Dr. James R. White

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anrmenchaca47

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I’m sure alot of you saw the title and are probably wondering “WHAT in the WORLD?” But my question is this. With so much knowledge and background that he has regarding the bible, AND with other evangelicals converting to the faith, why is it that he is, I guess you could say, still stuck? I mean…I just saw a youtube video on a guy who was an evangelical for 35 year and explain why he became Catholic. You would think being knowledgeable he would convert to Catholicism. Anyway…can anyone explain why that is?
 
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Have you ever listened to any of his debates with Catholic apologists? James clearly knows the Catholic position, and is able to cite from, and refute, official Catholic sources. The Catholic apologists give shallow, weak arguments, and in some cases resort to ad hominem accusations. The best debates (imho) were with the priest, Mitch Pacwa. It seems that most Catholic apologists debate more to impress their support base than to prove the Catholic faith is the true faith.

For the record, I was born and raised Roman Catholic, and received 6 of the 7 sacraments of the church by the time I was 30. God delivered me out of the Catholic church a few years after I was married. My brother has tried to get me back, and that’s how I discovered James White (that’s a story in itself).
 
Scripture tells us that the day is coming when people won’t listen to sound doctrine. That time is now. He’s also particularly anti-Catholic which is a stumbling block for his conversion.
 
Cachonga said:
Have you ever listened to any of his debates with Catholic apologists?
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I read him when looking into Catholicism and was pretty unimpressed, enough that it perhaps pushed me closer to Catholicism.
 
ZMystiCat said:
I read him when looking into Catholicism and was pretty unimpressed, enough that it perhaps pushed me closer to Catholicism.
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I’ve seen many of the notices that the debates were coming up, but never did listen. What do you think Dr. White’s weak points were?
 
Yea I’ve heard his debates. He makes me dizzy,…and not in a good way. He’s a good debater I’ll give him that. He’s very condescending when he’s debating.
 
anrmenchaca47 said:
You would think being knowledgeable he would convert to Catholicism. Anyway…can anyone explain why that is?
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Knowledge can only take a person so far, namely, to the point of seeing that Catholicism might be true. To take someone all the way to the point of seeing that Catholicism is definitely true takes faith, which is a gift that only God can give.
 
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James White is arrogant and usually resorts to typical rebate tactics to “win.” He is more interesting in winning than having a good intellectually honest discussion.
 
While it may be that he has hardened his heart, it may also be the case that he has not yet received the grace of conversion. Christ does not call all of us at the same time–sometimes, He even waits until the eleventh hour (cf. Matt. 20:6).

In the meantime, as St. Paul says, “For there must be also heresies: that they also, who are approved, may be made manifest among you.” (1 Cor. 11:19). Commenting on this verse, St. Augustine says:
But even the heretics yield an advantage to those that make proficiency, according to the apostle’s saying, “There must also be heresies, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.” (1 Cor. 11:19) Whence, too, it is elsewhere said, “The son that receives instruction will be wise, and he uses the foolish as his servant.” For while the hot restlessness of heretics stirs questions about many articles of the Catholic faith, the necessity of defending them forces us both to investigate them more accurately, to understand them more clearly, and to proclaim them more earnestly; and the question mooted by an adversary becomes the occasion of instruction.
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http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120116.htm
 
qui_est_co said, What did you like about the debates with Father Pacwa?
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I liked that he stuck to the topic and didn’t stray off into other areas. That was very refreshing after listening to some of the other representatives of Rome.
anrmenchaca47 said, Yea I’ve heard his debates. He makes me dizzy,…and not in a good way. He’s a good debater I’ll give him that. He’s very condescending when he’s debating.
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Can you give an example? It’s been a while since I listened to the debates, so I can’t give any specific examples off the top of my head. Having said that, I will go back over the debates and make specific notes for you.
 
qui_est_ce said:
What do you think Dr. White’s weak points were?
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(Note: This is a two parter.)

A few things I remember:

First, he didn’t really defend sola fide any better than your average Protestant apologist, and in some cases did considerably worse. In one case, he basically declared that there was no reason to consider Matthew 25:31-46 or James 2:14-26 in the debate on sola fide, since, according to him, we should first form doctrine on the matter with Romans and Galatians and then bolster that already-established doctrine with what Jesus and James had to say on the matter. He justified this (no pun intended), by saying Romans and Galatians were meant as the “books on justification” while Matthew and James weren’t. Some very obviously problems with this are:
  1. He’s very clearly not taking the context of Scripture into consideration, just the context he applies to those two books.
  2. He offered absolutely no reason for taking that position as opposed to, say, seeing Romans and Galatians as addressing specific concepts regarding justification, not the whole of it. (And considering Paul’s consistent struggle with the Judaizers, a very strong case could be made for more specific context.)
  3. It doesn’t actually address objections as much as ignore them. These objections can also extend to those who believe Paul and James were actively opposed to each other on the matter, creating a sort of “doctrinal contradiction” in Scripture. Could I just say that Matthew and James shouldn’t be part of Scripture, since they seem to contradict the “core” books?
  4. It seemed like he wanted to put justification in place as a doctrine that should only inform other doctrine, not be informed by it. For instance, if everything said of baptism pointed at us being justified by it, shouldn’t we consider that that might require rethinking justification (if we assume sola fide) rather than just assuming that we need to change how we read about baptism?
To be fair, I’m not sure if James White still makes this argument, and it doesn’t seem to have gained much traction among Protestants. At the very least, he was the first - and still only - one I’ve heard it from, and I’m pretty sure he made it like 20+ years ago.

