius means one who takes the place of. Who is the Vicar of Christ on earth today? The Holy Spirit. So I have a lot of problems with the use of terminology like that.

Interestingly enough, the first pope would be called Vicar of Christ, Pope Galatius in the 5th century. But those are attributions of titles to a man that I think if we're consistent in applying the proper hermeneutical principle that Tim just enunciated for us, would mean that we could not use those terms of the pope.

And personally, in regards to the issue of if a Roman Catholic views a person as their father, fine.

I do not. And hence, I cannot use it as a title in that way because it has spiritual connotations that I do not believe exist.

Clearly, James, the scripture teaches when Jesus gives authority to the apostles, they are in fact vicars.

Now, we don't see the word, but the concept is there. Clearly, he says, if they hear you, they hear me.

They went out in the place of Jesus. That's what we see from day one from men like Saint Ignatius of Antioch, and I would argue for 2 ,000 years in Christianity, the bishops speak in the place of God.

That is what we're talking about when we say the vicar of Christ. Now, we do not just say, James, that the

Pope is the vicar of Christ, but each bishop in their diocese is the vicar of Christ.

I want to hold both of you for just a second and get to another issue that's been troubling me.

I think about the fact that the Christian church by and large is historically illiterate.

Both of you guys are fairly well -read, knowledgeable, and know church history.

I say both of you guys, and I assume both of you guys do, I know for sure that that is the case with James White, and I assume that that is true with you too,

Tim. The problem that I have is, as you refer to church history, I'm thinking all the time in my head, my listening audience doesn't have a radar fix on what you're talking about.

What is the besetting problem? Well, you're exactly correct. I will confess to the sin that normally when

I do radio programs, I look at the host and I don't look at the person over there. You know why? Because there's a danger that Tim and I are currently debating each other.

I think we can agree that sometimes when we start throwing things around here, I just mention Pope Galatius. I know he knows who

Pope Galatius is and he can put him somewhere, he can get a radar fix on Pope Galatius. I apologize if I go by that so fast as to not provide that.

I promise to do better in the future. But that isn't my point. My point is simply this. Not that you guys have to try to take every single thing that you're saying and put it within some kind of historical context, but I'm thinking that as this debate is waged, it, by the nature of the fact that many people are historical illiterate, is going to go over their heads.

You're asking a professor of church history to preach on why he thinks Christians should study it. You see, there are many

Protestants, and Tim is going to sit over there and if I don't get an amen out of him, I am going to reach over there and kick him on this.

Many Protestants have a view of church history that extends for about 50 years. 50 years back in history, well my granddad was.

That's about as far back as I want to go. I sit here as a convinced Protestant who rejoices in being able to look back, you would really appreciate this

Hank, at Athanasius, the great Bishop of Alexandria. As he takes on the

Arians of his day, as he argues from scripture demonstrating the deity of Christ, and I am thrilled to read his words and to recognize that God has been at work, and Protestants do believe this even if they don't recognize it, that God has been at work in this world all along.

I do not stand alone. I can look back at the early fathers, I read the early fathers, I teach on the early fathers,

I can look back and gain much wisdom from them. But I recognize that they are just like you and I. I can look back at their failings, they had their false beliefs, they had their arguments with one another, and I do not see in them some infallible testimony that I have to be bound by everything that an early father said.

I can point to one particular early father and provide you statements where he says A over here and non

A over there when it is another situation. I can look at Augustine. Everybody respects Augustine, but Augustine, because of the political situation of his day, because of the military situation of his day, interpreted

Jesus' words in the parable, compelled them to come in as giving legal and biblical support to the use of military force to suppress his theological enemies.

That ended up being used in the middle ages as a ground for the inquisition and countless people died as a result of that.

I do not think Augustine had any idea about that. But Augustine's interpretation of that passage stinks.

It is wrong. Now I can understand why he was forced into it. I understand the things that were operational.

I look at him as a human being just like you and I. And I'm going to break new news to our listening audience.

James, we've only got an hour now. Well, but my point is, Hank and I, you point out that Hank and I might have some disagreements with one another.

