Audio only:
Trent sits down again with Protestant Youtuber Cameron Bertuzzi to share not just the case for Catholicism but also his concerns about Protestantism.
Trent Horn:
Hello, everyone, welcome to The Counsel of Trent podcast. I’m your host, Catholic Answers’ apologist and speaker Trent Horn. And today I want to share with you an interview that I did with Cameron Bertuzzi over at Capturing Christianity. Cameron is a rock star, he’s hip. He always knows how to make things look nice graphic-wise. That’s just a Protestant thing. Protestants are super good at that. They know how to make things look really nice. They just it’s sleek. It’s clean. They make it professional. I think that’s great. He does a good job at capturing Christianity, defending mere Christianity, the existence of God, the resurrection. He also does things with faith and science and he has hosted dialogues on Catholicism. And he’s been very fair in his exploration of the Catholic faith. So definitely pray for him as he continues to explore and research Catholicism. And that was the subject of our conversation.
And in talking to Cameron, I want you to notice, I mean, it’s always hard when you talk with a Protestant, prove Catholicism. It’s like, what do you do, right? You want to throw down every proof text they’ve already heard. Every argument they’ve already heard. What I really wanted to do with Cameron in this interview, this dialogue, and this is also what I try to do with many other Protestants who may have investigated the arguments for the Catholic faith is I want them to really question Protestantism more. I really feel like you’re not going to be moved. And this came up my dialogue with Austin Suggs recently, from Gospel Simplicity. I don’t think you’re going to be that interested in looking at Catholicism if you’re not concerned about Protestantism. If you can see a way, Protestantism, it doesn’t support itself. There’s problems here. It’s kind of like when you evangelize, right?
You need to see the bad news of sin before you see the good news of salvation. You have to see the bad news of being apart from Christ Church before you can really appreciate the good news of being in full communion with the church that Jesus Christ established. So with that in mind, check this out, and definitely don’t forget to go and subscribe to Cameron’s channel. He’s got a lot of great content there. He’s doing a really good job. So please go and check that out. Capturing Christianity. I hope you go and subscribe to him as well. And yeah, check out the conversation we had.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Well, actually, where would you like to go? Because I feel like you have some things that you wanted to discuss as it relates to Catholicism. I mean, my conversation with James White happened recently, fairly recently, with respect to the time of the recording of this video. So we could talk about that. We could talk about some other things that you’re working on.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, I do want to talk just about, I mean, it’s always hard. What can we say that hasn’t already been said in the dialogue between Catholics and Protestants? I mean, I could just come out and say, well, why aren’t you Catholic already, Cameron? And there’s the objections and the replies. But as I was driving over here, I was thinking, is there a different way or a different framework, sometimes, maybe we could look at when it comes to the Catholic/Protestant discussion. And so one thing that I’ve been focusing on, and this kind of relates to the book that I’m working on, when Protestants Argue like Atheists, which I know is an inflammatory title, but I hope that it is one that will attract attention. It’s hard because I almost… Should I put in the subtitle And Catholics Argue Like Atheists Too Sometimes, because I also do include that in the book.
But the main point of my concern is that sometimes when Christians and atheists dialogue with each other, it’s almost as if the Christian has to carry this large burden of proof and hears this way of understanding reality, and the atheist just kind of folds his arms. Well, this doesn’t really need to be explained. Or the biblical thing you’re bringing in has all these contradictions and all these problems with it. And Christians will say, well, that doesn’t necessarily disprove things. I feel like those same kinds of arguments, they rear their head again a little bit when Catholics and Protestants engage each other. There’s this sense the Catholic will put forward. Here’s why you should believe in the magisterium and the papacy and infallible teaching office, and Protestants say, well, what about there’s no good reason to believe that’s true. Or what about these alleged contradictions in magisterial statements and that if all these things make Catholicism messy, well thank goodness we still have Protestantism.
That is a lot simpler as a fallback or a base that we start from. But I don’t know if that’s really the case though, that we can just start there as if, well, that is just where we start. And I think I said this before when we spoke in August, but I think if I had to make an analogy, it’s like, look, well, how could I make an analogy for this? It’s kind like when I compare generic theism or deism, we just call it generic theism, a non-Christian theism, because what you do here at Capturing Christianity is kind of interesting. We think there’s a lot of people who identify as atheists and then there’s a lot of people who identify as Christian theists or maybe Muslim theists, but it’s really hard to find people that are just, I’m just a theist, at least out vocally talking about this, doing apologetics.
