Catholics & Salvation | Doug Wilson and James White | Sweater Vest Dialogues

[Music] well greetings once again Doug it is good to be with you I am unfortunately not able to see you right now but I'm hoping that you have maintained our tradition so far it looks like we both got the same memo well I I decided to dump the Coogee today just I don't know I just sort of felt like it would it would riches riches clapping in the other room but I I just thought it would make us more on the same page because I'm not sure we're on the same page on this particular topic and that's that's right discussing so that's right that would be good so I caught a video of yours one of the ask Doug videos and it sort of brought up the issues that we've discussed in in partial format in a previous debate anyways yeah and you are asked a question about Tolkien and Chesterton and your immediate response to the question that you were asked because you're asked were they Christians and your response was if they weren't then I'm in deep trouble right so would you like to play put that into a particular context want to fulfill that in some way and then I can push back on that or would you like me to provide my objection first well why don't I don't want to rob you of the pleasure of registering your objection so what so why don't you start with that oh you're not gonna rob me of it one way or the other so that you don't have to worry about that okay but yeah let's this is this is why it caught my attention um your your discussion I agreed with many of the things that you said for example we are not saved by doctrinal perfectionism I think a young I was I was saved as a young child without a clear understanding of the distinction between the imputation of Christ's righteousness or the infusion of Christ's righteousness I all of the things though I would point out especially I'm primarily focused upon Chester's and I I am unaware of Tolkien having said anything about reformed theology I don't know the depth of his theological knowledge of Roman Catholic dogma and things like that my assumption is that Chesterton was a full-throated fully knowledgeable follower of the dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church I about that but it does seem from his he was all he was all in you correct correct okay he was all in i would quarrel with the phrase fully knowledgeable because when he when he attacks Calvinism which Chesterton does frequently yes he'll he'll backhand Calvinism he he really does so in a Chester tone Ian way which is exasperating in other words oh yeah he doesn't he doesn't know what he's talking about excited when I said fully knowledgeable I said of Rome's dogmas not not so I would agree that there's a tremendous you could have lit up all of his cigars with the straw men that even he lit up as far as as it goes the Calvinism but in other words the point is that we're not talking about a five-year-old as far as their knowledge of dogma he knows what he believes that's that that's the issue and and I agree with you that we are not saved by works we are not saved by doctrinal perfectionism but we are saved by the gospel and that to me is the real key issue is I would like to be hopeful that in some fashion what we read in Chesterton in regards to his dedication to Roman Catholic theology did not actually reflect where he really was but the real question that was raised by the video that you did is can the Roman Catholic gospel saved not can work save not do you have to get everything right but if my heart is truly dedicated to the propositions that I'll admit I don't I don't think Francis the Pope today is actually committed to the ki Roman Catholic dogmas that define the papacy for for literally centuries I don't write I just don't agree I don't think do you think he is so but that we're talking Chesterton's time and in his context if he truly truly was dedicated to all the propositions regarding a denial of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ a denial of the finished work of Christ in the sense that you have within Roman Catholicism the concept of the mass as a propitiatory sacrifice right if he was coming to the mass and I'm assuming that he partook regularly not just the minimum times that Rome said but I would assume that he would see that as a absolutely necessary sacramental mechanism of bringing about his own salvation if if he's going to the mass and believing that this is an unbloody representation of the one sacrifice of the cross that will never perfect him that he could die and go to purgatory he could commit a mortal sin and lose and and and become the enemy of God even though he approached across 10,000 times in his life right the question is is that a salvific faith no so if if someone approaches their their prayers to Mary if someone approaches the mechanism of the Roman Catholic Church and that is where their trust is that is where their heart is that's what they're relying on that is a read that's gonna break that gospel cannot save mm-hmm okay so I forget if I said this in that video but the reason I the reason I can accept people like Chesterton and Tolkien as people who who had the spiritual lights on right you know the I I recognize or I feel like I'm interacting with a brother or being taught by a brother when I'm dealing with them the only reason I can do that is a convinced and convinced and confessional Protestant is that I can recognize them as brothers precisely because they're wrong right if if we're saved by works then they're in trouble because they're praying to pictures man yeah that's that's damnable if so if if