July 15, 2003

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha and Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341.

And now with today's topic, here is James White.

Opening Banter, Weather, and Upcoming Book Projects

And good morning and welcome to The Dividing Line. We didn't think we were going to be here this morning, but a particular little trip I was going to take really didn't work out as far as schedule goes, so we'll be here, Lord willing, Thursday evening as well.

Get another week's worth of The Dividing Line in and hopefully have some interesting topics for you today. Just a couple things and allow you to sort of drive the topic of the program today by calling 877 -753 -3341.

877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. That is if the electricity stays on. We didn't have, I didn't hear about any brownouts or anything yesterday here in Phoenix. I did see my little weather bug thingamabobby down there in the system tray get up to 117 degrees yesterday.

It got up to 123 in Arizona at a little town, a God-forsaken little town along the Colorado River called Bullhead City. I think it was Bullhead City? I think it was Bullhead City. It's someplace up there anyway that hit 123 degrees.

That's not the worst. The worst is 122, but can you really tell the difference? I could tell the difference because I'll tell you what. 117 with a little bit of humidity is considerably worse than 122, which I also experienced, that had 2 humidity.

You knock that humidity up to about 15%, increase the amount of moisture by about tenfold or something like that, and then, wow, it's hard to breathe when it's 117 degrees with a little bit of humility.

Yes, a little humility coming in. We need the humility, not the humidity. Actually, we need the humidity, too. We need the rain. But anyway, it's only a measly, at 11 a .m., a measly 107 degrees at the moment here in Phoenix.

So if we all of a sudden disappear, it's because the electricity finally just gave up the ghost and died. I imagine those transformers get just a tad bit on the warm side on days like that. And so right now is the time of year where all you folks back east are going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you live in Phoenix.

But, you know, start in November, we start doing the yeah, yeah, and all the way through May. So that's just sort of how it all works out. Hey, I got a chance to see the cover for Debating Calvinism. That is now at least, I think, completely officially the title, the title of the book from Multnomah, which is currently scheduled for release in February of 2004, is entitled Debating.

Why do I say entitled? Because entitled is not really the way it should be titled, not entitled. But anyway, titled Debating Calvinism, Five Points, Two Views, Dave Hunt and James White. I saw six covers yesterday, and it was funny.

I put them on a little website that we have for our chat channel, and there were about, I'd say about a dozen people grand total who voted. I said, you tell me what you think, because I'm not a graphics person, you know.

I mean, okay, I guess I have some idea of what looks good and what doesn't, but frequently folks won't agree with what I think looks good anyways. And so we put them up there, and I looked over the six, and I picked the one that I thought looked best.

But I didn't say anything about it. I just sort of threw it out there for everybody else. And for quite some time, the one I wanted didn't get a single vote. And in fact, the one I wanted was number four of the six, and number one, and I think number five.

And number five looked very much like number four, so I guess we should throw those together, actually. Had the most votes. And so I found out during the day that they contacted Dave Hunt's office, and all his people got together, looked at them, and about the only thing, the only thing where Dave Hunt and I have agreed in regards to this book, other than the format, was that independently, Dave Hunt's folks, Rich Pierce, and myself all chose the same cover.

And so we can't say that we had complete disagreement in this book, because we all decided that cover number four was the one to go with, and so that's the one we are going with is cover number four. Now, that doesn't tell you anything, but when you see it, you will know what cover number four was.

Well, at least I hope so. I have actually gotten books, only one, but I have gotten books in the mail, and I thought I knew what they were going to be, I thought I knew what they were going to look like, and when it arrived, it didn't even have the same title.

So it does happen, and it could arrive and look completely different. You never know. But February will be here before we know it, and then let the games begin. In fact, just this morning, I got an email about a possibility, I can't say much about this at the moment, obviously, but I am going to pursue the possibility of, since Dave Hunt has chosen to not follow through with the public debate concept, saying that, hey, the debate we have done is enough in written form.

We don't need to do this in front of cameras. We don't need to have cross-examination. We don't need to be able to get into that kind of stuff, and since I wrote to T .A. McMahon and I didn't even get so much as a response to my invitation to him to debate, there is another individual, not necessarily directly associated, but somewhat associated with the same camp that we are going to look into the possibility of doing something along those lines, as far as the possibility of a debate goes.

And by the way, before we start taking our multitude of phone lines, the phone lines are burning up today, just exploding. Well, actually, I just think we only have one, but before we start taking our phone calls, it would probably be a good idea to open up a window here for the person who is telling me about the phone calls, so I can actually see what he is saying.

