The Dividing Line August 28, 2008

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. And good afternoon, welcome to the Dividing Line special time today, starting half an hour early to do penance for wrapping things up too early on Tuesday.

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We won't go into any discussion of whether penance is appropriate terminology there.

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We had lots of other things we wanted to play on the program. And of course, the phone lines are open at 877 -753 -3341 as well.

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And so let's get right to it. First, first, first, please note on, at AOMN .org,

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there is some new things in our banner ads at the top.

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Please notice them. Micah works very hard on these things and does a tremendous job.

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We have the Truth War, the conference coming up in November. And the reason that we are advertising that, even though I'm just one of the speakers there, is that we need your help to help it to happen, and especially need your help to make sure that the debate with Zulfikar Shah takes place the day before.

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So the more folks they have signed up to be there, a number of us will be speaking. Phil Johnson and I will both be there.

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And so it's always good when I and the original pyromaniac get together.

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And so those of you in the East Coast area might want to be jumping online there and letting them know of your interest and that you're going to be a part of those attending.

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Then you'll also notice we now have some of the information up. And I thought I would have the rest of the information at this point in time, but I didn't get it.

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I hoped to have it, have gotten it before now, but it didn't come through.

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But at least we have the first portion of the information on the

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Southern California Muslim debates posted, and that is the Saturday information. Oh, I really am glad I don't have

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McAfee anymore on my Mac because it's on stuff like this. And the sad thing is, if I tell it not to do this, first of all, it wants to update something

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I don't even use. And I can't turn the stupid thing off. But if I tell it to go away an hour from now, and this is going to be a long program, it's going to do that again right in the middle of something.

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So maybe I'll go remind me later and put in forever.

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Two days. How's that? Two days. Yeah, as if that's going to work. Anyway, McAfee is a whole other story.

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The information that we have up on the banner right now is for the Saturday debates. There's three debates. Was Jesus Christ crucified or substituted?

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Can we trust New Testament? Those are two I'm doing against Osama Abdullah. And then David Wood in the afternoon is going to be doing another debate.

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So there's going to be three debates on that Saturday. And then, Lord willing, as early as this evening or close to this time, we will be adding information on the

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San Diego County debates. Lord willing, there hasn't been a problem there.

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They were just waiting for some things to get cleared up before releasing information. And for my friends down at Westminster Seminary in Escondido, we could probably use a whole group of guys that would be available to help out that afternoon as far as volunteers for that particular debate that will be taking place at that time.

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So a lot of stuff going on. And the banner ads are much prettier than the calendar page that I updated,

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I don't know, four, five, six times over the course of seven or eight years. Remember the calendar page? The history?

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You don't remember the calendar page? Been too long since it was last updated. It was normally more of a, look what we were doing about a year and a half ago page.

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But not any longer. So we now have a, hey, look what you missed. Yeah, look what you could have done a year ago.

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Just look at our calendar page. But make sure that you look at those banner ads, just for no other reason than Micah spends a lot of time putting those things together.

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But actually, they tell you a lot about what is going on. So make sure to take a look at them.

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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. Let's get to the clips that we had lined up on Tuesday, and we've actually added one.

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Once again, it is, you know, if James Swan was a

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Roman Catholic, I would say that he was earning time out of purgatory by listening to all the

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Roman Catholic programming he does, and then sends me these clips to play. And that's very kind of him.

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I deeply appreciate it, because I'm already listening to all sorts of stuff. I'm listening to Bart Ehrman and to Muslims and stuff like that.

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I just don't have as much time to listen to our Roman Catholic friends anymore. So it's good that this information is here.

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So let's start off with a Tim Staples clip. Tim Staples is always fun to listen to.

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And this is in regards to prayer to Mary. Let's see what Tim Staples has to say.

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In the meantime, we do have plenty more questions. And this apparently is what God wants us to do right now.

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There you go. Tim Staples answering your questions. And we're going to get the next one. Is it from Carrie? Is that right?

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Carrie, who is with us here at the Huffines home in Dallas. Carrie says, Tim, do all Catholics pray to Mary and believe that she is sinless?

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If so, why? Where in the Bible is this found? I just thought just for a moment, I could not help but thinking.

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And by the way, I'm listening to this for the first time as well. So this is going to be like a fresh interaction on my part.

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I couldn't help but thinking about Frank Beckwith.

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Frank Beckwith. And that call that he got when he was on Catholic Answers. Have you prayed to Mary yet? Well, no.

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And you could just hear the disappointment in that lady's voice. Like, what? You haven't prayed to Mary?

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How can that be? You're not really a Catholic yet if you haven't prayed to Mary. And then there is a second why references of scripture here.

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Romans 3 .23, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. What's the deal with that?

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Number one, yes, all Catholics pray to Mary, or they should. If they don't, tell them to give me a call because we've got a problem in their spirituality.

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The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that devotion to Mary is not optional. It's intrinsic to Christian worship.

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That would be like saying, you know, we as Catholics, that would be like asking, do all

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Christians honor their mother and father? Well, yes. Why? It's one of the big ten, right?

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God's top ten. We call it the Ten Commandments. It's not optional to honor your mother and father if you feel like it.

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Well, Mary is our mother. She was given to us by Jesus in that most sacred moment on the very cross.

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If you really want a good illustration of just how utterly disconnected modern Roman Catholicism is from the early church, here you've got it.

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Because this was not what marked those early centuries of the Christian faith.

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It was clearly something that developed over time. And so now, if yes, you must do this, isn't that a real illustration of what we've been saying all along, that modern

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Roman Catholicism, despite all its repeated claims to being the continuation of the ancient church, is nothing more than what happens when sola scriptura is denied, the walls fall down, you wander off into all sorts of odd speculations, and certainly as regards to the

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Marian dogmas, here you have a real illustration of it. Where he says to John, who, by the way, his mother was right there with him, or was nearby, he says, woman, to his mother, behold your son, son, behold your mother.

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Of course, there John is in the play. An interpretation of that text that only comes along much later and is not the early or patristic interpretation of that text.

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...of all of us, and by the way, John himself ought to know the implications of that text because it's the same

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John the Apostle who wrote the book of Revelation. And he tells us in Revelation 12 that the woman clothed with the

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Son who gives birth to the Messiah... With pain, and birth pain is a part of the curse, and Mary wasn't cursed, and so maybe that's why the early church didn't interpret

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Revelation 12 the way that modern Rome does. In verses 4, 5, and 6, also gives birth to all of us.

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In verse 17, the woman is the mother of all those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

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She's our mother, so of course we honor her. Now I would love to debate

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Tim Staples on the subject of Mary. Just put it out here right now, Tim, let's do it, it's been a long time since I debated the subject of Mary, and you've been cranking out stuff, and you're just so confident of stuff.

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I really think there needs to be some debates on these things because you're saying that anybody who's right with the church, right with the one true church, should be praying to Mary, and I say that's blasphemy.

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I say that's idolatry. I say Mary has never heard a single prayer ever sent to her because that would be a violation not only of biblical teaching concerning contact with the dead, but most importantly,

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Mary is at rest, and I am so thankful that Mary is not in heaven hearing all about all the trials and sins and sufferings of humankind.

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She would be so devastated if she had any idea that there were so many people seeking her intercession rather than going directly to Jesus Christ.

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Her heart would be crushed, I am certain that God has kept her from that knowledge because it would be, certainly is, the greatest degradation of the true biblical

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Mary to have abused her in the way that modern Roman Catholicism does. It is a gross injustice.

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As far as her sinlessness, and by the way, praying to also is essential for us to understand because we as Christians, the

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Bible makes very clear, need each other, and I think all Christians should agree.

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First Corinthians 12 verses 12 through 26 tells us that we are a body. Can the eye say to the hand,

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I have no need of you? Can any member of the body say to another, I have no need of you? The answer is no. We need each other as members of the body of Christ.

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Well, do you think we would need our mother in heaven? You better believe it. If I need you, if I need Jerry Usher, how much more do

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I need our blessed mother in heaven who is depicted in Revelation 12 as this glorious woman clothed with the sun who gives birth to all of us.

