Answers to James White

  • Thread starter Thread starter Eruvande
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
As a P.S. to my above post, let the record forever show that James White claims to have issues with the members of CAF but turned down an invitation to debate us on our own turf. Regardless of the excuses he gave for his decision, this indicates to me that his intimidating, aggressive manner may be a tactic he uses to disguise his own feelings of being intimidated. It’s easy for him to denounce people from the safety of his own blog, but quite another to do so on a forum where people can actually respond back.
 
EricFilmer said:
In December of 2011, I actually invited (via email) James White to debate on CAF. He had taken issue with comments made about him in this forum and crafted two blog articles (on his own website) in response. He collectively referred to the members of CAF as “truth-starved denizens.” I was not one of the people he had a complaint with, and my invitation was very polite. He did not thank me for the invitation and declined it in a manner that I personally felt was caustic and boorish. Moreover, although I had twice sincerely wished him and his family a merry Christmas, he returned no such sentiment to me. Maybe I’m nitpicking here, but I think it was supposed to be an intentional slight.

Anyway, the relevant parts of my exchange with White are preserved on CAF in the following thread (along with the personal reflections of myself and others). People can read it and decide for themselves if he was being aggressive and/or rude. An Invitation to Dr. James White.
Click to expand...
Hmm. Well, what really struck me was that he accused you of lying or being (perhaps wilfully) ignorant, when–as far as I could tell–you did nothing wrong. It’s James White who should make a retraction.

Also, he doesn’t think you’re Christian (nor me, probably), so it makes sense that White didn’t wish you a merry Christmas.

Lord have mercy on this misguided man!
 
An Exchange on Mary, Another Redeemer? between James R. White and William Possidento (from 2000)
An online chat exchange with James White (from 1995)
Refuting James White on Pope Honorius (This Rock, 2001)
Jimmy Akin’s response to James White’s book The Fatal Flaw (This Rock, 1993).
Article from Nick rebutting James White on sola fide (from 2010)
Dave Armstrong rebutting James White’s argument for sola scriptura regarding Moses’ seat.
Also
Dave Armstrong responds to James White’s top 10 questions
Robert Sungenis responds to James White’s top 10 questions
White’s specious use of Augustine’s tractate on John #92 regarding the Real Presence
Patrick Madrid’s follow-up to the Sola Scriptura debate
Jimmy Akin wrote a blog article “James White has completely lost it” a couple years ago too. Akin has a number of older articles about White that cover some of what he’s said.
Refuting White on Cyril of Alexandria, et al. The Attempt to Whitewash Peter’s Primacy by Steven O’Reilly
Response to White’s critique of the Liturgy (Armstrong)
Bonocore answers White on the Papacy
 
Eruvande said:
I don’t know about aggressive but I find him quite intimidating because he seems to have a fearsome intellect and knowledge of original languages and I have neither!
Click to expand...
I have listened to several of James White’s debates with Catholics. In my opinion he is very skilled at the mechanics of a debate. I often come out of listening to one of these with the impression that he won. It is not till listening 2 or 3 times that I realize there were questions he did not answer or he will give a strong answer that really did not address the question. I certainly admire his passion although I do detect an arrogance also.

But I agree with Eruvande, many times it just gets to the level where I can’t keep up. Everybody can’t be a theologian or biblical scholar I guess. To me, this stuff has been debated by very intelligent and well meaning people for centuries and they can’t all be right.
 
Let me first admit that my memory ain’t what it used to be. What little of my memory remains believes there was a debate some years back between Jimmy Akin & James White, moderated by Hank Hanegraaff. In it Hanegraaff kept jumping in to help James White with his answers because he was getting trounced by Jimmy. That’s not the correct role for a moderator, but he did it anyway.

If you want to hear it, look for Bible Answer Man tapes with the above named.

Although I must say, James White wasn’t as bad as another anti-Catholic, an ex-priest, who insisted in a debate with Karl Keating (I think) that he knew who wrote the Gospels because the titles said, “The Gospel according to…” :eek:
 
I think it was on the Alpha Omega ministries website (although after some googling I am not 100 percent certain; although I am pretty sure this was the case) there was a scathing criticism of Peter Kreeft accusing him of having “primitive spirituality.” It was referencing his awe of St. Patrick’s Cathedral as a young child. I thought the accusation ridiculous.
 
CompSciGuy said:
I think it was on the Alpha Omega ministries website (although after some googling I am not 100 percent certain; although I am pretty sure this was the case) there was a scathing criticism of Peter Kreeft accusing him of having “primitive spirituality.” It was referencing his awe of St. Patrick’s Cathedral as a young child. I thought the accusation ridiculous.
Click to expand...
Peter Kreeft accused James White of having “primitive spirituality”? Or the other way around?