But many of you have taken advantage of the special offer that we had in regards to the reprinting, the republication of God's sovereign grace, now called the sovereign grace of God, and drawn by the Father.

These are two books that I wrote, oh, back about 89, 90, 91, somewhere around there. And, great, okay. And anyway, I just love getting these little messages. And we were offering a special offer as long as the supplies lasted.

We had a case of each of the original books, and when you purchased one of the new books, you got one of the originals along with, so you'd have more than one. Well, we are completely out of God's sovereign grace, and we have about eight to ten copies at max of drawn by the Father left.

In other words, the original printing. You can still order the sovereign grace of God, of course, but it just doesn't come with a second earlier edition along with it. And after the next eight or ten orders for drawn by the Father, the same thing will be true as well.

So if you would like to get that special on that particular book, you need to get that order placed ASAP, because they won't last very long, obviously. And so if you do order drawn by the Father, the next number of people, however many, manage to sneak in there, we have eight to ten copies left, and you'll get the original edition along with it, two books for one.

And that one especially is one that you need to have available to give to folks. It's almost booklet length, 60, 70 some odd pages. Hence, it's not intimidating to individuals. It's not one that, you know, oh man, I'm going to have to read a 500 page book.

And it just simply... The reason that drawn by the Father, I think, has been so well received over the years is it's focused upon a passage from the Gospels. And let's face it, we live in a society where a lot of folks suffer from hyper-red letterism.

And they really believe that if it's in red letters, it's somehow more inspired than if it's in black letters. And that's obviously not true, but to get past that prejudice that does exist, it is useful to be able to give them a book like Drawn by the Father.

So that's a good book to have available, to have... I guess most folks in the world can actually stick books in their trunk or something like that and have them available. That doesn't work real well out here.

In fact, you leave anything inside of a vehicle out here that is made of plastic or paper or any combination thereof, and it's going to be history after one day like yesterday or today for that matter.

Oh, it's up to 109. Isn't that nice? So it's just not something you want to do. So you might want to get those last few of the special edition of Drawn by the Father, the original one, along with the newly printed one.

Presuppositional Apologetics and the Authority of Scripture

877 -753 -3341. Let's head up to Detroit and Ashraf with a question about methods of apologetics. Hello. Hi, how are you? Doing good.

Well, I just wanted to talk about the method of apologetics in particular. I come from that background, or came from that background. Listening to your debates, which I've been in your program, obviously, for a while, maybe too long, but three years, maybe two years.

I've called in before. I don't know if you remember me.

Yes, the name is familiar. Yes.

Okay. Well, it's quite obvious that you're a presuppositionalist, and I've been reading Van Til and Transcendental Argumentation. It's really obvious that you point out people's presuppositions in the beginning of the debate, and you make sure that the audience can recognize that you have an ultimate authority, and that authority is Scripture, and it's God-breathed, so its authority is derived from the very being of God, and that's where you rest your standard in.

And the Roman Catholic you try to point out is Lysistotle Ecclesia.

Yes, and before you continue that, that's all true, and I'm certain that there is an element of how this all connects together in the sense of recognizing presuppositions. That's just a part of being a good debater.

As far as the transcendental argument, I know that Greg Bonson argued that in any apologetic encounter, what you're doing is seeking to demonstrate the internal inconsistencies of your opponent's position and to demonstrate the consistencies of your own given the presuppositions from which you're functioning.

I don't really specifically or purposefully attempt to apply a quote-unquote transcendental argument, especially in a debate that is based upon the alleged application. We might need to close my door there, Mr. Pierce.

I'm getting a lot of noise in the background. I don't specifically attempt to apply a transcendental argument within a context where the individual is accepting a scriptural authority, or at least professes to accept a scriptural authority.

And when Greg said that within the context of Mormonism or Jehovah's Witnesses that you use the exact same form of argumentation, I'll be honest, I've never really seen how that works when you're dealing with a theistic system because as I understand the transcendental argument, it is primarily an argument for theism over against atheism, not necessarily for a particular form of theism over another particular form of theism, especially when you talk about Roman Catholicism where we're not even dealing with a difference in regards to the doctrines of the Trinity, maybe how we obtain the knowledge of the doctrines of the Trinity, but that's not part of the debate.

