Audio only:
In this episode Trent sits down with an Anglican priest and a Calvinist to discuss his thesis that Protestantism’s use of sola scriptura can’t unite believers around essential doctrines.
Welcome to the Council of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Council of Trent podcast. I’m your host Catholic Answers apologist and speaker, Trent Horn. And today I want to share with you a dialogue that I had with two Protestants on the question can Protestants define what the essential beliefs are for Christians? Or can Protestants apply sola scriptura and uniformly arrive at what are the essential versus the non-essential beliefs for Christians? Because when I’ve spoken with Protestants, they’ll say things to me like, “We don’t need an infallible magisterium. We have scripture. By scripture alone, sola scriptura.
Trent Horn:
And while Protestants may differ about secondary doctrines, scripture is clear. Christians can read it. And so Protestants, at least agree on the essential elements of the Christian faith. And I don’t believe that’s the case. I did a whole video showing where Protestants disagree on really important matters of Christian doctrine, essential matters of Christian doctrine. And I would also say that even where they do agree, it’s not because of something that is plain in scripture, like the 27 book canon of the New Testament, but it’s because of something like a shared tradition.
Trent Horn:
So, I talked about that in a previous video. Two Protestants replied to that video and both of them took me up on my offer to have a dialogue. And I’m really grateful both of them did because they come from different Protestant traditions. One, the other Paul, he is kind of a low church, four point Calvinist. And the other, his name is Barely Protestant. His real name is Father James. He’s an Anglican priest. So, I have a four point Calvinist or Calvinist and an Anglican priest. One from a low church tradition, one from more of what you would call a high church tradition.
Trent Horn:
And what’s interesting is that, one, I said to them that both of them were examples of disagreement on important Christian doctrine, number one. And then number two, each of them actually has a different way of answering my question or my concern about whether Protestants can uniformly arrive at essential Christian doctrines and the knowledge of them. And each of them, as you listen to the dialogue, notice that they answer the question in different ways. So those of you who are listening by podcast, by the way, the guy with the Australian accent, he’s Paul. He has the channel Other Paul. He’s the Calvinist. I think he calls himself reformed Anglican charismatic four point Calvinist. So, the guy with the Australian accent that is the low church Calvinist, the other gentleman is the Anglican, high church Anglican. And then of course I’m there.
Trent Horn:
So, I hope that you all enjoy this dialogue and yeah, I definitely want to reach out to more people and continue important dialogues like this because I believe our world would really be a better place if more people could just sit down and talk about their disagreements. Not just theological disagreements, but many other disagreements as well. So, take a listen and yeah, thank you guys so much.
Moderator:
So now we can get right onto it. So, this discussion is going to be on a recent, more or less centered on a recent video. And in that argument presented by Trent Horn on the one question that Protestants allegedly cannot answer or at least not answer uniformly, which I think is, sly comment, interesting change from the beginning of the video to the end of it where they can’t answer uniformly, not just can’t answer it, but we can get to that eventually. So yeah, spawned from that myself and Father James independently gave response videos to that. And at the prompting of Trent Horn had a comment in his video where he’d like to discuss this, we both actually emailed him. Sure enough, he got back. We scheduled this well ahead of time. And now we’re here where Trent Horn will to start with present his case summarily and then individually, myself and Father James will give our own objections. There’ll be back and forth discussion.
Moderator:
Trent Horn will, of course, since this is my channel and there’s two Protestants against one Roman Catholic here, we will allow Trent to have the last word in our discussions. And then ultimately I believe Trent Horn has some questions for us as well. So, that’s the general gist of how it’s going to happen today. And of course, finishing with a Q&A, which, by the way, if you send a super chat or if you are a financial supporter and SubscribeStar, your questions will get priority. And that will probably matter today because there’s going to be a lot of people watching.
Moderator:
And really quickly before I allow Trent to begin, I am going to shout out my current supporters. Thank you very much to everyone here who’s financially supporting me. You help me turn this ministry into something that can actually, well, make it into an income for myself. Something that I can make a living off of and in return myself to give greater quality and greater quantity of content. You can check the link below at SubscribeStar to support. And that will be the end of my plug because I do not want that to drag on. Now, I reckon we could begin. Trent Horn, give us your case, debunk Protestantism.
Trent Horn:
Well-
Father James:
With facts and logic.
Moderator:
Yes, facts and logic.
Trent Horn:
With facts and logic, yes. No, so when I put out my video, this was an observation that I saw. And I think it’s an important one when we’re discussing the issue of authority, who determines what Christians are permitted to believe what they’re obligated to believe. And so I think that’s really the key issue that divides Catholics and Protestants and also Orthodox to some extent, the question of authority.
Trent Horn:
And one refrain that I’ve heard from those who defend sola scriptura, and I would say this is a corollary that it’s another doctrine that follows from sola scriptura, would be what is called the perspicuity of scripture. And that’s the idea that essential doctrines of the faith, whether they’re essential, people cash out what essential means in different ways. Some people might say essential just for salvation or essential as in primary that a person can read scripture. And by scripture alone, they can come to know the essential doctrines of the Christian faith.
Trent Horn:
And this is something we also see, this is something I believe with many modern evangelicals and Protestants believe. We also see it in historic Protestant confessions. And I do appreciate both of your guys’ videos by the way because criticism, feedback’s always helpful because if I go back in time, I probably would’ve added some of these historic creeds in when I was explaining this. So, two that jump out at me… Well, one that definitely, I think, two that jump out at me for perspicuity would be the Westminster Confession of Faith from 1647. And it says, “Those things which are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of scripture or other that not only the learned, but the unlearned in a due use of the ordinary means may attain under sufficient understanding of them.”
Trent Horn:
And I think we also see this in the London Baptist Confession of Faith in 1646, saying that, “The rule of this knowledge, faith and obedience concerning the worship of God in which has contained the whole duty of man is not men’s laws or unwritten traditions, but only the word of God contained in the holy scriptures in which is plainly recorded whatsoever is needful for us to know believe, and practice, which are the only rule of holiness and obedience for all saints at all times in all places to be observed.” So, those would be two examples of Westminster and London Baptist referencing perspicuity of scripture. And I agree. And when Protestants have explained this to me, many will summarize it this way, “The main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things. There might be secondary issues, issues related to young earth, old earth, charismatic gifts, some elements of church governance, complementarianism versus male clergy.” There’s a lot of different issues… Zondervan… Well, some people-
Moderator:
That was me, sorry. Not about you, no. This is something we interact with quite a bit.
Trent Horn:
Well, let me in on the joke at some point. That’ll be fun to hear. And so you go to Zondervan, right? They’ve got the four views, the multiple viewpoint series, four views or five views on X. Some are not essential, but the idea that Protestants have agreement on essential issues. And so my thesis in the video was Protestants do not agree on the essentials of the Christian faith or Protestants cannot answer the question what are the essentials of the Christian faith? Now I’ll give you that a single Protestant can make an answer from his own judgment. So, that’s why even at the beginning of the video, I did qualify with uniformly. The question is when you apply sola scriptura, can you get to answer, okay, these doctrines are essential and these are not? And I don’t think that you can using sola scriptura.
Trent Horn:
For example, showing that a doctrine is taught in scripture or that it’s true, that in and of itself is not enough to show that it’s essential. Because you could show many doctrines are true, but then say, well that’s true or false. It’s true, but it’s not an essential doctrine. The scripture’s not explicit about making this distinction between essential and non-essential. The closest might be maybe when Paul declares anathema that the idea you need to be circumcised to be saved, but otherwise we don’t really have as clear bold affirmations for some doctrines as opposed to others essential or non-essential.
Trent Horn:
And I think this is also evidenced in the disagreement that Protestants have over issues that really are essential to foundation. Some of the examples I gave in the video are… Well, to take one example and I tried to qualify this very carefully. For example, do Protestants agree on baptism? Well, in one sense, nearly all of them, except for the Salvation Army, agree you need to be baptized. So, there is agreement there. They just disagree about the reason for it. But that’s why I narrowed it in the video to say, well, does baptism guarantee infants who die before the age of reason go to heaven? There you will get significant differences. And I do believe that is an essential question.
Trent Horn:
I also think issues related to eternal security, about whether certain denominations are Christian or not. And these are actually the questions I would ask and maybe we can get to it after I’m done here at some point. In order to be a pastor, do you have to be ordained by someone else? Or can you become a pastor on your own initiative? I think that’s a essential issue and Protestants do disagree about that.
Trent Horn:
And so what I noticed in the replies, and so I’ll wrap it up here and then we can go back and forth, the thesis is Protestants cannot uniformly agree on the essentials of the Christian faith. To disprove that thesis, you could redefine Protestant and that’s probably a term we’ll be arguing about. And I noticed that more in Father James’s reply that Protestant here would refer more to historic Protestants. And I agree they’re more unified, but even on the essentials, I think they do disagree on some points. Or you could redefine what the essentials are or bite the bullet. So, that was the point that I put forward and yeah, we can chat.
Moderator:
A hundred percent. Father James, would you like to go first?
Father James:
Yeah, sure thing. So, I think one of the issues I have with the sort of theology of the perspicuity of scripture is that it tends to be almost a wax nose that you can qualify to mean a positively or negatively how you want. That’s why I kind of avoid it. So, the passage I first think of is the one in Acts where you have Philip going to the Ethiopian Munich and says, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” And he goes, “How can I, unless someone teaches it to me?” Also St. Paul talking about how will they hear without a preacher, all that sort of stuff. So, I don’t think the…
Father James:
Let me also preface that with this. Let me say that so you pointed to the London Baptist Confession and the Westminster Confession. And if you did see my video, I think I talked about this a bit. They tend to be sort of outside of the Protestant reformation itself. So, they’re about a hundred years after Protestantism. So, they’re breaking away from Anglicanism. And so it’s hard to call them Protestant strictly speaking, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to sort of play games like that, but I do think it’s important to point it out. I’m trying to not play games. I’m not saying you’re playing games.
Father James:
So, I think that the first perspicuity of scripture is just not well defined enough or can be defined to where it’s appropriate or inappropriate or correct or incorrect. So, that’s one of my first issues. The second one I think is that it is difficult to… When there’s a critique of Protestantism itself, especially looking at sort of particular theologies, like perspicuity of scripture and stuff like that and then applying it to the whole, I think if you take one step back and do the same thing with let’s say Christianity, where we don’t believe there is any inspired text outside of scripture. We all believe in that. And saying, well, therefore there are disagreements within Christendom, therefore Christianity is false or I don’t have a reliable means to know which part of Christianity is true or things like that. And I can anticipate some objections you would give to that. But I think taking that step back shows that I don’t think this is a good approach to addressing Protestantism.
Father James:
I think another part of this also is we do have to have a sharp distinction, I think, between what I would call restorationist descendants, which are the evangelicals today. So, people who come from the Restorationist Movement or from that sort of theology, especially the dispensationalist line and things like that, versus historic Protestants where I would at least put reform Baptists and Presbyterians more within that camp, historic Protestantism. Because you’re pointing to things like ordination, for instance, you can just be a pastor without being ordained. First of all, I’ll say I’ve never heard of that before. Even when I was a fundamentalist Baptist, my dad had to be ordained as a pastor. But I can see that happening in something like a megachurch setting, a non-denom church where it’s like, “I’m just going to start something and I’m led by the holy spirit.” But that is not even… That’s so far removed from Protestantism, it’s hard to call it Protestant.
Father James:
And I think that I’m of two minds with this. On one side, I think, yes, we do need to critique the modern evangelical movement with a lot of its abuses of scripture, abuses of the tradition of the church, and all this sort of stuff. We need to address those issues. And I agree with you wholeheartedly there, but I do think it needs to be made as a distinction from Protestantism. I don’t see them as the same thing. I’m not saying that they’re not Christians or not saved or anything like that, but I do see that there are major issues with tagging them onto Protestantism. Luther would vehemently be opposed to that. The Anglican divines would be very much opposed to this, to sort of the Bapticostal, we call it sometimes, the non-denominational type of Christianity.
