Calvinism and Catholicism (w/ Redeemed Zoomer)

In this episode Trent sits down with Protestant Youtuber Redeemed Zoomer to answer his questions about Catholicism.

 

Transcript:

Trent Horn:
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Counsel of Trent podcast. I’m your host, Trent Horn.

Joining me today is Richard, aka Redeemed Zoomer. How long have you been doing… You have a YouTube channel and a Twitter account, right?

Richard:
YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Twitter’s my smallest of the three, basically.

Trent Horn:
Yeah. And your YouTube channel, I’ve seen some of your videos. They’ve gotten, what, like over a million views?

Richard:
Yeah, some of my videos are up in the millions and stuff.

Trent Horn:
So I’m really excited that you’re joining us today because here at the Counsel of Trent, like you guys know, I really enjoy doing dialogues, doing debates. I really like engaging people who are non-Catholic. And Richard, you belong to PCUSA, right, Presbyterian Church?

Richard:
Yes, I’m Presbyterian.

Trent Horn:
Alrighty. So Reformed theology-

Richard:
Yes.

Trent Horn:
… talked about that. A lot of people wanted us to sit down and chat about Catholicism.

Richard:
Yes, I am a Calvinist.

Trent Horn:
Alrighty.

Richard:
Yes.

Trent Horn:
Full five points and all, right?

Richard:
Yes. Westminster Confession, and all that.

Trent Horn:
Alrighty. So that should be fun. And Richard actually had a few questions that he wanted to go over with me, so he’ll kind of be more interviewing me, if you will, and we’ll go back and forth.

But I’m very grateful you’re here. I’m grateful your flexibility and I definitely could use your guys’ help because I want to do more of these episodes. We’ve moved into the new office space. I have an entirely separate room I want to turn into a big interview studio.

Right now we’re dealing with, like I had everything set up and I move things and my Thunderbolt dock that connects to the computer, it just fell right as my guest gets here and I plug it back in and the screen’s all staticky. So we’re using my laptop computer right now for the camera and we’re Jerry-rigging everything.

And the light we were going to use, the light went out. So there is a nefarious power that did not want the two of us to chat today.

Richard:
Definitely.

Trent Horn:
So let us pray to overcome him.

Richard:
That’s all right.

Trent Horn:
Yeah. Yeah. So is there anything else you want to share with people to know more about you before we get down to the questions or…

Richard:
Just that I’m a Presbyterian. I’ve been a YouTuber for a little over a year. I mean like a serious YouTuber for over a year and, yeah, that’s basically what I do. I want to try and have conversations about theology topics, help other people start having conversations. And I think in these conversations, clarity is more important than like agreeing with each other or like winning arguments. And that’s what I’m saying because I can’t debate. I’m not very good at that.

But I do like to learn about the differences between denominations. I know a lot of people are really interested in the differences between Catholic and Protestant and all these things these days. So that’s why I have some questions about Catholicism. It’s like I’ve asked other people these questions, but I think the more I talk about it, the more clear of an understanding we can get. I know a lot of people who watch my channel, watch your channel, they’re thinking about this more than ever. I’ve never seen a time in history where people are thinking about the differences among Christians more. So yeah, I appreciate you having me on.

Trent Horn:
Yeah. Well, I’m glad you’re here. So why don’t we start? You’ve got some of the questions here and we can go through and go back and forth. So let’s begin.

Richard:
Sure. Yeah. So there’s a lot of Protestants who are investigating the claims of Rome, and the biggest claim that seems to be the most convincing is this idea of the one true church. Some of my friends would call that Ecclesialism, or whatever you want to call it. The idea that there is one true church that is one specific denomination or institution, as opposed to the view where the one true church could transcend denominations and institutions.

I think it’s pretty easy to sell people on the idea of one true church. That’s pretty easy to find in the church fathers. But then there’s the really difficult question of which one true church is the one true church? I see a lot of people begin to investigate this, and of the people that come to the conclusion that there is one true church, it seems pretty evenly split whether they go Catholic or Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox. I think I’ve seen the greatest number of people be convinced by the claims of Eastern Orthodoxy. So the question I’m always asking is how do we know which one true church is the one true church?

Trent Horn:
Right. I think what I would say right at the outset that I would be concerned about this question creating a kind of analysis paralysis for someone who’s trying to figure out what does God reveal, what is the nature of God’s church. So I’ve had episodes where I’ve talked about this. I had a whole book on it called When Protestants Argue Like Atheists, for example. It’s not meant to be derogatory, but I do notice some similarities in a skepticism towards evidence that’s presented and not being sure where to go.

So for example, someone who’s not Christian, they say, “Yeah, I want to be Christian.” And then they look out at Christians like, “Oh, wait. Well, what kind of Christian should I even be?” Because then they’re like, “Should I be Catholic? Orthodox?” Or even if they say, “I just want to be Protestant. Should I be Calvinist? Should I be Armenian? Should I be, should I?” And there are differences, but they’re not all minor differences. There are important differences amongst the denominations.

So I also think another point that I would raise is when we talk about ecclesiology, like what’s the true church, I think we have to be careful of two extremes. So one would just be that the church, it’s just an invisible union of Christians. The church is just everyone who’s a true Christian united in some way. I feel like that truly is, like I could hardly even call that a church because then it’s like how do you know who are the true Christians and who aren’t, you know? There are people who will say Catholics are Christians with a mistaken theology, and people who say Catholics, no. They’re not even Christian at all because of their theology. So there’s that.

But then there’d be the other view of saying that the Church of Christ only exists in one denomination, like it’s this denomination or bust.

What the Catholic Church has taught and has explicitly taught since the Second Vatican Council, it says that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. So it’s a very particular word that’s used there. It’s not saying that the Church of Christ is identical to the Catholic Church, and so the Church of Christ cannot be found anywhere else. It’s saying that the enduring historical reality, like where you can find that visible enduring reality that you can locate is within the Catholic Church of the bishops united to the Pope, but that elements other Christians can have more or less of communion with the church so they can have… Our goal will be that all Christians have a perfect union with the church. Others it’s more or less perfect. So for example, the Eastern Orthodox, we as Catholics would say they are other churches, like we use that word because they still have valid holy orders, valid sacraments, and I would say other Protestant denominations are closer or further away in that communion. Like I would say like there’s a lot of Anglicans that are still pretty close.

So I would say that, first, when we’re looking at that, you have to have that understanding that there’s going to be the Church of Christ would subsist in, other denominations that are closer and further away. And I guess then if someone’s going to make that investigation, if they think, okay, it’s got to be Catholic or Orthodox, it’s one of those things, they’ll have to just examine the historical claims, the authority claims. So I think some big issues might be the papacy. Looking at that doctrine would be a big one. Do you see historically that the Bishop of Rome had a unique leadership position within the church, which would include unique jurisdiction, a kind of supremacy, even if that developed over time? So that’s one route people might take.

One that was really convincing for me was looking at Eastern Orthodoxy and its trajectory on moral teachings. So seeing within Eastern Orthodoxy a change in teachings on whether remarriage after divorce is acceptable or contraception, that when you look at Eastern Orthodox thinkers from like the 1960s, I mean, it’s always hard with Orthodoxy because there’s not like one uniform catechism, you’re trying to figure it out. But I noticed a really big shift there from like the ’60s to like the present day on that issue versus what the Catholic Church teaches.

When it comes to the papacy, a good book I would recommend would be the Papacy, I think it’s called the Papacy, the Debate Between Catholics and Orthodox Revisited by Erick Ybarra.

Richard:
Okay.

Trent Horn:
So I think that when you’re looking at that as Catholics, because Catholics and Orthodox were very close, it’s not like, “Oh, it’s just going to be obvious, man.” Like for me, if someone’s a Protestant, they’re not sure, I would take almost like a Pascalian approach. Just give it a try which one seems the most attractive to you?

Richard:
Well, with the Pascalian approach, the issue there is generally Catholics are more affirming of the validity of Orthodoxy than vice versa. So if you take a Pascal’s wager approach to that, then it’s safer. I mean, I like Gavin Ortlund saying you shouldn’t choose your denomination based on where you’re least likely to go to hell. But-

Trent Horn:
Oh, what’s funny about is that’s not actually the Pascalian approach.

Richard:
Okay.

Trent Horn:
A lot of people misunderstand Pascal’s wager, and they think that Pascal is saying, “Hey, look, if you believe in God and you’re wrong, you don’t lose anything. If you don’t believe in God and you’re wrong, you’re going to burn for all eternity. Avoid burning for all eternity.”

Rather, Pascal’s argument was a much more modest one because if that one deals, then you get the wrong hell problem, like which hell do I avoid? Pascal’s approach was a lot more modest. He basically said, “Look, if you’re 50-50 on the fence and Christianity and atheism are the only live options and you want Christianity to be true, go ahead because you’ve got nothing to lose.”

Richard:
Right, right. I understand that, but-

Trent Horn:
Yeah. And so that’s where I would say if someone isn’t sure just which apostolic church seems at least most true to you, give that a try and continue your journey. Because I do think that some Catholics can be a bit triumphalistic. I like Ybarra’s approach in his Papacy book where he says when you examine all the evidence, the Catholic view comes out, but not necessarily by a gigantic margin. And maybe you feel this way, too, about apologetics.

I try to take a very modest approach with the evidence because you never want to oversell something. I do think the evidence points towards the Catholic view, but it is something people would have to look into and study and go over. But like I said earlier, I don’t want that to create analysis paralysis, if that makes sense.

Richard:
Right. Yeah. Going by what you’re saying, like I’m not planning to leave Protestantism, but if I were to convert to one of the one true church churches, I feel just most drawn to Catholicism because it is most similar to Reformed theology. So that’s by far, and I think we should talk about that later.

Trent Horn:
Yes, I’m excited to talk about that. For sure.

Richard:
There’s a lot of similarities between Catholicism and Calvinism that I think go unnoticed. So I would want Catholicism to be true of the three. It’s the one I like of the three main, Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental.

But if I take the more simplified Pascal’s wager approach, now I know that’s maybe not what is actually Pascalian, but the logic still holds. If Catholics affirm the validity of Orthodox holy orders, but not really vice versa, then wouldn’t it be safer if someone’s unsure? If someone just wants to make sure they’re in a legit church, wouldn’t it be safer for that person to go Eastern Orthodox?

Trent Horn:
Yeah. But that’s why I wouldn’t affirm this broader Pascalian argument of like trying to avoid hell or trying to avoid damnation, because I think it leads to a lot of other objections that people have raised to the classic Pascal’s wager. So yeah, that is interesting that Catholics, although there are Orthodox that are much more open, but don’t-

Richard:
It’s mixed. Orthodox can’t agree on anything.

Trent Horn:
And I would say that that is another argument to show the importance of the papacy and providing this kind of unity amongst the church. And what’s important here is an understanding of the role of the papacy. Like when you go in Luke’s gospel, when the apostles are arguing with each other, “Lord, who is the greatest? Who’s going to sit at your right hand?” And Jesus never says there won’t be a greatest. He says, “The greatest shall be as a servant to the others.”

