Who We are Subject To, and a Response to Jimmy Akin on Pope Francis

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Greetings and welcome to the Dividing Line. It's a Monday here in Phoenix, and it's the middle of November.

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I should be sitting here wearing a coogee. But we just hit 90 degrees.

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The latest 90 degree temperature ever recorded in Phoenix. To quote what looks like the president -elect, come on, man!

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Really? Really? I was hoping for snow in December, personally.

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And it's still possible. But it's also possible that we could we could hit 90 in December, too.

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The way things are going, it's just... Folks, it's been a long one.

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Yes. It has been a long one. It really, really, really has.

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Well, congratulations to my friend John Cooper. He just sent the final of his manuscript for his book in, and so as I said,

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I read it while it was being written and looking forward to having that out and looking forward to him and I talking about some other projects that we've got coming up.

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So keep an eye out for that. So much stuff flying around today. I wanted to do a

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Monday program because I need to respond to what Jimmy Akin put out regarding debates.

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But first, I wanted to begin with something on the positive side of things, if that's possible to do these days.

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It's not easy. But I last...

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Give you a little insight for those who don't watch the Facebook feed, which is most people, obviously, of Apology of Church.

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And besides, this wouldn't be in the feed anyways, now that I think about it, so it's irrelevant. The the elders stand up front at the beginning, and each one of us has something we do.

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And it's sort of become... it's sort of funny. We didn't sit down and say, how are we gonna divide things up and things like... it just sort of happened.

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And we have a catechism question we go through in the service.

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A lot of churches do. And we use Keech's Catechism, the Baptist Catechism, of course, based on the

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London Baptist Confession of Faith, 1689. And so what we do is we go over that for quite some time.

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I'd say we probably only do four or five per year. So what does that add up to?

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A number... a couple months for each question, really. And we have a memory verse that goes along with it that is relevant to that particular subject.

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So it's become sort of part of the liturgy that I have sort of what we call the

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Catechism Sermon. I try to keep it short. I really do. But I get to do a little preaching each

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Sunday that way, whether it works out that way or not. When I'm not there, which happened a lot in 2019 and not so much since then, but when

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I'm not there, Jeff does it. But what I do is I want to work through each of the catechism questions and sort of exegete the question because with Confessions of Faith and with catechisms, those who write such things have invested a lot of time and effort into the specific choice of wording.

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So there can be really specific meanings behind what is, you know, the choice of words and things like that.

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So, for example, the last one that we did was a rich, rich... it's question 29.

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How does Christ perform the office of a priest? Answer, Christ performs the office of priest by once offering

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Himself as a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and to reconcile us to God and by making continual intercession for us before God.

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And so I cut that into two primary sections. It sounds like three, but it's really not. So Christ performs the office of a priest once offering

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Himself as a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and to reconcile us to God, and then next, and by making continual intercession for us before God, which allows you to talk about the intercessory work of Christ, atonement, intercession, the relationship, high priest, whole nine yards.

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Very, very deep, and we did Hebrews 217 as the text that we memorized along with that.

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So now we're on question 30, and so last evening, got a few comments about what

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I focused in on here, and that's what I wanted to share with you all. The question we're looking at right now is, how does

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Christ perform the office of a king? Answer, Christ performs the office of a king in subduing us to Himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all

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His and our enemies. And we are using Psalm 110 verses 1 through 2.

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As Jeff likes to put it, Psalm 110 1 is obviously God's favorite Bible verse because it is the verse from the

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Old Testament that is quoted most often in the New, along with Genesis 15 6. Those are the two most commonly cited texts from the

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Old Testament, directly cited anyways. You could argue about illusions, not illusions, allusions if you wanted to.

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But here you have the question, and what I focused in on was the first subclause in the answer,

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Christ performs the office of king in subduing us to Himself. And basically, the little sermonette went along these lines.

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This is a vitally important truth that is primarily missing from most of evangelicalism.

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When you present Christ as the lamb holding 1960s looking effeminate guy knocking on a door in a garden, you know what

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I mean? When you make it, when you communicate to people that Jesus is not a king before whom you bow, despite that being, you know, the the

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Lamb and He who sits upon the throne, all of creation bows and worships in Revelation 4 and 5 and that kind of stuff.

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But when you present Him as the meek and lowly and only meek and lowly, wannabe

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Savior, He wants to save you so badly, and He's gonna be so upset if He doesn't get to save you, and He's gonna be so happy if if you if you do the right thing and join

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His team and that kind of perspective, which is just, let's be honest with you, it's rampant.

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It's everywhere. As a result, maybe somewhere down the line, there might be some corrective teaching done and someone all of a sudden goes, oh, wait a minute, if this

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Jesus is who He says He is, if the Apostles describe Him and if He's king, wow, that's a that's a whole different idea.

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Because, you know, you're talking about bowing the knee to a king, right? But notice it says in subduing us to Himself.

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So the Baptist Catechism, being reformed in its orientation, recognizes

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Christ's power in subduing His own people unto

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Himself. That is a concept and belief primarily lacking from most evangelical churches.

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Let's just be honest. That's not what people are preaching. We're the ones in charge by our autonomous free will, and we freely choose to join

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His team, but that's not the same thing as being as subduing us to Himself. I mean, that sounds really bad, subduing, you know.

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What does subduing mean? That sounds so negative, and yet it's a biblical term.

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Let me give you an example. In Philippians chapter 3, For our citizenship is in heaven from which we eagerly wait for a

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Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory.

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Notice that it's it's it's clearer in Greek, ta soma tes tapai nosos haemon, the body of our humiliation,

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He will bring into conformity with the soma tes dox eisoutu,

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His glorious body. So there's this would be connected to the concept of glorification and things like that, but it's

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Jesus who will transform the body of our humble state in conformity with the body of His glory by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject or subdue all things to Himself.