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But real quickly, on the sinlessness issue, and we can only touch on this, of course, I'll never forget

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Jerry, it was a sergeant in the Marine Corps, Matt Dula, who said to me 22 years ago when

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I said that very thing to him, all have sinned. And I'll add another one. First John chapter 1 verse 8 says, if any man says he has no sin, he is a liar and the truth is not in him.

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So how in the world can you say Mary has no sin? And my buddy responded to me, Jerry. He said, well, you're the first Christian I've ever heard who believes

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Jesus Christ was a sinner. It's truly an amazing thing. The facile argumentation that Rome continues to utilize, ignoring the direct statements of scripture as to the sinlessness of Jesus Christ is absolutely unique nature.

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And to say, well, if there is one exception, then Mary must be another. The problem is you have

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Mary speaking about God as her savior. Now I know exactly how

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Roman Catholics get around that. I can present the whole idea of, you know, if you're walking along a path and you're about to fall into a muddy pit and I reach out and save you from falling in the muddy pit, then

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I'm your savior from falling into the muddy pit and you never actually got muddied. And that must be what happened with Mary.

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Well, that's very nice. But where do the inspired writers actually teach that?

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And of course, they do not. The idea that that's what

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Mary had in mind when she rejoiced in God, her savior, is absolutely positively absurd on its face, which is why most of these folks don't want to debate these issues, because if you really do have time to dig in, in fact, on the blog right now, and if you're listening by archive, you're going to go, when was that?

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Late August. Look at late August of 2008. On the blog right now, I linked to an article that James Swan put up where he gave one of the early arguments in regards to the

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Marian dogmas. When you just start reading these things, instead of reading the modern presentations, these things on down the road, read the early representatives of these things.

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The arguments are ridiculous. They are without merit.

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Remember when we reviewed the Patrick Madrid thing, and we're going to need to take a break at the half hour, so I forgot to cue up a

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Patrick Madrid clip I want to play too, and I can't do that at the same time that I've got this running. Hopefully, I have it in my sound file subdirector,

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I think I do, because Patrick's going around. Patrick has won every debate against me. I am zero for two, according to Patrick Madrid.

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He is victorious in all things, which I think, if that's the case, why aren't we doing more debates? If I'm so easy to beat up on,

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I would think that he'd want to debate the papacy and the Marian dogmas and all these other things, because from his perspective,

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I've never even come close to even competing with the guy. But remember when we looked at the arguments in regards to veneration of saints and angels,

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I point out, look at what Nicaea II, the second Nicene Council, not the first, the second

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Nicene Council, which spoke of veneration of saints and angels and so on and so forth. Look at the argumentation they used.

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It is absurd. It is ridiculous. It's so bad that even modern

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Rome has had to develop the idea that the path that you take to get to the final conclusions is irrelevant.

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The church's authority is such that the data and the argument can all be bad, but the result's still infallible.

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And when you really start digging into that, a lot of people go, you know, that doesn't sound overly trustworthy to me. No, it probably isn't.

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And that's what you've got going on here too. And I looked at him like, huh? I didn't say

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Jesus. Yes, you did. If you say, was Jesus Christ man? You better believe it.

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He was more man than anybody in this room or anybody listening to me. Well, then you've just declared Jesus to be a sinner.

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Well, of course not. He's not a sinner. How do we know that? Well, Hebrews 4 .15 tells us he was tempted on all points even as we are, and yet he was without sin.

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He was an exception. But I had to acknowledge there was at least one exception. Yep, there's one exception.

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The God -man. And I guess in many ways, you know, I've defended

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Rome in the past from people who said that Rome is in essence making a quadernity.

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But functionally, see, officially they say, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. But functionally, especially with this

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Fifth Marian dogma stuff, where you have Mary as co -redemptrix and co -mediatrix and all these other things, functionally, are you not making her deity?

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I mean, you're attributing all these actions that are only paralleled in Jesus Christ.

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And that's why it's idolatrous. That's why it has to be identified for what it is. I know the modern way of doing things is, well, you know, we just need to appreciate what other people believe and la, la, la, la, la.

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Well, you know, it all goes back to the idea that only in religion is there really no truth.

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We don't appreciate quacks when they practice silly medicine that can kill people.

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Well, this is silly theology that can kill the soul. Well, guess what? What if, what if my friend said to me, what if I could show you there are millions of exceptions to those verses?

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And my brain started spinning. What in the world is he? Well, if you look at Romans 3 .23 and 1

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John chapter 1, you'll find both of those refer to personal sin, not original sin. How do you know that?

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Look at 1 John 1 .8 and then look at verse 9. It says everybody sins, but if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins.

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What does that tell you? He's not talking about original sin because you don't confess original sin. He's talking about personal sin. Same thing in Romans 3 .23.

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In verse 10, he just said, there's none righteous, no, not one. All go astray. The poison of asps is on their lips and so forth.

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He's talking about personal sin. Well, guess what? There are millions of exceptions to Romans 3 .23 and 1

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John 1 .9 or 1 .8, namely babies in the womb, who according to Romans chapter 9, verse 5, have not done any good or any evil.

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Wow. The lengths to which one will go. The term original sin is not a biblical phrase to begin with.

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That's a later theological description of what's being described in the fact that mankind as a whole is together from God's perspective and under the condemnation of sin itself.

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The idea of confessing original sin. What you're doing here is the only sins we confess are the sins we've committed.

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If you're confessing those sins, well, that's not original sin. There's all these exceptions to original sin.

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Mary can be one of millions of exceptions to personal sin because babies haven't committed actual sin in the sense of they're still in the womb, they haven't done anything good or bad, and blah, blah, blah.

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Fascinating. Has nothing to do with anything the Bible is talking about. This is the kind of argumentations used to prove space aliens and all sorts of other stuff like that.

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You're taking an external subject, external authority, you're forcing into scripture and creating categories to create room for this all on the authority of your external leaders.

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The Mormons do it, the Jehovah's Witnesses do it, and the Roman Catholics do it. Yes, I know you get offended when you put it all together, but you need to recognize that the idea of the infallible scriptures plus infallible external authority is not unique to Romanism.

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Mormonism, the Watchtower, all those groups all do the same thing. As Eric Svensson has pointed out, the fair analysis would be how unified are the groups that say

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Bible plus infallible authority versus those that say Bible alone. When you put it in that category, there is no unity.

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The groups that have Bible plus infallible authority can't even come up with a common God, let alone anything else.

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And yet that's not the category, that's not the way that these individuals want to view it. They want to view it in a considerably different way so that it casts a better light upon Roman Catholicism alone.

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The severely retarded who don't have the use of their intellect and wills, they have not and in fact cannot sin.

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Well, Mary is another exception and uniquely so. Why? She is revealed to us in scripture in Luke chapter 1 verse 28, in fact she's named by the angel full of grace.

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Folks, folks, folks, I'm going to expand on a simple greeting here.

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I'm going to read into a word so much stuff. Now I'm not going to deal with the other uses of this word and how this would destroy my argumentation because that's why this is a monologue, not a dialogue, but folks, folks, an angelic greeting is big enough to create an entire spectrum of Marian dogma.

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That's what we're about to hear. In a nutshell, that means she has no sin.

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She is... Cacarta mene means she has no sin. I'm sorry, again, utterly indefensible.

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Utterly indefensible. There's no way this man could stand in front of an audience and defend this against a meaningful opponent that would demand he go into the language and prove it.

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Because that would mean we are too. And he knows that. He knows that if those standards were to be applied and he were to be putting himself in that place, his position would collapse like the house of cards that it actually is.

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Full of grace, cacarta mene in Greek. Now you and I, how many here can say you're full of grace?

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Well, folks, you and I sin because we're not full of grace. It's not because of grace we sin, it's because of a lack of grace or a lack of cooperation.

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Mary is named full of grace in Luke 128. Named. So if you're greeted, that's your name.

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Wow. Again, as long as it has to do with Mary, Roman Catholic scholarship would never apply these standards to any other context.

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This wouldn't do it. But when it comes to Mary, all bets are off.

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You can do whatever you want to do, say whatever you want to say, extend analogies, read into words.