And then He turns to Peter and says the prayer, “Simon, Simon, Satan wants to sift you like wheat.” So I think that that argument, that’s why in the early Middle Ages, one of the titles for the Pope was servus servorum Dei, the Servant of the Servants of God. So Pope Saint John Paul II had an encyclical called Ut Unum Sint, where he talked about the role of the papacy and how there needs to be an understanding of papal authority that provides unity rather than become kind of a tyrants club basically over other churches. But yeah, do you want anything else on that or another question?

Richard:
Well, yeah, when you’re talking about how the Catholic Church is like the true church, but there are other like maybe lowercase C churches, that sounds pretty similar to the Reformed approach, outlined in the Westminster Confession where there is a distinction between the invisible church, which is the union of all believers, but it’s invisible. Like you said, we can’t know who is a true believer. We can’t know who is truly the elect of God. So there’s the distinction between the invisible church and the visible church, which is visible. And the visible church, according to the Reformers, is more or less visible in various institutions. So you’d say it’s most visible in the Reformed Church, but it’s still visible in the Catholic Church. It’s still visible in maybe some Anabaptist groups. It’d be like a gradient.

That sounds pretty similar to what you said. That’s exactly what Calvin said. But I’m wondering, is that the historic Roman Catholic position, or is that just the post-Vatican II position? Because I do remember during the Reformation, Martin Luther affirmed that the Greeks, the Eastern Orthodox, were true churches, and the Catholics sort of got mad at him for saying that. So is that the historic view of the Catholics?

Trent Horn:
Well, I’m not, I wouldn’t be sure of the Catholic response to that when it comes to Luther. The church has traditionally recognized, especially in light of the Protestant Reformation, that the Eastern Orthodox have valid holy orders, valid sacraments, and so that would make them a church. That’s why in Catholic theology, the communities that have come from the Protestant Reformation are not called churches in a proper sense because a church, you need to have a priest who has been ordained by a bishop who has apostolic succession. Rather, we would talk about how these are ecclesial communities or communities, things like that, that come from the Reformation.

So I would say that classically the difference between the East and the West was more about an issue, not about being Christian or not Christian or anything like that, but more dealing with the issue of schism. Like are you communion with the Pope or not? And there were of course excommunications that were given on both sides during the Great Schism in the 11th century that were later lifted in trying to find this kind of reunion between East and West.

Richard:
Right. And it could be a bit challenging if the church can excommunicate another church and then realize, “Hey, we were actually wrong about that.” Like I know that with the Oriental Orthodox, the Miaphysites, there are a lot of historic anathemas that are starting to be reconsidered, reexamined.

Trent Horn:
Well, they’ve been reexamined because of the developments that have taken place on the theological issues that divide us. So like the Miaphysites, instead of embracing something heretical like Monophysitism, there can be an understanding of Miaphysitism that is not heretical. But then very quickly when we’re… And there have been recent statements in the Oriental Orthodox from the Catholic Church that have said those issues of Christology seem to have been resolved, which happens the same thing with the Filioque. A lot of this when it comes to the theological differences, is this a difference in substance or vocabulary or emphasis? So I don’t think there’s a problem there if there’s a problem in the past, and then there are developments and dialogue and mutual understanding to overcome the difficulties.

Richard:
Right. And it’s like, I respect the Catholic Church, I respect the Eastern Orthodox Church. I disagree with a lot of my Protestant friends on this. I affirm that Catholics are true Christians. I think we should stop like fighting over that.

But the reason I still am Protestant, one of the reasons, is because when I look at church history, when I look at all these schisms and anathemas, it all seems very human to me. It all seems like a lot of politics and misunderstanding each other, and this happens in Catholics and Protestants alike. But Protestants, I feel like, it gives you a space to be a bit more honest about the fact that the church is fallible, the church is the… That’s why we have Sola scriptura. Only the Bible is infallible and the church makes mistakes. I know there are explanations for how the church is still infallible when it says the really important things, and that doesn’t contradict the fact that it can make mistakes. I just think being Protestant gives you more of a room to be honest about the fact that the church is inconsistent, the church does make mistakes, the church does change its doctrine.

Trent Horn:
What’s interesting is, I know I mentioned this earlier, there is a parallel… Well, it’s not an atheist argument. One can make this parallel argument. They could say, “Look, I really respect people who believe in biblical inerrancy, I really do respect that. But when I read the Bible and when scholars read it and academics go through it, it seems very clear to me there are human elements within the Bible.” There are things that change or there are errors. So for me, it just feels a lot safer to say, yeah, I believe God gives us salvation through scripture, but the Bible is just not infallible. But it can still teach true things even if it’s not infallible in everything that it does. And I know that inerrancy, people will come up with all kinds of explanations like, well, this is without error, but it depends on how this… Do you see the parallel?

Richard:
I get what you’re saying. I know that like if you are Catholic, you can think of a lot of ways in which that everything is consistent, just the same way we have to resolve certain tensions in the Bible. So yeah, that makes sense.

I think it’s a good transition into the question of what is the status of Protestants according to the Catholic Church, because I seem to have gotten a lot of different answers, and it seems that the Catholic Church has evolved in its understanding of Protestants going from, if anyone says salvation is by faith alone, let them be anathema at the Council of Trent to being departed brethren at Vatican II. So what is the status of Protestants? Are Protestants true Christians? Are Protestants’ sacraments salvific in any sense? So yeah, what do you think about that?

Trent Horn:
Well, what the Catholic Church would say, and this goes back all the way, the question of who is a Christian or not goes far back into church history. Like you have, for example, the church was trying to discern whose baptisms are valid. Like is an Aryan baptism even valid? Are these people Christian, even if they have an incorrect theology? Is this sect of a valid baptism or that sect? So that is something that everybody does have to grapple with and the church has grappled with.

So traditionally, the church would say that a Christian is just someone who has a valid baptism. So something where the baptism is done with the correct matter and form so water and the words and that the words are done in a way with the mind of the church. It doesn’t have to be exact theological parallel, it rarely ever is. It just can’t be something like, for example, Mormons have the right words-

Richard:
But they don’t mean the same thing.

Trent Horn:
Well, it’s just so radically, radically different. Even if like the Orthodox, the father, son and Holy Spirit, the precise nature of the relations in the Godhead might be different essence, energy, distinction. It’s still one Catholic theologian said that the Mormon understanding of those words is just a different matrix.

Richard:
Yeah, I would agree. I completely agree.

Trent Horn:
So that’s why the vast majority of Protestant denominations, I think a lot of Catholic Churches keep a list of which-

Richard:
I saw the list because I was wondering-

Trent Horn:
Oh, really?

Richard:
…. My initial baptism was in a heretical sect so I was wondering if my baptism was valid. I checked the Catholic Church’s list of valid baptism. I used the list for help. And what I was baptized in originally was the Christian community of Rudolf Steiner, this agnostic-

Trent Horn:
Oh, wow.

Richard:
… anthroposophy-type sect. So then I realized, yeah, I need to get a valid baptism. So that’s why I got a baptism in the Presbyterian church. So you would say a Christian is just anyone who’s baptized?

Trent Horn:
Yeah, a Christian is someone who has a valid baptism.

Now, when you’re referencing things, for example, like the Council of Trent, when it’s declaring anathemas, the formula there is being used to declare that certain doctrines or denials of doctrines are heretical. And this actually, you had another questionnaire we skipped over, but it’s still pertinent to it about the authority, what the church teach. Do I have to believe everything the church teaches? So you have to believe… So you could put it in a few different areas. So if the church infallibly teaches something as divine revelation that’s dogma, so that Christ rose from the dead, or that He is truly present in the Eucharist, that would be dogma or other infallible teachings, that then below that are infallible teachings that are not dogma like the Council of Nicaea was a valid council. That’s not a part of divine revelation, but you have to believe that so it’s infallible.

Below the infallible teachings, though, would then be the teachings that require submission of mind and will. These aren’t given infallibly so they can be developed later on. Like one theological teaching that’s not infallible is that God immediately creates a soul in every person. Not all Protestants believe that. And some people may not know that because some people, some Protestants have held your soul actually comes from your parents. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that field.

Richard:
Oh, yeah. I’m still working out what I think about that. I know what you mean.

Trent Horn:
Yeah. So that would be one where, as a Catholic, you would have to give submission of mind and will, that God creates the soul. But it would not be sinful for you to personally deny it. You just could not publicly deny it-

Richard:
That makes sense.

Trent Horn:
… because the church has not infallibly settled the matter. And so most of the teachings, a lot of the teachings fall or other moral teachings. So for example, the church infallibly teaches that it’s wrong to kill an innocent person, or even I would say that the catechism is very clear, the wrongness of abortion, the catechism says this is a teaching for 2000 years that has not changed and cannot change.

Richard:
So is the anti-abortion position infallible in the church?

Trent Horn:
I would say there hasn’t been an extraordinary definition in the gospel of life in 1995. Pope St. John Paul II, he seemed to walk right up to the line of giving an ex cathedra statement on it. He was like, “By the power in me as Peter.” Normally something is ex cathedra if it is, we declare and define. It has to be very specific vocabulary that’s used like with the immaculate conception and things like that. But he seemed very clear in reaffirming the church can also infallibly teach what it’s universally taught for 2000 years.

Now let’s take in vitro fertilization. That’s a very new phenomena. The church teaches that it’s wrong, but it hasn’t risen to the level of infallibility. Maybe in 500 years it will, I don’t know. But the judgments that are given there, you have to ascend to them. But denying them, like if you deny that Jesus is God, that would put your soul in jeopardy because that’s a dogma.

But to deny like the morality of IVF or the God making the soul directly, that would be more of, that would not be something that would be sinful in of itself as long as you weren’t publicly attacking the church on it. So that goes into it.

I apologize. I was distracted by two things. Once again, remember my camera died earlier, so I’m trying to, I got to keep my elbows off the table so I don’t wiggle the laptop.

Richard:
All good.

Trent Horn:
And I apologize. I was scattered there. So I was giving the nature of the authority of the teachings as a segue to what you were previously… Oh.

Richard:
What about sola fide, salvation by faith alone, anathema, all that?

Trent Horn:
Yes. So what’s interesting there, it depends on what you mean by the term. So for example, Pope Benedict XVI said that formulas like we are saved by faith alone aren’t necessarily wrong as long as it’s faith working through love like what Paul says in Galatians 5:6. So it depends on what you mean. So those doctrines at Trent, we’re dealing with Protestants, whether they’re Christians or not. So those declarations there are dealing with whether certain doctrines are heretical. You can’t believe that you can’t believe X, or you must believe Y.

The question though of, there’s a difference between saying these are doctrines you must believe, these are doctrines you can’t believe, there is a difference though between what is the eternal fate of someone who doesn’t believe Y or does believe X? What happens to those people? This is something that is developed over the course of 2000 years of church history. So even where you have two streams, even going to the Bible, you have one that would be, I guess in Protestantism, this would be exclusivism versus inclusivism like-

Richard:
In terms of salvation?

Trent Horn:
Yes. So for example, is what happens to people who don’t believe in Jesus, don’t believe Jesus has risen from the dead, don’t believe He’s God, can they be saved?

