The debate between Alma Allred/James White on LDS Christology has been posted on youtube:
While Alma did okay, I do wish someone such as Blake Ostler who has written on Christology debated White, as White's nonsense on texts such as Col 1:15-20 would have been highlighted.
I do hope that if Jason Wallace and/or James White wishes to debate a Latter-day Saint in the future, they will debate sola scriptura. As I wrote in a comment section on facebook:
If there will be another debate between a Latter-day Saint and White, I hope it will be on sola scriptura. White assumed it, even though he has admitted that it could have have been practised by Paul and other NT-era Christians:
From the cross-ex period with Gerry Matatics on sola scriptura (1997):
Gerry Matatics (M): Did the people in Jesus' day practice sola scriptura? The hearers of our Lord?
James White (W): I have said over, and over, and over again that sola scriptura is a doctrine that speaks to the normative condition of the Church, not to times of inscripturation.
M: So your answer is "no"?
W: That is exactly what my answer is--it is "no"
M: Did the apostles practice sola scriptura, Mr. White? Yes or no
W: No
M: Thank you; did the successors to the apostles practice sola scriptura; only believing that Timothy [in 2 Tim 3:16-17] only believed what Paul had written him?
W: Eh, what do you mean? The first generations who were alive during the time of inscripturation?
M: Titus . . .
W: Again, as you should know as a graduate of Westminster theological seminary, you are asking every question of a straw-man--it [sola scriptura] after the inscripturation of Scripture.
M: Thank you Mr. White
W: So I am glad to affirm everything you said.
M: So, Mr. White; you admit then that Jesus didn't practice sola scriptura . . .
W: I asserted it
M: . . . His hearers do not; the apostles do not and their successors do not; and yet you want to persuade this audience that they should depart from this pattern for reasons you believe are sufficient and now adopt a different methodology . . .
Commenting on something similar, one author wrote:
Evangelical James White admits: “Protestants do not assert that Sola Scriptura is a valid concept during times of revelation. How could it be, since the rule of faith to which it points was at the very time coming into being?” (“A Review and Rebuttal of Steve Ray's Article Why the Bereans Rejected Sola Scriptura,” 1997, on web site of Alpha and Omega Ministries). By this admission, White has unwittingly proven that Scripture does not teach Sola Scriptura, for if it cannot be a “valid concept during times of revelation,” how can Scripture teach such a doctrine since Scripture was written precisely when divine oral revelation was being produced? Scripture cannot contradict itself. Since both the 1st century Christian and the 21st century Christian cannot extract differing interpretations from the same verse, thus, whatever was true about Scripture then also be true today. If the first Christians did not, and could not extract sola scriptura from Scripture because oral revelation was still existent, then obviously those verses could not, in principle, be teaching Sola Scriptura, and thus we cannot interpret them as teaching it either. (“Does Scripture teach Sola Scriptura?” in Robert A. Sungenis, ed. Not by Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura [2d ed: Catholic Apologetics International: 2009], pp. 101-53, here p. 118 n. 24]
While Alma did okay, I do wish someone such as Blake Ostler who has written on Christology debated White, as White's nonsense on texts such as Col 1:15-20 would have been highlighted.
I do hope that if Jason Wallace and/or James White wishes to debate a Latter-day Saint in the future, they will debate sola scriptura. As I wrote in a comment section on facebook:
If there will be another debate between a Latter-day Saint and White, I hope it will be on sola scriptura. White assumed it, even though he has admitted that it could have have been practised by Paul and other NT-era Christians:
From the cross-ex period with Gerry Matatics on sola scriptura (1997):
Gerry Matatics (M): Did the people in Jesus' day practice sola scriptura? The hearers of our Lord?
James White (W): I have said over, and over, and over again that sola scriptura is a doctrine that speaks to the normative condition of the Church, not to times of inscripturation.
M: So your answer is "no"?
W: That is exactly what my answer is--it is "no"
M: Did the apostles practice sola scriptura, Mr. White? Yes or no
W: No
M: Thank you; did the successors to the apostles practice sola scriptura; only believing that Timothy [in 2 Tim 3:16-17] only believed what Paul had written him?
W: Eh, what do you mean? The first generations who were alive during the time of inscripturation?
M: Titus . . .
W: Again, as you should know as a graduate of Westminster theological seminary, you are asking every question of a straw-man--it [sola scriptura] after the inscripturation of Scripture.
M: Thank you Mr. White
W: So I am glad to affirm everything you said.
M: So, Mr. White; you admit then that Jesus didn't practice sola scriptura . . .
W: I asserted it
M: . . . His hearers do not; the apostles do not and their successors do not; and yet you want to persuade this audience that they should depart from this pattern for reasons you believe are sufficient and now adopt a different methodology . . .
Commenting on something similar, one author wrote:
Evangelical James White admits: “Protestants do not assert that Sola Scriptura is a valid concept during times of revelation. How could it be, since the rule of faith to which it points was at the very time coming into being?” (“A Review and Rebuttal of Steve Ray's Article Why the Bereans Rejected Sola Scriptura,” 1997, on web site of Alpha and Omega Ministries). By this admission, White has unwittingly proven that Scripture does not teach Sola Scriptura, for if it cannot be a “valid concept during times of revelation,” how can Scripture teach such a doctrine since Scripture was written precisely when divine oral revelation was being produced? Scripture cannot contradict itself. Since both the 1st century Christian and the 21st century Christian cannot extract differing interpretations from the same verse, thus, whatever was true about Scripture then also be true today. If the first Christians did not, and could not extract sola scriptura from Scripture because oral revelation was still existent, then obviously those verses could not, in principle, be teaching Sola Scriptura, and thus we cannot interpret them as teaching it either. (“Does Scripture teach Sola Scriptura?” in Robert A. Sungenis, ed. Not by Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura [2d ed: Catholic Apologetics International: 2009], pp. 101-53, here p. 118 n. 24]