Sure. I may be wrong on some of them. I'm certain Hank's wrong on some of them. But the point is, I recognize that Hank is not infallible.

I do not claim to be infallible. Now you have said in regards to this issue, Tim, when you talk about, I believe you have misrepresented our possession here.

You say I misrepresent yours. I believe you misrepresent ours because you have said in your radio program that sola scriptura means that you have to go back over 2000 years and basically quote unquote reinvent the wheel.

In fact your specific words were, see ultimately the theory is bankrupt because none of us, none of us is smart enough to go back over 2000 years of Christianity and reinvent the wheel.

My question is, who are you? And this is, thank goodness,

I'm finally going to be able to get to the point that you made on yesterday's broadcast. When you said that the Catholic Church teaches sola ecclesia, we do not.

We teach that the scripture is the inspired word of God as is the tradition as well and the scripture plainly teaches that.

We're going to do a debate on this Saturday so I'll just mention briefly. And by the way, it is where? Second Thessalonians, oh the debate.

It's in Second Thessalonians. Yeah, the debate is in Second Thessalonians. I thought it was First Plumbers. Well, a lot of the debate may be in Second Thessalonians.

Second Thessalonians 215, we'll be there. That's right, but it's at Plumber Auditorium in Fullerton from 6 o 'clock to 10 and if you need to get tickets, give us a call at 744 -0336, it's area code 714 and remember you can get

One more time, just in case someone didn't have a fast pencil. Okay, they can get tickets at the door but the number is 714 -744 -0336.

Fine with your point. Please let's change it. This is my turn. It's his turn.

I know, but the address, isn't it like 201 East Chapman Street? I'm from out of state. I'm from out of state. You got to give the address.

I'll tell you what, I don't think I have that handy. I think it's 201 East Chapman. I'll tell you what, we will get you the address before the broadcast is over today.

Go ahead. Okay, well he made the point that we taught Sola Ecclesiae and he further made the point that Tim is not free.

He can't interpret, go into the Scripture and exegete it. He doesn't understand a couple of things.

Number one, when the church, and very few times has she, seven, eight times, has she defined infallibly a particular

Scripture. Let's take Matthew 16, 18. She defines this verse to mean this. That does not exclude the possibility of a polyvalent understanding.

What it does say is you cannot deny this interpretation, whether it's Peter is the rock, or if you want to say it's

Peter's faith as the Council of Trent did, by the way. Fine, but we don't separate

Peter's faith from Peter. If you want to say in a tertiary sense that it's the rock, as Augustine does at some points, then

I think you're really stretching the context there, but as long as you don't deny that infallible interpretation, we do not reject the polyvalent sense.

Secondly, I would say this. He says that somehow I am not free because the

Catholic church has told me, thus saith God on this. My gosh, Jesus Christ, when he walked this earth, he was not saying, guys, this is my opinion of what the

Old Testament says, and you know, I think it's pretty darn good, but you guys get together and discuss it, and if you don't agree, go start your own church.

Jesus said, thus saith God. The Apostle said, thus saith God. And according to the New Testament, the church of Jesus Christ does the same thing.

Now, what I believe James is doing... But isn't that what we're saying? No, let me finish. What James is doing, he's arguing for anarchy in this regard.

He's saying that no way, man, if you say you have the absolute truth, you are limiting my freedom.

No, in fact, we're establishing freedom because it's the truth that makes us free. And folks, Protestantism, in the end, there is no one.

And this is a key difference, Hank, between us. But you're saying that it's anarchy if people individually interpret

Scripture as opposed to having some kind of authority. And that authority must be an infallible authority.

Now, I know he's going to come back on that, but let me finish my point. Because once you open the barn doors and allow private interpretation, which

I would suggest 2 Peter 3 verses 15 and 16 expressly says is a no -no, private interpretation is out the door.

The church, according to the New Testament, has the authority to speak for Christ so that when she pronounces,

Thus saith God, that is the answer. You made your point, your response. Well, this is the debate.

This is the debate, and I will establish sola ecclesia and sola as the Roman Catholic position by debate on Saturday evening.