You just hit the heart of the matter. That's exactly where I wanted to go. And I did want to provide some examples in which I think you could actually do it, and you have done it. But I don't think you made it the primary focus or the issue of the debate.

But to be honest with you, I think you've done it, and you've done it well. For example, there's a James Aiken, the Bible Answer Man broadcast. Is that who you discussed it with?

Well, we covered every topic known to man, unfortunately.

I know you have, and I remember listening to that, and you made one comment in that, and it was that Roman Catholics, if they were consistent, could not do exegesis. Yes. Now, I thought that should have been the primary focus after you had said that.

I never even thought about that until you mentioned it. But to be honest with you, doesn't that not rip the foundation underneath their feet? If you can say that they're not allowed to do exegesis within their own system, that means that they can't know God.

Because God cannot reveal Himself to them, and they cannot exposit God's Word and His revelation and understand who He is, therefore they can't understand the world the way God sees it, which is the way we should see it.

Well, let me play the devil's advocate for just a moment. My assumption would be, if you were speaking with a Roman Catholic who is familiar with the issues that we're raising in regards to epistemology and the ultimacy of the revelation of God in Scripture and things like that, if they're familiar with that, and Jimmy Aiken might be familiar with some elements of it, having been Presbyterian for a particular period of time, their response would probably be somewhere along these lines.

First of all, they would obviously deny the assertion that I make. However, I'm not sure how consistently they could do so. And let me explain for folks who didn't hear the program and haven't heard me address this before.

When I said that a consistent Roman Catholic cannot engage in exegesis, what I was saying is that the ultimate knowledge of what Scripture teaches and what Scripture is saying for the consistent Roman Catholic does not come from the exegesis of the text of Scriptures on their own.

In other words, it's not their encounter with the text. It's not their examination of the text. It's not even, in many senses, their learning from someone else who is exegeting the text and explaining the process of exegesis and things like that.

It is fundamentally through the formulations of belief on the part of the church that a person comes to have knowledge of allegedly what the Scriptures teach. And I think it's important to emphasize why I say that.

Think about, for example, in the definition of the Immaculate Conception, you have a use of Genesis chapter 3, and many Roman Catholic theologians to this day have admitted that the argumentation that the Pope used from Genesis at that point is itself, on a textual level, flawed.

You can read this in Ludwig Ott's Fundamentals of the Catholic Dogma. He makes the assertion that it is not the process by which a conclusion was come to that is infallible, it is the conclusion itself.

So, in other words, a person could utilize completely bad argumentation, argumentation that's completely fallacious on a textual level, and yet the result is still infallible. And so that demonstrates, I think, the real problem there, and that is that their knowledge of what the text is saying is mediated to them through the dogmatic assertions of the Catholic Church.

And so, given that that's what I was talking about, that they really can't do exegesis, they can't engage that particular issue. I think, and let me see what you think of it, Jimmy Akin's response or someone like that's response would have gone somewhat along these lines.

Well, I do know what God has revealed of himself through the means that he has chosen to do so, and that is, rather than giving me, and this is offensive to me too, but this is the type of language I hear, rather than giving me a dead text that cannot speak from generation to generation in a living fashion, he has given to me the living church indwelt by his spirit who, honoring the sacred text, makes that text to come alive for each generation.

I think that that would probably be...

That's what they would say, because I've listened to a lot of your debates, and that's what I would expect them to say, but that's still, I think, very easily refutable, because, to begin with, I was reading excerpts from Defense of the Faith, and Van Til made the comment that the epistemological question of how do we know can never be separated from the ontological question of what do we know?

And, basically, we know God because God reveals himself. Now, we have the Theophanists, as you mentioned, the very breath of God. They want to use any other source, no matter what it is. In this case, it's the papacy.

It's, like you said before, a man thousands of miles away.

But they would, of course, and I'm, again, playing devil's advocate,.

So that we can place ourselves... My point would be that their choice is arbitrary, whereas ours is not.

They would say that it's not so much arbitrary. They would say it's not arbitrary in the same way... Well, you explain to me what you think. When you say arbitrary there, what do you mean?

Well, what I mean by arbitrary is that our ultimate authority resides in the ontology of God or the very being of God. We have a reason why we can judge the world and that reason is because God is distinct from the creation but not separated from it in that he sustains it and conditions it and whatnot.

Okay, but wouldn't they say that while... Wouldn't they say that they, too, have the same foundation? All we're arguing about is the means by which that knowledge is mediated to us, one, through a direct encounter with the Theanoustos revelation of God in Scripture.