Trent Horn:
Okay. So, I had some thoughts on what you raised. I can go through them briefly and then we can go back and forth. I don’t want to lose any of them. So maybe I’ll just… I noticed three things. How should I do this? I’ll briefly mention the three and then we can pick them apart more. And then Paul, you’re more than happy to jump in as well.
Moderator:
No problem.
Trent Horn:
First on the idea of the pastor, I think that even what I mentioned there, the question can be reformulated to even show differences on important issues that go back even to the Protestant reformation. The question of did Christ intend, even if you I’m willing to concede certain non-denoms and others ordain ministers, did Christ intend for there to be a ministerial priesthood? I think that even that, going back to the reformers, you will find significant differences between Anglicans and Luther versus Calvin and Zwingli on that is an important question.
Trent Horn:
The other point you raised, so I think as I noted one can say, “Well, these essentials can be uniformly agreed on in Protestantism if we have a narrow understanding of what the term Protestant means.” And I think that’s the $64,000 question. What is a Protestant? How do we define that term? Because I’m very concerned about what would be called a no true Scotsman fallacy. Well, Protestants believe this, but this Protestant believes it. Ah, but he’s not a true Protestant. So, I’m concerned about that popping up.
Trent Horn:
The other would be this. So, I thought that was a shrewd reply in your video that I agree with you if my argument was Protestants do not agree on essential doctrines, therefore Protestantism is false. I agree that argument can be reformulated against Christianity to say Christians do not agree on essential doctrines. Therefore Christianity is false. But that wasn’t precise of the argument I was making. Rather what I said, I’ll recall in the video, I said that because Protestants cannot agree on essential doctrine, they lack I say it’s like a serious or fatal piece of evidence against them having an adequate authority structure.
Trent Horn:
So, my concern there was if Protestants disagree on essentials, then there is the authority structure is inadequate. So to turn that against Christians to say, well, Christians disagree on essential doctrine. Does that mean they have an inadequate authority structure? Here’s where I would say the analogy breaks down because, and this may get push back, ostensibly Protestants would be using essentially the same authority structure, some derivation of sola scriptura, maybe qualified, but some derivation of it. There’d be a rejection of infallible, sacred tradition or an infallible magisterium. But Christians don’t use the same authority structure, Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox differ. So, you can’t say there is one single authority structure that Christians use that this disunity would count against because they don’t. But if Protestants use essentially a variant of the same authority structure, but they’re not in agreement on essentials, then I think that’s much more problematic. So, I guess I didn’t fly over. I dotted each one a bit, but go ahead.
Father James:
Paul, do you mind if I just respond really quickly to that?
Moderator:
Yeah. Go for it.
Father James:
All right. So, and I think I might have pointed this out in my video as well, but I now let’s, instead of scoping out, let’s narrow it in though instead to Roman Catholicism. And I can point to all the sort of usual people, Father James Martin, Cardinal Marx, et cetera. We can go through the whole list of everything, but it’s not just sort of liberals, but a wide range. I’m not even talking about from liberal to traditional. There’s a wide variety of theology and a lot of them… So for instance, I’ve had people tell me that I am validly ordained as an Anglican who are Roman Catholics, despite apostolic curae. I have told people that I’m not validly ordained. I’ve had people tell me that I’m in mortal sin for not being a Roman Catholic. The list goes on and on both sides and there is a shared structure authority within Roman Catholicism.
Father James:
Now, I don’t think that that means therefore that the structure authority itself is insufficient. I just think that means that therefore people are not adhering to it adequately or properly. And I think that we can look at that on an institutional level as well, not just a sort of local, because we see it to some extent on an institutional level within Roman Catholicism today. And then you can look at the medieval church where you see a lot of corruption and stuff like that. So, we see people who are not adhering to their own standards of authority.
Father James:
And I see that within Protestantism as well. As an Anglican, I am no stranger to the idea of people rejecting the structural authority of the church. There are a lot of issues with an Anglicanism today. I’m not going to shy away from them. But at the end of the day, I’m not saying that scripture is insufficient as… And I’m not saying that, well, they’re all following scripture perfectly. And they’re just not coming to different conclusions. And no, some people are actually violating what scripture says. So, what are your thoughts on that?
Trent Horn:
Yeah. I would say here that when we’re talking about unity and disunity, and this is I think a point both of you raised, and it’s a fair one. I think it’s better to compare creed to creed than opinion to opinion because you’re right if you just did a survey of people who identify as Catholic, it will be completely all over the map. And most of them won’t be up to par. Part of that is just an identification problem. The term Catholic is not as specific a term for many people, as opposed to something. For example, if you ask Christians, what do you believe? Oh, it’s all over the place. But if you use a very specific term like evangelical, Anglican, five point Calvinist, the more specific the term, the more you’re going to get lay people. But lay people just, they’re not theologians. They don’t spend a lot of their time thinking about all this stuff. So, their opinions may be all over the place.
Trent Horn:
Rather, I think when we compare it- but even some of the examples you gave, you take someone like Father Martin, he’s actually quite crafty. I would recommend I have a video on, I think it’s called the slippery tactics of Father James Martin on my channel that I’ve encourage people to watch because even him, in America Magazine and other places, he always articulates the official teaching of the church, but he pushes the envelope in different areas in kind of scandalous ways. Now Cardinal Marx is just off the reservation out to lunch. And there’s always going to be people like that.
Trent Horn:
But I think, for example, if we’re going to make the comparison, the comparison should be all right we have scripture tradition in the magisterium. Let’s compare the Baltimore catechism or that’s going a bit far back. Compare the YOUCAT, local catechisms, local Catholic catechisms, not just the universe one, because there are local Catholic catechisms, and comparing what colleges and bishops teach around the world. And you’ll find a very high degree of uniformity. But if you look at Protestant catechisms, there are significant differences on key and essential issues. So, I don’t think the analogy holds as much.
Father James:
If I really hate to-
Moderator:
[crosstalk 00:23:25]-
Father James:
Oh, sorry, go ahead.
Moderator:
No, you can go, if there’s something really urgent.
Father James:
Very quick point. Just one example that comes right off and I actually really appreciate your debate with that gentleman. I can’t remember his name right now, but just one example of the catechism. The death penalty issue is one example I would look at, but that’s just one I want to point out. Go ahead.
Moderator:
Okay, so I’ll briefly respond as well in saying that there’s one of the big, big issues here is I think we are operating by different ideas of what is actually essential because the way I’ve conceived it is that when we’re talking about essential doctrines, we’re talking about-
Trent Horn:
That’s the other $64,000 [crosstalk 00:24:01]-
Moderator:
Yeah, that’s it. So, what is that, $128,000 questions? And that’s the big problem because I believe that the way I understood it is pretty simple one. Of course debating its actual content is the question itself, but simply that things that which if you don’t believe it, you’re damned. So, that’s how I conceived of it. So if you don’t believe it or if you contravene it, you’re damned. It’s that simple. It is like the bare minimum. Not that’s a good thing to only have the bare minimum, but that if you don’t have any specifics of these things you’re gone.
Moderator:
Whereas Horn, you appear to have a bit wider and a bit looser of a definition of essential where in your video, particularly in, for example, I believe, I want to say, well, pretty much almost all your points where in I think it’s baptism or eternal security. I think it’s eternal security where you say, “Well, you do believe this is a main issue because depending on your answer on that, you’re going to have very different prayer lives, for example, very different conceptions of theology and all that.” To which, but then me, myself and many other Protestants, even if we disagree on eternal security like myself, for example, an Arminian or a Molinist or whatever. That even if we do disagree on that, and I do actually grant, this is actually a really good thing with your video. I do grant that so many Protestants do underplay just how serious these problems are, these issues are.
Moderator:
And so I actively try to contravene that when I see it to simply say secondary is to really not do justice to the severity of these issues. But because of that, you make it a main issue where our different beliefs on baptism or whatever, it’s a main issue because of how seriously, or eternal security, because of how seriously it affects our church lives and our theologies. But even then myself and many other various kinds of Protestants who starkly disagree with the issue of eternal security, we would nonetheless still say, you’re my brother in Christ. And so simply not bullying in eternal security in that conception, wouldn’t be a main issue.
Moderator:
So, that was an issue I had with your video where you had this wider definition. And because of that wider definition that essentially appears to be, it has a significant material, visible impact on one’s devotional life, on one’s Christian life, and even who you commune with. Then I can very easily point out to that… I can easily, well, you didn’t mention commune with, but that would be a big consequence of that. I can very easily point to because most of my friends, IRL probably one or two of them are in the chat right now, are Roman Catholic. And they’re very traditional ones at that. And barely a week goes by when I hear them discuss whether other Catholics they know or Catholics in general about serious disagreements on issues that the magisterium may or may not have actually defined on.
Moderator:
And depending on where they land on those issues, it has significant, huge impact on their church life. Just the basic one for example, is the novice order, not whether it’s necessarily valid or not, but whether it’s fitting. And so depending on your view on that issue, you’ll get people flocking over to the local TLM parish or over to just whatever place does the novice order. And that can have a serious effect on prayer and on prayer life and devotional life, communion life, all that stuff. So that’s one issue I came with your video, your definition of a main issue.
Trent Horn:
Okay. And I think that that’s interesting here when it comes to trying to make a distinction between what beliefs are essential and I guess essential to the Christian faith versus what are the bare minimum number beliefs one must have to be a Christian? Which is another point where I’ve seen, I think this is serious disagreement about which beliefs must one hold to be a Christian and what beliefs would disqualify someone from being a Christian? So for example, I had a personal conversation with James White after our debate in 2017 at the G3 conference. We debated eternal security. And if you’re watching, hi James. And so… I don’t think-
Moderator:
[crosstalk 00:28:22].
Trent Horn:
I’m sure he’ll… Hopefully he remembers this conversation. I’m sure he still feels the same way. If he doesn’t feel this way, he can correct me on the dividing line. But I asked him, and this is one of the examples I use in the video. I said, “What about someone like William Lane Craig? He’s a monotheolite. Would you say that he’s a Christian, even though he doesn’t affirm the conciliar Christology, whereas you say Catholics are not Christians?” And he said, “Well, the difference is Craig, doesn’t try to add anything and Catholics add things.”
Trent Horn:
And so now I don’t find that… It’s a way to try to say Craig is still Christian, but Catholics have a problem though. I think the there’s a point where you… Jehovah’s witnesses don’t add anything necessarily. They take important things away from who Jesus is. So, I think eventually once you subtract your Christology enough, you’re not Christian anymore, which is another point I brought up in the video. But let me circle back because I see what you’re saying with the eternal security because it’s kind of like the baptism. Do we need to be baptized? Well, basically all Christians believe yes, just for different reasons. So that’s not as essential. So I might need to qualify it a bit more. Let’s say one person believes in eternal security and the other does not. And Paul, let me make sure I understand your theological background. Are you reformed or Calvinist? Right?
Moderator:
Yeah. I describe myself as charismatic, reformed Anglican. So the most oxymoronic set of words you can come up with.
Trent Horn:
Would you subscribe to the traditional articulation of Calvinism with TULIP?
Moderator:
With TULIP? Mostly except I’m mostly questioning limited atonement right now. So I’m more-
Father James:
[crosstalk 00:30:01].
Moderator:
I’m less of a TULIP and more of a TUIP.
PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:30:04]
Father James:
… Right now. So I’m more of a-
Trent Horn:
[inaudible 00:30:01].
Father James:
I’m less of a tulip and more of a twig.
Trent Horn:
A four-point. What we sometimes call it, right?
Father James:
Amyraldian.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, Amyraldian.
Father James:
Four-point, more or less, yeah.
Trent Horn:
Four-point Calvinist. Because you affirm eternal security, but Father James, I would say, you probably do not as Anglican. [inaudible 00:30:21].
