Catholic vs Protestant-Sola Scriptura

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00:00

Good afternoon and welcome along to the program. I'm Justin Briley and you're listening to Unbelievable. Between now and four o 'clock,

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I'm going to be joined by a couple of Christian guests debating a particular theological issue. I'll be telling you all about that in a moment's time.

00:14

Unbelievable is, of course, part of your Saturday lineup of afternoon programming called Faith Explored. And don't forget that straight after today's program, you can hear the profile interview.

00:23

So do stay tuned for that as well. Later on in today's show, you're going to be some of the feedback from previous weeks of programming.

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And if you want to find out more about the program, maybe check out some of the past podcasts, a whole archive of programs for you to explore at premiere .org

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.uk slash unbelievable. Do hope you enjoy what's coming up on today's show.

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Yes, we have two characters who have been on the show a number of times before back for a theological debate today.

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It's a Catholic versus Protestant show. And we're going to be discussing what is the ultimate authority for Christians, scripture alone or scripture plus?

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Well, representing the Catholic position today, Peter D. Williams joins me. He's a writer and speaker. He's part of Catholic Voices.

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And the other side of the argument today is James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. I'll be making sure you know how to get hold of both of them via their websites a little later on.

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But they've both joined me on the program before discussing similar issues in one way or another.

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Gentlemen, thank you both for joining me on the program today. Great to have you with me. Great to be with you. Great to be here. Let's first of all go to you,

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James. You've come the furthest after all. I feel honored. I feel like you've flown in just for me.

01:37

And on this occasion, it's almost true in a way. It's great to have you with us. How's things going for you in Arizona?

01:45

It's starting to cool off. So that's a good thing in life, especially for cyclists like me.

01:51

It's beautiful. But I just had a book come out, Whatever a Christian Needs to Know About the Quran, and writing another with Shabir Ali.

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Dr. Shabir Ali is pretty well known around the world as one of the leading Islamic apologists. And so I'm keeping really busy with that because he and I are co -authoring a book on the

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Trinity and Tawhid. Yeah, well, we're looking forward to another discussion coming up with you and Yusuf Ismail in due course on the program.

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And that will be fascinating because you've turned a lot of your hand these days to interacting with Islam and the

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Quran. But at bottom, you're still a Calvinist.

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You defend that theology so often on your show, in debates and so on. Sola Scriptura is a term not everyone may be familiar with.

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Can you just define what that is and how it plays into today's discussion? Well, historically, the phrase is primarily used to define both the formal and material principles of the

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Reformation. One is Sola Scriptura providing the essence of the epistemological difference between the

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Protestants and the Roman Catholic Communion. And then Sola Fide, justification by faith, being the essence of what was preached that really started things off.

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And so Sola Scriptura is often misrepresented, but fundamentally is the assertion that because Scripture is

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Theano Stas, because it is God breathed, that is absolutely unique in its character and unique in its authority.

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And that while God has established the church, that the church, I'm a high churchman. I believe that the church is the bride of Christ.

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In fact, so much so that when 1 Timothy 3 .15 talks about the church, the pillar and ground of the truth, that, as I see it, is about the local church.

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I mean, I'm an elder in a local church. For example, this next month,

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I'm only going to be in my church once in four weeks. That's extremely unusual for me. Unlike a lot of apologists who are just gone all the time and don't really have a connection,

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I regularly preach in the church. Very important to keep that local connection. Oh, as far as balance is concerned, that's one of the most important things

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I would say to anyone who's looking at getting involved in apologetics. But I have a very high view of the church, but I believe that the church is subservient to the voice of Christ, which is found solely in the scriptures.

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So the technical definition is the scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith of the church.

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Not that we don't have other rules of faith. I'm a Reformed Baptist. We have the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.

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It tells people, if they want to know what we believe, there. I think it's important these days. You ask, what does that church believe?

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Well, they're not really sure. We want to be clear in what we're saying to the world.

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But that is a subordinate standard. It must be reformable and correctable by the higher authority of scripture.

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Now, a bit of a controversial question coming up, but where do you stand then as far as a

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Roman Catholic is concerned? Do the fact that they differ significantly from you in your view of scripture?

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Does that leave them, as it were, in any sense, outside the fold?

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That's not the reason. That's not the reason that I cannot join hands and say, let's just all get together and sing

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Kumbaya. Okay. That's not the reason. The reason is the gospel. Now, the reason that we differ on the gospel is because we differ on Sola Scriptura.

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I've lost track of how many debates I've done with Roman Catholic apologists around 40 -ish, something like that. And whether we're discussing

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Mary, the Mass, justification, papacy, it doesn't matter what the issue is.

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It always ends up devolving back to this. It comes back to what the ultimate authority is. For me, the dividing line is the issue of the gospel.

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The sad thing is that if Peter and I stood outside an abortion clinic together, I am absolutely merciless when it comes to debating abortion.

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I don't take prisoners on that subject, because you're talking life and death stuff. So we would probably be very much in line in our views on that and our feelings about those subjects and how we would debate the issues and things like that.

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But if someone walked up to Peter and I outside an abortion clinic and said, what must I do to be safe? We would not answer in the same way.

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And I believe the reason we would not answer in the same way comes back to this issue.

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That's why it's so foundational. Well, we'll get back to that, I'm sure, in one way or another. Peter D.

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Williams, our other guest, as we mentioned, on the programme today. Welcome back, Peter, as well. Great to be here, as always. Tell us a little bit, then, from your perspective as a

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Catholic, what you're going to be aiming to defend on today's programme. Well, I'm going to be aiming to defend the idea that the ultimate authority for Christians is threefold.

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It's, well, I suppose, well, basically, we'd all agree that the ultimate authority for and by what standards are we bound?

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And I guess for a Catholic, there are three. Holy Scripture, what we call the sacred tradition of the church, and what's called the magisterium.

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Magisterium is a Latin word coming from the Latin magister, meaning teacher. So the teaching authority of the church.

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So that's that threefold triumvirate of authority, which gives the

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Christian all the truth that we need. And all those three together are sufficient to function as the ultimate rule of faith.

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I will be very much contending that Scripture alone isn't sufficient. Scripture is fundamental, but on its own, it cannot give us all the truths that we need.

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Okay. When it comes to this issue of whether you can join hands with James and sing

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Kumbaya, do you approach things any differently in the way that he's just spoken? There is a fundamental difference insofar as Catholics confess that anyone who is baptised in the name of the

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Father, Son of the Holy Spirit, and confesses at least the basic core, the basic kerygma, as it's called, of Christianity, the

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Nicene or Constantinopolitan creed, at least in its Trinitarian aspects, is our brother or sister in Christ.

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Now, that doesn't mean that there is an equivalence between the Catholic church and all the different variants of Protestant sect and denomination.

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We do believe that the Catholic church is the one true church in which subsists the fullness of the church of Christ. We certainly recognise that, for example, the

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Eastern Orthodox, the Oriental Orthodox, and the Assyrian churches, all the churches of the East, they are particular churches.

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In other words, they have a valid bishop, and they have a valid Eucharist, and they have valid sacraments, all seven sacraments.

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And so those are particular churches, sadly, not in full communion with the church, but nonetheless, we're hoping to move into full communion.

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But the difference between them and Protestant denominations is that Protestantism has rejected absolutely core and essential elements of Christianity, which would include five of the seven sacraments, which would include so many of what we would call the instruments, the means of grace, by which

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God communicates his grace to his church, which is very, very, a very basic, important difference in terms of how you are saved.

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That's the thing. And I'd love, by the way, for us to debate that at some point. But very much more foundationally, we have a different understanding of authority.

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And one thing that the Catholic church and the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox and Syrian Church of the East all share is a belief in Holy Scripture, sacred tradition, and the authority of the church.

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Now, of course, there's a particular claim that the Catholic church makes about itself, and the Eastern Orthodox would make a similar claim, and there's a debate we could have about that.

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But ultimately, Scripture alone is something that all the apostolic churches would reject.

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We all believe that the church and the sacred tradition have a role within the authority of the church. Do you think that this view is a fairly recent development in terms of church history?

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Yes, very much so. I don't think the early church functioned in terms of soul scripture at all. Certainly, you can pick out little verses from various church fathers which seem to be affirming the authority of Scripture, and certainly there are many you could pick out, but those don't prove soul scripture.

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Okay. Well, we're going to get into this. I know that we're going to have a really intelligent debate today because I've got two very intelligent people joining me here in the studio, but they will be very different in their opinions, and they won't hold back.

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I know that too. So I hope you enjoy today's discussion, wherever you're coming from on this particular issue.

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Be interested to hear from you as well, of course, in regard to today's program. If you've got a view, you'd like to respond to anything, why not email in?

10:15

That's unbelievableatpremier .org .uk. You can also, of course, find us online via Twitter, Facebook.

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You can send in your comments that way as well in regard to today's program. I'm on Twitter at Unbelievable JB or Facebook .com

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slash Unbelievable JB. You can like the show page there and get in touch to all of those links and more available from the website premier .org

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.uk slash unbelievable. So let's get into today's discussion.

