Dr Greg Bahnsen - Catholic-Protestant Debate: Catholic-Protestant Debate Part 3 (Part 3)

This recording has been released into the public domain by the Bonson Institute, where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

Jon Stewart with Bible on the line on FM 99.5 KKLA. My guests are Greg Bonson, Michael Manning and Gerry Mattatics talking about Protestant Catholic issues. Before we go back to the phones, we're going to get a comment from Professor Matatics regarding. We were just speaking of.

Professor, I just wanted to say that the very passage in First Timothy 2, verses 1 through 6 that Dr. Bonson has alluded to earlier that says that there's one mediator, that very same passage tells us. It starts out by saying that Paul commands intercession be made for everyone so that there are multiple intercessors in the New Testament. And it is not a logical inference from the unique mediation of Jesus Christ that he alone is God and man and bridges the gap in that sense. And Mary's not some other bridge across the chasm that we can cross instead of Jesus. She is simply someone that Jesus uses as he uses all of us. And the Bible say that Jesus saved us, no doubt. But I think it's important that we don't get more biblical than the Bible. The Bible feels comfortable with using things that are kind of a shorthand for that when it says save yourselves, for example, in Acts chapter two, or your faith has saved you. These are instruments. These are things that are human, of our human nature, and yet Jesus works through them. And this is just that whole incarnational.

Principle, Jerry, in the history of the Church, the Roman Church, is that Mary does intercede in addition to Jesus, not Jesus. She's a co mediatrix. And I'm glad to hear you don't believe that, that she has to go through that. But again, in that regard, you're again a Presbyterian Romanist, not a Roman Catholic story.

It's not accurate. The Church has never said that Mary prays without connection with the mediation of Jesus Christ. Her prayers only have efficacy because she is a saint. A saint by Christ's grace.

What does co mediatrix mean?

Do you think it means the same thing that Paul means when he says we are co workers with God in 1st Corinthians 4, what he's saying, 1st Corinthians 3 and 1 Corinthians 4, God works through us.

So the body of church should declare that we have thousands of co mediatrixes and mediators as well, Is that right?

In a very minimal sense, yes.

You know very well the Church has not done that. And I guess the only Thing that gets on my nerves a little bit is this trying to pretend the church has not put forth Mary in this way. I'm glad you deny it. I deny it. We're one at that. But the church has taught it. And you know very well they were not saying that she did not have a special position to mediate. You were not saying the same way that I mediate by praying for you or John or anybody else. It was much more than that.

It's more than that quantitatively, but not different than that qualitatively. You give me one verse where it says Mary can have interceded for us without having to draw upon Jesus whatsoever. He's totally left out of the picture. Where does it say that?

I would.

I wouldn't give you such a verse.

I don't believe it. I don't mean a verse in the Bible. I mean some passage, some citation from a church document.

Where is the church? You're making all this spread on the table before us. If you'd like to do that, we'll go back and I'll pull the documents from the church and do it. And I think, you know, it's interesting. You challenge.

I'll give you a thousand dollars if you can produce that. I'll donate $1,000 a year. Christian, your study center. If you can show a passage that.

The passage does will say that Mary has to be interpreted that what they say of Mary, they say of every other Christian.

No, I didn't say that. Mary. Mary is especially holy.

There goes the challenge, Jerry.

No, there's no bite to this now. No, what you said is the church has taught that Mary can intercede for us and Jesus is left out of the picture. It's Mary instead of Jesus. And I'm saying, no, it's Mary in conjunction with Jesus.

Mediatrix.

And you said, and that doesn't deny that she can have a greater stature than others. There's a quantitative difference here because the Bible says the effective prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much. In James 5:16, the more righteous you are, the more your prayers are heard by God. And if Mary is more righteous than others, then obviously her prayers have an extra efficacy. Contrary to what you said before, that no one has more pull than anyone else.

Jerry, why do we go to Mary rather than to Jesus directly?

It's not either or. I'm saying we go to Jesus, but we also ask our brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for us. Because God commands it. And you're not obeying that command.

You're truncating.

That command simply to the brothers and sisters that are on earth. And you're leaving out the rest of.

The body of Christ. Is it just as legitimate for me to ask Clyde, who lived in the 1890s, to pray for me right now as much as Mary, if you know.

That Clyde is in heaven, if you had some way of knowing that, yes. When the church is said, we have examined the evidence of these lives. These people are in heaven. They are righteous people.