I don't need to do that again. I would just point out that when I say that no one dares agree with Catholic bishops if they by chance err in anything with the result their opinion is against the canonical

Scriptures of God, I am saying that the canonical Scriptures of God are the ultimate authority. You were wrong in how you represented what

I was saying. Maybe you're misunderstanding. No, it is not anarchy. Why? Because the we're arguing is not that we do not have an ultimate source of authority.

We are saying that we have an ultimate source of authority that people misuse, and it is not a problem with the source to say it is misused.

There are people who misuse Roman Catholic sources all the time. There is anarchy reigning. You can go to Boston College at a

Roman Catholic institution and hear that all the time. Wait a minute. I didn't get a chance to finish. I didn't get a chance to finish.

One thing, Tim. The statement that I made about disagreeing with Catholic bishops is the words of Augustine, who said that if Catholic bishops are, and they could are, the ultimate authority was the

Scripture. Let me ask you something. Who defines what the Scripture teaches? First of all, when you are talking about the idea of an absolute authority, what we are saying is that Jesus empowered the church to say, thus saith

God. I don't want to be unfair, but unfortunately I am looking at the clock. I've got 10 seconds. We are coming to the station break. We've got to continue this heated debate when we come back from the station break.

See you in a moment. I also want to mention that my two in -studio guests, James White and Tim Staples, will be debating at 201

East Chapman Avenue in Fullerton. That is this Saturday night. Tomorrow, you can call for tickets, area code 714 -744 -0336.

You can also get tickets at the door. One thing I want to ask you is this question.

Have the Popes ever contradicted one another when they are speaking ex cathedra?

Absolutely not. There is nothing that James can bring forward or anyone. Do you agree with that? Many have tried, and they failed.

Before we get to that, Hank, I want to ask you a question. I'll let you clarify. That is a statement of faith.

As he just said, there is nothing I can bring forward. Why? Because his ultimate authority tells me there is nothing I can bring forward.

So the facts of history, Honorius, Liberius, Sixtus' infallible Vulgate, those are irrelevant.

Each one of those are answerable. The ultimate authority says,

I'm sure you feel you've answered them, but you must realize, not people's infallibility, but the point is, the

Pope is infallible, and therefore, he is infallible. Before we get to our next question, which is going to come up in a couple seconds here, your clarification.

We had to make this huge point, and the real difference between us is we believe that it's not just a book that we go by, but that we have a living body of Christ that's described in 1

Corinthians 12, and by the way, when the body is being described, it includes a head there in 1

Corinthians 12. We have a living body of Christ that is able. Here's the difference. We have a man that can walk in the room right here and say, thus speaks the

Lord. Whereas Protestantism, all you have is men that can give their old college stride, they can give their best opinion on the matter, but there is no one who can say, thus sayeth the

Lord, and I'm reminded of John chapter 5, where Jesus said, I come in my

Father's name and you reject me. If another comes in his own name, him you will receive. You see, there's a certain comfort in Protestantism, to be sure, because I, and ultimately

I would argue, James, that you are the final say. Well, I'd like to rebut that myself, but we'll get into that in a couple of minutes.

Tino, Sacramento, California, KFIA. Hi, Tino. Hi, sir. I am going to forge through with some calls, otherwise

I'm going to leave everybody hanging. Tino, go ahead. Okay, sir. I wanted to ask in regards to purgatory, but I figured, you know,

I'll go with another one for purgatory, I'm sure it's going to get handled enough. I would like to ask, first off, is the

Catechism Book of the Roman Catholic Church, which has just been revised for the first time over 300 years, I think. About 500, actually.

Okay, 500, I'm wrong. I have a problem with, I'm sure that it's been accepted by all the

Roman Catholic churches in order to be published by them, but in regards to the commandments, page 518, the second commandment, it's not the second commandment.

What's your question? I think I can, you're asking why the difference between the ten commandments?