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We are going to be talking about this whole area of what the ultimate authority is for Christians, scripture alone, sometimes called sola scriptura or scripture plus.

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And we've already just heard there from Peter D. Williams, our Catholic representative on the program today about what that might entail.

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So just where are we going to start on this? Let's come back to you, James. Why, for you, is what

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Peter has just explained there about this triumvirate of authority that he believes is what is modelled in church history and from Christ and so on?

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Why are you simply not convinced by that view? Well, I don't see it as apostolic and I don't see that it actually functions that way, because when you look at the claims that Rome makes today, now obviously

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I see a major continuum over the history of the church. I don't see that the church that existed in 325 was very much like the church that exists today, especially as far as Rome envisions it.

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I don't believe there's anyone at the Council of Nicaea, for example, that affirmed the very dogmas that you have to affirm to be de fide, to be a

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Roman Catholic. Give me just a couple of examples. The purgatory, the primacy of the Roman Pope, the

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Marian dogmas, I mean bodily assumption of Mary. These are the issues that you see from a functional perspective.

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This is the purpose of the Reformation and the process of the Reformation. If you say you have three equal authorities, and yet in the

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Roman Catholic concept, if I ask the question, well, who defines what is and what is not scripture infallibly? Well, that's the

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Roman Catholic Church does, and it did not happen until April of 1546, the first dogmatic definition of the canon.

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Who can interpret scripture infallibly? It is the Roman Catholic Church. Who can define what is and what is not canon?

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It's always been enjoyable to me. I'm sorry, tradition. Who can define what is and what is not tradition?

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It's always been interesting to me in my debates when I would bring up patristic sources, quotes from early church fathers that go against the

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Roman Catholic perspective. I've frequently had Roman Catholic apologists say, well, that person wasn't speaking from tradition.

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So you get to pick and choose what is and what is not tradition. And of course, the final authority as to what tradition says is the

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Roman Catholic Church. Now, if the Roman Catholic magisterium gets to define what scripture is and what it says, and what tradition is and what tradition says, how in the world can the church be under the authority of those sources?

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If you define it and what it says, how can it correct you? So there's a sort of anarchy that ensues. It's not anarchy.

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It's just a non -functional system, because once you have infallibly said the scriptures say this, then you cannot be corrected.

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And when I look at, for example, the scriptural arguments found in the Second Nicene Council in regards to images, and I look at the biblical argumentation,

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I don't think you could find a single member of the Pontifical Biblical Institute that would defend what they said as having any meaning as far as having serious ex -Jesus behind it.

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But you're stuck with the results of it anyways, because of the concept of infallibility. And so, again, it comes back to, well, here's my problem.

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Scripture is theanoustos. Tradition is not. Show me where the Bible teaches that tradition is

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God -breathed. Show me, you know, we can go to what Paul says about, you know, scripture and tradition.

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Let's look at it. Let's look at the text. But the point is, from my perspective, it is the nature of scripture that makes it absolutely unique and non -repeatable.

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So obviously, you're in agreement that scripture is extremely important in the way we are to gather our teaching and understanding of the

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Christian faith, Peter. But it's scripture as mediated by the tradition and teaching of the

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Catholic Church. So does this result in basically, well, we can have it the way we like it, depending on what the latest…

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Well, no. I'll say two things, just to start off with. The first thing I would point out is that the scriptures and the tradition, that is the sacred teachings of the

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Church brought down to us through history, are something that is recognised by the Church. This is a passive process on the part of the magisterium, on the part of the

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Church. The Church doesn't determine anything. It didn't say, right, you know what, I like Genesis and I like Revelations and I like Hebrews, so I'll have that.

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No, they recognise a tradition which was passed down. And actually, I'll just use the canon, because this is a very deep and profound topic which we're not going to completely cover in one hour.

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We won't. So I'll just provide one argument which I think illustrates why sole scriptura, the idea of scripture alone being our sole ultimate rule of faith, is wrong, and why

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I think the historic Catholic position of scripture, tradition and teaching of the Church is right. And it is the canon, because one of the things that you have to believe in order to assert sole scriptura is the sufficiency of scripture, that scripture is sufficient to give you all the necessary and essential truths of the composite of faith.

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Everything you need should be found within scripture. There is obviously one truth. I mean, actually, that does differ between, in terms of its scope, between different traditions.

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So, for example, the Anglican communion says of the sufficiency of the holy scriptures in its Article 6 of the 39

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Articles, holy scripture contains all things necessary to salvation. But then in the

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Westminster Confession of Faith, it says it concerns all things necessary for God's own glory, man's salvation, faith and life.

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That's then repeated by the London Baptist Confession of Faith, which I know that Dr White will ascribe to. So there's a difference, to a certain extent, in terms of the scope of that.

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But regardless of what scope you believe, one of the things you need to know, whether it be just for salvation or for God's glory, man's faith, hope, salvation and life, is what scripture is.

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Because scripture is necessary. That's another aspect of the evangelical doctrines that I've read. If I go to Wayne Grudem or anyone else, they affirm the necessity of scripture.

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Scripture is necessary because it contains all the truths that you need. It's your sole and foul rule of faith. You need the scriptures.

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If you need the scriptures, then clearly you need to know what the scriptures are. In other words, you need the canon. But nowhere in scripture does it define what the canon is.

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It doesn't give you a list. There is no inspired contents page. There's no golden index. There's no way you know from scripture alone what the canon is.

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So by definition, scripture is insufficient to give you something which you need. I'll just finish on this point.

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The canon is a tradition which is passed down. In other words, the church recognises, you see this in the New Testament, you see Peter recognising that Paul's writings are inspired, for example.

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So the church recognises what is the honestness, what is God breathed. But then later on, they disagree over it. I mean, so the reason why at the back of your

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Bibles, you have Hebrews, James, Peter, 2 Peter, 2 -3 John, Jude and Revelations, is because the only church disagreed over whether or not those books were apostolic and inspired.

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They were called the Antinogona. There's a circular reasoning here, a circular reasoning within Sola Scriptura which says the

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Bible tells us exactly what to believe, but somehow we know what the Bible consists of. Yeah, and I think therefore it's disproven because it cannot give you that necessary and essential truth.

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But the tradition of the canon is passed down. It's something you need. It's a tradition which is outside the scripture which is passed down, and it's recognised authoritatively by the church.

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Not actually as late as 1546. I'm not going to claim that there was an extraordinary definition before 1546.

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That's absolutely right. There was the first extraordinary definition. But there are two forms of magisteria, two forms of teaching authority in the

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Catholic Church. The extraordinary magisterium, when the church specially defined something by a papal definition or by an ecumenical council, and I'll finish now, also the ordinary magisterium, which is to say the fact that the church teaches something consistently for many, many, many, many years, that is considered infallible as well.

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It's not merely the extraordinary definition. So the trinity was not, for example, just defined at the council of Bocere.

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It was believed before then. Well, lots to respond to there, James. First of all, though, this chink in your armour, potentially, the soul of scripture armour, which is simply this suggestion that, well, you go beyond scripture by defining what the canon of scripture is, because you won't find that within scripture, obviously.

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So you're already at some level dependent upon tradition. So... As defined by the church.

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As defined by the church. So have we already kind of discovered a... No, not at all.

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A number of years ago, I was on a radio program with a then, anyways, still

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Orthodox Roman Catholic apologist by the name of Jerry Matitix, and I asked him a question. And the question was,

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Jerry, how did the believing Jew know that Isaiah and 2 Chronicles were scripture 50 years before Christ?

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We had just debated the Apocrypha at Boston College. Which is, for those unaware, part of Catholic scripture, the...

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The Apocryphal books, the Deuterocanonicals, yes. I thought you were about to say Boston College is actually a

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Catholic institution, which some people would actually question, given the liberal nature of many things there.

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But be it as it may, and he was pressing this issue of the necessity of church authority, etc.

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And so I asked him, how did the believing Jew know that Isaiah and 2 Chronicles were scripture?

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He did not have an answer. Some of the answers that have been offered since then, because it's very clear that they did know

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Jesus held men accountable to scripture, and no one ever responded to Jesus going, I didn't know that was scripture. We didn't have an infallible magisterium to tell us that.

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The reality is that Jesus held men accountable to scriptures before there was any type of external authority that could have told them what it was.

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Not only that, if you try to say, well, there was a Jewish magisterium, the Jewish magisterium never held to the inspiration of the books that Rome now says are, in fact, inspired.

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And that's why I've debated that subject a couple of times. Well, and I think anyone can go listen to the two debates we've done on that subject, and I think those facts are rather clearly laid out.

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Not only that, there was no ordinary magisterial statement on this subject, because I can trace a line of teachers going back to Drome all the way through Popes, all the way to the time of the

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Reformation, where Cardinal Cajetan, who was the man who interviewed Luther, rejected the Deuterocanonicals in his written works, and that was right before the

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Council of Trent. So the point is, there was no ordinary, there was two traditions that existed side by side.

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So if that's the necessary argument, then Rome doesn't have an answer. And just simply saying, well, you need our authority to define your canon is not answering the question.

