March 17, 2017

Moses3
Moses with the Ten Commandments (1648), by Philippe de Champaigne (1602-1674) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
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(5-11-05)

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[see all the other installments of this multi-part debate on my James White web page: second section]

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Mr. White’s words will be in blue; my former words in green.

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I am now replying to White’s Part III.

We continue reviewing Dave Armstrong’s comments on Matthew 23. He continues with a citation from my book, The Roman Catholic Controversy, p. 101, on p. 47 of The Catholic Verses. However, he does not provide some key elements of the material he is citing, so I will provide the paragraph, but will bold what was skipped, or not included, in the citation:

This appears to be the tired old charge of citing out of context. Not every instance of partial citation is incorrect or out-of-context citation. But it is one of the oldest rhetorical tricks in the book. Let’s see if White can make a positive case that I have misrepresented him at all or neglected “key elements” in his presentation. It is all the more comic and ironic, that a man who habitually ignores his opponents’ arguments and skips over huge amounts of the others’ words to rush to what he wishes to express (the present exchange is no exception to that rule), would nitpick about someone not citing absolutely every one of his words. Here is his citation, as he wishes it to be:

Indeed, the Lord’s unwillingness to become an “ecclesiastical rebel” is in perfect harmony with the Scriptural teaching on the subject of authority in the church. There was nothing in the tradition of having someone read from the Scriptures while sitting on Moses’ seat that was in conflict with the Scriptures, and hence, unlike the corban rule which we saw earlier in Matthew 15, Jesus does not reject this traditional aspect of Jewish synagogue worship. He does not insist upon anarchy in worship in the synagogue anymore than His apostle Paul would allow for it in the worship of the church at Corinth. It is quite proper to listen to and obey the words of the one who reads from the Law or the Prophets, for one is not hearing a man speaking in such a situation, but is listening to the very words of God.

Now, it is a measure of Armstrong’s understanding of the issues involved in exegesis that he responds in these words:

This is true as far as it goes, but it is essentially a non sequitur and amounts to a “reading into,” or eisegesis of the passage (which is ironic, because now White plays the role of “a man speaking” and distorting “the very words of God”).

And he is merely assuming what he is trying to prove, which is no logical argument; it’s a fallacy.

He then repeats the text, as if this somehow proves his point.

The point was that the text was more general than white’s arbitrary restriction of it, in order to conform to the arbitrary and unbiblical notion of sola Scriptura, and the rejection of Tradition as understood by the Church throughout the centuries.

Now I am going to try to read Armstrong’s work in the most positive light and assume that the next few pages, as they have paragraphs starting with “first” and “second” and so on, are his attempt to substantiate the assertion that my words are reading into the text something that is not there.

How thoughtful of him . . . imagine the novelty of granting one’s opponent the courtesy of acknowledging that he means what he obviously means.

Of course, to do this, he will have to do something more than just assume his own reading is exegetically sound. He will have to provide solid, positive argumentation.

That’s right, and this works both ways, doesn’t it?

Let’s see how well he fares. His first paragraph reads:

First, it should be noted that nowhere in the actual text is the notion that the Pharisees are only reading the Old Testament Scripture when sitting on Moses’ seat. It is an assumption gratuitously smuggled in from a presupposed position of sola Scriptura.

Quite true, but does it not likewise follow that it is a gratuitous assumption that Jesus is actually telling His disciples to embrace extra-biblical traditions that parallel Rome’s—an assumption smuggled in from a presupposed position of sola ecclesia?

First of all, “sola ecclesia” is a false description of the Catholic system of authority. This is not a Catholic term (whereas sola Scriptura is the Protestant;’s own terminology for his principle). We don’t believe in “Church alone.” We believe in the “three-legged stool” of Bible, Church, and Tradition, which is quite a different concept indeed. But White seems to think that he succeeds in rational argument by caricaturing opposing positions. The implicit reasoning seems to be: “if you don’t accept Bible Alone, you must believe in Church alone,” as if there are not other possible positions besides this stark contrast: one extreme to another.

Secondly, I agree that everyone has presuppositions that they bring to the table. But the presuppositions have to be tested to see if they can stand up, and if they are harmonious with biblical teaching. Whether “extra-biblical traditions” are involved remains to be proven; that’s what our discussion is largely about. White’s task, however, in line with his own beliefs, is to prove that they are definitely not involved, and he can’t do that by simply assuming without argument his system of sola Scriptura, which rules out such an eventuality beforehand. Thus far, he has given no one any reason to believe that such traditions are absolutely absent in the New Testament accounts under consideration.

Thirdly, it should be noted that in my book, I am critiquing White’s attempt to deny that extra-biblical Tradition could possibly be in play in these passages. All I have to do is cast doubt on his “proofs” along these lines, and show that they are not adequate to their task. Technically (i.e., logically), I don’t even have to prove that such traditions are there, in order to refute his argument, because his reasoning is somewhat similar to the following scenario:

1. James says he can prove that there are no children in the schoolyard from 2 to 3 PM.
2. His proof is that the school allows children there only from 12 to 1 PM.
3. Therefore, no children are there from 2 to 3.

Does this prove that no children are there from 2 to 3? Of course not. All it proves (assuming the documented truthfulness of #2) is that if children are there from 2 to 3, that it is against school rules. It doesn’t prove that no children are there, because it has simply assumed what it is trying to prove, by appeal to a rule which may or may not be broken in fact or actuality. It doesn’t rest upon actual observation of the schoolyard. Likewise, a critic of the argument does not have to prove that a child was actually there from 2 to 3, to disprove the above argument, because it is fallacious of its own accord.

The analogy to the present case are as follows:

children = extra-biblical traditions
schoolyard = Christianity
school rules concerning what is permitted = sola Scriptura
conclusion (#3) = presupposed, unproven, axiomatic, dogmatic assertions of Protestantism with regard to what is permitted and not permitted in Christianity

All this being the case, both sides have to strive to make a plausible biblical case for their own position. Since the Bible is the authority both sides agree upon, it is the “field” where the argument can succeed, using the agree-upon standard of Divine Revelation.

Remember, the Corban rule of Matthew 15, which Jesus specifically rejected on the basis of Scripture, was one of the Pharisees’ favorite “Mosaic traditions,” claiming divine authority. Was Jesus contradicting Himself? Surely not. And so the point clearly is, what understanding of the text is consistent with Jesus’ own practices when faced with such things as the Corban rule elsewhere?

This doesn’t prove White’s contentions of “no extra-biblical traditions” at all, because to prove that Jesus opposed one tradition doesn’t say anything at all about whether He opposed all such traditions. He Himself made this distinction clear in Mark 7:3-9. St. Paul also makes it abundantly clear that there is a legitimate tradition and a false tradition of men. So White can’t simply assume that the “approved” category of tradition is nonexistent. This is exceedingly weak reasoning; in fact, it proves nothing whatsoever.

Secondly, the specific example of the Corban rule (Matthew 15:5) is actually simply another proof that Jesus did not reject all tradition (which is the issue at hand), and this is quite simple to demonstrate. He was rebuking this particular Pharisaical tradition as a corruption of the larger tradition of proper sacrifice, which He did not abrogate at all; quite the contrary: He continued to participate in the old sacrificial system. Thus, The New Bible Dictionary (edited by J. D. Douglass, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1962) states:

The Old Testament sacrifices . . . were still being offered during practically the whole period of the composition of the New . . . Important maxims are t be found in Mt. 5:23-24, 12:3-5 and parallels 17:24-27, 23:16-20; 1 Cor. 9:13-14. it is noteworthy that our Lord has sacrifice offered for Him or offers it Himself at His presentation in the Temple, at His last Passover, and presumably on those other occasions when He went up to Jerusalem for the feasts. The practice of the apostles in Acts removes all ground from the opinion that after the sacrifice of Christ the worship of the Jewish Temple is to be regarded as an abomination to God. We find them frequenting the Temple, and Paul himself goes up to Jerusalem for Pentecost, and on that occasion offers the sacrifices (which included sin-offerings) for the interruption of vows (Acts 21; cf. Nu. 6:10-12). (p. 1122 in article, “Sacrifice and Offering”)

I thought the reader might appreciate a little balance being gained as to whether Jesus opposed all tradition. White wants to mention only the times where Jesus rejected one particular tradition. It’s important to get the whole New Testament picture and not just one small part of it, ignoring the rest.

Is it Armstrong’s, or that which sees this as the beginning of the condemnation of the Pharisees that takes up the rest of Matthew 23, and hence is actually restricting the authority of the Pharisees?

Matthew 23 is not necessarily about “restricting the authority of the Pharisees” at all. It is about Pharisaical hypocrisy, as anyone who knows the passage at all, is well aware, and also about their legalistic corruptions of the legitimate Mosaic Law (which is what Jesus found hypocritical). But condemning hypocrisy and corruption is not the same as condemning the thing that they are being hypocritical about and distorting.

The fact remains (and it is obvious in the New Testament) that much of the Pharisaical tradition was retained by Christianity (as sanctioned by our Lord Jesus and St. Paul). I wrote about this in my second published book: More Biblical Evidence for Catholicism:

PHARISEES, SADDUCEES AND THE NATURE OF TRUE JEWISH TRADITION

Many people do not realize that Christianity was derived in many ways from the Pharisaical tradition of Judaism. It was really the only viable option in the Judaism of that era. Since Jesus often excoriated the Pharisees for hypocrisy and excessive legalism, some assume that He was condemning the whole ball of wax. But this is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Likewise, the Apostle Paul, when referring to his Pharisaical background doesn’t condemn Pharisaism per se.

The Sadducees, on the other hand, were much more “heretical.” They rejected the future resurrection and the soul, the afterlife, rewards and retribution, demons and angels, and predestinarianism. Christian Pharisees are referred to in Acts 15:5 and Philippians 3:5, but never Christian Sadducees. The Sadducees’ following was found mainly in the upper classes, and was almost non-existent among the common people.

The Sadducees also rejected all ‘oral Torah,’ — the traditional interpretation of the written that was of central importance in rabbinic Judaism. So we can summarize as follows:

a) The Sadducees were obviously the elitist “liberals” and “heterodox” amongst the Jews of their time.

b) But the Sadducees were also the sola Scripturists of their time.

c) Christianity adopted wholesale the very “postbiblical” doctrines which the Sadducees rejected and which the Pharisees accepted: resurrection, belief in angels and spirits, the soul, the afterlife, eternal reward or damnation, and the belief in angels and demons.
d) But these doctrines were notable for their marked development after the biblical Old Testament Canon was complete, especially in Jewish apocalyptic literature, part of Jewish codified oral tradition.

e) We’ve seen how — if a choice is to be made — both Jesus and Paul were squarely in the “Pharisaical camp,” over against the Sadducees.

f) We also saw earlier how Jesus and the New Testament writers cite approvingly many tenets of Jewish oral (later talmudic and rabbinic) tradition, according to the Pharisaic outlook.

Ergo) The above facts constitute one more “nail in the coffin” of the theory that either the Old Testament Jews or the early Church were guided by the principle of sola Scriptura. The only party which believed thusly were the Sadducees, who were heterodox according to traditional Judaism, despised by the common people, and restricted to the privileged classes only.

The Pharisees (despite their corruptions and excesses) were the mainstream, and the early Church adopted their outlook with regard to eschatology, anthropology, and angelology, and the necessity and benefit of binding oral tradition and ongoing ecclesiastical authority for the purpose (especially) of interpreting Holy Scripture.

I have more material along these lines, included in my article, Rabbinic Credentials of Jesus and St. Paul:

Jesus Himself followed the Pharisaical tradition, as argued by Asher Finkel in his book The Pharisees and the Teacher of Nazareth (Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1964). He adopted the Pharisaical stand on controversial issues (Matthew 5:18-19, Luke 16:17), accepted the oral tradition of the academies, observed the proper mealtime procedures (Mark 6:56, Matthew 14:36) and the Sabbath, and priestly regulations (Matthew 8:4, Mark 1:44, Luke 5:4). This author argues that Jesus’condemnations were directed towards the Pharisees of the school of Shammai, whereas Jesus was closer to the school of Hillel.

The Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem: 1971) backs up this contention, in its entry “Jesus” (v. 10, 10):

In general, Jesus’ polemical sayings against the Pharisees were far meeker than the Essene attacks and not sharper than similar utterances in the talmudic sources.

This source contends that Jesus’ beliefs and way of life were closer to the Pharisees than to the Essenes, though He was similar to them in many respects also(poverty, humility, purity of heart, simplicity, etc.).

The answer is clear. If Armstrong is going to claim an exegetical basis for Rome’s position, he cannot simply assume it. So far, that is all he is doing.

I provided more than enough of that, in my (admittedly biased) opinion, to cast significant doubt on White’s argument, in the book. Even if I didn’t provide sufficient exegetical argument in the book, I certainly have added much biblical cross-referencing and relevant data in this paper (far more than White’s brief, passing references, such as to the Corban rule), which White would have to deal with, if he thinks his argument can withstand the scrutiny of proper examination. But it is almost a certainty that this dialogue will never get to the stage of a second round, judging by virtually all past experience with White for ten years. As soon as the discussion gets really interesting and biblical and logical, he is no longer interested, and either flees altogether or becomes insulting. I don’t blame him, since he has such a weak and insubstantial case, in the present instance.

In any event, I submit that I have provided far more biblical support for my position than White has for his, at least as far as we have gotten. Perhaps he’ll produce a “golden bullet” in subsequent installments. I keep waiting for at least an attempt, but it never comes . . .

March 17, 2017

Moses3
Moses with the Ten Commandments (1648), by Philippe de Champaigne (1602-1674) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
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(5-7-05)

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[see all the other installments of this multi-part debate on my James White web page: second section]

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Mr. White’s words will be in blue; my former words in green.

***

In the previous installment of this series I provided an introduction and the comments I made in The Roman Catholic Controversy regarding the use of Matthew 23:1-3 by Roman Catholic apologists. Let’s make sure we understand what is required of the Roman Catholic apologist in order to substantiate their claims. First, there needs to be an identifiable oral tradition regarding “Moses’ Seat” that is passed down outside of Scripture. This tradition must grant to the scribes and Pharisees some kind of authority that is not given in Scripture itself,

It’s not necessary that it is not in Scripture; only that it is in harmony with Scripture, and something alongside it, which is not opposed to it, and is, to the contrary, sanctioned by it.

and Jesus must be making reference to this tradition, and the resultant authority, and binding His followers thereto. Is that what is going on in Matthew 23?

Something very un-Protestant is “going on” here! I believe that at the very least it is a difficulty, or difficult to explain, within a Protestant position.

Let’s see if Dave Armstrong can provide a positive defense or, will he do what most of the rest of his compatriots do: hope that an attack upon the text will be sufficient to confuse their followers into thinking they have actually provided a meaningful defense of their claims.

Interesting cynical touch . . . Yes, I and “most of the rest of” my “compatriots” sit around at night dreaming up fanciful ways that we can “attack” the biblical text, so as to confuse and mislead our “followers.” Is that really what White thinks motivates me and other Catholic apologists and commentators? Apparently so, or he wouldn’t have written such a ludicrous thing. I don’t (for what it’s worth) reciprocate the cynicism. I think White (like most devoted Bible students) sincerely believes that he is interpreting the passage to the best of his abilities, and is trying his best to respect it and let it speak for itself. I think he’s dead wrong in his opinion, but I don’t have to attack his very motivations and modus operandi with uncharitable speculations, putting the worst spin on everything he does. That’s a major difference between Mr. White and I, and this hostile predisposition will no doubt color his comments throughout (just as I noted in my book with regard to historic Protestant exegesis).

Armstrong begins:

Jesus teaches that the scribes and Pharisees have a legitimate, binding authority, based on Moses’ seat, which phrase (or idea) cannot be found anywhere in the Old Testament. It is found in the (originally oral) Mishna, where a sort of teaching succession from Moses on down is taught. Thus, apostolic succession, whereby the Catholic Church, in its priests and bishops and popes, claims to be merely the custodian of an inherited apostolic Tradition, is also prefigured by Jewish oral tradition, as approved (at least partially) by Jesus himself.

So we see that Armstrong takes “the whole enchilada,” so to speak, and sets the highest bar possible, even “prefiguring” Roman apostolic Tradition in the Jewish form, though, he seems to allow a small out for himself with the parenthetic statement, “at least partially.” It is hard to know what this refers to at this point.

Mr. White, being the Bible scholar and exegete that he is, is certainly not unfamiliar with the notion of typology in Holy Scripture (though you’d never know that, reading the above). The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia ([ISBE] a Protestant work, as will be all sources that I cite, unless indicated otherwise: edited by James Orr, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1956), discusses biblical “types”:

The Bible furnishes abundant evidence of the presence of types and of typical instruction in the Sacred Word. The NT attests this fact. It takes up a large number of persons and things and events of former dispensations, and it treats them as adumbrations and prophecies of the future. A generation ago a widespread interest in the study of typology prevailed . . .

. . . A type . . . must be a true picture of the person or the thing it represents or prefigures . . . A type always prefigures something future. A Scriptural type and predictive prophecy are in substance the same, differing only in form. This fact distinguishes between a symbol and a type. A symbol may represent a thing of the present or of the past as well as of the future, e.g., the symbols in the Lord’s supper. A type always looks to the future; an element of prediction must necessarily be in it. (Vol. 5, p. 3029)

Presbyterian pastor and writer Peter J. Leithart, writing in First Things (November 1997, 12-13), noted that modern evangelicals tend to reject typology (note that the ISBE above stated that things were different a mere “generation ago”):

Modern scholarship has approached the Old Testament in a very different manner. Rejecting typology as fanciful and unscientific, many theologians have treated the Old Testament as a historical document with little or no religious significance for the Church.

. . . For all their real differences in approach to the Bible, evangelicals are at one with Protestant modernism in their rejection of typology and, frequently enough, in their belief that Christianity is more or less purely internal, a religion of unmediated individual contact with God.

But the Church Fathers interpreted the Bible quite differently, Leithart informs us, noting:

. . . the typological exegesis of the Bible practiced by patristic and medieval theologians. Typological interpretation assumes that events and institutions of the Old Testament present (to use Augustine’s terminology) “latent” pictures of Christ, and the Christ to whom the Old Testament testifies is the totus Christus: Head and Body, Jesus and his Church. In this, the fathers and medieval theologians fully agreed with Paul, who wrote that the history of Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness were “things written for our instruction.”

Following the apostolic example, the fathers taught that Israel and “daughter Jerusalem”—and all brides and harlots of Old Testament history—manifest the Church under various guises. . . . the fathers plundered the Old Testament to divine the patterns of history. Because the interpretive path runs from old Israel through Christ to the new Israel, moreover, typology assumes that the New Covenant, like the Old, is concerned with a concrete, historical community.

. . . The typological method—by emphasizing that the Church as a real historical institution and communion was prophesied and typified in the Old Testament—provides theological grounding for the Church’s efforts to discipline the state.

This has to do with historic exegesis (precisely what my book was about). James White is out of touch with the exegesis of the earliest Christians, even with St. Augustine (whom he views very highly indeed, as I could easily prove from his own remarks), and pre-modernist Protestants. Thus, my delving into typology in the course of the extended argument of my book seems something foreign to him. Typology is no novel notion, either for the Fathers or many evangelical commentators through the centuries, but it seems to be for Mr. White.

I can’t help that, but in any event, he is free to argue that some particular interpretation of mine is unreasonable and implausible, according to the usual cross-referencing, systematics, linguistic considerations, etc. That is an unobjectionable method, but dismissing all types and shadows altogether is quite a bit more difficult to do, in light of historic exegesis: both Catholic and Protestant.

Following these claims Armstrong lists five “anomalous facts” for Protestants, other passages he believes likewise refer to “extrabiblical and oral tradition acknowledged by the New Testament writers.” These include 1 Cor. 10:4 and the rock that followed Israel in the wilderness; 1 Pet. 3:19, where Armstrong assumes the passage is drawing from 1 Enoch, together with Jude 14_15 and the citation of 1 Enoch 1:9; Jude 9 and the dispute between Michael and Satan over Moses’ body; 2 Tim. 3:8 and the naming of Jannes and Jambres; James 5:17 and the information that the drought had lasted for three years.

White outlines my argument. I will actually cite it, so readers know exactly what I stated:

Other examples of extrabiblical and oral tradition acknowledged by the New Testament writers include:

* 1 Corinthians 10:4, where St. Paul refers to a rock which “followed” the Jews through the Sinai wilderness. The Old Testament says nothing about such miraculous movement, in the related passages about Moses striking the rock to produce water (Exod. 17:1-7; Num. 20:2-13). Rabbinic tradition, however, does.

* 1 Peter 3:19, where St. Peter describes Christ’s journey to Sheol/Hades (“he went and preached to the spirits in prison“), [and] draws directly from the Jewish apocalyptic book 1 Enoch (12-16). Jude 14-15 directly quotes from 1 Enoch 1:9, and even states that Enoch prophesied.

* Jude 9, which concerns a dispute between Michael the archangel and Satan over Moses’ body, cannot be paralleled in the Old Testament, and appears to be a recounting of an oral Jewish tradition.

* In 2 Timothy 3:8, the reference to Jannes and Jambres cannot be found in the related Old Testament passage (Exod. 7:8 ff.).

* James 5:17 mentions a lack of rain for three years, which is likewise absent from the relevant Old Testament passage in 1 Kings 17. (p. 44)

He concludes his list with these words:

Since Jesus and the Apostles acknowledge authoritative Jewish oral tradition (in so doing, raising some of it literally to the level of written revelation), we are hardly at liberty to assert that it is altogether illegitimate. Jesus attacked corrupt traditions only, not tradition per se, and not all oral tradition. According to a strict sola Scriptura viewpoint, this would be inadmissible, it seems to me. (p. 44)

Immediately the careful reader will note that there seems to be no difference at all in Armstrong’s thinking between “authoritative Jewish oral tradition,” non-authoritative Jewish oral tradition, and any historical story, whether oral or written.

This is highly curious and inexplicable, since in my very act of mentioning “authoritative Jewish tradition,” it follows by simple logic that there must be something to the contrary which I (and anyone) could and would label “non-authoritative Jewish oral tradition,” and indeed, my mention of “corrupt traditions” presupposes this. Yet White accuses me of not making the very distinctions that I clearly made. Go figure . . . this is what happens when the unfortunate tendency to caricature opponents runs head on into simple logic and carefully reading what one’s opponent actually wrote, before immediately dashing off to tear it apart. For in such a rush, what is “refuted” is often not what the opponent actually wrote or believes. And that creates all sorts of problems and weakness in arguments, and holes large enough to drive a truck through.

