On principle, if I am going to get pictures then I want the highest quality since one lesson I've learned is that the quality from 10 years is 1/10 the quality available today. Might as well record and store the maximum quality today since over the course of the marriage (10s of years, I hope) today's quality will be just 'average.'
My suspicion is that he plans to make profit on the prints, and he's afraid I've found a way to bypass him. I just don't understand why he doesn't price his time and skill and use the prints as add-ons.
Is wedding photography his primary source of income? If so, it's his business model and the "standard" business model for wedding photographers for years.
Find a photographer who does something else, but does weddings on the side. Elsewhere in this thread, I mentioned getting a print of each picture and all of the negatives from the photographer at my wedding -- he was a crime scene photographer and did weddings on the side. He did not want the hassle of dealing with prints, different sizes, packages, etc.
You're dealing with an old school photographer who expects to cover his costs (salary, rent, equipment, etc.) from print and album sales, rather than scare you away with a large initial cost.
It's true that photographers prefer to withhold RAWs because they're unprocessed and in bulk, but that's not your photographer's issue.
I also mention upfront that I only provide web-quality images for the quoted cost, as I believe I can offer my expertise to provide better quality prints when requested, or any other image processing needs (slideshows, albums, collages, etc.). This also provides me with another much needed revenue stream, albeit it's often perceived as greed. I should note, however, that I charge much much less than $4k, as I am in a different market.
What do you intend to do with the RAW files if you get them?