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It's just moving the goalpost or the point back one point. Where do you get that authority to define these things?

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What I want to ask you, though, is how do you, within scripture, via Sola Scriptura, define the canon of scripture?

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Well, part of the answer is found in the answer to the question that I asked Gerry Matytix. And that is, obviously,

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God has a purpose in the giving of scripture. And I address this in my book, Scripture Alone. There's an excellent book that I want to recommend to folks that came out last year,

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I think, it might have actually been this year, but recently, within the past 12 months, by Dr.

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Michael Kruger, called The Canon, I think it's The Canon Revisited. It's one of the best books I've seen on this subject, and he really lays it out more fully than I did.

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But let me just summarize it. And that is, the canon is not an extra biblical tradition.

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The canon is an artifact of revelation. When God wrote, when God inspired the writing of the first books of scripture, he established a canon by so doing.

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Now, he knew exactly what it was. Since other books had been written, God was saying, I haven't written every book, and I have not written no books,

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I have written some books. So, I, as an author, I know what the canon of my writings is.

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I've never had to sit down, open up a document, and go, the canon of James White's books, for that canon to exist.

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I know what I've written. I know what I've not written. There are other James Whites out there. There's a

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James E. White, people get me confused with him all the time. I didn't feel your pain. There's Peter J.

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Williams. There's too many Peter Williamses going on. Most people say that. I didn't mean it that way.

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So, the point is, when I engage in the activity of writing, I am creating the canon.

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And that's what God has done in Revelation. Now, the question then becomes, does God have a purpose for us to know what he has and has not inspired?

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And my belief is that he has just as much of a desire for us to know what he has inspired, as he put just as much effort into that as he would into the writing of the scriptures in the first place.

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And so, what mechanism was available for that believing Jew, 50 years before Jesus, to know, had to be sufficient for him to be held accountable to scripture.

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And that doesn't change afterwards. If in anything, it becomes even clearer in the light of Jesus's ministry and the outpouring of the

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Holy Spirit. So, I'm not looking at, you know, it's not the Council of Jamnia. There was no Council of Jamnia. But it's not some

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Jewish thing that, well, I take that authority, then I take this authority.

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That will never actually lead you to the proper foundation for defending the canon. All right.

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Response there, Peter. Well, just as I'm not going to get drawn into purgatory and the dogmas of Mary. We'd love to debate those, by the way, another time.

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I'm not going to get drawn into the Jewish Chronicles, but I will draw people to a book called, Why Do Catholics Have Bigger Bibles, by Gary Machuta, which answers many of the things that Dr.

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Why debated on this very subject. He wrote that book after he debated Dr. Why. But how do the

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Jews know scripture? Through tradition. Clearly, the believing community that we call the Jewish people, recognize over time certain things that were inspired, certain things, certain prophets, for example.

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Over time, I don't have to believe that there is just one particular source whereby the Jews had got scripture.

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I don't have to believe, actually, an infallible Jewish magisterium, because ultimately the magisterium of, presumably, the

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Jewish priesthood, certainly the Jewish community as a whole, recognize these books. For Dr. Why, he has to show, if he does believe that scripture is sufficient, how necessary and essential truth is given in scripture.

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If it's not, then scripture is not sufficient. And I'm afraid the artifact versus object distinction that you make, which I read in your book, simply doesn't answer the question.

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That's confusing. That's giving an ontological answer to what's an epistemological question. The question is, how do you know what is canon?

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How do you know the scriptures? That's something that's a necessary, essential truth, which should be, therefore, found in your sufficient rule of faith of the scriptures.

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If it's not found therein, the scriptures are, by definition, not sufficient. They clearly are something. I don't disagree, incidentally, that the canon is discerned or came into existence by the fact that God inspired certain books.

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That's really uncontroversial. We all agree on that. No one says that the Catholic Church determined, in the sense of made, certain books inspired.

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We all agree that God inspired, through his action of theionistos, certain books into existence.

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The question is, how do we know what is theionistos? And the very simple answer from history is, it's a tradition that comes to us from the early church, through the apostles, and it's something which then has to be recognized by the church itself.

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And it does recognize it. There is such a continuity, such a consistency, from at least the late fourth century, from the councils of Hippo and Carthage, through the recognitions of the popes, because those councils are ratified by the popes, right through the tradition of the western church, so that you simply can't say that there isn't a more preeminent scripture.

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We'll get a response from James. We're coming up to our first break, and there's a lot there for James to respond to. We're starting off today on the program as we discuss what is the ultimate authority for Christians.

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We're asking, is it scripture alone, or is it scripture plus sacred tradition and the teaching of the

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Catholic church, as Catholics believe? And so we've got to this point of asking, how does

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James White, our Protestant guest on the program today, justify the canon of scripture if he isn't going to go beyond scripture alone, as it were?

26:17

Okay, we'll hear James' response again on this in a moment's time. You're listening to Unbelievable, with me, Justin Briley, asking that question today in our

26:25

Catholic -Protestant debate. My guests are Peter D. Williams of Catholic Voices and James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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You're listening to Unbelievable on Premiere Christian Radio. You certainly are.

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I'm Justin Briley, your host for the show today. And don't forget, you can find us online at premiere .org

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.uk slash unbelievable. Usually on the show, we get Christians and non -Christians together to do some kind of debate.

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But today, we're doing one of those inter -Christian debates, though. Well, whether one of our guests might term the other a

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Christian is one of those bigger issues that is under discussion. But today, we're specifically focusing down in our

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Catholic -Protestant debate on the issue of scripture. Should we turn to that alone as our ultimate authority on faith?

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Or is it scripture plus some other things? Well, James White is with me. He's from Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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You can check them out at aomin .org. Peter D. Williams of Catholic Voices joins me to catholicvoices .org

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.uk as we ask what is the ultimate authority for Christians on the show today.

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Don't forget, you can get in touch as well. Be interested to hear from you. You can call in. You can always leave a voicemail message.

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That option open if you ring 08456 525252. Select the option for leaving a voicemail message for Unbeliever.

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We'll be happy to play that out on a future edition of the show. But as ever, the email is unbelievable at premier .org

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.uk. Okay, just in that last section,

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James, again, Peter was back to this issue of, well, how do you define the canon of scripture without going beyond scripture, going to some kind of church tradition, authority, some kind of the councils and so on, even if you obviously, as you said, believe that the

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Catholic Church itself never had a kind of really united view on scripture for a long time.

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Well, I just think that needs to be defined a little more, though, as to what you would turn to. You've said

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God knows, obviously, exactly what he's written, just as you would know your own canon.

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But then the question is, I suppose, well, how would you know what God believes the canon to be? Well, that was addressing the nature of scripture and canon flows from the nature of scripture, obviously.

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I mean, what whether you call it actively or passively, I've met a lot of Roman Catholics made very active statements about the ability of Rome to define the canon.

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But Peter's taking a more passive recognition role. That's that's fine. That's great. I applaud that. But that all flows from what the nature of scripture is.

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And if you're going to have anything, it's going to be equal to scripture and authority. It has to have the same nature. And we've not heard even the beginning of a defense of those other sources having that kind of authority.

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Where does Christ speak? He speaks in his word. Where is the evidence that he speaks in the traditions that have been defined by Roman Catholicism?

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Now, it was said, well, the Jewish person knew by the basis of Jewish tradition. I dispute that.

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There are all sorts of different Jewish traditions. And Jesus rejected a large portion of those

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Jewish traditions taught us to do the same thing. And what did he tell us to judge Jewish tradition by by scripture?

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So that would become a viciously tight circle that even Jesus was arguing in. And no one ever raised those those arguments against Jesus when he said, you should have examined these things on the basis of scripture and then turns around and calls the

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Jews hypocrites for not having done so. So I'm following, I think, Jesus's pattern there and would say, well, then then this becomes an apostolic tradition.

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What apostle gave us the canon? What apostle handed this down? You see, once you start getting into specifics,

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I remember I asked Father Mitchell Pacwa once, has Rome defined a single word that Jesus or any apostle ever said,

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De Fide, that exists outside of scripture? And he said, I can't think of a word. And so, again, it comes down to when you when you ask the question, what is the ultimate authority?

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It's what God says. And what has Rome done when she's denied that? Today, Peter must believe to be and see one of the reasons you mentioned at the beginning about the possibility of a division between us on this basis.

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You know what? To be honest with you, that exists because I take very seriously Rome's own teachings and a lot of the ecumenism of today just simply courses over.

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It just says it doesn't doesn't really matter. Let's just let's just not worry about those things. And I don't think I don't even think that's respectful, let alone really honoring the truth that we say that we possess.

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So when it comes to issues of defining what Peter must believe today, De Fide, I think

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Peter would have a problem with anyone who claims to be a faithful, believing Roman Catholic that does not believe what

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Rome has defined on the basis of tradition, specifically, the conception, the bodily assumption of Mary.

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I mean, the words that Rome has used to define these things are unequivocal. I mean, they're just as plain as day.

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And you wouldn't believe what I hear. Maybe. Well, you hear it over here. But in the United States, you get the same thing.