The tenth commandment is split into two, and because there's no, I guess, there's no idols or anything to be produced, and I'm sure that that's quite an income for the

Catholic Okay, well, real quickly, the Catholic Church did not take the second commandment out. We go with, in fact,

Augustine's listing of the ten commandments, as well as many of the fathers of the church, because we believe the Protestant listing that comes not from Scripture, by the way, if you check

Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, you're not going to find a list of the ten commandments. In fact, if you count the vows, shouts, and Exodus 20, you'll get about 13.

And what we're What the Protestants have done, I believe, is followed the Palestinian understanding that I think is errant, in that the first two commandments are redundant.

No gods before me, and then no statues. You already said that in the first commandment. And further, that last commandment, thou shalt not covet, the idea of putting coveting wife and property in the same commandment

You mean statues and idols synonymously? Right, statues, idols, exactly. And the tenth commandment, you have, thou shalt not covet neighbors' wives, and property.

In the Protestant listing of the ten commandments, we say, no, we don't want to list that as one commandment.

Why? Because a woman or a human being is of significant more value than property.

So we have the ninth and tenth commandments. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nine, and property, ten.

James? Well, I think the important issue here is not the numeration of which commandments are which.

The issue, I think, that has normally been a part of the Protestant objection to the way the Roman Catholic translations do it, has to do with the issue of the veneration of saints and the charge of idolatry, which

I don't know that we have time to get into, other than to say that historically Protestants have rejected the

Roman Catholic attempt at distinguishing between Latria and Dulia, saying that saints receive Dulia, Mary receives

Hyperdulia, and only God receives Latria. I believe that is an unbiblical distinction, and that has really been what the issue has been about, not so much how many there are, but what it refers to.

By the way, in the Trinity, you find that he makes that distinction on Latria and Dulia, just as the

Catholic Church does. By the way, I want to mention that James White has a book called The Roman Catholic Controversy.

It is out. It is available through the Christian Research Institute, Radio Opera number 388. It's a package that we offer with some other things as well.

I suggest a donation of $15 or more to the ongoing work of CRI. You can write me at CRI Box 500,

San Juan, Capistrano, California, ZIP Code 92 -693. You can call for a copy, 714 -422 -4222, 855 -9926, and you can also get

The Roman Catholic Controversy using Visa MasterCard or the Discover card when you dial 800 -443 -9797.

I also want to mention that this weekend, Sunday, I'm going to be in Olathe, Kansas.

I'll be speaking at the Olathe Bible Church, 14841 Black Bob Road, Olathe, Kansas.

I'll be there at all three services, 8 a .m., 9 .30 a .m., and 11 p .m. I'm going to be talking about the marks of a genuine work of God.

I'll also be talking about the fact that we need to get back to basics. You can call the church, 913 -764 -8280 for directions.

I want to go back to the phone lines. Elizabeth in Washington listening on KGNW. Hi, Elizabeth. Hi. My question is, well, having been raised in the

Catholic Church and then spending three years in the Mormon Church, I was with a Christian group of people where there was really strong insistence that the

Catholic Church was a cult, and I was wondering if you could explain why it's not a cult?

Yeah, this is something that I have been saying and answered questions for a number of years, James White, that I do not think that Roman Catholicism can be classified as a cult.

And I should go on record as saying I don't either. It's as if we were surprised by that. Well, the problem is the use of the term, and in me and my ministry,

I have drawn the line to the term cult in regards to what they teach about the person of Jesus Christ, a group that claims to be

Christian but denies that Jesus Christ is truly God. Mormonism, for example. Now, that does not mean that when you don't use the term that you are somehow being wishy -washy...

Or soft on Catholicism. Exactly. I don't think anyone would proclaim you to be soft on Catholicism.

The problem is... But it's a classification problem. It's a classification problem. It's a term that normally in our situation just simply creates heat and not a whole lot of light.

It creates emotions. It's really not overly useful as a term in that way. Tim Staples, if you took just the opposite view of that question and were talking about the

Protestant church, what would your response be? We do not consider Protestants to be cultists.

We would agree with Separated brethren? Separated brethren is the term that the council has used, yes.

I want to go back to the phone lines. Dave, St. Louis, Missouri, listening on KSIV. Hi, Dave. Hello, thanks for taking my call.