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All things to Himself. Now, once again, the

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Bible does not hesitate for a moment to present

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Jesus as a powerful Savior who's actually accomplishing the salvation of a specific people, and here

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He transforms the body of our humble state. We don't assist. We don't allow

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Him. He will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory by the exertion not of synergism, but of the power, the anergion, that He has even to subject, subdue, ta panta, all things, and then there's a minor variant here.

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It's either he auto or auto, so doesn't change the meaning all that much.

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If it was he auto, it might be a stronger emphasis upon His singular activity, but doesn't change much of anything.

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He has the power to subject all things to Himself. That's Jesus. That's that's the concept that we have presented to us in Inspired Scripture, and that is the

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Jesus that we have been subdued by, graciously, lovingly, but powerfully.

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Powerfully, and that is something a true Christian rejoices in. Absolutely rejoices in.

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If you're sitting there going, well, it sounds like a pretty mean -spirited, I mean, that's just all

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God exercising power. And the sad thing is, in this critical theory age we live in, that sounds like oppression.

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That's power politics and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and all that kind of rot.

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Yeah, there you go. So when we say in subduing us to Himself, we really have to ask question of ourselves.

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In this day, to whom have we been subdued, and is there any room for submission or subduing to any other greater authority?

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The power that the church has had in the past has been a power that came from the church's recognition of the glory of her

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Lord and His Lordship over all. We sing King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but we then run from what that means.

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We run from what it means. The reason that Rome eventually, starting in 250 and for over 60 years, the entire might of the

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Roman Empire was focused upon the destruction of the Christian faith. It had been localized up to that point.

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But starting in 250, Diocletian, boom, here it comes. It's empire -wide. The reason for that is it was fully understood by that point.

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It's gonna be Christ or Caesar. That's it. The reason being, saying

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Jesus is Lord is subversive of any totalitarian regime, because King of Kings means

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King of all rulers, Lord of Lords, Lord of all rulers, and you can't separate that.

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And this has happened in much of American evangelicalism.

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We have literally been taught, we have literally been taught to place a filter into our minds to where King of Kings and Lord of Lords is automatically spiritualized.

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Now, that's true. He rules over all spiritual authorities.

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There's no question about that. But that's not all.

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That isn't all. He is King of all kings. And if a king wishes to, well, as Psalm 2 says, kiss the sun, lest he be angry with you, and you perish in the way.

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So, there was an inevitable worldview issue in the proclamation of the gospel, and Rome saw it, and tried to deal with it, and lost in the process.

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So, in subduing us to himself is a awesome phrase, but it is also one that would have real meaning at this time in our history, at this time where finally,

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I think most everybody is starting to get the idea that the two weeks to flatten the curve stuff was a joke.

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It wasn't real, and it sounded good, and lots and lots of people were going, hey, look, love your neighbor.

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Love your neighbor. And then it was three weeks, and then it was a month, and we know what has happened since then.

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And starting probably January 21st, we're gonna be right back to where we were in March.

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It doesn't matter what the numbers are. We will be. And this time, it'll be the federal government that will be mandating and trying to overpower state and local governments in regards to worship, partaking of the

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Lord's Supper, singing the Hawaiian arts. It's coming. Just mark my words.

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They're saying it. They're telling it to us. I don't know why people won't listen, but I was just watching a clip from President -elect

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Biden. That's what he's being called, and I know, I know, I've seen the clips, maybe, but I'm doubtful, very, very doubtful that anything is going to happen.

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We'll get into the rest of that at another point in time, but assuming that this is where it goes, starting

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January 21st, you're gonna have a nationwide total mask mandate for everything.

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Everything. And that means they're going to be coming after churches, and they're gonna be coming after Grace Community and yours.

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And for those of us who rent our facilities, we're gonna be back where we were in April.

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Yeah. That's coming. That's just coming.

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And in other places, there are many who call themselves evangelicals who are saying, just do it.

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Just do it. Let me draw something to your attention, please.

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I think it's really, really important. There is an article that came out three days ago.

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Even a military -enforced quarantine can't stop the virus, study reveals.

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And this is a fascinating article that talks about the New England Journal of Medicine. You've heard of the

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New England Journal of Medicine? Yes. Okay. Has published a study that goes to the heart of the issue of lockdowns.

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The question has always been whether and to what extent a lockdown, however extreme, is capable of suppressing the virus.

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Because the assumption has been if you just do it right and long enough, you'll wipe the virus out.

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Though there have always been virologists, published virologists, who says, no, it doesn't work that way.

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Who have said it from the beginning, but they've been pretty much suppressed or lost their jobs.

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If so, you can make an argument that at least lockdowns, despite their astronomical social and economic costs, achieve something.

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If not, nations of the world have embarked on a catastrophic experiment that destroyed billions of lives and all expectation of human rights and liberties with no payoff at all.

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And so, this article was absolutely fascinating.

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A study conducted by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in cooperation with the

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Naval Medical Research Center sought to test the whole idea of lockdowns. In May, 3 ,143 new recruits to the

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Marines were given the option to participate in the study of extreme quarantine. So, I'm not gonna go through all of it, but this

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Think of this. This was a quarantine experiment done by Marine drill sergeants.

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Okay, think of Sergeant Carter. Think of that other guy that was in He died recently.

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I was yelling and screaming at everybody. But anyway, think of that Marine drill sergeant.

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Yes, and with military precision.

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So, double masking. Not a single mask. Double masking.

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I don't even know how you breathe through that. I mean, I'm just gone at that point. Just bleep. But they're young.

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So, double masking. Absolutely strictly enforced social distancing on everything.

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Buildings where you enter from one side, exit from another. Military level spic and span disinfection of everything.

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So, you're talking doing everything. You're talking Dr. Fauci's maximum dream fantasy here, okay?

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Absolutely strictly enforced by drill sergeants.

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In other words, we all know this could never happen outside the military.

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It's not gonna happen. But it's the best that could be done. Lock these people.

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I mean, aside from just locking them in a cage on a remote desert island someplace, which is not a possibility.