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It doesn't matter. Sola Scriptura has been denied. And so have at it.

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Just run with it as far as you can take it. Mary is also called or referred to as the

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Ark of the Covenant in Luke 1, verse 43, referencing 2 Samuel, chapter 6, verse 9.

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Mary. Here we go again. All they do is they quote each other. They just quote each other. Just recently on a,

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I think it was in one of the YouTube videos or in a blog article, I forget which one it was,

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I posted my response to Jerry Matitix on this very Ark of the

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Covenant stuff. And again, you can just shred this stuff. You can tear it apart. All you got to do is go into the text and say, oh, you say that this is actually the term that was used in this kind of liturgical dance.

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Well, actually it's not. Here's the reference. Here's the term. Here's the Greek subject. Show me where I'm wrong.

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Do these people go back and check themselves? No. Someone came up with this stuff, threw it out there, and then they just start repeating each other.

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They just quote each other over and over and over and over again. And they don't check these things out.

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And they don't care if they've been refuted because they know that their audience probably isn't going to be aware of that.

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And it's amazing to me. I mean, if I had done what Jerry Matitix did years ago and produced that tape on Mary, and then in a debate

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I had challenged all those things, one of the first things I'd be doing would be producing some documentation to rehabilitate my argumentation.

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They don't do that. They just simply don't care what is being said by people like myself.

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They don't care. They don't care if they've been refuted. They don't care if their facts are contested. They're just going to keep repeating them over and over again.

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And their hope is that people won't be aware of the fact that they're basically being misled. Mary is also referred to as the

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New Eve. She's alluded to by her very son as the New Eve. When he calls her woman in John 2, 5, and from the cross, woman, behold your son, woman, what have

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I to do with thee? My hour has not yet come in Revelation or in John 2, 5.

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And in Revelation chapter 12, she's called woman eight times. She is the prophetic fulfillment of Genesis 3, 15.

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The woman who along with her seed, the Messiah, would crush the head of Lucifer and bring salvation to us all.

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Folks, folks, folks, don't follow my hermeneutics here, folks.

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Don't hold me to any kind of meaningful biblical interpretation here, folks, because once you come to Mary, we don't use any of that.

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We just get to connect anything together that we jolly well want to put together.

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If you're full of grace and you're sinless, and if you're called woman, that's the woman from Genesis 3, 15.

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And so every woman is Genesis 3, 15. Well, no, you see, it's only about Mary. We're not going to use this typology for anybody else.

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We're only going to use it for Mary. So what's the consistent standard? Well, there isn't a consistent standard. We are the church. We get to do what we jolly well want to do.

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That is Rome for you. This is just a sketch, because we've got to get the other callers.

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But this is just a sketch, folks. There is much, much more that demonstrates Mary's without sin. But when you understand

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Mary is the woman, the prophetic woman of Genesis 3, 15, you know she could not have original sin and she could not have sin, biblically speaking, why?

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Because to say Mary, the fulfillment, the new Eve, were to have sin, let's say original sin, you would make her inferior to the first Eve, which is unthinkable in biblical theology.

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Hebrews 10, verse 1 tells us Old Testament types, the temple, the priesthood, the ark of the covenant, are mere shadows in relation to their fulfillments in the

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New Testament. Their fulfillments in what? In Christ in the

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New Testament. In Christ. And once again, we see Rome paralleling

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Jesus and Mary. Just as I documented in Mary and Other Redeemer many years ago, you can put together an entire listing of all the places where Rome parallels the unique offices and functions and powers of Christ in Mary.

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And it is unbiblical, it involves a complete rejection of any meaningful form of exegesis of text of scripture, and it is simply idolatrous.

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Well, Eve was created without sin. To say Mary would have been conceived in sin would be like saying

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Jesus was inferior to Adam. Oh, good grief. Now, would any Christian say that?

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No, of course not. The new Adam is superior to the old Adam. And that's because he's the incarnate son of God, Mr.

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Staples, and Mary was not the incarnation of anything, despite the fact that your papacy has spoken highly of men who have written books that have referred to her as the incarnation of the

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Holy Spirit. More gross, utter blasphemy due to the fact that Romanism denies solo scripture.

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Unbelievable stuff to listen to, but we're going to take a break and continue on with this. There's a few more minutes of this, and I'm going to see if I can track down that Patrick Madrid clip.

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While we're at it during the break, we'll be right back. And welcome back to The Dividing Line on a

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Thursday afternoon. If you're just now tuning in, we start half an hour early. I did mention that on the blog we are doing penance for wrapping up too early on Tuesday due to a physical weakness.

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And I suppose we should also keep in mind we need to be praying for our brothers and sisters wherever Gustav is going.

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We have a number of folks down in the Nolens area who are getting ready to board up and head out once again.

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And of course, I asked a question of one of our Nolens people.

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I said, wouldn't it be better to live someplace that's actually maybe above sea level?

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And he said, nope. I said, OK, there you go. You know, these things happen each summer.

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They come this direction. And that very same person. You know, this one's right on cue too.

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Yeah, I know. This is right around the time of Katrina. It's the exact same week as it was two years ago. Yep, I know. I know.

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And two years ago? Three or four years ago, I think.

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I don't know. I didn't live down there. But where were we? It was the debate with crossing, wasn't it?

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Because we were in Alaska. No, we were in Alaska. We were in Alaska, dude.

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Yeah, that was crossing. That's 2005. So that'd be three years ago. Anyway, that's the very same fellow who took me around Nolens years before that and said, you know, someday a

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Category 4 or 5 is going to nail us and flood this place out. And then again, he really wasn't prophesying much there.

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So yeah. See, even people on the channel don't know. One's saying 2004. One's saying 2005. Whatever.

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That's the way it is. OK, coming back to what we're doing here.

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Let's hope and pray that Gustav lands someplace where I could do a whole lot of damage to anybody.

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But anyway, going back to, I did find the other clip I want to play. So we'll be able to do that. Let's go back to Tim Staples here as he wraps up all this stuff about the necessity and the propriety of prayer to Mary.

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New Eve is superior to the old. I wish we could do more, but I'm using a phone. You know, we do that.

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We will get on to some other ones. And we can't get into this right now. But obviously, Tim, this is in light of the merits of Jesus Christ, not something

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Mary does on her own as some sort of deity or what have you. She relies on Jesus, as Scripture says, to be her

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Savior as well. Absolutely. And see, we understand because of her unique calling. And remember, you know,

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Romans chapter 12, verse 5 talks about how we are members of Christ and members one of another.

31:59

And each member of the body of Christ have different gifts. And with different gifts comes different graces. Mary was given a unique grace.

32:08

We say in Catholic theology that the final cause of Mary's sinlessness was her calling to be the mother of God.

32:15

It was because of God's grace and choosing her to be the mother of God, to bear God in her womb, to be that ark of the covenant, that he preserved her by the grace of our

32:26

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in a prevenient sense by this unique privilege of grace. But she was prepared to be the tabernacle of God, the ark of the covenant that would bear

32:35

God in her very womb. Can you see why Rome cannot allow Scripture to be

32:40

Scripture? Isn't it really obvious here? I mean, just think of the massive process you have to go through to try to make that kind of conclusion have anything to do with the biblical text itself or anything that the apostles were concerned about or anything even semi -biblical.

33:05

You can't find this kind of stuff in Scripture. You don't find it as part of the early proclamation of the

33:11

Church. It develops slowly over time. But you see why Rome has to attack

33:17

Sola Scriptura? Because if this becomes the essence of Roman piety, the leaps you have to go through to come to that kind of conclusion just on the basis of Hail, Cacare Tumene, or well, you've got this woman in Revelation 12 clothed with the sun and so on and so forth and the stars and well, yeah, she has birth pangs and yeah, that's a part of the curse, but yeah, we'll just ignore that.

33:46

And yeah, okay, the early Christians thought it was the Church and not Mary, but we'll ignore that too.

33:52

And you know, we can just find this little thing here and that little words, we'll just throw types and shadows at it and create our entire dogma and that's what you do.

34:02

She was preserved from, she was saved, but she was saved in a most sublime way.

34:08

She was preserved free from all sin. And again, folks, folks, folks, just think for a moment.