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I render Roman Catholics that just bend the parameters of language to just push these things back into the realm of mythology and something they don't really have to believe.

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And Rome has said this is what we teach this. You must believe without any question.

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Well, where does that come from? I say there is not a single apostle of Jesus Christ. Now, we come to the bodily assumption, obviously, some of them would have died before those events, so we can't even go there.

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But if the issue is these are apostolic traditions, I dispute, I argue that there is any evidence whatsoever that any apostle of Jesus Christ ever taught anything even remotely similar to what

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Rome has defined on the basis of tradition. And so how can you know, let's say

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Rome has taught these things. How do we test it? How do we test that presupposes scripture, surely, because you're assuming that the only source for all the theological data that we have that forms the deposit of faith is scripture alone.

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And actually, you know, you would be the first to be going back to what you just said earlier. You would be the first to say that Jesus didn't reject traditions per se.

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He rejected those traditions which were contrary to the scriptures. He rejected those traditions which were contrary to the righteous practice of the law because they weren't.

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The Pharisees were completely inconsistent. But traditions themselves are not bad things. You've said that many times.

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It's a key confusion people have about Protestant doctrines. It's not that they reject tradition. It's that they reject traditions that they believe are counter biblical or unbiblical.

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But I know the elevation of tradition to having an authority that is equal to scripture, for example, the Corban rule, which the

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Jews had elevated to that point. And Jesus said, I don't care if you think it came from Moses.

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That's not relevant. It goes against what scripture is. So there's an authority. Clearly, the canon was something which was accepted as essentially something which was passed down right to them today.

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There's no other way you can explain the existence of the canon or an idea that they had certain books that they actually did accept.

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I mean, obviously, there was disagreement amongst the Jews, for example, the Sadducees only accepted the

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Torah, whereas the Pharisees accepted a wider canon. And there's this disagreement. There's obviously the

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Septuagint versus the Tanakh. And you've got all sorts of disagreements around that. So I don't need to actually believe that the

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Jews had an absolute infallible understanding of the canon. I don't need to believe that. I don't need to have a sufficient understanding of the canon to be held accountable by the

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Lord Jesus for that. So there was sufficient tradition for them to be able to say, look, this was given to us from our forebests, from our forefathers.

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I don't need to say they had developed theology of the magisterium and this, that and the other. But I can say now, how do we as Christians know that all the books of the

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New Testament are the books in the New Testament? We don't know it through scripture alone. You haven't given me such a problem there is that the tradition that you are identifying as the

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Jewish source of their canon is opposite that which Rome has now defined as being infallible.

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I don't think we can get into a discussion about the

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Jewish canonical text without detracting from the ultimate authority issue. But look, I don't need to believe that there is this, say, this

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Jewish magisterium and actually, you know, the nature of the nature of the honest of the fact that that the

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Holy Scriptures are the answer simply tells us the means by which this particular God speaking happened.

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God also speaks in different ways. For example, Jesus says to the apostles that there are many other things

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I would like to tell you, and I shall, the spirit of truth will lead you into them. And when in one of the letters of John, John says, you know, that those who hear us hear

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God, those who do not hear us reject God. And this is how you know the spirit of truth and error.

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Not by going to the scriptures, by hearing the apostles and their teaching. It's the church, in fact, consistently inspired by the spirit of truth, the

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Holy Spirit, which is consistently given this kind of scripture. Let me contrast that with what

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Paul himself said. When Paul writes to Timothy, he says, difficult times are coming. There's going to be apostasy.

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There's going to be those opposing the truth, the way they say. But you, in opposition to them, you continue to things you have learned, become convinced of knowing from whom you have learned them.

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See, God does use means. It's sort of been presented as if soul scripture means there are no means.

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That's, that's not the case at all. And that from childhood, you have known what the, the ecstatic utterances of people or something like that.

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No, the sacred writings able to give you the wisdom leads salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus, which then leads us into that classical text where Paul says, all scripture is the

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Anustos. And therefore it is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training righteousness.

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And here's the, here's the issue. So that the man of God may be fully equipped, fully equipped.

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So here's, here's a question I've asked for many, many years. I know that Peter's just, just chomping at the bit to answer it. If the dogmas of Rome in regards to the infallibility of the

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Pope, in regards to the immaculate conception of Mary, in regards to the, the bodily assumption of Mary, which, which

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I can, I can show you where Pope's taught against those things in history. If those are now a part of the gospel,

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I guess I need to actually ask Peter at this point, because again, there's different perspectives, but, uh, I've done debates with people who have actually said that we have the same epistemological warrant for believing in the bodily assumption of Mary, as we have for believing in the resurrection familiar.

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And you're obviously both very familiar with what the bodily assumption of Mary is. Can you just explain James, what don't you think he's the one?

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Why don't we let, I don't know. I think I could give you an accurate definition. I'm sure James White could do it as well.

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Okay. Because this is kind of where the rubber hits the road, because a lot of Protestants listening to this show may think, oh,

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I probably don't differ from Peter that much in my basic beliefs. But Peter, you believe that Mary was bodily assumed into heaven.

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She did not die. That's not a part of it. No, no, no. We're agnostic about that. That's exactly why I thought we would have no problem.

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No, that's actually not defined. That's actually allowed. All right. Okay. But this obviously forms no part of the average

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Protestants kind of makeup of beliefs about, about scripture and, and it's not found in scripture, obviously.

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So, so, so why do you believe that particular view of Mary and why do you hold it as that's going to lead us down a whole different debate.

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The thing is, if you're going to debate mariology, you have to build from the base up. You can't simply go, right, there's a proof text for the assumption of Mary.

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You can't do that. You have to say, look, what does scripture say about Mary? What does the early Christians say about Mary? And why, therefore, has this teaching developed over time?

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Because I'm perfectly happy to admit it developed over time. I'm perfectly happy to admit that until 1950, was it four?

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I can't remember. Fifty. Yes. No, you're quite right. 1854 for a magical. So 1950, we don't until that point, we don't infallibly define that this is a truth that you must believe.

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I'm perfectly sorry, perfectly happy to say that because actually, what happens with the church is that slowly but surely comes into more and more and more truth, more deepening of truth.

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All of that truth is consistent with what went before in terms of what it is actually defined, whether through the ordinary magisterium or the extraordinary magisterium.

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But it's something which deepens through theological thinking, through the experience of the church, through all sorts of different things.

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So the church over time has built up more and more and more certainty about what is the deposit of faith. So it doesn't need to have this total consistent right.

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This is the post of faith right through. It develops that over time. And of course, our deepening, our theological deepening, something you can illustrate by looking at the doctrine of the

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Trinity in terms of the language we use, the Council of Nicaea. Those aren't things I think that we would have used term terminology like these are not things we would have necessarily used before.

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Those are terminologies that we use afterwards because the development and deepening of thought. Well, how does this thing called the Trinity work?

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I mean, even the word Trinity isn't used, but the basic core truth of the Trinity that Father, Son and Holy Spirit is always believed by and defended strongly by James.

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Absolutely. But you won't mind defending no. And I'll be I'll be honest with you.

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I like Peter. And that's why I'm not quite as upset now as I normally am when I see the divine biblical doctrine, the

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Trinity being parallel to something that no apostle ever said a word about. In fact, nobody for 500 years.

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In fact, the first time this dogma even or disbelief even appears in church history, it's being preached against by the

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Bishop of Rome for crying out loud. So I mean, when you when you really look at it, this to me, you cannot begin to understand the

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New Testament and what it says about the gospel outside of the doctrines of Trinity. It makes no sense. That guy,

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Jesus, is saying things that no mere human could ever say. But you can read the entirety of the New Testament as Augustine did, as Athanasius did, as Tertullian did, without ever thinking about the bodily assumption of Mary and have no problems at all.

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And yet today, Peter says, dogmatically, to be right with the church, you must believe this.

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And this is why you must believe it. Because because this is what it is, because the spirit of truth leaves the church into all truth eventually.

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And we still haven't heard why. But there's no tradition. There's no tradition for this. This is a problem. If you want to talk about church, plus scripture, plus tradition, here is where for many people, the the the triumvirate falls apart, because the reality is what

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Rome has defined as dogma is not a part of tradition. I mean,

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I've debated some of the best on the subject of the papacy. And if you look at the papacy, the infallibility of the

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Pope, and those last two Marian dogmas, because these are all, you know, modern exemplars, exemplars, post biblical things, very post biblical things that have become de fide.

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When you look at those things, that's when you get the real sense of what happens once you knock the walls of scripture down and say, there's more out there, we can buy the spirit interpret these things.

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And it's funny, I appreciate and I'm gonna, I'm gonna see if I can put you in a tough position here, Peter. Because in the

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States, the big argument against soul scripture, it's funny, you said, well, let's get back to canon, it's funny. You say, well, there's too much to talk about the

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Marian dogmas. And for the Protestant, there's too much to talk about on the canon, even though Roman Catholics always go there first, without actually,

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I think, providing a basis for why their authority somehow works there.