you are praying to pictures that's a sin if your trust if you're the Reformers broke faith into no titia a census and fiducia the we're talking about the fiducia component component here if their trust is in this Gospel as it's articulated by Trent and they say that's right that's correct and that's where my faith is that's where my fiducia yes then I believe that such a person is lost because you you can't be saved unless you're trusting in Jesus period so solace salvation is Solus Christus Christ alone now and this is a place where we I think we're going to agree on a lot of this but the place where we might disagree is I think that many people are far better Christians than they are logicians that they will so if you pressed Chesterton if I said to Chesterton do you accept the teachings of the Council of Trent he would say absolutely yes you know do you believe in the in the teaching office of the church the Magisterium of the church he'd say absolutely yes do you think it's appropriate to pray to Mary absolutely yes you know you know all of these things but and so consequently if I accept him as someone who was truly converted and incidentally Chesterton was converted to Christianity initially as an Anglican so when when he flipped from when he flipped from his unbelief to Christianity when he wrote the book orthodoxy he he wrote that book as someone who was friendly to Rome but wasn't he wasn't yet a Roman Catholic there so when he was converted I think that's only possible if you're trusting in in Christ alone that's that's got to be where your faith is because faith is the sole instrument of justification etc now the the thing that the thing that people trip over I think is often times some of the Roman Catholic intellectuals who that I respect in the current culture wars Robert George Tony Esalen people like that and they're on the other side of the Protestant Catholic divide from me the the irony is the more educated and intelligent a person is the more likely it is that they've got intellectual work arounds a little pathway for the census to get to Christ alone while the while intellectually affirming all this all the things all the stuff where you run into trouble is where you're dealing with some Mexican peasant woman who's uneducated and who's just who's hole whose whole fiducia 'life is wrapped up in the votive candles and the pictures and the you know it's just sheer idolatry that's theirs and there's no workarounds there's no intellectual sophistication there's no Jeff Whittle way of saying well I trust in Jesus but I I also do these other things those things I regard is sinful but not as damnable if the person is really trusting in Jesus so okay now see when when people have asked me as they have many many times because of how many debates have done with Roman Catholic apologist down through the years they they ask me so you're saying it just simply because a person's Roman Catholic they can't possibly save my answer is always no I believe that there are people within the Roman Communion who have a simple faith in Jesus but my understanding has always been and that's probably due to inconsistency on their part you just said most people are not logicians um but Chesterton was so when if Chesterton was when he felt like it well okay yeah and and all of us are when we feel like it I mean we all suspend that at one point or another but I've always had the I've always taken the position that it is more likely that it's the peasant lady who has a simple faith that Jesus will save her and does the rest this stuff because that's what everybody does who is likely to be the recipient of salvation then it is the intellectual who is fully aware of what the Roman gospel is and what it says specifically about the death of Christ and the proteases and alter Christus and and all the rest of stuff but especially the the denunciation of the idea the which Luther sort of Illustrated well if it was even Luther that did it we're not a hundred percent certain but the the dunghill analogy this is really a good analogy in not only saying what we're what we're saying about the relationship of sanctification justification there absolutely connect with one another but they must be distinguished from one another but the Roman Catholic response to that is that by baptism your turned into a pile of gold your infused with with with with righteousness and then as you sin you get flecks of dung on the surface and if you commit a mortal sin you turn back into a pile of dung but you don't know you have no way of knowing in this life whether you're a pile of dung or pile of gold that really illustrates where some of these issues are it takes me back to Galatians and it takes me back to asking the question who is a sueded el Foy who is one of the false brethren and what allowed an apostle to lay that out for us in Galatians 1 and 2 and so are you saying that you have a greater hope for are you saying you have a hope for Chesterton are you saying you have a real confidence in I was obviously the the Lord is in charge of the Last Judgement the final judgment he's not entrusted that to us right so we would we would always be speaking in terms of the judgment of charity and hopefulness and so forth but the thing that I encounter when I read when I read Chesterton which I do a lot is I don't just encounter worldly wisdom I you know I can read books by educated non-christians and learn things about you know by common grace they point something out here and something out there and something about the young but when I read Chesterton I frequently can't go three pages without running into