You talk like a Presbyterian who's become a Catholic. This is not the Catholic position. And I think you know. Is in a better position to mediate than is any other believer.

That's right.

She is not just one more of the faithful in the church who prays for people like Clyde does or like you.

I didn't say it. I didn't say that. I said she's in a better position.

She is a comedian, mediatrix with Jesus. Are you?

All of us are working with Jesus Christ. Paul says that we are co workers.

Are you, in the words of the Catholic Church, a co mediatrix or comedian with Jesus?

In a lesser sense than Mary? Yes.

You keep fudging less. You are not what the church says about Mary.

No, not. Not to that extent.

Okay, we'll hold off on that. Leave it at that and go to AJ and Downey. Hello, aj, you're on kkla.

I just want to say I thank.

The Lord for all of you that.

Showed up tonight, that we can take a look at both sides of the road. I was raised Roman Catholic for many years and I'm in the Navy at present. And that's where I came to know Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.

Are you a friend of Tom Sullivan?

No, I am not.

Okay, I just. Sorry, go ahead.

I hear your last comments and yes, I was taught the same thing, that Mary was a mediator, a soul mediator, not an indirect road to Christ. That's just a comment side thing. The question I had was in the Roman Catholic Church to come to a priest for confession. But where does he get, what authority does he have to hand out penance by saying, say 10 Hail Marys and four are fathers and you're forgiven of the sin. When the Bible says we come to Christ and ask him for forgiveness of our sins and he's writing just to forgive us of our sin because he knows what we're going to ask prior to our asking.

But at the same time, this is standard difficulty and I'm willing to take half the blame for that on the part of maybe ineptness on the part of Catholic catechesis, the constant Protestant problem of either or. If God does it, then man doesn't do it in any sense. It's one or the other. And that is not what the Incarnation is all about. God himself became a man so that you could say, it's a man who saves me. It's God who saves me because it's the God man. God chooses to work through creaturehood. He chooses to work through things that are tangible, touchable and audible. And in the Old Testament we see a principle that when. Let me ask you, in the Old Testament, when someone sinned, how did they go to God and get forgiven? There's a whole book about it, the Book of Leviticus. They went to the priest, they said, I did this, this and that. And the priest would prescribe certain sacrifices that had to be brought that. That principle is continuous. And in the New Testament, when the apostles are given the same authority, Jesus says to them in John 20, in the upper room breathes upon them that the Father has sent me, I send you. If you forgive anyone's sins, they're forgiven. If you retain anyone's sins, they're retained. It's interesting that in Mark's Gospel, when the Pharisees are upset, when Jesus says, your sins are forgiven you, and they say, who can forgive sins but God alone. Jesus didn't say, that's right, and I'm God. He says that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins and then he performs the miracle. In other words, it was his human nature that was the seat of that delegated authority from the Father in heaven. And that being the case, he could delegate it to other human beings, namely the apostles, and they to their successors down the present day. So the Catholic goes to God to have his sins forgiven. I don't go to the priest instead of God, I go to the priest as the agent, the instrument that God uses, as he has used priests through the two temples.

But the horrible thing is the priest lays on the conscience of God's people something other for their salvation than the sole merit of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross on our behalf. And that is what we as Protestants find not only contrary to the teaching of Scripture, but an oppression to the souls of God's people.

Greg, a quick comment on John, chapter 20, verse 23, where it says, if you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they have been retained. Is this not some sort of mandate for people in leadership capacities to be one who grants absolution.

Well, of course, the connotation of absolution may cause some trouble to some hearers of your show, but there is a sense, of course, in which the leaders of God's people are to declare the gospel. And in so doing, they are declaring how the gates of heaven are open to people and closed. And what they declare is not that I have the authority to say that you are forgiven, but I have the authority to proclaim the terms of salvation. And if you do not believe these things, if you reject the Son, then you will be lost. This, of course, is John's version of what we see in a parallel passage in Matthew where Jesus teaches that the keys of the kingdom have been given to the church and that those sins which have been remitted will have been remitted in heaven, to use the technical Greek expression that the church is to declare God's terms of salvation. We really don't differ Roman Catholic and Protestant on that. We differ that a priest has his own personal right to tell you whether you are or not.

Say he doesn't have a personal right from Christ.

He doesn't have anything beyond what the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments give him to declare.

Professor Manning.

AJ One quick comment, then we got to run. Yeah, well, not a question, a comment.