Either way, children can be in awe of all sorts of big things. When I was a child, banks and libraries were gorgeous marble temples of money & books. Even the huge Montgomery Ward was a temple of the retail business!
 
wow, this thread made it to his internet radio show. Not sure what to make of that!
 
And I find it curious that, on the one hand, joining in message-board discussions to defend his theology or person represents a waste of time according to James White, but, on the other, responding to message-board discussions about his theology or person on air is not.
 
James White has particular difficulty with the topic of Sola Scriptura and the Church Fathers. Here are a couple blog articles I wrote:
“Questions for a Reformed Apologist”: bit.ly/V0p8Dz
“White’s Burden Redux”: bit.ly/WRLCot
 
EricFilmer said:
Welcome to CAF, Scott.
Click to expand...
Seconded!
Your Logos & Muse website looks really good!
Click to expand...
I found it a few months ago via a link from someone’s blog and was greatly impressed.

One thing I noticed, though. An example from the first link:
CONSIDER FOR A MOMENT the following quotation: “The novelty of biblical revelation consists in the fact that God becomes known to us through the dialogue which he desires to have with us.” Does the author believe in sola scriptura? What do you think? For, after all, he describes the Bible as “novel.” That is to say, it is unique; it is different than anything else. Further, the author describes the Bible as the means by which “God becomes known to us.” He refers to it as God’s “dialogue” with us. He points to no other source of knowledge or dialogue with God.
Click to expand...
Scott, do you know why so often the * symbol appears in the middle of words in your posts?

Edit: It doesn’t appear as an asterisk on your blog, but some other strange character. :confused:
 
@Trebor135.
I haven’t noticed that. What browser are you using, that could possibly have something to do with it? I have a plugin that’s supposed to automatically apply special typography to the posts, like hyphenating words and creating fancy ampersands and the like. I don’t know if that possibly could be causing something goofy in certain browers.
 
Scott_Alt said:
@Trebor135.
I haven’t noticed that. What browser are you using, that could possibly have something to do with it?
Click to expand...
Internet Explorer. Not the latest version. (I don’t want to update yet in case my screenreading program doesn’t take well to it.)
I have a plugin that’s supposed to automatically apply special typography to the posts, like hyphenating words and creating fancy ampersands and the like. I don’t know if that possibly could be causing something goofy in certain browers.
Click to expand...
Ahh, that must be it. If you could change the setting somehow, I’d be much obliged. The program I use (Jaws) can’t read your blog smoothly at all.
 
Drat! I can’t listen to it - slow dial-up Internet.

Did he say anything memorable? Inquiring minds want to know! 🍿
 
Listening to him now. About half way through he starts in on some of his remarks.

“CAF feeds on ignorance” and we’ll “Believe anything they are told”.

The bad news for him is that guys like me were long standing n-Cs and I know what I was taught and it is in large part my study of the Bible that brought me home to the Catholic faith.

His real problem is that, as we’ve seen many times over, is that there is no scripture that lays claim to the ultimate authority for all Christian belief and practice. It’s not there.

Most of his remarks are just ad hominem, where all he does is mock posts that don’t really have much bearing on the topic.

He says that PhilVaz’s articles have all been refuted by him and that we just don’t care and cling to it. The thing is I guess he doesn’t fathom that we might find his arguments less than convincing. So far…all I’m hearing is a lot of remarks where he wants to show himself a better apologist that many of you.

How is that a surprise since we’re just the rank and pew Catholics and not theologians or professional apologists.

In some cases, he’s actually right. There’s no point in making remarks about his supposed “insecurity” (which may or may not be true…and even so, who cares? 🤷)

My point is that if we deal with facts and scripture, then we’re always way ahead of the game. Facts are facts and so is scripture, so if you stay on that then you do well. The rest is up to the Holy Spirit who will open hearts to the truth, regardless of who the apologist is.

He cannot seem to understand how any of us who follow his teachings their logical conclusions and still now be converted. Yet, if all his stuff is like this podcast then I think I’m safely Catholic, because there’s nothing here that would trouble my faith at all.

I’d suggest that if you wanna really do some good with his stuff that you take his tracts and articles apart here in a thread and/or on your blogs so that everyone can see them.

If James White is a meathead…that’s pretty much irrelevant.
Bonnie said:
Did he say anything memorable? Inquiring minds want to know! 🍿
Click to expand...
No…
 
I listened to that DL today myself. Somehow Dr. White thinks that if we haven’t agreed with him yet, it must be because we haven’t taken the time to hear what he has to say and understand it. Actually, the truth is much simpler: We have listened, we have understood, and we reject it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top