What “any historical story” is supposed to refer to, is anyone’s guess, since context makes abundantly clear that I was referring exclusively to Jewish tradition.

Likewise, he leaves untouched the issues relating to the citation of Enoch, for surely he knows Enoch as a whole is not canonical, hence, is he actually insisting that only a portion of Enoch contains some kind of authoritative, inspired material?

My argument doesn’t necessitate regarding all such material as “inspired”; only authoritative and true. Remember how I phrased that to which I was referring: “extrabiblical and oral tradition acknowledged by the New Testament writers.” An inspired biblical book might cite any number of non-inspired books as true, insofar as the portion cited is concerned. That’s exactly what happened in Jude 14-15, where 1 Enoch 1:9 is directly quoted (as the footnote for this verse in my Oxford Annotated RSV Bible states), and is described by the apostle as that which Enoch “prophesied.” Whether that counts as “inspired” or not, on that basis, I don’t know, and I’ll leave that technical question for the appropriate scholars to decide.

But it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that what is cited is true, and an instance of true prophecy not different in kind from a prophecy of Jeremiah or Isaiah: whose prophecies are recorded in inspired Old Testament Scripture. And that’s just the point, isn’t it? If Jeremiah’s prophecy is regarded as inspired because it is in the Bible (OT), then Enoch’s must likewise be, because it is in the Bible (NT). Therefore an “extrabiblical tradition” was “acknowledged by the New Testament writers,” and my contention is unassailable. White can only try to minimize the implications of this, and attempt to show that it all fits in perfectly with his Baptist, sola Scriptura conception of authority, but he can’t discount the fact of it, because there it is . . .

All of these passages have sparked a great deal of discussion in both Protestant and Catholic biblical scholarship, but none of that discussion is referenced here. An allegedly “straightforward” reading is all that is noted.

That’s correct. One can’t write about everything all the time, and one chooses what to emphasize, where, and how deeply to delve into the subject matter at hand. What does that have to do with anything? White’s task is to refute what I have presented. Perhaps he does that later, but he hasn’t yet done so, and making non sequitur points like this, doesn’t bring him any closer to the conclusion of his task. If he wants to deal with these passages, then he can make his argument, and I’ll surely respond. One thing at a time . . .

Armstrong moves from here to the specifics of his response to the material in The Roman Catholic Controversy by stating, “I shall quote the heart of his subtle but thoroughly fallacious argument.” He cites the very beginning of the comments, to the point where I note that there is no way to trace this alleged tradition back to Moses, since this refers to an element of synagogue worship that did not come into existence until only a few hundred years prior to the time of Christ. He then writes,

White agrees that the notion is not found in the Old Testament, but maintains that it cannot be traced back to Moses. Yet the Catholic argument here does not rest on whether it can be traced historically to Moses, but on the act that it is not found in the Old Testament. Thus, White concedes a fundamental point of the Catholic argument concerning authority and sola Scriptura.

White skipped over roughly a page of material (mostly my page 45), where I cited the commentator Albert Barnes at length, and also the Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown commentary, and also noted how Jesus distinguished between good and bad traditions. Since we are centering primarily on my critique of his argument, this is not a major concern.

Yet, on the other hand, it can often be observed in White’s replies to Catholics, that he will pick and choose what he wants to respond to, rather than reply to everything (his ignoring of those portions of his opponents’ arguments might reasonably be construed as indicating a possibility that they are difficult for him to answer, since he skipped over them more or less arbitrarily). The passages of NT citing of extrabiblical traditions were not technically related to White’s own presentation, either, but he saw fit to mention them.

While I wish to wait to respond to the full argumentation until after outlining Armstrong’s response, I must point out in passing that “admitting” that Jesus is making reference to a concept that developed during the intertestamental period is hardly relevant to sola scriptura nor is it a concession to a “fundamental point of the Catholic argument.” There is nothing in sola scriptura that requires the NT to be silent about developments during the intertestamental period. There is nothing in the doctrine that requires the Bible to remain silent on the form of synagogue worship. This is simply wishful thinking on Armstrong’s part, once again.

I wasn’t arguing those things; rather, the topic at hand is whether there is an authoritative extrabiblical tradition, acknowledged by Jesus and the apostles. If some parts of those traditions can be cited as true in the NT, then it stands to reason that other parts can be true (and hence, authoritative) without being cited in the NT. White simply assumes without argument that anything which is fully authoritative must be in the Bible. But since that is the issue in dispute, assuming it does no good. It has to be rationally demonstrated, with biblical support. I’ve been providing biblical support for my contentions. But these complex points of consideration will obviously have to wait till White presents his “full” response. I presume it will eventually be forthcoming, since White’s response consisted of eight parts.

Further, unless I misread Armstrong, he saw a “prefigurement” of the Roman position in the Jewish one regarding tradition; yet, the Jews claimed their traditions did, in fact, go back to Moses, and yet here it seems Armstrong is admitting that the Jews could be wrong about the very origin of their traditions, and yet Jesus would still find the tradition binding.

I argued no such (intrinsically nonsensical) thing. White read that into my statements because he didn’t understand them (a sadly common occurrence, as we’ve seen in past installments of this discussion, and will often see again, surely, largely because he vastly underestimates his opponents and considers them much more “ignorant” than they are in fact — see the Introduction for many examples). I was making a logical point, reiterating that the Catholic reply to White’s sola Scriptura arguments does not require proof that Jewish oral traditions go back to Moses; only that some of them were considered authoritative by Jesus and the apostles. For my part, I assume that they do go back to Moses, because that is part of the biblical (and historical) record, too, and the early Christians continued this tradition, over against the quasi-sola Scriptura position of the Sadducees, the “liberals” of their time). But that aspect was not logically required for this particular argument to be effective in its purpose of refutation.

Does it follow that Rome could admit her traditions do not go back to the Apostles but they are still binding? We are not told.

No (now you’ve been told). It was a silly query to begin with.

Next we encounter the following paragraph:

White then cites Protestant Bible scholar Robert Gundry in agreement, to the effect that Jesus was binding Christians to the Pharisaical law, but not “their interpretive traditions.” This passage concerned only “the law itself,” with the “antinomians” in mind. How Gundry arrives at such a conclusion remains to be seen. White’s query about the Catholic interpretation, “Is this sound exegesis?” can just as easily be applied to Gundry’s fine-tuned distinctions that help him avoid any implication of a binding extrabiblical tradition. (pp. 46-47)

One will note that this is at best a partial accounting of the views I noted; but beyond this, there is no meaningful interaction with Gundry’s exegesis. And given that I have worked through a number of attempted arguments made by Armstrong in this book, I believe I can say with some foundation that I do not believe Dave Armstrong understands what he would have to do to provide an exegetical response to Gundry or myself or anyone else. He simply does not understand the field. Writing “Is this sound exegesis?” and then in essence saying, “Well, you too!” is a poor substitute for meaningful exegetical interaction, that’s for certain.

Here we go with more of White’s sadly typical condescension and patronizing of his opponent, leading to lack of argument or no rational argumentation at all. It is “(wishful) meta-analysis” rather than reasoned refutation and a demonstration of exactly how an opponent is in error. Let me briefly illustrate how far this method of “reply” differs from actual dialogue. A non-dialogue, or “mutual monologue” runs as follows:

1. X presents position A with a multitude of biblical proof texts and historical evidences.

2. Y basically ignores or quickly dismisses X’s biblical proof texts and historical evidences for position A with a one-sentence “reply” and proceeds to present position B with a multitude of alternate biblical proof texts and historical evidences.

Or, in a briefer form:

1. A
2. Not-A.

This is (sadly, too often) White’s frequent method. But real dialogue (which is what I seek), proceeds in a very different way:

1. X presents position A with a multitude of biblical proof texts and historical evidences.

2. Y offers alternative and (so he thinks) superior explanations of each of X’s biblical proof-texts and historical evidences, and then presents his own biblical proof texts and historical evidences for position B.

3. X offers alternative and (so he thinks) superior explanations of each of Y’s biblical proof-texts and historical evidences, counter-responds to the critique of his own previously-stated biblical proof texts and historical evidences, and then presents more of his own biblical and historical proofs (if he has any more on the subject).

4. Y again offers alternative explanations of X’s contentions, and/or counter-responds to X’s counter-response (or concedes the argument if position A is superior) . . . Etc.

5. X does the same in turn (if Y is still maintaining his position) and either proceeds or concedes the argument if position B is superior . . . Etc.

This is how the present discussion ought to proceed, if it is to be at all constructive and worthwhile. But will it? Judging from ten years’ past experience with Mr. White, it is highly unlikely, yet there’s always a first time . . . In any event, my method is the second one above; I welcome challenges, and relish arguing for what I think is a superior and true position, rather than ignoring and belittling my opponent as an ignoramus, in over his head, and presenting my positions as a preacher rather than as a disputant or person who provides reasoned argumentation in response to the other.

March 16, 2017

Moses3
Moses with the Ten Commandments (1648), by Philippe de Champaigne (1602-1674) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
***

(5-5-05)

***

[see all the other installments of this multi-part debate on my James White web page: second section]

***

Mr. White’s words will be in blue; my former words in green.

***

Let’s Get the Word Games Out of the Way . . .
*

One of Mr. White’s ongoing criticisms of my writing is that there is too much of it, and that I seek to overwhelm opponents by sheer tonnage of words. Hence, in our last exchange, he wrote, on 12-29-04:

Now, of course, DA will respond with text files (liberally salted with URL’s) that will average 10x the word count of anything I have to say. That’s OK. I shall . . . let him take home the bragging rights to verbosity and bandwidth usage.

Since he wanted to make this charge, I was determined to write less than his total words in my responses throughout. I did indeed do this, so that at the end of those multiple exchanges, the tally was as follows:
*
White: 7962 words / Armstrong: 5110 words (or 64% as many as White’s words, or White outwriting Armstrong by a 1.56 to one margin — roughly three words for every two that I wrote)

My percentage of words over against White’s, compared to his “average” prediction: 6.0% (5110 actual, compared to a predicted 79,620 / 16 times less)Following up on this objective measure of what is actually occurring in these discussions, I thought it would be interesting to see what the tallies were for the present topic. It’s even more lopsided this time. The section in my book, The Catholic Verses, which was devoted to White’s argument, was 2,259 words. White’s eight-part response was 8,249 words, or 3.65 times longer than what he was responding to (whereas my last total response was only 64% as long as White’s material to which I replied). My argument from my book was, then, 27% as lengthy as White’s reply to it.

If I follow White’s “outwrite the other guy” method, I would produce roughly 30,109 words in the upcoming installments. It’s highly unlikely, however, that I will need nearly that many in order to refute his argument. I just wanted to prove that White too often practices what he preaches against. That said, I won’t feel constrained to write less words than him (that point having been proven), but I certainly won’t write 3.65 times more than his words.

I shall now respond to White’s paper: The Catholic Verses: Matthew 23:1-3 (Part I) (1-22-05):

This will be my final installment in response to Dave Armstrong’s The Catholic Verses [italics added presently]. It is not that there are not many more passages that could be addressed, it is just that there is so very little actual exegesis in the book that the real essence of its self-enunciated claim to provide a defense of the Roman Catholic exegesis of the text of Scripture has already been refuted, repeatedly, and there is no reason to proverbially beat the dead horse.

As I pointed out many times in the earlier debates over my book (obviously to no avail, which is a rather annoying and frustrating characteristic of debates with White: he habitually ignores one’s clarifications and corrections, even of plain factual matters: this is virtually universally reported by Catholics who have debated him), the book is not, technically, about, or consisting of, exegesis per se. He has never grasped this. The fundamental purpose of the book is actually quite different. I explained in my Introduction:

I shall now proceed to offer a critique of common Protestant attempts to ignore, explain away, rationalize, wish away, over-polemicize, minimize, de-emphasize, evade clear consequences of, or special plead with regard to “the Catholic Verses”: ninety-five biblical passages that provide the foundation for Catholicism’s most distinctive doctrines. This is not a scholarly work, as I am no scholar in the first place, merely a lay Catholic apologist; but it is not “anti-scholarly,” and I will incorporate scholarship wherever necessary to substantiate the argument.

We see, then, what the purpose is. It is more of a logical critique of Protestant exegesis and particular tendencies and manifest biases in dealing with certain “Catholic-sounding” verses. It’s a somewhat subtle distinction, but a very important one, for our purposes. If White doesn’t even comprehend the fundamental nature and methodology of my book, then he can hardly offer a compelling refutation of any part of it with which he deals. One must first understand what one purports to refute. That’s rule number one in any debate, and I think White (as a frequent debater, who clearly prides himself on being very good at it) would readily agree with that general principle. I know what my own book is about (as the world’s greatest expert on my own book), and if White did also, then he would cease misrepresenting (inadvertently or not; I assume the former) what it was about.

He keeps harping on what he seems to think is the plain fact that I wouldn’t know how to do proper exegesis if my life depended on it. Well, that may or may not be true. Since I don’t claim to be a scholar who specializes in exegesis (or a scholar at all), and my arguments don’t depend on that fact, it is a rather moot point. The book is not a commentary. It is a reasoned critique of flaws in historic, mainstream orthodox Protestant commentary; especially those having to do with prior biases brought to the task of exegesis itself.

And one can do that — point out simple logical flaws and evasions — without having to be an expert on exegesis, or a Bible scholar (that would obviously help, but it’s not absolutely necessary for my particular purpose). One simple example will suffice in illustrating this point. I may not know the slightest thing about trigonometry or calculus. But if I, as an observer of a math professor, notice that there is a simple mathematical error in a complex equation or proof written out by the expert (say, 3 x 4 = 14), it is quite proper and not at all presumptuous for me to point that out, and “correct” the expert. I don’t have to know everything there is to know about trigonometry or calculus, or know as much as the expert knows, or even (in this instance) anything at all about it. All I have to know is that 3 x 4 = 12, not 14. Complex, systematic errors can be built upon the simplest of logical errors. And non-experts can point these out.

Likewise, when it comes to historic exegesis and commentary on Holy Scripture, I don’t have to be an expert on how to interpret such-and-such a Bible passage (with knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, and eight years of theology, New Testament, Old Testament, etc., etc.) in order to note that someone is ignoring a key aspect of it, or introducing extraneous concerns that have little to do with the verse, or using it to lodge yet another gratuitous and textually irrelevant “dig” at Rome, etc. I don’t need to be as brilliant as Calvin and Luther obviously were, in the neutral, non-polemical sense of loving and interpreting Scripture, and providing many true insights which we as Catholics would agree with. It simply doesn’t follow.

My book had to do with logical critiques and examinations of underlying assumptions which Protestants bring to the “table of exegesis,” and various techniques that are used to dismiss implications that are thought to be too “Catholic.” The book is filled with examples of this. It’s useless to present twenty of them. One would have to buy the book. But that is the methodology of it.

I think the central approach and thesis of the book is brilliant. I can say that because it wasn’t my initial idea at all. My publisher, Sophia Institute Press, came up with it, and asked me to write the book. I quickly “took” to the idea and became quite enthusiastic about it. It’s a unique approach and type of apologetic that no one else has yet tried, to my knowledge. But it’s not exegesis per se. It is about exegesis (meta-exegesis, if you will), not exegesis itself. It is much more about human bias, and the effect of prior theologies and predispositions upon exegesis, than about exegesis of texts (considered in isolation). In that way it is even somewhat of a psychological analysis, as it deals with our axioms and presuppositions, and how they affect our interpretations (sometimes leading to outright eisegesis). In any event, as long as White keeps falsely claiming that it is simply an exegetical work, he is grossly misrepresenting the book and making a massive straw man, which strikes me as quite odd, for one who is an author himself, of many books.

One would think that he could at least get the central purpose of the book right, before proceeding to critique it. But this ties into my point, too: White despises Catholicism as the purveyor of a “false gospel,” so in this instance he has distorted even the purpose and nature of a work which defends what he despises. His overwhelming bias disables him from providing a cogent critique. He feels he has to discredit the argument at all costs, even if he falsely portrays it (and myself) in so doing. This need not be deliberate (bias works quite well subconsciously), but it is a strong influence nonetheless, whether deliberate or not. Anti-Catholicism will do it’s dirty work, every time. And it becomes as easy as breathing, after years of practice.

White has issued endless remarks about how “ignorant” and clueless I am when it comes to the Bible (as we saw in my compilation of his potshots in the Introduction), so I thought it was important to deal with this misguided notion that he has, at some length, right at the beginning of my replies, so readers (especially those who haven’t read my book) will be under no delusions as to what my book is about; what it is actually dealing with, subject-wise.

For example, in the sections relevant to soteriology I would be more than happy for someone to compare the “exegesis” offered by Armstrong with the relevant sections of The God Who Justifies.

As the purposes were fundamentally different in both works (as explained above), the comparison would be completely irrelevant (and invalid). But several people have done Catholic counter-exegesis of soteriological verses, and White has simply ignored them. For example, Ben Douglass recently wrote an excellent paper along those lines, and White blew it off, on the grounds that Ben is a traditionalist (a variation of his timeworn theme that someone isn’t “important enough” to waste his valuable time on).

That has nothing to do with the merits of his exegetical argument. On the other hand, if White declines merely because Ben is in a category that he doesn’t like, and has had bad experiences with (which I could understand), then how is that different from my decision not to debate anti-Catholics (the present instance being excluded, under my “point-by-point loophole”)? Yet White has constantly chided me for my decision, implying that I am a coward, and that it is a rationalization. Very well, then, if I am a “coward”, then so is White, when he refuses to interact with someone who has done a great deal of work in an area where White claims to be an expert.

But I promised to address the one section Armstrong had sent to me prior to the publication of the book. He had even invited me to interact with him on the topic, but I declined, in light of the character of his presentation (which we will note below).

Yet I am mocked by White and taunted for generally declining to interact with anti-Catholics: the sort of people who have now constructed fake blogs, using my name, pretending to be me, in an attempt to claim that I am a completely-obsessed “narcissist” or “moron” or that I “hate” my theological opponents, etc. Eric Svendsen (a major anti-Catholic apologist and good friend of White’s) just called me a “lunatic” on his discussion board today. I’ve been called “filth” and “scum” and had my apologetics characterized as “foaming-at-the-mouth” and so forth. I’ve had people say I don’t have a “real job” because I am a Catholic apologist; real charitable stuff.

So (quite naturally and reasonably, I think) I decided that people who express themselves in those terms (including White himself, but to a considerably lesser extent than the bilge cited above) are not worth interacting with. But White sees that decision and claims that it is really motivated by my fear and inability, and the brilliance of my opponents’ arguments (even stating that my Lenten break this year was due to his unanswerable arguments!). It’s one of White’s many double standards. He can do the same thing I do, and that’s fine. He’ll condemn and make fun of my reasoning for doing the exact same thing that he does. He decides that certain people are unworthy to debate; so do I. But in this case, his opinion was unreasonable: Ben’s category of traditionalist or how well-known he might happen to be at present has nothing to do with his arguments. White has no problem debating Gerry Matatics, who is also a traditionalist (and quite a bit to the right of Ben Douglass).

I refer to his section on pp. 43-53 on Matthew 23 and “Moses’ Seat.” Like the section on Luke 1:28, clearly Armstrong is drawing from his many Internet articles, cobbling together the most serious attempt mounted in the work. If he does not succeed here, he truly succeeds nowhere in The Catholic Verses.

It’s true that I worked very hard on this section, because White’s argument provided me with plenty of opportunity to point out serious error. But if I were a reader, I wouldn’t put too much stock in White’s generalizations about my book, seeing that he doesn’t even understand its fundamental purpose.

Matthew 23:1-4 1 Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, 2 saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; 3 therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. 4 “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.

Here White cites some unknown version of the Bible (he doesn’t tell us, and I don’t feel like rummaging through my 30 or so versions to find out). I thought it might be either the NASB or the NIV, but it was neither. In my book, I cited verses 1-3, in the RSV Bible:

Matthew 23:1-3: “Then said Jesus to the crowds and to his disciples, ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice.’”

Here begins the longest sustained condemnation of the spirit and practice of Pharisaism in all of Scripture. Indeed, so strong, so compelling is the condemnation here that this passage was embarrassing to many Continental New Testament scholars in post World War II Europe. For most in less conservative circles this passage is considered a later polemic of the Christian church, reflecting a reality many decades removed from the ministry of Jesus. But in reality Matthew 23 “fits” perfectly right where it is. Its broad outlines have been seen throughout the Gospel in the conflict with the Jewish leadership, and it then forms the foundation of the judgment coming upon Jerusalem that appears in chapter 24. The section to which Mr. Armstrong refers begins a long litany of woes pronounced upon the hypocritical attitudes of the scribes and Pharisees. It is, in essence, the introduction to the blistering section that is Matthew 23.

I have no particular beef with this, other than to note that Jesus’ condemnations of the Pharisees were of a general nature (there were many corrupt Pharisees), not necessarily of the entire system of Pharisaism itself, considered apart from the behavioral and attitudinal corruptions of the time. Indeed, many aspects of early Christianity were adopted more-or-less wholesale from Pharisaical tradition (rather than from the Sadducees). But Christians of White’s general school and outlook, usually take a very dim view of the Pharisees altogether, and don’t acknowledge these historical and theological nuances. This is where the influx of Jewish scholarship into New Testament studies and exegesis in recent decades has been very helpful.

I had briefly commented on this passage in The Roman Catholic Controversy, and it is to the following that Armstrong responds in The Catholic Verses:

*****

The final passage we will examine presents the idea of “Moses’ seat.” Some modern Roman Catholics present this passage as substantiation of the idea of a source of extra-biblical authority receiving the blessing of the Lord Jesus. It has been alleged that the concept of “Moses’ seat” is in fact a refutation of sola scriptura, for not only is this concept not found in the Old Testament, but seemingly Jesus gives His approbation to this extra-Scriptural tradition. But is this sound exegesis? Is this passage being properly understood?

First, we note that the passage has spawned a plethora of differing understandings amongst scholars. But a few items immediately remove the Roman apologist’s interpretation and application from consideration. First, “Moses’ seat” refers to a seat in the front of the synagogue on which the teacher of the law sat while reading from the Scriptures. Synagogue worship, of course, came into being long after Moses’ day, so those who attempt to make this an “oral tradition” going back to Moses are engaging in wishful thinking. Beyond this, we are here only speaking of a position that existed at this time in the synagogue worship of the day. Are we truly to believe that this position was divine in origin, and hence binding upon all who would worship God? It certainly doesn’t seem that the New Testament Church understood it that way.

We first note interpreters such as Jeremias and Carson view this passage as engaging in biting irony. The Jewish leaders have presumed to sit in Moses’ seat, as suggested by Merx, Moulton, and Zahn, focusing on the use of the aorist tense of the verb “to sit.” They sat themselves in this place, but improperly. Such an understanding is certainly in line with the biting attack that follows immediately in the rest of the chapter.