So within Protestantism, you have two camps, the exclusivist camps that lean more towards no, and the inclusivist camps that lean more towards possible, probable, or the universalists that say, “Oh yeah, definitely.” So even in scripture, it seems like we’ve got some passages that can be read exclusively, but others like Romans 2:14 through 16, where Paul talks about how those who have the law written on their hearts will be judged or excused based on their conscience and like I promise we got to get through all the history.

Even when you go through the church fathers, like you have Justin Martyr talking about the possibility of those who follow the logos, maybe they could be saved. During the age of the fathers, you have them grappling with, well, people-

Trent Horn:
During the Age of the Fathers, you have them grappling with, well, people… Christ is the only way to salvation. God gave us the church for salvation. But there are people who have not heard of Jesus. The early church is still surrounded by the barbarian hoards. By the time you get to the Middle Ages, when you get to 13th, 14th Century, you have a lot of strong condemnations that those who are heretics, schismatics, these are people who cannot be saved. Because the idea is that there’s two kinds of people. There’s people who belong to the church or people who willfully reject the church. They know this is Christ’s church and they willfully reject it. And so if you willfully reject what God has revealed, there’s eternal consequences for that.

The difficulty though is… So we see these condemnations like the 1300s, the 1400s. But then the theologians get a big shock in 1492 when Columbus says, “Hey, actually there’s still tons of people who’ve never even heard of Jesus,” during the age of discovery. And you have people like Cardinal Juan De Lugo for example. He added more development to this doctrine saying, “Look, there’s always been the idea that if someone is ignorant of Christ through no fault of their own or ignorant of his church, then they are held to a different standard of responsibility before God, including whether they…” Somebody might say, “Oh, well that’s just that they never knew about it.” But even in the 1600s, Cardinal De Lugo said, “But you could be ignorant of the church even if it’s presented to you, if it’s presented to you poorly.” So the examples that were given at that time are, what about indigenous peoples who rejected the church because the only example they saw of it were these totally evil and depraved colonizers, that come in and just use religion as a pretense? The bad guys from Pocahontas basically.

And so it’s a valid point. And so that shows, I would say that it’s not something that we came up with at Vatican II. Oh, well, even if you were raised Protestant, you’re not culpable because you might not have been exposed to this or not exposed to it well. I would say that the ignorance one could have of the truth can be present, especially among people who are raised within Protestantism. So it’s going to be up to God. But I would say that that’s why, maybe you’ve asked people, are Protestants saved? You get a bunch of answers and you’re like, “What the heck? Why am I getting a bunch of answers?” Is that been kind of the experience or?

Richard:
Well, yeah, and the invincible ignorance argument is what gets brought up most commonly. It’s like, oh, if you’re the old Baptist grandma who loves Jesus but just doesn’t know any theology, any differences between the denominations, has no idea what the Catholic Church is, they’ll be like, “Yeah, she’s fine.” But what about people who are like scholars? What about Protestant scholars who read all the best presentations of Catholic arguments, people who read Bellarmine, people who read the Canons of Trenton, what about those people who still come to the conclusion that Protestantism is true or maybe that something else is true?

Trent Horn:
Well, I think the answer to that would be similar to what do you do about extremely intelligent atheists? So people like Graham Oppy, who has done extensive treatises on arguments for and against the existence of God. Is God just going to someone because they have made a cognitive error about the nature of the truth? So I would say that the understanding of what is invincible ignorance, ignorance one cannot overcome because of some kind of a circumstance, I would just be very leery about raising that bar too high for one’s theology. And that how we apply it to the case of well-informed non-Christians, I would say there’s a parallel to applying it to well-informed non-Catholics.

Richard:
Right. Generally the Calvinist understanding is if someone is elect, they’re going to have faith. So we’d say, “Yeah, if an intelligent atheist, even if they do a lot of study, it’s too bad for them.” And we would say that we can’t really assume that someone can be saved just because they haven’t heard about it. So it’s like if you’re using the invincible ignorance argument, doesn’t that make it safer to not investigate Catholicism? Because what if you do investigate it and you are presented with the arguments and you still don’t come to the conclusion that it’s true? Isn’t it better to just remain ignorant and remain just to be the casual, not casual, but just remain the Baptist grandmother type who focuses more on just the personal devotion aspects of the faith and not the scholarly arguments?

Trent Horn:
And this would be the same objection that would be given to if you are a Protestant and you’re debating about saving non-Christians, the inclusivist exclusivist debate. If you are, this would be an argument an exclusivist Protestant might give to an inclusivist. Yeah, exactly. So what’s interesting here is not necessarily a Catholic intrinsic feature. It’s more of a debate between those two camps. Because the inclusivist might say, the exclusivist to the inclusivist, “Why would you evangelize this unknown tribe? You just give them an opportunity to say no to Jesus. Maybe you ought to leave them in ignorance.” And I think the difference there is that someone who believes salvation is possible for those who have never heard the gospel or understand the nature of Christ’s church, would say that it is possible but not probable. So when I say for example, that it’s possible for Protestants to be saved even if they’re not Catholic, that should not be taken to be the equivalent of, oh, it’s probable or it’s a guarantee. A lot of those probabilities are beyond our knowledge of what God’s going to assign to people.

Now I would say the reason we would evangelize whether it’s a Catholic sharing the faith of the Protestant or I share the faith of an atheist is because the possibility of non-Catholics being saved, be they Protestant or non-Christian, is just that it is a possibility. What kind of probability it is, I would say in most of those cases beyond my understanding. So I should just play it safe and assume that it’s low and share the gospel or share the Catholic faith with those people.

Richard:
So it’s like there are some exclusivist Catholics I’ve come across and I think that’s a consistent position. But then you run into the question of, okay, now which one true church is the one true church, if all these one true church churches are exclusive? Then it’s like I have to make sure I dig through a thousand years of debates about the Filioque, even though there’s a bunch of scholars who have also done that and come to different conclusions. I know that’s how atheists would argue.

Trent Horn:
But I think what I would say though is those Catholics who have an extreme form of exclusivism, they are rejecting something the church does teach on this matter. Because the church taught at the second Vatican Council the possibility of salvation for non-Catholics and non-Christians. But making sure to say this should not hamper our witness. Because it goes on to talk about how there are many things in the world that lure people away from God, how sin ensnares people. Though I do think what you brought up though about a strong view of predestination and election, whether you are Catholic like me or you’re more of a free will, moderately inclusive Protestant, it’d be the same similar discussion. It’s going to go back to the reason someone like Graham Oppy does not come to a knowledge of God was just because God did not give him the grace necessary to do. He did not elect him, didn’t choose him.

Richard:
Yes.

Trent Horn:
And so we’re coming from a different paradigm, whereas as Catholics and many other Protestants would say that the judgment upon someone for hell or damnation is because they did something morally culpable to reject God, when if they had acted otherwise, they could have been in relationship with God. Whereas from the Calvinist perspective, there is nothing otherwise they could have done because God decreed from creation that they would not be elected.

Richard:
There’s more to it than that, but I do think a Calvinist perspective is a good shield against a lot of atheist criticisms. The common atheist criticism is, where you are born, where you are raised, your geography impacts what you’re going to believe. So then it’s like, did you really make a freewill decision to be Christian, or is it just because of where you’re born. But the Calvinist or not just Calvinist because this doctrine of predestination is not unique to Calvinists. It’s Augustinians, Thomists, all those people.

Trent Horn:
Do you want to jump ahead to that and just talk about this or do you want to-

Richard:
In a second.

Trent Horn:
Sure.

Richard:
But the thing is Calvinism, whatever you want to call it, predestination, let’s call it predestination. It’s a good shield against that. Because I can just be like, “Yeah, I know that if I was born somewhere else, I wouldn’t be a Christian, I wouldn’t be saved. I wouldn’t have eternal life. But God made it the way it is. God’s providence is the way it is.” And that also is a motivation for missionaries. For missionaries to go to unreached lands, to fulfill the great commission and baptize all the nations because it’s like, yeah, there is not really any hope for those people. I’m not a strict exclusivist, but I think we should assume exclusivism. So because of that, the atheist will say, “If people are born in different circumstances, are given different knowledge, they don’t have an equal chance.” And we’re like, “Yeah, I know people don’t have an equal chance. Some people have a hundred percent chance, some people have a 0% chance.” I know it’s a hard pill to swallow, but it is a historic teaching within all of Western Christianity.

Trent Horn:
Well, and I think that a Catholic and a Christian would agree with you that God is not obliged to give everyone quote-unquote an equal chance. So God is sovereign so He can give more or less grace to other people. He can show favor and He blesses some people, like my wife got to grow up in a Catholic family. I grew up in a non-Catholic family, so is a lot less of a chance that I would become Catholic, for example. But I think what non Calvinists would say is that if God loves everyone and desires the salvation of everyone, that He should at least give everyone a bare minimum opportunity. The fact that He lavish is more grace on others doesn’t take away that He gave sufficient prevenient grace to allow anyone to choose Him who wants to.

And so you’re correct that the Calvinist solution to the problem of geography, it gets you out of one objection. But then it quickly launches you into another objection about whether this view of God is fair or just-

Richard:
Yeah, we can talk about that.

Trent Horn:
And so you’re correct. But it is possible to avoid one objection by simply biting the bullet with something that raises what can seem to be a more potent objection to people.

Richard:
And the traditional Protestant view, which is like Lutheran Calvinist, very similar view of predestination is that you don’t really need to worry about which true church is the one true church. You find your election in Christ. That’s what John Calvin said. John Calvin said, “We can’t find our election in ourselves, not even in God the Father, only in Jesus Christ.” So you look to Jesus Christ and trust that if you do that, God will guide you into the right church. Because if you look to Christ genuinely, that is where you find your election. That’s where you find your predestination. So that’s why from a Calvinist perspective, even though it’s better to be in a church that has greater theological accuracy, that has the pure administration of the Word and the sacraments, because we do think there is a saving efficacy to the sacraments. But if you get it wrong, you’re not going to go to hell for getting it wrong because the final variable in who is saved and who is not saved is God’s grace.

It’s like, what about the intelligent atheist? It’s like I don’t get mad at atheists for being atheists. If it weren’t for God’s grace, I would be an atheist too.

Trent Horn:
I do think though, a little bit of a problem there is that if saying, “Okay, well you just follow Christ to lead you to the right church.” The problem is that some people will do that, but they have a deficient understanding of who Christ is. So they might become one as Pentecostals or Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses. And I don’t think that that would fly there, even though what’s interesting is that the Bible doesn’t say, for example, that knowledge of the trinity is necessary for salvation. So you see where I find that to be interesting.

Richard:
Right. But Jesus says, “The sheep hear my voice.” And so the traditional Calvinist understanding would be if someone is elect, they will just naturally gravitate towards the right position. So it is possible for someone with limited knowledge to be in a oneness Pentecostal group or some heretical group. But the assumption is that hypothetically, if that person were given an option between true Christianity and false Christianity, they would just gravitate more towards the truth. And the bare minimum for what counts as a true church is basically identical to the Catholic Church’s list of valid baptisms in Trinitarian churches. So I know that there’s always the question of how do you know what the truth is? I know it always comes down to private judgment. But-

Trent Horn:
Well, not even just that. I would just say, how do you know what are the bare essential requirements for being Christian? Though, to clarify here, do you think there are members of the elect who go their whole lives and are not Christian?