Father James:
Within the Augustinian sense, I could. So, the distinction between regeneration and election, so there are people who are genuinely regenerate who are not necessarily elect. But those who are elect, are going to persevere to the end. So, I could qualify to say where I do believe in internal security for the elect, but I wouldn’t say that because you’re regenerate, you’re therefore elect.
Trent Horn:
Right. Yeah, the question is… Because I could even say those who are elected to final salvation will persevere, but that’s almost a tautology. That I believe some people can be elected to initial salvation, but not to final salvation.
Father James:
Yeah, I would just call that regeneration. Yeah.
Trent Horn:
Okay. But in any case, let’s say eternal security, someone believes in it, another person doesn’t, the problem is you don’t know if you are one of the elect, so you’re going to still strive to live the moral life and others will… The same as someone who thinks they can lose their salvation. So, even though the theology differs, the actions are very similar in that regard. So, I think the point is taken, but I think there is another popular branch, and I haven’t done a survey to see how popular it is, but I’ve been told it’s not insignificant, of another variant of eternal security that would be called once saved, always saved, and that would be people like Charles Stanley, Robert Wilkins, people of faithalone.org. There, I think it’s really essential. And now if that is widely believed, and I don’t know, it seems…
Trent Horn:
I’ve had Baptist friends that say they’ve seen it quite often. The belief there is no action of yours could nullify your salvation, whereas eternal security people might say, “Well, you become an apostate, it just means you were never saved to begin with.” Stanley would say, “Even apostates will be saved,” and that incorrect belief, if you don’t get that essential point right, that really affects your salvation. So, I might just have to tweak eternal security. Maybe once saved, always saved is a better example.
Father James:
Actually, that’s what I grew up within, with the once saved, always saved, very unabashedly. In fact, I remember hearing pastors growing up who would say that, “If you say the Sinner’s Prayer and you actually mean it, bless God, you could go tomorrow and kill a bunch of people and you die and that, and you still go to heaven.” That was the theology I grew up with, and I find that to be actually incredibly detrimental to the faith and heresy, I would consider it heresy.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. And so my concern is, if it is even a sizable portion, I think that’s an essential thing where Protestants disagree.
Father James:
And again, this would go to where I’m talking about the historic evangelical versus… Because this once saved, always saved, it’s not at all historic within Protestantism. I don’t know a single… This is not a Calvin thing, a Zwingli thing, a Luther thing, a Cranmer thing, [inaudible 00:33:15] or any of them. It’s not even from the Reformed Baptists or the Westminster Confession, Presbyterians or anything like that, this is from post-restorationist, 19th century and onward revivalistic theology, which is a perversion of… For instance, faith alone. The idea being that, well, if it’s faith alone, well, then that means if you sin or if you lose your salvation, you lost it because of work or something like that, and therefore it’s workspace salvation [inaudible 00:33:43].
Trent Horn:
But even at the time of the reformation, you had antinomians, you had people who were advocating for this.
Father James:
Well, yeah, and it was roundly rejected. Luther preaches against it, the Anglican Divines preach against it. And that’s one other thing. So there are, for instance, outliers within Protestantism where you’ve got the anti-Baptists and stuff like that. Other than the anti-Baptists, everyone agrees on infant baptism.
Trent Horn:
The least among historic Protestants.
Father James:
Well, I’m saying within the Protestant reformation, yeah. [inaudible 00:34:13].
Trent Horn:
Yeah. And I think this is going to be a problem, and maybe either of you can help me with this, you could take a stab at it to see, but what does it mean to be Protestant? I just don’t know how legitimate it is to say, “Well, we should…” Because I think even in your video, Father, when I brought up the example of Craig, you basically said, “Well, he’s not a Protestant, he’s Baptist,” and I’m sure Craig would hardly disagree with that assessment. And so I just wonder how legitimate of a move that is, especially given in North America that Evangelicals outnumber mainline Protestants two to one.
Trent Horn:
And Gavin Ortlund brought this up to me too in my dialogue I had with him on baptism. He said, “I think Catholics seem to really look at the historic creeds when they’re critiquing Protestantism.” And I agree that’s important, and I do do that in my book, Case for Catholicism, but my experience is many, if not most Protestants, don’t conform to historic confessions. So, I think that including them in the umbrella of what Protestantism is a fair thing to do.
Father James:
So, I think the issue I have is that… And please don’t take this as me saying that you’re being dishonest or anything like that, from this side of the aisle, it comes across as trying to pick the low hanging fruit as a critique against the more mature, more thought out, well thought out positions. And I see this… And again, this is not a critique or criticism of Cameron Bertuzzi, but I see, during his just struggling and theology concerning looking at Roman Catholicism and all that, he has a very, it seems at least, it comes across this way, as a dichotomous mind of you’re either Catholic, and by that he means Roman Catholic, or you’re Protestant, and by Protestant, it’s megachurch evangelical. And you’ll see this in various times where he’ll have talks about the Eucharist, and he’ll talk about how like, “Okay, so Protestants believe it’s just a symbol and Catholics believe it’s the real thing.” And it’s like, “No, that’s not even slightly true.” And so when I’m being-
Trent Horn:
[inaudible 00:36:30] would have a field day.
Father James:
And as an Anglican, I would have a field day. Even a Calvinist [inaudible 00:36:35] I would say. And so that then affects me where I’m being approached, because I get this all the time. Roman Catholics online, come on to my comments pages and will say, “Oh, you guys… You guys…”
Moderator:
Me too. Especially this one individual who shall not be named.
Father James:
Oh, I’ve had to block quite a few. And don’t get me wrong, this is a problem with all sides so it’s not unique for Roman Catholics. But it happens a lot, and it’s this horrible misrepresentations of Protestantism. And I guess I’ve said what I’ve said, but it just comes across as, can we make that distinction? Can we understand that this is so far removed from what historic Protestantism is? Yeah.
Trent Horn:
But I guess what’s hard for me though is, what if it’s the case that historic Protestantism in using sola scriptura as a mechanism to create their own creeds and confessionals distinct from Catholicism, essentially opened Pandora’s box, and this is the natural outflowing that, yeah, maybe they were more constrained because they have more of an affinity for customs and traditions within Catholicism, but that’s more of a historical contingency. The mechanism they use for authority, this is its natural consequence you see with evangelicals and others.
Father James:
I don’t think it’s the natural consequence and for one reason, particularly. The confessional standards, whether it’s the Heidelberg Catechism and Belgic Confession or the Book of Concord or the Anglican Formularies, all stress the importance of authority within the church. And the-
Trent Horn:
Right, but these are the same people who would say, “We can safely disregard the authority of ecumenical councils after Second Nicaea until today.” So, if that’s where you have and you can disregard that authority, it seems like it would happen to the Heidelberg Confessions if you saw that same attitude, right?
Father James:
I find it difficult to call anything past the Seventh Ecumenical Council ecumenical though, especially given that we have the splitting of the church between east and west. So, it’s hard to call it ecumenical. I would even say it’s difficult to call anything past, say, the Fourth Ecumenical Council as ecumenical because you have the Oriental Orthodox you believe. And that’s not just a few random bishops, we’re talking about the patriarch of Alexandria. That’s a pretty big thing. So, I think that the widest I’ll give is the seven ecumenical counsels, but I would say even the Fourth and the Fourth still has to be agreed upon.
Trent Horn:
Ethicist?
Father James:
Yes.
Trent Horn:
So, you wouldn’t even say that Chalcedon should be binding?
Father James:
No, no, I agree with Chalcedon. I agree with Chalcedon.
Trent Horn:
I’m sure you do. Yeah.
Father James:
Yeah, of course. Yeah. No, no. And I think it should be binding. I think that as much as I love the Oriental Orthodox, and Anglicans and Oriental Orthodox have a very strong relationship with each other, especially within Egypt, but I would like for them to repent of their mythicism. And I think, again, given the conversations, we’ve realized that there have been some philosophical differences and it can be rectified a bit and all that sort of stuff, but we have to come to an agreement upon the Fourth Ecumenical Council, I think ultimately.
Trent Horn:
So, would you say then that [inaudible 00:40:05]… Because I mentioned how each of you would define the term. Father, you would say… Are you really saying there are historic Protestants and contemporary Protestants or Protestantism just is those communities that were born directly from the reformation? And the evangelicals we have today, that is something else entirely?
Father James:
I think Protestant itself can be a bit of a problematic term because it’s not so well defined. So, it becomes like that wax nose again, where it’s whatever I want it to be, whether I want to phrase it or critique it, and that’s where a lot of the issues come. So for me, I don’t want to critique, say… The Eastern Orthodox, they have differences amongst themselves, and so I want to try to deal with particular issues within, say, ROCOR, for instance. ROCOR is going to be very different from the Greek Orthodox. I’ve got a good friend who’s a ROCOR priest. Very different theology from my Greek Orthodox and Antiochian Orthodox friends. So, I want to try to deal with them more on that individual level, at the very least on a confessional level.
Father James:
And… Excuse me. There isn’t a Protestant confession. There were attempts to make a Protestant confession and it failed, and I wish that actually did go through where we could have a more unified group. But I think that dealing with the issues of confession by confession, or if you want to deal with the tangle mess of evangelicalism, you can deal with it on that level, but I would say as evangelicals, I think that’s the better approach to critiquing Protestantism, if that makes sense.
Trent Horn:
Okay. I guess a question popped in my head more for Paul because you brought up a good point about… So both of us, and maybe you can have a stab at this too, what is a Protestant? And then essential… And I see that there is an intuitive plausibility of, essential doctrines are just those you need to get to heaven. I see a high amount of pragmatic value.
Moderator:
To put it crudely, yeah.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. But I understand. That’s the big question that we ask, we need to figure out. Though there could be things where you could justify them being essential where they are proximate to that question, or they’re more remote. Let’s take the belief that divine revelation ended in the first century, would you say that’s an essential belief for Christians to hold?
Moderator:
If someone claimed there was some authoritative word from God after the Apostolic Age, for example, I’d give them a really weird look for one, or at least a public binding revelation, because again, charismatic are more for that prophecy. Shout-out to my charismatic and Pentecostal friends in the chat. But if they claim that there was a public revelation [inaudible 00:43:07] binding-
Trent Horn:
Public revelation. Public.
Moderator:
That’s it, yeah, yeah. Public binding revelation after the times of the apostles and perhaps it came into new documents that were then call scripture, I would at minimum give them a very weird look and also be very concerned depending on what is taught in those things. And very likely, if not almost certainly, not be able to commune with them in local communion, but otherwise I could nonetheless say… Well again, it depends on what’s the new revelation. If it’s nothing that otherwise contravenes what is already established in the apostles, I could say, “Oh, okay yeah, I consider you a brother, but you can just stay over there, please. Just keep over there to your little corner.”
Moderator:
So yeah. And so in that sense, in that stricter sense, I wouldn’t say no… In the very strictest sense, I would say, “No, that’s not per se essential to the Christian faith, but it is one of those things that are very so proximate to it, that to deny it, will at minimum, put you into very dangerous waters, and in light of that, the practical effect would be that very often it may lead you to believe in things which are contravening to the essence of the faith.”
Trent Horn:
Yeah. And that’s an interesting one. Now, the belief that divine revelation ended, public divine revelation, leaving aside some charismatics that go too far, and also a belief in the 27 book canon of the new Testament, those are ones where I actually do think there is pretty standard uniformity across Protestantism. But I question about whether that was arrived there through something like sola scriptura, through a model some will propose well. Scripture has this intrinsic capacity for people to understand that it’s inspired, like what Michael Kruger argues. I’m more inclined that a lot of this comes from a shared tradition, essentially.
Father James:
I don’t disagree with that. Sorry, if I could real quick?
Moderator:
Yeah, go quickly, I want to give my next argument after this as well.
Trent Horn:
Sure.