astounding spiritual insight the the lights are on and in other words it's not just earthly wisdom it's not just rotate your tires or change your oil every 3,000 miles it's it's spiritual wisdom that that smells like Jesus it's just a it's the sort you know it's it's like the kind of thing that you could say oh that's that's glorious that's glorious and that's glories now what I'm trying to do is account for that's that level of spirit insight and that level of me being able to say yeah that's in the Bible I can't believe I didn't see that before or the you know he he teaches and instructs me on things that this is a let me hit the pause button a minute well the mark of it I think a true Bible teacher is someone who is able to point things out to you in the text that you never saw before and as soon as he points it out you can't stop seeing it it's there it's there in the text the authority of the authority of the word comes not from Chesterton and they're not from Augustine or not from this it's the fact that it's grounded in the word so when I read Chesterton I've run into astounding levels of spiritual light spiritual insight and and this is coming from a Roman Catholic and I'm a convinced confessional Protestant how do i account for that well so I have I would say answering your question I have a high level of confidence as I indicated in that little video I have a high level of confidence that Chesterton was a true brother truly converted and that's why he is a repository of biblical wisdom and I'm grateful that he's wrong on justification by you know in the Roman Catholic system because there are these other parts of his life that would be if we're saved by works it would be damnable works and in other words the his adherence to certain errors his willingness to affirm them and defend them and defend them in a chivalric you know flamboyant way well I'd say that's not that's not cool man your that's I'm grateful that you're wrong on that because you being wrong on that is why I can think that you're saved okay so when when Paul let's go ahead and if we could in the second chapter of Galatians Paul talks about the the pseudo Delphi the the false brothers who were secretly brought in to spy out the Liberty which have in Christ Jesus in order to bring us into bondage right and he says we didn't yield them subjection for women so the truth of the gospel might remain with you so here's here's the question are you saying that Chesterton had the truth of the gospel was it because he was a convert from where he might have heard the truth the gospel beforehand I think he had the truth of the gospel in his life I don't think he there were times when he said whenever he's talking about Rome I don't think he had it in his mouth but I think he had it in his life okay so let me put let me pursue the Galatians illustration so you've got the you've got the false brothers you've got the that Paul says they're of the party of the circumcision I'll give you two examples at the end of Romans I think it is where Paul is going through a list of names and he talked he mentions one person who is of the circumcision who is who is helpful to me right and so I'm I'm taking that as there's there's a divide in the early church there's the the Judaizers who were false you know they didn't give in to them for a minute right the the Judaizers so then the question is were there any truly converted people among the Judaizers okay so I take I take John Mark who wrote the Gospel of Mark as being a proto Jud Iser you when John Mark accompanies them on the first missionary journey John Mark leaves them in Pamphylia which is the first stop after the first cold call on a unser just Paulus on the first cold call conversion of Gentile who was not a God fear in the back of the synagogue he was just he was just a regular Gentile and John mark leaves right after that in Pamphylia then the there's the I take Galatians the Galatian controversy as being right prior to the Jerusalem Council and there's this flare-up in Galatia and the Jerusalem Council meets in acts 15 and they settled the question a Gentile the Judaizers are wrong basically the the Judaizers are wrong and Gentiles don't have to be circumcised in order to become Christians right then right after that Barnabas wants to take John mark with them on the next missionary journey Paul says nothing doing right Barnabas is a relative of John Mark John Mark has apparently accepted the decision of the council but is what his background was that of a Judy a sir he was in the Judy Isaac party I think but I think he was clearly truly converted right he's a converted man but he was on the wrong side of that issue so some of the brothers who represented themselves as men from James well James was converted but the men from James were false brothers so it's it's a church controversy and you've got people good guys and bad guys on on both sides so there are people who were on Paul's side let's say Dimas you know who who were on Paul sides who were not truly converted and people on the bad guys side some of them who were so Abner is on ich spreche s side and Joab is on David's you've got things are things are sometimes complex so I think that the Roman Catholic system as a system is an ungodly unbiblical system I believe that the Roman Catholic doctrine of salvation is an unreliable gospel it's not the true gospel it if you understand it and that's where your trust is you're going to be disappointed you're still lost but can people over there be muddled about all the ins and outs of it and have their intellectual assent be given to this Roman Catholic