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There are some who would like to do that, but it doesn't work that way. What was the result?

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The result? The locked down, quarantined soldiers had a slightly higher rate of infection with SARS COVID -19 than the control group.

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Just slightly, but even higher. Result?

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All this stuff doesn't do diddly squat. Everything that Joe Biden is going to force on us doesn't do nothing.

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It's empty show. It's empty show. Tell, tell, go to the

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New England Journal of Medicine, read the article, and read the results. Read what they did.

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Let me, let me, let me, here. All recruits wore double -layered cloth masks at all times, indoors and outdoors, except when sleeping or eating, practiced social distancing, but at least six feet, were not allowed to leave campus, did not have access to personal electronics, yes, think about that one for a second, and other items that might contribute to surface transmission, routinely washed their hands.

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They slept in double occupancy rooms with sinks, ate in shared dining facilities, and used shared bathrooms. All recruits cleaned their rooms, daily sanitized bathrooms after each use with bleach wipes, and ate pre -plated meals in a dining hall that was cleaned with bleach after each platoon had eaten.

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Most instruction and exercises were conducted outdoors. All movement recruits were supervised, and unidirectional flow was implemented, with designated building entry and exit points to minimize contact among persons.

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All recruits, regardless of participation in the study, underwent daily temperature and symptom screening. Six instructors, who were assigned to each platoon, worked in eight -hour shifts to enforce the quarantine measures.

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If recruits reported any signs or symptoms consistent with COVID -19, they reported a sick call, underwent rapid PCR testing for SARS -CoV -2, and were placed in isolation pending the results of testing.

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Instructors were also restricted to campus, were required to wear masks, were provided with pre -plated meals, and underwent daily temperature checks and symptom screening.

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They did, they did everything that Fauci has suggested, other than running around in full

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PPE. That is N95 masks, face masks, head coverings, gowns, booties, and gloves.

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I mean, that's, that's what you do in a surgical suite. And there isn't enough of that for everybody, because you have to replace that every little bit, and I would like to have the concession for face masks right now, would have been, wow, there is a, there is an investment.

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Somebody's making billions off of, I wonder who that is. And again, the result?

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Slightly higher rate of infection than the control group. I don't write them, folks.

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I just report them. I just report them. So, this is, this is coming, coming for us all, and once again, another peer -reviewed, published article that will probably disappear eventually.

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Oh, yeah, Facebook will, yeah, I'm wondering if you, if you share it, if, you know, Facebook won't immediately, the results of this have been disputed, you know, the censoring is all over the place these days.

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But there you go. There, there it is. It's right there in front of us. So, that was, that was truly amazing.

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That really, really, really was amazing to see that. Okay, let's get to the key issue that I wanted,

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I wanted to do the program about today, but wanted to mention that. And that is a, and I posted this already, so people could take a look at it, understand it.

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I don't know, about two months or so ago, I seem to recall receiving an invitation, right as we were starting to order stuff for the studio.

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We've got folks over there working on that right now, and working on how everything's supposed to hook up the best way possible, and all that kind of stuff.

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Because some of this, some of this tech is new to us. I mean, it's, it's, you know, 4k stuff that, you know, we, we thought 1080 was more than enough, but, you know, things keep advancing.

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Anyway, right around that same time, I seem to recall an email saying, hey, according to such such person,

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Jimmy Akin wants to debate you on solo scriptura, which

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I found interesting. We had attempted, and Chris Arnzen can verify this, we had attempted many times to get

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Jimmy Akin to be a part of the Great Debate series on Long Island. Jerry Matitix had been a part of that,

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Mitch Pacquiao had been a part of that, Robertson Jenis, Patrick Madrid, Gary Machuda, had all been involved with the

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Great Debate series there on, on Long Island, but evidently, Jimmy Akin does not like to fly.

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And, so, Long Island, what? Yes, yes, the world has suddenly come to Jimmy's doorstep.

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And so, you know, it didn't, it didn't happen. We had come close once.

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I have recollection that there was one time we came pretty close to getting that to happen, but something happened right toward the end.

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Chris might remember what, what that was. I don't remember what it was. I haven't asked him about it, but anyway, so, you know,

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I took note of it, but I'm not interested right now in doing something when, in a matter of weeks, we're going to have access to a really nice way of doing these things.

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Really, really will be. And so, I'm like, okay, well, we'll, we'll look at it.

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I mean, these are troubled times. There's lots that keep all of us very, very busy.

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I'm in no hurry. We'll, we'll look at doing that. That's a possibility.

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But, of course, my immediate response was, well, that's interesting. So, let's go try, huh?

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Well, that was the first debate I did with Catholic Answers in August of 1990 at St.

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Cyprian Catholic Church in Long Beach. And, then, you know, a couple years later, again with Jerry Matitix, and then in 93 with Patrick Madrid, and then in 99 with, with Mitch Pacwa, and so, yeah,

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I've, I've done that subject, and I understand it continues to be a, it's, it's absolutely central.

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And I have gotten a couple of people to at least engage the subject of the papacy on, on some meaningful level.

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But, as I've pointed out over the years, it's very clear that sometime early on in Catholic Answers history, it was decided that, hey, look, the, the best approach we've got, if the, if we're, if we ever get in a situation where someone's actually pushing back harder than we expect them to push back, what you do is you go for solo scriptura.

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And when you debate solo scriptura, what you do is you wait until after the opening statements, when you have much shorter time periods, and then you raise the issue of the canon.

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Because no Protestant can possibly make a meaningful historical argument in five minutes for the subject of the canon, and so if we throw that out there, our people will just assume we have the authority to define it.

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We don't even have to, have to defend that. And that works really great, and they've done that many, many times.

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I, I can't tell you how many times that, that has, I've either heard that happen with other people, or it happened with me in, in those debates.

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And so I'm sitting here going, well, that's interesting, but we have a historic opportunity staring us in the face when we're talking about debating between Protestants and Roman Catholics.