34:15

Is that what Mary meant when she uttered those words?

34:20

You know what I bet some Roman Catholics would say? It doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter what

34:29

Luke thought. I'll bet you anything there'd be Roman Catholics who would say, it doesn't matter what

34:34

Mary meant. It doesn't matter what Luke thought. The Scripture is under the authority of the Church and the

34:40

Church has defined these things and that's all that matters. I'll bet there are people who would actually state that.

34:46

And if they do, that's the greatest evidence of the absolute falseness of Roman Catholicism I could ever think of.

34:51

Salvation in Scripture is not only about being saved from sins you've committed. Jude, verse 25, for example, you know,

35:00

Saint Jude tells us, Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and present you spotless at the coming of our

35:06

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That's a wonderful text for monarchism, isn't it? It most certainly is.

35:14

Isn't it sad that it's being applied here to some kind of preservation of Mary rather than seeing the clear implications it has for the entire false gospel of Rome?

35:25

Be glory and so on and so forth, right? God is able to preserve.

35:30

That is a powerful way of God saving us, is keeping us from sin. Well, Mary was saved most perfectly in order to be that precious

35:40

Ark of the Covenant preserved free from all sin, both original and personal.

35:46

So there's Tim Staples spinning his Marian weave. Again, would love the opportunity of debating those dogmas.

35:58

And not as fast as we had to do with Jerry. I would love to see cross -examination. Now, of course, the question is, would

36:04

Tim Staples allow for cross -examination? Remember the last debate we had with Tim?

36:09

He broke every rule there was in the book in cross -examination. He ignored everything we had.

36:17

And by the way, you should be aware of this. We stood behind that stage and we agreed to how cross -examination was going to go before that debate started.

36:28

And he looked at me and he said, yes. And within a short period of time, he broke his word.

36:35

And as people have pointed out, I think he asked a grand total of four questions in 12 minutes of me.

36:42

He took most of his time to continue making statements. And, of course, the moderator would do nothing.

36:47

The moderator was staying there, too. Jerry Usher should have done something. But, of course, Jerry Usher is prejudiced and shouldn't function as a moderator in a context like that because, obviously, he couldn't do that.

36:58

But then he went out there and he did all that. And so, you know, mailman, just let me know.

37:10

So that you can find him. Okay. Helping Rich out there. I didn't know if you had stuff that needs to go out and need to talk to him.

37:18

All right. Anyway, see, I have the cameras down here. So when I'm pointing at that, that's a camera issue.

37:24

That means army coming in, ready to attack. So you move things around. Well, it just works better to put it there.

37:31

The snack used to be over there. I know, I know, I know. Anyway, so he asked me four questions.

37:38

And I believe in my 12 minutes, someone counted up that I asked him 42, as I recall, or something along those lines.

37:45

I actually followed the rules of cross -examination that day and he didn't. So I would love to see if he would be willing to, you know, sign a statement.

37:54

I am going to engage in meaningful cross -examination. I'm going to follow the rules. I am going to provide, I'm not going to make statements.

38:01

I'm going to only ask questions. I'm going to be brief and succinct in my responses, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

38:07

When that kind of cross -examination takes place, the people benefit. The people listening benefit.

38:14

And when you can't get your opponents to do that, it is a sheer clear sign that they have something to hide and they know it.

38:23

They know it. But speaking of Roman Catholic apologists, I was just sent this clip.

38:29

Now, remember a couple of months ago, we listened to Patrick Madrid talking about how painfully, obviously, he had demonstrated the unbiblical nature of the argumentation against the veneration of saints and angels.

38:45

But now we have another debate. See, Patrick and I have done two debates.

38:51

First was on Sol Scriptura in 1993 at a Presbyterian church in the

38:56

San Diego area. Unfortunately, a Presbyterian church that did not have any air conditioning and it was hot as could be, hot as a firecracker in there.

39:06

And it was a very interesting debate. Mr. Madrid did not leave that evening looking overly happy.

39:15

But shortly after that debate, Catholic Answers published a hit piece called

39:22

The White Man's Burden. And to this day at AOMN .org,

39:27

if you go to the articles section, you will find a very lengthy and thorough refutation of The White Man's Burden, to which

39:34

Patrick Madrid has never had any response, which has been published now, I think it was 19, probably was 93 when it was up.

39:43

So it's been up for 15 years, about right around, coming up on 15 years, my response to The White Man's Burden was up there.

39:53

And so it's fascinating for me to listen to Patrick Madrid speak about this debate and the way he speaks about it.

40:02

He clearly is claiming to have won both of our debates. And so as I said earlier, I wonder then, why do

40:08

I not get challenges from Patrick Madrid to debate the Marian dogmas or the papacy or justification or the mass or the priesthood?

40:19

Because if he's 2 -0 and has so easily vanquished me, then

40:28

I would think that it would be very useful for people to hear more of this.

40:33

That was once the Catholic Answers perspective. They once were looking for debates.

40:39

They wanted to engage these things. And now for some reason, things have changed a little bit over the years.

40:47

And they don't want really to do that kind of thing anymore. And so we have this clip here.

40:54

It's about eight minutes long. And he's talking about the debate on solo scriptura.

41:00

It makes me wonder if maybe we're not going to have to do the same thing and play the 1993 debate on solo scriptura as well and go through that step by step to once again vindicate and demonstrate the reality of the situation as it was presented.

41:19

But let's listen to this clip with Patrick Madrid. I have a brother who's a fundamentalist.

41:26

And we were talking about your debate with James White. And I'm a little bit confused on the two ultimate authorities.

41:36

That there is or isn't two ultimate authorities. I'm not sure which. And I wanted you to explain that in more detail for me.

41:42

Now, it sounds to me like this is a Roman Catholic who has listened to it.

41:47

And maybe he's recognized, you know, this system that Patrick's presenting is not really quite coherent or consistent.

41:59

And, you know, 1993, right before this debate, as I recall.

42:05

Now, remember, let me just give you some background here. This debate took place because I had challenged

42:12

Patrick Madrid and Carl Keating to debate the papacy in Denver during World Youth Day.

42:20

And they had declined, saying that it was inappropriate to be engaging in debate during the visit of the

42:31

Pope. And they suggest that I contact Jerry Matitix.

42:36

Please notice, they suggested that I contact Jerry Matitix. Given the current situation today, that does cause some people to chuckle.

42:46

Anyway, so we did. And we arranged a two -night debate and the second night at a local

42:54

Presbyterian church. Now, very shortly after we announced the scheduling of this debate,

43:03

I got word that, for some reason, Carl Keating and Patrick Madrid, who earlier had felt it was inappropriate to engage in debate during the papal visit, the visit of the

43:13

Holy Father, had in fact arranged a debate with two fundamentalists,

43:18

Bill Jackson and Ron Nemec, at a local Baptist church. And interestingly enough, they scheduled this debate for the same night, one of the two same nights that I was debating

43:32

Jerry Matitix, so I could not be in attendance at this particular debate.

43:39

I found that odd. I find that odd. Fifteen years later, it still strikes me as somewhat strange.

43:47

Now, that particular debate was, the one on solo scriptura in Denver, was an unmitigated disaster.

43:57

The non -Catholics who were engaged in that debate simply were not prepared to engage

44:04

Carl Keating and Patrick Madrid on solo scriptura. When they were asked how you know Matthew wrote

44:10

Matthew, their response was, because in my Bible it says the gospel according to Matthew.

44:17

That's really bad. And it was a walkover. They knew it was going to be a walkover.

44:23

It was so bad, the church almost had a split over it. The Catholics were having an altar call in the parking lot for people to come back to Roman Catholicism.

44:31

It was an unmitigated disaster, but it was an unmitigated disaster scheduled to take place in such a way that I could not be there, because everyone knows, if you will go back and listen to the argumentation that Keating and Madrid used in that debate, they would never use that against me.

44:48

They would never do it. And they know that. And when you have to change your argumentation, what does that say exactly,

44:54

I wonder? Anyway, so I rather strongly challenged

45:02

Madrid and Keating to debate the same subject. And only Madrid would take me up on it.