system they memorized their catechism you know they they've got the Roman Catholic catechism down but their ascent there their fiducia they're there for their trust not their assent their trust is in Christ alone but you know that Chesterton would have probably been offended at the very suggestion of that oh absolutely offended and that's why it delights me to say it because because because Chesterton Chesterton offends me frequently and he's one of those rare writers who can edify me in the middle of offending me so he can be going on about Calvinism and talking and talking nonsense about Calvinism well and and I'm saying not that's that's idiotic you're you don't know what you're talking about and at the same time I'm edified flesh this out some though because when you when you say you see spiritual light read you're you're you're known for being fairly blunt and straightforward about certain things right but that seems squishy to me because I recently I recently did a little test on Facebook we didn't end up discussing it very much but I did a little test on Facebook after the Superbowl stuff a few weeks ago I posted comments about the halftime show that pretty much everybody who follows me on Facebook knows where I'm coming from would have gone oh yeah sure I said I'm not gonna tell you who said this please guess by the way you won the guest poll by about 75 to 80 about 75 to 80% of my of my followers on Facebook said oh that's that's that's Doug Wilson and my immediate response was are you kidding there are not nearly enough words in this so you have to look up in a dictionary for that to be Doug well no way I mean thank you for Oly Oly onerous well oleaginous oh yeah oleaginous yes really I mean earlier but believe me I actually can figure it out just from the formation of it but I'm just sort of like do you play words with friends 23 hours out of the day what do you do I mean I read dictionaries I get that feeling well all you'd have to do is just read a page a day it's just one low page and highlight any fun words that you come up with and and then collect them yes yes I understand I understand I'm in town I'm in therapy over so what I did most people thought it was you so in other words it was it was spot-on it was insightful it recognized what's going on in our culture and and and everything else and then I said I'll tell you who it is in a couple days and I forgot to do it initially and eventually I got around to it and the quotation was from dr. shake Yasir Qadhi who is a Muslim friend of mine the one that I had the dialogues with a couple years ago and just got attacked right left and center as to you know one the one that got you in all that trouble well I mean that really I'm not blaming him but the point is he is well-read he is you know multiple languages reads outside of his own narrow tradition etc etc and said things that I think we would probably use the term by common grace were obvious about the situation that were that we're talking about and so I can read these individuals and I have a younger person as I was interacting with atheists I was forced to see things in the Bible by atheists that my background had not caused me to necessarily see so I see those things and I I can be benefited by people that on no basis whatsoever what I believe that this person is regenerate but but they don't yeah that they have the gift of being made in the image of God I know exactly what you're talking about and I have that experience too where I get earthly wisdom from non-christian writers I read non-christian books regularly and I learned things from them I don't do it just to punish myself I learn things from them and I oftentimes learn things that are valuable from them and that's not what I mean by spiritual light right when when I'm when I'm reading Chesterton I when I got out of the Navy I came to the University of Idaho and was studying philosophy I was a flood excuse me a philosophy major and a lot of things right there yes I've told people people would ask me what are you gonna do with a philosophy degree and I'd say I'm going to get a job at Taco Time you know do you like Taco Time yeah well no I would say I'm gonna get a job at Taco well I would I would said I was going to be the one in the back saying what is a taco taco time in Moscow oh yeah oh yes [Laughter] I'm not sure what the meat is but Chris meat bread oh I'm if you make me happy when I come up next month okay those are pretty good but yeah but the real question is what is a taco right when you come right down and how do you define the taco so I I was taking philosophy courses which mind mind deadening soul deadening stuff oh yeah but there's also there's good stuff in there but it's just and I encountered Chesterton for the first time my my first year study in philosophy and Chesterton was a lifeline to me spiritually it was bracing common sense bracing sanctified common sense on fire and so Christianity Chesterton says Christianity has died many times Christianity is you can write Christianity office died many times but that's alright because we worship a God who knows the way out of the grave all right so that that sort of thing is food for me food for the soul if there's there's something to chew on there it's the kind insight that I wouldn't expect the wisest non-christian to ever have and I just see that sort of thing regularly in Chesterton and so I got him as a mass of contradictions you know I think that he is the CS Lewis once said that he if he could he CS Lewis was talking about the Puritans in this is in a collection of books a collection of essays called selected