You’re either an atheist or you’re a Christian theist. Or maybe Muslim theist. But it’s hard to find someone who will debate atheists, who believes in God, a theism, but is not Christian. And so for me, that’s just kind of an odd gap. That would be a natural place for people to go, to fall into. The closest I can think of would be somebody like Antony Flew. You remember that he used to be an atheist and then he became a deist. So he wasn’t convinced of Christianity. And so I don’t think that Protestantism is the ultimate starting point or fallback position rather, because you could say, okay, I believe God exists. I believe Jesus rose from the dead. Now what? And I think some people once maybe they come to accept those propositions, then I’m going to believe in the Bible.
It’s inspired. It’s inherent. Okay. I got to figure out which denomination most aligns with this book. But wait, well how did we get there? How do we suddenly we go through all these arguments for God and then all these arguments to the resurrection. And then there’s this other big claim that there’s these 27 books of the new Testament, 66 books of the Protestant Bible inspired and errant, this is our source of authority where it’s our sole infallible rule of faith. Well, it seems like we make this jump. So I guess another point to throw at you and then we can go…
Cameron Bertuzzi:
There’s a jump somewhere.
Trent Horn:
There is a jump. So for me, I feel like sometimes when Protestants and Catholics dialogue and you had your dialogue with James White, the objection that’s raised is we go from believing in God and the resurrection of Jesus that the jump to the papacy or to a magisterium, it’s too far of a leap. The evidence doesn’t warrant that it doesn’t get, there’s not enough evidence to warrant that jump. But I believe there’s two jumps to really make, you can make that or the one to the Protestant authority. And so for me…
Cameron Bertuzzi:
But what do you mean by Protestant authority, what is…
Trent Horn:
Well, that’s interesting. I was flipping through this. I can’t remember what page it was on, but this is by Kenneth Collins and Jerry Walls. It’s called Roman But Not Catholic. And they were saying in that book, when it comes to a fundamental Protestant belief, like what’s a fundamental belief of Protestantism, they made an interesting comment. They said Sola scriptura is not the fundamental belief of Protestantism. They said the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the gospel is the fundamental belief of Protestantism. And I would say, no, that’s the fundamental belief of Christianity, because I believe that too is a fundamental, but what makes Protestantism distinct from Catholicism or orthodoxy is an authority claim. So my main point that I would raise is, what if instead of arguing there is sufficient evidence to believe the Catholic authority claim, what if we ran with this kind of argument: there’s more evidence for the Catholic authority claim than the Protestant authority claim. And so that’s a route I thought is interesting for people to take, to think of. If you see what I mean, that it’s not…
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I’m still not sure what you mean by Protestant authority.
Trent Horn:
What I would say is the Protestant authority would be that there are 66 books that are collected that are the inspired word of God and are the sole infallible rule of faith. And I believe that should be unpacked more to say that.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
See, I don’t know that biblical inerrancy or inspiration is a necessary component of Protestantism. So that’s kind of why I’m like, I’m not exactly sure what you mean by Protestant authority.
Trent Horn:
Well, I would say that this is… When I engage other apologists or Protestantism, this appears to be the authority that is presented most of the time.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Yeah, that’s true.
Trent Horn:
But you’re right.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
If you’re debating someone like James White, who is…
Trent Horn:
Sure if I engage Jerry Walls or I would say many people who go to church that, because I guess you would say, what is the difference between, we have this set Christian and within that set, you have Catholic, various varieties, orthodoxy, Protestantism. And I suppose you could have Christians who don’t belong to either three, and what they believe would be a very interesting framework. Because I think that most people will start with this assumption that you have this canon of scripture and being Protestant, they’ll use the phrase, the sole infallible rule of faith. And I always wonder what exactly that means. I take it as a practical matter to mean you are obligated to believe what is taught in these set of books. You are not obligated to believe anything that is not taught in these books and you cannot believe anything that contradicts what is in these books.
And so I think at most of the baseline, I think most Protestants would affirm those propositions. Because imagine if you talk to someone and they say, yeah, Cameron, I believe that God exists and Jesus rose from the dead. But I think that Jesus was a man that God adopted at his baptism and he probably sinned at some point in his life and you quick go to is, well, Hebrews chapter four says he’s like us and all things except sin. And what if they said, oh, well I don’t think Hebrews is scripture. I mean, who wrote it? Then it’s like, then where do you go?
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Yeah.
Trent Horn:
Why couldn’t someone make a move like that? I think most people don’t because they accept there’s a kind of implicit authority. I would call that the Protestant authority. Now Catholics obviously believe those are inspired as well. But we have tradition in the magistarium along with it. I don’t know if that makes sense.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Yeah. I still am not exactly sure that we should call that Protestantism.
Trent Horn:
Well what would…
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Or the Protestant authority.
Trent Horn:
What does the word mean to you?