Richard:
Not Christian? I don’t really know. I think it’s possible that there would be in some false Christian sects, like one is Pentecostal or Mormon or some sketchy non-denom church or something. I don’t know. I think outside the visible church, we cannot assume the salvation of anyone. I do not assume the salvation of any Jews or Muslims or Hindus or atheists. I’m not going to be upset if that’s the way it works.

Trent Horn:
But it could be possible.

Richard:
It could be, but I’m not even going to say it is possible. I’m going to say that the only covenant promise God ever gives for eternal life is within the covenant of grace, which is the visible church. God did not explicitly say everyone who is not in the visible church is going to hell no matter what end of story, but God did not say otherwise. So we can’t make any promises or even any hopeful promises that God didn’t make.

Trent Horn:
Well, but you’re saying you could at least, it’s not a logical impossibility.

Richard:
It’s not a logical impossibility.

Trent Horn:
So it’s something you can hope for something as long as it’s not logically impossible.

Richard:
Yeah, I’d love my Jewish friends to be saved, but God did not promise anything of that sort.

Trent Horn:
Well, at least not corporately. But there are promises that there could be individuals we’re not aware of based on their level of invincible ignorance or other ailments that would be-

Richard:
Yeah, it’s like theoretically God could elect some random person on an island somewhere, that person’s just elect, but God works through means. God’s election is, it’s based on His will. It’s unconditional. But unconditional doesn’t mean arbitrary. And when God elects someone, He always works through means. That means like evangelism, the preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments, things like that. And I know you’ve talked about Calvinism, so I think this is a good opportunity to talk about that.

Trent Horn:
Sure.

Richard:
I know you recently made a video about Calvinism.

Trent Horn:
I did. I do want to affirm by the way, because we talked here about the similarities and things like that. Because some people falsely say, “Oh, well, Calvinists believe in predestination and Catholics don’t.” Well, no, all Christians have to believe in some form of predestination. It’s in scripture. And among Catholics, there is a variant of views on predestination. So those who are very strict in following Thomas Aquinas on predestination, they really bump up against Calvinists. Though I still think there are important differences there versus other Catholics. But, yeah, we can talk a bit about Calvinism.

Richard:
Sure. I agree that the holistic view of predestination is very, very similar to the Calvinistic view. What do you think is the difference between Thomas and Calvin?

Trent Horn:
Well, I think one of the big differences is that when you look, for example in the institutes in book three, Calvin speaks about things like active reprobation. It seems very clear that God elects some for heaven, but he also actively reprobates or sends people to hell. I know that’s colloquial, but that’s the language that I see in book three there. Versus I would say Thomas speaks a lot more about God permitting people to fall away. And so it’s more of a passive reprobation. And so the problem with predestination like the debate, and this is something once again, what do I have to believe as a Catholic? Some issues, there are theological issues the church has left open. So there’s some where it’s like church says you can keep debating where we haven’t settled it yet. So this would be the predestination debate between the Thomist and the Molinist has been left open.

So the Molinist accused the Thomist of basically being Calvinists. And the Thomists accused the Molinists of being Palagians saying like, “Oh, God’s choosing you because you of a certain merit that you did, or something like that.” Father William Most, I believe he had a solution to the issue where God doesn’t, and I apologize, I try to… Predestination, you know this gets pretty tricky to talk about. Where he foresees not the merits of the elect and that they’re chosen in this way, but rather he foresees the demerits of the damned and chooses to not give them grace. And so the elect are only chosen because they don’t belong to the damned, as a way to allow for God to be actively choosing to have that election. But it’s not based on a merit from the elector elements like that.

So I think that if you were to look at what Thomas says versus Calvin, and that’s just Thomas, because if you look at the catechism, it’s further away from strict Thomistic language. So when paragraph 10 37, the catechism says, “God predestines no one for hell, for that a willful turning away from God is necessary.” Or in paragraph 600, the catechism says, “To God, all moments of time are present in His plan of predestination, which includes everyone’s free response to His grace.” So I think if you looked at it, so there’s the Catholic view, which is broader, the Thomistic view, which is narrower, I would say on predestination there, it’s going to deal with active and passive reprobation probably.

Richard:
Yeah. So when you talked about your reading of Calvin, that sounds like equal ultimacy to me, which is something that the reformed tradition has universally rejected. Equal intimacy, the fact the idea that there’s active predestination to salvation and active predestination to damnation. I’ve read Calvin’s institutes, I know what you’re talking about. I know some of this-

Trent Horn:
You could see how someone could come away with that?

Richard:
Yeah, someone can come away with that. But just like the Catholic Church, there’s different understandings within Calvinism. I’m sure you’ve heard of supralapsarians, which says that God elects out of a pure mass. Infralapsarians, and Calvin was more of an infralapsarian, which says God elects out of a corrupt mass. That means God created everyone in Adam to have a relationship with Him, with the intent of having a relationship with Him. So God loves all men. God in some sense desires to save all men. But all men have fallen equally, not to the same extent, but they all participated in the fall of Adam. So the infralapsarian position would be God elects from that corrupt mass because everyone already deserves to be damned. God doesn’t need to save everyone. He can save who he wants and leave other people in their sin.

And then there’s hypothetical universalism. There’s a debate between John Owen who says, “Jesus only specifically died for the elect.” Whereas hypothetical universalism, which says Jesus died for the whole world, but it only applies to those who are predestined to have faith.

Trent Horn:
Yes. I think this is also called the second option you’re giving there is the distinction between the antecedent and the consequent will. What’s the example I’ve heard before? It’s like a judge desires all men to live, but when a murderer is presented to him, he still sentences the murderer to death and that’s his consequent will or something like that.

Richard:
Yeah, I’ve heard of that distinction. The point is that equal ultimacy, none of those groups, none of the streams of thought within Calvinism, whether supralapsarian, infralapsarian, amyraldian, hypothetical universalist, whatever you want to call it, none of them would affirm equal ultimacy. There is reprobation. Calvinists believe in reprobation. We would say Thomas also believe in reprobation. Reprobation is simply the decree to not give grace. It’s not creating evil in any person. The Westminster confession is very clear. God is not the author of evil in any person. And the Heidelberg catechism seems to favor a hypothetical universalist reading because it says Christ sustained, I think it’s question 37, Christ sustained, in body and soul, the wrath of God against the whole human race. So it’s not just Jesus dying for the elect and screw everyone else. God loves all men. God desires all meant to be saved. So I don’t really see much of a difference between the traditional Calvinist view and the Thomistic view. Now in your video on Calvinism, the three people in a thumbnail, only one of them is actually a traditional Calvinist. Only one of them is confessionally reformed.

Trent Horn:
You do have to make a distinction between the scholars and the people who are popular. So what does reach the masses? And that’s another thing that can happen with Catholicism as well. You can have popular level that doesn’t reflect some of the more finer points when it comes to Catholic theology, though I don’t think as much. So I do think though, especially, well, let’s see, I think Piper is, I think I would call him a Calvinist. I don’t know why someone wouldn’t. I know MacArthur has some of his issues.

Richard:
MacArthur affirms historianism, so there’s that. There’s this movement like 20 years ago that he-

Trent Horn:
Is that because he denies Theotokos or he-

Richard:
Or he has, he denies Theotokos. He also said it’s so radical to call the blood of Jesus, the blood of God.

Trent Horn:
I thought he resolved, because I think that came from something back in the ’80s he might’ve resolved later.

Richard:
Maybe. I’ve looked for instances of him resolving that. Either way, generally, there was this movement like 20 years ago that Piper and MacArthur, and to a lesser extent Sprawl would be part of called the New Calvinism, which basically redefined Calvinism as anyone who believes in the five points. Before that Calvinist was you’re part of the Calvinist tradition, meaning either you subscribe to the confessions or you’re in a church that is rooted in the confessions. So you wouldn’t say someone’s Catholic just because they believe in purgatory. Likewise, I wouldn’t say someone’s a Calvinist just because they believe in the five points. So the important thing is those were good questions you raised in that video. How can a Calvinist say God loves everyone if we don’t know who’s elect? How can the Calvinist say that Jesus died for you if we don’t know who Jesus died for? And if you will watch these popular Calvinists like MacArthur and Piper stumble over themselves trying to answer that. But if you look to our catechisms, the Heidelberg cat is like the Roman Catholic catechism, but for Calvinists, there are answers to those questions. So I think when talking about Calvinism, it’s important to distinguish Calvinism from Calvinistic Evangelicals.

Trent Horn:
Then maybe I’ll revisit the topic hopefully in the future, and I’d love to get the citations from you from the Heidelberg catechism to see some of these more nuanced elements to it. Though I do think one has to be careful that if it becomes so nuanced, it strays away from the traditional understanding of Christ’s death. Because I remember when I was dialoguing with James White on the Allie Beth Stuckey Show. At the very end of the conversation, Allie asked us, “What is the gospel?” That was the last question. And I said, “Well, the gospel is just the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ.” The Bible doesn’t define what the gospel is. The closest is 1 Corinthians 15 about believing in the death and resurrection of Christ. But it certainly doesn’t say the gospel is identical to sola fide or something like that.

Richard:
I would agree with you. I don’t like when Protestants make the gospel identical to sola fide.

Trent Horn:
Yeah. It’s because that’s not how the word’s presented. It’s just the good news about salvation and Jesus Christ because of His life, death, and resurrection. And I said in there, “And it’s good news because anyone can turn to Christ because God died for everyone.” I said something like that, because I knew it would needle James a little bit. And then when he responded, he said something to the effect of, “Yes, it is good news because God died only for his chosen people.”

Richard:
No, this is why I say needed to distinguish between reformed people like Presbyterians and Dutch Reformed and Calvinistic Baptist. I know I think James might claim to hold to London Baptist Confession, but historically we would say that the Heidelberg Catechism says, what must a Christian believe. So it’s like, what is the gospel? You need to believe the gospel to be saved. It doesn’t say a Christian must believe salvation is by faith alone, and double imputation or whatever. When asked, what must a Christian believe, it recites the Apostle’s Creed. So once again, the traditional Calvinist understanding, Luther does have statements like the justification by faith alone is the hinge on which Christianity stands or falls. I’m not saying that the reformers were total a humanists, but even so traditionally, the gospel in traditional Calvinism is understood as the good news about Jesus. It’s not the specific theory on how salvation works.

Trent Horn:
Right. So you’re saying that there would be a Calvinist way of understanding that on the cross, Jesus, because what I would say that Jesus’ death on the cross was sufficient to merit grace for all people. Jesus’ death was super abundant, more than capable and necessary of saving all people. But the reason all people are not saved from a Catholic and probably an Arminian perspective would be because not all people have chosen to receive that grace.

Richard:
I would basically agree that it’s only hyper-Calvinists, which is not in any of the reform confessions. It’s the only hyper-Calvinist that would say the sacrifice of Christ is not sufficient for the entire world. All the confessions like Heidelberg, it’s, “He sustained the wrath of God against the whole human race.” The atonement of Christ is definitely sufficient for the entire world. There’s a cosmic aspect to it as well. It redeems all of creation. It redeems all the galaxies and all that. So the only difference we would say is God’s predestination unto salvation is not based on any for foreseen faith, but that’s the same as Thomas Aquinas. So you could criticize that view, but then you’re also criticizing many in the Catholic church as well.