Father James:
So, really quickly. You talked about before how there’s the material sufficiency of scripture versus partim-partim and both are acceptable within the Roman Catholic tradition. So, why can I not as a Protestant latch onto the material sufficiency part that already is acceptable within the Roman Catholic tradition? To exclude the possibility of the material sufficiency when your own magisterium allows for that position, seems a little odd, if that makes sense.
Trent Horn:
So, are you talking about in reference to the canon?
Father James:
Things like the canon or the closing of scripture and all that sort of stuff, yeah.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, I see. And that’s funny, this question was also asked when I was chatting… Who was I chatting with? I think I was chatting with Steve and Jeff. Steve Christie and Jeff.
Moderator:
Those gents are in the chat. Shout out to those legends.
Trent Horn:
Of course. Good men. Have had fun chats with them as well. I’m sure they’ll have all kinds of great questions for me. Before I chatted with them, I watched a clip of you talking about this particular… You or Paul talking about this particular argument. And I think two replies would be the distinction, of course, just because there is material sufficiency, doesn’t follow that there’s formal just because something is there. And I think those doctrines, if they are in scripture, they are extremely implicit in it, so I don’t think they could be accessed without a tradition to go along with them. And those are the particular doctrines that also make me skeptical of material sufficiency. I haven’t fully resolved my own views on this question, but I’m open to the partim-partim view of the sufficiency of scripture precisely because of these doctrines.
Father James:
If I could sort of clarify my point, was that regardless of your own personal incredulity about-
Trent Horn:
Because it’s a permitted view.
Father James:
Exactly. Yeah.
Moderator:
Yeah. So, you are permitted to either view partim-partim, material sufficiency, and yet for you that doesn’t break the idea that the Roman Catholic church is united.
Father James:
Oh no, I’m not even saying that necessarily. No, no, no.
Trent Horn:
I think he’s talking about knowledge of the cannon and these other things or cessation of divine revelation, because the church would allow you to believe they are implicitly in scripture.
Father James:
Right, right, right. Yeah.
Moderator:
Right, exactly.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s the difference between there being enough lumber to build a house and you having the capacity to put the lumber together, the old saw between material and formal.
Moderator:
Yep. Yep. Okay. There you go. There you go. So, something good that comes up from this, it beautifully segues to probably my main argument in the chat. Because I believe Father James is more so… Ironically, I’m normally the history guy on my channel, but otherwise Father James is more focused on historical issues than that. And I was a bit as well, but I was particularly focused on the logic and the categories used in Trent’s argument, and this is probably, if not the main argument, at least one of two main arguments. Another one may come up a bit later. But that is the definitions of what we’re talking about, of Protestantism versus Roman Catholicism.
Moderator:
Now, I believe whatever definition of Protestantism you go by, and for me that would be a fairly simple one, so if you consciously affirm sola fide, sola scriptura and you actually try to pursue those, then you are a Protestant. Of course, different conceptions of that across the pan-Protestant plane, but nonetheless, there is a core concept behind that. And you can say that the same with every tradition, that there’s core concepts and yet there’s different articulations in various sub-traditions.
Trent Horn:
So, under that view, both James White and N.T. Wright, would be Protestants?
Moderator:
Well, does N.T. Wright [inaudible 00:48:57] sola scriptura and sola fide? I’m not sure. I haven’t looked deep into him. But.
Father James:
He does. He does.
Moderator:
He does. In that case, then yeah, he would. Even though his new perspective is more like the cringe perspective, but either way.
Father James:
Your face is the cringe perspective. Oh.
Moderator:
Your mom’s cringe.
Trent Horn:
Guys, it’s not a St. Unity here. This is not good for your case, people.
Moderator:
Hey. Hey, we can insult each other’s mums, but we’re still like, “Hey bro, you coming to church tomorrow?” “Yeah, sure.”
Trent Horn:
This happens among Catholics as well. So, go on.
Moderator:
Oh yeah. Don’t worry, Trent, if you want to bring that up, I can talk about 12 disputes with my Catholic friends. But yeah, so the main issue with that is… However you define it, the issue is that, as I said it in my video, that you’re not even comparing… When you’re comparing Roman Catholicism with Protestantism, whatever definition of Protestantism you come up, you’re not even comparing apples with oranges, you’re comparing apples with circuit boards because Roman Catholicism, it is a set singular administrative, well, church body and it has, well, at least a set core of theology, a very, very particular and articulated one. And there’s diversity in various extra traditions and all that, but they all ultimately set themselves in that otherwise very in-depth core as defined by ex cathedra of statements or the ecumenical councils, which is a lot more on Roman Catholicism for people who don’t know. And so with that, you have a full-bodied system that calls itself the church.
Moderator:
Whereas with Protestantism, that is not really an active attempt at a church body, but rather a passively received description that defines multiple consciously independent Christian bodies by these basic concepts that they all hold to. And so to say that Protestants can’t reliably come to unity on these certain questions, it doesn’t really touch anything significant because… Again, with the exception of those events that Father James refers to of trying to get to a pan-Protestant church. We’re not pretending that we’re going to come to unity on even all serious issues because we’re Anglicans, for example, and then there’s other guys, Lutherans. We’re not pretending, we’re not coming to the pretense that we’ll agree on all these major issues.
Moderator:
And because we do acknowledge that we are administratively independent, we have distinct creeds and all that stuff, which yes, there’s a ton. Probably 99% overlap with it, but otherwise those little bits that do disagree are nonetheless significant. But the point is we’re not even trying to come to the same strict type of unity as Roman Catholicism because there isn’t, in the same sense as there’s a Roman Catholic, there isn’t a Protestant, if that makes sense. No, one’s a member of the Protestant church, if that makes sense. Someone is a member of, well, the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, the official title for you, and so you could be a Roman Catholic, Eastern Catholic, or all that jazz. But no one’s a member of the Protestant Church because there is not a Protestant Church, there is the Anglican… Well again, various varieties, ironically. The Church of England or myself, Sydney Anglicans or whatever Lutheran denomination you are. Hopefully not ECLA.
Moderator:
But point is, we’re not trying to come to that same strict level of unity, Roman Catholics. It’s just, at least with most of us within those different denominations, we nonetheless recognize that we could have serious disagreement on these issues and yet not anathematize each other. I think that’s a pretty simple claim, and if we don’t import the assumptions as would be if you’re trying to get to a body comparable to Roman Catholicism, I don’t think there’s an issue. So, I wonder what your take is on that.
Trent Horn:
Yes. So, my thesis was that Protestants do not uniformly agree on the essentials of the Christian faith. I think Father James, his concern was more with the understanding of what is meant by the term Protestant, that if we qualify it like with historic Protestantism, then we do actually find a lot of essentials that grow out of reformation creeds and confessions and things like that. Whereas, the perspective, Paul, that you’re taking is a little different. I think you would almost essentially affirm my thesis, but just say it’s not a problem because as long as we are united in the mechanisms of sola scriptura and sola fide, there’s going to be disagreement, but we wouldn’t expect there to be agreement in this loose confederacy of different churches and things like that.
Trent Horn:
So, I’m not so sure. Because you raised the question… So, we disagree on these issues, but they’re still a brother in Christ. Let’s say they’re credo versus pedobaptist. Still my brother in Christ, I’m not going to anathematize someone. What about Protestants who affirm sola scriptura and solo fide, but believe homosexual conduct is not sinful, would you have the same attitude towards them?
Moderator:
I’d say that they are at least in that very loose definition, Protestant, but otherwise they believe a view that is damnable, which is a discussion of its own right. But this is where the second part of my argument is. I should have put it in one thing. But this is where the second part of my argument comes in where, if we want to have a fair comparison, you would compare Roman Catholicism with another full-orbed Christian body that’s a set body, has its own fully developed theology and thus have a comparison between them, because we grant that, in these strictest sense, no one just uses sola scriptura. The strictest sense of that is solo scriptura, which is just, as the popular phrase would go, me and my Bible under a tree, all that jazz. Father James, you look really urgent with that.
Father James:
Yeah. So, this goes to actually my deeper issue is that it seems like what you’re saying is when it comes to the Roman communion, those under the papacy… And you’ll notice I’m not calling you guys Catholic. I don’t know if you understand, if I’ve explained that before. I [inaudible 00:55:01].
Trent Horn:
I understand the term. I understand this goes back to Anglo Catholicism and-
Father James:
To Protestant reformation itself.
Trent Horn:
Well, right, yeah. The term Catholic. Little C, big C.
Father James:
Oh no, not quite that. Just that we would consider ourselves fully Catholic and that we wouldn’t just call you Catholic because to be Catholic is to be part of the full church, and while you are a part of that, that doesn’t mean that we are not also part of that. But the point being that you would say that even if there’s diversity or even heresy within higher ups or even with Pope Francis himself on theology, the magisterium is consistent, the scriptures are consistent, and the infallible statements of the papacy are consistent with each other. You would say all that, right? So, on paper they’re still all Orthodox and consistent, correct?
Trent Horn:
Well, yeah. You could always find a bishop or clergy, right, who does teach in variance, but when you have the ordinary and universal magisterium, you do have continuity of time.
Father James:
Okay. So, likewise within the Protestant reformation, we have say a confessional standard here, like the Anglican Formularies or the Book of Concord or whatever, and they would say, “Well, regardless of what other people are saying, we’re being consistent with the standards of the scripture. The scriptures are the only infallible standard on paper of what we have.” So my point is, we’re looking at our infallible structures and there’s no internal consistency. You’re arguing for yours and I’m arguing for mine. Why is that not enough? It seems that if you’re going to point to the fallible sections on the Protestant side, why can’t I point to the fallible sections on the Roman side and say, “Well, the fallible sections are inconsistent with the infallible part or with each other, therefore…” Does that make sense?
Trent Horn:
Yeah. I hear some of these things about… Now, I think your argument could have some weight with definite schismatic bodies like the old Catholic church, for example, that rejected Vatican I. But otherwise some of these other things like with Pope Francis, I don’t think Pope Francis said anything, heretical. He said things that are challenging and odd, which is a subject for an entire other discussion. But the objection seems to be, how do I make a fair comparison? Catholicism, you can attain this doctrinal unity amongst bishops, colleges of bishops, catechisms, things like that, you’ll have a few outliers here or there. And you ought to compare denomination to denomination. I just don’t believe I’m necessarily under that responsibility, it just so happens that the method that I would compare of scripture, tradition and magisterium, happens to be contained within one denomination, Catholicism.
Trent Horn:
But within Protestantism, it’s not like the different denominations use radically different authority structures, they use the same application of sola scriptura sometimes complimented with a fallible tradition associated with it. But it’s still really the same authority structure permeated over them, so I still think the umbrella criticism can be leveled at the disunity if it’s the same method that’s being used.
Moderator:
And that’s where the rest of my second half of my argument would come in, because that’s one way to make… Well, I believe, one way to make your argument fair in terms of comparing things that are of the same category denomination to denomination. But the other way you could do it, if you wanted to compare Protestantism as a concept where it’s a collection of different groups that are nonetheless trying to follow the same method, for example, sola scriptura, and if you wanted to fairly compare that, then I would say, as is in my video, you compare that with something I just coined just then called ecclesialism, where we take the collective of the church bodies, like Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, and even the other splinter groups like the old Catholics and all these various other groups who do accept that same method of scripture, the magisterium and sacred tradition, and particularly with Roman Catholicism and Eastern orthodoxy, you can point to the same instance of that, like the first Millennium Church you both lay claim to that.
Moderator:
And so that would be another way to fairly compare Protestantism because it’s a passive term that collectivizes numerous individual groups that nonetheless try to follow the same authority, and to do a fair comparison, you do likewise where you collectivize the churches that also claim to follow the same-
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [01:00:04]
Moderator:
You collectivize the churches that also claim to follow the same authority of at least the first millennium church, if not the first half millennium of the church, sacred tradition, magisterium, and scripture altogether. But then the problem is once you do that fairer comparison, you would find, well, hang on. How big are the disagreements between Rome, between Orthodoxy, the sedevacantists, the Oriental Orthodox, if we want to include them, who supposedly follow otherwise the same method. So then the problem’s actually reflected right back when we try to compare a comparable category to Protestantism.