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But the big argument in the United States against soul scripture goes like this, there's the number keeps expanding 38 ,000

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Protestant denominations, and it's all because of soul scripture. Now that number happens to be utterly and completely bogus.

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Because when you actually look at the sources, they're including people like African Gnostics, all the various Mormon groups.

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I'm sorry, when you start saying the Mormons are Jehovah's Witnesses due to soul scripture, you've missed something along the line. But the argument is soul scripture leads to this form of anarchy.

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And I would like to point out that that misses something very fundamental. I'm saying when you look at when you look, if you brought an

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Orthodox Presbyterian in here, and you brought a conservative Anglican in here, and you brought people who actually believe in the soul of scripture, our differences would be minuscule in comparison, if you brought people in here to say,

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Oh, I accept the Bible, plus what the Spirit tells me over here. Those people aren't going to be able to agree on who

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God is. So the so I can I can the amongst the people who try to who know what soul scripture is, and try to practice it.

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The range of belief is incredibly narrow. As a result, I see what you're saying. There is so much which has just been said to deal with my goodness.

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I mean, we've gone from Mariology to to Timothy three to the explosion. My question is, this is the problem just one hour.

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So I'm not going to try to deal with Mariology, because it's a huge subject. And I would love to debate that, however, with you some other time.

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Oh, we need to debate for this. We need to we need to work harder.

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But so I will deal with two things, because I can only choose to do a few things I can only choose to do.

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So because you just raised it, and you tried to put me in a difficult position. The 38 ,000 Yeah, I'm quite happy to admit 38 ,000 or whatever it is now, because it keeps on going up and down.

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You know, 20. Right? Well, there you go. You know, I'm quite happy to say, okay, that's that's counting all these groups that shouldn't be counted.

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But let's say it's just 500. Would that make your position any better? You know, if it's if it's even just 500 donation, we know it's more than 500 nominations, though, that would be a problem.

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But this is my problem with this argument, right? I don't actually have a problem with Catholics and Protestants on this plot on this whole argument.

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Because partly, the reason why there's an explosion of different Protestant sects and denominations is not so much soul scriptura.

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Because a lot of these donations believe pretty much exactly the same thing. I mean, they're mostly or a lot of them are different sort of flavours of charismatic evangelical

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Protestantism, which we're not really not even soul scriptura. Yeah, I mean, and a cradle Baptist and have the same kind of practice that they've basically taken from someone else.

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And so there's not a great deal of theological difference. Actually, the problem with denominations is not Protestant epistemology is

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Protestant ecclesiology. In other words, because there is this whole idea of well, you know, I can tell my own denomination, man, and that's perfectly valid.

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And that's why it happens. And actually, there are a lot of Protestants who would say, why not? Unknown Speaker 12. Which is why you get reformed

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Baptists. Unknown Speaker 12. Exactly, you know, like one little church. And, you know, so that's why that happens more than I think

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Protestant epistemology. It is, however, interesting that and this is why I think soul scripture has a little bit of reason for that is because people are basically feel they can interpret the

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Bible as they see fit. They don't have an exterior authority to which they are hang on there to which they are to which they are essentially.

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Exactly. I mean, the fact that for example, before the Reformation, there is essentially three schisms, just three over 1500 years, three schisms, you've got the count the

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Assyrian Church of the East breaking off at 431 AD, you've got the oriental orthodox breaking away in 451 AD. And then you've got the schism between the

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West and the East in 1054. And those are the ones that we would not appreciate being ignored.

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Yeah, I know. But there's something I wouldn't call necessarily oriental orthodox Syrian church, these heretics, but don't.

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But the point is, we managed to basically keep fairly united exact a long time, very, very, very

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Catholic view of because because there was this purveying view that kept on going of scripture tradition and the magisterium of the church and the church was something which was actually quite important.

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Being members of the church was seen as something which is as today necessary for salvation. So this is something which that's the reason why that explosion happens.

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It's partly because of Protestant ecclesiology. And it's partly because of a particular epistemology, soul scripture, which basically allows people enables this kind of chaos to happen.

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Now, I just said, I don't give that entirely soul scripture.

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But I think there's a balance that needs your second point. The second point two, two, three, I don't think proves the case. Partly because it says particle of the onus is kind of fellow most of fellow most it is useful.

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It is useful for what for teaching correction, rebuking and training and righteousness. And it's those things that make you complete and fully equipped for every kind of good work.

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In other words, being taught it's been corrected, being rebuked and trained in righteousness. Those are the things that make you complete and fully equipped and scriptures relationship that is what useful, useful, it's off elements, it's profitable.

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Not only that, but I actually think that the panergon agathon, the all these good works to try to shoehorn in all the necessary data that you need, all the scripture sufficient for all the necessary essential truths of the positive faith, say that gives you the ability to do all good work to shoehorn those that concept into the other,

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I think is deeply. Okay, so you feel a bit of a bit of a twisting of that scripture. He does talk about I can get up the scriptures, the problem with using an iPad rather than actual

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Bible. Other tablets are available. Yes, yes, you're quite right. If any man therefore shall cleanse himself from these things from these unworthy things, he should be a vessel to honor, sanctified and profitable for the

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Lord prepared unto every good work. He's talking about works of moral righteousness clearly to the things that you ought to be doing as a good bishop, because he's handing the reins on to Timothy.

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So I don't think for all those different reasons that so 233 1617 is sufficient argument really to give ourselves scripture.

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And if actually structure can't even be derived from the Bible, my goodness, what does that tell us? All right, James, you've a few things.

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Well, I said something wrong as well. Well, yeah, you you allowed a default view of everyone holding a quote unquote

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Catholic view of scripture during all of church history. And I would strongly disagree with that.

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I mean, when you look at how Athanasius argued for the deity of Christ, Athanasius is the perfect example of the fact that that was not the view at the time.

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And I see it was not viewed as an ecumenical council. It had to fight for itself. Augustine, when he was quoting when he was arguing with an

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Aryan said, You must not quote the authority of a remnant against me. And I must not quote the authority of Nicaea against you.

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We must go to the God breeze scriptures. So Augustine recognized you had councils that had contradicted one another.

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And Athanasius is kicked out of his church five times and is told by the entire church, even the Bishop of Rome and collapsed on this.

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He's it's Athanasius contramundum. There's no there's no I think there's very good, good evidence of that. Even even even

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Jerome recognized that that was the case. The point is, he's standing against councils that had more bishops in it than Nicaea ever had.

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And he said, No, the scriptures teach this. And he held to it. And we are thankful that he held to it today.

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So I have to dispute the idea. But I was disagreeing with with the the assertion.

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Well, for 2000 years, they had this view, I would say that that was not the view that was held by many, many people. There was not one.

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It was primarily the central organizing factor of the papacy, and an external authority, not the view.

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Yes, yes. Doesn't Peter's point still stand that there was compared to since the Reformation, where there's been a kind of proliferation of denominations, there were relatively few split splits for 15.

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Well, when you say splits, I have a hard time thinking that the lesbian female professor at Boston College teaching

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Catholic history, and this fellow are actually together just in the

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Roman Union. So so she's not because she's essentially excommunicated herself by being a heretic and by being a sinner.

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And when Rome gets around to doing that, then I'll listen to that is a point

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I will absolutely grant to Dr. White, because the Catholic Church is not impeccable. It's not always perfect in its practice.

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And I agree there are people I don't I have no idea why Hans Kuhn is not excommunicated. I have no earthly idea.

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I've asked a member of the CDF. Why have you not excommunicated this guy CDF? Oh, sorry, the congregation, the doctrine of faith, which is the body responsible for doing for a doctrinal orthodoxy and for doing this kind of stuff, the modern modern incarnation of the opposition, as people always like.

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But of course, there were Protestant acquisitions. But nonetheless, the point is, yes, absolutely. You agree with James?

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I totally agree. The church needs to get its act together. But do you know what just after the Pope said, you know, this whole thing about the interview with the

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Pope recently, and he's always liberalising on abortion, homosexuality, what did you do straight afterwards? He excommunicated an

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Australian priest who advocates for a liberalisation of the views on homosexuality and other things, because of partly his disobedience and partly because he gave he had a blasphemous

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Eucharist where he gave the Eucharist to a dog. The church is not afraid always to crack down on this.

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And this Pope isn't the liberal that people imagine. But you hadn't quite finished. I'll be honest with you. I don't know where he is yet.

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Give us a year, we might have a better idea. I mean, I think you got to admit it's been pretty interesting so far.

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But just in response to the second Timothy, when you look at the context, there wasn't a context given there in that in that exegesis,

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I'll be perfectly honest with you, because what Paul is saying is, in light of these false teachers who are coming, what's going to be your basis for doing teaching reproof correction?

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And the question I was going to ask, and Peter knows this, and he anticipated it is, if these if the teaching of the bodily assumption of Mary is a good work, and if that's a truth divine by God, which according to the

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Roman Catholic Church it is, then teaching it would be a good work. How does Scripture make you capable, make you able to do that?

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And I think the only answer is, well, you know, it teaches you to be a faithful son of the church or something like that. That's not what Paul was saying to Timothy.