But I am more prone to accept Gundry’s understanding, in which he rejects the satirical interpretation and instead notes,

So long as sitting in Moses’ seat qualifies the speaking of the scribes and Pharisees, “all things whatever” does not include their interpretative traditions, but emphasizes the totality of the law. “Therefore” establishes the qualification. They do keep their traditions. But they do not practice what they speak while sitting on Moses’ seat. Hence their traditions are not in view. Though elsewhere Matthew is concerned to criticize the scribes’ and Pharisees’ interpretations of the law, here he is concerned to stress the necessity of keeping the law itself. As usual, his eye is on antinomians in the church. (Robert Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), pp. 454-455.)Indeed, the Lord’s unwillingness to become an “ecclesiastical rebel” is in perfect harmony with the Scriptural teaching on the subject of authority in the church. There was nothing in the tradition of having someone read from the Scriptures while sitting on Moses’ seat that was in conflict with the Scriptures, and hence, unlike the corban rule which we saw earlier in Matthew 15, Jesus does not reject this traditional aspect of Jewish synagogue worship. He does not insist upon anarchy in worship in the synagogue anymore than His apostle Paul would allow for it in the worship of the church at Corinth. It is quite proper to listen to and obey the words of the one who reads from the Law or the Prophets, for one is not hearing a man speaking in such a situation, but is listening to the very words of God. Indeed, when Ezra read the law to the people in Nehemiah chapter 8, the people listened attentively, and cried “Amen! Amen!” at the hearing of God’s Word. And who can forget the result of Josiah’s discovery of the book of the covenant in 2 Chronicles 34? It is proper to have men in positions of authority in the synagogue, just as in the Church. But Jesus points out that the listener is still to exercise a critical eye, for he is not to imitate the evil behavior of those who have been entrusted even with the sacred duty of leading the people of God in worship.

To leap from Jesus’ refusal to overthrow the form of synagogue worship that was present in His day to a wholesale endorsement of extra-scriptural, oral traditions is to make a leap of monumental proportions. And in light of the passages we have already examined that refute the need for such an extra-scriptural rule of faith, I suggest that the use of this passage by Roman apologists is in error.

*****

In our next section we will review Armstrong’s case on Matthew 23 and “Moses’ Seat.”

This is different from my copy of his book, dated 1996, so I assume that it is from a revision (or else White is cutting-and-pasting from a slightly different manuscript version of his own). In my copy, this (i.e., something similar to it) appears on pages 100-101. I’ve cited it in full in order to present his book remarks in their full context (and because I generally include all or almost all of my opponents’ words in dialogues, anyway). I won’t, however, respond at this point, since that is what I did in my book; I’ll wait till he makes his counter-argument, then I’ll cite my book as necessary.

March 16, 2017

Original title: “White House of Cards”: James White’s Critique of My Argument Concerning Moses’ Seat Shall Now be Thoroughly Answered

 Moses3
Moses with the Ten Commandments (1648), by Philippe de Champaigne (1602-1674) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
***

(5-5-05)

***

[see all the other installments of this multi-part debate on my James White web page: second section]

***

As White is fond of saying: “gird up your loins”! Having had enough of White’s falsehoods and tauntings about my supposed cowardice in the face of his first complete, point-by-point response to me in the entire ten years since we’ve known each other, I’ve decided that I will issue a full response to his recent series, critiquing a portion of my latest book, The Catholic Verses.

*

Let me remind those who never read (and/or never understood) it, of the following passage, that I expressed in early 2005:

Lastly, in order to maintain my unbroken principle of defending anything I write (if critiqued properly), I will continue to operate according to the following rules (listed on my blog):

I am absolutely committed to answering amiable, comprehensive, point-by-point (not scattershot, pick-and-choose “whatever I find easy to answer”) critiques of any of my papers or blog posts. I have made myself available on this blog for all rational, fact-respecting critiques and will place such exchanges (at least the more informative and interesting ones) on my website as well. I’m willing to listen to and interact with the critique, to place my critics’ words on my website, unabridged, and to publicly retract any proven errors and modify or remove papers (and/or apologize, if persons are involved) where necessary. And I’ve done all this many times in the past. My record speaks for itself. A person can do no more in terms of willingness to accept criticism and to be corrected. I don’t run from criticism and ignore it. To me, this involves a matter and principle of intellectual integrity, honesty, duty, and of a crucial openness to other viewpoints, challenges, and critiques.

I do this because it is very important not to insulate oneself from all criticism . . . Either someone (including even anti-Catholics, under these strict conditions) responds point-by-point, or I will not counter-reply at all, per the above. I will only record personal insults, in my ongoing effort to document exactly how anti-Catholics usually “argue” their ludicrous case.

So this “clause” or “loophole” [bolded above] was there all along [in my resolution to avoid arguing theology with anti-Catholics]. Contrary to the White lies we have been hearing for more than four months now, my reason for not fully replying was never fear or inability, but rather (as, of course, I stated) , because I tired of White’s incivility and incessant insults (particularly his charge of “knowing deception” on my part). That’s why I ceased interacting with his critique. He is no more “amiable” and no less insulting now, so I would still have grounds, by my own stated criteria, to continue to avoid him, but under the circumstances, I have decided that the best thing to do is to reply to his argument, and so put an end to this particular stream of untruths (and, I believe, his argument, as well).

I’ve never had the slightest problem refuting him in the past; but he has had plenty of trouble counter-responding, since he never has after I issued a counter-reply to him; that has always been true, without exception, for ten years. Yet he sees no hypocrisy in making this accusation towards me, knowing that I made a resolution (notwithstanding the loophole) to not dialogue with anti-Catholics, and knowing that I ceased because of his behavior, not his intellectual prowess or my alleged lack thereof.

Frankly, I’m fed up with his innuendoes and snide insinuations, and since it doesn’t violate my resolution to reply, I have decided to do so. (I was looking for a big fat new writing project, so the timing is good). White has certainly made an extensive, point-by-point reply in this instance (as will be seen below), and has written many more words than the seven-and-a-half page section in my latest book [The Catholic Verses] (pp. 46-53), concerning Moses’ Seat, where I disposed of an argument of his, from his 1996 book, The Roman Catholic Controversy. That fulfills the criterion, then, for a reply from me: since he dealt with this argument comprehensively in depth, for a change.

Therefore, while I continue to reserve the right to ignore his “scattershot” arguments (which is the nature of most of his critique of my book as a whole, where he scarcely deals with what I wrote and argued at all), per my resolution, I have no principled objection to counter-replying to his argument against the portion of my book where I critiqued an argument from his book.

This is the argument he issued after I made my new resolution (three weeks afterward), even though I informed him of it even before my book was published (and received mostly mockery and insult back, in a private letter). That’s why I’ve been criticizing him for waiting until I said I would no longer debate anti-Catholics, for finally responding with due depth.

[Note: White made his own resolution in 2001 to completely avoid me. Hypocritically, he didn’t abide by his own words, whereas I am simply following a sensible exception “loophole” that I allowed myself]

For the interest of a re-cap of the record, let’s revisit the many James White potshots that have occurred since January (all implying that his argument is so unvanquishable that I must be fleeing in terror. No other explanation could ever possibly be true, because, well, White doesn’t want it to be true . . .). His words below will be in blue:

Armstrong simply doesn’t understand the process of scholarly examination of a text, and as a result, runs headlong into walls trying to act like he does.

(The Catholic Verses: Luke 1:28 [Part II], 1-1-05)

This kind of utterly amazing mishandling of Scripture is sad to observe, let alone to realize it has appeared in publication. But to see how easily refuted it is should cause one to wonder at the power of tradition: . . . he doesn’t even seem to understand what would be necessary for him to establish such a claim, . . .

(The Catholic Verses: Luke 1:28 [Part III], 1-2-05)

. . . in reality, Dave Armstrong does not understand the basics of how to respond to sound, simple scholarly observations regarding the subject.

(The Catholic Verses: Luke 1:28 [Part IV], 1-3-05)

It is hard to find words to describe the response of Dave Armstrong to the review of his own published work. I mean, when you publish a book, do you expect that no one will respond to it, review it, check it for accuracy, examine it for apologetic coherence? . . . But I never dreamed that a total and complete melt-down would take place, resulting in Mr. Armstrong pulling the material off his blog and going into hiding! . . . We are asked to believe this was a “long time coming,” etc., but let’s face it: DA isn’t up to defending his published works. . . . DA can’t do meaningful exegesis, . . . fair-minded, serious folks can tell when you simply have given it your best and have failed at your task.

(James White: Meanest of the Mean, 1-3-05) [currently removed from his site; this is the archived version]

. . . yesterday, when Dave Armstrong first posted his “I’m done with critics” stuff . . .

(Desperation of Armstrong Fans: Patrick, 1-4-05)

. . . it is hard to take what Mr. Armstrong says seriously . . .

(The Catholic Verses: The Papacy, 1-4-05)

At the moment a fairly small group of folks are filling up the blogosphere with the constant assertion that I have engaged in ad hominem argumentation in my reviews of Armstrong’s book, mainly because I have concluded sections by noting Armstrong’s inability to seriously engage the topic at hand (i.e., provide meaningful exegesis). Now, Mr. Armstrong may not like that I have pointed this out. Evidently, it is not allowable in our society to point out when someone provides shallow, errant, and generally worthless argumentation in a written form . . . when he is forced to attempt to deal with specifically exegetical material, he is out of his depth. . . . To call this a “melt-down” is to engage inunderstatement to an absurd degree.

(Ad Hominem Argumentation, 1-4-05)

Quite honestly, I just don’t see that he follows an argument really well. . . . The man does not know how to do exegesis. It’s a fact. . . . there is a consistent pattern of eisegetical misunderstanding, and an inability to deal with the text . . . It’s fascinating to read the comments . . . basically, Mr. Armstrong melted down . . . . . . the reason that Dave Armstrong is doing this [ceasing discussion with anti-Catholics] is pretty much the same reason that Dave Hunt won’t debate me. He can’t. He can’t . . . the facts are not on Dave Armstrong’s side. He can’t respond! . . . Dave Armstrong has gone into hiding . . . because he can’t respond anymore . . . . . . the argumentation is so basic and so clearly fallacious . . . clear, obvious, logical errors. . . Armstrong could throw his hands up in the air and say, “look, I’m not a scholar; I have no scholarly training. I can’t read the original languages.” But he won’t do that. [No? That’s news to me. I did just that on 1-4-05, on my blog, and many times before. Bizarre claim . . .] . . . . . . . If Mr. Armstrong can’t defend his material, then so much the worse for Mr. Armstrong. Maybe he will move on to doing something else. Maybe he’ll recognize this isn’t something he should be doing. Maybe he’ll think twice before putting himself in that situation again.

(Dividing Line webcast, 1-4-05 [my transcript]; no longer available on his site, as far as I can tell)

. . . what we find in The Catholic Verses. No exegesis is offered. No argument from context appears . . . But nowhere does Armstrong do the one thing he must do to be taken seriously: he never exegetes the passage. He never makes the connections that would be absolutely necessary to prove his point. He just assumes his position, nothing more. . . . the “Catholic Verses” are, in fact, “Badly Chosen Catholic Prooftexts Devoid of Exegetical Meaning.” But we must be ready to explain why and hope and pray the Spirit will open hearts and minds that have been blinded by a false gospel and a false hope.

(The Catholic Verses: The Pillar and Foundation, 1-5-05)

. . . it seems Dave Armstrong is not up to providing a positive defense of his own published work, . . .

(An Open Invitation, 1-6-05)

If Armstrong is going to respond to some of the work, but then leave clear refutation of his own position untouched elsewhere, how can anyone take him seriously?

(An uber-brief response to the Crimson Catholic, 1-10-05)

If you want to see how to deal with Dave Armstrong, look back a few months to what happened when I invested the time to dig into his book. Response? Bluster, sputter, retreat, collapse, invisibility, Lent.

(Quick and Stupid Note, 5-4-05)

I think this one takes the cake: the man is so shameless and desperate that he even goes after my much-needed Lenten break, as if it was an excuse to avoid him. On the one hand, White and others have been mocking me for some time, about how much I write. But let me dare take a four-week break from my voluminous writing (and routine 70-80 hour work weeks, with ten days of vacation all year), and it has to be because I’m trying to avoid the man who had run from my arguments for ten years. Unbelievable . . .

I’m sorry, but anyone in DA’s position, who is constantly throwing stuff out there, is simply playing games if he then decides on some arbitrary standard as to who is an “anti-Catholic,” and then on that basis, says he will not interact with them (though, of course, he can make comments about them all he wants, he just doesn’t have to actually respond to refutations).

. . . As anyone can see by going back to the records, Armstrong made the most recent version of his “I will not respond to anti-Catholics” promise after and as a direct result of my critiquing his book. In fact, at first, he tried to respond to my articles. But it was painfully clear he was in way over his head, so he all of a sudden had a change of heart and issued his “don’t respond to anti-Catholics” decree. . . . his brilliant and awe-inspiring rebuttals, which, sadly, the world cannot now see because he is so consistent in keeping his oaths. Please! Someone fax over some reality to Mr. Armstrong.

(Ibid.)

So that’s the extraordinary ad hominem background. Now let’s get to substance and rational, biblical argument, and see how well White fares, when he is taking on an opponent who is actually engaging him and not under the constraints of his own biblically based resolution not to engage in vain discussion. White did at least provide a rare comprehensive response, so we’ll relax the “amiability” portion of the loophole and emphasize the “point-by-point” portion, so both the argumentative fallacies and condescending, mindless insults can be put to rest, once and for all. I think that’s more than enough cause and justification to relax a loophole in a resolution (which is different from an oath, for those who suffer from dictionaryphobia, as Eric Svendsen seemingly does).

Here are the papers I already wrote in response to White’s critique of my book, The Catholic Verses (with links):

James White Takes Up a Critical Review of My Book, The Catholic Verses (!!!)
James White’s Critique of My Book The Catholic Verses: Part I: The Binding Authority of Tradition
Part II: Rabbit Trail Diversion
Part III: Massive Ad Hominem Tactics
Part IV: Shots at My Former Protestant Knowledge and Reading
Part V: White’s Befuddlement and My “Knowing Deception”
Part VI: Penance and Redemptive Suffering

Those papers of mine were in reply to the following papers of James White:

The Catholic Verses: Introit (12-29-05)
The Catholic Verses: 95 Reduced to 91 (12-30-05)
The Protestant Verses: Can Dave Armstrong Exegete This Passage? (12-30-05)
Interesting Replies (12-30-05) [currently removed from his site; this is the archived version]
The Catholic Verses: 91 Reduced to 87 (Part I) (12-30-05) [currently removed from his site; this is the archived version]
Quick Thought Regarding DA and Exegesis (12-31-05)
Armstrong’s Reading List (12-31-05)
The Catholic Verses: 91 Reduced to 87 (Part II) (12-31-05)
The Catholic Verses: 91 Reduced to 87 (Part III) (12-31-05)

And here are his papers regarding Moses’ Seat and the larger issue of Bible and Tradition / sola Scriptura that I will respond to, presently:

The Catholic Verses: Matthew 23:1-3 (Part I) (1-22-05)
The Catholic Verses: Matthew 23:1-3 (Part II) (1-24-05)
The Catholic Verses: Matthew 23:1-3 (Part III) (1-31-05)
The Catholic Verses: Matthew 23:1-3 (Part IV) (2-8-05)
The Catholic Verses: Matthew 23:1-3 (Part V) (2-10-05)
The Catholic Verses: Matthew 23:1-3 (Part VI) (2-15-05)
The Catholic Verses: Matthew 23:1-3 (Part VII) (2-17-05)
The Catholic Verses: Matthew 23:1-3 (Part VIII–Finale!) (2-18-05)

May the truth win out! That’s the only “victory” I’m interested in. If I am not fighting for the truth on this issue or any other, by all means, I ought to lose the debate, so that truth can be the victor, not me (or White or anyone else) at all costs, even at the expense of truth.

February 16, 2017

JesusPharisees

The Pharisees and the Sadducees Come to Tempt Jesus, by James Tissot (1836-1902) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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(12-27-03)

***

The first section of this paper is from my book, The Catholic Verses: 95 Bible Passages That Confound Protestants (Sophia Institute Press, Spring 2004) and is a reply to White’s arguments in his book, The Roman Catholic Controversy (Bethany House, 1996). The second section answers the relevant portion of White’s Internet article, “A Response to David Palm’s Article on Oral Tradition from This Rock Magazine, May, 1995″, and also offers a critique of several erroneous statements and arguments of James White from the book above and another devoted to “biblical authority”: Answers to Catholic Claims (Crowne Publications, 1990). Mr. White’s words will be in blue.

* * * * *

 

Matthew 23:1-3 (RSV) Then said Jesus to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice.”

Reformed Baptist apologist and expert on sola Scriptura, James White, offered a two-page response to the Catholic apologetic use of Matthew 23:1-3 and Moses’ seat. I shall quote the heart of his subtle but thoroughly fallacious argument:

Some Roman Catholics present this passage as proof that a source of extrabiblical authority received the blessing of the Lord Jesus. It has been alleged that the concept of “Moses’ seat” is in fact a refutation of sola scriptura, for not only is this concept not found in the Old Testament, but Jesus seemingly gives His approbation to this extrascriptural tradition . . .The “Moses’ seat” refers to a seat in the front of the synagogue on which the teacher of the Law sat while reading from the Scriptures. Synagogue worship, of course, came into being long after Moses’ day, so those who attempt to make this an oral tradition going back to Moses are engaging in wishful thinking.

(The Roman Catholic Controversy, Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1996, 100)

White agrees that the notion is not found in the Old Testament but maintains that it cannot be traced back to Moses. That probably is correct, yet the Catholic argument here does not rest on whether it literally can be traced historically to Moses, but on the fact that it is not found in the Old Testament. Thus, White – from the outset – concedes a fundamental point of the Catholic argument concerning authority and sola Scriptura.

White then cites Bible scholar Robert Gundry in agreement, to the effect that Jesus was binding Christians to the Pharisaical law, but not “their interpretative traditions.” This passage concerned only “the law itself” with the “antinomians” in mind. How Gundry arrives at such a conclusion remains to be seen. White’s query about the Catholic interpretation, “is this sound exegesis?” can just as easily be applied to Gundry’s fine-tuned distinctions which help him avoid any implication of a binding extrabiblical tradition. White continues:

There was nothing in the tradition of having someone read from the Scriptures while sitting on Moses’ seat that was in conflict with the Scriptures . . . It is quite proper to listen and obey the words of the one who reads from the Law or the Prophets, for one is not hearing a man speaking in such a situation, but is listening to the very words of God. (Ibid., 101)

This is true as far as it goes, but it is essentially a non sequitur and amounts to eisegesis of the passage (which is ironic, because now White plays the role of “a man speaking” and distorting “the very words of God”). Jesus said:

“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice.”

First, it should be noted that nowhere in the actual text is the notion that the Pharisees are only reading the Old Testament Scripture when sitting on Moses’ seat. It’s an assumption gratuitously smuggled in from a presupposed position of sola Scriptura.

Secondly, White’s assumption that Jesus is referring literally to Pharisees sitting on a seat in the synagogue and reading (the Old Testament only) – and that alone – is more forced and woodenly literalistic than the far more plausible interpretation that this was simply a term denoting received authority.

It reminds one of the old silly Protestant tale that the popes speak infallibly and ex cathedra (cathedra is the Greek word for seat in Matthew 23:2) only when sitting in a certain chair in the Vatican (because the phrase means literally, “from the bishop’s chair”; whereas it was a figurative and idiomatic usage).

Jesus says that they sat “on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you.” In other words: because they had the authority (based on the position of occupying Moses’ seat), therefore they were to be obeyed. It is like referring to a “chairman” of a company or committee. He occupies the “chair,” therefore he has authority. No one thinks he has the authority only when he sits in a certain chair reading the corporation charter or the Constitution or some other official document.

Yet this is how White would exclusively interpret Jesus’ words. The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, in its article, “Seat”, allows White’s reading as a secondary interpretation, but seems to regard the primary meaning of this term in the manner I have described:

References to seating in the Bible are almost all to such as a representation of honor and authority . . .According to Jesus, the scribes and Pharisees occupy “Moses’ seat” (Matt. 23:2), having the authority and ability to interpret the law of Moses correctly; here “seat” is both a metaphor for judicial authority and also a reference to a literal stone seat in the front of many synagogues that would be occupied by an authoritative teacher of the law.

(Allen C. Myers, editor, The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1987; English revision of Bijbelse Encyclopedie, edited by W. H. Gispen, Kampen, Netherlands: J. H. Kok, revised edition, 1975; translated by Raymond C. Togtman and Ralph W. Vunderink; 919-920)

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (article, “Seat”) takes the same position, commenting specifically on our verse:

It is used also of the exalted position occupied by men of marked rank or influence, either in good or evil (Mt 23:2; Ps 1:1).(James Orr, editor, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., five volumes, 1956; IV, 2710)

White makes no mention of these considerations, but it is difficult to believe that he is not aware of them (since he is a Bible scholar well-acquainted with the nuances of biblical meanings). They don’t fit in very well with the case he is trying to make, so he omits them. But the reader is thereby left with an incomplete picture.

Thirdly, because they had the authority and no indication is given that Jesus thought they had it only when simply reading Scripture, it would follow that Christians were, therefore, bound to elements of Pharisaical teaching that were not only non-scriptural, but based on oral tradition, for this is what Pharisees believed. They fully accepted the binding authority of oral tradition (the Sadducees were the ones who were the Jewish sola scripturists and liberals of the time). The New Bible Dictionary describes their beliefs in this respect, in its article, “Pharisees”:

. . . the Torah was not merely ‘law’ but also ‘instruction’, i.e., it consisted not merely of fixed commandments but was adaptable to changing conditions . . . This adaptation or inference was the task of those who had made a special study of the Torah, and a majority decision was binding on all . . .The commandments were further applied by analogy to situations not directly covered by the Torah. All these developments together with thirty-one customs of ‘immemorial usage’ formed the ‘oral law’ . . . the full development of which is later than the New Testament. Being convinced that they had the right interpretation of the Torah, they claimed that these ‘traditions of the elders’ (Mk 7:3) came from Moses on Sinai.