Trent Horn:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think my reply to that, I guess twofold. Number one, even if I were to grant the two different methods, one would be scripturalism and the other ecclesialism. We’d have to cash those two out. Even if you did that, I think if you compare groups that are traditionally identified as Protestant, which are groups that are Christian but are not Catholic or Orthodox, and you look at their doctrines, there is far, far more dissimilarity among those groups than you will find between Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, sedevacantists, old Catholic Church, that even there among the, we could call them these absol Christians, ecclesialism, you’ll still have extremely similar soteriology, sacramental theology. The biggest differences between those groups tend to relate to ecclesiology, and in particular, the role of patriarchs and the role of the Bishop of Rome. But I think there there’s still far more unity among those groups you could put under ecclesialism than what we placed under scripturalism.
Trent Horn:
But then I would also say that I don’t think that’s a fair… I think Catholicism is very distinct from these other groups, and there really are three interpretive methods, Sola Scriptura, scripture and sacred tradition without a living magisterium or at least not a universal one because there is no universal one in Orthodoxy, and scripture tradition and a universal magisterium. That, to me, if we were really doing the comparison, those are the three methods to compare. But even if you collapsed the two and three, I still think they’re pretty similar. This-
Moderator:
I take issue with saying there’s no Orthodox universal magisterium, but I’ll let Father James go first.
Father James:
Yeah. So I think this is an important part for me. So when I was in college, I was studying sort of every tradition possible and that includes Roman Catholicism. I was trying to decide what should I become? Should I, Eastern Orthodox, whatever, all these sorts of things. The problem I had with the Roman Catholics is that of the papacy itself. I didn’t find the theology espoused, especially by Vatican I, to be biblical. I didn’t find it to be historical. The only argument that people were making that even had any sort of semblance of validity for me was that it was at least practical. But looking at it today and looking more at church history, I don’t see the papacy as practical. If you look at what has divided the church the most, I would say probably the papacy has divided the church more than anything else.
Father James:
So for me, I don’t see it as scripturally defensible. I’m not saying that no defense can be made of the papacy. I’m talking specifically when it comes to something as specific as Vatican I, I don’t see as biblical or historical or even practical. So what it comes down to at the end of the day is there’s at least agreement on paper, and getting back to what I was saying earlier, as Protestants, we already have that where there’s at least agreements on paper, which is scripture itself. So what does the papacy add to that? Because I don’t [inaudible 01:03:53]
Trent Horn:
Wait, wait. I’m sorry. The agreement is just the Bible or are you talking about the historic piece?
Father James:
Yes. Yeah. Well, the Bible itself because that’s the only thing that we would say is infallible, right?
Trent Horn:
Mm-hmm.
Father James:
So there’s at least this on paper that is infallible, whereas you would say, “Well, even when practically it doesn’t work out, the papacy, at least on paper, it works out to where even if no one’s believing it, you have to at least believe this thing.” I go, “Well, I already have that as a process.” So I don’t see it as biblical. I don’t see it, the papacy, as biblical, historical, or practical.
Trent Horn:
And I do. It’s like, where do you go with an objection like that?
Father James:
So I guess my point being that it goes to your objection because you’re saying, “Well, Protestantism doesn’t have agreements,” and I go, “Well, again,” and hopefully we’re not going in circles too much, but like, I go, “Roman Catholicism doesn’t either.” Their agreement is on paper, but my agreement is on paper, too. So why can’t I say that?
Trent Horn:
Well, I don’t think that is a fair comparison to take, to say the source of Protestant beliefs is not contradictory. That’s the same as saying scripture is inerrant, and then to say, “We have this agreement as much as you Catholics say you do.” My point was an empirical one that you can take by comparing the different beliefs of the 24 Catholic churches that are spread throughout the world across time and place, things like that. I don’t think that that’s the same comparison, but I don’t want to rush us too much, but I didn’t know if we were going to go to questions because I didn’t know when I have to head back soon.
Father James:
Oh, okay, do you-
Trent Horn:
I apologize. I didn’t mean to cut it. I don’t mean to cut anything short or anything like that.
Moderator:
Yeah, no problem. Do you have a time limit or-
Trent Horn:
I could probably go for another 20 minutes or so until 9:00.
Moderator:
Wow. Okay. This went really fast. [inaudible 01:05:45]
Trent Horn:
Or 30 minutes. 20 or 30?
Moderator:
Yeah.
Trent Horn:
Yeah.
Moderator:
Not going to a lie, there’s maybe because like we’ve only touched like half of what we talked about. I don’t know if you guys would be keen for a part two, some point or?
Trent Horn:
Yeah.
Father James:
[inaudible 01:05:56]
Trent Horn:
I probably should have been clearer before. I don’t know. Another 20, 30 minutes would be fine. I just didn’t mean to put off any because I knew you wanted to go to questions and stuff like that.
Moderator:
Yeah, no, no. No problem. No problem. I’ll say one more thing and-
Trent Horn:
But I can be flexible. I’ll let you guys coalesce your thoughts together for sure.
Moderator:
Yeah. I’ll coalesce. Okay. So me and Father James, we can coalesce our last thoughts and then Trent, you can have the final say and then we can move on to questions. Is that cool?
Trent Horn:
Yeah, that’s fine.
Father James:
Yep.
Moderator:
All right. Awesome. So I’ll finish up with mine. So my final thing with that is, so to say to try to disjunct the authority of Orthodoxy from Roman Catholicism, to say they’re therefore not really comparable. Well, that’s partially why I appealed specifically to the whatchamacallit, the first millennium church, where you do have, at least claimed, the exact same authority. You both claim the authority of the magisterium of the first millennium church, of the tradition and the understanding of scripture of the first millennium church. But also that even after that, there are many Orthodox who would nonetheless say that the pan-Orthodox synods are an authoritative and thus, in that sense, universal type of magisterium. So I would say at least with that, that they are very much comparable, but then even if you were to say, “Well, there’s a disjunction because if you go into more specifics, then you see that they’re different. So therefore you can’t really compare them.”
Moderator:
Well, you can almost do that with Sola Scriptura as well if we’re going to do that consistently. Like, you’ll see, for example, those who will just say, for example, “Oh, this scripture means whatever the spirit leads me or whoever to say what it means.” Whereas you’d get more historically-minded people like myself would say, “Well, no, the meaning of scripture is restricted to,” well, not restricted, I guess, but more defined and cut off by what it says in its original language, its history. So there is a much more narrow set of allowed interpretations.
Moderator:
So if we try to differentiate systems by going into more specifics in order to say, “Oh, therefore you can’t compare me to them and say that there’s this unity because we have a different thing.” Well, we could do the exact same with those who hold the Sola Scriptura because as we all see, there’s people who have different conceptions of that. So I think there it’s still nonetheless a strong case that if you consider the differences in Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, that they are very big. There are very big differences. Even if you do have great agreement on certain issues, I’ll grant that. I could even grant that on a numerical level, that maybe, and I haven’t studied that, and I don’t think we’d have time to argue that here, I could even grant that on a numerical level, you’d agree on more issues, but what matters is what you do disagree on.
Moderator:
Those things that you do happen to disagree on with Orthodoxy are massive, like truly essential issues between you both, in the sense, I believe, essential, that if you don’t believe it, you’re damned. Then so I believe that alone would demonstrate that, look, if you’re going to use that argument to say that Sola Scriptura simply may not be a reliable method, then I just simply kick that back to say, well, then scripture, magisterium, and tradition isn’t reliable. Those are my thoughts on that last thing coalesced.
Moderator:
Yep. Father James.
Father James:
Yeah. So my thoughts are that this critique against Protestantism, first of all, I don’t think it’s good to have a critique against Protestantism, to sort of dismiss it entirely unless it’s a positive argument for something else, which would then necessarily take out Protestantism. So like if you prove the papacy is true or something like that, papacy as understood by Vatican I, I should say, specifically. So there’s that first part.
Father James:
But then even going beyond that, I still think it’s important to understand that at the end of the day, you’re going to find disunity on a variety of levels, even structurally, with any communion of churches. So if we’re going to point to, well, what do we say is infallible at least on paper? Then I can point to that as a Protestant that the scriptures are. And then a Roman Catholic can point to, well, the magisterium, the sacred tradition and scripture are infallible, and its at least consistent there. So I don’t think that this is a good critique to either weaken the Protestant claims or even more strongly, which I know you’re not saying necessarily, but to sort of dismiss it entirely. I think that we give a lot more as Protestants than that. We also do have a strong understanding of authority, that authority is a major part of the magisterial reformation. In fact, once again, we were persecuting the anabaptists. We were saying that the anabaptists were bad because they were rejecting all authority. So, yeah.
Trent Horn:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I don’t think necessarily I have to cover all of that. I might even have some closing thoughts-
Moderator:
No, it’s no problem.
Trent Horn:
-when we do questions. I want to make sure I understand each of your positions and see what you think of this thesis here. So, Paul, it seems like you’re saying a Protestant is someone who affirms Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide. And Father James, you have a slightly more restrictive view of a Protestant, maybe someone who would affirm those along with some kind of a deeper, historical connection with the reformers. Is-
Father James:
My [inaudible 01:11:18]
Trent Horn:
I’m trying to make sure I get it.
Father James:
Yeah. My definition is that I’m pointing to confessional standards. So I can point to at least three, possibly five if you include the Westminster Confession and London Baptist Confession. So either three, which is what I would prefer, or five, including those other two. That would be a Protestant, someone who holds to and is under those confessional standards, one of them.
Trent Horn:
Sure. But the latter two, Westminster and London Baptist, even you said those are kind of deviating even by that point.
Father James:
Well, only in the sense that… Well, not only, but primarily in the sense that they’re 100 years later. So it’s hard to call them part of the Protestant Reformation when they’re a hundred years later and breaking away from Anglicanism.
Trent Horn:
Sure. Okay. And then the question of essentials. Paul, you’re saying, well, an essential doctrine is something that to not to fail to believe it or to believe something contrary would be damnable. Then Father James, I didn’t know if you had a view of what makes a doctrine essential or not.
Father James:
For me, when I hear essential, it means that if you’re not holding to it, you’re not in agreement with sort of the essence of a thing, and you’re therefore not a part of it anymore. So you’re not a Christian if you don’t hold to those essentials. So I would say-
Moderator:
Yeah. Basically, my view is extra steps.
Father James:
Yeah. So I would say it depends on what is it essential to? Is it essential to Protestantism? Is it essential to Christianity? Is it essential to Catholicity? Is it essential to-
Trent Horn:
I see.
Father James:
-the Reformed Episcopal church, which is my particular group within Anglicanism? Et cetera.
Trent Horn:
Then I guess if my statement, if my thesis are defined this way, I understand this is not what either of you believe, but if it were defined this way, I think you might agree with it. If Protestantism is the collection of those denominations that identify as being Protestant, there is no agreement among these groups on even essential issues even if this… Because I felt like, Paul, you almost wanted to affirm that, but that it’s just not problematic.
Moderator:
That sounds like a very tautological definition, is so Protestantism is those groups which affirm being Protestant. But then, like, what’s Protestant if that [inaudible 01:13:41]
Trent Horn:
Or, fine. Then how about this? If Protestantism is defined as those who affirm Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide, there is no agreement on essential issues. Well, yeah. I guess that’s a question for both of you to answer. If we do define it that way, if a Protestant is one who affirms Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide, is it the case that there is not uniform agreement on essential issues among Protestants if you define it in that particular way?
Moderator:
Father James.
Father James:
Yeah. There’s not uniform agreement on a variety of issues. Yeah.