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Well, even if most… I don’t even know what the essentials would be. That’s one thing that I’ve puzzled over is what are the essentials of Protestantism and it’s not something that I’ve put enough thought into actually come down on a definitive answer. So yeah. I still guess, going back to this question of what is the Protestant authority, even if most Protestants are biblical inherentists and biblical infalliblists, does it really follow that biblical and inerrancy or infallible or the inspiration of the 66 books that most Protestants believe, does it follow that that’s like…
Trent Horn:
I think that’s…
Cameron Bertuzzi:
The Protestant authority.
Trent Horn:
I’ll give you with inerrancy because there’s a lot of self-described Protestants who have very low views of scripture. So I’ll give you biblical inerrancy is not an essential Protestant doctrine, because I can name several Protestant scholars. I mean you have people like Peter Enns and others who have very dim view of scripture, I might say. I wouldn’t say a low view. I might say, well, dim doesn’t sound even better than low. Or others who are… I’m sure even Randall Rauser has a much different view of biblical inerrancy than James White does, obviously, but they’re both Protestants. So let’s say Rauser and White will really disagree about how to understand alleged genocide in the old Testament and inerrancy. But I think they’re going to both agree, the books describing them are inspired and that’s what we have to wrestle with. And that the books, the other books are these other 66 books. I think that the issue of the canon inspiration and sola scriptura, I really do think those are… To be Protestant. I really think sola scriptura is fundamental because otherwise without it…
Cameron Bertuzzi:
So you don’t think that a Protestant could reject sola scriptura, what would they be? What would you call that person?
Trent Horn:
You could call them a lot of things. They could be a…
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Mere Christian?
Trent Horn:
They could be a mere Christian, someone who just believes in the resurrection of Jesus and just tries to live some kind of ethical Trinitarian theism. And that’s just what they believe. They believe in a new covenant. They could be a messianic Jew.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Sounds like a very progressive…
Trent Horn:
Could they be Mormon? They believe in 66 books that are inspired, but they don’t believe in sola scriptura. So they have this other stuff, but they’re not Catholic or Orthodox. Now you might want to say, well, to be Protestant, you have to at least be Christian. That’s an essential belief. But then the next question is who says that? Is our suppress it back more?
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Let’s just… To move the conversation forward. Sure. Why don’t we just assume that is part of what it means to be Protestant is to have this sort of sola scriptura view of scripture and authority. Yeah.
Trent Horn:
I think because you could define Protestantism as just being Christian, but not Catholic or Orthodox, but I think that creates, it’s very wide and most people will be very uncomfortable losing the grounding for something and just avoiding the old Testament differences Protestants and Catholics have. The 27 book canon of the new Testament, which is normative for the new covenant. I think there would be a lot of hesitation to lose the grounding authority for that and other things. So I guess when I was watching your interview, and I’m not going to rehash things that were said, things like that, because it’s similar to other objections and things that are raised, I noticed this kind of argument, Catholics make this claim for the papacy and the papacy is this normative authority in the church. And so it’s interesting. You have, one, does the Bible teach this? The other one I find interesting is a historical argument, was this recognized as a normative authority in the early church?
So you have these arguments. Well, we have this silence in the first century. We definitely can’t really get anything until 140 or things like that. But I wonder if the Protestant authority is 27 book canon, the New Testament and sola scriptura, and should not that authority be subjected to the same examination? Where do we see the early church father saying, and remember to be faithful, this is what we read. This is what we should follow.
When I’ve read Protestant scholars on this, it’s only very isolated quotations from Hippolytus or Irenaeus in this first 200 years, that are easily outnumbered by other sources that say, well, the authority is was your Bishop part of a chain that goes to the apostles. So for me, it’s not so much look at these arguments for and against the Catholic authority. Part from my conversion experience, and even still today, I’m weighing the two. And so for me, if this hyper criticism of the Catholic authority in the early church is problematic, it’s even more so for, I don’t see the church fathers affirming, especially let’s just stick with the first 200 years, affirming this sola scriptura, this specific canon. I feel like if you had that same laser focused criticism of the papacy, it would also tear apart what I call Protestant authority, essentially.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
And so the question would be like, where would you go for someone who… And this is kind of related to our previous interview, in person interview. We’re at this crossroads and you’re kind of trying to determine where you’re going to go after you accept mere Christianity. And so what your point is, if I have it correctly, is that there’s basically there’s a gap between mere Christianity, the belief that Jesus rose from the dead and you’ve got sola scriptura on the one hand, and then you’ve got the magisterium and sola scriptura tradition on the Catholic side of things. And then orthodoxy will. I mean, I hate to just ignore them, but…
Trent Horn:
I love my Eastern Orthodox friends. I go to a Byzantine Catholic church. We got the iconostas. We had a feast day for Gregory of Palamas, who has more checkered history in Western church. But I mean, I think that’s a part of it though. I think for me, the progression makes sense that if you believe that Christian authority is not relegated to scripture alone, but there is a living voice of the church that has continued since the apostles. Then I think that really only makes orthodoxy Catholicism, the primary live options. And that has perpetually endured, I should say. A living voice that perpetually… Because Mormons will say it was gone for 1800 years.
