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Alpha & Omega Ministries Apologetics Blog
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Today on the Dividing Line
07/02/2009 - James White
Started off today with a Jerusalem Jones Update, documenting that Steve Ray can't represent his former faith very well, nor can he understand the Greek text of the New Testament, either (and Marcus Grodi didn't catch his error). Then Matthew Bellisario called in and wanted to argue about how many "practicing" Catholics were Nazi death camp guards. When I asked him, three times, to answer a simple yes or no question (the answer to which was obvious to any honest and thinking person), and he refused, I moved on to more useful callers, taking one call on witnessing to Mormon missionaries, and another on whether the Spirit would bring every one of the elect to perfect knowledge in this life. Then I spent the last few moments inviting Matthew Bellisario to call back and actually address any of my published, publicly stated arguments against Roman Catholicism. I listed quite a few. He didn't call. I may post the video of that section tomorrow, if time permits. In any case, here's the program.
21:25:18 - Category: The Dividing Line - Link to this article -
Mark Shea and the Desperate Defense of Marian Mythology
07/02/2009 - James White
I just received my set of Mark Shea’s three volume set, Mary, Mother of the Son. I began looking through it a bit Tuesday evening, and noticed no personal references in the indexes. But, as I looked at his attempt to force Revelation 12 into one of the few supports for the edifice of Marian theology I noted that either his publisher did not include footnote references in the index, or, they just didn’t want to include my name. In any case, ironically, yesterday morning I was sent this from Shea’s blog:I'm happy to report that I have not yet seen a single negative review! Catholic response has been uniformly thumbs up, which makes Papa proud of his baby. (Of course, there will *be* negative reviews from guys like James White, Eric Svendsen, James Swan and the other nattering nabobs of anti-Catholicism, whose *job* is to give a negative review to stuff like this.) But once you get away from the anti-Catholic fever swamps, I will be interested to see how the book fares in place like Christianity Today, where you have honest Evangelicals who are serious about trying to engage Catholics, well, honestly.Well, isn’t that special? Shea is one of the more acidic Roman Catholic apologists, and, of course, we see he is one of the less honest ones, for he, like so many others, dehumanizes his opponents through the “anti-Catholic” moniker, that arrogant mark of the Roman Catholic who is so enamored with the Papacy that they are willing to define others solely upon the basis of their relationship to Rome. I doubt he sees how inane the constant use of the “anti-Catholic” cudgel is in light of the wide range of work I have done over the years. I can just see a Muslim reading Shea’s words with a bemused look of confusion as to why Shea would be so narrow minded. Combine that with an implicit accusation of personal dishonesty, and you have another example of why I have repeatedly said that “Things aren’t very good in the Roman Catholic apologetics community.” I suppose it is a positive for Shea that at least he hasn’t been investing his life in digging out old posts from years ago to put them back on his blog, like Dave Armstrong has been doing the past few weeks in his on-going jihad against Tim Enloe (a spectacle in and of itself).
In any case, I would not wish to disappoint Mr. Shea. Let me begin by talking about...global warming. You see, there are many, many people in Western Culture who are absolutely convinced that mankind is harmfully warming the earth through the production of carbon by-products, especially carbon dioxide, the chief of the “green house gases.” And those folks are now in charge in most Western nations, and they are ravaging the economies of those nations in an attempt to “save the planet.” So rabid are the devotees of this position that they have become dogmatic in their demands that everyone agree with them. They brook no opposition. They will not debate the viewpoint. They have declared all opposition null and void, the discussion is over, the facts are all theirs! Despite a wide and deep variety of counter-evidence that demonstrates their position to be mythological in nature, not factual or scientific, they boldly proclaim their position to be the truth, and all who would dare oppose it are censored. As some may know when the High Priest of Global Warming, Al Gore, “testified” in Congress recently, the “other side” was not even allowed to respond. And just this past week news broke (thankfully!) of the gross bias of the EPA in suppressing a study that demonstrates that carbon dioxide and water vapor actually can function to suppress the warming process in global weather systems.