(J. D. Douglas, editor, The New Bible Dictionary, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1962; 981-982)

Likewise, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church notes in its article on the Pharisees:

Unlike the Sadducees, who tried to apply Mosaic Law precisely as it was given, the Pharisees allowed some interpretation of it to make it more applicable to different situations, and they regarded these oral interpretations as of the same level of importance as the Law itself.(F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, editors, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 1983; 1077)

Fourthly, it was precisely the extrabiblical (especially apocalyptic) elements of Pharisaical Judaism that New Testament Christianity adopted and developed for its own: doctrines such as: resurrection, the soul, the afterlife, eternal reward or damnation, and angelology and demonology (all of which the Sadducees rejected). The Old Testament had relatively little to say about these things, and what it did assert was in a primitive, kernel form. But the postbiblical literature of the Jews (led by the mainstream Pharisaical tradition) had plenty to say about them. Therefore, this was another instance of Christianity utilizing non-biblical literature and traditions in its own doctrinal development.

Fifth, Paul shows the high priest, Ananias, respect, even when the latter had him struck on the mouth, and was not dealing with matters strictly of the Old Testament and the Law, but with the question of whether Paul was teaching wrongly and should be stopped (Acts 23:1-5). A few verses later Paul states, “I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees” (23:6) and it is noted that the Pharisees and Sadducees in the assembly were divided and that the Sadducees “say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge them all” (23:7-8). Some Pharisees defended Paul (23:9).

Next, White mentions (presumably as a parallel to the Pharisees and Moses’ seat) Nehemiah 8: a passage I dealt with previously:

Indeed, when Ezra read the Law to the people in Nehemiah, chapter 8, the people listened attentively and cried “Amen! Amen!” at the hearing of God’s Word. (White, ibid., 101)

He conveniently neglects to mention, however, that Ezra’s Levite assistants, as recorded in the next two verses after the evangelical-sounding “Amens,” “helped the people to understand the law” (8:7) and “gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading” (8:8).

So this supposedly analogous example (that is, if presented in its entirety; not selectively for polemical purposes) does not support Dr. White’s and Dr. Gundry’s position that the authority of the Pharisees applied only insofar as they sat and read the Old Testament to the people (functioning as a sort of ancient collective Alexander Scourby, reading the Bible onto a casssette tape for mass consumption), not when they also interpreted (which was part and parcel of the Pharisaical outlook and approach).

One doesn’t find in the Old Testament individual Hebrews questioning teaching authority. Sola Scriptura simply is not there. No matter how hard White and other Protestants try to read it into the Old Testament, it cannot be done. Nor can it be read into the New Testament, once all the facts are in. White, however, writes:

And who can forget the result of Josiah’s discovery of the Book of the Covenant in 2 Chronicles 34? (Ibid., 101)

Indeed, this was a momentous occasion (White probably thinks it is similar in substance and import to the myth and legend of Martin Luther supposedly “rescuing” or “initiating” the Bible in the vernacular, when in fact there had been fourteen German editions of the Bible in the 70 years preceding his own).

But if the implication is that the Law was self-evident simply upon being read, per sola Scriptura, this is untrue to the Old Testament, for, again, we are informed in the same book that priests and Levites “taught in Judah, having the book of the law of the LORD with them; they went about through all the cities of Judah and taught among the people” (2 Chron 17:9), and that the Levites “taught all Israel” (2 Chron 35:3). They didn’t just read, they taught, and that involved interpretation. And the people had no right of private judgment, to dissent from what was taught.

White and all Protestants believe that any individual Christian has the right and duty to rebuke their pastors if what they are teaching is “unbiblical” (that is, according to the lone individual). This is an elegant, quaint theory indeed, on paper, but it doesn’t quite work the same way in practice. I know this from my own experience as a former Protestant, for when I rebuked my Assemblies of God pastor in a private letter (because he had preached from the pulpit, “keep your pastors honest”), I was publicly renounced and rebuked from the pulpit (in a most paranoid, alarmist manner) as a theologically-inexperienced rabble-rouser trying to cause division.

White’s arguments in his Internet treatment of this passage fare scarcely any better under close scrutiny than his weak and fallacious reasoning in his book, and further demonstrate the persistently inconsistent and incoherent nature of his apologetics (when he is opposing Catholicism).

. . . the term itself is not common in Jewish writings. It most likely refers to a seat in the synagogue from which the law (i.e., the writings of Moses and the prophets) was read. Obviously, since synagogue worship did not exist prior to the Exile, the term “ancient Israel” here needs to be limited to the intertestamental period.

(“A Response to David Palm’s Article on Oral Tradition from This Rock Magazine, May, 1995″)

– Citations below will be from this article unless and until otherwise noted –
White doesn’t acknowledge the metaphorical use of “seat,” which was pointed out in the Protestant reference works cited above. How ancient the practice was is irrelevant to the general and supremely important question (for this debate on authority and sola Scriptura) of whether Jesus granted legitimacy to traditions not recorded in Scripture. If Jesus accepted those in acknowledging the teaching authority of the Pharisees, then this dispute is pretty much over.

Secondly, the authority of “Moses’ seat” would have been primarily magisterial, not doctrinal. Lightfoot notes this by saying, “This is to be understood rather of the legislative seat (or chair), than of the merely doctrinal: and Christ here asserts the authority of the magistrate, and persuadeth to obey him in lawful things” (Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica, II, 289). Moses acted as judge in Israel, and the priesthood maintained that role in the theocracy.

White does not give us the reasoning that Lightfoot uses to come to this conclusion. I don’t see anything in the text itself that limits it to legislative or judicial functions. Lightfoot, it should be noted, however, does not take an absolute position that no doctrine is involved, as shown by his phrase “merely doctrinal.” Thus, White can only argue the weaker position that their function was “primarily magisterial.”

This concession is the proverbial “hole in the dam,” because if they possess any doctrinal authority at all, by the sanction of our Lord Jesus Himself, then sola Scriptura is in dire straits indeed, for that would be a position quite analogous (though not perfectly so) to that of the Catholic Church: the authoritative interpreter of Christian doctrine and Guardian of Apostolic Tradition. Furthermore, Moses certainly gave and authoritatively interpreted doctrine, as did the priesthood in Israel (see, e.g., Nehemiah 8:7-8, above). It is a bit strange to argue that those occupying a position described as “Moses’ seat” would not have this teaching authority.

Mr. Palm notes that we do not find this office in the Old Testament. This is true, as far as the specific name goes.

So much for Jesus only citing the Old Testament as authoritative . . . Dr. White may not have this opinion, but many Protestant do.

It is then asserted that Jesus’ refusal to overthrow the form of synagogue worship and teaching is tantamount to a recognition of extra-biblical binding revelation. The close observer will note a huge chasm here.

I don’t think it is necessary to offer this argument in such strong terms. Binding interpretation of a revelation is not the same as a new revelation. What the passage clearly demonstrates, I think, is that there is authoritative tradition outside of the Bible, and even outside of the apostles, who were alive at the time this encounter took place, and soon to appear on the scene with great zeal, after Jesus’ Resurrection. Jesus could easily have said that the Pharisees’ authority was to shortly be superseded by the apostles but He did not, and even Paul called himself a Pharisee and recognized the authority of the high priest.

The religious situation into which the Messiah came was hardly identical with the situation under Moses.

This is a non sequitur. The force of this particular argument does not rest upon whether “Moses’ Seat” literally goes back to Moses. Rather, the salient point is whether it was a binding authority not based on solely the letter of the Old Testament. If so, sola Scriptura is in deep trouble.

Many things were different, and due to occupation, Roman rule, and many other factors, there were all sorts of things that were “extra-biblical” that were part and parcel of the Jewish life of the day. Are we to honestly believe that unless the Lord Jesus proved a revolutionary in rejecting every non-biblical tradition and practice that this gives us wholesale license for the addition of such traditions today?

Yes, but they are not “additions”; they were there from the beginning (in the Catholic view), and merely developed. The fact remains that Jesus accepted this particular “non-biblical tradition and practice”. James White knows it, so he is playing the game of trying to minimize and de-emphasize this acceptance. It’s a futile effort, and in so doing, he is already conceding four-fifths of the case (and trying to make out that he has not). Besides, Jesus was certainly a “radical” and a nonconformist through and through. Does White really think that He would have refrained from dissenting against any state of affairs or set of beliefs that He did not agree with?

I see little reason to believe that He would do so, from the record we have. But White would have us believe that our Lord Jesus let a few of these “non-biblical tradition[s] and practice[s]” slip through the cracks, so to speak (even with regard to a class of people whom He vigorously condemns for hypocrisy on several occasions). This makes no sense at all, and it is special pleading.

Or should we not realize that in light of Jesus words in Matthew 15 that such traditions need to be tested by a higher authority (Scripture), and, if they do not violate the Word of God, they can be followed and practiced?

St. Paul said far worse of the Galatians than Jesus said of the Pharisees in Matthew 15 and elsewhere, yet he continued to regard them as brothers in Christ and as a “church” (for this example and many other similar ones, see my paper: “Sins and Sinners in the Catholic Church”). Why is it so unthinkable for Jesus to do the same with the Pharisees? In John 11:49-52, the Apostle John tells us that Caiaphas, the high priest “prophesied” and spoke truth (an act which can only be inspired by the Holy Spirit). Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were righteous Pharisees. Jesus was even buried in the latter’s tomb.

As for the traditions needing to be harmonious with Scripture; of course, no one denies that. But the question at hand is whether there can be a legitimate tradition not found (i.e., not described or written about) in Scripture itself. Something can be absent in Scripture but nevertheless in perfect harmony with it.

There was nothing against the Scriptures in having a man read the Scriptures from Moses’ seat, or to give judgments based upon the Law. Why then reject such a tradition?

White assumes what he is trying to prove: Jesus had to be upholding sola Scriptura; therefore, the Pharisees possession of the office of “Moses’ Seat” means only that they sat and read the Scripture from this seat in the synagogue. This is preposterous and can only be asserted (with the hope that people will accept it without questioning its nonexistent basis). The priests and the later rabbis interpreted the Law and the Scripture. The Pharisees also believed in an oral tradition received by Moses on Mt. Sinai when he received the Ten Commandments and the Law. Pharisees were the “mainstream Jewish tradition” at that time. The Sadducees were the “liberals” who rejected the resurrection and other things that all Christians believe. And they were the ones who accepted sola Scriptura, since they rejected the oral tradition.

The acceptance of a tradition that is not contrary to Scripture is not grounds for the acceptance of others that are.

Catholics wholeheartedly agree; this is why we reject sola Scriptura and other Protestant novel doctrines which are not found in Holy Scripture.

And what is more, the acceptance of a tradition current at the time does not mean that the Lord Jesus accepted the claims made by the Mishnah two hundred years later regarding the alleged basis of such traditions (i.e., those claims regarding Mosaic origin).

Regarding the Mishnaic tractate Aboth, it does indeed make the claim that Mr. Palm notes. However, are we to gather from Mr. Palm’s citation that he believes this claim? It is hard to believe that he actually does – in fact, unless Mr. Palm has undergone a recent conversion to Judaism, I can’t possibly see how he could do so. Let’s note a few things:

1) The tractate indicates that the Torah was passed down to such individuals as Shammai and Hillel, yet, as students of NT backgrounds know, these two set up opposing schools with different understandings of tradition (should sound familiar!). Who was, in fact, the true recipient of this alleged oral tradition, then?

I find this an extremely interesting argument, given the multiplicity of Protestant schools of thought, which endlessly conflict and contradict (thus making the existence of much falsehood and error in Protestant ranks logically certain and inevitable). White contends that because there were two schools of interpretation in later Judaism, therefore, the very notion of oral tradition itself is somehow suspect and must be discarded. Why, then, is he not similarly troubled and perplexed about the state of affairs in Protestantism? He firmly believes that there is one Christian truth, and that it is so clear in Scripture, but Protestants are unable to find it. And if one group has found it, how does the man on the street determine which group has done so?

Does this sad state of affairs make him skeptical of the inspired revelation of Scripture? Of course not. He believes it despite the multitude of competing interpretations and schools of thought. So why is it so inconceivable that there could also be such a thing as a true tradition, even though all do not hold it or acknowledge it? This is one of the many double standards inherent in White’s contra-Catholic polemics. He doesn’t apply the same standard to his own Protestant beliefs that he applies to Catholics.

In 1996, when I was a member of James White’s “sola Scriptura Internet list,” he and I had a discussion about what I described as the “perspicuous apostolic message,” which had to do with this aspect of the Bible message and Christian truth being so “clear,” yet Protestants not being able to agree on it. He argued that this isn’t a problem at all, because it is easily explained by the fact that “men are sinners,” etc. I dealt with this desperate evasion in my paper: Perspicuity (Clarity) of Holy Scripture. So in his book, The Roman Catholic Controversy, White states on page 91:

The Bible is absolutely clear in the sense that the Westminster Confession states:

“Those things which are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain to a sufficient understanding of them.”

Does it follow, then, that there must be a unanimity of opinion on infant baptism? Does the above statement of the Confession even say that there will be a unanimity of opinion on the items that “are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation”? No, it does not. And why not? Because people – sinful people, people with agendas, people who want to find something in the Bible that isn’t really there – approach Scripture, and no matter how perfect it is, people are fallible.

One could have a field day with all the fallacies and errors in this facile analysis. I’ve noted many times in my apologetics that the “sin argument” concerning Protestant diversity of opinion is absurdly simplistic and remarkably judgmental, and casts doubt on major Protestant figures who couldn’t agree. Luther disagreed with Calvin on whether baptism regenerates and on the Real Presence in the Eucharist, so who was right? Well, for White, Calvin was, because he agrees with him over against Luther.

But why did Luther get these “obvious” biblical teachings wrong? Well, again, according to White’s suspicious and cynical mindset, that is because he must have been a “sinful” person with an “agenda” that fatally clouded his approach to Scripture, and made him see things in it which weren’t “really there.” Trouble is, White has to also dissent from Calvin and side with the Anabaptists concerning adult baptism, so Calvin’s sin kept him from seeing that clear truth of Scripture, and so on and so forth.

The whole thing reduces to absurdity and belittles great figures in Protestant history in a way that even Catholics do not have to do. We can simply regard each of these men as holding some false beliefs in all sincerity, and different interpretive traditions and ways of approaching Scripture and the Christian life. We believe they were mistaken in many things, of course, but we don’t have to run them down as unable to see the “clear” truths of Scripture due to some blindness in their character or thinking. Only the sort of Protestant view that White holds entails that sort of judgmentalism.

Secondly, regarding the Westminster Confession and its statement, “Those things which are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded,” for many Christians, including Luther and Lutherans, traditional Anglicans, and Methodists, and even later Protestant schools of thought such as the Churches of Christ, one of the things which is necessary for salvation is baptism. Therefore, it would be clearly taught in Scripture (per theWestminster Confession). And so all these groups, and Catholics and Orthodox, believe it indeed is clearly taught in the Bible. But Protestants cannot agree on the correct teaching, and are split into five major camps. There is a reason why most Christians throughout history have accepted baptismal regeneration. It is clearly taught in Scripture!:

Acts 2:38 And Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (RSV)

Acts 22:16 And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name.

Titus 3:5 he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit,

1 Peter 3:19-21 in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

(see also, Bible on Salvation via Baptism & Eucharist; John 3:5 & Titus 3:5: Baptismal Regeneration?; Baptismal Regeneration: More Biblical Evidence)

According to James White, the people who see baptismal regeneration in these passages, are “sinful people, people with agendas, people who want to find something in the Bible that isn’t really there.” And presumably many of those Protestants who reject adult baptism or non-regenerative baptism think the same of White, since they accept the same principle of perspicuity of Scripture that he accepts. They must explain somehow why Protestants can’t agree on such an important doctrine, given this “clearness” of Scripture. So they accuse others of blinding sinfulness, or they claim that baptism is merely a “secondary issue,” upon which men can disagree, and that’s fine and dandy, or else they start to question perspicuity itself. On page 92 of the same book, White writes:

Are we to believe that the Bible is so unclear and self-contradictory that we cannot arrive at the truth through an honest, whole-hearted effort at examining its evidence? It seems that is what Rome is telling us. But because the Scriptures can be misused, it does not follow that they are insufficient to lead us to the truth . . . The reason that Rome tells us the Bible is insufficient, I believe, is so we will be convinced of Rome’s ultimate authority and abandon the God-given standard of Scripture.

I don’t have to believe this as a Catholic. I think Scripture is pretty clear (I’ve always found it to be so in my many biblical studies), but I also know from simple observation and knowledge of Church history that it isn’t clear enough to bring men to agreement. White says that is because of sin and stupidity. Certainly those things are always potential factors. But I say the rampant disagreement is primarily because of a false rule of faith: sola Scriptura, which excludes the binding authority of tradition and the Church, which entities produce the doctrinal unity that sola Scriptura has never, and can never produce. So “Rome” doesn’t “tell us” what White thinks it tells us. What Catholics teach is that central authority and tradition is necessary for doctrinal unity; whether Scripture is “clear” or unclear. And we think Scripture itself teaches this (which is precisely why we believe it).

White thinks in dichotomous terms (a characteristic and widespread Protestant shortcoming), so for him, to accept binding Church authority is to somehow”abandon the God-given standard of Scripture,” as if it were a zero-sum game where Scripture is the air in a glass and the Church is the water added to the glass: the more water (“Church”) is added, the less Scripture there can be, so that a full glass of “the Church” leaves no room for the Bible at all as the “standard.” Of course, none of this is Catholic teaching, nor does it logically follow from the notion of Church authority. It’s a false dilemma and false dichotomy. But a certain Protestant mindset and mentality cannot grasp this. Thus, White states in another book:

One will either subjugate tradition to Scripture (as the Reformers taught) or one will subjugate Scripture to tradition, and this is what we see in Roman Catholicism. The Pharisees, too, denied that they were in any way denigrating the authority of Scripture by their adherence to the “traditions of their fathers.” But Jesus did not accept their claim. He knew better. He pointed out how their traditions destroyed the very purpose of God’s law, allowing them to circumvent the clear teaching of the Word through the agency of their traditions . . . If Christ was right to condemn the Pharisees for their false traditions, then the traditions of Rome, too, must be condemned.

(Answers to Catholic Claims: A Discussion of Biblical Authority, Southbridge, Massachusetts: Crowne Publications, Inc., 1990, 56)

What about the many false traditions in Protestantism? We know for a fact that many many such false traditions exist because there are competing views which contradict each other. That entails (as a matter of logical necessity) that someone is wrong, and dead-wrong. They can’t all be right. There can’t be five true doctrines of baptism simultaneously. Therefore, false “traditions of men” exist in Protestantism, and would be condemned by Jesus just as vigorously as supposed “false traditions” of Catholicism.

But do we ever hear White railing against those? Of course not. He doesn’t write books and articles about Martin Luther’s grave errors (from his own point of view) or about those of, say. St. Augustine (even though neither would qualify as a Christian if we adopt White’s criteria for same, as I demonstrated beyond all doubt, I think, in my paper: “‘Man-Centered’ Sacramentalism: The Remarkable Incoherence of James White’) Instead, he accepts the view (or at least his behavior suggests this) that a lot of Christian doctrine is up for grabs and is “secondary.” He winks at the diversity, just as all Protestants must, faced with an opponent like the Catholic Church, which has at least preserved doctrinal unity (whether one agrees with the content of that unified doctrine or not).

And that gets us back to my experience with White on his sola Scriptura list. White argued that Protestants accepted what the apostles taught, and that this was why they rejected the alleged corrupt innovations and unbiblical additions of “Rome.” I asked him what was it, precisely, that the apostles taught, so that I could know where I was in error, operating from the perfectly self-evident background assumption that, in order to have fidelity” to an “apostolic message,” one must know what it is and define it. This would constitute some sort of criteria for “orthodoxy” in Protestant ranks.

White hemmed and hawed and never offered an answer to this very simple question, based on his own claims. To my mind, this proved that he had no basisfor his claim in the first place; no content to speak of. It just sounded nice, and duly impressive. This is the classic characteristic of sophistry. He said justification by faith was one of these (which was fine, except for the extreme difficulty of finding Church Fathers who differed from the Catholic position), and the deity of Christ (which was beside the point, since all Nicene Christians accept that). Then he challenged me, asking whether the Bible was too unclear to resolve 18 questions concerning which I asked him to tell me what the apostles believed (18 areas where I knew Protestants could not come to agreement). I replied that it was irrelevant what I thought; I was asking him what in fact the apostles taught, since he was making the claim that Protestants were only following the “perspicuous apostolic authority.”

Pressed, White admitted that Protestants disagreed on all 18 of the points I raised, but “so what?” I then asked White if he could tell me what the apostles taught on just five of the 18 issues, and what he meant by “apostolic message.” He refused to answer and tried to change the subject to Catholic authority. Then he said that I was aware that my question had been answered (!!). And so on and on we went, round and round. White never answered my simple question, and opted for various evasions, topic-changes, and obfuscation and obscurantism. He knew full well that whatever answer he gave would make many other Protestants non-apostolic and essentially “out of the fold.” He knew what I was driving at, which is why, I believe, that he refused to answer. But in any event, the answer from his own stated perspective should have been very easy to give. It was a case study in avoiding proclamations that one can’t back up under the least bit of scrutiny and examination.

. . . Next Mr. Palm says that since the Pharisees stood in this alleged line of succession, their teaching deserved to be respected. The problem is, however, that the Lord Jesus often did not respect their teaching. The issue in Matthew 23 was not respect for the teaching of the Pharisees, but respect for the authority of the person who sat in Moses’ seat. The two are not necessarily co-extensive, . . .

It’s very difficult to argue that Jesus did not refer to their teaching, seeing that He said, “practice and observe whatever they tell you.” One has to believe that this “whatever” included no doctrine. To make such an arbitrary distinction between “authority” and “teaching” is ludicrous (especially the more one knows about Jewish teaching methods and the history of Hebrew religion). If Jesus had said, rather: “practice and observe whatever I tell you,” or, “practice and observe whatever the apostles tell you,” White wouldn’t have the slightest doubt about what was meant. He wouldn’t play around, eisegete the text, and try to limit the scope and extent of the authority.

and what is more, there is nothing in the passage that even begins to suggest that the Lord Jesus is making reference to the entire idea of extra-biblical tradition, authority, etc.

No? This is plainly false, by the following straightforward logic:

1. Jesus said of the Pharisees, “practice and observe whatever they tell you.”
2. But Pharisees believed in an authoritative oral tradition, which included some content not included in the Bible (but not necessarily contrary to biblical teaching).
3. Therefore, Jesus was giving sanction to the teaching authority of oral “extra-biblical” tradition.

He is saying to obey the authorities in the synagogue service.

No He isn’t; he is saying, “practice and observe whatever they tell you.” That is not limited to the synagogue, much as White might wish it to be so, for his own purposes.