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And that is the pontificate of Francis. Why do I say it's historic?

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Because if what you're saying is true, then it has to be true now just as much as it was true during the pontificate of John Paul II.

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Right? And someone might say, well, you know, in fact,

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I had someone say to me, uh, recently, oh man, they're gonna have to identify that guy as, uh, as an antipope once he steps down or dies, or they're gonna have to identify him as an antipope.

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And I said, wouldn't make any difference because the point is, yes, there have been antipopes in the past.

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Who gets to determine that is one of the issues. But, um, how are you supposed to know it while he's there?

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How can a Roman Catholic know that the current Pope is actually an antipope?

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Even if that were to happen, even if Francis dies and the next guy comes along and says, actually, he was an antipope.

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How are you supposed to know? Because you see, when I first started dealing with Roman Catholics on a debate level, the normal presentation, the normal idea was that we have, see,

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Sola Scriptura is a blueprint for anarchy. See, it results in all these denominations, and they'll wildly inflate the number of denominations, uh, far beyond what's relevant, and ignore the vast, uh, spectrum of beliefs that exist under the rubric of Roman Catholicism.

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Just, as I keep saying, go to Boston College, listen to them, go listen to Catholic Answers. They don't sound anything alike, and there's a reason for that.

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They need to have, I think they actually have, now I think about it, there's this one, um, what's that one archbishop's name?

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Um, Athanasius somebody, uh, but they need to have R .J. Gresham Machen. R .R.

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Machen was the one who wrote the book Christianity and Liberalism, and made the argument that Christianity and Liberalism are two different religions.

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And whether you guys want to admit this or not, when it comes to worldview issues, revelational issues, epistemological issues, you have more in common with us, the believing evangelical

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Reformed, than you have with most of your professors at Boston College.

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You do, and you know it. If you'll be honest with yourself, it's true.

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So you guys need to do the Christianity and Liberalism thing, too, but you can't, as clearly as we can, because the

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Pope won't get rid of those guys. And in fact, the current Pope puts them on the

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Papal Biblical Commission, and all the other places where he can put people to have the widest possible influence in the future.

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That's the problem. So going back again, what was, what

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I was told when I first started encountering these arguments, when I first when I first started listening to cassette tapes of gerrymatetics debating

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Calvary Chapel pastors from This Rock magazine made available in This Rock magazine, when

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I first started listening to these things, what I was hearing people saying is, well, you see, you have, if you have

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Sola Scriptura, you can't know what any text of Scripture actually says. We can go to the

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Pope. We have the living Vicar of Christ on earth today.

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And at that time, John Paul II provided lengthy stability, such a long pontificate, and of course,

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I noted at the time that, you know, one year he'd throw something sort of liberal out, and the next year something sort of conservative out, and he's always, he was good at keeping the two sides at least in the same boat, you know, without too much fighting going on.

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But you can say, hey, go to the Pope. Now, of course, I knew that wasn't true. And in fact,

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Jimmy Akin himself has said in the past, I don't know where he'd stand right now, that there are probably only like seven verses in the entire

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Bible that have been given an infallible interpretation. And some, I think he's admitted, some would say there's actually none that have been given an infallible interpretation.

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There are passages of Scripture that from the Roman Catholic perspective, you have to say could mean this or does mean at least this, though it might mean more than this, if you get the idea.

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But I knew no one, you know, the Pope doesn't set up a chair in St. Peter's and a line forms, and people come along and say, okay, 2

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Peter 2 .2, you know, and he just goes, infallible interpretation.

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Doesn't happen. Doesn't work that way. Not sure why it doesn't work that way, if he is what

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Rome claims he is. Don't know why Rome doesn't publish an infallible interpretation.

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Maybe because she's learned from the past, like with Sixtus' infallible Vulgate and stuff like that, that that doesn't really work too well.

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But, technically, should be able to do so. But that's not how it works.

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And at least back then, you had a Pope who was fairly consistent with himself, not necessarily with those who came before him, say 500 years earlier, but the contrast wasn't massive.

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But now, we have Francis. Now we have Francis. And Francis comes from Buenos Aires.

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Francis is a liberation theologian. He's been deeply influenced by the context out of which he came.

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And the reason that the world listens to what Francis says and goes, huh?

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What? And the reason that there are, there is now an entire cadre of Vatican officials whose entire job it is, is to spin, spin, spin fast.

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Anything that he says is because Francis has a fundamentally different worldview than the vast majority of people who sat upon the chair of Peter in Rome, as they claim it to be, before him.

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He has a different worldview. This expresses itself politically because your worldview is going to impact your politics.

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Early on as pontificate, flying on the plane, someone mentions the homosexual. Who am

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I to judge? Vicar of Christ on earth, maybe?

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A holder of the traditions, the keys of Peter, you know? Definer of sacred tradition, maybe?

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Who am I to judge? And then he starts making all these universalistic statements.

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And he talks about atheists going to heaven. And he tells the little boy his atheist daddy went to heaven because he got his kids baptized.

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And by the way, that's when you, that's when you really tell people what you believe.

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That's when it really comes out. Don't tell me that, well, he didn't say I define, propose, and defend.

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That's a nice way around it. It's a nice way around it. I mean, that's the way to do it. It makes it irrelevant, but nice way around it.

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That's when you really tell what you really believe. And so the point is that Francis has a very different worldview.

40:17

A worldview that I propose to you would have resulted in the 1600s with Francis being burned as a heretic by Rome had he lived at that time.

40:33

If he had said the things that he said, stayed the things that expressed the beliefs that are his without compromise in the 1500s, 1600s in Italy, he would have been burned alive as a heretic by the

40:49

Roman Catholic Church. And of course, the same Francis who's now changing the universal Catholic catechism so that it says there is no instance where a state can engage in capital punishment.

41:01

So I will allow that interesting historical conundrum to say whatever it needs to say.