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He was saying to Timothy, Timothy, you're going to have an unchanging source and standard to be able to go to here. And you've always known what it is.

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You're not going to have to be looking to something else. You're not going to have to be looking to someone else. We don't have to look to Salt Lake City.

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And we don't have to wait until 1830 when Joseph Smith comes along. We're not going to have to look to New York and Brooklyn and the faithful discreet slave or any of the rest of this type of stuff, because God has spoken in his word.

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And it's absolutely even as he was writing that letter, would Paul have known that what he was writing down at that moment would become canon?

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That's assuming that it's Paul's intention here when he talks about Scripture to define the canon of Scripture.

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The point is, if it is theanustos, it is authoritative. The issue is not, well, do we have something that's less than theanustos that's going to be authoritative or anything else?

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He's saying to Timothy, you know what to look to. You have this authority. And when we take what, and name the group, you see it, you know,

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Peter's sitting here now. So we have to keep talking about, well, what has Rome defined on this basis? We could be talking about satirological issues.

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There's issues about priesthood, mass, justification. There's all sorts of things we have to get into that stuff.

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But if there was a representative of the Mormon church here, it would be a different set of things they'd be talking about.

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But I'd be coming back to the exact same standard. If it's a Jehovah's Witness, we've sat here and we've had

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Abdullah al -Nalusi sitting there. And what have I come back to? The exact same standard. We are going to have to go to a break.

53:58

And then I'll let you come back, Peter. Otherwise, we'll be going over time. But yeah, a really interesting to and fro on the program today, as you can hear between my two guests joining me today for Unbelievable.

54:09

Peter D. Williams of the Catholic Church and James White representing a Protestant reformed tradition.

54:16

And we're talking today about the ultimate authority for Christians. Is it sola scriptura, scripture alone, or is it scripture plus church tradition and the teaching of the

54:27

Catholic Church? Well, that's certainly the view of Peter D. Williams and opposite him on this is James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

54:34

Come back as we just finish off today's program in just a moment's time. You're listening to Unbelievable with me,

54:40

Justin Brierley. Welcome back to Unbelievable this Saturday afternoon with me, Justin Brierley, the talking shop for Christians.

54:47

Back to my guests on today's program as we finish up the discussion in a moment, Peter D. Williams and James White.

54:54

You're listening to the Faith Explored afternoon of programming here on Premiere and straight after Unbelievable, we've got the profile interview.

55:01

Today's guests are John and Ellie Mumford talking to Lucinda Vander Hart about being leaders of the

55:07

Vineyard Church in the UK. They've got a famous son, too, none other than Marcus Mumford, the lead singer of Mumford and Sons.

55:15

Well, they're not going to actually talk about that. They're talking about how they established the Vineyard Church, having come under the influence of a famed

55:22

U .S. charismatic John Wimber in the 1980s. Fascinating interview between four and five this afternoon.

55:28

Stay tuned to Premiere to hear that straight after this program next week on Unbelievable. We're going to have a debate.

55:35

Well, not sure exactly which one it will be at the moment. Possibly we might be lining up a debate with the latest person with their theory about Jesus.

55:43

Joseph Atwill has been in the news recently claiming that Jesus was an invention of the Roman authorities.

55:49

Still looking at the possibilities around that. Might be that we get something on air next week for that. If it's not that, then we've got a fascinating discussion to play out between humanist celebrant

55:58

Hannah Hart and Christian church leader Faith Forster on rites of passage. How a church leader, a

56:04

Christian and an atheist might mark those rituals of births, deaths and weddings and so on, and why we want to find meaning in these milestones of life.

56:13

One of two possible discussions on your headset on your radio next week.

56:19

Do hope you can come back for those here on Unbelievable. Let's conclude today's discussion. You're listening to Unbelievable on Premiere Christian Radio.

56:32

And so concluding our discussion between a Catholic and Protestant guest today, we've been asking what is the ultimate authority for Christians?

56:39

Is it scripture alone or scripture plus sacred to tradition and the teaching of the

56:44

Catholic Church? Two very knowledgeable, very good debaters as well with me today.

56:51

They are James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, aomin .org. If you want to check out his website, does podcasts, blogs, debates, loads of stuff, writes books by the bucketful.

57:02

You can find him there, aomin .org. Peter D. Williams, who is a writer and speaker and one of the representatives for Catholic Voices is also online at catholicvoices .org

57:12

.uk. Again, loads and loads of resources from them and from Peter, if you want to look them out.

57:17

We've had such a kind of feisty, well -argued debate today, gentlemen.

57:23

You both know what you're talking about, that's for sure. So much more that could be said.

57:28

We've glossed over the surface of many issues. You know, I want to do a program on the assumption of Mary now, but who knows where we're at.

57:35

Mariology in general. Mariology in general, yes. High time we did something like that. Okay, but Peter, I think

57:41

James had the last sort of crack of the whip. The last thing we heard was that essentially the difference between all these different groups is that they don't take scripture alone.

57:48

I actually disagree. I think the difference between all these groups is that they basically make themselves the authority over scripture. And I think that's exactly what

57:54

Dr. White and other people do. I mean, actually, I don't think that functionally, if we're going to go by, well, the church defines what the scriptures are and the church interprets the scriptures.

58:04

Well, in fact, in that case, we're going by that kind of functionality. I don't think Dr. White believes in scripture anymore than I do. I think he believes in Sola Alba, White alone.

58:11

He defines what the scriptures are. He defines what the scriptures say because he's the interpreter. He's the one who decides historically what these things are.

58:17

And it would be fair to say, if I can just come in here, James, for instance, when you say, well, I could probably agree on loads of stuff with someone else who's

58:24

Sola Scriptura, but you might differ with a Presbyterian who's Sola Scriptura on paedo -baptism, those kinds of issues.

58:31

So, yeah, well, let's go by something more important. Something like baptism regeneration, believing in baptism regeneration, that matters.

58:37

That's something in which, in fact, Dr. White would point to us Catholics and say, oh, that's terrible. You're putting something other than faith as a means of salvation.

58:45

That's a pretty important issue. I mean, the Calvinist debate, which you often get engaged in, you say this is pretty basic stuff to Arminians.

58:53

Most certainly. But what do we go to? When I have debated my Presbyterian brothers on this,

58:59

Bill Shishko, pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, New York, we debated this issue, and we debated it very forcefully.

59:06

But we debated it in collegiality. We had the same source to go to. We stand together on the gospel.

59:11

We stand together on justification. We stand together on the Trinity. He could go with me into a mosque, and we would have the same message to people.

59:21

And that's where the difference is. If someone walked up to Bill Shishko and I outside of an abortion clinic and said, what must

59:27

I do to be saved? We'd have the same answer. The tragedy, and I do view it as a tragedy, is that if someone asked

59:33

Peter and I, we're not going to answer in the same way. And that has to be admitted, because half the problem that I see today in the

59:41

Catholic -Protestant discussion is that we've decided that doesn't matter anymore. And it doesn't make a lick of sense to me.

59:49

That's really demonstrating that neither one of us really believe that the gospel is definitional anymore. And as long as the

59:55

Book of Galatians is a New Testament, I'm going to have to be a stick in the mud. I'm going to have to be your radical, mean -spirited, American Calvinist guest on Unbelievable, because it seems to me there's this mere

01:00:07

Christianity thing going around that says, as long as you believe in the Trinity and the crucifixion of Jesus and resurrection, that's pretty much it.

01:00:13

You don't need anything more. Now, you've heard me criticize this, Justin, a few times. There's a Book of Galatians, and there's no evidence that I can see in the

01:00:21

Judaizers were denying any of those things. He doesn't fault them for any of those things. Instead, what he says is, false brethren had crept in, trying to take us captive.

01:00:31

And Paul says, the truth of the gospel was at stake there. For me, it seems that the gospel is definitional of what the

01:00:37

Christian Church actually is. And if you don't have the gospel, you're not representing Jesus Christ. Jesus himself said, if anyone's embarrassed of me in what?

01:00:44

My gospel. I'll be embarrassed of him. And so, I know that I'm completely outside the bounds anymore.

01:00:53

And I don't get the invites to the big conferences as a result, because you're just one of those, I'm forced to it.

01:00:59

It was just said, you're making yourself the authority of scripture. If you do not engage in meaningful exegesis of the text, you will have to do that.

01:01:08

I reject, however, that I am doing that, because I do come to the text, and I want to know what the text actually says, so that I know what the author was saying.

01:01:19

That's the way you do that. Everyone would say that. Everyone would say, well, I'm just taking what the Bible says, including the people with whom you have much more deep disagreements than Pado -Baptists, because that's not really a very important issue compared to, let's say,

01:01:30

Baptist regeneration, or the nature of justification, or other such things. And the thing is, what we would say is, we're recognizing what scripture says, and we're recognizing what sacred tradition says as well.

01:01:39

We all claim to have this passive role. The difference is, you make yourself the arbiter, because you are using your own human reason to exegete the scripture.

01:01:49

So ultimately, your own human reason, your own human subjectivity, becomes the magisterium, whether you want to admit it or not.