literary essays and in one of those essays Lewis says if I can take the name of a great writer a great human being and a great Roman Catholic he says the Puritans were much more Chester tone e'en than their adversaries so he Lewis looking looking through church history wanted to find what group of people what were the most Chester tone Ian in their exuberance and their love for life and their in their you know and Lewis settled on the Puritans and and of course that would have exasperated Chesterton himself no end but Lewis Lewis saw the same thing that I'm seeing that that Chesterton had a way of looking at the world sideways in a way that it illuminated illuminates it spiritually and so then I have to account okay how do I fit this in to Protestant theology I think I could fit Chesterton into my formal theology far better than Chesterton could fit someone like me into his right you're assuming that he would see the similar kind of light in you well yeah but he would have no way of processing it so in other words if you take let's take an approach to Catholicism that makes conservative confessional Protestants like me nervous and that would be CS Lewis's approach in mere christianity where he he's laying out mere christianity and he says early on that the christian house has many and it's in the rooms where you take your meals and and and live and I'm just trying to get people into the hallway in in through the front door and into the hallway and then and then pick your room right you might wind up a Wesleyan Methodist you might wind up a Presbyterian you might wind up a Roman Catholic so Lewis has this mansion of christendom image at the at the beginning and he just wants to get people through the front door of mere christianity okay that phrase is taken from Baxter Richard Baxter a Puritan writer and there's a touchstone is a magazine a journal of mere christianity and they have EEO writers and Roman Catholic writers and Protestant writers and you know good they have good articles and stuff this is a journal of mere crista mere christianity what a lot of people don't recognize is that the mere christian concept with the different rooms is is a protestant construct it's not a roman catholic construct it couldn't be couldn't be anything right so well well with francis all bets are off but yes historically well so J Gresham machen in the at the beginning of Christianity and liberalism J Gresham machen says some friendly things about Roman Catholicism over against liberalism he says basically he's arguing that Roman Catholicism is a deficient form of Christianity liberalism is another religion altogether liberalism is another faith and I agreed with your earlier comments I think Francis is a representative of that other faith I think I don't think Francis is a traditional Roman Catholic at all and so he he would be far more ecumenical he didn't want them want to be ecumenical in the religion of man sense right the mere Christian concept is a distinctively Protestant construct now you might be a Protestant that is in error about whether this particular sect gets a room or whether they're living in the woods out back you know are they are they outside the mansion altogether but the idea of this large thing called Christianity of which Roman Catholicism only has a room contradicts Roman Roman Catholic theology they would say sorry brother were the whole house you know this this is the whole house and and so they let they let the Eastern Orthodox have the basement but it's a it's a strange relationship right now and so then a confessional Protestant someone like Chesterton who was feeling kind of friendly one day and wanted him in court in the they have to turn themselves inside out to identifying us as separated brethren and you know different things but what are we living on the lawn what if we what do we what are we doing so I have a place I have a place for the Chesterton's and it doesn't go the other way because I believe that Protestantism is more expansive by definition and this and the central errors of product of the central errors of Rome are the semi-pelagianism for example the the false views of justification and so forth those errors are shared by multitudes of Protestant denominations sadly so yeah no question about that but here's here's what I want I want to focus in on and certainly you have fleshed out your response much more fully here than you had the opportunity was only an eight-minute video as I recall so at the very least hopefully that's been worth your time there's no absolute the dawning of a sweater vest but and my discovery my joyous discovery that you have Taco Time I am now truly excited about next month well and when I go there when I go there it I get a crispy meat burrito yeah that's I I won't waste our time telling you about my history in Utah with Taco Time but it's just associated with me with reaching out to Mormons and has been for decades and we just don't have him in Arizona so that's that's probably good for my waistline but other than that it's a sort of sad thing so I'm looking forward to that but let's let me let me focus in on this all right you all of a sudden have the opportunity of sitting down with chesterton before death okay so he doesn't he doesn't know what he knows now this is this is in the past somehow we so I'm not I'm not trying to get him out of purgatory you're not whatever that thing is there's no side of pasta here so what are you going to talk to him about in other words for Doug Wilson is it if you're saying I see spiritual light do you therefore as a result go so I'm just not going to talk about the