All right. He kind of beat around the bush and he mentioned Leviticus. But my original question, how was dealing with their authority? And then he said, well, he beat around the bush on that thing with authority, but he was reverting to the Old Testament. Where does he get off with for our fathers and 10 Hail Marys per se.

Thank you, A.J.

That'S not a comment, it's a question. But I appreciate it. We'll continue with more of your phone calls. John Stewart with Bible on the line in our Protestant Catholic dialogue. Your phone calls. Let's go to Virgil in Los Angeles. Virgil, hello, you're on kkla.

Yes. I have a question for the brothers. Catholic brothers.

Yes.

I used to be a Catholic and I have on John 6:39, it says, and this is the will of him who sent me. And that of all that he has given me, I lose nothing, but I will raise it up on the last day. This is one of the assurances of salvation. And on Ephesians 1:13, in him you also, after listening to the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed you were still in him with the Holy Spirit promise.

Do you want them to comment on those verses?

No, there's another one from Ephesians 4:30 and says, and do not grieve in the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed from the day of redemption.

And that's enough verses. If we go further, we're going to get lost in the shuffle here. What do you want to know from my guests? My Catholic guest?

Virgil. Yes. And the Last one is first John five, 13:13.

Okay. I can quote that. These things are written to you to believe in the name of the Son of the God. You may know you have eternal life. What about those assurance of salvation, Professor Madison?

Well, Dr. Bonson, as a student of Catholicism, I'm sure we'll know from reading St. Thomas that Thomas taught the same view of predestination that, that Calvin did. There is a sense in which God, who knows, is not.

I don't, I don't buy that that categorical can't pass. I'm sorry to interrupt.

All right, thank you. Well, one out of teaches the same.

View of predestination as Calvin. Why do you think there was a Protestant Reformation, Jerry?

It wasn't because it was not a.

Covenantal view of predestination.

It wasn't because Thomism wasn't being taught at that time. William Malachin's nominalism was, I think even a Protestant Thomas, like Norman Geisler or other people who have written books. Arvind Voss has written a book showing that Aquinas and Calvin had held the same view on it. And I think I have to refer you to the Protestant scholars on that. In any case, you might find them more persuasive than the Catholic. I think, though, when we get down to where the rubber meets the road, Dr. Bonthon is going to have to agree that functionally speaking. Well, I shouldn't say he's going to have to agree. I would like to think that he would agree that functionally speaking, there really isn't that much difference between the Catholic who says I don't have an absolute assurance and the Protestant who feels that somehow Protestantism gives him an absolute assurance. Because Dr. Bonston would say there are people that he knows that thought they were Reformed. Other people thought they were Reformed, thought that they were really born again Bible Christians and they fall away. That happens all the time.

Would it be fair to say that the issue of security of the believer is not really a Protestant versus Catholic issue? Also because you have Arminian versus Calvinist.

Point, but leaving that aside, even if we just had Reformed people as Protestants, I'm saying then Dr. Bonds would have to say, well, he was never saved in the first place. That would be the common sense that.

Makes the biggest theological difference in the world.

But it. But the fact of the matter is this, that if you can believe that. That you were saved and other people can believe it, and then you can say, well, as a theological conclusion, if I fall away, that I must have never saved in the first place, then you really have no more way of knowing that you have assurance than the Catholic does.

Dr. Ponson wrote his doctrine, not theology.

No, I'm talking.

Yes, you are.

I'm talking about osha. I'm talking philosophy. I'm talking about what you talked about. You wrote a doctoral dissertation here in Southern California under Dallas Willard on the individual's possibility of self deception. And what I'm saying is that Protestantism is riddled with that problem. In other words, because the person has no infallible criterion outside themselves to know whether or not they are saved or what in fact the Bible teaches, the person is left kind of resting upon his own assurance.

Jerry, you have no infallible assurance in the Church's declaration either.

Sure I do.

I mean, that doesn't solve anything.

Okay, Virgil, I thank you for the call. Let's go to Carol in Orange. Carol, hello. You're on kkla.

Hello.

Hi.

Well, I'd like to make a comment. First of all, to all of you, I think it's. Can you hear me?

Quick comment.

Carol, it's really important that we all realize that we're not on separate sides of the fence. We all have the same enemy. We have different doctrines and different ways of going about it. I was raised a Catholic until about 19 years ago when I became a Protestant. And it took me a long time to get over some of the things that I was raised with. And after I was saved, it took me 10 years to be baptized because I felt that it would be disloyal.