And they would say that it's not God's will for the individual to encounter the revelation that way. Instead, God has chosen to give us the living body of his church indwelt by his spirit which gave... that's the noustos part of Theanoustos so that a higher level of certainty could be obtained.

So the question becomes, which is of a higher authority? God speaking to us, the Pope interpreting for us? Because in either way, I understand they were going to say that that's the means. The means that God has instituted is the papacy.

But the question becomes, which is of a higher authority? God speaking to us directly, which is what Revelation is, is it not? Quite true. Because otherwise we'd be equivocating on what Scripture is and what God breathing, God speaking to us is.

No question about it. They would say, though, the only way that you can have knowledge of what is Theanoustos is through the Ecclesia.

So they can have knowledge of God only through man.

I would guess that they would argue that the church is not human in origin any more than the Bible is human in origin. In other words, since it's a divinely created institution, even though it's indwelt by men, that doesn't any more make it merely human than the fact that the Bible was given to us through the mediation of man, as far as mankind was used in its writing, as a mediating source, a mediating means by which the Scriptures came to us.

I think what you're seeing here, hopefully, is the incredible exaltation of the Ecclesia. And this is why, at the time of the Reformation, the argument that exists is between, well, you've heard, I'm sure you've heard the argument, it hasn't come up a lot in my debates, but certainly has in written form, the difference between believing that the Scriptures are the offspring of the church or that the church is the offspring of the Scriptures.

Again, it illustrates...

I believe it's contradictory, taking our definition, and I believe God's definition of what Scripture is. Because if God's definition of Scripture is Him speaking, that is a direct authority. Now, the reason why I bring up how do we know, and we know what we know on the basis of who we're getting it from or the ontology, that is God himself, is because they have to go through a filter to understand God and then to understand the world.

Well, that filter is arbitrary. Because I could point to myself as saying, I'm the Pope. I'm the one who defines what Scripture is, and everybody has to go through me. Now, they're going to make the claim, well, no, John Paul is the Pope, and everything has to go through him.

Now, there's no more reason to go to history or to go to any other means to judge between who's the real Pope, me or John Paul, because I'm going to give you a view of history, John Paul's going to give you a view of history, and neither one is going to be objective because they're both going to be arbitrary.

Now, if we go to Scripture, whose direct source is God, and is actually God speaking right now, as we as Protestants believe, and you've made that so clear, there is no arbitrariness. It's objective. And the proof of that is, in rejecting that, you lead to absurdity, which would be the case that I brought up, that I can consider myself the Pope, or my pastor the Pope, or anybody the Pope, and it would be just as objectively true as I'm claiming John Paul II to be.

I have a few more examples.

I'd like to work with you on. Sure, but before you do that, before we get too far down the road, because I'll probably forget what you had said, I think that one of the arguments that we made at that point, however, is, well, if you're saying that it's arbitrary to pick John Paul II over yourself, and that both have the equal claim to such a position, I think they would say, historically, that that makes all of history irrelevant, and then they might turn, and I'd be interested in knowing how you'd respond to this, they might turn that around and say, okay, but there is more than one book of Scripture that claims to be Scripture.

There's more than one. You have other books of Scripture. You have the Koran. You have the Bhagavad Gita. You've got the Book of Mormon. How are you not being arbitrary in choosing one of the many books that claim to be God's Word?

I think Bonson, I've been listening to him, and he made a pretty good point that the Bhagavad Gita, first of all, in and of itself, doesn't claim to be God breathing, God speaking, and I'm obviously not equipped to talk about the Bhagavad Gita,.

Or the Koran as well, but let's use the Koran as our example.

And the Koran, for instance, will negate knowledge of God by not only being contradictory to itself, but also claiming that God cannot be known. So the Koran destroys knowledge of Allah himself, therefore destroys the point of the Koran in a particular verse.

So all of these particular religions.

Fall upon themselves. But Ashraf, aren't you, in essence, using a form of judgment, that is, you're interpreting the Koran, and on the basis of that interpretation, disqualifying it. Isn't that the same as someone using history and disqualifying your claim to being the Pope based upon history?

Well, history can't be considered an ultimate authority, whereas the Bhagavad Gita and the Koran can be, because you can't point to history without pointing to it within a particular authority, or within a worldview.

So the Roman Catholics want to give us a view of history. Now, you know in your debate that they have a totally different view of history. I mean, in your debate with Jerry Madetik on the Assumption of Mary and all the other doctrines of Mary, he looked pretty silly to me.