imputed righteousness thing I'm gonna talk about other things we might share in common or some like that or do you feel that there is a real necessity to seek to bring correction on the very central aspect of how cuz see I don't know how Chesterton believing what he said he believed right could then have the peace he professes to have right because Rome doesn't provide that foundation with peace if if if before you put your head on the pillow tonight you can commit a mortal sin that is going to turn you into the enemy of God and then you have to go through all this stuff to try to get back to that point that's not what I reynae means that's not what Shalom means right I don't see how Rome's gospel can truly give peace yet what you're saying is I see that he had this peace therefore what are you gonna talk to him about what are you gonna say - I'm what I would talk to him about is that would be the topic of conversation and what I would talk to him about is you clearly self-evidently to me have this peace and this joy you're exhibiting to me the fruit of the spirit what exasperates me about you is that you have no way of giving an accounting for it right you you have you have this thing and you deny with your mouth the the Protestant doctrine of assurance of salvation right you would criticize the Calvinist assurance and the the hard-bitten Tishbite Calvinist who as assurance and he's sour and dour and you're jolly and happy and overflowing with the joy of living but how can that how can you give an account of that joy you're living like a Protestant ought to given the Protestant doctrines and you're living you're a walking living breathing contradiction of what you profess to believe doctrinally as a Roman Catholic you ought to be you ought to be proceeding far more carefully than you are you're a swashbuckler you you act and so I think when Lewis said the Puritans were Chester Tony and he really was there's something liberated about the Puritans and it was the gospel liberation and I would say to Chesterton you don't I want I would like to see you laying out a lay out an argument that shows how your fruit your embrace of the God's world can be built on the foundation that you you tell me it's built on I and that's what we would we would talk about I'm not I'm not gonna deny what I see as your lived experience I've profited too much from you I'm not gonna deny that I just want to I just want to see what this thing is resting on where do you end up drawing the line then there are obviously all sorts of Roman Catholics today who are seeking to maintain some type of fidelity to historical Roman Catholic belief especially in the area of soteriology in the face of Francis I mean that's just you that's the only way you can describe it is he is a crisis for Roman Catholicism there are many bishops and others who are describing him as a complete crisis for the church and I'm as far as I can see for as long as certainly as long as you and I are gonna be alive and probably our children as well Francis will always be someone we can point back to when Roman Catholicism starts touting the Pope as the central epistemological foundation of its of its system and go really remember him right you know the guy that's not sure what to do about homosexuality and things like that so he is a crisis for the church and so but there are still Roman Catholics who are well aware of what was intended by Trent what was intended by Vatican 1 what was intended even when the the bodily assumption of Mary was defined who are trying to maintain that kind of old style bristly Roman Catholicism that that the indulgences Laden form right um what do you would you agree with me that these are individuals who are just as I see the ultra liberal union theological graduate right as a necessary audience of evangelism right they need to hear the gospel right everyone needs to hear the gospel I I get that we don't need to go down that road there are people that are in good solid churches that really need to hear the gospel in a way they've never heard before I get all that but would you see those Roman Catholics who are trying to hold firm in the midst of the the Friends Franciscan storm I would think that Chesterton would have been one of them yeah absolutely so you would see them as necessary urgent and necessary urgent audience of gospel proclamation of what we would call it Angelus yes so if I'm if I'm interacting with an individual next-door neighbor or someone I'm acquainted with in town and I have to decide if I've got an ongoing relationship we them is this fellowship and friendship in Christ or is this evangelism right okay and taking one thing with another if I had if I'm dealing with Tridentine Roman Catholics they're holding the line and I'm rooting for them as they're fighting Francis and the I'm I'm an odd thing to be rooting for though yeah well yeah it basically Jake rest summation one time said to BB Warfield that he was worried about a church split in the Presbyterian Church this is before everything came down before the split before the split happened he was worried about a split in the mainline Presbyterian denomination and Warfield said you can't split rotten wood rotten wood won't split and I think the Roman Catholic Church is going to fragment I don't think that they can survive Francis and Francis's light likely successors now I believe that if the ultra Montaigne Roman Catholics if the dire you know the the true-blue the people who believe that Jesus was divine the people who still believe in the Trinity they still believe in objective truth they still believe in you know I'm