You're welcome. Yeah, I had a question... Well, I had a lot of questions after listening here, and some good answers

I've already had from you guys, too. But basically, my question has to do with faith and works. I heard a scripture quoted from Romans 2 -7, and the scripture...

Let me just read that, okay? Mm -hmm. Yeah. To those who, by persistence in doing good, seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life.

Okay, and my question is, when you take that, how can that refer to earning salvation?

Well, number one, you understand the Catholic Church doesn't teach that we earn salvation.

We merit salvation, and there's a huge difference. I cannot earn salvation that is something that I do by my own, so that would be

Pelagianism. But what I can do is, when I'm in a state of grace,

I can merit eternal salvation by cooperating with God's grace. As St. Paul says in Galatians 2 -20...

No, there's a difference. In Galatians 2 -20, he says, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live.

Yet not I live, but Christ lives in me. Paul is getting across this mystery. Notice what he says.

I'm dead, but I'm alive. I'm dead, but I'm alive. Right? Because once we're dead with Christ, then we have to live this life of faith, as Scripture is replete with examples.

Acts 13 -43. Continue in the grace of God.

Continue in the faith. Abiding in Christ. Hey, I could get Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel folks to agree with me here.

1 John 2 -24 says, if you abide in the

Son, you will continue to abide in the Father and the Son. I might have butchered that quote.

Can I say something, please? I never really got to finish my question. Oh, that's true. Sorry. Well, the question is that how can, when you look at the context like Romans 4 -5, where it says, he who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.

How can you sit there and say, whether you say it's merit or whether you say it's earning or whatever you want to do, how can you say that faith and works are the same when there's such a stark contrast in the book of Romans with faith and works?

Okay, I'll make two points, quickly. Number one, you need to look at James 2 -24 that says we see that a man, and by the way, this is the only time in all of sacred

Scripture the words faith alone are used and the words not by are right in front of them. We see the man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

Of course, it's implied that it's faith and works. It's not works apart from faith. But it's not by faith alone.

Second point. All right, once we see that, remember what I said. We don't want to be Jehovah's Witnesses here and take one scripture and then exclude the other.

What we have in Romans 3 -28. That's bordering on an ad hominem there. Well, in Romans 3 -28, we have to see the context

Paul is dealing with a group of people called the Judaizers who were teaching these first century believers that it was not enough to believe in Jesus.

You also had to keep the works of the Levitical law. The works of the law is a key phrase here. If you notice, look at verse 29 right after he says, without the works of the law, he says, is he the

God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Why did he say that? Because the law he's referring to is the

Levitical law that was peculiar to the Jews, not the Ten Commandments, a law that was peculiar to the

Jews. And then in verse 5, we have the one who does not keep the ceremonial precepts of the law, the

Levitical law that these Judaizers were saying you had to keep in order to be justified. Now, by inference, folks,

I can agree with St. Augustine here. Now, Jerome makes this point, and he emphasizes what

I've just said. Now, St. Paul uses this as a springboard to leap into a deeper truth that says we cannot do anything whatsoever on our own, outside of the

I think that James has been bandied about, particularly James chapter 2. And therefore,

I want James White to respond to the argument of James 2. Well, the only response

I would give very quickly because it is a lengthy discussion to get into this is, if we don't want to use a verse out of context like the

Jehovah's Witnesses, then we don't want to continuously cite James 2 .24 from a book that is written to Christians about living the

Christian life, and apply it to a passage where Paul is specifically, in the writing to the

Romans, discussing how it is that a man who is unrighteous can be made righteous. When we're talking about how it is a man is justified.

That is taking one passage that is talking about a completely different topic and importing it in here and making it to be normative for everything else.

Now, I think we just, well, wait a minute. I'll let you go on and on. Let me point out exactly what the caller was saying in Romans chapter 4.

We were just told that Romans 4 .5 actually is saying, now to the one who does not do the works of the

Mosaic Law, because this is allegedly written against the Judaizers. Well, Galatians specifically is. But I want everyone to look at Romans 4 .5.