01:01:54

And of course, epistemologically, I point out to every Roman Catholic, you have made a decision to follow the claims of the

01:02:00

Bishop of Rome, rather than the prophet in Salt Lake City, rather than the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses, rather than these people over there.

01:02:06

That was a fallible decision on your part. You are not infallible in making that decision. Absolutely. So to try to say, well,

01:02:12

I have, I'm not using my fallible nature. I say, yes, you are.

01:02:19

Because you may say, okay, and I've made my choice, and I'm just going to go with whatever the Pope says. I say, you have to be able to examine what the

01:02:26

Pope says, you have to be able to examine what the church says. You're both in the same boat in that sense. The difference is that what you're doing is you're using your fallible human reason to discern doctrine outside of the context of,

01:02:36

I mean, not so you don't have to ignore these things, but outside of the context of the sacred tradition of magisterium, whereas I'm using my fallible human reason to simply say,

01:02:43

I recognize by history that these are reasonable sources. Those are two distinct different roles. You're discerning that doctrine,

01:02:49

I'm simply recognizing what the authorities are. Here's a misrepresentation of sole scriptura, however.

01:02:56

I know church history. I teach church history. I'll be teaching church history in Kiev in February. I do not interpret the

01:03:03

Bible outside of a recognition of how it's been interpreted in the past. I just recognize that those who've interpreted in the past, my goodness, read the patristic sources.

01:03:11

Sometimes they face planted. Sometimes they had traditions that are just so far out in the woods, it's not even funny.

01:03:18

And just like we have some people that have that today. So it's not a matter, it's not me and my, it's not me and my

01:03:26

Bible under a tree alone. I stand on the shoulders of giants. But just because I stand on the giant shoulders does not mean

01:03:33

I invest the giant with infallibility. I can recognize that even in the heroes of the faith, look,

01:03:40

Calvin would have had me drowned or burned or at least excommunicated one of them. Yeah. Okay. So I obviously,

01:03:46

I think the difference, honestly, Peter, in how we treat church history is I don't have to make the early church fathers anything other than what they were.

01:03:54

Nor do I actually, I don't have to believe everything they said was infallible either. I simply recognize that when they do. But when science tells you that they universally believed something.

01:04:03

They did, but absolutely all of them believed in, for example, baptism regeneration. I'm not done. That's not what

01:04:09

SAS Cognitive was talking about. It was talking about the papacy and it was talking about Matthew 16. And I look at that and I go, that's simply not true.

01:04:15

And I can demonstrate that it's not true. But if Roman fallibly tells you it's true, can you honestly evaluate what

01:04:22

Rome says infallibly and come to the conclusion that it's wrong? Yes, because then I would no longer be a Catholic. I would leave the

01:04:27

Catholic church if I believe that. OK, there is a difference. If I believe that, I actually do think there is a consistency in the primacy of the papacy throughout time.

01:04:36

We're going to have to come to sort of final conclusions now, James. So, OK, what have we learned in the course of today's show?

01:04:46

Final thoughts from Jerry Springer. Oh, it hasn't been that bad. No, it's not been that bad.

01:04:52

There were no chairs thrown across the studio. I listened to Unbelievable. I could point to a few programs. Yeah, fascinating.

01:05:01

And as it stands, Peter, you came back to the

01:05:09

Catholic church having wandered away for quite some time. And so some people might be surprised that you're willing to throw everything into these three areas of tradition and teaching and scripture, which comes up with some things that most

01:05:28

Protestants would be quite surprised by, like the Mariology and so on. But for you, you're absolutely certain that this is the best way of inheriting the correct formulation of faith down the years?

01:05:40

Well, it's the only consistent and historical one. As I say, ultimately, we've seen that, for example, scripture itself cannot be defined from scripture alone.

01:05:48

There is a total incoherence within the idea of soul scripture, which we haven't heard answered except by a difference without a distinction.

01:05:54

This whole idea of the artifact object distinction doesn't work simply doesn't work because it's not about the nature of revelation or how revelation comes to be.

01:06:03

It's about how we know what is revelation. And the only answer that historically scripture tradition recognized by the

01:06:09

Magisterial Teaching Authority of the church. We've seen that very consistently. And there's been no I've looked. Believe me,

01:06:14

I've been researching this question for 10 years. I know that's nowhere near the number of years that Dr. White's been doing things. He's got to be two decades, but, you know, get out of that.

01:06:24

But yeah, you know, ultimately, I've never found a proper answer to the coming question. And the reason I go back to that is because I think it best illustrates the difference between us based on the fact we need to have something other than scripture to define what scripture is.

01:06:36

That's clearly a tradition. It's clearly recognized by the church over time. And there are so many things we could have gone into, which we haven't gone into.

01:06:42

Like Matthew 16, 18. This is why it is frustrating. It's an hour's worth, which you can only scratch the surface off. But ultimately,

01:06:47

I think that's the only consistent way. And it's the only historic way. This is why there was such unity in the church before the 16th century.

01:06:53

We appreciate you coming on today, Peter, to give you a perspective on this. James, a quick summing up from you.

01:06:59

Well, very quickly, I think the can issue is a non -starter because it's circular. And the reality is, when you look at the history of Rome's ruminations on this subject, when you've got popes contradicting what you eventually come up with, that's really, for ultimate authority, that's a difficult thing.

01:07:15

For me, the real issue is, how do we know what is God's will? Well, Jesus and the apostles gave us these things.

01:07:22

Rome has never given us a single word that Jesus and the apostles said outside of what's found in scripture. And true apostolic succession, in my opinion, is walking in the footsteps of the apostles, not in some kind of torturous, circuitous line through history.

01:07:37

And you cannot trace a single line through history. Just look at the Avignon papacy. Look at the pornography. I mean, church history is not a friend of that kind of claim.

01:07:46

True apostolic succession is walking in the steps and teaching what they themselves taught.

01:07:51

And when you look at what Rome is now teaching in the guise of denial of sola scriptura, the bodily assumption, papal infallibility, these are things the apostles and their churches that they started never believed.

01:08:03

This developed over time. There's reasons why it developed, but did not come from the apostolic deposit. We are going to have to leave it there.

01:08:09

So much more that could be said. Perhaps we'll get you both back for another round on one of these specific issues at some point down the line.

01:08:16

But thank you very much, gentlemen, both for being with me. Really interesting debate today. I wonder what you thought of it.

01:08:22

Well, I'm going to be giving you the ways to get in touch in just a moment's time. But for the moment, again, my thanks to Peter D Williams.

01:08:28

You can find out more about him at catholicvoices .org .uk and James White from Alpha and Omega Ministries.

01:08:34

That's aomin .org. Gentlemen, thanks for being with me today. Thank you. Always great to be here. Unbelievable with Justin Briley.

01:08:48

So I always enjoy hearing what you thought of the program. And you can do that, of course, by tweeting me if you're on Twitter at Unbelievable JB is my handle.

01:08:56

You can find us on facebook .com slash unbelievable JB. Look forward to hearing from you that way.

01:09:02

And of course, the email is unbelievable at premier .org .uk.

01:09:07

Got a number of those to read out in just a moment's time. You can also phone in, leave a voicemail comment.

01:09:16

08456 525252 and select the option for the unbelievable voicemail service. Before we go to some of your comments on the last few weeks of programming, and that has included great shows with Lawrence Krauss and John Lennox.

01:09:30

And last week, we had David BB, our atheist, talking to Christian evangelist Rice Brooks.

01:09:36

Well, got to try to do a bit more of this, actually, just a few events coming up that you may be interested in if you're into apologetics in the

01:09:44

UK. And if you've got an event that you'd like to tell me about, more than happy to try and give it a mention on the show as well.

01:09:51

Firstly, at the Hitchin Christian Center there, their series on which Jesus continues. That's tomorrow,

01:09:58

Sunday, the 13th of October, between seven and 9pm. It's going to be a discussion between Rabbi Nathan Levy and Dr.

01:10:04

Brendan Devitt on Jewish perspectives on Jesus. So that's happening at Hitchin Christian Center, Bedford Road in Hitchin, between seven and 9pm tomorrow,

01:10:13

Sunday, the 13th of October. The Leicestershire Contenders Apologetics Group is having its first meeting on Saturday, the 19th of October, between two and five o 'clock.

01:10:23

That's going to include Tom Price from the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics on equipping

01:10:29

Christians to defend their faith, happening at Holy Trinity Church Lounge, Regent Road, Leicester.

01:10:34

As I say, Saturday, the 19th of October. If you're in the Leicestershire area, they've got a

01:10:39

Facebook group. If you want to get more information, just look them up on Facebook. And finally, the role of Christianity in education is going to be the subject of the

01:10:48

Out of the Silent Church Conference in November. That's put together by the Solas Centre for Public Christianity, run, of course, by David Robertson, who's a regular guest on this program.

01:10:58

It's a day -long event. It's going to feature Sinclair Ferguson, David Robertson, Luc Boussier and Mike Reeve speaking on education at home, at school, in the church and amongst the poor.