45:09

And so that debate took place a few months later in San Diego. I think it was, was it

45:15

September, October? I think it was around that time frame is when that took place. It was still early enough that we got the

45:23

Santa Ana winds blowing. And so we blew all the heat out of Phoenix over to San Diego for a few days.

45:29

And that's why it was just miserable that night. So that is the debate.

45:35

And in fact, is there not a transcript of the entirety of that debate on the website?

45:41

I think as we listen here, I'm going to look and see if it in fact is there. Let's listen to Patrick Madrid's comments here.

45:49

I will add this to, it's not going to make much difference to him, but I want to know. He's already told me that.

45:55

To paraphrase, he's not going to go to Spain because he hears there's a Madrid there too. So he's not too friendly towards you.

46:03

But I do want to clarify it for my own sake. All right. Well, God bless your brother. Is it brother -in -law or brother?

46:10

Brother. Okay. Well, God bless your brother. We'll work on him. And by the way,

46:15

Madrid, Spain is a gorgeous city. So he's giving himself the short end of the stick if he doesn't take time to go visit that beautiful place.

46:25

Anyway, I think you're referring to my debate with James White called, Does the Bible Teach Sola Scriptura?

46:30

By far and away, it's the most popular of all the debates that I've done, at least in terms of its popularity with Catholics.

46:37

It's one of those debate sets that really has been pivotal for many Catholics who have listened to it, including interesting.

46:44

Now, let me stop right there. September 23, 1993, Bayview Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Chula Vista, California.

46:52

This is vintage .aomin .org slash Santran, that H -T -M -L.

46:58

Santran is all in capitals. S -A -N -T -R -A -N dot H -T -M -L is the entire.

47:04

And of course, we've made this available from the beginning. I would encourage you to listen to the debate and listen to it carefully and listen to it and do the one thing that most

47:12

Catholics don't do. Actually, open your Bible and follow the argumentation that is presented there at that particular point in time.

47:21

But yes, this took place in September 23, 1993,

47:27

Bayview Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We have posted the transcript and we have made this available all along to people.

47:36

And you will note that I believe the response, yes, the response to the white man's burden, which he's going to mention in this clip, is called

47:50

Catholic Answers Myth or Reality? A refutation of Patrick Madrid's article, The White Man's Burden and the

47:56

Defense of Sola Scriptura. And this would have been posted, might have been, as I'm thinking about it, 1994.

48:07

Because if I recall correctly, The White Man's Burden came out in a, like a

48:13

December something along those lines of 93. And so this might have been 94 when it was posted.

48:22

It probably has the information right in here. I'm not sure. But anyway, this is all available on the website for those of you who would like to look at these.

48:32

Our lengthy discussions, lots of documentation provided. I doubt most of the people that have found this to be a pivotal debate have actually looked at all those things.

48:43

But we can, we continue on. One person who was there at the debate, this debate was held in 1993 in Chula Vista, which is a town just south of San Diego.

48:54

And just a quick aside here. A friend of mine, his name is Doug and his wife's name is

49:00

Heidi. She was a Baptist, very ardent Baptist. He's a very ardent Catholic.

49:05

And when they heard that this debate was coming up between myself and James White, James White's a Protestant writer,

49:11

Protestant apologist. And they heard about this debate, so they attended. And he dragged her to the debate because he wanted her to see this discussion on the

49:22

Protestant claim of the absolute sufficiency of scripture. And she dragged him to the debate because she wanted him to see it.

49:30

She wanted him to become Baptist. So they were at cross purposes, but they both went. And after the debate, they,

49:38

I guess James White sent her a box of materials. At least that's what Doug and Heidi told me. Okay, I have absolutely no recollection of any of this because I do recall vaguely meeting with some folks in Phoenix, not in San Diego.

49:56

And, you know, we've given books away to lots of folks. So this isn't ringing any bells whatsoever.

50:04

I never sat down. I do remember sitting down with a couple sometime around this time period, but the names don't sound right at all.

50:13

And I have no idea what in the world is being referred to here. And may I just point out,

50:19

I've met with lots of folks over the past, well, you know, this is our 25th anniversary year.

50:25

We're coming up on the actual anniversary here in October of the founding of Alpha Omega Ministries officially.

50:33

And I've met with lots of folks and, you know, I've helped people leave

50:40

Mormonism and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and Roman Catholicism and Islam.

50:47

And I don't generally sit here yammering about it. I don't generally.

50:53

Now, you know, Patrick Madrid edits the Surprise by Truth series. And so the

50:59

Roman Catholics are really into the conversion story stuff. And yet,

51:04

I think one of the reasons that I've never really been big into the conversion story stuff myself is not that we can't produce conversion stories because we can.

51:15

First of all, I would find that disrespectful of the converts themselves. I think that when someone comes out of a false religious group, they should be allowed to get themselves grounded in the truth.

51:30

And if years later, the Lord uses them to, quote unquote, have a ministry to people who were in the same kind of religious group, that's fine.

51:39

But I have seen so many people who were converts that were thrown into a position of leadership simply because they were a convert from some kind of religion.

51:48

I mean, I'm not going to name names. Let's think about some people who, for example, are former Muslims and all of a sudden are put in positions that they really aren't up to having.

51:59

And I've seen people's spiritual lives ruined. I'm not going to do that. I'm just it just I could not going to do it.

52:07

It's just not worthwhile. But this the other reason I'm not really into convert stories is because what value do they really have?

52:20

They're primarily emotional. I mean, there's all sorts of Roman Catholic convert stories, people who've left

52:27

Roman Catholicism, former priests and things like that. And they dismiss them as people who just simply weren't appropriately catechized.

52:35

So why go the other direction? I mean, aren't I've read these surprised by truth books, aren't most of them just rehashing the same things over and over and over again?

52:48

It's pretty easy to tear apart these convert stories. And when you do that, well, you're just picking on a new person. They haven't had time.

52:54

Well, then why are you using them as some sort of, you know, tremendous example of the power of your religious system?

53:00

There seems to be some real inconsistencies there. So I find Patrick's comments here rather disconcerting and reprehensible, really, to be utilizing this kind of argumentation.

53:14

But hey, anyway. And I don't know, maybe six months or so went by and they asked me to go to lunch with them.

53:22

We went to lunch and at lunch, they said, we want you to be the first one to know that Heidi has decided to come into the Catholic Church.

53:27

Now, my jaw dropped because I was astounded by, you know, she seems so staunchly

53:32

Baptist and staunchly opposed to the Catholic Church. And quite frankly, after that debate,

53:39

I hadn't seen much of them, so I didn't really know how it affected her. But not only the debate itself, but also reading all the follow -up books that were sent to her, that really, that made it clear to her.

53:50

And the way she put it at lunch that day, she said, I finally realized that in spite of this man's efforts, to the contrary, that the

53:59

Bible doesn't teach sola scriptura. She said that's what cinched it for her and that's what made her decide to become a

54:06

Catholic. And I've heard this story from other people as well. I mean, this is, as they say, one of the most popular debates. So the first part of my answer to your question is

54:13

I recommend, if you haven't had a chance to listen to it, maybe you have, listen to it. I strongly recommend it because it.

54:20

And listen to it with a discerning spirit. You see, one of the things, and again, take the time to read the response provided to the white man's burden.

54:32

You'll see the documentation of these straw men that Patrick continues to use even to this day. But listen with a discerning ear.

54:42

See what kind of argumentation is being used. One of the things the Catholic answer has done for a long, long time is what you do is after the opening statements, once you get into cross -examination where you literally have as little as 120 seconds to make your case, subtly try to shift the topic.

55:03

And this is why they want to debate sola scriptura. Now, they won't reverse this and defend their own positive affirmations about these things.

55:10

I've never heard them ever do that. I've tried to get them to do that, but I can't get them to do it. But what they'll do is they will bring up issues like the canon of scripture.

55:22

Now, the canon of scripture is actually an excellent area for non -Catholics to approach, but it takes a tremendous amount of time.

55:33

The simplistic answers provided by Rome, we're right because we're Rome, don't take a whole lot of time to say.