Okay, Carol, we're very short on time. Do you have a quick question for.

One of the questions I have, One of the problems I had was where does the Catholic Church get mortal and venial sin? And where do we get the number of graces that we are given for certain works that we do?

Okay, Michael Manning, Mortal versus venial. We find that in Scripture or tradition.

If you look at 1 John 5:16, there's a reference in John speaking of the different sin unto death. And speaking of venial sin, 1 John 5.

1 John 5:16. Okay, Carol, I appreciate the call. I want to thank my guests. And before we end the program, I want to have each of them perhaps give a number where they can be reached or address where they can be reached. First of all, Dr. Greg Bonson, you have the California center for Christian Studies in Irvine. If folks want to contact you, how can they get a hold of you?

Right, John? And I hope that they will. We really appreciate the grace of God and this is what we want to proclaim through our ministry there. We have a ministry of apologetics, ethics, theological instruction. Anyone who would like to know more about our courses or literature or tapes that we have should write to P.O. box 18021 in Irvine, 92713. That's Box 18021 in irvine, 92713. And will be some literature back to them. They can know more about how to defend faith and what the meaning of the Scriptures.

And you would have tapes available and you have classes, right?

We have corresponding courses as well as in residence courses. We sponsor debates and classes and so forth that would I think, deepen our understanding and hopefully our love of the Savior himself.

Great.

Father Michael Manning, one of the best known Roman Catholics in Southern California and perhaps in the country. For your TV programs, my billing you Channel 18, KSCI. When is your program?

On Thursdays at 4:30 and they can watch if anybody would like to write a letter. Box 8080, Riverside. Very simple.

The name of the program.

Oh, it's real creative. It's Father Michael Manning.

Where did you come up with that name?

Oh, it was hard. We paid big bucks to get that.

Channel 18, 430. That's. That's KSCI.

Yeah, that's the international channel. I'm right between the Iranians and the French.

Okay, we won't comment on that. Professor Jerry Matatics, we sure appreciate the fact you came from Nashville, Tennessee just to be with us here this afternoon in Southern California at Aquinas College. Your organization again is entitled Biblical foundation.

And it specifically focuses upon the biblical defense of distinctive Catholic doctrines. Not, not so much what the Fathers.

Had to say, although we deal with that as well.

But trying to show that people can read the Scriptures and see scriptural support for Catholic for Catholic beliefs.

And how can people reach you there?

Biblical Foundation, Biblical Foundations, Post Office Box 2101, Nashville, TN 37221. Or they can call 615-646-0551. We will send them. If they will call or write, we will send them a free newsletter. I can tell them about how to get hold of the book how the Bible Converted Me to Catholicism, which should, God willing, be out next month. I would like to actually give another number of another organization that I have the highest respect for. I worked with them when I lived out here in Southern California. They are Catholic Answers. There's a lot closer to some people down in San Diego. They will send you a free packet of apologetics materials that again will show what Catholics believe and why they believe it. And their toll free number is 1-800-345-0050. That's Catholic Answers in San Diego. 1-800-345-00560. Just call and they'll send you a free packet. And I think the world of what they do. They put out a fantastic monthly magazine, this Rock. And they have tracks, they have tapes, they have all kinds of things.

Okay. And if they miss your address in Tennessee and the phone number there, they can call Catholic Answers and get that I mentioned for your organization, biblical foundations. 1-800-345-0050.

John?

Yes, Michael?

My book, Questions and answers for today's catalog.

Ah, yes. Where is that available?

You can get it through that 800.

The Catholic box 80. 80. Oh, through box 80, Riverside.

Yeah.

Please let me say in summary that I appreciate each of you and what you shared with us today. And there's areas of disagreement. Obviously in some areas we agree to disagree. I think the lordship of Jesus Christ is central to all of us. We come to that as brothers in Christ and the rest. Hopefully. May the soundest reason and accords with God's word be the one that survives all this. But I want to thank all my guests again. Dr. Greg Bonson, father Michael Manning, Professor Gerry Matatic. We'll see you next time. Have a great evening. God bless.

Bye bye now.

This recording has been released into the public domain by the Bonson Institute. Duplication, sharing and distribution is encouraged. For more information about the life and Ministry of Dr. Greg L. Bonson, visit our website, bonseninstitute.com where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.