To read into this the acceptance of an entire concept of oral revelation passed down through some “magisterium” is to be way beyond what is written.

It doesn’t have to be “oral revelation”; only authoritative oral teaching that goes beyond the letter of Scripture. That is enough to be blatantly contrary to sola Scriptura.

Mr. Palm then says, “Jesus here draws on oral Tradition to uphold the legitimacy of this teaching office in Israel.” This is simply untrue. There is nothing in the passage that even makes reference to “oral Tradition.”

“Moses’ Seat” was such a tradition, which was not in the Bible. The very term comes from oral tradition. The words “oral tradition” don’t have to be there; the content is. This is a remarkably silly statement from a man as educated as White. Even he agrees that the notion of “Moses’ Seat” is not found in the Old Testament, and that it comes from Jewish tradition.

This can only be identified as wishful thinking, based upon an anachronistic insertion of later developments back into the text.

If you have no case, grotesquely exaggerate the flaws in the opponent’s position (or manufacture some) and hope that your readers (or jurors, as the case may be) will be fooled . . .

. . . Mr. Palm’s attempt to use the chair of Moses suffers from the same problem as his first attempt: it assumes what it seeks to prove. It is circular, and does not provide anywhere near sufficient basis for its conclusions.

That is far more true of White’s reply, as I think has been abundantly shown by now. Elsewhere in the article, White wrote:

It must be remembered that Jewish writers (including Matthew) felt much freer to engage in conflation and paraphrastic citation than we in our modern Western world . . . And why should we believe that Mr. Palm’s leap into the undocumentable realm of “oral tradition” is any more solid than any of the suggestions that have been given for a Scriptural source?

If anything could be drawn at all from the phrase h’rethen dia twn prophetwn, it would be that this is indeed a conflated citation, drawn from the plurality of the prophets rather than from a single prophet.

This shows that White’s preconceived notion is that whatever is cited in some authoritative manner in the New Testament will somehow be shown to be from the Old Testament, even if this entails citing several passages together as one. Thus he writes in one of his books:

Did Jesus give place to the Jewish leaders’ claim that they were the true inheritors of the traditions of Moses? Did He for a second acquiesce to their claim of “interpretive authority”? Surely not. He held those who claimed to “sit in the seat of Moses” accountable to the words of Scripture, despite their claim to be in sole possession of the “correct interpretation.” . . . Jesus did not participate in their “veneration” of “tradition.”

. . . just as He rebuked the elders of the people of Israel for making the word of God null and void through their supposedly authoritative traditions, He would say the same thing today to the Roman Catholic people . . . For Him, the Word was final, it was not lacking in anything.

(Answers . . ., 30-32)

But that assumption is strictly arbitrary, of course. White admits that the New Testamwnt writers drew from many sources (he could hardly deny this even if he wanted to), but of course he has to deny that any were authoritative. With Matthew 23:1-3 it is different because Jesus is sanctioning Pharisaical authority in a blanket sense. In so doing, He necessarily is giving legitimacy to oral tradition, for this is what the Pharisees believed.

What is more, Mr. Palm slips into the common misrepresentation of sola scriptura that fills Roman Catholic apologetics works: the idea that sola scriptura, if it is true, must be normative during times of revelation.

Why would it not be? On what basis? The Bible says no more about this concept (exactly nothing) than it does about sola Scriptura itself. A false, novel principle is introduced with no biblical substantiation, then it is made the formal rule of faith of Protestantism, then it is argued that things were different during Bible times than they were now, with regard to the demands and nature of sola Scriptura. I just don’t see any indication of that in Scripture.

If White does claim such scriptural support exists, he should, by all means, produce this biblical evidence. We all wait with baited breath. If he cannot do so, why does he believe this? He would have to do so on “extra-biblical” grounds, and to do that is to concede virtually his entire position, as any number of distinctive Catholic doctrines could be defended as also not explicitly biblical. But I maintain that there is no biblical proofs whatsoever for what White is contending (sola Scriptura and the idea that it only really starts applying after the Bible is complete). It’s completely arbitrary, and yet another instance of begging the question and assuming what one is purporting to prove.

Sola scriptura refers to the functioning church, not to the church being founded and receiving revelation on a regular basis from living apostles.

I ask again, where is the support for this idea in Scripture itself?

There are no living apostles today, and revelation has ceased (even Rome agrees on this point). The issue now is, what is the infallible rule of faith? Does the Bible teach that that which is theopneustos (“God-breathed”) is sufficient to function as the regula fidei? Yes, it does. That is the issue.

But where??!! The Bible is sufficient for salvation and teaching, but it does not follow from those truths, that the Church and Tradition are not binding and authoritative. Sola Scriptura is not so much false in what it asserts but in what it fails to assert, and what it positively excludes, contrary to Scripture.

In his book, Answers to Catholic Claims: A Discussion of Biblical Authority, White goes to even further extremes by coming to his conclusions for little reason other than his preconceived notions (more circular argumentation). Thus, he argues:

But what of 2 Timothy 2:2? Does this not indicate the existence of an oral teaching that could be passed down separately from the written record? . . .

. . . are we to believe that what Paul taught in the presence of many witnesses is different than what is contained in the pages of the New Testament? . . . Why should we limit what Timothy is to pass on to only those things that are not contained in the Bible, but instead make up some “traditions” that were to be entrusted to a particular class of individuals – those holding the “apostolic succession”? There is nothing to suggest that there was the slightest difference between what Paul had taught publicly and what he had written . . . Are we also to assume that there is more in the “oral teaching” than we have in the New Testament? Why? On what basis?

(Answers, 59-60)

In this case, White has answered his own question in his later book, The Roman Catholic Controversy:

1. First and foremost, sola scriptura is not a claim that the Bible contains all knowledge . . . Those who point out that there are truths outside the Bible are not objecting to sola scriptura.

2. Sola scriptura is not a claim that the Bible is an exhaustive catalog of all religious knowledge. When John commented on the wide range of the Lord Jesus’ ministry, he wrote:

And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written (John 21:25)

(pages 56-57)

Sola scriptura does not entail the rejection of every kind or form of “tradition.” There are some traditions that are God-honoring and useful in the Church. Sola scriptura simply means that any tradition, no matter how ancient or venerable it might seem to us, must be tested by a higher authority, and that authority is the Bible.

(page 59)

White asks (above): “Why should we limit what Timothy is to pass on to only those things that are not contained in the Bible?” Indeed, why should we? Since the Catholic Church certainly doesn’t do this, I wonder why the question was asked? It is a non sequitur. Apparently unaware that these two strains of thought are contradictory, White repeatedly engages in massive question-begging in his earlier book:

But what of Acts 2:42? Does it not say that the early Church, long before the writing of any of the New Testament, was devoted to the apostles’ teaching? Yes, it does say that. But again, what does this have to do with the concept of the Bible being the sufficient rule of faith? We are not living in the time of the apostles, are we? New revelation is not being given right now, is it? . . . Then Acts speaks to us of a very unusual time, does it not? There is nothing in the fact that the early believers in Jerusalem devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching that indicates that this teaching to which they devoted themselves is other than what we have in the New Testament! Is there anything that would suggest that what the Apostles taught these early believers was different than what they taught believers later by epistle? Do we not have accounts of the early sermons in the book of Acts that tell us what the Apostles were teaching then? Do we find the Apostles saying “what we tell you now we will pass down only by mouth as a separate mode of revelation known as tradition, and later we will write down some other stuff that will become sacred Scripture”? Certainly not. The fact that the early believers were devoted to the Apostles’ teaching should only strengthen our desire to also be devoted to the Apostles’ teaching – as it is found in the sacred Scriptures.

(Answers, 40-41)

There is absolutely no indication whatsoever that there is any difference in content between the message preached to the Thessalonians and the one contained in the written epistle. The Roman Catholic Church has no basis in this passage [2 Thessalonians 2:15] at all to assert that the contents of these “traditions” differs [sic] in the slightest from what is contained in the New Testament.

Are we to assume that when Paul proclaimed the Gospel that he said something different than when he wrote his epistles? No, both Peter and Paul mean the same thing when they speak of evangelizing.

(Ibid., 61)

. . . for many Roman Catholic apologists, simply demonstrating that the apostles spoke something is enough to demonstrate that the written word is not sufficient. The underlying assumption is that what was spoken has to contain information that is not in what was written. . . We point out that there is no basis for asserting that the spoken teachings of the apostles differed in any way from the written record they left to us. There is no evidence of a belief in a second “mode” of revelation in the New Testament – no acknowledgment of a revelation outside of that given by the Spirit in the Scriptures.

(Ibid., 62)

White again engages in rhetorical irrelevancy by asking, “Do we find the Apostles saying “what we tell you now we will pass down only by mouth as a separate mode of revelation known as tradition, . . . ?” What this has to do with anything, I have not the slightest idea. But I guess it helps White to bolster his extremely weak case – with holes large enough for a truck to drive through -, to pretend that Catholics believe in sola traditio. Perhaps he can explain this exceedingly strange line of thinking in his reply (in the rare event that he does respond).

The transitional period to which White refers (“We are not living in the time of the apostles, are we? New revelation is not being given right now, is it?”, etc.), would actually be far longer than the lifetime of the apostles. It would extend all the way to the end of the 4th century, when the canon of the Bible was fixed (including the so-called “Apocrypha,” which was included in Bibles all the way till the advent of Protestantism, when these books were “demoted” and first removed). So sola Scriptura could not be applied in the sense it is today, until almost 400 A.D., when Church authority and Tradition set the limits of the canon. Does this not strike one as an exceptionally odd and weird point of view? The question of the canon itself is an extremely fascinating one and troublesome for sola Scriptura, but that is beyond our purview here.

One must also call attention to the fact that being separate from Scripture does not automatically mean “different from the teaching of Scripture.” There need not be any conflict. Catholics believe that Scripture and Tradition are “twin fonts of the one divine wellspring.” Sacred Tradition is not so much “different” from Scripture as it is “more.” So White sets up a false dilemma. Arguing from the reasonable proposition that it is implausible that oral tradition would be “different” from Scripture, he falsely concludes that, therefore, no oral tradition exists, or if it does, it is irrelevant, and not binding in any way, shape, or form. He overlooks the possibility that oral tradition can supplement the Bible and offer authoritative interpretation of it (because he sees the two as somehow pitted against each other – which itself is a false and unbiblical dichotomy).

But White does more than even this. He practically equates the “tradition” often spoken of in the New Testament with the New Testament itself:

. . . A person with a Bible in his hands has the traditions of which Paul speaks. (Ibid., 58)

This is clearly absurd, and it is from plain common sense. James White admits that the Bible does not contain all knowledge, or even all religious knowledge, and cited John 21:25 to show this. There are many other such verses (e.g., Lk 24:15-16,25-27, Jn 20:30, Acts 1:2-3). Jesus appeared for forty days after His Resurrection, in addition to all the days and nights He spent with the disciples teaching them. In one night He very well could have spoken more words than are in the entire New Testament. And He was with them for three years. St. Paul spent many years with Christians, and is described frequently as “arguing” or “disputing” with Gentiles and Jews. It is ludicrous and ridiculous to think that either Jesus or Paul were “Scripture machines” and that absolutely everything they taught (i.e., the ideas and doctrines) was later recorded in Scripture, and had to be, lest it be forgotten, and that nothing they taught was not in Scripture.

Consider, for example, just one passage: the account of Jesus’ post-Resurrection appearance to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:13-32). They talked for probably several hours, and the Bible informs us of one wonderfully tantalizing Scripture interpretation session from our Lord Himself (that every Bible student would give his right arm to have heard):

And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:27)

It is absurd to think that nothing in any of these gatherings was spoken which was not later recorded in Scripture: no idea, no doctrine or explanation of a doctrine or interpretation of various Scriptures (that the disciples and early Christians would have surely asked Jesus and Paul about). It is equally absurd to hold that no one could remember any of this, and that it could not become a Christian Tradition supplementary to and alongside Holy Scripture, and in perfect harmony with it. This would require a notion that all of this teaching was quickly forgotten and lost to posterity, and that only the Bible contained the truths which Christians need. Nothing else carried a similar authority. This scenario is implausible in the extreme; even laughably so. Yet White’s empty axiom requires it.

On what basis does White assert these things? How does he know this? What proves it? When all is said and done, it will be seen that his assumption is based on nothing at all. It is an unproven axiom that he adopts simply because it fits into the schema of sola Scriptura. He assumes it without argument, and this premise is used in an overall sola Scriptura framework, but it is, of course, yet another circular argument: a vicious logical circle indeed. The “reasoning” (insofar as I can comprehend such incoherence) runs as follows:

1. When Paul refers to tradition he is referring to nothing more than what is in the Bible.

2. Therefore, there is no tradition to speak of, since it simply collapses or reduces as a category to “that which is in Scripture.”

3. Therefore, the Catholic rule of faith (which includes so-called “unbiblical tradition”) is unbiblical.

4. Whatever is unbiblical must be false.

5. Whatever is false must be rejected.

6. Therefore, the Protestant rule of faith, sola Scriptura, is true over against the Catholic “three-legged stool” of authority: tradition + Church + Bible.

The whole chain starts with a radically unproven premise. It proceeds to add error upon error and to build a house of cards, on sand. All indications from the Bible and from common sense; all plausiblity, suggests that #1 is false to begin with. But White thinks it is so true that he repeats it several times (often italicizing entire sentences), hoping that people who read it over and over will accept it and not notice that no evidence or biblical rationale whatsoever has been given, which would cause a reasonable person who accepts biblical inspiration to believe this.

We conclude, then, that White’s arguments regarding sola Scriptura are filled with fallacies and insufficiently-supported contentions, begged questions and circular arguments. They collapse in a heap under even mild scrutiny, like a snowman on the equator. He ignores biblical evidence which contradicts his outlook, and to the extent that he engages such passages at all, he caricatures the Catholic position and simply redefines words away so that – presto! – the problem vanishes. If one sees the word “tradition” in the Bible, one must realize that it is merely a synonym for “Bible.” When Jesus upholds the authority of the Pharisees, it means only that they can read the Bible in the synagogue, and cannot mean anything contrary to the preconceived axiom of sola Scriptura. When the New Testament writers cite “prophecies” that can’t be found in the Old Testament, we will find them one day, and no one must rashly conclude that they are “extra-biblical.” Etc., etc.

The old proverb never was more apt of a description than it is with regard to the sola Scriptura position, as defended even by its most vigorous proponents: “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

January 12, 2017

NicaeaCouncil

Fresco of the Council of Nicaea (325), from the Sistine Chapel, Vatican (1590) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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(August 1997)

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James White, a professional anti-Catholic, wrote in his own public discussion list (of which I was a member) on 7-15-96:
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I simply encourage everyone on the list to read any decent modern historical source, Roman Catholic or Protestant, on the subject of Nicea and the role of the bishop of Rome. The idea that the council was called by, presided over by (through representatives), or was merely conditional until ratified by, the bishop of Rome as the head of the church, is a-historical, untenable, and to my knowledge, not promoted by any serious historian in our age. Oh yes, there are many Roman Catholics who, for solely theological reasons, might promote this idea, but it is anachronism in its finest form, and shows to what length people will go to maintain a tradition.

My reply follows:

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Following my detractor’s encouragement above, alas, it has been discovered (not surprisingly to us at all) that there exists at least one “serious historian” who does make a (slightly tentative) case for papal jurisdiction exercised at Nicaea.

That historian is Warren H. Carroll, who holds a Ph.D. in history from Columbia, and who founded Christendom College in Front Royal, VA, in 1977. He is currently writing a major multi-volume, copiously-documented and footnoted “History of Christendom.” His second volume is entitled The Building of Christendom (Christendom College Press, 1987). It covers the period from 324-1100 in the space of 616 pages, of which approximately 148 (roughly a quarter) consist of extensive footnotes and bibliographies. These considerations, in my mind, would strongly suggest a “serious” historian at work, by any reasonable criteria, whatever an anti-Catholic might think of him.

Anti-Catholics and other more ecumenical non-Catholics may want to claim that Carroll’s motivation is “solely theological,” since he is an orthodox Catholic, and/or that his orthodoxy thereby disqualifies him as an objective, detached scholar. But this would be as silly as saying that because someone happens to be a conservative, orthodox Calvinist who defends Reformation Protestantism over against Catholicism, therefore his conclusions and arguments are, ipso facto, inherently suspect; or, by the same deficient reasoning, that conservative biblical scholars such as F. F. Bruce are not to be trusted because they deny the higher critical theories and hostile presuppositions of liberal scholars. Having a strong theological view by no means disqualifies anyone as a trustworthy scholar. In fact, quite the opposite: better to make one’s bias (which everyone has) apparent up-front than to attempt to hide it or deny its existence. That said, let’s see what Carroll has to say on this subject:

The recommendation for a general or ecumenical council . . . had probably already been made to Constantine by Ossius [aka Hosius], and most probably to Pope Silvester as well (9). . . Ossius presided over its deliberations; he probably, and two priests of Rome certainly, came as representatives of the Pope. (10) (p.  11)

[The rest is the material of two footnotes related to the above remarks]:

9. Victor C. De Clercq, Ossius of Cordoba (Washington, 1954), pp. 218-226; Charles J. Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church, ed. William R. Clark (Edinburgh, 1894), I, pp. 269-270.

De Clercq thinks that Ossius had already recommended the council to Constantine before the synod of Antioch [March or April 325], which merely joined in the prior recommendation; in view of the close relationship between Ossius and Constantine . . ., this would seem probable . . .

That Pope Silvester I was informed from the first about plans for the Council of Nicaea there is no good reason to doubt, however much its likelihood may be downplayed by sectarian prejudice or in misplaced deference to ecumenism among the current generation of historians . . .

We know that later, at the 6th Ecumenical Council in Constantinople (680), it was stated as accepted fact – though very much against the interest of the partisans of the episcopate of Constantinople, where the Council was held, who sought to build up their see as a rival to Rome – that ‘Arius arose as an adversary to the doctrine of the Trinity, and Constantine and Silvester immediately assembled the great Synod of Nicaea’ (Hefele, loc. cit.) . . .

Constantine’s personal role in the calling of the Council of Nicaea does not, from the available evidence, seem to be any greater than the personal role of Emperor Charles V in convening the earlier sessions of the Council of Trent . . .

10. De Clercq, Ossius, pp. 228-250; Hefele, Councils, I, 36-41; Timothy D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, MA, 1981), pp. 214-215. De Clercq’s arguments on this often controverted point are powerfully convincing; his conclusion, that Ossius’ representing Pope Silvester at Nicaea is only a ‘possibility,’ is too modest or too cautious or both. The whole history of the calling of the Council of Nicaea, and the whole history of the Church in the empire for the preceding decade, suggest that Pope Silvester would have designated Ossius for this role. At the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus a century later, Bishop Cyril of Alexandria presided and signed the acts of the Council first, without reference to his role as chief representative of the Pope, and his signature was immediately followed by those of two bishops and a priest specifically designated as representing the Pope – just as in the acts of the Council of Nicaea, Ossius signed first as presiding officer without reference to his representing the Pope, followed by two priests identified as the Pope’s legates. The two situations are exactly parallel; yet in the case of the Council of Ephesus we know for a fact that Cyril of Alexandria had been designated the Pope’s representative. The whole creates a strong presumption that the same was true of Ossius at Nicaea. (pp. 33-34)

Also, the Encyclopedia Britannica (1985 ed.), informs us (under “Hosius,” v. 6, p. 77): “Prompted by Hosius, Constantine then summoned the first ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325) . . .”

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (ed. F. L. Cross, 2nd edition, Oxford Univ. Press, 1983, p. 668), a very reputable non-Catholic reference, largely concurs:

. . . from 313 to the Council of Nicaea [Hosius] seems to have acted as ecclesiastical adviser to the Emperor Constantine . . . it was apparently in consequence of his report that the Emperor summoned the Nicene Council. There are some grounds for believing that here he presided, and also introduced the Homoousion.

Finally, Catholic apologist David Palm, added in a letter of 7-16-97:

Here is a quotation from Gelasius [of Cyzicus] the Eastern priest-historian writing about A.D. 475, stating explicitly that Hosius the bishop of Cordova was in effect a papal legate at the council of Nicea. So much for the notion that the popes did not preside at the earliest councils. The translation is mine; it’s fairly literal but functional, I hope:

Hosius himself, the famous Beacon of the Spaniards, held the place of Sylvester, bishop of great Rome, along with the Roman presbyters Vito and Vincent, as they held council with the many [bishops]. (Patrologia Graece 85:1229)

Furthermore, This Rock magazine (p. 27, June 1997), offers the following information:

The Graeco-Russian liturgy, in the office for Pope Silvester, speaks of him as actual head of the Council of Nicaea:

Thou hast shown thyself the supreme one of the Sacred Council, O initiator into the sacred mysteries, and hast illustrated the Throne of the Supreme One of the Disciples.

(From Luke Rivington, The Primitive Church and the See of Peter, London: Longmans, Green, 1894, p. 164)

The following is a reply from Dr. Warren Carroll, to a critical post by an Orthodox participant in my discussion list, dated 8-19-97:

I also urge you to review the last four chapters of Volume I, The Founding of Christendom, which present the very strong evidence that the Bishop of Rome did have authority over the whole Church from the beginning, the first specific indicator being the letter of Pope Clement I to the Corinthians about 95 A.D., then a passage from St. Irenaeus in his Against Heresies, then the decree of Pope Victor I (about 200) prescribing the date for celebrating Easter, as against the date then being used in Asia Minor (now Turkey). Both Pope Clement’s letter to the Corinthians and Pope Victor’s decree rejecting the use of the 14th day of the month Nisan to celebrate Easter in Asia Minor, are exercises of the Pope’s universal jurisdiction in the Church, far outside Italy. The situation at the Council of Nicaea has to be judged with these background facts in mind.

It is true, and I state, that there is no specific evidence that Ossius was specifically designated as a papal representative at Nicaea. But I maintain that it is highly probable, for the reasons given. Ossius may very well have been–in fact, I would say that he probably was–suggested or even “nominated” as president of the Council by Emperor Constantine, who obviously had complete confidence in him. But since the Pope sent two men to represent him at the Council, it seems unreasonable to me that he would not have confirmed the presiding officer if he were not to designate one of his representatives for that position.

The records of the Council make it clear that Ossius, not Constantine, presided (Eusebius’ vague reference to “several presidents” cannot stand against the records of the Council itself). Constantine was present and did intervene; he promised the Council of Nicaea his support and protection, which he gave it; it might well not have been held but for him. But the presence of papal representatives, specifically designated as such, means it must have had at least the Pope’s approval, otherwise he would not have sent them. All the successful ecumenical councils of the first six centuries of the Church required the cooperation of both Pope and Emperor, and we know that all the others had that. Only for Nicaea, because of our dearth of information about Pope Silvester, is there room for doubt about the Pope’s role.