rooting for those guys over against the the postmodern mush that is is happening in the church at large not because I think they're correct but because I think that you can argue with them you great exactly you know there's there is we have a shared commitment to objective truth and so I would want them to win so that I could preach the gospel to them not the other folks is like it's it's next to impossible to even begin to communicate because there's no there's no common ground right right so you've got this vat of goo on the one hand as opposed to and this is a incidentally his another historical example of this is the difference between Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox it's very difficult to debate or argue with an Eastern Orthodox oh yes personally and with the in the in the Roman Catholic tradition Protestants and and Roman Catholics can actually have a real debate because they're both Western right the you know they they both have a common shared inheritance and yeah I'm not sure if I'm not sure if Doug if you saw this but less than two years ago I did a debate at a gaff Khan Anglican Church again Belfast okay with I think you'd really enjoy getting to know Peter Williams okay he is a really sharp very nice Roman Catholic fellow and believed not he was willing to go to Belfast and debate me publicly on the indulgences okay now all right you don't you're not gonna find too many people today that are that are willing to do pending the indulgences yeah yeah you know I mean but there is an illustration of exactly what we're what we're talking about there's someone who who very very intelligent willing to stand up we were eight willing to do this I mean can you imagine that happening in the 1970s or 80s in Belfast yeah no no not gonna happen it is good that that type of a thing is is taking place but there you have an example and there's an there's an issue where we can debate because he really does believe that indulgences are a god-ordained mechanism of salvific graces yeah he thinks they're a thing yeah they really are a thing rather than just yeah you know we've done that in the past you can take it you can leave it yeah you can't you can't deal with you you cannot even begin to engage those those types of folks because there's there's no communication going on because they really aren't committed to a system that you can contrast Rick's right so let's say we win the debate against the post modern liberalism and the subjectivism and all that rot and we successfully fight our way back to the 1600s right all logically although all those issues in the reformed confessions over against Trent are still there yeah right those are those have not yet been resolved and when some when you have a group of people who are committed to that doctrinal system then my operating assumption is preach the gospel preached the Liberty that's in Christ while fully recognizing that some individuals on the other side might already be there might already be experiencing what I'm talking about and some people on my side might not be but they are you would at least say we're talking about exceptions here not the norm well yes and not only would I say that but the person knew embraces and signs every jot and tiddle of the Westminster Confession they they have have translated the Westminster Confession out of the original Greek right so they've they're all on board with the Westminster Confession such a person can be lost but a person who is lost while subscribing to every detail of the Westminster Confession is lost in spite of what he is saying in spite of his doctrine Brian fashioned a Roman Catholic who is saved is saved in spite of not because of not not because of but in spite of but it happens yeah that's that's always been the terminology that I've used as offensive as it is to many of my Roman Catholic friends if a person actually in the community of Rome is saved it is in spite of the church not because of the church and and see my concern is in listening in in hearing the the video you and I both know we live in a day where the vast majority of our fellow believers within the broad spectrum of what's called evangelicalism don't know what the issues of the Reformation were they they don't realize that the primary issue there was not the necessity of grace Rome says grace is necessary it was the sufficiency of grace right they don't understand the epistemological ramifications of sola scriptura over against the the claims of Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodox sees denial of Sola scriptura well which is which takes a very very different form and by the way I was gonna mention this you you mentioned we can have meaningful interactions with with Roman Catholics because we're both Western that is the issue in dealing with Eastern Orthodoxy and yet Eastern Orthodoxy is coming into the West and it ends up being this strange mutant form that is still very very difficult to deal with but it has to be able to communicate with Westerners and that that's that's a major area these days right now there's a lot of reformed guys that are looking toward Antioch right looking toward Constantinople and I think I think that's happening because of postmodern rot in the West in other words the west by abducted opting and drifting with subjectivism relativism and all of the postmodern nonsense have we've made ourselves vulnerable to an EO move right because it's mystical looks it's experiential it smells and bells and there's no sense in arguing about it the Jesuits will argue with you yes and they'll do and they'll do it well well modern Jesuits no not