Trent Horn:
Including very important essential ones.
Father James:
Oh, yeah. I would say important. That’s why I don’t have that… Again, Protestant is not an essential identifier for, it shouldn’t be an essential identifier for anyone.
Moderator:
That’s it. Yeah. That’s important.
Father James:
Yeah.
Trent Horn:
Right. It’s just a helpful term, though, I think, that does encompass a wide number of people who share pretty similar beliefs. I think Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide, those are good markers as Paul brought up earlier. I feel.
Father James:
I just realized something. I think that it might help out with some of the sort of crisscross with all this. I see Protestantism or the Protestant Reformation as more of a sociological identifier rather than necessarily a theological identifier. So for me, I don’t like making sociological categories in a way to critique theological positions, if that makes sense.
Trent Horn:
Okay. Yeah. Anywho, well, I’ll let it go for there because I don’t want to take up question time and good people. I probably could stretch it-
Moderator:
Awesome, no problem.
Trent Horn:
I could stretch it a little more. Let’s see how we do.
Moderator:
Yeah, no problem. Hey, this is awesome stuff. I’m definitely, if you guys are, I’m definitely keen for a part two because there was so much other things we mentioned here and even what we discuss right now, we could go so much further in.
Moderator:
But now, ladies and gentlemen, it is Q&A time. Post your questions below. And because of how many people are watching now and how many people have subbed, super chats and monthly financial support is definitely going to be very meaningful because I may not be able to get all the questions depending on how much longer Trent Horn has to go. So Trent, whenever you have [inaudible 01:15:52]
Trent Horn:
I’ve got more energy. I’m drinking my coke that I bought at Maca’s before I came back to my [inaudible 01:15:57]
Moderator:
Yeah, mate, that’s it.
Father James:
Maca’s.
Moderator:
My mum will be coming home from the survey soon with a sausage roll. So I can’t wait for that. I’ll just add, I don’t think I’ll have it here though. Darn it! But yes. Awesome stuff. Coke from Maca’s. Can’t beat Maca’s.
Trent Horn:
That’s because it’s breakfast for you right now, nighttime for me.
Moderator:
It is breakfast time, but that doesn’t stop me from getting a sausage roll and a can of Red Bull for breakfast every now and then. But, yes. So now we’ll jump right into Q&A and I think we’ll start right now. We’ll do super chat. Not really a question, but more of a comment. But I guess it can be answered, from a man, Jeff, A Glory for Jesus. “The real mechanism causing disunity is the inability to kill people who disagree. That’s the hidden thing in these complaints we don’t realize.”
Trent Horn:
I would say that this is an area where I am grateful that Christians have developed their understanding, where there has been a development… Well, there’s a significant sociological development of the understanding of the relationship between church and state. So I think that this is cause for the fact that Protestants like us can sit down and talk like this without having church and state so firmly united as they were during the wars of religion in Europe. I think it’s important though.
Trent Horn:
I do think though, it’s funny, I’m working on my book and my continued series, The Parallels Between Protestant and Atheist Arguments. I do not think it’s ever fruitful to try to condemn a particular denomination because of its past persecution of other denominations. I mean, atheist do the same thing to Christians. Say, “Look at all the Christians burnt witches and”-
Moderator:
Moor Crusades.
Trent Horn:
-“Other people at the stake.” Yeah. The Crusades and the Inquisition. Although, because it’s funny, I was reading Lee Strobel’s The Case for Faith. Well, I read it a long time ago, but I remember going back to the chapter and he’s writing this for… Atheists will say church history is littered with violence and it felt like the guy doing the chapter was like, “It’s true. The Catholic Church did do a lot with the Inquisition and the Crusades and this other stuff.” I’m like, “Hold on, man.” Every denomination has all their [inaudible 01:18:16]
Father James:
Well, I’m more sympathetic to the Crusades, but you know. Yeah.
Trent Horn:
Oh, no. They started it.
Moderator:
My favorite kind of argument with these kinds of things, especially when it comes to like Israelite genocides, is just to absolutely stump them when they say, “Oh, you’re God committed genocide. Oh, all you Christians in the Crusades.” And just say, “Okay. And?” Okay, and? That’s it. So what? Because then it gets in the whole moral arguments. Like, why is that wrong? Why should I care about your morality and all that stuff? But, yes. Excellent. Excellent comment there, Jeff, thank you very much.
Moderator:
This is a supporter question from my man Icenque, if I’m pronouncing this Italian correct. He sent it in the supporter questions thing in the discourse. So I’ll repeat it here. What does Trent think of Origen’s Contra Celsus? Specifically, the idea that Origen did not point to an infallible magisterium to counter Celsus’s claims of disunity, and A Glory for Jesus asked exactly the same thing. Thoughts on Origen and Celsus?
Trent Horn:
Yeah. So I think you might have mentioned this in your reply to me, and I made a note to go back to Contra Celsus to see what was the substance of Celsus’s critique. It’s always hard. I mean, hopefully Origen quoted everything that was relevant. It’s always hard that we have to get these things a little bit secondhand because we don’t have the original work, but he usually quotes everything pretty thoroughly. Here, I would wonder if perhaps… The question about pointing to an infallible magisterium or not, I would just wonder what Celsus’s knowledge of Christianity at that time was and his understanding of the role even of the bishop. I would love to go through Contra Celsus to see if he even talks about the role, not necessarily of the Bishop of Rome per se, but the role of a bishop within the local congregation because even at least by… Well, I don’t know.
Trent Horn:
I mean, if Celsus doesn’t mention the question of some kind of a magisterium with authority over churches, many critical Protestant historians will at least admit you have the papacy by the end of the second century and you have the monoepiscopate and you have a lot of these things in pretty set by the time of Origen. So I would be concerned that Celsus may have an impoverished view.
Trent Horn:
Another point, I think this is important to bring up when we talk about disagreements. There, you want to be careful to not make certain disagreements overblown. Like, Catholicism itself allows a lot of open theological questions, thomism versus molinism, material sufficiency, [inaudible 01:20:56]. And so I don’t know the nature of what Celsus was actually objecting to. It could be differences in custom and open theological questions are really not that problematic in the first place.
Moderator:
I’ve read it a few times now. I think Origen’s reply is very eye-opening historically, but I think we can leave that to another time. Thank you very much each. Likewise, from A Glory for Jesus, love and respect to Trent. Awesome guys. Awesome, awesome gentlemen. So now I’ve got to scroll all the way back up to get to the first questions. Fantastic. Let’s… Hopefully this doesn’t… Oh, my gosh. There is so much of a life, Chad. That is insane. All right. I think… And yes, Steve, thank you for watching. Hopefully your questions got in on time so we can get to them nice and quickly. Here we go. Oh, okay. Very interesting one from Orthodox Apologetics Channel. Q, I presume for Trent, “What is the strongest evidence of a universal papacy in the early fathers?” And let’s hopefully keep this brief.
Trent Horn:
Oh, goodness. I guess I would wonder what he means by universal papacy. The terms here, when we’re engaging our Orthodox brothers are always very important because people make a distinction between universal primacy, universal jurisdiction and things like this. I think the strongest evidence that we would see would probably be… It would really be tied, I think, into universal jurisdiction and seeking out Bishop of Rome to resolve disputes that don’t directly relate to that episcopacy, that we don’t see something similar, especially in the early church, other apostolic sees being approached in this way. I will say a good resource on this that I will recommend. Actually, this is kind of hard to find. I wish we could get more of it. This is a brick of a book, one of my favorite books, and I don’t-
Moderator:
[inaudible 01:22:55]
Trent Horn:
It’s called Keys Over the Christian World.
Moderator:
Been meaning to get that.
Trent Horn:
By Scott Butler and John Collorafi.
Moderator:
Collorafi, I think.
Trent Horn:
By Butler and Collorafi. Keys Over the Christian World. Sorry, I’m using a Kleenex as a bookmark because I’m ghetto, I guess. You know.
Moderator:
[inaudible 01:23:13]
Trent Horn:
The best I can do is just grab Kleenex and throw it in there. This is a brick of a book, really compiling a lot of that. I think it’s really helpful, especially looking at newer translations from Syriac churches and things like that. But yeah, I think it’s something…
Trent Horn:
You know what’s funny actually, when it comes to that question, I think Catholics should really work more on a book related to that. The closest we have might be Upon This Rock by Steve Ray. But I think it’s time for kind of a more… This might be the next successor to that, but it might be time for something more to gather because I think a lot, especially among Catholics and Orthodox, there’s a lot on this. But I think looking at the issue of universal jurisdiction, people seeking out the Pope, the Pope exercising discipline even when he is criticized for it, but people don’t say he doesn’t have the ability to do that to entire regions, things like that. Yeah. So a lot could be said there.
Trent Horn:
I do think, and I mentioned this, I had an interview with Austin Suggs from Gospel Simplicity earlier today. I was saying to him, I personally think that it’s hard to wrap one’s head around the doctrine of the papacy unless one has a firm commitment to apostolic succession. That’s why I think it would be much easier for me to talk to someone like Father James or Father Lauren Cleanwork. Was is it Klinwork, Cleanwork? He’s one of the best Eastern Orthodox apologists out there, easily. And it might be someone who has a very low church [inaudible 01:24:47]. But the question could be a four-hour long video. So.
Moderator:
Fair enough. Yep. That’s fair enough. Just tell us when you say you have to go in like five minutes or whatever, and then I can put a limit on questions.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. We’ll just keep it going for a little more.
Moderator:
Yeah, sure, sure. Okay. So from Steve. Question, “Without Sola Scriptura, how can Roman Catholicism objectively know what is essential/non-essential since appealing to the magisterial authority is subjective like JWs do with the Watch Tower?”
Trent Horn:
Well, I would say here that Steve’s objection can also undermine itself. So the question here is we have to rely on Sola Scriptura to make a distinction between essential and non-essential belief. Here in Catholic parlance, I think that’d be using terms like we would say certain doctrines require the religious submission of mind and will. So one should believe them, but if one denies them, they’re not necessarily in a state of mortal sin. Like, the Church’s teaching on in vitro fertilization would be an example. One should believe it, but it’s not something that has been defined. It’s not dogma.
Trent Horn:
But teaching like the wrongness of killing an innocent person… I think Benedict gave that example of a moral belief that would be part of the ordinary universal magisterium. And so to deny that would be a moral teaching that would put one in mortal sin. Then there’s other theological teachings that would be religious submission of mind and will… Well, sorry, theological opinion, religious submission of mind and well, things that are infallibly taught but are not dogmatic, like that a certain ecumenical council was valid for example, was validly convened is infallible teaching. Then there would be things that are infallibly defined as being a part of divine revelation or dogma.
Trent Horn:
So Catholicism doesn’t have essential/non-essential. It would have those structures and the teaching office of the magisterium, makes those judgments most solemnly and in a definitive way through things like ex cathedra statements or through an ecumenical council. But Steve’s objection, I just don’t see how it works. He’s saying, well, magisterial authority, it would be subjective. No. It has legitimate authority. Just because Jehovah’s Witnesses have a magisterium and their magisterium does not have divine authority and so it’s incorrect, that does not disprove the existence of a magisterial authority that does have divine authority and is correct and can issue these judgements, much the same way that you can have non-Jehovah’s Witnesses, you can have biblical Unitarians who use Sola Scriptura, and they arrive, they’re not Jehovah’s witnesses; they don’t listen to the Watch Tower.
Trent Horn:
But you have someone like Stafford. Do I have his book still here? Greg Stafford. It’s a big thick book on Jehovah’s Witnesses. Yeah. I don’t need to reach for it. It’s called Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended. He used to be like a really big Jehovah’s Witness apologist. Now he has the Witnesses of Yah whatever. But you have people using Sola Scriptura and they arrive at biblical Unitarianism as well. So there always is going to be a point where you don’t have something that’s just completely clear black and white that settles it for every single human being. But I think the evidence does point towards the magisterium having authority to make these declarations, and also as a living authority, there is a benefit here to clarify declarations if the faithful do not properly receive them. So I guess that’s what I would answer.