So why do I mention the global warming myth in response to Mark Shea? Because of the parallels I see between the wild-eyed fanaticism of the global warming proponents, who can twist any fact, any statistic, into evidence of global warming (a new record high? Global warming! A new record low? Global warming! A cat-5 hurricane? Global warming! Few hurricanes in a season? Global warming! Record cold beginning of the summer in many places? Global warming! Cardinals play in the Super Bowl? Global warming!), and the dogged, devoted, fanatical re-reading of all of history, logic, and theology that is needed to pry the Marian doctrines into the Bible, the teachings of the Apostles, and the early church. Just as the global warming advocate will trot out his “facts,” which are almost always either 1) irrelevant, 2) localized, or 3) a-contextual, so too the Marian devotee will comb through the entirety of the Bible and the corpus of ancient writers looking for anything to substantiate the massive cathedral of Marian theology that has been produced by Rome over the past centuries. And once again, most of the time the “facts” they produce are irrelevant or a-contextual as well. Though the broad body of current data, if interpreted without a horrific bias, speaks loudly against the current mania to “save the planet,” the global warming advocate has no ears to hear; he or she can only “see” the facts that support his or her theory. In the same way, the Bible and the writings of the early church together testify loudly that the Marian dogmas were unknown to the Apostles and only slowly developed as concepts over time, first outside the faith, then slowly infiltrating into the external church, eventually reaching the status of “dogma” only through a process of evolutionary degeneration and change. Just as global warming is not the “clear verdict of the scientific evidence,” so too the Marian dogmas stand against the entire weight of the evidence of sound biblical exegesis and fair-minded, non-anachronistic reading of the patristic literature.
But a fair, non-anachronistic reading of either the Bible or the early church is not what you are going to find in Shea’s 3 volumes (which, I note, could have easily been a single larger volume). This is the work of a Marian devotee, so do not expect any fair handling of the objections to the rise of the Marian dogmas. Any reference to Mary, even if it is not amplified by the early writer from whose work it is culled, is anachronistically expanded into a wildly major element of that writer’s theology, and, hence, emblematic of a widespread Marian devotion or belief. It is not like Shea can avoid such manhandling of the patristic materials: it is the bread and butter of all Marian devotees, and hence much of modern Roman Catholic historiography, at least that which comes from the conservative elements of Rome. Anachronism is the necessary result of Rome’s dogmatic claim of infallibility and patristic consensus: those who defend Rome must “see” in the patristic sources what their ultimate authority has dogmatically defined to be there. So Shea can repeat the party line about Ignatius and the concept of the literal bodily presence of Christ as if Ignatius holds to the modern Roman dogma. We have demonstrated this is a horrible misreading of Ignatius, unsustainable for anyone who reads the text in its context, here. Now it must be remembered, Shea has already expended a lot of energy in his previous writings laying a foundation for the utter muddling of exegesis. No context is clear enough to overthrow his appeal of the “senses” of Scripture. Clearly, Scripture is but a pile of clay in the hands of the follower of Rome who wishes to “find” in its words something to substantiate what is, in reality, the teaching of the Magisterium and nothing else. So we are hardly surprised to find a world of difference in Shea’s excuse making and circular reasoning and the sound exegesis to be found in classical Reformed works relating to the Bible or church history. Again, he can’t help it: when you seek to promote that which is a-historical, that kind of thing happens. It “comes with the territory.”
In any case, I turn to the text I ran into while thumbing through the books when they first arrived. I was naturally drawn to the chapter where Shea attempts to provide a biblical basis for his Marian doctrines. This is truly where the wheels fell off for Gerry Matatics in New York in the mid 1990s, for the only way to make the Bible teach what Rome teaches today about Mary is to twist and distort it to a massive degree, and that is harder to do in a debate where the other guy has equal time to point out your errors. In any case, Shea pulls a fast one on his readers, starting with pages of discussion of how the New Testament reads the Old Testament--an obviously important issue. But he then attempts to utilize his conclusions on that matter as a springboard for reading Marian fulfillments into New Testament passages. There is one problem: the New Testament writers never even attempt to make the application Shea does. That rather major discontinuity should not be forgotten.
What follows is the standard issue “Mary is the Ark of the Covenant” presentation made by modern Roman Catholic apologists. I have dealt with this many times in the past (Shea shows no familiarity with the rebuttals offered). He even repeats some of the same errors Matatics did in the initial presentation of this material I heard back in 1994 or 1995. He correctly states that the verb επισκιάζω appears in Luke 1:35 relating to the overshadowing of Mary by the Holy Spirit, and says the same verb is used of the Shekinah glory overshadowing the “place where the Ark was kept” in Exodus 40:35 and 1 Kings 8:10 (p. 110). And just as Matatics did fifteen years ago, he moves quickly on, seeking to create a “wave” effect by throwing an entire series of claims together, hoping the combined weight will have the desired impact upon the reader. But just as I did back in 1994 or 1995, once again I stopped the freight train and began examining each point of the argument for consistency and truth value. And immediately we find problems.
First, the cloud under discussion in Exodus 40:35 settled upon the tent of meeting, not merely upon the Ark of the Covenant. There were lots of other items in the tent of meeting other than the Ark: why are they not relevant? Why can’t we find a picture of Paul, or James, in, say, some piece of the furniture found in the same location? Secondly, the cloud was that which indicated the presence of Yahweh; when the cloud lifted, the people moved. It gave direction, guidance. Shall we try to read something into this, as well? But what is more, just as Matatics was in error fifteen years ago to say that the very same term is used in 1 Kings 8:10, Shea remains in error today. The verb found there is επλησεν from πίμπλημι,to fill.” I suppose the second reference could simply be to something “filling” the house of the Lord, but again, it is not the same term. So what is the relevance of 1 Kings 8:10? We can’t tell.