55:41

And since the majority of people in the audience have no concept of the history of the church, the concept of the canon of scripture, they have no concept whatsoever.

55:51

It's an easy, cheap way for Roman Catholic controversialists to score points that actually don't have any truth value to them, but they're only looking for points anyways.

56:01

And so what you do is you get into cross -examination, you throw out the canon issue, knowing that there's no way that anyone could meaningfully give a background response to provide the background to a meaningful answer to such a question.

56:16

And then you use it as, ah, see, you know, we've got the debate. We win the debate, as if that's what the debate was actually about.

56:24

And that's why later on, in later years, we did specific debates on those subjects. And if you really want to hear how that comes out, listen to the apocryphal debate with Jerry Matitix.

56:33

It was at Boston College. We were in the small minority there. We're at a Jesuit institution. There's monks sitting in the audience.

56:39

And it came out very clearly, the sola ecclesia, the authority claims that were being used by the

56:46

Roman Catholic Church at that point as well. So listen to those as well and recognize the kind of argumentation.

56:53

Ask yourself the question, where did Patrick Madrid respond to the biblical presentation that I made that evening?

56:59

He was actually responding more to my arguments with Jerry Matitix from the first debate we did on Sola Scriptura back in 1990.

57:06

And then he'd also listen to my debate with Jerry Matitix and Sola Scriptura from 1992 from Omaha when

57:13

I took Greg Bonson's place. Greg Bonson was supposed to debate Jerry. Then an opportunity for him to have some encounters with some homosexual advocates came up.

57:24

So he contacted me and asked if I would take his place in Omaha in 1992, which I did. And it really seemed to me that Madrid was more focused upon what

57:35

I had said in previous debates than the biblical argumentation I was providing that evening. But Madrid utterly failed to respond to the argumentation

57:43

I provide from the biblical text. He raised issues of material and formal sufficiency, which had not been a part of his own presentations previous to that period of time, and tried to drag it off into that perspective.

57:59

But he did not give any meaningful exegetical response to the biblical presentation that I made. And so listen carefully to it.

58:07

Read it. Check it out for yourself. Check out the facts for yourself and see if that is not in fact the case.

58:13

It really will demonstrate once and for all that the Bible does not teach that it is formally or absolutely sufficient.

58:23

And it is a great way to learn not only the way. What is it going to be like?

58:28

What must it be like to be so proud of your arguments to, in essence, say, well, the

58:35

Bible just really is not enough? At least we get to hear them saying that. We know that is where they are coming from.

58:42

They present false doctrines and false teachings. You have to attack the sufficiency of Scripture. Every group does it, whether it is

58:49

Mormons or whoever it is. You have got to have their authority. But how sad. I am glad that even after all these years, it still strikes me when

58:58

I hear someone making that kind of a statement. And oh, the burden to bear that.

59:06

A reminder to pray for these people that they would be delivered from this darkness before they have to stand before a holy

59:13

God to answer for that kind of statement. It is something very serious.

59:18

To answer the typical arguments that are raised in favor of Sola Scriptura. But it will also show you just how the case for Sola Scriptura often is made.

59:28

It is interesting, but he did not provide a response to those arguments.

59:34

He did not provide a biblical response. He tried to avoid the biblical weight by saying, well, that is just material sufficiency.

59:41

It is not formal sufficiency. Now remember, if you could find it, and man,

59:47

I do not even know if it would even be available anymore. I would not know where to get it. Someone from Denver sent me an audio tape of the debate.

59:56

And in that debate with Bill Jackson and Ron Nemec, Madrid and Keating had hammered away on show us where the

01:00:07

Bible teaches sufficiency. Show us where the Bible teaches. They just hammered away on it.

01:00:14

And so I provided it. And I provide the lexical resources and the lexical foundation.

01:00:21

Did Madrid respond to any of that? No, not at all. And as I document in my rebuttal to the white man's burden, he even had to misrepresent the doctrine of Sola Scriptura itself in the process.

01:00:33

So keep those things in mind. And that is something that every Catholic should know. Now, with regard to the ultimate authority question in the debate, and I am trying to remember specifically what was said, but if I remember correctly, and you can actually, if you go to my website, patrickmadrid .com,

01:00:49

you can download the debate itself. It is downloadable as an MP3. So just go to patrickmadrid .com.

01:00:54

It is right there on the main page. It is called Does the Bible Teach Sola Scriptura? You can listen to it. Also, I wrote an article and follow -up called

01:01:02

The White Man's Burden, which is kind of a play on words with regard to the other person in the debate whose last name is white.

01:01:09

And in that, there is some follow -up, and I forget everything that is there. But you can check all that out.

01:01:15

Just go to patrickmadrid .com. But in that discussion, I... Yes, please, get

01:01:21

The White Man's Burden. If it has a post there, get it. Then download my response. And then you will understand why he has never responded to the rebuttal.

01:01:31

...pointed out the fact that, yes, Scripture is the ultimate authority. In other words, this is the word of God conveyed to us in the words of men.

01:01:37

This is God speaking to us. There is no higher authority than God himself. And if God chooses, as he did, to inspire certain authors to set forth in writing those things that he wants us to know, that is,

01:01:51

I think we could safely say, that is an authority that is given to us by God himself.

01:01:57

So it comes of the highest magnitude. Now, there is no question about that, and there is certainly no argument on the part of Catholics.

01:02:05

The problem is, and this is something that my debate opponent didn't seem to understand during this debate, and that...

01:02:11

Or just didn't agree with and argued against. ...that is that Scripture does not come to us guaranteed to be correctly understood by everybody, always and everywhere.

01:02:23

Which, of course, is another straw man. Having documented many of the straw men in Patrick Madrid's misrepresentations of Sola Scriptura, he continues doing them to this day.

01:02:36

I can't prove he's ever actually taken the time to look and to find out what the truth actually is on these matters.

01:02:46

He may be like many Roman Catholic apologists. They just don't seem to care. When they're refuted, they don't take the time to look at it.

01:02:53

Their word is final word. Maybe. I don't know. That seems awful strange to me. And if that isn't the case, then there would be some real issues about integrity at this point.

01:03:05

But that's... There are many misinterpretations of Scripture. In fact,

01:03:10

Scripture itself warns us against misinterpreting it. It talks about how people twist the

01:03:16

Scriptures to their own destruction. Yes, that's exactly what Peter says. But that very same text where it warns against those untaught and unstable men who distort the

01:03:29

Scriptures to their own destruction. What does that mean? That means there are taught and stable men who...

01:03:36

And it in no way, shape or form implies to us, oh, and that's the papacy. Because there was no papacy.

01:03:42

That is eisegesis to even begin to suggest it. Peter is writing a time where there is no monarchical episcopacy in Rome.

01:03:52

Doesn't develop until 140. So you can't read the papacy in there. That means there are taught and stable men who do not rest the

01:04:02

Scriptures. They do not twist the Scriptures. Any written document can be misrepresented.

01:04:09

Is it not the case that Patrick Madrid would argue that there are many Roman Catholics? Let's use another illustration.

01:04:16

Would not Patrick Madrid argue that Jerry Matitix is twisting the writings of the

01:04:21

Roman Catholic Church? Does it fall that the writings of the Roman Catholic Church are thereby insufficient in and of themselves?

01:04:29

He might say, yes, everything is written. You have to have a living person. Well, how does he know what the

01:04:35

Pope says? It's written down for him. I'd love to see a debate between Jerry Matitix and Patrick Madrid.

01:04:43

The irony is Jerry Matitix would love to see a debate between himself, Karl Keating, Patrick Madrid, Robert St.

01:04:48

Genes, all these folks. And for some reason, they won't debate Jerry. Don't know why.

01:04:55

It is ironic. I wonder why having this infallible authority has not produced absolute unanimity of opinion amongst these men.

01:05:05

Why are there Robert St. Genes and Jerry Matitix out there that have disagreements?

01:05:11

Almost sounds like Patrick's argument against sola scriptura is self -defeating, huh?

01:05:16

Well, you're forgetting it's Neapolitan ice cream, but all the different flavors of unity.

01:05:26

I can sit here for a long time just staring at you. And the longer it's quiet, the more pressure you're going to feel.