Trent Horn:
Well, I do think there would still be a difference there in saying that there is a difference between those who are elected-

Trent Horn:
The difference between those who are elected, because at least as Catholics, we could hold to people being elected to final salvation or elected to initial salvation, but they do not persevere.

Richard:
That’s the difference. Yeah.

Trent Horn:
But although I would say, though, I don’t know if a Calvinist could hold, if you believe in the efficacy of God’s grace, that it’s possible for someone to receive grace to become Christian, but not remain Christian. I don’t know if a Calvinist could hold that.

Richard:
Yeah. Perseverance of the saints, I’d say that’s one of the only real differences between Calvin and Thomas on predestination and election. On the unconditional election point, I’d say there’s 100% agreement. There’s a little bit of a difference that Calvin’s view of predestination is more christocentric. Karl Barth talks about this, how it’s fundamentally that Christ is the elect and we’re all electing him. I’d say the only substantial difference worth caring about, honestly, is the P in Tulip, the perseverance of the saints. I know that [inaudible 00:52:59] Thomas believe that in baptism someone could truly be given regeneration. Calvinists do believe baptism saves. Read the Scots Confession, says “Baptism saves,” but only for the elect.

Trent Horn:
Right. There’s a point I want to go back to about reprobation and election because you were talking about it earlier, about Adam fell and we’ve all fallen in him. And there’s going to be different views about how original sin affects us, that the Catholic view would say that original sin is not sin proper. It’s a deprivation of grace our ancestors failed to pass on to us because of what Adam did in losing these preternatural gifts from God, because of his free decision to reject God. I know Calvinists will answer the question in different ways, and I’ve asked different people this.

Richard:
Yeah, they would.

Trent Horn:
Yeah. Why would you say… what was the reason? Did God ordain that Adam would fall or did He permit it to happen? How do you look at that?

Richard:
There’s a difference between infralapsarians and supralapsarians on this question, but the majority position freed Westminster is that Adam and Eve were created with free will, and so God permitted the fall. Now, of course, the fall does not fall outside his providence. We don’t think God was keeping his fingers crossed.

Trent Horn:
Neither do we, neither would we. That’s why at the Easter vigil we say in Latin, “Oh, happy fault that brought us such a great redeemer. Felix culpa.”

Richard:
Yeah, so we’re in complete agreement on that. So we would say that, “God does not decree the fall,” in the sense that God decrees the salvation of the elect. God permitted the fall. In Westminster, it says, “Adam and Eve were created with free will and by their own fault completely they fell.” They fell and earning hell an eternal misery. And some other Calvinists might dispute this. The Presbyterian church, USA before it went completely off the rails, did put out a statement saying that nobody is condemned except based on their own unbelief and own rejection of God, their own sin and unbelief. They’re not damned because God predestined them to be damned. They’re damned because of what they did.

And the only reason that not everyone is damned because of what they did is because God predestined some to be saved. So a lot of times when people say the word single predestination, what they mean is classic double predestination. When people say the word double predestination, what they mean is equal ultimacy, which no traditional Calvinist believes. It’s only modern misinterpretations of Calvinism that would affirm any sort of equal ultimacy.

Trent Horn:
But you would still hold the view that people who are damned, they are damned solely because God has withheld grace from them, not because they failed to act otherwise in any point in their life when they could have acted?

Richard:
I would say they’re damned because of sin, and sin is a rejection of God. So it’s not as though God tried to give them saving grace. It’s not as though God tries to give everyone the saving grace of the gospel, and everyone except the elect rejects it. Because there are some people who legitimately are never presented with the gospel. In those cases it’s like, sure, as long as they’re a good person, they’ll go to heaven. Who’s a good person? Nobody except Jesus, and Mary, if you’re Catholic. But yeah, the Calvin disposition is they’re not damned because they’re predestined to be damned. They’re damned because of their sin.

Trent Horn:
Well, they’re damned because they were not included in God’s plan of predestination.

Richard:
They’re not delivered from their fate because they’re not included in the plan of predestination. Once again, that does sound very similar to Thomas Aquinas.

Trent Horn:
Yeah, and I think that there would be different views about whether Thomas would allow for prevenient grace, would allow for-

Richard:
Well, Calvin allowed prevenient grace.

Trent Horn:
But it wouldn’t be a sufficient amount for someone to act upon it if they’re not a member of the elect. Because being a member of the elect and receiving prevenient grace, they can’t be synonymous.

Richard:
Right.

Trent Horn:
Yeah. A lot of Calvinism stuff. Very good. Is there any other Catholic stuff? Did you want to go back to some of these or you want to-

Richard:
Sure, yeah. I want to just clarify-

Trent Horn:
Go ahead.

Richard:
Not just for Catholics-

Trent Horn:
Yeah. And if you want to clarify, go right ahead.

Richard:
No, I’m just saying I just wanted to clarify not just for Catholics, but other Calvinists, what Calvinism actually teaches, because there’s just so many misunderstandings of it.

Trent Horn:
I’ve been, as a Catholic apologist, I’m there a lot for, “Here’s what Catholicism actually teaches. So I feel your pain.” That’s before your time. It was before your time.

Richard:
Yeah. So speaking of what Catholicism actually teaches, is it right to say Catholics believe we’re saved by faith plus works? Is that completely wrong? Is that just an oversimplification? What would you say?

Trent Horn:
I find it’s an extremely unhelpful formulation where I don’t see how it could ever be a useful one to use. That is a formulation that if you look at magisterial documents, for example, I’m not aware of any that say Catholics are saved by faith and works because it really misunderstands the Catholic. When someone says, “Catholics are saved by faith and works,” it creates a misunderstanding about… I think it makes people think about initial salvation. Well, one, to understand that Catholics and some Protestants believe salvation is a process that one becomes saved and then is a process through this life until one reaches final glorification in heaven. And so that our righteousness that we’ve received from God and baptism can increase with the works that we do, not necessarily the purity of it, but just the amount of it. It’s like that God can give us the pure light of Christ to save us, but a pure light, that’s something we can’t change.

But a pure light can be a flickering candle or it can be like a blazing fire, the amount of it. So when one does good works, and Protestants often divide this between justification and sanctification to explain the differences there. Whereas traditionally, I think a lot of Catholics might say, while they are distinct concepts, a lot of times they’re referring to the same thing. Because when Catholics talk about justification, the catechism says justification is the declaration of righteousness, but not just that. It is also the renewal of the inner man and that kind of stuff. When it comes to faith and works, yeah, I really, really don’t like that, because what Catholics, we would say is to become a child of God rather than a child of Adam, there is… Well, you go to paragraph 2010 of the catechism where it says, “Nothing, neither faith nor works can merit the initial grace of the beginning of conversion, the initial gift of salvation.” So that’s why infants who are baptized are saved. They have done nothing. They can’t do anything to merit that.

I was baptized in the Catholic Church, hadn’t been previously baptized. If I was baptized, I wasn’t previously baptized, but you know what I mean?

Richard:
Yes.

Trent Horn:
But not a nothing. When I was 17. But even there, it was not my faith that merited that. It was the fact that God gave me actual grace that I responded to, different than sanctifying grace that delivers us from being children of Adam to children of God. He gave me that to turn to him. I didn’t reject it, and then I accepted this salvation. So we would say that initial salvation is by grace alone, and that to enter into final salvation, all one must do is not permanently reject God, not die in a state of what would be called mortal sin. And also when people say, “We’re saved by faith and works,” I really hate that phrase because it makes it sound like, “Well, I didn’t say three rosaries this week, so I’m not going to heaven.” There’s no set amount of good works you have to do. You just have to not die in a state of mortal sin. You cannot permanently reject God either through belief or action. Now, there are some people [inaudible 01:00:50] Lutherans who probably say that you can reject God if you commit apostasy, because if you’re-

Richard:
Well, Calvinists as well, we believe in apostasy. We believe there’s common operations of the spirit and evanescent grace for those who are not truly elect.

Trent Horn:
But that’s the difference there, is that a Calvinist is, say, someone who becomes a permanent apostate that shows they were never elected in the first place.

Richard:
Yeah, but they had a lot of the similar signs of being elect.

Trent Horn:
Right. Whereas a Lutheran could say that this person… Saying that they were never elect also means they were never a regenerate Christian.

Richard:
Truly correct. Yeah.

Trent Horn:
Yeah. Whereas a Lutheran could say, because setting aside the term “elect” could say there are regenerate Christians who commit apostasy because if you’re justified by faith and then faith is gone for the rest of your life, you can’t be justified anymore. But the difference there is that the Lutheran would say that that is a Christian who lost his salvation. The Calvinists would say that reveals this person was never Christian in the first place.

Richard:
We would not define Christian as elect. We would define Christian as baptized.

Trent Horn:
They were not regenerate.

Richard:
They were not regenerate.

Trent Horn:
They were not a regenerate Christian, yeah. And so Catholics would say, following more from like a Lutheran perspective, actually when I debated James White on eternal security, somebody commented under it, they sent me a message like, “Hey, Trent, I’m a Lutheran here. Thanks for defending the Lutheran view in that debate. That was really helpful.” I was like, yeah, because James, I remember in that debate, James always wanted to bring up like, “Oh, Catholics believe this. Catholics believe that.” I’m like, “This is not a distinctly Catholic view.”

Richard:
Baptists always, like, they say, “If you believe in baptismal regeneration, then you’re not a Christian.” And they realize they’re damning all the reformers. So…

Trent Horn:
Yes. When you look, especially at the Anabaptist controversies, it was… yeah, anyways. So, sorry, I got distracted by that interesting historical tidbit. So we would say that it’s not just apostasy though, that just as in a marriage, you can break your marriage by saying, “I don’t want to be married anymore.” Even if you say, “Yeah, I totally want to be married to you,” but if you’re serially cheating on your spouse, what you say doesn’t matter. Your actions have created this rupture in here that needs to be amended, and so that there could be serious and grave sins either by commission or failure to carry out obligations as a Christian that would place someone outside of community with Christ in his church.

So I find it’s helpful to talk about, especially the practical view. It’s like what the jailer asked Paul in Acts 16, “What must I do to be saved?” There are going to be all theories, justification, imputation, and it’s helpful, but I think sometimes, look, if we’re talking about our differences here, what do I need to do? What’s funny is when you take away the theological framework of justification, I feel like a lot of times we are talking about the same kind of life, but we’re giving a different description of what’s happening in that life. Does that make sense?

Richard:
It does. So when I talk about denominations sometimes, I try to avoid saying, “Catholics believe in faith plus works.” So would it be accurate to say, “Catholics believe we’re saved by faith, but faith includes works”? Would that be a more accurate way to say it? I always try to oversimplify things.

Trent Horn:
Yeah. I think what we would say is that Catholics believe we are saved by union with Christ. So we are saved by dwelling in God and having charity dwelling in the soul. So our union with Christ, that comes, you have to have faith in Christ. You have to receive Christ in the sacraments and remain in Christ. Just like when Christ says in John 15, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me remain in me. Those who don’t are gathered and burned. So we would say that the works that are involved, there is nothing that must be done to earn salvation. The term “merit” is often used in Catholic theology, and that can be very difficult for people. “What do you mean merit? You can’t earn anything.” That’s right. You can’t earn in the sense of, “I did this act, God must pay me with heaven because this act is of equal value with heaven.” Only Christ can do that. Only Christ’s death on the cross can strictly merit salvation.