So, the first part of the argument, one that Shea is going to claim is as “plain as day,” is that if the cloud settled on the tabernacle of meeting, and the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary, then clearly, Mary is the tabernacle of meeting...no, wait, she’s the Ark of the Covenant.
Next, 2 Samuel 6:9 is cited, where David is afraid of Yahweh because of the Uzzah incident, and he asks a rhetorical question about how the Ark could ever come to him in Jerusalem in light of what has happened in striking Uzzah dead. This is forced into a position of parallelism with Luke 1:43 where Elizabeth asks, “And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” The only parallel is “to me” (the verbs “to come” are different---if Luke was trying to parallel, why did he not use the same words?), while the contexts are completely different, one expressing fear and frustration, the other blessing and honor. One’s credulity is truly strained at this point, but Shea presses on. [continue with the article]
20:11:42 - Category: Roman Catholicism - Link to this article -
Imam Shamsi Ali's Rebuttal and First Audience Questions
07/01/2009 - James White
My video files from my little Casio camera (yep, all of this has simply been from my little Casio...I have no idea when the professional footage will be available) were divided into three parts. I've posted the first, and the last, so...here's the middle!12:09:12 - Category: Islam - Link to this article -
Opening Statements and..Sort of a Rebuttal Period in the Debate in Queens, NY
06/30/2009 - James White
20:23:55 - Category: Islam - Link to this article -
Today on The Dividing Line
06/30/2009 - James White
Today we had a number of calls on a wide variety of subjects, but mainly on the Shamsi Ali debate last Thursday evening. I played some material from the debate, and I also played some clips from the Q&A at the Sovereignty of God Conference. Here's the program.20:09:39 - Category: The Dividing Line - Link to this article -
Yes, We Will Be Doing the DL Tomorrow!
06/29/2009 - James White
I can't guarantee much insight on my part, but, I am home, so, we will be doing the DL at the regular time in the morning. I had a fairly uneventful trip home, and am tremendously thankful to all the pastors and churches in New Jersey and Long Island that made the past ten days so special.
14:30:54 - Category: Misc - Link to this article -
Q&A and Closing Statements in the Imam Shamsi Ali Debate, Queens, June 25, 2009
06/26/2009 - James White
11:19:08 - Category: Islam - Link to this article -
Debate Report on Iron Sharpens Iron Today!
06/26/2009 - James White
I will be live in studio today with Chris Arnzen to discuss last night's debate with Imam Shamsi Ali. I can call it a debate (it was always a debate to begin with) since that is what Imam Ali called it! In any case, lots of interesting things to go over. Click here to listen live at 3pm EDT. I will also be posting the audience questions and closing statements to YouTube today, Lord willing and my little broadband modem allowing.Also, I am very happy to report that the live streaming worked very well last evening! Everyone reported they could hear clearly. I am so glad that our dearest and most dedicated supporters could feel like they were part of the events even though many miles away. The little PC worked great, and the external battery gave me a solid 4 hours of streaming and still had half its bars left!
08:00:54 - Category: Misc - Link to this article -
Video Presentation of Opening Statement
06/25/2009 - James White
Here is a small video version of my opening statement. By using the pause button you should be able to follow my opening statement pretty easily. I hope this is useful to those listening live (or, I would guess, for those who listen later as well!).15:30:00 - Category: Islam - Link to this article -
Mark Shea's Marian Series
06/25/2009 - James White
I have added Mark Shea's Marian series to the Ministry Resource List. I would dearly love to see some of the major Roman Catholic apologists come out of hiding, in essence, and engage in a robust debate on the claims Rome makes about Mary, but the past five years have shown a Roman Catholic apologetics community in disarray and retreat. But with their claims of the need to "turn to Mary" in this time of "distress" growing louder, I believe they should show as much bravery in defending their claims as they do in making them. But, even if they will not defend their claims, we will still obtain their materials and subject them to truthful, fair, and primarily Biblical analysis and refutation.Let it be clearly repeated: I stand ready to engage in debate with Mark Shea, Tim Staples, Patrick Madrid, Jimmy Akin, Karl Keating, John Martignoni, Steve Ray, and Scott Hahn on such subjects as the Marian dogmas, purgatory, justification, predestination and election, etc. Given that many of these men are putting out DVDs and CDs on these topics regularly, it would seem to me wisdom personified to demonstrate the supremacy of these teachings against knowledgeable Reformed opposition.
11:06:49 - Category: Roman Catholicism - Link to this article -
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