They don't have a Bible, they're driving, something like that. Go home and read this passage, because what

Paul says is, to the one who does not work, but believes, now he places a contrast there, but notice right at the beginning he says, to the one working the wage, the reward is not reckoned according to grace, but is what is due.

When you go into work and someone hands you your paycheck, let's say you hand out the paychecks here, Hank, and you walk up to somebody who has worked for 40 hours this week and say, here's a gift for you.

You say, that wasn't a gift. I worked hard for that money, it's what you are owed. Paul is not in this passage anywhere talking about doing ceremonial laws of the

Jews in this passage. He is saying, look at the context, he is here saying, to the one who works with the expectation of receiving a reward, any works, you cannot limit this just to the works of the

Mosaic Law, he doesn't limit it here, and Paul is saying, to the fact, Tim, he does not use ha -namas here, he does not say works of law, he uses the participial form of ergadzo, to work.

And he contrasts that with what? With believing. And he says, the one who believes in God who justifies the ungodly, his faith is imputed to him as righteous.

And we're coming to station break. My in -studio guest, James White, Alpha Omega Ministries, Tim Staples, Director of Apologetics for St.

Joseph's Catholic Radio. We'll be back in a moment with more. Welcome back to the

Bible Instrument broadcast. I'm your host, Hank Hanegraaff, President of the Christian Research Institute. Delighted that you've joined us for the broadcast today.

Inviting you to join us on air with your question, the US or Canada, by simply dialing 888 -ASK -HANK.

I also want many of you to stand with us prayerfully and financially. We've just taken the largest step of faith in the history of the

Christian Research Institute, 36 years, and I'm absolutely convinced that there is no safer place than a leap of faith, a faith founded properly on the

Lord Jesus Christ. And the fact that this ministry is making a difference for time and for eternity, we'd like many of you that see the value of this broadcast to stand with us financially.

Our address, the Christian Research Institute, Box 500, San Juan, Capistrano, California, zip code 92693.

Our telephone number, area code 714 -855 -9926. And pleased to remember, you're making a donation using

Visa MasterCard or the DiscoverCard. We have a toll -free line dedicated to you. That number, 800 -443 -9797.

In the studio today with me, James White, Alpha Omega Ministries, Tim Staples, Director of Apologetics for St.

Joseph's Catholic Radio. And they're going to be debating this Saturday, tomorrow. Doors open at 6.

They're going to be at 201 East Chapman Avenue, Fullerton. And you can get tickets at the door.

You can also call a handyman. 714 -744 -0336.

And I can assure you that this will be a very lively debate, number one.

Number two, both Tim Staples, James White, are very, very excellent representatives of their particular position.

One thing that has become abundantly clear today, as well as yesterday, in the broadcast, is that we're not dealing with peripheral issues.

We're dealing with central issues. But there's no necessity whatsoever to be disagreeable.

And I think these men have both role -modeled passion for their position. And they ought to be passionate because our eternal destiny hangs on how we view soteriology.

So there are many substantive issues that we're dealing with. And the passion is warranted.

But the fact that these men can get up, hug one another, shake hands, and debate.

I don't know about the hugging part. Well, I don't know about this hugging part, either. Maybe we'll never get to that. But anyway, if you like one another, you can have a sandwich together, at least, can't you?

You don't greet one another with a holy kiss, but you will have a sandwich. I agree as long as James buys. Okay. And I want to go back to the phone lines.

Chris in New York, listening on WMCA. Hi, Chris. How you doing there, Hank? Good out there. I'm the Long Island Station representative for WMCA.

And I want to thank you for advertising the debate that I had. I arranged a debate with James White and Jerry Matitox back in August.

And thanks to your advertising, Hank, we had over 600 people there. And that was a debate on the

Marion Doctrine. Yes. And I think that your New York listeners will be delighted to know that James will be coming back to Long Island, New York, to debate

Jerry Matitox once again, this time on Saturday, at the Sola Scriptura. That will be at the Coral House in Baldwin, Long Island, on May 22nd.

And anything we can do to help, we'll be happy to do it. Great. I wanted to let Tim in on a little secret.