And then the question is what provides the most unity in there, but the gap, I want to return to that, because there was something here in, did you find it? Well, this is another quote that I thought was interesting. It’s about mere Christianity. And so the question Walls and Collins were asking, it was so funny. I was waiting for you to get everything set up and I love snooping in people’s bookshelves, by the way. Mom was like, what do they read? I’d just whip it off and start flipping through. And I came across this passage.
They would say, let’s see here, do Roman Catholics believe that acceptance of the authority of scripture and the classic creeds commits one rationally or logically to the authority of the Roman magisterium, or do Roman Catholic apologists believe reasons that support belief in mere Christianity are logically independent of papal infallibility in the Marian dogmas. So even he goes on to basically say, he’s concerned about can Roman Catholic apologists make a case for mere Christianity without invoking the claims of Rome. And so they say, when it comes to a humanism, if Roman Catholic apologists believe the case for mere Christianity can be rationally made entirely apart from accepting the claims of Rome, then it is hard to see how they can consistently employ the all or nothing strategy when trying to convert their Protestant friends to Rome. So I think the objection, what they’re making here, is let’s say, well, we’ve got Alex O’Connor and Joe Schmidt here, right?
I go in there and I’ve got my [inaudible 00:19:45] from Rob Coombs and the really resurrection of Jesus arguments. And I get Alex and Joe, the holy spirit can do anything. And they come to accept mere Christianity and they’re reading the Bible and they want to go to Bible study with you. And I did that with just the standard arguments you share here on the show all the time. Then I guess Collins and Walls like, well, why am I now bringing in the church to get you to be Catholic when I didn’t do that to get Joe and Alex to be mere Christians or Protestants, I guess. So far you see what their question is.
And so my reply to Walls and Collins is, well, I would say that, yeah, I don’t need the claims of the church’s authority to help someone become a mere Christian. But to me mere Christianity is only belief in God and in the resurrection of Christ and the divinity of Christ, it doesn’t say anything else about scripture or authority. And so I would say to them, no, I do believe I need the claims of the church’s magisterium to nail down the 66 books, inspiration, and things. So that’s where I would, I guess, answer their dilemmas.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
So I think… As you’ve been talking, I’ve been thinking. I think I’m comfortable with the view that Protestantism, sola scriptura might be wrapped up with Protestantism, but someone could reject that and remain a Christian in the sense of being a mere Christian, in the sense of believing that Jesus rose from the dead, God rose Jesus from the dead. And so they still believe in Jesus and they have that belief, but they don’t have the belief that scripture is the sole and fallible of rule faith. But I don’t know that they would qualify as a Protestant if they… I think that’s…
Trent Horn:
Well, what if you had somebody who accepts Jesus is the risen Lord, but they have a kind of quasi-Marcionism, so they say the old Testament’s not inspired or they only accept certain gospels or certain epistles is the inspired word of God. Maybe it’s only Paul or it’s only Jesus, there’s hyperdispensationalism, there’s things like that. I would agree with you that you could do a historical analysis and just get to mere Christianity. That’s why, what was curious to me, Cameron, when I brought this concern up, I recently engaged two reformed apologists. We talked about the Protestant/atheist thesis and I’ve seen other Protestants, the way they get over the gap from just this gap between Christian, mere Christian theism and 66 book sola scriptura Protestantism. A lot of them just say, well, it was funny with the two Protestants.
They said, well, I really think mere Christianity is problematic. I don’t like that approach. A lot of them, and I think White would probably be a part of this as well, they’re presuppositinalists. They would say, well, I don’t like that. Use Bill Craig’s arguments then Mike Lacona’s resurrection arguments, and then now you’re Christian. Because I think they see the gap there instead God gave us his word and that is how he’s revealed to us. So I think a lot of critics of Catholicism, I don’t know if it’s coincidence or not, happen to be under that reform tradition. They’re able to get over the gap, but at the cost of endorsing a controversial view like presuppositionalism, if that makes sense.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I wonder if this would just, your argument, your overall argument would work if, I mean, because right now I’m just thinking about the labels that we’re using of how do we label this person who believes in X, but I wonder if your argument could just be made towards someone who just holds that view. So someone who is like a sola scripturaist or whatever, you know what I mean? Just put that label on him and then say, well, what reason… Is there good early historical evidence that there was this sort of view of sola scriptura early on in the church? And the view I think would be, or the argument would be that no, it wasn’t there. There was this higher view of tradition.