41:08

But the point is everyone who is red -pilled about Pope Francis, and there are a lot of people on the far side of the

41:19

Tiber River who have been red -pilled. They've woken up.

41:25

They've come out of the dream. They've disconnected from the matrix. And they're like, oh, yeah, this is obvious.

41:34

This is obvious in so many ways. And yet it raises all sorts of questions about, hmm, what did

41:41

Ratzinger know? What does Ratzinger know? What did they have on Ratzinger? Don't know.

41:47

Don't know if we'll ever know in this life. But there was something going on, and you know it. Anyway, there's lots of people on the other side who realize, yeah, this guy has a completely different worldview.

42:00

And here's the problem. Two things. First of all, you might say, well, I know, but he's not going to be around forever.

42:08

And the next guy will bring correction. Except that he has stacked, packed, you want to talk about packing the court?

42:19

How about packing the cardinals? He has packed the cardinals with people who think like him.

42:30

And so the next guy may continue the exact same direction. And he assigns people to vitally important teaching positions in the

42:44

Roman Catholic Church. Not just all the political stuff, but the teaching positions as well that will define how

42:51

Rome does interpret scripture and apply scripture. So you can't get away from that.

42:58

And it has impact for decades and decades to come. For decades to come.

43:05

In fact, I was thinking about it. One of the issues that will come up when

43:13

I read Jimmy Akin's saying here, is he wants things to be focused. And yet Catholic Anthrist has a long history of defocusing solo scriptura debates.

43:23

So go back and listen to the debate Patrick Madrid and Carl Keating did in Denver. Remember?

43:29

When they made sure I was already debating Gerry Matitix, then they debated two fundamentalists. And remember one of the primary arguments they used?

43:39

How do you know who wrote Matthew? How do you know who wrote Matthew? The funny thing is,

43:45

I can guarantee you, Pope Francis would say, we don't know who wrote Matthew.

43:51

Pope Francis will put on the papal biblical commission the leftist scholars who would say

43:58

Matthew was not written by any follower of Jesus during Jesus's life.

44:04

That's very common in liberal leftist theology, which is the very milieu out of which

44:13

Francis comes. So isn't it funny? Well, it's not funny.

44:18

It's sad, but that's the reality. That's the reality. So, but most importantly, most importantly, the reason we need to debate

44:31

Francis right now is because he's the pope.

44:39

And the only modern expression right now of the ultimate authority claims of the

44:47

Roman Catholic Church is Pope Francis. Any debate right now on sola scriptura with a

44:57

Roman Catholic is with a person who believes that Pope Francis is the vicar of Christ on earth.

45:09

It is astonishing to me the headstands that Roman Catholic apologists are doing to avoid the obvious reality that they must, if they are to be consistent, defend this man as the infallible vicar of Christ and the head of the church on earth today.

45:38

And they won't do it. They won't do it. Let me remind you of something. This is important.

45:49

Quote, We, therefore, for the preservation, safekeeping, and increase of the Catholic flock with the approval of the sacred council do judge to be necessary to propose to the belief and acceptance of all the faithful in accordance with the ancient and constant faith of the universal church, the doctrine touching the institution, perpetuity, and nature of the sacred apostolic primacy.

46:13

We, therefore, teach and declare that, according to the testimony of the gospel, the primacy of jurisdiction over the universal church of God was immediately and directly promised and given to blessed

46:22

Peter the apostle by Christ the Lord. For it was to Simon alone, to whom he had already said, Thou shalt be called

46:27

Cephas, that the Lord, after the confession made by him, saying, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, addressed these solemn words,

46:34

Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood have not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee that thou art

46:39

Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and I will give to thee the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

46:50

And it was upon Simon alone that Jesus, after his resurrection, bestowed the jurisdiction of chief pastor and ruler over all his fold in the words,

46:58

Feed my lambs, feed my sheep. Now, by the way, that interpretation of both these texts, highly problematic, ahistorical, but I'm giving you what

47:08

Rome says. At open variance with this clear doctrine of Holy Scripture, as it has been ever understood by the

47:18

Catholic Church, that is a dogmatic lie, to anyone who knows history, that is a dogmatic lie, are the, just ask

47:27

Cyprian. I could just imagine if you read these words to Cyprian and the

47:33

North African bishops, and to Augustine and the North African bishops, what they would have said. But anyway, are the perverse opinions of those who, while they distort the form of government established by Christ the

47:44

Lord in his church, deny that Peter, in his single person, preferably to all the other apostles, whether taken separately or together, was endowed by Christ the true and proper primacy of jurisdiction, or of those who assert that the same primacy has not been bestowed immediately and directly upon blessed

48:00

Peter himself, but upon the church, and through the church on Peter as her minister. If anyone, therefore, shall say that blessed

48:07

Peter the apostle was not appointed the prince of the apostles and the visible head of the whole church militant, or that the same directly and immediately received from the same our

48:15

Lord Jesus Christ a primacy of honor only and not of true and proper jurisdiction, let him be anathema."

48:21

Okay, this is the foundation of the Roman Catholic claim. And according to Rome, the person having

48:27

Peter's authority today is Pope Francis. The chair is not empty.

48:36

There is a man sitting in it. His name is Pope Francis. The second

48:44

Vatican council, in order that the episcopate itself might be one and undivided, he placed blessed Peter over the other apostles and instituted in him a permanent and visible source and foundation of unity of faith and fellowship.

48:53

And all this teaching about the institution, the perpetuity, the force, and reason for the sacred primacy of the Roman pontiff, and his infallible teaching authority, this sacred synod again proposes to be firmly believed by all the faithful.

49:07

And that includes in 2020. And that includes during Pope Francis's pontificate.

49:17

So I remind you, it is really interesting.

49:23

In June of 1896, so this is after the first Vatican council, you have a document called

49:31

Satis Cognitum. Satis Cognitum says this, quote, Wherefore, in the decree of the Vatican council as to the nature and authority of the primacy of the

49:38

Roman pontiff, no newly conceived opinion is set forth but the venerable and constant belief of every age.