But as a child of God, things I do can merit things in virtue of God’s promises. So if my son mows the lawn, he’s six years old, if he takes his little toy mower and does it and cuts a few blades, he’s not merited money from me, because the value of his work is not worth money. But if I said to him, “If you go out and do your little mowing, I’m going to give you five bucks,” and he does it, the merit is not from the act that he did, but it’s in virtue of the promise I made to him. Much the same way, so when you see the word merit in Catholic theology, I recommend Protestants take out the word merit and put “rewarded by God.”

And then that leads to the doctrine of rewards, which is just very… Jesus talks about that all the time. “Store treasures in heaven, you will receive your reward.” And the word reward is [foreign language 01:05:48], wage. You’ll receive your payment. But here, so when it talks about meriting salvation, for example, in the catechism, Protestants get hung up on that. It’s rather saying, “Look, God has promised,” like in John 3:36, “those who believe in the Son will be saved. Those who do not believe and do not obey the Son will be damned.” That God has promised that if we receive Christ in the sacraments and we remain obedient to him unto death, then we will be saved. It doesn’t mean perfect obedience. The righteous man stumbles seven times a day, but if we remain in union with Him and don’t permanently reject Him through deed or word, then we’ll be saved. So I think that union with Christ might be maybe a helpful way to look at it.

Richard:
Well, Calvin spoke endlessly about union with Christ. The Calvinist view of justification I think is sort of in between the Catholic and Lutheran view, because we think really union with Christ is the grounds of salvation. Faith and works both flow from that. I think the only difference is we would say it’s faith alone that contributes to justification and works contribute to sanctification. But the root of both of those things, of faith and works, is union with Christ, which is the Calvinist word for theosis, basically. And it is a process. Salvation overall, we would say is a process, being united to Christ through the Lord’s Supper. If you read John Knox in the Scots Confession, his view of the Lord’s Supper is basically just theosis. We’re being united to God through the Lord’s Supper.

Trent Horn:
It’s a tad different though, and I do want to get back on the role of works because there’s a key difference there. The difference though, with the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist, if you could look at, let’s say, the multiple views on the matter, at the lowest end, you’d have someone like Zwingli.

Richard:
Yeah. We don’t like Zwingli.

Trent Horn:
You would have essentially a memorial view, that Christ is only present in the Eucharist in the sense that he is present in the minds and hearts of those who receive the Eucharist. That would be the most basic level memorial view. When you go to a Calvinist view, you would say that Christ is objectively presented to the believer, is presented in the Eucharist, but he’s not objectively received. Because I think what… and this is the distinction… what is it, [inaudible 01:08:00], I wrote it down, it’s a Latin term here. [foreign language 01:08:05], the idea that Calvin would say that if an unbeliever receives the Eucharist, they do not receive Christ in it.

Richard:
Correct.

Trent Horn:
Yeah. Whereas a Lutheran, that was the difference then, because remember, Zwingli, Calvin and Luther all disagree about Eucharist.

Richard:
Right, Luther would say the unbeliever does receive it, because it’s objective.

Trent Horn:
That’s right. It is objectively present. That’s why one could unworthily receive Christ. And then the Catholic view would then be dealing with the question of if Christ is present, is he present? Is Christ present within the bread and wine, or do the bread and wine cease to be a consecration? That would be the Lutheran-Catholic distinction between transubstantiation and consubstantiation.

Richard:
Yeah. Or whatever wording they want to use.

Trent Horn:
Yeah. But there’s still a difference there between the Calvinist view and the Lutheran view on that, about that.

Richard:
Yeah, there’s a difference. I do think there’s a lot more similarity between the Calvinist and Catholic view of the Eucharist and predestination than a lot of people think. One common term in the Calvinist Divines is not trans-substantial presence, but still substantial presence, because they really do receive that… We really receive the body and blood of Christ. So I think there’s more similarity there than a lot of people think.

Trent Horn:
But I would say the Lutherans are closer though.

Richard:
Yeah, it depends. I mean, some of the Calvinists said that the Catholic view is more tolerable than the Lutheran ubiquity view or whatever. People have debated the four views of the Lord’s Supper for centuries.

Trent Horn:
And the debates will continue. It’s good for us to have that. On the question of works though, because you said, “We as Protestants, as Calvinists would agree that salvation comes from faith and works. We work out our salvation, we grow in sanctification.” But I think the difference here would be that as Catholics, we would say, “We can grow in our righteousness and grow in our reward.” Or if you don’t like that term, “grow in our rewards from God, that those who grow in holiness have more glory in heaven,” for example, from, and that’s from our free response to His grace to choose to grow in holiness. But I think the more salient aspect of the works though, is that it is possible for a person who is saved from the Catholic and other Protestant views to do a work that loses the gift of justification. Whereas the Calvinist view, and a widespread Protestant view, would be that there is no work, bad work, that can cause the gift of justification to be lost.

Richard:
I think that’s the main difference. Yeah. I think the main difference is not specifically whether or not, how important faith versus works are. It’s the question of whether or not you can lose your salvation by doing a bad work, basically.

Trent Horn:
Right. So the difference there would be whether the bad work is evidence of the lack of regeneration at some point or not. So I think that that is… Well, what’s hard for me, though, is that when I feel like if you just do… how should I phrase this? Just observing the world how things seem to be, I find personally for me, the explanation of bad works reveal you were never saved in the first place. It doesn’t seem to explain the commonsense way, if I look. It just feels like I believe in Christ, I have faith, I’m being tempted away from God, and I can still choose to remain in Him or not. Phenomenologically, that doesn’t seem to be what’s going on there. That’s how I kind of look at it.

Richard:
Well, Jesus said there’s the parable of the sower. There’s different types of soil. So there is one type of shallow soil where the seed sprouts up very quickly. So on the surface it appears identical, the shallow versus deep soil. They appear identical at first. In fact, sometimes the shallow soil might even sprout up quicker, but it’s superficial. So we would agree that yes, according to Jesus’ parable, we should expect it to seem like some people are truly regenerate, even if they’re not. And the way that-

Trent Horn:
And I agree, those kinds of people exist, because some people say to me, “What about they were of us, but they weren’t of us in 1 John?” No, I agree. There-

Richard:
I know you’ve heard that, so it’s pointless for me to quote that.

Trent Horn:
But some people act like I’ve never heard it before. And it’s like, “Yeah, I agree. There are people like that. I just don’t believe every apostate fits that bill.”

Richard:
That’s an interesting argument. You could apply that to all apostates. And traditional Calvinist Presbyterians who believe in paedobaptist and covenant theology, we do believe apostasy’s a real thing. It’s kind of cringe in my opinion, when certain Baptists who have a strict one saved, always saved will say to someone who left the faith, “You were never really Christian.” They were really, and Hebrew 6 actually talks-

Trent Horn:
But they weren’t regenerate.

Richard:
They were not truly regenerate, but regenerate is maybe more of an eschatological category, because Calvin said, “We cannot know if we’re elect or not.” Which contradicts a lot of pop Calvinism you’ll hear. So a new Calvinist, new believers, I tell them, “You don’t know if you’re one of the elect or not. You’re not supposed to know. You’re not supposed to try to know. You’re supposed to look to Christ. You’re supposed to persevere in Christ, because whoever perseveres to the end will be saved.” So it’s a technical distinction. It is a technical distinction, a difference in categories. But I think that in terms of what we see working out in the world, it’s basically the same.

Trent Horn:
And that’s why I think when people talk about faith and works, the Protestant view or the Catholic view, I really do think we’re in a great deal of agreement of saying, “Look, if you’re a Christian, there is a certain way you need to live to be a Christian.” But then we have to say, “There’s going to be some behaviors, we all agree, you can’t be a Christian and do this.” Then there’s going to be behaviors where people disagree, like the newer revisionists who try to say there’s nothing wrong with homosexuality, for example. But then there’s going to be other things like, “What about contraception or IVF, drinking?” Because there’s some Protestants who are teetotalers and there’s… So I think it’s like we’re in agreement you have to live a certain way, and then we try to figure out, “How do we figure out what that way is?” And that’s where I find the magisterium to be helpful in that regard, because it can be a tricky issue.

Richard:
Right. But the question of how do we know which things fall under the category of sins is, I think, a different question from the question of faith versus works leading to salvation and all that.

Trent Horn:
I don’t think so. Because if the idea that, as I said before, the only work one must do to be saved is to avoid the evil work of dying and mortal sin. So there, when it comes to the idea of works, it’s not about just doing the corporal works of mercy or the traditional good works. The primary emphasis there, I would say, is just avoiding the evil works, whether it is an act of commission, like doing a bad thing, or failing to do a good thing. So for example, we’re still… I don’t know, different Protestants have different views on this. Are we obliged to still follow the Ten Commandments, for example?

Richard:
Presbyterians say yes.

Trent Horn:
Yes. There’s others who would say no, but try to find a technicality to get around it. And we would say, “We are obliged to, not because they are the Ten Commandments, but because they’re now subsumed under the law of Christ. We don’t follow them because they are the old covenant, because the old covenant is not what saves us.” So one of the commands is to keep the Sabbath day holy.

Richard:
Yeah. Presbyterians believe in covenant theology, which is that we’re under the same covenant now that we were back then and we keep the Sabbath.

Trent Horn:
Correct. So then you have… I know many Protestants who don’t see the need to go to church on Sunday, for example.

Richard:
Yeah. That’s everyone except Presbyterians disagrees with us, basically.

Trent Horn:
Yeah. And there’s a lot of Protestants clearly who go to… I hate that it does that. Don’t… Get out of there. It’s a work in progress people. I did that thumbs-up there. I haven’t debugged my camera.

Richard:
That’s all right.

Trent Horn:
One time I think I did something and it made fireworks behind me. I didn’t do it this time, but as long as it’s recording and we’ve got audio, I will be so happy.

Richard:
We’re good.

Trent Horn:
So if we’re commanded to keep the Sabbath holy, what obligation does that impose on us? I’ve read people who’ve said, “Look, if you’re a true Christian, you got to go to a church of some kind.” Then we would agree that the faith and works, some of the works are not just avoiding evil things, at least permanently without repentance, but also persisting in obligatory things, like keeping the Sabbath holy. Catholics would say, for example, “You have to go to mass on Sundays.” You don’t have to receive the Eucharist. If you’re in mortal sin you shouldn’t, but you have to keep the Sabbath holy by attending the sacrifice of the mass on Sunday, for example. Protestants I think might have, I don’t know, I feel like some Protestants I talked to try to not say, “Well, it’s no requirement you have to go, but if you don’t go, are you really a Christian?” I’m like, “Just, come on man. Be honest with me. Do I have to do it or not?” Does that make sense?