Still, it sort of flowed from a general problem I saw with him where he seemed to think that contextualizing an argument under his terms means that he rebuts it. While I don’t remember the context (outside of it being about something Jesus said some time shortly after one of his feeding miracles), I do remember one time getting bored to near tears by his lengthy explanation of the context only to then get next to no explanation of how that played into the matter under debate. That was made all the worse by the fact that the context he provided was pretty universally understood.
 
A final thing I remember being particularly bad was one attempt to defend Perseverance of the Saints. He did the usual citing of Romans 5:1 and claiming that peace can’t be had if we can lose our salvation. To his credit, in this case, he did try to take it deeper, claiming that the Catholic view is like a “cease fire” that God can end at any moment rather than an actual “peace”. Beyond just the debate regarding what Paul meant in the first place, this sort of showed another key problem: James White seems to always argue under the assumption that Calvinism is right, despite it being part of what’s under debate. Sure, from the Calvinist standpoint of how God’s sovereignty relates to human free will, White’s argument makes sense: It’s horrifying to think of that God just suddenly deciding He’ll pull his grace from you. From a Catholic perspective, though, the analogy makes absolutely no sense, since not only is the loss of grace very deliberate, but it is also entirely on us, as God actively works to pour out His grace on us.

But, of course, this gets to a deeper issue: James White seems to know Catholicism enough to debate it well and convince Protestants against Catholicism, but he doesn’t seem to understand it enough to argue about it well.

Now, to his credit, I remember him having some pretty good rebuttals to some Catholic objections to sola scriptura. It wasn’t enough to convince me away from sola scriptura, but it was certainly better than anything I’ve read from apologists like R.C. Sproul and Matt Slick.

Anyways, that might be more in-depth than you wanted, but that’s a bit of what I dealt with when converting. I haven’t followed James White that closely since, though. Most of it has to do with the fact that I just don’t like the formal debates he often is part of. I much prefer reading.
 
Dr. James White seems to be a pretty smart guy but it’s obvious when listening to him that he knows nothing of the Catholic or Orthodox Church. As for why he’s not Catholic, many evangelical Protestants may have the same feeling about some Catholics. “That guy really knows his Bible. How come he remains Catholic?”

It all depends from which lens (Orthodox, Catholic, Methodist, etc.) we choose to read the Scriptures. Some are afraid to put on a new lens or just choose not to. As far as I’m concerned, Orthodox and Catholics have 2000 years of solid Tradition on our side.

ZP
 
Honestly, I find academic debates quite unproductive. I’d rather have a lively conversation than a debate where one person goes on for 20 minutes, then the next person goes on for 20 minutes.

Regardless, these kinds of men will never win because God will protect His church.

I feel like if they want to attack Marian Doctrines, sure, I can defend it with scripture, but I’d point to Guadalupe and say “Can you disprove that?” The church is receiving ongoing gifts in the past 2000 years, but as the Israelites’ faith had failed as they worshipped the calf, even with the signs of the parting of the Red Sea and the pillar of fire, then I think there will always be deniers.

The fact that one of Padre Pio’s miracle, with Mary’s intercession through the power of our Lord, is still alive today, a scientifically blind woman who can see, Gemma Di Giorgi, how can anyone refuse that when they find the facts.
 
When James White’s sister became Catholic, she was highlighted in a book of conversion stories, emphasizing she was his sister. In her account she said she had already been estranged for some time, not for religious reasons.

Now I’m glad she became a Catholic, but I wish it had not been publicized. I am sad they became estranged, and pray they are reconciled.

When you see how much some evangelicals appear to be “hardened”, consider this may have been partly caused by Catholics.
 
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When I have read Evangelical apologetics, the weakest link appears to be their explanation of the NT canon. They all need to posit some way the canon was authoritatively publicly identified, without an authoritative public identifier.

Most try to painstakingly prove all 27 books, and no others, meet certain criteria: apparent age of book, connection to an apostle, “inspirational feel” on reading it, or whatever (so no Magisterium needed).

Dr White takes the opposite strategy, that God inspired the final, true canon at the same time He inspired Scripture.

The problem is this argument can also be used by Mormons, or by those who now want to add the Gospel of Thomas, or drop Pauline epistles that refer to homosexuality or headship of husband’s, etc. With no magisterium, it’s hard to prove the 4th century canon was the final, true one, and all earlier and later ones are not.
 
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