49:50

Now, historically, that's a joke. That's funny. No serious church historian believes that.

49:59

You can't. It's not possible. You're ignoring Nicaea. You're ignoring Scipion. You're ignoring Augustine.

50:05

You're ignoring Irenaeus. You're ignoring Victor. You're ignoring so much stuff. It's a joke what

50:11

Satis Cognitum said. That's looking backwards. If it's still a valid statement, why isn't it true in 2020?

50:25

Why isn't it true in 2020? Why isn't it true of Pope Francis? Why are you guys running for the hills?

50:35

I'm just reading your stuff. These are your documents. Your documents.

50:41

I didn't write them. So, let's listen to what

50:48

Jimmy Akin has to say here, and then let's interact with it, okay? I realize it's already 10 minutes till, but we'll roll a second in.

50:57

Quoting, I am interested in debating James White on sola scriptura because the topic is a fundamental issue with a narrow focus, and I have something to say about it.

51:05

My case involves new arguments that haven't been dealt with in previous debates. They thus have not been tested in debate.

51:13

I am not interested in debating him on Pope Francis. For a debate to provide more light than heat, it has to be narrowly focused.

51:19

To be worthwhile, it needs to deal with a fundamental issue rather than a derivative one. A debate on a collection of statements made by Pope Francis would not be narrowly focused and would not deal with a fundamental issue, the real issue being the underlying question of authority.

51:32

In such a debate, the obvious strategy for White would be, one, identify a selection of statements on various unrelated topics that will sound bad, or that can be made to sound bad, to Protestant ears.

51:42

Number two, turn up the rhetorical heat to make them sound as bad as possible. Three, run out the clock on your opponent by throwing out so many charges he doesn't have time to respond to them all.

51:50

Four, remind the audience that the opponent hasn't responded to every charge you've made or responded to your satisfaction.

51:55

Five, declare victory, turning up the heat again for the big ending. That kind of debate is guaranteed to generate heat rather than light, which is why

52:01

I'm not interested in it. I find it puzzling that White seems so intent on this topic rather than one on a narrowly focused fundamental topic like Sola Scriptura, which he and I have never had a formal debate on.

52:13

Catholic Answers tried to arrange such a debate for several years and got nowhere. Now Matt Fradd has offered to host it. White has debated numerous other people on this topic, but he seems reluctant to debate me on it.

52:22

I will leave it to the reader to discern why that might be. All right. Huh? Okay.

52:31

Let's note a few things. Because the topic is a fundamental issue with a narrow focus and I have something to say about it.

52:39

Well, congratulations, Jimmy. Since you say my case involves new arguments that haven't been dealt with in previous debates, they thus have not been tested in debate, then

52:49

I would suggest identifying exactly where you have published these arguments. Or are you just simply saying, well,

52:54

I'm just going to wait to the debate and then you just got to respond to him on the fly? I'm sorry

53:02

Mr. Aiken, but I don't think that you or I are bright enough to come up with something new that hasn't already been discussed about this subject.

53:12

Okay? I We've covered this ground before and I have no problem debating you on Sola Scriptura.

53:21

I'm just simply stating it's time for you guys to step up to the bat and defend your positive assertions. You guys are always willing to go on the offensive, but you don't seem to want to defend your side of things.

53:33

And right now is a unique historical opportunity to defend your claims.

53:39

So put your arguments out. Publish them. Say here's my new arguments against Sola Scriptura that no one else has ever thought of before.

53:47

Will you debate me on it? Be happy to look at them. I can guarantee you they will be a derivative of some other form of argumentation that's been used before.

53:56

But go ahead and put it out there. But I am not interested in debating him on Pope Francis.

54:03

For a debate to provide more light than heat, it has to be narrowly focused. Well, okay. Then why has

54:10

Catholic Answers for years constantly diffused every debate on Sola Scriptura that you've done?

54:17

You guys haven't followed what you yourself are saying you're supposed to do here. You guys have always been willing to bring in all sorts of other topics into the

54:26

Sola Scriptura debate and those other topics such as the canon assumed the correctness of the presuppositions that you are now refusing to defend.

54:38

There's the problem. You want to bring up the issue of canon? Who defines it? If you say, well, you can't define it just using

54:46

Sola Scriptura, then what you're claiming is we can. You didn't do that until April of 1546.

54:51

You want to really get into that? I mean, that's a worthwhile topic. I mean, it would be a really good worthwhile topic.

54:59

The canon of Scripture was not known in the Christian Church until April of 1546.

55:05

That's what you believe. Is it not? If you need an ecumenical decree,

55:12

I can show you where Cardinal Jimenez, when he's examining Luther, has published that the apocryphal books are not

55:21

Scripture. I can show you where Popes said the apocryphal books are not

55:26

Scripture. So, that's worth debating, but how about doing it?

55:36

If you're the one true church, why are you always in a situation of not being willing to defend the positive claims yourself over and over and over again?

55:49

It's, well, Sola Scriptura doesn't work. Sola Scriptura this. Sola Scriptura that. There are assumptions behind that, and those assumptions need to be fleshed out and defended.

56:02

And we have an opportunity right now in the pontificate of Francis to test what you all have been saying about what

56:13

Sola Scriptura allegedly fails to be able to do in light of Pope Francis.

56:20

The clarity that Pope Francis will bring to biblical interpretation, right?

56:27

Why not? Now's the time to do it. So, for a debate to provide more light than heat, it has to be narrowly focused.

56:36

You need to have a specific thesis topic. There's no question about it. That's true. That's the same with whether it's

56:43

Sola Scriptura, justification by faith, the Marian dogmas, canonicity of the apocrypha, whatever.

56:49

To be worthwhile, it needs to deal with a fundamental issue rather than a derivative one. Okay. Then, are you saying that whether Pope Francis is the infallible vicar of Christ on earth today is a derivative rather than a fundamental issue?