January 12, 2017

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[May-June 1996. James White is the most well-known and influential anti-Catholic apologist. He is a Reformed Baptist elder. I find this exchange utterly remarkable — even by White’s rock-bottom standards of discourse –, in that he takes the greatest pains to never ever defend the very thing that he asserted. In this way, the “dialogue” might be read as high comedy. But there are very important issues discussed here. Back in those days: now over 20 years ago, White at least made some attempt to interact with me. Shortly afterwards, he adopted the immediately dismissive / mocking tone that he has taken with me ever since. White’s words will be in blue. I have compiled a 395-page book of debates with White]

*****

This took place on Mr. White’s e-mail “sola Scriptura list” (by this time I was online, but didn’t yet have a website), that he actually invited me to. It included Protestants, Catholics, and even a few Orthodox. Here we clearly observe White’s trademark evasiveness when I ask him “hard questions.”

It’s a pattern and tactic that he has perpetually followed all through the years with me. His other overwhelming tendency is rank insults. But there were still relatively few of those at this early stage of the game: only relentless evasion and obfuscation.

* * * * *

There would be no criticism if the Roman Catholic side was not using the argument “sola scriptura doesn’t work because sola scriptura hasn’t brought about monolithic theological agreement on all issues.” Dave Armstrong has made that argument in posts here,

Maybe you have me confused with one of the other two Daves in the group, since, to my recollection, I have never made such an argument. What I said was that perspicuity fails as a thought-system because it presupposes possible (and actual) agreement among Protestants, at least on the so-called “central” issues, based on recourse to the Bible alone. This is clearly false, and a pipe-dream. My point is: “what criteria of falsifiability will suffice to challenge the Protestant notion of perspicuity, given the fact of 24,000 sects?” In the opinion of Catholics, this sad state of affairs is more than enough to put the lie to perspicuity, as formulated by Luther, Calvin, and current-day evangelical scholars such as R. C. Sproul.

Now don’t try to tell us that “this is not how perspicuity is defined,” etc. I’ve heard it 1000 times if I’ve heard it once that Protestants agree on the central issues, and that this “fact” supposedly salvages perspicuity and sola Scriptura. But I can’t find any Protestant willing to face this ridiculous division squarely.

I believe it is vitally important to believe in what the Apostles taught. Which, of course, is exactly why I cannot embrace the teachings of Rome. In fact, it is fidelity to the apostolic message that is the strongest argument against the innovations of Rome over time, Dave.

Why not boldly tell us, then, James, precisely what the Apostles taught”? In particular, I am curious as to their teaching in those areas where Protestants can’t bring themselves to agree with each other; for example:

    • 1.TULIP

    • 2. Baptism

    • 3. The Eucharist

    • 4. Church Government

    • 5. Regeneration

    • 6. Sanctification

    • 7. The Place of Tradition

    • 8. Women Clergy

    • 9. Divorce

    • 10. Feminism

    • 11. Abortion

    • 12. The Utility of Reason

    • 13. Natural Theology

    • 14. The Charismatic Gifts

    • 15. Alcohol

    • 16. Sabbatarianism

    • 17. Whether Catholics are Christians

    • 18. Civil Disobedience

I’ve heard recently that even John Stott and F. F. Bruce have questioned the existence of eternal hellfire. And they’re supposed to be “evangelicals”?! How can you have “fidelity” to an “apostolic message” if you can’t even define what it is? And if you either don’t know, or are reluctant to spell it out here, then you illustrate my point better than I could myself: either your case collapses due to internal inconsistency, or because of the chaos of Protestant sectarianism, which makes any such delineation of “orthodoxy” impossible according to your own first principles; or if theoretically possible, certainly unenforceable.

I think this is at least as compelling as the “infinite regress” scenario, with regard to infallibility, which would wipe out all authority and/or certainty, whether from a Protestant or Catholic (or Orthodox) perspective. After all, one must exercise some faith, somewhere along the line, as I think all here would agree. When Catholics accept infallibility of popes and councils, this is an implicit faith in our Lord, Whom we believe protects same from error.

Absent some response to this, Protestants are simply engaging in fantasy, pipe-dreams, and games, in violation of biblical, divine injunctions such as, “. . . teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20) — not just the mythical “central,” “primary,” “essential” doctrines, and “who cares whether we agree on the peripherals.” Get real (and biblical)! Eagerly awaiting your response (nothing fancy required, just a laundry list) to my — as of yet – unanswered challenge.

That’s pretty easy, Dave. I have 27 books filled with their teaching. Where shall we start? I guess we could start with the apostolic teaching that we are justified by faith and so have peace with God (Romans 5:1). That’s a wonderful thing to know, isn’t it?

It certainly is. And we agree in large part. But when you guys corrupt the traditional understanding into sola fide, we must part ways. Why, though, if sola fide is true, did “scarcely anyone” teach it from Paul to Luther, according to Norman Geisler, in his latest book Roman Catholics and Evangelicals (p. 502)? Very strange, and too bizarre and implausible for me.

The Apostles also taught that Jesus Christ was and is fully deity (Colossians 2:9), and that’s really important, too!

Absolutely. But you guys got this doctrine from us, so big wow!

Are you saying that the Bible is insufficient to answer these questions? That God’s Word is so unclear, so confused, so ambiguous, that these issues cannot be determined by a careful and honest examination of the Bible?

It’s irrelevant what I think, because I’m asking you. But let’s assume for the sake of argument that it is clear, sufficient, and perspicuous. Okay, now, please tell me what it teaches on these issues! Does anyone not understand my argumentation here? Is it that complicated? This is the essence of my whole argument in this vein. If we grant your perspicuity, then tell us these doctrines that are so clear. Yet you guys want to either run or cry foul when we hold you to your own principles!

Why not throw in the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and the person of the Holy Spirit, as most do when they decide to start going after the Bible?

We agree on these three doctrines, so they are irrelevant to the discussion. I’m asking for clarification on the issues which divide Protestants, for we regard this division as a disproof of perspicuity. No one’s “going after the Bible.” I for one have a whole wall full of 25+ Bible versions, and all sorts of Bible reference works. I don’t need to defend my love for the Bible (nor does the Catholic Church, for that matter). I’m saying: be true to your own principles, and don’t be ashamed of them. Either demonstrate this abstract, ethereal notion of perspicuity concretely and practically, or cease using it if it has no content, and if it is only useful as a content-less slogan to bash Catholics with.

People who call themselves Protestants disagree on every point above; people who call themselves Roman Catholics disagree on every point above, too. So what?

This is your typical evasion, which I severely critiqued in a related post. I don’t care about “people who call themselves [X, Y, Z].” One can only go by the official teachings of any given group. You don’t go seek out a backslidden Mormon in a bar in Salt Lake City to determine the beliefs of Mormons! You go to Pearl of Great Price, Doctrines and Covenants, and The Book of Mormon. This is utterly obvious. Yet when it comes to us, you want to preserve your “argument from Catholic liberals,” since it is apparently the only “reply” you have to a critique of your views. Is it a proper answer if an atheist, asked why he doesn’t believe in God, says, “Well you theists can’t agree whether God is a singular Being or a Trinity, so there!”? We are critiquing your position. Besides, we have already answered your tired objections on this point many times (myself at least five times, and David Palm, a few more). But you guys keep wanting to avoid my question as to the precise nature of this “apostolic message” to which you refer [anti-Catholic apologist Eric Svendsen also attempted some non-“replies”]. Again, I’m just holding you to your own words. If you would rather admit that your own phrases have neither definition nor doctrinal or rational content, that would be one way (albeit not a very impressive one) out of your felt dilemma.

First, the apostolic message is far more narrow than you’d like to make it. The apostles did not address every single issue there is to address. They did not address the issue of genetic engineering, for example. Nor did they discuss nuclear energy. Does that make the Bible “insufficient”?

Another fruitless exercise in evasion: “if you don’t have an answer, then hopelessly confuse the issue by introducing non sequiturs.” This is no answer at all. Are you going to seriously maintain (with a straight face) that the Apostles (in the Bible) did not address issues on my list such as: baptism, the Eucharist, church government, regeneration, sanctification, tradition, or the spiritual gifts? How ridiculous! Why don’t you select just five of this present list of items out of my entire list of 18 in which Protestants differ, and tell me what the Apostles taught, so I can know what you know?

Only if you make “sufficient” a standard that is absurd and beyond reason.

What’s absurd? I’m simply asking you to define what you mean by “apostolic message.” How is that at all “beyond reason”? Pure obfuscation . . .

Imparting exhaustive knowledge of all things is not one of the tasks of the Bible.

More obscurantism, designed to avoid (unsuccessfully) the horns of my dilemma.

I hope all on the list realize what is being said here. A person with the entire NT in his hand cannot know what the apostolic message was unless he likewise has Roman “tradition” alongside! Imagine it! Those poor Roman Christians. From about A.D. 55 until around A.D. 140 they could not have demonstrated fidelity to the apostolic message! Why not? Because they didn’t have access to Roman Catholic tradition (there was no monarchial episcopate in Rome until the latter period, and hence no “Pope”). Does that make any sense? Of course not.

All the more reason for you to tell us what this mysterious “apostolic message” is. According to this curious illogic, one can “know” what the message is, without the Catholic Church, but they can’t tell me what it is, what it consists of!

I am (hauntingly) reminded of my JW [Jehovah’s Witnesses] friends who consistently point to the monolithic theology of the Watchtower Society as evidence of their “truthfulness.”

Nice try. Here is a prime example of sophistry. Note how, again, this has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. Rather than answer a simple question of mine, directly related to his own statement, he prefers to compare the Catholic Church to an Arian heresy (which happens to be my own area of expertise, by the way). Even so, if James will answer my question, I’ll be happy to demonstrate how Catholicism is infinitely more credible than JW’s.

When Catholics accept infallibility of popes and councils, this is an implicit faith in our Lord, Whom we believe protects same from error.

I wish it were faith in Christ the Lord;

It is, James. Did you not read my last sentence? Perhaps, like John MacArthur, you would like to contend that us poor, ignorant Catholics worship a different Christ, too?

Christ is the way, truth, and life, and hence fidelity to Him would cause one to put truth and consistency in the forefront of the examination.

What does this have to do with anything? Consistency is primarily what I’m calling for, and I’m asking you what the truth is, but you don’t want to tell me! There are delicious ironies here to savor!

Yet, any honest examination of councils and Popes demonstrates that they have often contradicted each other. But, the committed Roman Catholic finds a way around these contradictions, not because they are not really contradictions, but because of the pre-existing commitment to the Papacy and the related institutions.

Straying. What is this, a replay of the Diet of Worms or something? I was chided for entering in articles which were on the general subject, so how can I answer here broad swipes at my Church such as these?

I get the real feeling, Dave, that you well know that your questions have been and will be answered,

If they have, I’ve missed it. Please, somebody send me that post. If they “will” be answered, when, and by whom, I wonder? But I don’t “know” one way or the other, despite your “real feeling.”

but that isn’t going to stop you from using such language in the future in another forum, to be sure.

No, you’re right, not till I get an answer. Sure, the language was exaggerated, but such excesses result from the frustration of repeatedly not receiving a simple answer to a simple-enough question.

You may wish to say that you “know” “everything” Jesus taught His disciples. Do you really, Dave?

No. Do you wish to say this?

Are you prepared to defend the thesis that Jesus taught the disciples the Immaculate Conception, predicted the Bodily Assumption, and that Peter really did believe in Papal Infallibility? I challenge any Roman Catholic apologist on this list: you can’t defend those doctrines from the Fathers. Those doctrines are not a part of the patristic literature. I’ll be glad to demonstrate that.

Answer my question, and we Catholics will be glad to deal with yours, but I would say that it would be more profitable to do that in a whole ‘nother discussion group, so as not to cloud the issues which will take a considerable amount of time to work through as it is.

[this list was supposed to be devoted to sola Scriptura and related issues of Tradition, after all, so the reader will note that I sought to stay on topic, while James wished to go all over the ballpark, in his evasions]

Eagerly awaiting your response (nothing fancy required, just a laundry list) to my — as of yet — unanswered challenge,

What challenge is that, Dave?

Please read the first sentence above, after the introductory line. That explains it! You didn’t know what I was asking for! Now that you know it, surely there is an answer, no? Just a list of the true apostolic teachings on baptism, etc. . . .

Why don’t you select just five of this present list of items out of my entire list of 18 in which Protestants differ, and tell me what the Apostles taught, so I can know what you know?

Your argument won’t get you anywhere, Dave (and your style is certainly not going to win you any points with the more serious of our readers, either).

Is that why no one is answering? My style? Maybe I’ll try a boring, staid approach, then.

You well know what the Bible teaches on these topics.

James, James! This is the whole point! We know, but you guys can’t figure it out. Hence your reluctance to answer (I can think of no better reason). You claim busy-ness, which plagues us all, but you still have time to write this and evade my question again. A short answer to my question surely wouldn’t put you out.

Problem is, you don’t accept that.

How silly is this? I “don’t accept” what the Bible teaches on these points, but you don’t have the courtesy to explain to me just what it is that it teaches on them. Such a view is below contempt, and should cause you to blush with shame.

Instead, you accept another authority that tells you something different.

Sheer goofiness. Different than what? Again, if I don’t have your answer, what do you expect me to believe? If this isn’t The Emperor’s Clothes, I don’t know what is.

Tell us all again, Dave: are you saying the Bible is insufficient to answer these questions? Are you saying we can’t know what the Bible teaches about tradition, for example? That a serious exegesis of relevant texts can’t provide us with any level of certainty or knowledge? Is that what you really want to say to this group, Dave?

Quadruple “no” (that’s no no no no). Now, how ’bout your equally forthright answer to me?

We all have our traditions. In point of fact, all of our traditions are fallible outside of Scripture. Those of us who recognize the fallibility of our traditions will test those traditions by Scripture. I know that’s what I do, anyway. And, thankfully, the Scriptures are more than capable of providing the means of testing those traditions.

Yes, but since you guys can’t agree with the interpretation of Scripture, of what practical use is an infallible Bible? If the interpretation is fallible and contradictory, then — practically speaking — the Bible in effect is no more infallible than its differing interpretations. But, if you’re a Protestant, this is apparently of no consequence. Relativism is smuggled in under the aegis of private judgment and so-called “tolerance.” This is all old news, but maybe if we repeat it enough times it will start sinking in.

But the simple fact of the matter is that the Catholic Church of 400 AD is not the Roman Catholic Church of 1996.

Correct. There is a 1596-year difference, and living bodies grow quite a bit in that great time-span. But this does not make them different organisms. The city of Jerusalem is a lot different now than in 400, but it is still Jerusalem, is it not? I’m a lot different than I was in 1966, but I’m still me! This aspect involves development of doctrine. One thing we know for sure: this “Catholic Church” of 400 (which was also very much centered at Rome) is certainly not organically connected to the current-day chaos of Protestant sectarianism.

Is it really true that there are some on this list who believe that without outside “tradition” or revelation, that we cannot, in fact, demonstrate the deity of Jesus Christ?

Not likely, James. If you can find even one, I’ll eat my (free) copy of The Fatal Flaw [one of James’ anti-Catholic books]. That said, I would point out, nevertheless, that, e.g., proponents of the heresies of Monophysitism (i.e., that Christ had one Nature, not two) and Monothelitism (i.e., that Christ had one will, not two) in particular, argued from Scripture alone and thought that Rome and the other orthodox churches were adding traditions of men to Scripture. So, when you get down to fine points, there is indeed a need for some authoritative pronouncements, as Church history itself clearly and unarguably affirms. Or is it your position that the pronouncements of Nicaea, Constantinople I, Ephesus and Chalcedon on matters of the Trinity were altogether irrelevant and unnecessary? Something may indeed be quite clear (which I maintain is the case for many, many doctrines — it is the premise of my book, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism, for Pete’s sake), but there will arise people who manage to distort it, and so a conciliar definition and clarification becomes necessary in a practical, very “human” sense.

Surely we’ve all tangled with a [Jehovah’s] Witness or two over the years. Am I to understand it that in the final analysis those who deny sola scriptura ended such conversations with the anathema of the infallible interpreter? Was the final argument “It means this because the bishop of Rome says so?”

Of course not. The response would be (at least in my case), if any appeal to tradition be made, rather: “All of the predominant Christian traditions for 2000 years have agreed that Jesus is the God-Man, whereas your belief originates from a late heresy called Arianism.” Personally, for 15 years now I’ve followed in my own evangelism and apologetics a guideline from Paul: “be all things to all people.” In this instance, your polemical caricature of how a Catholic would approach such a situation is absurd, and no one I know would ever use it. But historically speaking, yes, orthodoxy was — in the final analysis — determined by the Roman position, again and again, and again. I detail this in my brief history of early heresies in my chapter on the papacy, lest anyone doubt this, and many non-Catholic scholars such as Jaroslav Pelikan freely concur with this judgment.

We see the same dynamic, e.g., with regard to eastern schisms. There were five major ones prior to 1054 (over Arianism, St. John Chrysostom, the Acacian schism, Monothelitism, and Iconoclasm), and in every case, Rome was on the right side, according to today’s Eastern Orthodoxy. Note that these are simple, unadorned facts of history — they leave little room for differing interpretation, but they sure cast doubt on the tendency of certain members of a Church with such a history declaring it the historical repository of “orthodoxy” over against the Catholic Church.

When it comes to doctrines such as baptism, all of a sudden the Protestant must appeal to tradition, but not universal Christian tradition (prior to 1517). Rather, he resorts to a mere denominational tradition. Thus James White must appeal to a late tradition of non-regenerative adult baptism, which originated 15 centuries after Christ. He freely admits (for once) that practically all the fathers erred on this doctrine, whereas the Anabaptists and himself got it right. And so, accordingly, he goes to the Scripture and finds his “proof texts.”

But even his master Calvin disagrees with him (about when baptism should occur), and also people in this group. So Calvin and Wesley and Luther have their proof texts which they believe contradict James White’s. And so on and on it goes. Protestants have five camps on baptism. So instead of “Rome saying so,” now it is because Calvin, or Zwingli, or James White “said so.” Or, well, I almost forgot: “The Bible says so!” Given the sterling record of orthodoxy of Rome, I would say that such an appeal (if made at all) carries far more weight than the appeal to a single, self-proclaimed, self-anointed “reformer” such as John Calvin.

No offense intended, but in reality, it seems to me that when a convinced Roman Catholic encounters another system that, like Rome, claims special authority (like the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society), do we not here have an impasse?

Have you not read my extensive analysis of how these heresies and Rome are fundamentally different? Now granted you disagree with it, but that’s different from foolish proclamations such as the above, which attempt to bamboozle people into thinking that I espouse a position which I in fact argued strenuously against in this very group. How quickly also you forget my quadruple “no” to your query recently, and my reply that I had produced 40 proofs for the Personhood of the Holy Spirit (everyone here is my witness), and that it was a “clear” doctrine in the Bible. But no matter: just blithely go on misrepresenting another’s position.

The Roman Catholic, in the final analysis, says that John 20:28 says X because Rome says so (indeed, has Rome ever really said what John 20:28 means infallibly? I mean, Rome teaches the deity of Christ clearly enough, but what about the specific passages themselves?).

This is ludicrous. You assume falsely once again that because we believe Scripture does not function as a perspicuous authority apart from some human ecclesiastical authority, therefore every individual passage is an utter “mystery, riddle, and enigma” (to borrow from Churchill’s description of Russia). Of course, this doesn’t follow, and is another straw man – not very useful for the purposes of constructive dialogue. Besides, wouldn’t your time be more profitably spent in rejoicing that we teach a doctrine of such paramount importance as the deity of Christ, instead of such minutiae?

The JW says John 20:28 can’t say X, but must say Y, again, because Brooklyn says so. Both have ultimate commitments to ultimate authorities, and in the final analysis, how can any progress be made?

The hidden false assumption here is that the Protestant has no such “ultimate authority.” But of course he does, and must. It is either he himself, or some aspect of a denominational tradition, which contradicts other such traditions (some of which must necessarily be man-made whenever they’re contradictory). Sorry, but I don’t see how such a system is at all superior to ours.

Now, on the other hand, is it not part of the appeal of Rome to point to conversations such as this, and the struggle to refute the “heretics” like the JW’s, and say, “See, you can only have arguments about probabilities with Protestantism. We give you final certainty through the Church.” I think all Protestants need to recognize the draw this has for people.

So please tell me, James: was my conversion due to a sincerely-held, reasoned, faith-based, morally-influenced, historically informed, biblically justified conclusion (regardless of your obvious disagreement), or simply psychological and emotional, irrationalist, subjective criteria? And are not such speculations instances of “judging the heart?”

The scandal of the plowman is not universally attractive.

I’m happy to see you admit it is a scandal.

The draw of the “infallible fuzzies” is very, very strong, and we must be well aware of this reality in thinking about the reasons why individuals convert to Roman Catholicism (or any of the other systems that likewise offer such promises of infallible certitude).

Again, do you deny that my conversion (and that of the many other converts such as David Palm, James Akin, Scott Hahn, Richard John Neuhaus, Howard, Muggeridge et al) is sincere and based on conviction and reflection? If so, how is this different from what Marxists, skeptics, atheists, various philosophers, etc. think of all Christian conversion? I have no problem granting sincerity and conviction to all here (after all, I once was an evangelical, and I fully remember my motivations and grounds for my beliefs). Some of us, James, think that certainty is an admirable goal in matters spiritual, moral, and theological. You despise Rome, we don’t. We see it quite differently. Why must you stoop to crack psycho-babble-type “analysis” in order to explain our inexplicable odysseys?

The answer, of course, is not to come up with ways of offering what does not, in fact, exist. The answer lies in remaining true to the Word, explaining the issues clearly,

Theological certainty does not exist? So Christianity is indeed reduced to philosophy. That is a slap in God’s face, as far as I’m concerned (although I’m sure you don’t mean it in that way). The God I serve is able, through His Holy Spirit, to impart truth to us, as the Bible teaches. “True to the Word”? You seek to be, so do I (believe it or not), so does Orthodox tradition. Now what do we do? “True to the Word,” yet so many disagreements over that very Word of “truth.” How do we resolve this dilemma? Throw up our hands in despair? Or admit that Catholics might be on to something?

and recognizing that in the final analysis, issues such as conversion to or from a position is primarily a spiritual matter. I can’t stop someone from converting with all the arguments and facts in the world.