Trent Horn:
Well, yeah, I do believe that if you were endorsing a view that has a teaching about the authority for a Christian believer, then one must be upfront about that and be honest about the evidence and against it. And that would apply to orthodoxy, Catholicism, and what we will call classical Protestantism. I mean, somebody who just says, look, I just believe God raised Jesus from the dead. And we’ve got these historical documents, do with them what you think makes sense. That would be a very non-authoritative Christian view. I don’t know too many that. Really, anybody. And I think part of that, we have to also remember, we don’t do this in a vacuum. I mean, it’s so funny. We think like, oh, I’m approaching the sources, like I’m a Lee Strobel detective or an investigative journalist doing all this. We’re approaching all of this from a cultural background.
We look everything. Even the presumption that important evidence should be written down is a cultural background for us. I mean, it certainly wasn’t a thousand years, in the time of Jesus, it certainly wasn’t, given that 98% of people couldn’t read and it was expensive to produce writings. Paul’s letter to the Romans would’ve cost Paul $2,000 to write, to produce something of that length, to hire a secretary. So like this, but we live in an age where the written, not even in the religious world, in the secular world, the written word is gospel. It was like, if you get an agreement with someone, someone says, oh, didn’t you get a contract? Didn’t you save the email, Cameron? Oh, a verbal agreement’s not going to hold up or this and that, but that’s not how it was 2000 years ago. The written word was a luxury, a premium. I’m pontificating, but I’m Catholic. We pontificate, we have a Pontificator Maximus.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Well, how about we switch gears and talk about your thesis, your larger thesis, because what you were saying earlier about how some Protestants will argue like Muslim apologists, I thought that was interesting.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. So I don’t know. I actually worked on an episode related to that. So it may have aired by now. It may have not. Who knows? So I’m working on this book and I think it factors in a lot into the discussions between Catholics and Protestants. And still there, I think the key I’m taking from it is everybody has their own burden of proof and authority to defend and we ought to treat each other equally in how we critique one another’s views. So if there is a kind of argument that an atheist would use against a Protestant, then a Protestant would say, oh, here’s what’s wrong with that argument. It’s not licit to turn around and use that exact same argument against the Catholic view of authority, or against Catholicism. And so there’s lots of different… I’ll do a simple one, and then the one I was sharing with you. The simple one would be if a Protestant argues with an atheist and an atheist says, well, I’m not Christian because look, your Christianity is just rehashed pagan mythology.
I mean look, worshiping Jesus, dying, rising God, look at all these dying and rising gods in the pagan world. A Protestant say, well, no, no, no, no. Either those parallels come later or the parallels are shallow and superficial or we would expect some cultural overlap between cultures that doesn’t prove literary dependence. Some things are just universal, but then it’s not licit to that same Protestant to turn around and say, well, I’m not going to venerate Mary. I mean, look at the pagans who venerate ISIS. And this is just pagan goddess worship that was incorporated into the early church. And that’s basically the same argument that’s been turned around. The point that I raised with you was a concern I have. And this is for anybody. In all the chapters, when I talk about this happening, I make sure to say Catholics, be careful. You can make these arguments too.
We should all treat each other equally. So here one Catholics can make. There are some times when scholars are cited for or against a position. And we are tempted sometimes to dismiss these scholars, to say, oh, well these are liberal scholars with presuppositions that are opposed to supernaturalism, to things like that. One example would be that I’ve noticed that Muslim apologists, when they will, Muslim apologetics is very interesting. The pattern I’ve noticed is, attack Christianity, make it look foolish and unhistorical. Hey, look, Islam’s over here. Come check us out. And without having to offer a very robust positive case there. And so what they’ll do is they’ll say, why do you believe in the Bible, Cameron? Even your own Christian theologians, people like Father Raymond Brown and Father John Meier, these well known theologians will tell you that manuscripts have been distorted and this doctrine is, the Trinity is not explicit in scripture.
And you’ll have Protestant apologists will say, these are very liberal scholars. They tend to endorse the Academy’s methodological naturalism. They’ll say instead I saw it here.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
What are you looking for?
Trent Horn:
Douglas Moo and D.A. Carson’s commentary on. I saw it. It was on here. No, I saw it. Well…
Cameron Bertuzzi:
You probably know your bookshelf better than I do at this point.
Trent Horn:
Right? Because while you were out fixing a technical thing, I snooped all of this. But I saw a book I saw in a commentary on the new Testament, D.A. Carson and Douglas Smith.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Right there on the bottom.
Trent Horn:
Aha. Introduction to the New Testament. Oh, sorry, Guy [inaudible 00:29:44].