Moderator:
Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. I think that really does show that if someone wanted to really focus on such arguments of, “Oh, well, this system I’m proposing, it works better in this material sense. Like, it gives more clarity or whatever.” It’s very much possible to always keep proposing that what could be better, like for example, a machine that just gives you the infallible answer every time you ask. So it really does ultimately just come back to the core most important question, did Christ establish a magisterium? That’s really where it all comes back to, I think [inaudible 01:29:10]
Trent Horn:
Sure. I think what’s helpful, though, in trying to answer this question, I believe that if you believe Sola Scriptura is false, then that opens the door wider towards the possibility of an infallible magisterium. So I do think whatever one believes is an authority for a Protestant. I do think that should not be a given. I think that one should evaluate the evidence for that authority, and if it is not sufficient or not convincing, then the door is much more open than what other authority would there be?
Moderator:
Kind of, somewhat, but I could say more on that, but [inaudible 01:29:52]
Trent Horn:
Another time for sure.
Moderator:
Again, if Sola Scriptura, why apostle talk? That’s true. That’s true. We’ve been debunked. Oral tradition, true. Confirmed.
Trent Horn:
Oh, is this an ironic comment? I think those [inaudible 01:30:03]
Moderator:
It’s an ironic comment. And then-
Trent Horn:
I think those are supposed to be…
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:30:04]
Trent Horn:
Oh, is this an ironic comment?
Moderator:
This is an ironic comment-
Trent Horn:
I think those are supposed to be uppercase, lowercase, ultimately.
Moderator:
And then we go the opposite. If Sola Ecclesia why write book, ironically, I think you can almost articulate the into a better argument, but that’s like a whole nother thing.
Trent Horn:
Oh, goodness.
Moderator:
Question for Trent. What is your opinion of the Eastern Orthodox view? That scripture is a part of tradition instead of scripture and tradition being separate sources of revelation. And that would specifically be part and part, I think.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. Well, I think that scripture is what we mean by tradition because one view would be that… And I understand this, the word tradition comes from the Latin word tradere, which comes from the Greek paradosis, which means that which is handed on. So in a sense you can say scripture is tradition in that the word of God has been handed on and it has been handed on, in different forms through the written word and also the unwritten word. And I think Orthodox would definitely identify this even more so than others through things like the life of the lit… Through the liturgy, that there are many elements of sacred tradition and Christian belief that are preserved, not necessarily in writing, but they’ve been preserved in how it’s been lived out in the liturgy, the common prayers, things like that.
Trent Horn:
So there is the one view, right? If you hold material sufficiency and a good book on this, I should just keep my bookshelves closer to me. I should have a hook grab the book. When they’re nearby, I could just reach them and they’re further back than that. Yves Congar the French Catholic theologian has a big book. That’s at a print called tradition and traditions, which goes through a lot of this. And so yeah, you have the material sufficiency view where you have… It’s scripture doctrine is implicit in scripture and sacred tradition is just the way of interpreting scripture. I’m sympathetic to that view though I do think some doctrines would be so implicit within scripture. Like the ones I mentioned earlier about the nature of divine revelation it’s limits, that you would need some kind of magisterium, some kind of defined tradition to pull it out or the part and part in view. But so yeah, I’m open quite open to both. And as we said earlier, the both permitted views.
Father James:
If I could answer a quick question with that, would that authority have to be infallible in your view? Does it have to be infallible?
Trent Horn:
Well, I think that the argument for the authorities’ trustworthiness to give our ascent to it, that it would need to be infallible much for the same reason, good, here’s one. I have one. There we go. Finally, I have one within reach. I remember I was reading in James White’s book. Scripture alone. And this is an interesting book, because I feel like sometimes white talks out of both sides of his mouth sometimes. That could Nam father very good. That sometimes-
Moderator:
He’s biggest fan don’t insult him, please.
Trent Horn:
… That in this book he argues against Catholics who undermine, go against sola scriptura. But he also argues against like liberal Protestants who don’t believe in the inherency of scripture. And so he has little dialogues in here and things like that about how do you answer someone who denies the inherency of scripture? And his point is, well, God cannot communicate his infallible revelation through a fallible means. And that’s the answer to like a liberal Protestant as to why scriptures not only inspired, but it’s inherent for us to receive these truths. So I think if that’s an argument, one leans towards, I think that would also apply to the tradition and magisterium that presents to us in a formal way doctrine that is implicit in scripture. You could use that similar kind of reasoning.
Moderator:
Fair enough. All right. Let’s move to Senior Efomado. Good to see you. This is a good question. Do Roman Catholics believe in the perspicuity of the magisterium instead of the perspicuity of scripture, can they trust in the interpretations that they make of what the former teaches?
Trent Horn:
Right. So this is an objection and I try hard not to go down this particular route in apologetics. In fact, I’ve been exploring different kinds of arguments for Catholicism. I’m not a fan of the argument that goes well as a Protestant, you can’t have certainty in your interpretation of the Bible because you’re a fallible individual. And so you need an infallible interpreter. I’m not a big fan of that kind of argument, because I do think it pushes the can down the road, which is ultimately in order for me to ascent to a belief, I am going to have to make a judgment on what some document is in front of me. The buck really does stop here when it comes to me determining what I am going to believe and not believe. So I don’t like with the argument when it’s put forward as if you can’t have any certainty and you need an infallible interpreter. Okay, but then do I need the infallible interpreter for the infallible interpreter? do I need somebody to come along with me and tell me what the catechism means? What [inaudible 01:35:21] you means.
Moderator:
Like a poker piaggio or something.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. Do I-
Moderator:
It’s a very dairy do sort of.
Trent Horn:
Right. And then that commentary, do I need another one? So the argument I would make would be a more modest one in that there, simply that there is greater perspicuity in the Catholic understanding of authority than in the Protestant understanding. And I think that’s a much more modest claim to make just that there it’s greater or more workable or reaches a sufficient level versus others. And one key difference there is with a living magisterium, you have things like clarification over time. You can have repeated affirmations of a teaching for it to be received and understood as authoritative a good book on this. I would recommend for those who want to have a deep dive into the nature of Catholic authority would be my friend, Jimmy Akin’s book Teaching with Authority. And that book covers a lot of ground on understanding how to read Catholic documents and to understand authority in that regard.
Trent Horn:
And that’s why this kind of, not so much absolute proof, but inductive or evidential greater than the competitors. I’m exploring that more in my particular argument for Catholicism in that I understand kind of father, you were saying earlier, it’s like, well, I look at the Vatican one declaration of what the Pope is and I just don’t see the Bible in history reaching up to that level. My question then with Protestants would be, do you have a similar full throated articulation of Protestant authority, Chicago statement on an heresy, Anglican 39 articles, whatever. People have different creeds and codes and you pick a full throated articulation of it, comparable Vatican one on the papacy, can you get there in the same way from the Bible and history. And so that is what I want to explore more and that I feel like I can get further towards the papacy in Bible and history in that challenge then towards Protestant authority using the same methods, that’s something I might explore in the future.
Father James:
If I can say something very quickly, it might help out with that. So when I was doing like in talking about my rejections of the papacy, because of history, particularly it was due to the fact that I see such a strong sense of conciliarism found within the early church, especially, which is a heresy for Roman Catholics today.
Trent Horn:
In the early church?
Father James:
Oh yeah. Definitely. Yes.
Trent Horn:
Well it’s always hard when you call the early church because I mean, within the age of the fathers up to like St John Damascene, I think we’ve only got like three ecumenical councils.
Father James:
Well, I’m looking at the ecumenical councils specifically. So conciliarism, especially when you look at sort of how Nestorius appeals to the Bishop of Rome, which is a… I do believe that there was an apple structure and all that sort of stuff. I don’t deny that part.
Trent Horn:
Sure.
Father James:
But then what happens when he’s sort of excommunicated or given an bill of excommunication by the Pope, he then appeals to the acumenical counsel, which indicates to me that’s an even higher one. So tackling that sort of issue of seeing, well, we see the strong tradition of conciliarism, which is condemned today, which shows to me there’s a disconnect between what we see in tradition versus what we see today. So that would be something to go look into. Definitely.
Moderator:
Excellent stuff. I’m trying to get questions from a variety of people. So I might jump through a lot because there’s a lot of questions pretty much all in, particularly by the same people. So I’m trying to get some variety, but this is a good one I’ve found.
Trent Horn:
Well, maybe we could do about another like five, seven minutes might be good, especially if we have similar people then I think-
Moderator:
No problem.
Trent Horn:
… I’ve covered the board well.
Moderator:
No problem. This is a very good one. I found. So I chose this one. Why can Roman Catholics both anathematized and keeping Nestorius on the Sancturo among the Syro-Malabar Catholics?
Trent Horn:
I think part of this relates to the historical question of whether Nestorius actually taught the heresy of Nestorianism. And so there is somewhat of a controversy in the historical record of whether his particular teachings about the nature of Christ constitute the later, fully fleshed out Nestorianism that bears his name. So I think that’s where the disconnect might be in that regard.
Moderator:
Okay. Fair enough. Any other way, different people? I don’t think so. It’s pretty much the same, like set of like three or so people. So they’re probably going to get a little bit spoiled for choice or sport, like yeah, pretty much just for being able to get all their questions happening. There’s also same guys before Senior Efomado. Would it be fair to say that most of the Roman Catholic loyalty doesn’t agree either in essential doctrines?
Trent Horn:
Well, yeah, I mean, it all depends on how you do surveys. I think I mentioned this in my original video, I found it interesting to do surveys of Protestants. Do they believe in sola scriptura, sola fide? And as I pointed out, I’m not using that to say that shouldn’t be… I believe creed decreed is better comparison than opinion to opinion because lay people, they’re just not great about thinking categorically about many of these things in the first place, especially with Catholics. I do think that you find a greater acceptance of the essential teachings of the faith from those. I do think there’s a direct correlation between those who are liturgically active versus those who are inactive, that when you… Even at that famous survey about oh, 70% of Catholics, don’t believe Christ is present in the Eucharist.
Trent Horn:
That’s including Catholics who go once a year, don’t go to church at all, weekly it drops to 30%, which I thought was still quite high for people to go to mass weekly. But even that can be something that somewhat wrote for people. I know that some people at this point say, “Well, people go to Latin mass, like 99% of them accept the church is teaching on contraception.” Sometimes I feel like that particular fact doesn’t necessarily say, the Latin mass causes you to believe essential things, but people who are already firmly committed to essential teachings tend to go to the Latin mass. So I think it runs in the other direction, but I do think people that are firmly involved, not just mass goers, but are involved in teaching, volunteering, wanting to grow deeper in their faith. You find a much smaller percentage of them who deny the essentials. That would probably be true for really anyone in any religious system. Frankly.
Moderator:
I think that’s a good distinction of people who are not liturgically active, both versus those who are not. And I think if we applied to the Protestant, isn’t a lot of that disunity would… I don’t know. I think a lot of that would disappear, but that’s another question. I think father James would answer this as well, but I think Trent Horn may have a crack as well. Would you consider Gavin Ortlund a Protestant or a Christian being that he is a Protestant or perhaps a Christian being that he is a Baptist Pastor?
Trent Horn:
Yeah. So like, it’s funny. I never answered my own questions when we were talking. For me a Protestant, essentially a Protestant is someone who affirm. I actually have a kind of close Paul to your definition that a Protestant is someone who affirms sola scriptura, some version of sola fide and is Christian, because I do believe it’s possible for someone to be a mere Christian theist who is agnostic or doesn’t hold in the New Testament cannon, or it doesn’t believe in sola scriptura and they could have they… And I would think that they’re Christian if they are… To me a Christian is just someone who is validly baptized with a valid Trinitarian baptism. And so that is-
Father James:
Is that apostatized?