Yes, as I suspected. Conversion (i.e., if to Catholicism) is an irrational decision. So in my case, all my reading of Newman, Merton, Bouyer, Ratzinger, Gibbons, Howard, Luther, Calvin, Adam, Chesterton, etc. was all just “surface material,” irrelevant to my final decision, which was in reality predetermined by an obsession with “smells and bells,” a fondness for an infallible “crutch,” a prior hatred of contraception, hero-worship of Catholic pro-life rescuers, an infatuation with statuary and idolatry, an absurd affection for genuflection, etc. ad infinitum? Right.

But, I’m still called upon to present those arguments and facts, trusting that the Lord’s will be done.

And so are we. Let the better argument prevail. May God our Father open all our eyes to our own blind spots. May the Lord who gave us eyes and minds cause us to use them in order to see and know all of His truth, in its magnificent fullness and glory. And may there be unity in His Body, whether or not the institutional ruptures remain, as in all likelihood, they will, until He comes again. Amen.

February 11, 2016

Cover (555 x 831)

(31 March 2004)

* * *

Reply to a post from James White’s website.

* * * * *

“A Comparison of Exegesis”

Bishop James White quoted from my bookA Biblical Defense of Catholicism (first edition, published by 1stBooks Library, 2001, from Chapter Five: “The Sacrifice of the Mass: ‘A Lamb . . . Slain'”), pp. 69-70 (pp. 97-98 in Sophia Institute Press edition, 2003):

The theme of the Epistle to the Hebrews is Christ as our High Priest. As such, the “priestly” verses are very numerous (for example, 2:17, 3:1, 4:14-16, 5:1-10, 6:20, 7:1-28, 8:1-6, 9:11-15, 24-28, 10:19-22). The teaching here acquires much more meaning within Catholic Eucharistic theology, whereas, in evangelical, non-sacramental Protestant interpretation, it is necessarily “spiritualized” away. For nearly all Protestants, Jesus Christ is a Priest only insofar as He dies sacrificially as the “Lamb” and does away with the Old Testament notion of animal sacrifice. This is not false but it is a partial truth. Generally speaking, for the Catholic, there is much more of a sense of the ever-present Sacrifice of Calvary, due to the nature of the Mass, rather than considering the Cross a past event alone.

In light of the repeated references in Hebrews to Melchizedek as the prototype of Christ’s priesthood (5:6,10, 6:20, 7:1-3,17,20), it follows that this priesthood is perpetual (for ever), not one time only. For no one would say, for example, that Christ is King (present tense) if in fact He were only King for a short while in the past. This (Catholic) interpretation is borne out by explicit evidence in Hebrews 7:24-25:

He holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues for ever. Consequently he is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

If Jesus perpetually intercedes for us, why should He not also permanently present Himself as Sacrifice to His Father? The connecting word, consequently, appears to affirm this scenario. The very notion, fundamental to all strains of Christian theology, that the Cross and the Blood are efficacious here and now for the redemption of sinners, presupposes a dimension of “presentness” to the Atonement.

Granting that premise, it only remains to deny that God could, would, or should truly and actually re-present this one Sacrifice in the Mass. God certainly can do this, since He is omnipotent. He wills to do this because Jesus commanded the observance of the Lord’s Supper (Luke 22:19). Lastly, one can convincingly contend that He should do this in order to graphically “bring home” to Christians His Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection, and to impart grace in a real and profound way in Communion. The One Propitiatory Atonement of Calvary is a past event, but the appropriation of its spiritual benefits to Christians is an ongoing process, in which the Mass plays a central role.

The Sacrifice of the Mass, like the Real Presence in the Eucharist, is an extension of the Incarnation. Accordingly, there is no rational a priori objection (under monotheistic premises) to the concept of God transcending time and space in order to present Himself to His disciples. Nor is there any denying that the Sacrifice of Calvary is always present to God the Father and to Jesus Christ, God the Son. How then, can anyone deny that God could make the Cross sacramentally present to us as well?

Now let’s examine Mr. White’s reading of Hebrews 8 (his words will be in blue; to read his statement by itself, follow the above link; I have moved the footnotes to where they occur in the text).

James White, introductory exegetical comments prior to deeper exegesis of Hebrews 8:6ff.

The immediately preceding argument, leading to the key presentation of the new covenant in Heb. 8:6-13, flows from the identification of Christ with the superior priesthood of Melchizedek (Psalm 110:4, cited in Heb. 7:17, 21), leading to the description of Christ as the e;gguoj (guarantee/guarantor)[1]

[1] e;gguoj is a hapax legomena in the NT, appearing only in the Apocryphal books of Sirach and 2 Maccabees prior to this. It has semantic connections to avrrabw.n (down payment) in Eph. 1:14, for in common secular usage it refers to providing security or a guarantee, normally in a financial or business transaction. The guarantee then of the better covenant is introduced here within the context of Christ’s superior priesthood, His indestructible life, and divine ability to save to the uttermost (7:24-35).

Nothing to quibble with here . . .

of the new covenant, and also bringing the first use of krei,ttonoj diaqh,khj, better covenant, in 7:22, “so much the more also Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.” Heb. 7:23-8:5 comprises a demonstration of the basis for the apologetic assertion that the new covenant is, in fact, a better covenant (part and parcel of the purpose of the letter), one that flows from the priestly nature of Christ’s work. 7:23-25 proves this by the contrast of the mortal priests with the one priest, Jesus Christ; and 7:26-28 does so in light of the sinfulness of the many priests and hence their repeated sacrifices versus the singular sacrifice of the innocent, undefiled Christ.

This is uncontroversial as well (as far as it goes). But of course White does not here deal with my own particular argument, that Jesus holds a perpetual priesthood (“He holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever” — 7:24; not just a one-time priestly sacrifice of Himself that has no application to His priesthood beyond the time it occurred in history).

Yes, we agree that Jesus sacrificed Himself once on the Cross (7:27). But that is a one-time act, in history. Why, then, does 7:26 continue to refer to Jesus as a “high priest” in the present tense, “exalted above the heavens”? It is this paradoxical interplay between the one act and the “present-ness” of Jesus’ priesthood that suggests a timeless nature of the sacrifice: precisely what Catholics claim is occurring at the Mass: the one-time sacrifice is being made present to us, because Jesus is a priest “forever.”

8:1-6, then, provides first a summary statement of the preceding arguments (i.e., our one high priest has entered into the heavenlies) and then provides the thesis statement for the description of the superiority of the new covenant from Jeremiah 31 with the assertion that Christ has obtained “a more excellent ministry” than that of the old priests, that He is the mediator (in contrast, in context, to Moses, v. 5, Gal. 3:19, John 1:17) of a “better covenant” enacted on “better promises.” Some brief comments should be offered exegetically on these texts.

Again, no significant disagreement, if at all. Of course the new covenant is better, and Jesus surpasses Moses, etc.

First, Christ’s role as singular and never dying high priest, and the resulting assurance of the perfection of His work, is seen by the writer as part of the demonstration of why the covenant of which He is the guarantee is “better” (7:23-25). While our English translations normally say something like, “The former priests existed in greater numbers” at 7:23, the literal reading is simply, “the priests,” contrasting[2]

[2] Using the common me.n/de. form translated “on the one hand/on the other hand.”

the plural with the singular “he” (oi` vs. o`) in v. 24. The work of the many priests is, of necessity, imperfect, for they are “prevented by death” from “continuing” or “abiding.” But, in contrast, He “abides forever,” He is no longer subject to death. Hence, He, unlike the old priests under the old covenant, holds His priesthood (which has been shown to be superior in the preceding arguments) avpara,baton, permanently, or, in some sources, without successor. Both translations fit the context, for He never lays aside this priesthood, hence, it is “permanent” in contrast to the former priests. But likewise He has no successor in His office. The entire concept is meant to be in contrast to the old priests and their inherently temporary nature. As a result of the permanence of His priestly position,[3]

[3] o[qen, “for which reason.”

Sure, but this doesn’t rule out the Catholic claim with regard to Jesus’ priesthood. It makes little sense to me to keep referring to Jesus as a “priest” in the present tense when He is (according to most Protestants) no longer doing at all what a priest does (sacrifice). Jesus sacrificed Himself as the Lamb of God. That was His priestly act (this is stated explicitly in 7:27, so it cannot be doubted).

But if that was strictly a past tense and not perpetual, why keep calling Him a priest after He is glorified in heaven? It would seem much more sensible to refer to His one-time priestly act, rather than continuing to call Him something denoting a characteristic activity that He is no longer performing.

Christ has an ability the old priests did not possess. He is able to save. The profundity of the words may deflect proper attention. The permanence of His life and position as high priest grants to Him the ability to save. He is active in saving, and He is capable of so doing.

If He is actively saving men — present and future tense — (as is undoubtedly true), but is doing so as a priest then He is presently saving by the sacrifice of Himself (i.e., the priestly act) which is an act made eternally “now”. Thus we are right to the heart of the Sacrifice of the Mass, which is the same concept. Jesus saves us as a priest. The sacrifice is of both an ongoing and salvific nature. This is the Mass! It’s heartening to see that James White can present it so clearly from the Bible despite his own lack of belief in it.

As noted above, the soteriological content of the superiority of Christ’s work as high priest and of the new covenant cannot be dismissed or overlooked.

I agree 100% That’s why I go to Mass every Sunday and partake of the body and blood of the once-for-all-sacrificed Lamb of God, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, made sacramentally present by the sublime miracle of transubstantiation, because this sacrifice is my salvation. It’s not often that I get excited about the Mass based on the arguments of an anti-Catholic Baptist who detests the very concept. :-)

The extent of His salvific work is noted by the phrase eivj to. pantele.j, which can be translated “forever” in the sense of permanence, or “to the uttermost” in the sense of completely, similar, in fact, to avpara,baton above. Owen noted the propriety of seeing both senses in the text:

[John Owen] “Take the word in the first sense, and the meaning is, that he will not effect or work out this or that part of our salvation, do one thing or another that belongs unto it, and leave what remains unto ourselves or others; but ‘he is our Rock, and his work is perfect.’ Whatever belongs unto our entire, complete salvation, he is able to effect it. The general notion of the most that are called Christians lies directly against this truth….That this salvation is durable, perpetual, eternal… and there is nothing hinders but that we may take the words in such a comprehensive sense as to include the meaning of both these interpretations. He is able to save completely as to all parts, fully as to all causes, and for ever in duration.”[4]

[4] John Owen, An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews 6:1-7:28, in The Works of John Owen, William Goold, ed. (Ages Digital Library, 2000), pp. 646-647.

Of course Jesus is “able to save completely.” We Catholics adhere to sola gratia just as much as Protestants do. But that doesn’t mean that the Eucharist is irrelevant as a sacramental means to receive this salvation that was accomplished at the cross. Jesus showed this when He gave His exposition recorded in John 6. He makes it clear that what He means by “bread” is His body:

. . . the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. (John 6:51)

In this verse, even White has to concede that bread = flesh. Otherwise, it would mean that what won our salvation on the cross was literally a chunk of bread, rather than the precious body of our Savior and Redeemer. So He means this quite literally: the bread is His body. That’s why He states two verses later:

. . . unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life . . . (John 6:53-54)

And four verse later, He reverts back to speaking of “bread” as His body:

This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died [i.e., not merely natural bread]; he who eats this bread will live for ever. (John 8:58)

It’s very clear (it could not be any clearer than it is):

1. Bread = Jesus’ flesh (Jn 6:51)
2. Eating Jesus’ flesh and blood gives eternal life (Jn 6:53-54)
3. Bread = Jesus’ body; which, partaken, causes one to live forever (Jn 8:58)

So the equation of Jesus’ body and the bread is stated outright (Jn 6:51) and then by inexorable simple deduction:

A. Jesus’ Flesh and Blood give eternal life.
B. Bread gives eternal life.
C. Therefore, Bread = Jesus’ Flesh and Blood (for how can mere bread cause one to attain eternal life?).

Just as the Father’s will for the Son revealed in John 6:38-39 demands perfection in His role as Savior, so too here the very same soteriological perfection and completion is central to the work of the eternal high priest. This is brought out with strong force in the rest of the verse, for the author indicates both the object of the salvific work and the basis thereof, and both are intensely “priestly” statements. The singular priest saves “those who draw near to God through Him.” This clearly harkens back to the people who drew near in worship to God in the temple, and their representative, the high priest on the day of atonement. There is specificity to the salvific work of the priest. He does not make a general plan of salvation available, He saves a specific people (cf. Matt. 1:21). And secondly, “He always lives to make intercession for them” points to the same perfection of the high priest. His indestructible life means He never lays aside His priestly role, hence, since the high priest interceded (evntugca,nein, Rom 8:34) for those for whom He offered sacrifice, Christ ever lives to make intercession for those who draw near to God through Him, resulting in the perfection of their salvation. The work of intercession guarantees the salvation of a specific people in this passage. This is vital to remember as we look at the key text in Hebrews 8.

No quibble here; Jesus saves utterly as a result of His sacrifice on the cross.

Similar themes appear in 7:26-28, including the perfect character of the high priest (v. 26), which establishes another element of His supremacy over the old priests, for He does not have to offer sacrifice for His own sins, and then the sins of the people. But here also appears a concept that will be expanded upon greatly at a later point, for the author says, “because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.” Self-offering is yet another aspect of what sets the priesthood of Christ apart, for obvious reasons, from the priesthood of old. The high priest presents the offering in His own body, a concept expanded upon in chapter nine. But He did so “once for all.” The sacrifice is a singularity in time, for the author uses the temporal adverb, evfa,pax, to strongly emphasize this concept. The old priests sacrificed often for themselves, while Christ offered one sacrifice (Himself) for the people.

No disagreement to speak of here. The sacrifice was once and for all, historically-speaking. But for God, it is still “now” and there is a sense expressed in the Bible that it is constantly made “present” to us. It was intended to be a perpetual rite and remembrance, because Jesus commanded us to observe the Lord’s Supper. Paul, too, recounts a eucharistic tradition that he “received” and “delivered” (1 Cor 11:23). He noted that Jesus said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” (1 Cor 11:24; cf. Lk 22:20, Mk 14:24, Matthew 26:28). Martin Luther made an excellent exegetical argument pertaining to these verses:

[T]his spirit will not believe what the Word of God says, but only what he sees and feels. What a fine faith . . . The text is too clear and too powerful . . . For this word more forcefully and powerfully than any before requires that the blood is in the sacrament . . . this word of Luke and Paul is clearer than sunlight and more overpowering than thunder. First, no one can deny that he speaks of the cup, since he says, “This is the cup.” Secondly, he calls it the cup of the new testament. This is overwhelming, for it could not be a new testament by means and on account of wine alone.

(Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matter of Images and Sacraments, 1525; Luther’s Works [LW], 40, 216-217)

In the same work, Luther makes a fascinating argument that a symbolic Eucharist turns the sacrament into a futile work of man rather than a grace and blessing from God:

He thinks one does not see that out of the word of Christ he makes a pure commandment and law which accomplishes nothing more than to tell and bid us to remember and acknowledge him. Furthermore, he makes this acknowledgment nothing else than a work that we do, while we receive nothing else than bread and wine.

(Ibid., LW, 40, 206)

Jesus’ sacrifice is not only present to us on earth, but also in heaven. In the next section of the same chapter in my book, I noted that an “altar” is mentioned as in heaven, in the book of Revelation many times (6:9, 8:3,5, 9:13, 11:1, 14:18, 16:7). Why is this, if altars and priesthood ceased with the one sacrifice of Jesus? This is after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. Nor is it just Jesus at this altar in heaven. We are told that the “prayers of the saints” are being offered there (5:8-9, 8:3-4). Altars are also mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament.

St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:14-22, in an explicitly eucharistic passage, uses language suggesting that he sees the Eucharist as a sacrifice involving an altar (hence priesthood, hence the Sacrifice of the Mass): He mentions the “altar” of the Old Covenant in 10:18 and makes a direct analogy with the altar of the new covenant in 10:21:

You cannot drink of the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.

Even Baptists like James White (and many other Protestants) have not completely avoided the language of priestly sacrifice, since they still speak of the “Lord’s table” and even an “altar call.” What altar? That is the language of priesthood and sacrifice. So even non-sacramental Protestants can’t help retaining a remnant of New Testament eucharistic and sacrificial, priestly talk. Hebrews 13:10 states that “we have an altar.” Again, why, if the old system of priesthood is gone and the only priesthood of the New Covenant is that of Christ at Calvary? This is the New Covenant!

Lastly, I will close with the final words of the chapter here considered, from my first book, showing, I think, that the Sacrifice of the Mass is in perfect accord with the New Testament indications, and that James White has a lot of explaining to do.

He is welcome to do so. I have agreed with much of his presentation because it does not conflict with Catholic teaching (it is simply incomplete; purged of all clear-as-day New Testament sacramentalism). But he would disagree with much of my exposition above. We don’t know why he would unless he tells us.

[T]he climactic scene of this entire glorious portrayal of heaven occurs in Rev 5:1-7. Verse 6 describes a Lamb standing as though it had been slain. Since the Lamb (Jesus, of course) is revealed as sitting in the midst of God’s throne (5:6, 7:17, 22:1,3; cf. Matthew 19:28, 25:31, Hebrews 1:8), which is in front of the golden altar (8:3), then it appears that the presentation of Christ to the Father as a Sacrifice is an ongoing (from God’s perspective, timeless) occurrence, precisely as in Catholic teaching. Thus the Mass is no more than what occurs in heaven, according to the clear revealed word of Scripture. When Hebrews speaks of a sacrifice made once (7:27), this is from a purely human, historical perspective (which Catholicism acknowledges in holding that the Mass is a “re-presentation” of the one sacrifice at Calvary). However, there is a transcendent aspect of the Sacrifice as well.

Jesus is referred to as the Lamb 28 times throughout Revelation (compared to four times in the rest of the New Testament: John 1:29,36, Acts 8:32, 1 Peter 1:19). Why, in Revelation (of all places), if the Crucifixion is a past event, and the Christian’s emphasis ought to be on the resurrected, glorious, kingly Jesus, as is stressed in Protestantism (as evidenced by a widespread disdain for, crucifixes)? Obviously, the heavenly emphasis is on Jesus’ Sacrifice, which is communicated by God to John as present and “now” (Revelation 5:6; cf. Hebrews 7:24). The very notion of lamb possesses inherent sacrificial and priestly connotations in the Bible.

If this aspect is of such paramount importance even in the afterlife, then certainly it should be just as real and significant to us. The Sacrifice of the Mass bridges all the gaps of space and time between our Crucified Savior on the Cross and ourselves. Therefore, nothing at all in the Mass is improper, implausible, or unscriptural, which is why this doctrine was virtually unanimously accepted until the 16th century.

In conclusion, then, it is, I think, evident that the Book of Hebrews and the scenes in heaven in the Book of Revelation are suffused with a worldview and “atmosphere” which is very “Catholic.” The Mass, rightly understood, fulfills every aspect of the above passages, most particularly in the sense of Christ as the ultimate Priest for whom the earthly priest “stands in,” and in the timeless and transcendent character of the Sacrifice “made present” at Mass, but never deemed to be an addition to, or duplication of, the one bloody Sacrifice of our Lord at Calvary.

(p. 71 in 1stBooks edition; pp. 99-100 in Sophia edition)

December 2, 2015

Mary17

Madonna and Child, by Filippo Lippi (1406-1469) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

* * * * *

Original title: “Live Chat” Dialogue on Patristic Consensus (Particularly, Mariology) (vs. James White)
(original exchange: 29 December 2000. “Footnotes” added shortly afterwards. Revised on 4 December 2002)

The following live exchange (with an “audience”) occurred in the chat room of the website of Reformed Baptist anti-Catholic apologist James White, on 29 December 2000. White asked to dialogue with me. This was absolutely spontaneous and not pre-planned at all. I was unable to cut-and-paste excerpts from my website while I was in the room (nor did I wish to: I wanted informality and discussion as it would occur in someone’s living room, over tea and crumpets). Bishop White’s words will be in blue


The dialogue is unedited, excepting chronological changes to make it clear what question a reply was responding to, comments about time limits and rules, and inadvertent factual error (e.g., White cited Ignatius when he meant Irenaeus). I will add some commentary and links separately from the actual chat at the bottom of this paper, footnoted and hyper-linked to the dialogue text, so that later elaboration will be easily distinguishable.


* * * * *

Mr. Armstrong, care to dialogue a bit?

“no, no more than it was for the Fathers who appealed to apostolic Tradition.” 


Remember that statement Dave?

yes.
Dave: The earliest reference in all patristic writing to something “passed down from the Apostles” that is not in Scripture is Irenaeus’ insistence that those who knew the Apostles confirmed that John 8 teaches that Jesus was more than 50 years of age at his death. Rome has rejected this idea.[Footnote 1] If “tradition” can be corrupted in its first instance, upon what basis do you affirm the idea that such doctrines as the Bodily Assumption, without witness for over 500 years, is truly apostolic? [Footnote 2]

who claims that this is the first instance of Tradition passed down? Now we are in areas that require research to answer, so I can hardly do that on the spot.

Well, if you can find an explicit statement that is earlier, I’d like to see it. To my knowledge, it is the earliest example.

I doubt that…..the principle is explicitly biblical in the first place. If indeed the notion [Tradition passed down] is in the Bible, then that is the earliest instance, not Irenaeus.


I’m sorry, I must have been unclear: I was referring to a statement by an early Church Father concerning an alleged extra-biblical tradition passed down from the Apostles. And I believe Irenaeus’ claim is the earliest….but that point aside….


Okay, that may be (I don’t know).

I assume, then, you are not familiar with this particular issue? Okay, then let us use another example. Basil said that it was an apostolic tradition to baptize three times, facing east, forward. Upon what basis do you reject his testimony, if you do?

Patristic consensus over what period of time? For example, the “patristic consensus” through the end of the fourth century was that Mary had committed acts of sin. That is no longer
the “view” taken by Rome.

the patristic period is generally considered to go up to John Damascene, no?

That all depends. :-)

no; some Fathers thought she sinned, but I don’t believe they were the majority, by any means.

Would it follow, then, that you believe the “patristic consensus” up through John Damascene supports such doctrines as the Immaculate Conception and the Bodily Assumption?

Can you name 5 or 10 who thought that?

Yes. Origen, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Basil. Big names. :-) Even Anselm held Mary was born with original sin.

how about western fathers? Those are all eastern guys. :-)

Anselm isn’t. :-)

Anselm was not a father.

Let’s hope not. :-) He was under orders…. just kidding.

all you’re doing now is helping to support Roman primacy and orthodoxy. The east had a host of errors. They split from Rome five times, and were wrong in every case by [the criteria of] their own later “orthodox” beliefs. 
[Footnote 3]

Hmm, so you are switching now to a Western “consensus”?

no, but your citing of only eastern fathers hardly suggests that this is overall “patristic consensus,” does it?