So you want something that’s conservative scholarship. You don’t want to just cite, these kind of guys are more liberal and then those same Protestant apologists. And in my video, I name names, give specific examples, will say, you know what, Cameron? Even Catholic biblical scholars like Father Raymond Brown and Father John Meier will acknowledge Catholic doctrine is not taught in scripture. It’s like, well, wait a minute, man. When a Muslim used these scholars, you said…
Cameron Bertuzzi:
No, that’s illicit.
Trent Horn:
Against classical Christian doctrines. Father John Meier is a great example. He is a well known Catholic priest and scholar. He wrote a four volume work, Jesus, A Marginal Jew. And so in there he says, I believe in the Virgin birth, I believe in Catholic doctrine because I’m a priest. But I find with many liberal scholars to say, well, I believe it. But it turns out there’s really no evidence for it.
But I have faith. That’s kind of a thing that I’ve noticed in liberal scholarship. It’s like faith in faith, but there’s not really that much evidence for it. And so you’ll have atheists and Muslims citing these people saying even they admit there’s no evidence. And so with Father Meier, some Protestants will cite him because he says that there’s very scant evidence in the Bible for Mary’s virginity after the birth of Jesus. And they’ll say even a Catholic priest admits this.
Well, read further, because Father Meier also says that he calls the Virgin birth of Jesus. So Mary’s virginity before Jesus’ birth. And even the bodily resurrection of Jesus, he calls, well Father Brown calls them doctrines with slender evidence. Father Meier says there’s we can’t, there’s no historical evidence for the resurrection. He says, we can believe it by faith, but it’s not a question you can ask historically. William Lane Craig has a great rebuttal of Father Meier on Reasonable Faith actually on this point. And so it’s interesting though, if it was that stuff, Father Meier is this kooky liberal scholar. Don’t listen to him. Hey, look what he says about the perpetual virginity of Mary. My point is everybody’s got to be consistent. And even as a Catholic, if I was to argue…
Cameron Bertuzzi:
At least be at least be consistent in the scholars that you’re going to use to defend the things that you want to defend.
Trent Horn:
So if I was to cite, for example, it would be similar if an atheist cited someone who doesn’t really believe in biblical inerrancy, like Peter Enns, to say you can’t really trust the Bible. That’s full of errors. And here’s where I disagree with Enns’ scholarship. And then I cite Enns when he says, and I’ve got a passage of it in my book, that the Bible doesn’t really teach sola scriptura. It was interesting. He said essentially, at least 500 years ago, when you had the Pope and bishops saying what to believe there was peace and tranquility. Now there’s nothing but chaos.
That sounds like something a Catholic would write. And if I cited him, while that sounds juicy from this Protestant scholar, but I wouldn’t like someone taking his low view of scripture against me either. So when I do cite people in Case for Catholicism, I actually do cite D.A. Carson, because Carson actually says the texts for the papacy. He says, when you put them together, they have an initial plausibility to them, but here are the problems that I have with it. Or I cite Doug Moo on baptism. But that once again, it’s just consistency across the board. I think it’s important.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
And I think that is a really good point. I mean, I wish I had more to add, but I just think that’s really important. Use the scholars in a consistent way.
Trent Horn:
And I mean it’s essentially…
Cameron Bertuzzi:
If you’re going to object to a Muslim using those scholars, but then you’re going to turn around and use those scholars in defense of some thesis that you’re trying to… Be consistent. If you don’t like what the scholar is saying, I don’t know, maybe. Okay. So…
Trent Horn:
Now be careful because a scholar is not like I’m going to… Scholars can have arguments I agree with and arguments that I disagree with.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I was just going to say that is to be charitable, probably best to do that.
Trent Horn:
Absolutely. So for example, I disagree with Richard Bauckham when he says Mary was not perpetually Virgin, but I agree with his arguments that the brothers and sisters of the Lord are Jesus’, you call them adoptive siblings, so Jesus was the one who was adopted by Joseph from a previous marriage. And so I cite Bauckham there because, well, he doesn’t have a vested interest in preserving the dogma of the perpetual Virgin Mary. He denies it. But the biblical evidence and historical evidence has led him to a conclusion that at least annuls a common rebutting defeater to the perpetual virginity of Mary, the brothers and sisters of the Lord. And so that’s fair for me to cite while of course acknowledging he doesn’t accept this. But I think when it’s more dismissal of scholars or making a quick hit, look at what this Catholic or look at what this Protestant says, make sure they’re representative of the view that you are you critiquing, is what I think is key there.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Now, do you mind if I switch gears again?