01:05:36

Yeah, that's the unity that we have. Peter talks about that. So we have to be careful that we're understanding it correctly.

01:05:43

And this requires another authority. And this is the authority of the Catholic Church. Why is it the authority of the

01:05:48

Catholic Church? Why is it? And I pointed this out in that debate.

01:05:55

And I've pointed out in many debates since then, that the simple fact that you can abuse a sufficient rule of faith is not an argument for the insufficiency of that rule of faith.

01:06:12

You see, Mr. Madrid should know by now. And I know I've explained this to him back in the old

01:06:20

AOL days, back when there were chat rooms on AOL. I remember long debates taking place.

01:06:27

It wasn't even a chat room. It was sort of a web board type thing, forum, I guess is what you'd call it, on AOL.

01:06:36

And I remember taking on Patrick and explaining these things and explaining how many misunderstandings that he had.

01:06:43

But this is the only argument that they've been able to come up with. And sadly, you know, people don't see through it.

01:06:50

It's not difficult to see through. But they will see, like what we were just pointing out.

01:06:56

Well, sure, you know, someone can twist the words of various of the popes and councils and things like that, like Jerry Madotix does, and come to wrong conclusions.

01:07:06

But when you say the same thing about Scripture and say, OK, well, people can do that with Scripture, but does that mean that the

01:07:13

Scriptures are insufficient for the revelation of God's truth? They have to understand that's, well, no.

01:07:23

And so as a result, you have this self -refuting argument.

01:07:29

And they use it to destroy your confidence in the Scriptures and then hoping that your confidence hasn't just been completely destroyed so you become an atheist.

01:07:39

They want you then to place the same confidence in the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church.

01:07:46

But then, you see, a good debate in the future would be, can

01:07:51

Rome's own authority claims stand up to her critiques of Sola Scriptura?

01:07:57

In other words, can we apply the same standards to Rome? I mean, Patrick's favorite argument against Sola Scriptura is that it's a blueprint for anarchy.

01:08:07

Look at the modern spectrum of beliefs that parade in the name of Roman Catholicism. Doesn't that cause his argument to be self -refuting?

01:08:18

It would seem that it does, but we can't get them to defend those things, you see.

01:08:24

They prefer the monologue format than they do anything else. This is my point during that debate, that the

01:08:31

Catholic Church was given to us by God and given to us to fulfill a role.

01:08:39

One aspect of that role is the authentic interpretation of Sacred Scripture. Now some people might say, oh yeah, well then where does the

01:08:44

Catholic Church interpret the Bible? Now see, this demonstrates he has listened to at least what some people say, because how many verses have been infallibly interpreted by the

01:08:58

Roman Catholic Magisterium? Where is the infallible interpretation? Where is this commentary set of all these volumes where we are finally given the

01:09:11

Church's interpretation? Well, it doesn't exist, and we all know it doesn't exist, and some people think maybe seven verses have been infallibly interpreted.

01:09:22

There'll be others who say, nope, that's not the case. There has been no infallible interpretation of any text whatsoever.

01:09:31

We don't even know. Roman Catholics don't know. Roman Catholic apologists disagree on this very issue.

01:09:37

We don't have infallible interpretation of so many key texts.

01:09:45

We do have wacky interpretations of Luke 128 and things like that.

01:09:51

We have minority interpretations of Matthew 16 that go against the early

01:09:57

Church. Rome uses those, but why hasn't Rome produced this infallible interpretation?

01:10:04

Now, Patrick's going to take the weasel way out. We don't need that. You see, it's the

01:10:11

Church's liturgy. It's the practice of the Church, the teaching of the Church.

01:10:16

But the problem is, Patrick, that even you don't quite agree with many of your

01:10:22

Roman Catholic compatriots on your own interpretation of the teaching of the Church or what the liturgy means or the history.

01:10:30

You all don't have some unanimity here. It's a phantom, folks, and it's so sad to read all these converts who so easily abandoned their belief in the sufficiency of God's Word, that which

01:10:44

Jesus himself said could not be broken, and yet were then deceived into believing in the sufficiency of a system that can't even answer for you the major questions about what the

01:10:57

Bible teaches on old things like the sufficiency of grace and the nature of Christ's atonement, a system that itself is falling into, allowing for all sorts of viewpoints that clearly were never a part of its history before.

01:11:15

Look at the Roman Catholic inclusivism today. Tell me that's what the people of the Council of Constance believed, and I will say you're lying to me.

01:11:24

Language no longer has any meaning. If you can tell me that what Roman Catholic bishops and cardinals and priests today believe about inclusivism, about Islam—I have a clip here with the

01:11:37

Staples trying to explain the Islam thing again. It's so sad to listen to this. It is so clear that is not what was believed, even by popes only back in the 1800s.

01:11:50

And so it's a phantom. It's a vapor, this idea of the authority of the

01:11:58

Roman Church. In fact, remember the clip I've put on the YouTube page a number of times?

01:12:04

The end of my debate with Mitchell Pacwa. In fact, I would say to anybody—it'd be really interesting if someone should contact

01:12:11

Patrick Madrid and ask him, did you do a better job than Mitchell Pacwa did against James White and Sol Scriptura?

01:12:20

Because I would challenge anybody who just thinks that Madrid's job was just so super.

01:12:27

Listen to the debate with Mitch Pacwa. Here you've got someone significantly more scholarly than Patrick Madrid who isn't trying to talk past me and shift subjects.

01:12:39

Here's someone who is an official representative of the Church—Patrick Madrid is not ordained to my knowledge—and he didn't try to change the topic of the debate.

01:12:51

He actually engaged the debate as the debate was. And at the end of that debate, remember what

01:12:56

I did? I went around and I picked up my big—still got it sitting under my desk in the room—my big silver—it's now beat up because it's gone through so many cargo holds of aircraft in the process—but it's my big silver book bag.

01:13:11

And I got it out and I started dragging all these books out of my book bag and I got out the Code of Canon Law and I got out the

01:13:17

Documents of Vatican II and I got out the Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II and I got out the

01:13:22

Cans Decrees of the Council of—I had a stack, just a stack of books sitting there.

01:13:28

And I piled them all up, read what they were, piled them all up, and then I looked at the audience and I said, are you telling me that this pile of books makes

01:13:41

Romans 5 .1 clearer than when Paul penned the words and said that we are justified by faith and as—since we've been justified by faith—we have peace with God through our

01:13:56

Lord Jesus Christ? Are you telling me that this stack of books clarifies that or, as I believe, does it not muddy that and do so to a tremendous extent?

01:14:08

That's what I would ask people to do. I think it's pretty obvious what the answer is. They may say, well, there are only a handful of verses where the

01:14:16

Church has officially interpreted the Bible. That's missing the point because the Catholic Church doesn't need to say in some formal promulgation that always and henceforth this is going to be the one and only understanding of this particular passage.

01:14:33

That's not how the Church interprets Scripture. Why? What do you mean it's missing the point?

01:14:39

You make the argument, well, you need an interpretive voice to interpret what the

01:14:45

Scriptures say. That's the argument that you're making. And then when someone says, okay, so where is it?

01:14:54

You go, well, you're missing the point. That's the point you raised, wasn't it? What do you mean you're missing the point?

01:15:00

Is it possible maybe you're just baiting and switching? You're claiming you need this to have the

01:15:11

Bible. The Bible needs a living interpreter because evidently it's just really unclear in and of itself.

01:15:17

And there are Roman Catholics who have said exactly that. They've made that exact assertion.

01:15:26

But if that's the problem, then you have to be able to provide me with what you yourself are claiming

01:15:32

I need to have. And now when we ask you that, you go, well, you're missing the point.

01:15:38

Maybe you're baiting and switching. Maybe you're claiming that I need something you actually can't provide to me.

01:15:45

The Church interprets Scripture by living it. And when we talk about living it, we're talking about through the sacraments.

01:15:51

So through the Holy Eucharist, the belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Yeah, that'll help me interpret

01:15:57

John chapter 8. Sure. Yeah. The belief in baptismal regeneration, the baptizing of infants, the sacraments as such, the priesthood, the veneration of Mary and the saints, and all the different ways in which the

01:16:11

Church, quote unquote, interprets Scripture through its liturgies, and its prayers, and its teachings, and its tradition, quite frankly.