01:11:09

So it's got an apologetics edge to that conference. Saturday, the 23rd of November from 8 .30 in the morning.

01:11:15

Tickets are required. Go to the website, find out more, solas -cpc .org.

01:11:21

And we may well be getting a sort of debate on education going in a forthcoming program.

01:11:27

There's been some interesting stories just in the last couple of days. The National Secular Society releasing a report claiming that state schools are allowing fundamentalist

01:11:36

Christians, creationism and so on into the classroom because of failures in RE policies.

01:11:42

Well, maybe we'll be able to do something about that before too long. Thanks to those who've been getting in touch around various issues that have come up in recent programs.

01:11:51

Just a quick shout out to Louis Rivera, who says, I live in the States, Chicagoland area. Been listening to Unbelievable for a little over four and a half years.

01:11:58

I'm a huge fan. I'd love it if you could get apologist evangelist Donald J. Johnson on your show to dialogue with any atheist.

01:12:06

I think his approach is very refreshing. He has his own podcast, The Don Johnson Show, and a new book out,

01:12:11

How to Talk to a Skeptic, which Professor Peter Craith happens to endorse. Just throwing it out there as a suggestion.

01:12:17

Thank you, Louis. I get many suggestions. Very hard to accommodate them all, of course, but I do appreciate them when they come in and I do try to action as many as possible.

01:12:27

Marty Johnson is in Saskatchewan, Canada. I think if I'm not mistaken,

01:12:32

I've got a few listeners there. Not least Rebecca Benich, assuming she's still listening, who was a guest a few years ago on the program, an atheist guest.

01:12:40

But Marty is a Christian, says, I love your show. I listen to you when I'm both driving and exercising.

01:12:45

You've become my unofficial exercise and driving buddy. However, I find you do most of the talking. I thoroughly enjoyed your recent program with Rice Brooks and David Beebe.

01:12:54

Just to key you in on this, Marty is talking about last week's program. Atheist listener

01:12:59

David Beebe came on for a discussion with church planter and apologist Rice Brooks. He's the author of a new book called

01:13:04

God's Not Dead. So you say here, Marty, as a pastor in Canada, I differ with Beebe's conclusions on Jesus, but I found him as a debater, very articulate and gracious to Brooks.

01:13:15

I felt that Rice dodged Beebe's questions behind the reasoning of Brooks's support of a creator in light of the overwhelming evidence of fine tuning, but wouldn't answer why he doesn't apply the same confidence towards evolution in light of its overwhelming support by the majority of scientific academics.

01:13:31

As someone who's very open to the idea of theistic evolution, I would have preferred Rice to be more genuine about studies on this subject.

01:13:38

Thanks. You rock, says Marty. Thank you very much, Marty. Glad to have you on board listening. Here's James, who says,

01:13:45

I can't tell you how much I enjoy your show. Lots of compliments this week on the emails. Thank you very much. You say, much like David Beebe, I'm an atheist who's fascinated by religion and find your show refreshing and informative.

01:13:56

I listened to the last podcast and found Rice Brooks's bias lens argument, both very telling and quite aggravating.

01:14:03

A theist scientist will come to every proposition with the same endgame in mind. God did it.

01:14:08

An atheist agnostic scientist, if they're honest, will not come to the proposition saying there will be no way this will point to God.

01:14:15

They can only say, if this points to God or some non -material answer, I will have to have more evidence to support it.

01:14:21

That's not to say that the atheist scientist is without any bias, but he, she is definitely not compelled to find a specific answer that satisfies an existential need for an all loving being that will save his soul.

01:14:32

Put another way, if the fate of my child's life or soul depended on me making two plus two equals five,

01:14:37

I would work ceaselessly to do so, no matter the evidence against it. In fact, I would feel I had no choice. But if I have so grand at stake, my child, my life, my soul salvation, then

01:14:46

I think I would be more apt at finding an objective truth. Again, love the show all the way out here in Maryland, just outside Washington, DC.

01:14:54

Keep up the good work. And you hopefully just give a little description of your background. I'm a 39 year old

01:14:59

African American male raised without religion. Very odd for my community and married elapsed

01:15:04

Baptist who's now a weak deist. Thank you very much. Good to hear from you.

01:15:10

Appreciate you getting in touch, James. As you say, in the end, if an atheist agnostic scientist is willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads, then that is a measure of absolute honesty on their part.

01:15:23

And I would hope that a theist scientist who's honest would also do the same. But I just get the feeling, though, that some, not all, but some atheist scientists do come with that proposition that you mentioned there.

01:15:37

There will be no way this will point to God because they've sort of ruled God out a priori in some way.

01:15:43

Anyway, Richard says last week's show was heavy on evolution. I heard it asked, but I didn't hear an answer.

01:15:49

How did organic life spring forth from inorganic matter? The message of Genesis one and two is that God created it.

01:15:56

How he created it is outside the scope of the message being conveyed. I don't believe in theistic evolution.

01:16:02

I'm OK with people who do as long as we focus on the central message. God created it. All of the arguments, kalam, fine tuning, evolution and so on need to be grouped as a whole, not as individual pieces.

01:16:13

If it's plausible for God to create the universe, fine tune it, create life and so on, wouldn't that same

01:16:19

God have the power to raise Jesus from the dead? Tom Wilson wants to weigh in on this.

01:16:25

Guessing you're writing from a sceptical position here, Tom, judging by the email, you say, why does your author today,

01:16:31

Rice Brooks, only allow two options? Either the world came from nothing or God started it.

01:16:38

He clearly believes that God had no beginning. Why is it such a leap for me to believe that the universe had no beginning and will have no end?

01:16:46

He also states without God, there is no purpose. Well, I believe my purpose is to assist mankind as part of that community.

01:16:53

Believing in God and that he has a purpose for us is also fraught with problems. And finally, you say, why did he choose the

01:17:00

Jews? God, you're talking about here, a small tribe amongst the communities across the world. Why is he condemning millions of Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, et cetera, to hell when he chose to communicate through a small tribe and a badly written book?

01:17:12

Asks Tom. Well, all interesting questions, which there are, of course, those who have given answers for and I won't attempt to give a sort of a defence at this point,

01:17:22

Tom, but I would obviously encourage you to look back in past programmes where we've dealt with similar kinds of issues.

01:17:29

Though saying I believe my purpose is to assist mankind as part of that community. Oh, great. Glad that is your purpose.

01:17:36

And I suppose the bigger question that Rice and others ask on that subject is, well, that's great to have that purpose, but does it stem from anywhere?

01:17:44

Is it just something you've sort of made up? If we are living actually in a universe that ultimately has a purpose, are these not just very subjective sort of purposes that will eventually just dissolve into nothing?

01:17:57

In the end, let's go for one more and moving on to something else.

01:18:03

Let's talk about Norway. Matthias from Norway here says I've been listening to Unbelievable for the last several months, going back and forth.

01:18:11

My favourite programme so far is the justification debate between James White and NT Wright, but also the

01:18:17

Young Earth creation debates were fisty and fun. One debate I really want to hear is Hugh Ross versus Lawrence Krauss, since it seems both of them know their physics but still disagree to a great extent.

01:18:27

I'm recommending different programmes to different friends of mine to get them thinking about their position, either they're believers or not.

01:18:33

So keep up the good work. And you make a suggestion about doing a programme on the Hebrew roots movement, which sounds very interesting.

01:18:41

And I will certainly again give that consideration to Matthias. Thank you very much for listening. Arrive in Norway.

01:18:47

Thank you wherever you're listening in the world, whether here in the UK via Premier Christian Radio or somewhere around the world via the podcast.

01:18:54

It's great to have you on board for Unbelievable. Exciting stuff coming up as well in the rest of this year and into next year.

01:19:02

Lots of programmes in the offing. Don't forget that following directly on from today's programme, between four and five, you can hear

01:19:09

Lucinda Vander Hart talking to John and Ellie Mumford, founders of the UK Vineyard Church.

01:19:15

Not about their famous son, Marcus Mumford, lead singer of Mumford and Sons. No, instead, they're talking about what inspired them to start a charismatic church denomination stream here in the

01:19:26

UK in the 1980s. Fascinating conversation between two really interesting people. That's between four and five straight after today's programme.

01:19:34

But right now, let me tell you what's coming up on Unbelievable. If you come back next week, you're unbelievable.

01:19:41

Well, as I mentioned earlier, we haven't quite decided. It might be that we arrange a discussion on the historical

01:19:47

Jesus, the latest person to come up with a mythical theory of Jesus is a guy called Joseph Atwill.

01:19:53

He's in London this coming week, propounding it at a symposium. He claims that the

01:19:58

Romans invented Jesus. Well, we'll see if we can get him on with someone. But if that doesn't come off,

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I've got a great discussion I want to play out for you too. Hannah Hart is a humanist celebrant. She'll be in discussion with Faith Forster, church leader, about human rights of passage and how an atheist marks them compared to a

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Christian. Either way, it's worth coming back. Hope you can do that. 2 .30 p .m. next

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Saturday here on Premiere Christian Radio or via the podcast at premiere .org .uk