And you showed him that there was no... there was no sense of trying to point to or toward the Church Father or Church Council that believed in the Assumption of Mary within the first six centuries of the Church.

Right. And he looked really silly to me, but he didn't look silly to his people nor himself, because he's going to interpret that differently than we do. So, he has a view that has been given to him by the Magisterium.

And he arbitrarily accepted that view of history. Right.

Yeah, no, to his... Ashraf, hold on just a moment through the break. We'll look at those other examples and take your phone calls at 877 -753 -3341. We'll be right back.

Book Recommendations and Roman Catholic/Evangelical Cooperation

A godly man, such a rarity today. This star, strong and true, will quickly fall away.

Incorporating the most recent research in solid biblical truth, Letters to a Mormon Elder by James White is a series of personal letters written to a fictional Mormon missionary. Examining the teaching and theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the book brings a relational approach to material usually presented in textbook style.

James White draws from his extensive apologetics ministry to thousands of Mormons in presenting the truth of Christianity. With well-defined arguments, James White provides readers with insight and understanding into the Book of Mormon, the prophecies, visions, and teachings of Joseph Smith, the theological implications of the doctrines of Mormonism, and other major historical issues relevant to the claims of the LDS Church.

This marvelous study is a valuable text for Christians who talk with Mormons and is an ideal book to be read by Mormons. Letters to a Mormon Elder. Get your copy today in the Mormonism section of our bookstore at aomen .org.

More than any time in the past, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals are working together. They are standing shoulder to shoulder against social evils. They are joining across denominational boundaries in renewal movements.

And many Evangelicals are finding the history, tradition, and grandeur of the Roman Catholic Church appealing. This newfound rapport has caused many Evangelical leaders and lay people to question the age-old disagreements that have divided Protestants and Catholics.

Aren't we all saying the same thing in a different language? James White's book, The Roman Catholic Controversy, is an absorbing look at current views of tradition in Scripture, the papacy, the Mass, purgatorian indulgences, and Marian doctrine.

James White points out the crucial differences that remain regarding the Christian life and the heart of the Gospel itself that cannot be ignored. Order your copy of The Roman Catholic Controversy by going to our website at aomen .org.

What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen But Free? A New Cult? Secularism? False Prophecy Scenarios? No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism.

He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant. In his book, The Pottish Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, that the Pottish Freedom is much more than just a reply.

It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very Gospel itself. In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so-called extreme Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the Gospel preached by the Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture.

The Pottish Freedom, a defense of the Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at AOMin .org.

The Pilgrim's Progress. It's not an easy way. It's a journey to my day. A walk of grace.

Galatians 2 and the Meaning of False Brothers

And welcome back to Dividing Line. We are discussing, well, we've got open phones today at 877 -753 -3341. I'd like to invite anyone who was listening on Thursday evening. I think it was Thursday evening when we discussed.

It might have been Tuesday now, think about it. When we discussed Galatians chapter 2, verses 4 and 5 and the concept of pseudedelphoi, false brothers. If there is anyone who would like to present a different perspective on the issue of what a false brother is in that passage.

If you have some indication of where I went wrong I would very much like to hear that. I forgot to ask that I be cc'd on any emails that we got anyone offering a counter exegesis but I am unaware of any that came through and so I would still like to know who the false brethren were if they were not in fact individuals within the church and if this does not in fact provide a foundation for an understanding of the fact that you can have individuals who claim to be believers or even baptized in the church and yet they are not true brothers in Christ they are to be shunned they are to be exposed as false teachers as Paul did in the book of Galatians I would very much like to know how I am to understand that passage where I missed the exegesis and so we are going to have a little time here after Ashraf and I get done with our discussion so if you would like to call 877 -753 -3341 and explain that.

I would very much like to know so let's go back to Ashraf up in. I think it was Michigan and you had some other examples you wanted to give to me.

Sure, you had a debate, you and Rob Zins against I believe Robert Congenis and Scott Butler. Yes. The second part of the debate I believe was church fathers. And did they believe in the papacy or did they hold to a papacy.

Or was it church history? I'm not sure which one. Yeah, it was the whole subject of papacy but we covered both subjects in one debate.

Well yeah, a lot of it focused on did the church fathers adhere to it and I think just by entering the debate Rob already lost the debate because in order to discuss whether or not the church fathers believed in the papacy we have to define what a church father is.