If he wants to beat James in this debate, I have to find out that James is a pastry addict.

So if he would like to bribe James with Dunkin' Donuts, it may work. I heard that James once converted to Swedenborgian for a box of cream -filled

Bavarian donuts. But anyway, I hope you enjoy the show. Thank you, Chris. I love you, too. I was calling because I've been having a lot of dialogue with very militant

Roman Catholics lately, and one thing that disturbs me is that I hear coming up quite often that the stories of the martyrs, the

Protestants who were martyred by Roman Catholics, are by and large grossly exaggerated that Fox's book of martyrs cannot be trusted.

It's full of lies. And so I was wondering what both of your guest comments were.

Well, I agree with you about Fox's book of martyrs, and I think we should say in all fairness that Protestant scholarship agrees with us on that.

And I don't think James is going to tout Fox's book of martyrs as the book that everybody wants to get for Christmas.

Well, my book is the one that he did. That's right. I was going to say that. But I think we should acknowledge the fact that there have been a number of serious problems on both sides of the issue.

We had Calvin and Michael Cervatis, and the

Anabaptists with the Lutherans, and we could talk about this, but really, what's the point?

The bottom line is this, that we need to get to the substance of the issues.

The Roman Catholic Church never put anyone to death. That is a fact. Never put anyone to death.

We, in fact, subscribe ourselves to the death penalty, as does the

Old Testament, and many would argue the New Testament. But the Roman Catholic Church does not carry a sword.

It carries the word of God. However, we do turn people over, and did, to the secular authority and acknowledge the right, the divine right, even, from Romans chapter 13, of governments to governments.

If you have a Christian government, you have people, and let's face it, James, back then people believed something that's kind of strange today, that mortal sin or that heresy is actually something that's worse than murder.

And by the way, I agree with that, because when you murder somebody, you kill a body. When you teach heresy, you kill souls.

And people like Calvin and Luther, as well as the Catholics, believe that. So at least we can understand a little bit why governments, even

Christian governments, put heretics to death. Now I'm not saying let's go do it. I'm not saying that. So much for the infallibility of Calvin and Luther, which we don't claim, and so much for the infallibility of the church of Rome.

You see, it is a historical myth to say that Rome didn't kill anybody. They used this constant, everyone knew exactly what was going to happen when the inquisitors said, we turn you over to the secular authorities.

The secular authorities had no choice. In fact, you can find numerous places where leaders in the church slipped up and talked about the people that we had put to death.

I want to give you a clear example of why this is a central issue. You see, Jan Hus was killed at the council of Constance, July 6, 1415, as a heretic for believing most of the things that you and I believe,

Hank. He was condemned by the very council that healed the papal schism, which at that time had three popes, since the council of Pisa in 1409.

And the papacy had not been able to extricate itself from this error. The council of Constance had to come along and heal the papacy, and it was the same council that murdered the

Jan Hus for believing in sola scriptura and sola fide. Now, the point is, why is this central?

Because I, as a protestant, don't claim infallibility. I claim the Bible is what is infallible, not the church.

The church listens to the infallible word of God and is obedient to that. Rome claims infallibility, and I'm going to ask

Mr. Staples, was the council of Constance in error in burning Jan Hus? I would object to the fact that you're claiming that the

Roman Catholic Church put him to death. The Roman Catholic Church did not. In fact, and secondly,

I would say that, objectively speaking, as I already enunciated to you, heresy is a capital crime.

Tim, did they not force Jan Hus to sit upon a stool in front of the council, dressed in a dunce cap with demons and devils painted on it, while the bishop of Lodi preached a sermon for Romans 6 on the destruction of the body of sin?

Did they not know that Jan Hus would be burned at the stake as the result of their condemnation?

But the church does not have that authority. Why is that an error? Okay, we've already answered the question. The church does not have the authority to put him to death.

Graham Washington listening on KGNW. Kevin, welcome. Hello, Hank. Thanks for getting me in under the wire here in between the two gentlemen cutting him off there.