01:16:19

So all of that is bound up in this issue of the Church's authority to interpret Scripture. So if I'm correctly remembering the point that you're alluding to, and I may not be correctly remembering it, but if I am, that was what

01:16:32

I was trying to get at, is that Scripture is the ultimate authority in one sense.

01:16:39

What is that? But it requires another ultimate authority in a different way, and that is the Church that interprets Scripture, because Scripture doesn't interpret itself.

01:16:47

And if you start misinterpreting sacred Scripture, and let's say you start heading down the Jehovah's Witness path in denying the divinity of Jesus Christ, Scripture doesn't spank you on the wrist and say, oh, stop, you're misinterpreting me.

01:17:00

Amazing. Do the writings of the Roman Catholic Church spank you on the wrist and say, stop, you're misinterpreting me?

01:17:09

Why hasn't that worked at Boston College, where you have pretty much every theological perspective on the planet expressed by people who call themselves

01:17:16

Roman Catholics? How come it hasn't done that? And in fact, you know, to sort of bring this up to date,

01:17:23

I'm thankful that there have been Roman Catholics who have spoken out on the subject of abortion and certain really weird political leaders who have misrepresented

01:17:37

Roman Catholic teaching on that particular subject within the past seven days or less on a national platform.

01:17:46

I appreciate that, and I appreciate the strength of some of those statements that basically said that this particular female is clueless.

01:17:54

That's great. I only have one question. Why haven't these people been kicked out of the

01:17:59

Roman Catholic Church? I mean, you know, I hear people going, oh, it's so great that this bishop says that such and such person can't have can't can't attend mass in this particular city because of their views on abortion.

01:18:14

Why are they still a Roman Catholic at all? I mean, isn't that a fair question?

01:18:22

You can tout the alleged authority of Rome all you want, but it seems to me that you can pretty much ignore what

01:18:30

Rome teaches on this subject. And Rome's teaching on this subject is not unclear. It's amazing how clear

01:18:36

Rome can be on issues like that when she can't be clear on issues of the gospel. But why are these people allowed to continue to call themselves

01:18:46

Roman Catholics? Why haven't they been disciplined? Why haven't they been put out? Why haven't they been excommunicated? It seems to me someone's lacking the courage, their convictions, and it's called the hierarchy of the

01:18:58

Roman Catholic Church. So, you know, I can appreciate the fact that some people have stood up and said, no, that's that's not we believe this way, believe.

01:19:06

But if this person is a part of your church, why aren't you doing something about it?

01:19:13

Why are they allowed to do this kind of stuff without without any type of meaningful result?

01:19:19

I have just always found that a little bit odd. That's not how the written word operates. This is why we have the living church that that Christ himself established.

01:19:30

But you can't ask the living church that Christ established to actually interpret any of the Bible for you.

01:19:36

And when you do, they're going to do liturgy for you. And this is the answer to the question of how you keep people from misinterpreting the

01:19:48

Bible. But you can't stop people from misinterpreting your own writings. And when they do, you won't kick them out.

01:19:56

And this is Rome's great answer to the question of misinterpreting the

01:20:02

Bible. Now, you know, earlier he said, well, you know, if you start going down the road, Jehovah's Witnesses, excuse me, but you can't do that while believing in Sola Scriptura and Tota Scriptura, you see, because, see, the

01:20:15

Jehovah's Witness has to have his external authority. That's why he has to mistranslate the Bible in New World translation. That's why he needs the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses.

01:20:23

He can't do, you can't come up with Jehovah's Witness teaching by Sola Scriptura and Tota Scriptura. And that's the point,

01:20:29

Patrick. The Bible is sufficient to refute those teachings. And what really happens, you see,

01:20:35

I know that Patrick has an interest in Mormonism. He and I have both debated

01:20:40

Mormons in various contexts. I've debated a lot more than he has, but we've both done that kind of thing.

01:20:47

And you see, the difference between us is he has his ultimate authority and he says his ultimate authority makes him right.

01:20:53

And the Mormon has his ultimate authority. He says his ultimate authority makes him right. And they really can't ever accomplish anything because it's not the scriptures, that which is theanustos, that which is

01:21:05

God breathe, that is actually making the difference in that kind of a context.

01:21:11

And so Patrick can't help a Mormon. You pull a Mormon out of Mormonism and throw them into Roman Catholicism.

01:21:18

It's out of the frying pan and the fire, as far as that's concerned, because you're just replacing one false ultimate authority with another false ultimate authority.

01:21:27

To assist us with making sure that we rightly and faithfully interpret sacred scripture. Now, there's more that I can say, but we have other people holding, so I want to get to them.

01:21:36

But don't forget, you can get that debate. I strongly recommend you get that debate that I have. Yes, get that debate at www .aomin

01:21:43

.org. And you can read the entire transcript. Also in the articles section, you can read my rebuttal to the white man's burden.

01:21:52

Get all of it. And then get the debate that took place the year before between myself and Jerry Manitik on the soul of scripture.

01:21:59

You know what? I just realized we don't have that available anymore. The 1992 Omaha debate. I don't think we have that.

01:22:06

You sure? No, maybe. I don't think that we do.

01:22:13

I think we replaced that with the 95 version. 96 version. What's that? No, I'm not thinking.

01:22:20

Well, no, that's true. No, I'm not thinking Long Beach. I'm thinking Omaha. But if we do, great, fine, whatever.

01:22:27

If you can get hold of it, listen to the debate that I did with Jerry Manitik on soul of scripture in 1992. A debate that Patrick Madrid told me before our debate in 1993 on the phone that I won.

01:22:38

He said, in fact, he called me and said, James, I must say this is the first time I have ever heard a

01:22:43

Protestant win a debate on soul of scripture. It's fascinating how many of these Roman Catholics will tell me

01:22:50

I beat other Roman Catholics, but they're 2 -0 or 5 -0 or whatever it is they are in their debates with me.

01:22:58

They've all defeated me, even though they're pretty much using the same arguments. It is there? Number 440.

01:23:04

OK, good. Listen to number 440. And which one is the one with Patrick in San Diego?

01:23:11

So get number 440, which should be in the MP3 section. And then listen to the

01:23:17

San Diego debate. Listen to them in order. I get the 92, then the 93. Then listen to the debate with Jerry Manitik from 96 on soul of scripture, and then 99 with Mitch Pacwa from San Diego on soul of scripture.

01:23:33

Listen to all of them and ask yourself a question. Which Roman Catholic apologists actually stuck to the subject?

01:23:38

And was a consistent testimony given all the way through those debates by yours truly?

01:23:47

I certainly hope there was. I certainly hope I got better. I certainly hope that by 1999,

01:23:55

I can do a better job defending soul of scripture than I did in 1990. That was the first debate

01:24:00

I did in August, I believe it was, in Long Beach against Jerry Manitik. I certainly learned a lot in those nine years, no question about it.

01:24:11

And so I hope I did better. I hope I was clearer. If the first debate you did was your best debate, that's not a good thing.

01:24:19

That's not a good thing at all. But listen to them. And do some reading.

01:24:27

Do some in -depth reading. Not just for a short period of time, but some in -depth reading. And see for yourself.

01:24:33

I think you'll find that it's a little bit different than what Mr. Madrid has to say.

01:24:39

Did you catch any of those there, Rich? You get any numbers there? Well, see, unfortunately, my screen's not big enough to have all those.

01:24:51

454 is the debate in San Diego. Okay, good. 454 is the debate there. They're all there.

01:24:56

Look them up. Use the search thing. Hit the advanced thing so you can check that it can search descriptions, too.

01:25:03

And that's how to normally track those type of things down. Hey, we did 90 minutes. We just do 90 minutes every single week.

01:25:11

Well, we only did it once, but we could do an hour and a half. That's a long time, but thanks for listening today. And Lord willing, we'll be back again next week.

01:25:19

Keep an eye out on the blog for more information, especially the San Diego portion of the Muslim debates that are coming up in only less than a month.