And the way we define a church father is either going to be by the ultimate authority or the standard of the church in which case the debate has already been lost on your part if you agreed with that.

Or whether the standard is going to be scripture as defined by which would make scripture ultimate in which case he would lose. So in questioning whether or not the church fathers believed in the papacy and which of them did we have to ask the question is who are the church fathers?

Are you still there? Yeah. Well yeah, obviously the inconsistency that comes up in dealing with Roman Catholicism on the subject of church history is the fact that if Rome is your ultimate authority then I have actually had Gerry Matitick's.

I think. I don't think it was. Well, was it in the debate with me or was it in the debate with Eric Svensson? I think it was in the debate with me where he in essence said well, Tertullian is not an early church father.

Now obviously that term does need to be defined and we can discuss those things and of course I point out that just because someone wrote something on a piece of papyri during a certain period of time does not make them.

The recipient of some special anointing from on high that makes their writing somehow overly relevant. I mean. Yeah, for example would Arius be considered a church father? Now if you were to debate a Jehovah's Witness.

Exactly they would say yes. They would say he was the only one. Certainly. Right. And that would be like. The question should ultimately be before dealing with the evidences.

Of what church fathers believe I think should be. Well, who are the church fathers? Right. And how do we define them? Well, not only that but I think especially Roman Catholics need to be educated on the fact that the writings of the early church fathers present such a tremendously wide variety of beliefs that just simply to invoke that magical name is not really to do anything that would be very frequently.

I've used the illustration that would be like going down to the Christian bookstore today and pulling down a representative sample of what's being written today by Benny Hinn and T .D. Jakes and all this other fluff and stuff material that's out there and saying hey look at this here's what we believe.

Well you couldn't make heads or tails out of all that stuff. You just took a representative sample down off of the shelves. It's ridiculous. But for some reason all you have to do within that context is just simply utter the phrase the early church fathers and all of a sudden choirs begin to sing and dry.

Ice stuff starts floating through the air and you have these folks with halos on that we're all teaching the same thing.

It doesn't work. Right. Which is why I also think that when dealing with Roman Catholics when dealing with Roman Catholics I said oh we should think of the phrase and I'm going to change what Van Til said from anti-theism presupposes theism to Roman Catholicism presupposes Protestantism.

Hmm. And the reason for that is for any any justification of Roman Catholic claims they've got to step into our world view and borrow the scriptures as being ultimate in authority to make claims which go against scripture.

For instance in that Robertson-Genis debate when you discuss does the Bible teach the papacy and does the Bible alone teach the papacy which is basically what the debate was about. Robertson-Genis lost by entering the debate.

Right claiming that you can interpret the scriptures.

In and of itself by itself and interestingly enough if you've heard the story and I've mentioned it more than once on the dividing line before at the end of the papacy debate in December of 1990 in Phoenix at the City of the Lord Catholic community that Scott Hahn moderated you may recall that at the end of that debate at the time Mr. Hahn was very he was livid he was very angry and he turned to me and this is in front of everyone.

I mean the debate was over but numerous people were coming forward to ask questions primarily of Jerry and with many people listening he turned to me and he said you blew it because you brought up papal infallibility and that's not what this debate was about.

So since I had dared to mention the concept of infallibility in my closing remarks I had blown it. But then and that didn't surprise me he turned to his good friend his good buddy his fellow traveler into Roman Catholicism Jerry Matitix in front of all these Protestants and he says and you blew it because you use Scripture as your only authority and you can't do that.

And he turned around and in a huff walked out of the room and never came back. And within less than one month Jerry Matitix was no longer with Catholic Answers. Wow. I don't remember you mentioning oh really yes.

Well it's one of those stories I will never ever forget not seeing Scott Hahn turn to Jerry Matitix who wasn't looking overly happy at this point anyways I mean this was the first time in their experience that they had encountered someone who could actually argue back in essence and I had used the early church fathers and they just simply were not accustomed to anyone making a historical response.

They were used to the sort of the Dave Hunt perspective which is don't worry about the early church fathers they're irrelevant just don't just don't get into that stuff. Well not only had I done that but I think the thing that got Mr. Hahn now Dr. Hahn so angry at that time was that during the course of the debate Mr. Matitix brought up Isaiah 2222 as he had in all his previous debates on the papacy that I had listened to and of course that is an argument that was primarily developed by Scott Hahn and Hahn had transcripts of his talks on Isaiah 22 and all that stuff floating around the internet already even at that early period of time.