I appreciate it. You gentlemen kind of answered my original question on the vicars and priests taking the place of the pope, but I would just like to correct

Mr. Staples that on the EWTN network, they do teach that the priest does take the place of God.

Do you have a question? Yes, I do. My question is, don't you believe that the church teaches that only

God is omnipresent? Yes, only God is omnipresent. What's your question? That's a simple one to answer.

Okay, my question is, then how is it that the EWTN, and again I saw this on EWTN, how can they say that when the priest does the

Eucharistic prayer over the host and the wine, that the multitudes of angels and dead saints and some dead popes come down and surround the altar as the priest makes the transformation?

Because we're talking about the mystical body of Christ, and you know, people ask me that all the time.

I get that quite often. How can you say that even the Eucharist can be

God? How can the same God be on this altar and that altar? We're talking about God here, folks.

I mean, that's a piece of cake for him, and when we're talking about the mystical body of Christ, we're talking about people that are in the, and we don't even know, it's 1

John chapter 3 verses 1 and 2 says, Brethren, it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

The saints in heaven have abilities to do things beyond anything you and I can fathom. This is indicated to us in sacred scripture and scriptures like Revelation chapter 5, the first eight verses, where the saints in heaven intercede, receiving the prayers of the saints and responding to them.

The quick response in regards to this idea is that Jesus Christ, having offered one sacrifice for all time, sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

He is not being represented. He sat down, and what that means, the priest never sat down because his work was never finished.

Christ's work is finished. Rome teaches the masses perpetuatory. It can't be in light of that. Okay, one more call. Leona in Abbotsford, British Columbia.

Canadian listener listening on KARA. Hi, Leona. Hi. I was calling, this is probably not a really good question, and I don't want the gentleman who is

Catholic to be offended, but I was just wondering if it's possible that the, I think it's the religious leader that works with the

Antichrist, when there is an Antichrist. The beast? Yes, the beast. When he works with him, could the religious leader of the day be the pope?

The pope of that day? And you're directing that to me. Or to any, actually, all three of you.

Well, let's just say no to that one. You see, the real issue is this.

We need to get to the bottom of these scriptures that deal with patron authority. I want to give you guys a chance to wrap up.

Okay, so the answer obviously is no. Well, that all depends on how you interpret the book of Revelation.

I don't attempt to make any arguments about that at all. I believe there have been popes, however, during the pornocracy. Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia.

Whatever the beast will be like, it will look like saints. And I wanted to give you,

Tim Staples, an opportunity, as well as James White, to wrap up. Closing statement.

You've got about a minute. Well, I would just like to finish on what I think is absolutely crucial.

In Matthew chapter 18, verses 15 through 17, Jesus gives us clear instruction as to what we are to do.

We are to take these things to one another.

This doesn't mean we can't do exactly what we're doing. I'm Catholic, but I'm sitting here exegeting scripture with my friends.

And we're trying to get to the bottom of this thing. But thank God, when we do disagree, the Bible says we have a place to go, and it's not the scripture alone.

And we'll deal with this on Saturday, James. But the Bible says, if you disagree, you go to your brother.

And if you can't settle you take two or three with you. And if you still can't settle, I want you to notice, get your Bibles out, folks, and read it.

In verse 17, it says the final say belongs to the church. James, what?

Specifically in that passage, you're talking about problems in between people, and I'm talking about final decisions in regards to doctrine.

But earlier, Mr. Staples, I think, summarized this entire thing in characterizing, mischaracterizing the

Protestant position. He said, we don't just have a book, we have the living church. A Protestant church is the book is alive.

Hebrews 4 .12 says, the word of God is alive and quick and powerful and sharp and a two -edged sword. And the church is the bride of Christ, the pupil of Christ, that listens to what he says.

He said, we've got someone who can come in here and say, thus saith the Lord. So are the Mormons. So, excuse me, this is my summary, this is my summary.

They say, we have someone come in and say, thus saith the Lord. The Mormons make the same claim. We say, the

Lord has thus said, and it is sufficient because it teaches that word. That's the difference between us.

It is the issue of authority. And if you want to hear more, or you want to make sure that you attend the debate this