Richard:
It does make sense. I see what you mean now. I see that if you believe that a failure to do a good work or actively doing something evil would endanger your salvation, then it’s helpful to have a strict magisterium. But Protestants, we believe in conscience. We believe that everyone is accountable to the Word of God and to the earthly authorities and the spiritual authorities that are put over them. So it’s like if a Protestant says, “I don’t think I need to go to church,” that’s at their own risk. Someone who’s truly, who has true faith in God, is going to care about what the commandments are and is going to do their best to follow the commandments. If they get something wrong, they’ll be forgiven.

For example, for the longest time, because of where I was raised, I was raised in a very secular New York environment, even after I converted to Christianity, for two years after that, I believe homosexuality was fine. I was gay-affirming basically. And it wasn’t because some magisterium told me it was wrong, that I changed my mind. It’s just that I studied the scriptures for a while. I tried to mental gymnastics my way into still…

Richard:
… is that I studied the scriptures for a while. I tried to mental gymnastics my way into still affirming it. Eventually I realized it was wrong and the same was true, very practical question for a lot of high schoolers, can I date a non-Christian? For a while I tried to mental gymnastics my way into saying it’s okay. Then I read the scriptures, I realized it’s wrong and-

Trent Horn:
Do you think it’s so sinful a person couldn’t that… Yeah, when you say it’s wrong, how wrong?

Richard:
I was going to-

Trent Horn:
Yeah, sorry, go ahead.

Richard:
I was going to get to that and it’s like-

Trent Horn:
Go ahead. Yes.

Richard:
Even if I were to be Catholic and accept the Magisterium, there’s some things the Magisterium says which I think are, on moral issues, which I think are contrary to scripture. It’s like there’s things that my church’s Magisterium says that are horrible, that are a dumpster fire. My church’s Magisterium says that you can be trans, but the-

Trent Horn:
PC USA.

Richard:
PC USA. But the thing is, we don’t have to follow… It’s basically just a suggestion what the general assembly says. I know what the Bible says, I’m not bound to that. But with the Catholic Church, the stakes are a lot higher if it’s claiming to be like an infallible authority. I am pretty sure, correct me if I’m wrong, pretty sure the Catholic Church says in some cases it’s okay to marry unbelievers, which I just don’t think is biblical.

Trent Horn:
Sure. I do have some thoughts on what you just said there. First, what’s interesting is somebody could tell the same story in reverse to say, “Yeah, I was raised to believe homosexuality was wrong, but you know what, I studied the scriptures and I realized this is a moral teaching that’s developed.” You have those, you did the math-

Richard:
But look at those people. They’ll often say like, “Oh, I studied the scriptures honestly, and I came to the conclusion…” But do those people have a high view of scripture ever? Do they ever have a high view of Jesus and of God’s holiness in the church? Usually that’s just one step away from apostasy for most people and they end up becoming a universalist heretic and denying the trinity.

Trent Horn:
It depends. Someone like Brandon Robertson, you’re probably right. I don’t know. Or Matthew-

Richard:
That’s what I was thinking of.

Trent Horn:
Yes, you have people like that. I don’t know, but you have some others who… What’s hard is if you carve it out enough, if you say, maybe they’re not universalists, but they’re inclusivists, and they say, “Well, you’re saved by Christ, but there’s a possibility of salvation.” I would be hesitant to want to say, “Oh, well, they don’t really have a high view of scripture. They’re an inclusivist.” Because yeah, you’re correct. It’d be hard for me to think of someone who is let’s say, gay affirming and a big exclusivist.

Richard:
Yeah, it does not exist.

Trent Horn:
But I wouldn’t say that the only people with a high view of scripture are exclusivists. I think there’s people who have inclusive theologies that still have a high view of scripture.

Richard:
Yeah, I’m cool with that. But generally speaking, people who have a high view of scripture come to more or less the same conclusions on moral issues.

Trent Horn:
Well, I don’t know because let’s take the morality issue I find interesting. You might say, “Oh look…” In the church, Protestant church, there’s a disagreement about homosexuality, but it’s just the high view scripture of people versus the low view scripture people, so it should be that.

Richard:
It generally is.

Trent Horn:
It shouldn’t be that much of a concern to you. But you see this change here, and I brought this up in my debate with James White a few weeks ago, a hundred years ago, all Protestants believe that contraception was sinful, whether you’re high scripture or low scripture, whatever it may be. And so if a hundred years ago there could be agreement among people who have a high view of scripture that contraception is sinful, and now it’s like, “Well, we have a different developed understanding of that.” I don’t know that you could apply that to other moral issues including homosexuality.

Richard:
Yeah, and I think that’s why it’s okay for Protestants to say it’s possible for true Christians to get moral issues wrong. There were true Christians who owned slaves. There are true Christians who were probably pro-choice back before people really understood the science behind abortion, and we believe God will forgive our errors. If someone really doesn’t know something is a sin, they’re not going to be damned for committing that sin. But the really important things, the obvious things, murder, adultery, the word of God is so explicitly clear on that. There’s just no way around it.

Trent Horn:
Right, but I do think that there are other serious issues where we don’t have that kind of clarity where I would see the role of the Magisterium in addressing it, especially when you have new bioethical issues. Is it sinful? I believe it’s sinful to create a child in a Petri dish rather than in his mother’s body.

Richard:
Me too. But I can’t think of many conservative Bible believing Protestants who are like, “Man, robot babies, Petri dish AI. That’s great. Let’s solve the-”

Trent Horn:
I think you’ll find a lot of conservative Protestants, they’ve got… One thing Protestants have going for them is aesthetically they know how to make everything clean, sharp, and look nice, man. Whenever I have Protestant friends, their houses are immaculately decorated. I just feel like, I don’t know how to describe that phenomena. Or you go to a Protestant church, it’s like all the font is just right just on everything. But I think there’s conservative Protestants who suffer from infertility and would say, “I don’t see what’s wrong with using this to be able to have a baby.” And so I don’t think they would have as cavalier… Robot baby, that’s a funny concept there.

But I wanted to go to the marrying of the non-Christian. In the Catholic Church, what we would say is that marriage is a sacrament that was given to humanity. We recognize that as long as people have a basic understanding of what marriage is, it’s ideally lifelong and monogamous, that they are married. Now, marriage becomes indissoluble when it occurs between two baptized Christians. We would say when it comes to sacraments. Well, with baptism, anybody can, whether they’re Protestant, even an atheist if they have the right intention, because God wants as many people saved as possible. We would say then with marriage, if you’re two baptized individuals, that’s an indissoluble union.

Now, I would say the church prefers marriage among people who are equally yoked. There’s certainly a preference there, but you can marry someone who is not Catholic or not Christian if you receive permission or a dispensation to do that from the bishop. We would say that this is a rule, but it’s something that comes from ecclesial law rather than divine law. Whereas you seem to take a different perspective that it’s like a divine law that Christians cannot marry non-Christians.

Richard:
Well, yeah. The basic proof text would be St. Paul says that if a woman’s husband dies, she may remarry only within the faith. But even aside from that, the more theological reasoning behind it is we don’t see marriage as a sacrament. We see it as a covenant, a covenant between two people. It’s like an alliance between two nations. If you have a covenant with God, you have a covenant with someone who does not have a covenant with God, that’s a conflict of interest. That would be like during World War II if Switzerland allied with both Germany and Britain. It’s a conflict of interest fundamentally. It is still a sin to commit adultery. That’s why the Bible says if someone is already married. It’s not a justification for them to divorce their spouse if their spouse is unbeliever. But that’s why the Bible still says a Christian must marry another Christian who has a covenant with God.

Trent Horn:
Well, that one, what we would say there is that if a Christian… Because we actually have these in the church’s canon law, the Catholic Church would say that marriage, when it’s two baptized Christians, that is an indissoluble union. Only death can dissolve it. Only God can do that. No human power is able to do that. When the church grants an annulment, it is a declaration that what was thought to be a valid marriage is null. There was not a prerequisite that was necessary, like full consent or knowledge or ability to marry. If someone’s already married to somebody else and they try to get married again, well that second marriage is declared null. The guy’s already married to somebody else, for example, he’s not free to marry.

Now, the question… Now, if you have marriages between either two non baptized people or only one baptized person, these are dissoluble. They can be dissolved because they are not raised the level of sacrament, they don’t have that quality of being a Christian marriage. When Paul says, for example… We would refer to that as the Petrine privilege and the Pauline privilege in the church’s canon law. The Pauline privilege would be that if two… I’m going to get reamed over this if I get this wrong, because the Catholic Ansys guy’s got to get everything right. The basic of canon law is that if a believer… If two people, two unbelievers are married and one of them becomes a believer and the unbeliever abandons that person because they’ve chosen to become Christian, that union can be dissolved.

Richard:
Yeah, that’s what scripture says. If there’s amendment, then-

Trent Horn:
Right, but we wouldn’t say now if two baptized Christians get married and one abandons the other later, the privilege would not apply there. Both of them are held under the commands of Christ in his church, and the marriage is still valid. The marriage is still valid even if tragically one spouse has left the other. It would be different there. I think what’s interesting here is you’re positing that it’s sinful, but I think many Protestants would probably just, they might say it’s not a great idea, but I don’t know if they would say that it’s a sin. And then of course it’s like is it a minor sin or is it a major sin?

Richard:
I’m planning to get married in the PCA, my soon-to-be fiance and I in the PCA. They have strict rules on that. Strict rules that you can only get married if you are a baptized Christian because we believe that the Bible is perspicuous enough on this issue that when Paul says, “Do not marry outside the faith,” it means do not marry outside the faith. It doesn’t mean… There’s not all these conditions and distinctions and all that.

Trent Horn:
Well, do you make any distinctions between Paul’s teachings, whether they are perpetually binding or were temporarily binding, like what Paul says about head coverings in first Corinthians 11?

Richard:
Yeah, that is an interesting debate, and of course, I think everyone’s been a little bit inconsistent on those things. But generally, unless there’s good reason to suspect that they were not perpetually binding, then they are. It’s like with the egalitarian complementarian debate, even though I don’t love those labels. The question of whether women can be pastors. The argument in favor of female pastors is that Paul in first Timothy is not making some sort of perpetual argument, but the argument against that is he links that to the creation. It’s like in first Corinthians, all of Paul’s sexual teachings seem to be pretty binding. That’s where we get the whole love is patient, love is kind. That’s where we get the most explicit condemnation of homosexuality in the Bible. There’s no reason to suspect that the sexual ethics would ever change, that Paul is giving in First Corinthians. Yes, Protestants will always have debate over to how to interpret specific things. But generally, I believe the Bible is pretty perspicuous on the basics of what a Christian marriage should be and who Christians are to marry.

Trent Horn:
But would you agree though that there are many Protestant Christians, people with a high view of scripture that would just say marrying a non-Christian is imprudent, not necessarily sinful?

Richard:
There might be individuals who say that, but that’s not any Protestant traditional understanding that I’m aware of/

Trent Horn:
Or, do you think the distinction there, it’s only Christian and non-Christian? There’s not certain… As long as you just have a valid baptism, it doesn’t matter if one’s a Calvinist, one’s an Armenian?

Richard:
Well, no, if they’re both true Christians, because we don’t say that you need to be part of our denomination to be a true Christian. I never said that. I would say if a Catholic and a Protestant want to get married, there’s nothing in scripture or the Protestant tradition that would forbid that, just some practical questions of [inaudible 01:29:51].