Trent Horn:
As Vin Diesel would say, granny shifting when you should be double clutching. I showed Laura The Fast and the Furious.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Is that from one of the last…
Trent Horn:
Oh, no. That’s from the first one, man.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Oh really?
Trent Horn:
I remember it was 2001. We went, me and my friends went to Peter Piper or sorry, Pizza Hut lunch buffet. And then we walked to Fast and the Furious, and I showed Laura the movie finally. And I said, it’s like Point Break, but with race car drivers. And she says, what’s Point Break? I said, don’t worry about it. I know. So I showed it to her and she thought that was a cool movie. I said, do you want to watch the trailer for the newest Fast and the Furious? I show it to her and they’re in outer space. And I’m like, yeah, that’s what happens. So in any case, yes. Let’s shift gears.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Yeah. So shifting gears and I think this will be the last topic before we close out the interview.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, sure.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Apart from the papacy, what is your favorite argument for Catholicism, apart from the papacy?
Trent Horn:
That’s interesting. Aside from just a particular kind of authority?
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Yeah. I mean, we discussed the authority argument at the very beginning.
Trent Horn:
I would say, well, one of the biggest things that moved me towards Catholicism during my conversion experience was not so much teaching on authority. It was the teaching on salvation, interestingly enough, that for me in my conversion experience, authority was important. I was wondering why do I believe in this Bible in the first place? What ground? What’s the ground called? The grounding objection. What if I would love if someone like James White who critiques Molinism with something like the grounding objection and says, we don’t really need to ground the authority of… The scripture’s ground in itself or whatever.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Or Jesus ground the scripture. He would probably say that.
Trent Horn:
Then there’s a question between ontological and epistemological grounding, would be the issue. So that was important to me, but when I was reading the Bible, I thought, wow, how the Bible views salvation. And for me just reading it and how I took it, the Catholic view makes sense. So this is a process that… Now of course, when you have Protestantism and Catholicism, it’s like there’s a wide gamut of views and Protestantism about how we’re saved.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Yeah, because Jerry Walls. I mean, if you’re going toward the purgatory route, sanctification is a process. He’s a Protestant who completely endorses purgatory.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. Well it would be like this. It’s like when I read the Bible, it’s like imagine you have all these Protestant views, the ones that are closer to Catholicism and it was called Catholicism orthodoxy because the difference here is really authority more than salvation. So we’ll put Catholicism orthodoxy here and then you have these different Protestant views. The more for me reading the Bible, understanding how do I get to heaven? Suddenly the more I read the Bible, it starts eating away at these Protestant denominations. So Protestant denominations that say.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I like this analogy. It’s like Pac-Man.
Trent Horn:
Like the Bible is Pac-Man. And so it’s eating away at… So if I had to… For example, I recently had engagements with Gavin Orland and Jonathan Sheffield. And these are awesome examples of Christian scholars. They are charitable, intelligent, and I’ve had dialogues and debates with both of them. But if I wasn’t Catholic or Orthodox, I’d be way closer to Jonathan Sheffield’s Anglicanism than I would be to Gavin Orland’s Baptist theology. Because reading the Bible, I’m like, no baptism saves me. And because of that, we should baptize infants and then going through a little bit more seeing, oh, I can lose my salvation. I could be saved and then die apart from God. So suddenly Calvinism is getting eaten away by my Pac-Man Bible and it’s getting closer and closer and it’s getting these other things well, how does the Lord’s supper fit into this?
What is the Eucharist for? Where does that come from? Is that necessary for my salvation? And everything starts to be put together of submitting to authority. How does that relate to the view? And so that was favorite for me. I’m like, oh wow. So now it’s not so much Protestantism. It sort of gets whittled down to a particular high church Protestantism, orthodoxy, Catholicism. And then especially with the Eucharist factored in it’s the importance of, I have to keep the 10 commandments, what does it mean to keep a Sabbath? It seems like I have to keep these 10 things, still. Well, what’s important about that? Is it just resting on Sunday or am I supposed to have other obligations to receive our Lord? They mean you don’t have to receive every Sunday but to attend mass. And so that was a big part of it for me, I’m like, oh wow, reading that.
And then reading things like, sorry if I’m yammering on, but I’ll wrap. Reading things like the new perspective on Paul from someone like N.T. Wright. And it’s interesting, I was reading an anthology. This is the view that I don’t know how familiar you are with this theological process.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Not very familiar.
Trent Horn:
So this is a view that was put forward by Protestant scholars N.T. Wright, James Dunn, E.P. Sanders a few decades ago. And it’s this idea of reading Paul saying that look, since the Protestant reformation, Luther, Calvin, and others were reading Paul’s disputes and they were inserting their own disputes with the Catholic church at that time. The idea that Paul was mostly worried about people trying to work their way to heaven. And he was teaching salvation by grace alone. And he was worried about human works to get you to heaven. And the new perspective on Paul people said no Jewish people in the first century did not believe you could work your way to heaven.