57:11

Because remember, when I read from Satus Cognitum, or was that, let me see.

57:17

I was going to make this note. Uh...

57:25

Yes. Second Vatican Council. And all this teaching about the institution, the perpetuity, the force and reason for the sacred primacy of the

57:39

Roman pontiff, and his infallible teaching authority, this sacred synod again proposes to be firmly believed by all the faithful.

57:47

They're the ones that linked all this stuff together. This is your church speaking.

57:53

These are your dogmatic canons and decrees. These are your anathemas, not mine.

58:01

And they link these things together. You wanted to break them apart. Why? Well, I know why.

58:10

Because right now, it is painfully obvious that papacy doesn't work.

58:18

Because the Pope's a human being. And this Pope has a different worldview that fundamentally alters the nature of the faith as he confesses it.

58:30

And that's the difference between sola scriptura and the Roman system. My scriptures don't change.

58:36

Your popes do. You can't change the worldview. And look what's happening right now.

58:43

And you all agree with us on this. This is where... This is where it must bug you.

58:49

But you all agree with... You and I... Jimmy Akin, Patrick Madrid, Trent Horn...

58:57

I watch your tweets. And you see what woke justice is about.

59:06

You see how they're changing the meaning of words. The attack on language.

59:12

You see what's coming. You agree with us. This is not good stuff.

59:20

And you see what it would mean to the interpretation of your own history. And your own theology.

59:27

There's the point. When someone tries to change the worldview of scripture, they can't do it without altering the words.

59:39

Because the words have meaning. As long as you continue to utilize meaningful standards of human communication, this is a verb, that's a noun, this is what they mean, then the scriptures can continue to mean what the scriptures have always said from the start.

59:54

That's not the same with the papacy. That's not the same with the Pope. And once you give the

01:00:03

Pope and the papacy the primary capacity to interpret scripture, you no longer have an unchanging standard.

01:00:13

And Pope Francis proves it. And what you're probably staying awake at night worrying about is that the successor of Francis may prove it with even greater clarity.

01:00:35

So, a debate on a collection of statements made by Pope Francis would not be narrowly focused and would not deal with a fundamental issue, the real issue being the underlying question of authority.

01:00:44

How do you even begin to define the underlying question of authority when you ignore your current living

01:00:53

Pope? He is the expression of it. I'll never forget.

01:01:00

I forget what year it was. It's probably on a hard drive somewhere around here, but I remember very, very clearly pointing out a contradiction.

01:01:12

This was back during John Paul II. A contradiction between what John Paul II had said and a previous bishop of Rome had said.

01:01:22

And Robert St. Genes wrote to me and said, your problem,

01:01:29

James, is that you think you can interpret Church history. The only people who can interpret

01:01:34

Church history is the Church, headed by the Pope. Oh!

01:01:42

Think about what that means. So, all Francis has to do is to interpret everybody who's come before him as saying, if you baptize your kids, you can be an atheist and go to heaven.

01:01:58

And all of a sudden, that's now apostolic truth. You know that doesn't work, and I know that doesn't work.

01:02:05

And the worldview that allows Francis to look at the tradition primarily delivered to him in the

01:02:13

South American Church and interpret it the way he's interpreting it and then acting upon that in putting people in positions of authority results in the papacy teaching something differently now than it did in the past.

01:02:35

The concept of infallible teaching authority has to have meaning, or your claims and my claims are empty.

01:02:48

They're empty. We cannot compromise at this point.

01:02:56

Words have to continue to have meaning. You're trying to fight that battle. We're fighting that battle.

01:03:02

But that must mean that that concept comes into our battle as well. So, I'm not going to go through all these points again, other than him saying, well, this is what

01:03:15

I expect White would do. Thank you very much. The reality is, and this was just basically saying, run out the clock, rhetorical heat, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:03:26

This is sort of like saying, I, Jimmy Akin, am the debater who would never do things like this, but that James White guy.

01:03:37

I think I've done a few more than you have, Jimmy. And I'll leave it up to the audience to look at.

01:03:42

I'll tell you what. Let's do this. Pick five Jimmy Akin debates. Now, Jimmy Akin and I have debated.

01:03:49

It was only on radio. And he lost that debate. He's admitted he lost that debate.

01:03:57

He was wrong. It was on John 6. But pick five

01:04:03

Jimmy Akin debates. Take my five debates with Mitch Pacwa. Compare them. See who see if any of these rather subtle allegations found here have any foundation whatsoever.

01:04:16

They don't. They don't. So, that kind of debate is guaranteed to generate heat rather than light, which is why

01:04:25

I'm not interested in it. Well, of course, he presents this you know, he's going to misbehave, he's not going to debate correctly, that type thing.

01:04:34

I'm simply saying, look, your counter claim.

01:04:41

I claim that Scripture, since it is Theanustos, admits of no higher authority in the

01:04:50

Christian Church. You claim that Scripture needs the structure of the

01:04:59

Roman Catholic Church, and specifically the teaching, office, and authority of the Bishop of Rome. You have a

01:05:04

Bishop of Rome whose name is Francis. Let's debate whether he is, in fact, the infallible

01:05:11

Vicar of Christ on Earth with sole authority to interpret the Scriptures. Not sole as in solo.

01:05:21

I realize that he has the Magisterium and stuff like that, but the buck stops there.

01:05:27

You guys had your shot at conciliarism, the Council of Pisa, and Constance, and chose not to go that direction.

01:05:37

So, you're stuck with what you've got. No changing it now. Well, unless Francis decides to.

01:05:43

I don't know. I suppose there's some way around it. Anyway, really quickly, I find it puzzling that White seems so intent on this, on this topic, rather than one on a narrowly focused fundamental topic like Sola Scriptura.

01:06:00

Mr. Aiken, the papacy is central to the authority claims of the

01:06:06

Roman Catholic Church, and we live in a day where your

01:06:11

Pope is destroying the consistency of your ultimate epistemological claims.