Trent Horn:
And what’s interesting is that’s why the Catholic Church has two different standards. You just need permission to marry a non-Catholic Christian, but you would need a particular dispensation from the bishop to be able to marry a non-Christian. It’s called disparity of cult. You would need to be able to do that.

Richard:
Yeah, and it’s like the Catholic Church for the most part, 99% of the time I would say they give very good moral teachings, very good moral advice. When someone asks me, “What’s your political opinion?” I basically say, “Just ask the Catholic Church. It’s probably the same as that.” But it seems like human wisdom some of the time, it seems like sometimes they’re elevating human wisdom over clear teachings from divine wisdom and the divine wisdom seems to say a pretty absolute claim on Christians need to marry other Christians.

Trent Horn:
Okay, interesting.

Richard:
Anyway, I know there’s great Catholic explanations.

Trent Horn:
Yeah, but it’s good. It’s interesting. I didn’t know you had that view. That’s good.

Richard:
Last thing is I think one of the biggest obstacles for Protestants when converting to Catholicism, not that I’m considering it, but for those who are considering, is the whole praying to saints, praying to Mary, veneration of icons, whatever. That’s something Protestants are not used to, especially in the reformed tradition. We’re very skeptical of all that stuff.

Trent Horn:
When I went to… My wife and I on our honeymoon, we went all over Europe because we’re like, “Look, we’re Catholic. We’re going to have kids, probably a bunch of them if God blesses us. We’re not going to be able to probably travel very much.” And so we just went all over Europe for our honeymoon, just be like, “Yeah, let’s get out there.” We went to Athens and Rome and we went up to Geneva. We were in Rome. The city of Rome, I’m not a big fan of. Kind of gross in parts, but the churches, they’re beautiful. They’re astounding. When I got to Geneva in Switzerland, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Switzerland or Geneva-

Richard:
Never been off the continent.

Trent Horn:
Well, you said you’re planning to get married?

Richard:
Yes.

Trent Horn:
Ah. When are you getting married?

Richard:
It’s not official yet, but sometime next year.

Trent Horn:
Mazel tov, all right.

Richard:
Thank you.

Trent Horn:
Well, if you are able to go anywhere, and especially before you have children, especially as a Calvinist, I think you’d probably enjoy it. When I went to Switzerland to Geneva, the town and the countryside is just gorgeous. The Alps, Lake Geneva. Then you go in the churches and it’s just this empty big stone cathedral, and here’s Calvin’s chair, and it’s this little rickety wooden chair.

Richard:
That’s how I like it.

Trent Horn:
The absolute rickety wooden little thing. And so yeah, there are… But the idea of Marian devotion and praise, for example, and art and icons, there will be a little bit of disparity with that amongst Protestants. Lutherans will be much more opt for that, including for Marian praise and devotion-

Richard:
Sometimes.

Trent Horn:
Then, yeah. But you were saying there’s the concern about maybe it goes a little too far?

Richard:
It’s like I understand that there’s arguments for praying to Mary, asking her to pray for us or whatever, or the saints. But my question is, do you think there’s ever an excess of that in the Catholic Church? Do you think there’s ever cases where they focus too much on Mary? Does it ever go too far, is what I’m asking?

Trent Horn:
Yeah, I think anything can be abused, whether it’s in Catholicism or Protestantism.

Richard:
Okay.

Trent Horn:
I agree with that. To say that there is no abuse when it comes to Marian devotion, that’s just false. You have some folk groups who have engaged in syncretism, and so they have blended Marion devotion with paganism, which is bad. In the early church, you had the collyridians, they offered sacrifices to Mary of cakes on altars.

Richard:
And that was condemned.

Trent Horn:
Epiphanius condemns that. You even have language that makes people uncomfortable. I believe Pope St. John Paul II was even uncomfortable with some of the things St. Louis de Montfort had in his writings to praise Mary. And although St. Louis de Montfort was very clear, he said, “Look, what I say about Mary, Mary is but a mere Adam in comparison to the infinite majesty, who is God.” And so I think that when this happens, a few thoughts on that. One, there’s going to be some devotions that go across the pale.

Richard:
Yeah.

Trent Horn:
Wrong. You shouldn’t do that. Offering worship of sacrifice, saying that Mary is the one who saves us from sin rather than Christ. Sometimes when people say… Now, this goes to my second thing though, about language, because some people say, “Mary, deliver me. Mary, save me.” We have to remember the Bible includes things like Paul says to a wife, “Wife, will you save your husband? Husband will you save your wife?” He doesn’t mean they’re literally going to do that.

Richard:
I know it’s a language issue sometimes.

Trent Horn:
It is. There’s the language issue there, but a lot of the Marian devotion where people say, “Oh, I go to Mary rather than Christ,” especially in medieval literature or folk literature, one thing that stems from that is a recognition that Mary only has the power to lead us to salvation, whereas Christ has the power to save or damn someone. And that can be too far though, when you become so afraid of the fact that God is a judge, and rightfully so, there can be an imbalance there. Another element would be in language a lot of times… Well, it’d be like someone if they were judging Calvinism based solely upon the sermons of Jonathan Edwards.

Richard:
Yeah, I know what you mean.

Trent Horn:
It would be like, “All right, let’s just back it up a little bit here.” There’s going to be a difference between a highly articulated theology and especially with Marian devotion. When people give devotion, when a lover speaks of the beloved, sometimes they say things that are hyperbole or romanticized. That would be an element that I would consider there. Although I think some of the things happened amongst Protestants too.

For example, let’s say people have a very high view of scripture. Well, there was an interesting episode in the early church of a superstition related to scripture that in the fourth century, people started wearing these amulets that had biblical manuscript texts in them. And the amulets of course, were a popular pagan devotion at the time. And people would wear, they would take the amulets and empty out the pagan stuff and they would put in a little John 3:16. Probably not John 3:16, that wasn’t heavily cited in the early church, but something, a verse for protection. And so St. John Chrysostom had to say, “You know what? I don’t think amulets are a great idea here.” We should love the scripture and the word, but it becomes a superstition. Though he even said that someone who keeps a copy of the gospels in their home is sure to drive demons away from their home. And so it’s like even something as good as the Bible, you could take it and become superstitious. You could pervert things.

I would agree with you on that when it comes to Marion devotion and the intercession of the saints, that’s why I think it’s very important, the Magisterium, the teaching of the church, for example, the phrase prayer to the saints, actually, I’m not aware of it in a magisterial document. It typically includes things like seeking the intercession of the saints or invoking the saints. Invoking isn’t the best word either, but I would prefer to use language like seeking their intercession, which I would say goes back very far in the church’s history that you have anti-nicene writers like Methodius, speaking of Mary in this way. You have Hippolytus, I think, when he writes about the three men in the furnace in the Old Testament. He has another remark after that asking them to pray for him.

And then there is a early liturgical prayer called The Sub Tuum Praesidium, that says, “Oh, Theotokos, we fly to thee for thy protection.” Though, I’ve been doing more research on that. I used to speak more confidently about that. There’s a little bit of a dating issue there.

Richard:
Yeah, I’ve heard about that.

Trent Horn:
And it’s important when we put forward evidence, we always got to have our cards on the table, and I wasn’t aware of the dating issue because I had read secular sources on The Sub Tuum Praesidium that put it in the third century, not Catholic apologists. I read the secular sources and think, “Oh yeah, it looks like Oxford Press or whatever.” But then I came across other research. It’s in German, so it’s like, “Oh, okay. Google Translate and figure this out.” Some people date it more to the sixth or seventh century, but there is still a heavy leaning towards anti-nicene. But I do think that when you look at there is also imagery of Mary and Saints in very early house churches like Dura Europa, for example, like the earliest house church we’ve ever uncovered.

Richard:
Yeah, there’s the question of when did those images get there? Even if the church is old, how old are the images?

Trent Horn:
Sure, but I still think even if the church, if they’re older than the church, I don’t think people have placed them much older, for example. But yeah, I think you bring up a fair point, and that’s why we look to the Magisterium for guidance, where you would basically have absolutely inappropriate devotion or language, absolutely appropriate because the church uses it, and then private devotions where people are going to have different levels of personal comfort or discomfort. And no one is bound to any particular kind of private devotion.

Richard:
Right, and I would agree that it’s possible to idolize the Bible. Some Protestants do idolize the Bible. Some Protestants would say the Bible is fundamentally what they have faith in. They have faith in Jesus because the Bible talks about him. John Calvin said, “The human heart is a perpetual factory of idols.” It’s impossible to idolize literally anything that’s not God. Even things relating to God, people idolize their own church and theology debates.

Trent Horn:
Yeah. It’s about keeping it in its proper perspective. I mean, the sin of idolatry is just when you give honor due to the creator to a creature.

Richard:
Right.

Trent Horn:
That’s what always has to be remembered. Though, it is important. We always want to have, we don’t want the extremes of honor where it is not allowed, but also the other extreme of failure to give honor where it’s due. And so that’s where I’ve been on social media saying, “Well, what honor does Mary deserve in virtue of being the mother of God, in virtue of being the first Christian?” And sometimes I’ve seen either Catholics go too far in giving praise and then other Protestants who, they’ll just like, “She’s just a vessel.” I’m like, “Okay.”

Richard:
Well, I’m sure you already know this, but all the reformers have a very high Maryology.

Trent Horn:
Oh, they have a very high Mary-

Richard:
Heinrich Bollinger believed in the bodily assumption, and most of them believed in the perpetual virginity, all that.

Trent Horn:
Oh, yeah. Most, the reformers’ Maryology would be anathema to many evangelicals, and [inaudible 01:40:32].

Richard:
I know, I’ve had arguments about this.

Trent Horn:
Yes, yeah.

Richard:
Many evangelicals don’t like Theotokos, but not really worried about them.

Trent Horn:
Oh, we’re doing okay. We’re low battery, but we’ll survive. I also had a problem in my head. We can make it. We can make it, people.

Richard:
Okay. Is there any final questions you have for me?

Trent Horn:
No, this is a good talk. All I’ll say is just I’m very impressed with your work as an apologist, especially engaging atheists and others. I have been longing to find more Gen Z apologists, and I’ve said to other people, “Man, if Redeemed Zoomer was Catholic, he’d be my number one pick.”

Richard:
Yeah, I saw you tweet about Gen Z apologists. Once again, not much of an apologist, because anytime I try to be polemical, I just embarrass myself.

Trent Horn:
But you know what, but not all apologists have to debate people. The fact that you can present yourself winsomely and get people and show them the truth, that’s what we need. And so at the very least, the fact that you’re doing that on the essential elements of the Christian faith, praise God. I’m glad you’re out there doing it, and I hope you keep doing it.

Richard:
I appreciate it.

Trent Horn:
Alrighty. Thank you guys. I’m so glad this worked out. Literally, my camera broke, the light broke. I had to use my laptop. I didn’t have the cord for the laptop. There’s 5% juice left on it. Where can people go to learn more about you?

Richard:
Just look up Redeemed Zoomer on YouTube or Instagram basically, or go to Presbyterians for the, operationreconquista.com or kingdompresbyterians.com to see some of the work I’m doing to try and evangelize my own denomination.

Trent Horn:
I’ll link below. Thank you guys.