I would dispute that, actually, but I’d like to stick to the issue I’ve raised here. Is it your belief that these two dogmas are apostolic in origin?

first name me western fathers who thought Mary sinned, since you brought this up.


Actually, Augustine’s influence regarding the universality of original sin had to be overcome for the Immaculate Conception to be contemplated and codified, sir. :-)


but that’s a separate issue. Did Augustine think Mary sinned?

No, not in her personal life. But he did believe she contracted original sin, correct?

There is the distinction between actual sin and original sin in Mary’s case.

Do you consider Tertullian a Western?

yes.

Would you include Hilary? J.N.D. Kelly lists them both in that category. I think that makes six, does it not?

I’m not sure, but you started by discussing acts of sin, now you are switching to original sin.

Actually, for both Tertullian and Hilary, it would be acts of sin.

okay, so you have two?

Yes, two. May I ask how many you have that positively testify of the later Roman belief in the same time-period?

one second….consulting some papers.

Be that as it may, does it not follow from these considerations that there is no positive consensus upon this issue? The only relevant answer to that would be to ask, “Who wrote on the specific question of Mary’s sinlessness? Not many.”

was this in Tertullian’s Montanist or semi-Montanist period? About how many fathers were there, in your estimation?

The Tertullian citation is De carne Chr. 7. [Footnote 4]

how many say she was without sin? That’s what you are asking? Actual sin?

I think you can see my point, can you not, Mr. Armstrong? If these concepts were, in fact, passed down through the episcopate, how could such widely differing church leaders be ignorant of these things?

the same way Luther was ignorant about baptismal regeneration, and Calvin of adult baptism. :-) Neither got it right, according to you.

Well, it would seem that if you wish to substantiate a dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the task would be rather easy to demonstrate a positive witness to the belief in the patristic period, would it not?

I think this can be done, but probably not to your satisfaction.


Does it follow, then, that you parallel individual Reformational leaders with the early Fathers, the very ones entrusted with “apostolic tradition”? Or was that rhetorical?


I was making a point about noted leaders and teachers differing. We would expect that in the Fathers to an extent, being human; nevertheless, there is still overall consensus.

Have you ever listened to my debate with Gerry Matatics on the subject of the Marian dogmas, Mr. Armstrong?

no. Did you win that one? :-)


It’s on the web…..Gerry said I did, actually. :-) As did Karl Keating. Does that count? :-)


I can name names as to who believed in sinlessness, but I don’t have it at my fingertips……

Be that as it may, during the course of the debate I repeatedly asked Gerry for a single early Father who believed as he believes, dogmatically, on Mary. I was specifically focused upon the two most recent dogmas, the Immaculate Conception and the Bodily Assumption.

of course, if you are looking for a full-blown doctrine of Immaculate Conception, you won’t find it. 
[Footnote 5]

How would you answer my challenge? Did any early Father believe as you believe on this topic?

the consensus, in terms of the kernels of the belief [i.e., its essence], are there overall. I would expect it to be the case that any individual would not completely understand later developments.

So many generations lived and died without holding to what is now dogmatically defined? [Footnote 6]

Did any father of the first three centuries accept all 27 books of the NT and no others? 
[Footnote 7]

Three centuries…..you would not include Athanasius?

I think his correct list was in the 4th century, but at any rate, my point is established. How many fathers of the same period denied baptismal regeneration or infant baptism?

The issue there would be how many addressed the issue (many did not). But are you paralleling these things with what you just admitted were but “kernels”? [Footnote 8]

if even Scripture was unclear that early on, that makes mincemeat of your critique that a lack of explicit Marian dogma somehow disproves Catholic Mariology.

I’ll address that allegation in a moment. :-)[Footnote 9] By the way, would you like that specific Irenaeus reference to look up? Just in passing?

I can look it up…I have enough resources. The question of this dialogue is whether we are gonna address topics which require heavy research….. That is more appropriate for a paper. If I were answering all your questions in a paper I would have spent a good three hours already. 
[Footnote 10]A guy like Joe Gallegos could instantly address questions about particular Fathers’ beliefs……. but I’ll still give you names who taught Mary’s sinlessness, if you like.

I was thinking of the others looking on. :-) It is chapter 22, section 5, of Irenaeus’ work, Against Heresies, Book 2, I believe….


so where do we go from here?

Anyway….You seem to think that if there is disagreement on any issue, this means the Scripture is unclear, correct?

no; rather massive disagreement on many issues seems to me to fly in the face of this alleged perspicuity. I think Scripture is clear, by and large, actually, but human fallibility will lead to “hermeneutic relativism,” thus requiring authoritative interpreters.

What do you do with Peter’s words? 2 Pet 3:15-16:

and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. (NAS)

a good description of many Protestants! How does this bolster perspicuity?


If the untaught and unstable distort the Scriptures, then what can the taught and stable do, of necessity?

it doesn’t follow logically that if the unstable distort the Scripture, that the stable will always get it right, does it?

()()() James is Away. Lord willing, he will return. :) ()()()

Footnotes
 

1. Early Patristic “Extra-Biblical” Citations Without too much trouble, I managed to find what I believe to be an earlier reference, in this instance, to what the writer describes as “Scripture” (I assume he would hold that the Bible was “passed down from the Apostles” and that Bishop White would grant the point). The writer is St. Clement of Rome, in his Letter to the Corinthians (aka First Clement), dated 95-96 A.D. In 23:3, he writes:

Let this Scripture be far from us where he says . . . .

Then he proceeds to cite a passage which is not in present-day Scripture (it is also cited in 2 Clement 11:2-4 – not considered to have been written by St. Clement, but perhaps the oldest Christian sermon extant: c.100 A.D. -, where it is described as “the prophetic word”). The famous Protestant scholar J.B. Lightfoot speculated that it was from the lost book of Eldad and Modat mentioned by Hermas (Vis. 2.3.4). Now how is it that a prominent Church Father in the first century can be so ignorant as to the contents of “Scripture,” when Bishop White and Protestants must believe Scripture to be apostolic in order for it to be inspired and the rule of faith, over against both Tradition and Church?
 

But Bishop White’s argument suffers from an additional fallacy, viz., what shall we consider to be “scriptural” or conversely, “extra-biblical” in the first place? How do we ultimately determine that? This inevitably becomes at least partially a subjective affair. In addition to not properly knowing what Scripture is, St. Clement also urges his readers to conform to the glorious and holy rule of our tradition (7:2). Bishop White, of course, rejects any “tradition” as a rule of faith; Scripture Alone is the rule of faith, according to Protestants. So St. Clement, by White’s criterion, is referring to an “extra-biblical” notion. In point of fact, however, Sacred Tradition (even oral Tradition) is indeed an altogether biblical and Pauline concept (1 Cor 11:2, 2 Thess 2:15, 3:6, 2 Tim 1:13-14, 2:2, 2 Pet 2:21, Jude 3).
Furthermore, moving on about a dozen years later to the epistles of St. Ignatius of Antioch, dated c.105-110 A.D., we find a host of doctrines which Bishop White would consider “extra-biblical.” Again, it is a matter of definition as to what is biblical, and what should be considered “orthodox” in Christianity. In our extensive 1995 debate by US Mail, Bishop White wrote:

How do you know you are in company with, say, Athanasius or Ignatius or Irenaeus? In the final analysis, is it not because Rome tells you so?

Well, I submit that my Catholic views are far closer to those of Ignatius than are Bishop White’s Baptist views. If allegedly “extra-biblical” views are so prevalent among the earliest Church Fathers, what becomes of Protestantism’s vaunted, mythical “early (quasi-Protestant and ‘biblical’) Church”? So let us briefly examine a few of the “extra-biblical” teachings of St. Ignatius (emphasis added, with my comments in brackets):
 
Denominationalism

“It is, therefore, advantageous for you to be in perfect unity, in order that you may always have a share in God.” (Eph., 4,2)

“Let there be nothing among you which is capable of dividing you . . .” (Mag., 6,2)

“Flee from divisions, as the beginnings of evils.” (Sm., 8,1)

“Focus on unity, for there is nothing better.” (Pol., 1,2)

“If anyone follows a schismatic, he will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Ph., 3,3)

[Bishop White can’t even agree with Protestant Founder Martin Luther, concerning baptismal regeneration and the Real Presence in the Eucharist and the Immaculate Conception of Mary, or with John Calvin concerning the legitimately Christian and covenantal status of baptized Catholics, let alone attaining “perfect unity” and abolishing sinful denominational divisions. Quite unbiblical, or “extra-biblical”. . . ]

Bishops

“You must all follow the bishop, as Jesus Christ followed the Father . . .” (Sm., 8,1)

“Let everyone respect the deacons as Jesus Christ, just as they should respect the bishop, who is a model of the Father, and the presbyters as God’s council and as the band of the apostles. Without these no group can be called a church.” (Tr., 3,1)

“It is good to acknowledge God and the bishop. The one who honors the bishop has been honored by God; the one who does anything without the bishop’s knowledge serves the devil.” (Sm., 9,1) 

“It is obvious, therefore, that we must regard the bishop as the Lord himself.” (Eph., 6,1)

[Bishop White, being a Baptist, of course doesn’t believe in bishops, which is strange, seeing that it is an explicit biblical office. He can hardly call this an “extra-biblical” idea. Why, then, does his affiliation expunge it? Perhaps, then, we should invent the term “sub-biblical” or “anti-biblical” to describe the myriad subtractions and omissions of various Protestant Christianities?]
 
Bishop White later strongly objected to the paragraph above, as an inaccurate statement, in his mind proving that I knew “nothing” about either “biblical” or Baptist ecclesiology (he is not renowned for understatement) [and he claimed to be a “bishop” himself]. I, of course, offered a counter-response.

Real Presence

“I want the bread of God, which is the flesh of Christ.” (Rom., 7,3)

“They abstain from the Eucharist and prayer, because they refuse to acknowledge that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ.” (Sm., 6,2)

[Bishop White denies the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. How could St. Ignatius become so “extra-biblical” in such a short space of time from the Apostles?]

Vicarious Atonement (A Species of Penance)

“I am a humble sacrifice for you.” (Eph., 8,1)”May my spirit be a ransom on your behalf.” (Sm., 10,2)
“May I be a ransom on your behalf in every respect.” (Pol., 2,3)

[Bishop White would consider these beliefs outrageously “extra-biblical.” So here is yet another instance of such teaching occurring very early on. Were there no “evangelical Christians” to be found at such an early date?!!]
2. Development of the Doctrine of Mary’s Assumption This is a false analogy, because by Bishop White’s criteria of “orthodoxy,” “tradition” could not possibly have been first corrupted by St. Irenaeus. But be that as it may, I have dealt with the question of the slowly-developing tradition of Mary’s Assumption elsewhere. White’s rapid-fire questioning and constant switching of topics and subtle changing even of terms within topics hardly allowed me to deal adequately with such a complex subject, so I refer readers to a previous exchange with Bishop White, from 1996:

“Dialogue on Whether the Assumption and Immaculate Conception of Mary are Legitimately Part of Apostolic Tradition”

3. Eastern Heresy / Roman Orthodoxy See my paper: “A Response to Orthodox Critiques of Catholic Apostolicity.”

4. The Fathers on Mary’s Sinlessness Sure enough, The Flesh of Christ (dated 208-212 A.D.) is from Tertullian’s semi-Montanist period. Protestants often fail to note the different theological periods with regard to citing Tertullian. Many will conveniently ignore this if a Tertullian quote suits their purpose (or else some are ignorant of the dating and/or of his later heresy altogether). Whichever the case with Bishop White, he failed to answer my question during the dialogue, thus illustrating another reason why these clarifying notes are important and useful. What I suspected turned out to be true. Whether Bishop White knew this beforehand or not, we don’t know, as he didn’t say.
 
As for Hilary of Poitier’s views concerning the Blessed Virgin, in the book Mary and the Fathers of the Church, by Luigi Gambero (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999, p. 186) the author (a priest with background in philosophy and also author of a 4-volume work on Marian thought) wrote:

Hilary always considered it normal for Mary to have had some small imperfections . . . Our author does not mention any specific defect or imperfection in Mary’s conduct but seems to hold that some such flaw exists, if even Mary must face the judgment of God. However, this is an isolated observation [Tractatus super Psalmum 118,12; PL 9,523], to which Hilary does not return.

So Bishop White offers one western father (who held a quite “mild” opinion on the subject – not exactly a spectacular, bold dissent), and another in his heretical period, plus four eastern fathers (which I was already generally aware of – one always finds exceptions to the rule). This is what he considers a “patristic consensus.” I consider it a pathetic argument. Ludwig Ott states that the western patristic consensus was “unanimous.” Thus, Bishop White is trapped by the facts of history, not any rhetorical brilliance on my part. 

As for Church Fathers who refer to the Blessed Virgin Mary as the New Eve (Eve was originally sinless or immaculate), Second Evesinless, spotless, purewithout stainimmaculatethe Ark of the Covenant, or (negatively) who never attributed any actual sin to her, we find the following:
 

Hippolytus, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory Nyssa, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, Athanasius, Jerome, Eusebius, Ephraim, Ambrose, Augustine, Proclus, Theodotus, Peter Chrysologus, Andrew of Crete, Fulgentius, Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, Germanus, John Damascene.
 
That makes at least 22 fathers in the affirmative, compared to 5 who attributed sin to Mary (not counting the Montanist heretic Tertullian). By this broad reckoning, that is about 81% of the fathers (and these are only the major ones), which is more than enough to achieve a “consensus,” as even the phrase “unanimous consent of the fathers” never literally meant all of them, as Catholic apologist. 
5. Development of the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception Nor would we expect to, according to the normal course of doctrinal development.
 
 
6. Development of Doctrine in General As is, unfortunately, so often the case with Protestants, Bishop White betrays a great lack of understanding of development of doctrine.

In my book, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism, I wrote:

Doctrines agreed upon by all develop, too. The doctrine of the Godhood, or Divinity of Jesus Christ was not formally defined until the Council of Nicaea in 325, and the Divinity of the Holy Spirit was proclaimed at the Council of Constantinople in 381. The dogma of the Two Natures of Christ (God and Man) was made official at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. We’ve already seen how the Canon of the New Testament was also very much a “developing doctrine” itself, finalized only in 397. Original Sin was a slowly developed belief. Many other examples could be brought forth.

And I cited the great Protestant apologist C. S. Lewis:

Change is not progress unless the core remains unchanged. A small oak grows into a big oak; if it became a beech, that would not be growth, but mere change . . . There is a great difference between counting apples and arriving at the mathematical formulae of modern physics. But the multiplication table is used in both and does not grow out of date. In other words, whenever there is real progress in knowledge, there is some knowledge that is not superseded. Indeed, the very possibility of progress demands that there should be an unchanging element . . . I claim that the positive historical statements made by Christianity have the power, elsewhere found chiefly in formal principles, of receiving, without intrinsic change, the increasing complexity of meaning which increasing knowledge puts into them . . . Like mathematics, religion can grow from within, or decay . . . But, like mathematics, it remains simply itself, capable of being applied to any new theory.

[From:, God in the Dock, ed. Walter Hooper, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1970, pp.44-47. Originally from “Dogma and the Universe,” The Guardian, March 19, 1943, p. 96 / March 26, 1943, pp. 104, 107]

Furthermore, the “kernels” or essential elements of all the Catholic Marian beliefs can be found in Holy Scripture, to a much greater extent than most Protestants would ever imagine, and often fairly explicitly. If this is indeed the case, then these beliefs are all quite apostolic and early: all deriving from the first century A.D. or earlier. 

And to see how “Catholic” a Protestant can get, with regard to Mariological views, see my paper: “Martin Luther’s Devotion to Mary.”
 

7. Lack of Patristic Consensus on the NT Canon This is precisely the point. Bishop White thinks he has found a “patristic consensus” when a mere five Church Fathers claim that Mary sinned. That supposedly shoots down Catholic Mariology in one fell swoop. Yet when I point out that no father from 0-300 A.D. accepted all 27 books of the New Testament and no others, as inspired and part of the Bible (Bible Alone being a crucial pillar of Protestantism – one cannot have the Bible without knowing which books belong to it), he offers no reply – and for very good reason, as there is none. The canon of the New Testament is necessarily dependent on Church Authority. Even the well-respected Calvinist R.C. Sproul admits that Protestants possess a “fallible collection of infallible books.” The analogy is an exact parallel, and devastating: if five fathers disprove Catholic Mariology, then not a single father getting the NT right for 300 years refutes sola Scriptura. So Bishop White must either drop his fallacious argument, or his acceptance of sola Scriptura, and with it, his Protestantism, which rests upon that formal principle. Silence was a wise course in the midst of such a serious dilemma.
That being the case (and I think he knew it full well), he asked, rather, whether I included Athanasius in this period (the “first three centuries,” as I stated). Well, no, since he lived from 296-373. He first listed our present 27 New Testament books as such in 367 A.D. (which is more than 300 years beyond even the death of our Lord Jesus). Disputes still persisted concerning several books after that, almost right up until 397, when the Canon was authoritatively closed at the Council of Carthage, so that the present-day “perspicuous” NT canon took longer to finalize than trinitarianism and the divinity of the Holy Spirit! But I guess a “consensus of one” in the year 367 is good enough for Bishop White, provided that it is harmonious with his own largely 16th-century-derived Baptist version of Christianity. This is all doctrinal development, pure and simple. But Protestants – for some odd reason – so often wish to ignore it when it touches upon their own peculiar doctrines.
 
How is it that Bishop White is so concerned about five fathers attributing fairly minor and very rare sin to the Blessed Virgin Mary, while in the “late” period from 250-325, the “perspicuous” biblical books of Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation were still being widely disputed in the Church Universal? Is that state of affairs not far more fatal to Protestant claims concerning Scripture Alone, than minor dissent on Mary is to the Catholic position? 
 
8. Fathers’ Unanimity on Baptismal Regeneration Bishop White cleverly avoided the issue I was raising, in terms of the live chat, but he can’t escape the logic of it, for the fathers taught baptismal regeneration with virtually literal unanimity. Yet White, of course, rejects both infant baptism (over against Calvin and the great majority of all Christians of all times) and baptismal regeneration (over against Luther and Wesley and Anglicanism, as well as Orthodoxy and Catholicism). It doesn’t seem to trouble him that no one in the whole patristic period could “get it right,” just as we saw was the case concerning the canon of the NT and the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. On the other hand, his non-answer perhaps suggests that he is troubled – down deep – by all these “little” historical anomalies in his position, which I am discourteous and rash enough to point out.
9. The Unanswered Challenge I wish he would have. That might have been very interesting. But soon, there were some technical problems with the Undernet; Bishop White departed and never returned, even though I hung around for perhaps an hour or more after our exchange ended. But I’m thankful for the time I was able to spend with him in dialogue. I think his answers and non-answers strengthened the Catholic case considerably. :-) A few days later,Bishop White refused to debate me in any format, about anything (even though I offered to let him question me all night long, if I could question him for 90 minutes), and stated that he wanted nothing to do with me anymore (see Note #1 above – section on “Bishops”). So we’ll never know what his larger case might have been.
 
10. Written vs. “Oral”/”Live” Dialogue Indeed, I’ve spent a good many more hours than three preparing these notes, and I think they are all quite relevant to the questions dealt with in the dialogue. My point, then and now, is that the written and “oral” (or “live”) dialogue formats are vastly different. Bishop White seemed to require me to give rapid answers to his lightning-quick and ever-changing technical questions concerning particular patristic beliefs. That was not possible (I wouldn’t be able to type fast enough even if I had all the answers in my head), but I believe I managed to “de-fang” him by the use of analogy, which has been fleshed out to full effect in these notes.
December 2, 2015

Cover (555 x 838)

My book (2013, 395 pages; available for as low as $1.99).

* * * * *

James White is the most influential anti-Catholic polemicist today. He’s written a ton of books (though not all about Catholicism), does lots of oral debates, and has had a website for some 20 years now. Hang around anti-Catholics much and you’ll hear his name pretty soon, and often. He’s their big champion. The anti-Catholic is one who thinks that Catholicism is not a species of Christianity; that one cannot be saved while being a good Catholic (accepting all that the Church teaches). One can be saved, however (so they tell us) by being a “bad Catholic” (i.e., picking and choosing Catholic doctrines).

In 1995 I ran across his name in a directory of cult researchers (that I was also listed in, since specializing in cults was one of my first major apologetics projects). I discovered that he was anti-Catholic, along with some others in the book, and so decided to write a form letter to several, about the issue (snail mail; I was not yet on the Internet). He responded back with a lengthy letter, to which I replied very fully. Then he wrote back again, in a far more acerbic tone, and I replied with a 36-page, single-spaced letter. At that point he resorted to severe personal insult and ceased the debate altogether. This all occurred in March-May 1995. I have the hard copies of the typewritten replies he sent me in my possession.

This was the most in-depth writing I have ever done concerning the fundamental question of the Christian status of Catholicism. I’ve never been able to get an anti-Catholic to fully deal with the issue, in an honest debate. In fact, in 2007, I was so tired of trying to get into such a discussion, that I challenged six or seven prominent anti-Catholics (including Mr. White) to a “live chat” debate on the question. They all refused: most of them with rank insults. Because of that, I decided that I would no longer seek to engage anti-Catholics in theological debate (apart from very few exceptions), since they refused to grapple with the root issue of what Christianity is, and why they think Catholicism isn’t Christian. One can’t really have a true dialogue until fundamental differences are addressed.

Ever since 1995, White would occasionally critique something of mine: especially from my books or radio interviews. It was always the same: he started out with ostensible argument. I refuted what he wrote, then he came back with personal insults. It never went more than one round. He’s simply not interested in real, substantive debate, where the two parties actually interact with each other’s arguments. In his oral debates, he merely preaches his message, and obfuscates and spins and special pleads regarding whatever the other guy says. We’ve had exactly one “live chat” debate, which took place in his venue on 29 December 2000: about Mary and the Church fathers. I immediately posted it on my site. He never has. He’s never posted or linked to this debate, either, whereas I have had it on my site for 19 years running.

My other interactions with Mr. White can be read on my web page devoted to him, and also in my 400-page book that collects the major “exchanges” (if we can even call them that. They were mostly my refutations and his insults back or heading for the hills).

The “snail mail debate” I link to below takes up 103 pages in my book devoted to Mr. White. Needless to say, he has utterly ignored the book: never said a word about it, ever (that I am aware of). I can fully understand why . . .

My good friend Phil Porvaznik has posted the entire debate in neat, presentable html-linked form on one web page on his site. Enjoy!


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