They believed you were saved by grace. In fact, you were so graced, it was beyond your control. You were born a Jew. There’s nothing you can do. Now you can do things to be out the covenant and you come back into it, but you’re saved by grace. Rather, it’s the problematic elements. Paul is… Paul’s main argument is not we’re saying you’re saved by faith. You’re trying to work your way to heaven. Paul’s concern is Christ has given salvation to all. You do not have to become a Jew before you become a Christian. That’s his main.
And of course not everyone agrees with everything here. Obviously you still have the old perspective in reform circles, but I was reading in anthology talking about the new perspective. And Paul was a new covenant Jew and understood being in the covenant and out of it. And the anthology said what’s interesting is the new perspective on Paul is very, very close to Catholicism, more so than classical Protestantism. And I have a lot of that in my book, but for me and other people have different views involved. How I get to heaven when I read the Bible and then I start reading the catechism, I don’t know. The pieces start falling together, if that makes sense.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Yeah. So you would just add those necessary conditions for salvation, something that the Bible supports and then that’s just… I mean, if it doesn’t get you all the way to Catholicism, then it at least rules out Baptist tradition and these other lower church traditions.
Trent Horn:
Calvinist traditions.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
So you basically have Anglicanism, Catholicism, orthodoxy.
Trent Horn:
And actually in the 19th century, there was a movement. Cardinal Newman was a part of this at first, before he converted to remote a kind of Anglo Catholicism. It’s like could the one church of the view, the idea was, is the one church of Christ distributed among Catholicism, orthodoxy and Anglicanism? And that is the church of Christ. And I think he was an Anglo Catholic for a while before he eventually saw the importance of the unique authority of the papacy and other Catholic doctrines.
But that was very big in the 19th century. There were many Anglicans who were not, they were very critical of Catholicism, but there was a small group that were called the Anglo Catholics. And so we still have anyway. And so that, it took me in that direction. I thought, wow, this is…So a good resource I would recommend. I can’t remember the title off top of my head, but it’s written by my friend, Michael Barber. It’s called What Every Catholic Needs to Know About Getting to Heaven. Look at Michael Barber Catholic, Get to Heaven. You’ll find it. It’s a great book that distills all of this.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Well, Trent, it’s been awesome. This was a great interview again. I mean, I always feel like I can talk to you for five hours about any Catholic stuff.
Trent Horn:
Same here.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
You know what we should do next time is have a discussion about something unrelated to Catholicism. Something like maybe Causal Finitism, do some real apologetics work together.
Trent Horn:
We could do that. What I would love to do actually, especially with everything happening at Roe v. Wade and everything that’s going on right now, I really believe that Christians should have a robust philosophical game when it comes to defending the pro-life worldview. And a lot of people think that it’s not, it’s a simple issue. But there are pro-choice philosophers out there who really know their stuff. And there’s pro-life philosophers who have put forward arguments against abortion most of your listeners probably haven’t heard of, but they’re utterly fascinating. And that’s what I love too. I love working together. It’s funny, most times that I would have dialogues about being Catholic or Protestant, it was for a pro-life organization I worked for, it was called Justice for All. And I worked for them when I was straight out of college and we were half Catholic, half Protestant, working at the same company.
And it was so fun. We would go out on college campuses and we would dialogue on abortion and we would debate atheists together. Then later we would go back to the host home and eat lasagna and salad because that’s always what a host home serves, lasagna and salad. And there was always three topics that we would debate furiously. Catholic versus Protestant. We were all young college students, Catholic and Protestant, 50/50. We would debate Catholicism versus Protestantism, young earth versus old earth creationism, and what is the best way to date people?
Typical, what do people in their early twenties to talk about a bunch. Now that we’re married to have kids, it’s just like, how do I get this pain out of my back? How do I not go to the chiropractor when picking my kids up? But I remember, but that was so great to… I’ve known a lot of Protestants, actually, their introduction to the Catholic church was actually through the pro-life movement. That they would go. And they were the few Protestants from their church willing to pray in front of an abortion facility. No one else wanted to go. And there was always this 75 year old lady there praying a rosary. And the talks begin. And there’s actually a whole anthology called, I think it’s called Surprised by Life. But it’s about Protestants who became Catholic after involvement in the pro-life movement.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I would be happy to have you on to do, I mean, a dialogue or just an interview on it. I would be happy to do that. So yeah. Anyway. Yeah, it’s been great to have you on. Thank you guys for tuning in and I will see you in the next Capturing Christianity video. See you soon.
Voiceover:
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