01:06:21

And you know as well as I do that there are a bunch of people in your communion who are using phrases like red -pilled about Pope Francis.

01:06:33

They see it too. There are prelates in your church that see it too.

01:06:41

I'm not just making—this shouldn't be puzzling to you, Jimmy. It's not puzzling to you, is it?

01:06:48

No. It's not puzzling. Catholic Answers tried to arrange such a debate for several years and got nowhere.

01:06:56

Well, yeah, you were supposed to do it, and you never would.

01:07:03

We came close once, but I— what we were told was you did not want to travel. So, we did other things.

01:07:11

I could find out—I bet you I could find out from Chris exactly what that was, when that was, and everything else.

01:07:19

So finally, White has debated numerous other people on this topic, but he seems reluctant to debate me on it. That's just not true.

01:07:26

I do not believe you have anything new. I'm sorry. I do not believe that you're brighter than all the previous defenders of the

01:07:34

Roman Catholic Church. If I were to say, I've got new stuff that no one ever thought of, I'd be saying

01:07:40

I'm brighter than all the people who wrote the classic works.

01:07:46

George Salmon, and Good, and all the others that wrote such tremendous works in defense of the

01:07:53

Reformation. Francis Turretin. I ain't going to make that claim. If you're making that claim for your side,

01:07:58

I leave that to your side to deal with. But what I am saying is, it's time for you all to step up to the plate.

01:08:10

You've been dodging this all along. I was supposed to debate

01:08:17

Tim Staples on this in Sydney, Australia last year. They cancelled it.

01:08:22

It was set up. And then they said, no. We had the place set up, our side was ready, the other side was ready, and you all said no.

01:08:34

I don't know why. Because he still came. He and I were speaking within a few miles of each other on the same day, in Sydney, Australia last year.

01:08:46

Check with Tim. He'll tell you. Should tell you anyways. Here's my response to Jimmy Akin.

01:08:55

I think I've made a very strong case that we live at a point in time right now where there needs to be a clear discussion of the positive claims that Rome makes concerning the necessity of the papacy, and not just the papacy as some nebulous, unidentifiable, foggy chimera.

01:09:28

But you have a Pope. And that Pope has a worldview.

01:09:35

And he is using that worldview to choose cardinals and bishops, scholars on the

01:09:45

Pontifical Biblical Commission that will influence the teaching in Roman Catholic schools for decades.

01:09:56

You know this to be true. This needs to be debated.

01:10:03

And if you're going to debate Sola Scriptura, then both ultimate claims of epistemological authority must be on the table.

01:10:16

It is time for Roman Catholic apologists to stand up to their own claims.

01:10:23

We've been doing it all along. I've debated this subject far more often than you have,

01:10:28

Mr. Aiken. You and I engaged in discussion of it on the

01:10:33

Bible Answer Man broadcast. So, don't let's not play the game with seems reluctant to debate me on it.

01:10:47

You seem to forget that we've been doing this for quite some time. Quite some time. And the documentation is still out there and available for all to see.

01:10:58

So, there you go. I felt that it was important enough to respond to that, and I still got plenty of stuff for tomorrow's program.

01:11:05

And I imagine there'll probably be, sadly, a bunch of things that will come out just between now and tomorrow that will allow us to fill in even more for that as well.

01:11:17

Important stuff, I think. Vital stuff, I think. And let me tell you, I have expressed over the past number of months the reality that seeing

01:11:36

Roman Catholics speaking the truth about the degradation of our society, recognizing because of the

01:11:50

Biblical content within their worldview, recognizing the attack upon language, the attack upon the

01:12:00

Imago Dei, the deadness of secularism, the danger of totalitarianism and technology and what's going on with all of that being used to dehumanize us.

01:12:16

As I hear and see all of this, I am once again reminded that the issues that divide us are absolutely definitional when it comes to what the

01:12:35

Gospel is. I wish they were not. It would be so easy right now to put that all under the rug and say let's all get together because they're going to be coming for you and they're going to be coming for me, and we might end up in the same cell block together.

01:12:56

And I've been saying for a long I've seen this coming for a long time and I've said we are going to have to put down deep roots and be willing to say

01:13:08

I will defend your right to say what you are saying but we must not pretend that the

01:13:17

Gospel is not at stake here. I wish that were not the case. Recall the conversation that Doug Wilson and I had about Chesterton.

01:13:29

And Doug said hey, if he's trusting on that Gospel he's trusting in a broken read.

01:13:38

But he keeps that optimistic hope that the external confession is not as good as the internal reality

01:13:51

I guess is what he's hoping for, for certain people. These are issues we've got to think through because it's

01:14:02

November of 2020. And just as we have to think through what that catechism question said subduing us to himself.

01:14:13

Well, is that to a Gospel? Is it one Gospel amongst many Gospels? The vast majority of evangelicals,

01:14:23

I believe, are going to be willing to close their eyes to the Gospel issue and simply say we just all need to get together on the mere

01:14:33

Christianity basis. And I think solid conservative

01:14:39

Roman Catholics recognize that's not really what they can do either. That's a compromise for them as well.

01:14:48

It's almost like France saying we need to come up with a French version of Islam.

01:14:57

Only the French could come up with something like that. Well, the Austrians just did basically the same thing too.

01:15:05

That's not Islam anymore. And a Roman Catholicism without the sacramental system isn't

01:15:11

Roman Catholicism. And so these are things that we have to think through and we're going to continue to do so.

01:15:22

Alright, there you go. Thank you very much for listening today. I hope that was useful to you. We will be back again tomorrow,

01:15:29

Lord willing, and our YouTube channel will still exist. You never know. Keep archiving stuff.

01:15:35

Download it. Record it. Keep it. Because when it disappears, it disappears.

01:15:41

When it does disappear, look to the website and try to dig for us. Look for us. We'll be doing everything we can to send flares up.

01:15:48

Let you know where we'll be hiding out on the dark web someplace. You never know. Thanks for watching.