modern well now now that we're still we're still stuck on the old Jesuits who are Jesuits yeah yeah yeah I mean because Francis is a Jesuit that tells you everything you need to know right there but it sounds like we are both emphasizing the fact there there is only one gospel that saves right that that a gospel that has no finished work of Christ can never be a saving gospel in of itself correct but that from your perspective and obviously you're looking back on the dead here right so you're judging by I mean you didn't walk with with Chesterton you didn't talk with Chesterton you didn't live with with Chesterton you can only go based upon what you look like what we have and the judge of all the earth would you right and we want to to hope for the best and so on so Frank but what you're saying is God used much of the wisdom that came through Chesterton's words to minister to me I see spiritual light there right and so my system has a place for him right in light of that right my system has the good hope that currently today Chesterton is a better Calvinist than I am well and I would just simply want to emphasize that needs that that's an absolute necessity right because from my perspective there are so many today who no longer think that these issues can even be defined right let alone are they definitional right and that rot that epistemological rot has I think led to so much of the problems that we see within modern evangelicalism the the the gospel that challenges nothing and can be challenged by everything I like I like interacting with people who wake up in the morning knowing what they believe right because I can talk to them we can we can have a discussion so I've find conservative Lutheran's to be bracing in that way I'm not a Lutheran at all but I like the fact that they have defined they have definitions that they will defend and stand by and you can you can have a discussion with a Missouri Synod Lutheran you can have a discussion with a conservative Roman Catholic you can have a discussion with a particular kind of Muslim because they believe in truth and if they are outside of Christ then the discussion must be evangelistic if they are clearly inside Christ the discussion is simply a fellowship discussion and then there's this border borderline area where I would place Rome and say I have to make a decision going in whether this is evangelism or fellowship yeah and for me I just automatically default in light of the my knowledge of what Rome actually teaches especially on the mass to the assumption that it needs to be evangelism because the other would require me to believe that what the person is actually telling me isn't what they actually believe and I have the same default assumption so if I go into a if I'm invited to a group of I'm gonna have lunch with some Roman Catholic priests or whatever my assumption going in is gospel centered I'm gonna be I'm going to be assuming that I am going to be wanting to be a witness for Christ and the gospel but I'm happily be open to being shown wrong in one instance or across the board one of you this is probably three years ago now in prior to the election the 2016 presidential election I made a passing reference in a sermon that we ought to have bumper stickers that said sackcloth and ashes 2016 kiss Arts Arch our choice yeah Trump or Hillary is so I so I fellow in our congregation took me up on it and made some bumper stickers that said sackcloth and ashes 2016 so I put one on my truck and I was driving around town with sackcloth and ashes 2016 and I pulled it in the parking lot of the church office and another guy in a pickup truck followed me in and said hey where did you where do you get with those bumper stickers and I said oh this guy in my church so I said I'm a minister I made a reference and he said oh I know who you are because he had accosted me on the street some years before he said I'm the I'm the Roman Catholic who said you're you're going to hell if you don't worship in Latin you know so so so he was a pre-vatican too the line and it was oh I know who you are and I think you're going to hell but that's a good bumper sticker where can I get one I think I think the technical term for him is a Feeny ight or maybe even a SETI vacant test I'm not sure if he believed the Pope was actually a pope so right so you've got some of them up there too I had no idea they thrived in cold climates there you go yes so well Doug I hope you felt it was a useful discussion in laying out some of what these issues are yes I'm certain I certainly did and again we end up actually agreeing that what's absolutely important is the gospel and being Christ alone yes Christ alone is sufficient not not not grace as necessary but grace is all sufficient all this vision that was what the Reformation about that needs to be our message today I thank you very much for the conversation hopeful it was helpful there yes god bless thank you god bless you good job on the sweater [Music]

Channel: Canon Press

Views: 40,319

Rating: 4.7782102 out of 5

Keywords: catholic, reformed, calvinism, doug wilson calvinism, calvinist, james white, dr james white, doug wilson, theology, christian, bible, the dividing line, sweater vest dialogues, sweater vest, sweatervest dialogue, debate, theological, james white catholicism, catholicism debate, catholicism, douglas wilson, alpha and omega ministries, dividing line catholic, catholic church, catholic mass, roman catholic, christianity, catholic vs. protestant, roman catholic church

Id: jE1S4afpfts

Length: 56min 16sec (3376 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 07 2020