Trent Horn:
Hmm.
Father James:
It is not apostatized?
Trent Horn:
Yes. So they would be an apostate Christian. Different, they would still have the indelible mark that’s left by baptism. So they would be a Christian still in that sense, I would say, but they’re an apostate Christian. So I’m very sacramental in my definition that it would be valid Trinitarian baptism. And then beyond that, I think Protestantism is really rooted in the, especially the two solas. Did you have a thought father?
Father James:
Yeah, so it, I was just wondering, I would say that there is evidence and indication of pre reformation people who hold you sola scriptura and sola fide, would you call… You wouldn’t call them Protestant though, obviously, right.
Moderator:
Granting just granting for the sake of argument that there might be one or two outliers who do [inaudible 01:43:56].
Trent Horn:
Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I think it’s possible. You could say someone like Wycliffe is a proto Protestant. I mean, I do think like most movement-
Moderator:
Clement or Brian.
Trent Horn:
There is a lot we could say about Clement, what he does say and what he doesn’t say. I guess those are the two common arguments with Clement either. He does say X, which is sometimes taken his sola fide, and he does not say why. And that is considered problematic. Though I have a chapter in my book that I’m working on that, I mean, there are atheists who point out… It’s kind of interesting and I don’t want to derail us. We could we’ll save this chapter of future time, pointing out the arguments from silence among the church fathers on things like the mono episcopacy and things like that. There’s other weird silences within them. Like Richard Carrier points out that first Clement, he seems completely unaware of the earthly ministry of Jesus. Never mentions it once. Not at all, which is surprising, but I don’t think that means that he lacked belief in it. But in any case-
Father James:
We claims the same thing about Paul though.
Trent Horn:
Right.
Moderator:
He also shows no evidence of [inaudible 01:45:08] on the ground.
Trent Horn:
Paul also doesn’t mention Christ’s miracles. It’s definitely not as robust as-
Father James:
Also is robust yet.
Trent Horn:
So, but in any case, wait, dialing back. Yeah. So I think movements rarely are like starting the gate at one like firm line, there’s usually somewhat of a continuum. I do think you would have more primitive versions of this belief possibly leading up to something like the revelation. But for me being Christian is really a sacramental definition. Having valid baptism, the church does not have like necessarily an authoritative… Well, a lot of the Bishop’s conferences do have lists of generally what theologians are seen as which products and baptisms are valid, which ones are more questionable, which require conditional re-baptisms. The only thing I’ve seen for the magisterium that seems to have come out late as more formal would be the denial of the validity of Mormon, baptisms of seeing from there that father Louis Lidaria has written about this, that even though they have the correct form and matter the words I should say in the form, the correct formula and matter, they don’t have the form because the words, father, son, and holy spirit are just so radically different from-
Father James:
That’s true.
Trent Horn:
… Have understood those terms. But yeah, so for me, Gavin Ortlund is a Christian. He would be a Protestant because he affirms sola scriptura and sola fide, and he’s a fun guy. I’d hope to chat with him again in the future.
Father James:
My understanding is that he does hold to the London Baptist confession. So in that sort of wider category of Protestant, I would say yes.
Moderator:
Yep. Fair enough. That was another major objection that I think… I don’t know if father James also gave it, but also the question of how Roman Catholics do seem to actually be in the same boat of essentials since Vatican too, does grant the possibility of salvations for Protestants. And then so we can ask the same questions of, well, what’s the essentials for a non-Catholic to believe, but that’s definitely something where if we do want to do another part. That’s definitely be something we could definitely discuss [inaudible 01:47:14].
Trent Horn:
And as I said before, the church doesn’t use essential non-essential language so much as which teachings require what level of ascent.
Moderator:
Right. So next, how many questions you reckon you do? Like two or three?
Trent Horn:
Just two more would be good.
Moderator:
Two more. We good? All right. No problem.
Trent Horn:
Might post about two hours. That’s a nice little bit.
Moderator:
It’s very nice. Very nice cutting point far out there so many here, it’s actually not, I’m going to park on this one. What is the ontological difference between the oral apostolic tradition recorded in writing by Luke, the evangelist and the oral apostolic tradition recorded in the cannons of the council of trench. Interesting.
Trent Horn:
What is the ontologic? Okay. What is the ontological we refer to? What is the difference in the substance of the thing? And so we have, and the catechism talks about the nature of tradition and this is in paragraph, I want to say it’s around in like the seventies or eighties of the catechism, talking about the nature of revelation saying that the gospel was first preached. I think everybody agrees obviously that the gospel began and revelation is given through apostolic preaching. Then later there is the recording of this and the gospels and the other pistols of the New Testament. So we have, for example, Luke recording, let’s say he’s recording apostolic tradition that’s given in one of the apostolic sermons in Acts, for example like that. Is there an ontological difference between something the apostles handed on, in a written form versus an unwritten form?
Trent Horn:
I would say, no, it’s still divine revelation. If they’ve handed it on, there is merely a difference in the mechanism that has been used to preserve that same sacred tradition. And so if it has been preserved in the writing of Luke, it was preserved in a source that is in spot that is divinely inspired and as such is inherent. But if the preservation for the apostolic tradition in a canon in the council of Trent, the preservation method would not be divinely inspired. But I would say that it’s inherent if it were infallibly defined in a canon of the council, that’s putting forward an infallible definition. Otherwise it may be preserved in a non infallible way through authoritative teaching. But I don’t think that the substance of this tradition it’s [inaudible 01:49:58] content is different, but there’s differences in how that they’ve been preserved in different ways.
Moderator:
Okay. Fair enough. One more question from Steve O. Doesn’t Roman Catholicism have the same problem since Catholics are not in agreement if an unbaptized baby who dies, goes to heaven, hell or limbo, or even if limbo exists.
Trent Horn:
No, because my position is not that through the magisterium, every single teaching is essential or that every single question is answered. I do believe we have a greater uniformity and understanding of what beliefs are more central to the faith. Catholicism teaches the hierarchy truths. So I mean, essential what’s interesting here is I think a lot of it in our discussion, we were talking about essential, really dealing with illicitness or the permissibility of believing or not believing it. That is one way you can talk about essential. Non-essential like that was essentially part of definition, like you’re in big fiery trouble. If you don’t believe it, that makes it essential to you to not have, crispy toast eternally or whatnot, how you want to phrase it.
Trent Horn:
But the church, I think Catholicism would also point out you can have a hierarchy of essential truths. And so we would say, for example, that Mary being Theotokos, the God bearer is more fundamental than Mary being bodily assumed into heaven. That it is a more fundamental belief, but both of those are essential. They’re both dogma, but one is more of a foundation for the other much. Like we would say that the Trinity is the central mystery of the faith. So we do have a hierarchy of truths, but to answer Steve’s question, because of this hierarchy, the church recognizes, there are some things that are taught authoritatively, but they’re not infallibly defined. And there are other things that might be commonly received and taught or they’re allowed. They are beliefs that are allowed to become widespread as widely accepted theological opinions. And limbo would be one of these beliefs, not a mere theological opinion, but it was very widely spread in the middle ages.
Trent Horn:
And so Catholicism can have a magisterium that determines which questions are closed because they’re infallibly defined and which questions are authoritatively top and not infallible and which other issues they’re more open. In 2007 the International Theological Commission released a document on the fate of children who have not been baptized. And it seems to show that the question is an open one while traditionally limbo has been proposed, which would be a perfect state of natural happiness for unbaptized babies.
Trent Horn:
That it is more recent theologians of seeing the doctrine develop towards a greater confidence I would say, in the salvation of infants to behold, to be out fake vision. And the fact that the church leaves that as an open question, it doesn’t mean that the magisterium has failed to deliver what is essential because the church does say it’s essential to have children baptized as soon as possible that baptism regenerates, but the question of what happens even with your best of intentions and your child’s unable to be baptized. That is an open question.
Moderator:
There you go.
Moderator:
I’ve got like a whole library of just these reaction clips I can just pull out.
Trent Horn:
Oh, whoa wait. I thought that he jumped into this right now.
Moderator:
No.
Trent Horn:
I thought you totally pranked me. I thought that suddenly this was like special guest appearance.
Moderator:
Oh, hell I wish that was the case, no.
Father James:
At least we can all agree though. And disagree with Dr. James White. You should baptize your babies.
Moderator:
Yes. Amen to that.
Trent Horn:
Oh, Paul, do you hold infant baptism as a view?
Moderator:
I am your fellow Peto Baptist. Indeed I am.
Trent Horn:
But do you believe in baptism regeneration or is it more of a covenant thing?
Moderator:
I’m still figuring that out. I’m not really for the baptism regeneration as articulated by Roman the east in the strongest sense, but I’m getting more of the Anglican slash, but also exploring the articulations that Dr. Gavin Ortlund is following as well with traditional Baptist, they all do some. So I’m still considering that.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. Have you read a Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism by Strawbridge?
Moderator:
No, I haven’t.
Trent Horn:
That would be one that articulates that non regenerative in infant baptism view. So man, you really got me good. That was funny.
Moderator:
I can’t believe it. Oh man, that’s good. Yeah, I have this stream live beautiful. I just have this whole library of little clips I can just play whenever I want. Oh, that’s amazing. It’s amazing. But I think that’s about it for now. So gentlemen, thank you all so much for coming on. Especially Horn man, huge privilege. Thank you for getting back to both lives. This is awesome. And God willing, we can continue another episode of this as whenever.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, I think that would be great. I do apologize if we didn’t get to enough depth on this. This is I thing we’ll talk about.
Moderator:
It’s fine.
Trent Horn:
I’ll tell Peruiz-
Moderator:
Just like you can go so much depth with everything we discussed now. Like we haven’t even touched like half of what we brought up in all of our respective videos. So we can definitely whenever we feel like [inaudible 01:55:49].
Trent Horn:
But I think the goal here is, and what I always say when I do debates or when I do public dialogues is I never see them as… I mean, they’re not going to bring definitive resolution to questions, but my goal in doing them is to point out resources and perspectives so that people can go and continue the investigation. And when they see ideas clash, they’re able to see, okay, what sounds plausible? What’s less plausible. This guy talked about referenced this. He referenced this book or author. And that’s where I really see the value of these sorts of discussions to see ideas clash, and then for people to continue their own work and researching, to see which of the ideas are most plausible to them.
Moderator:
Excellent stuff. I 100% agree. I hope this can definitely keep continuing, not just with us, but also generally that we keep starting that awesome trend of ironic yet frank and honest dialogue. Not pretending that there aren’t differences, but just not being at each other’s neck while we do it. So I reckon, I’ll let you gentlemen plug yourself before you finish off. So Trent plug away whatever you want.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. I would just recommend my podcast, The Counsel of Trent. I mean, every listen to this channel should get the pun, but whenever I go to places, I have to say C-O-U-N-S-E-L. I always get an email every now and then, “Don’t, you know how to spell?”
Trent Horn:
I’m like, “Don’t you have a sense of humor?” But in any case and on the internet, a lot of people there’s I think like significant portion do not. Yeah, so council of Trent is on YouTube iTunes, Google play, check that out, subscribe there. And I have my books and other resources available@catholic.com.
Moderator:
Excellent stuff. I father James.
Father James:
James I’m father James. I run barely Protestant. The YouTube channel. I am a priest. Go ahead check out the YouTube channel, support me there. I do have a Patreon. Keep me in prayer as I’m in transition. I am possibly going to… Well, I’m definitely going to be moving and going into a new pastorate somewhere. So just keep me in prayer with all that.
Moderator:
Excellent stuff. And both of your channels are linked down below. And likewise for those watching whether right now on my channel or later on my channel, or even on Trent Horn’s channel, once he re-uploads, I am the other Paul, you can support me in the links below on my video. On the original video, you can follow my various social media, particularly Gab, where I want to be sensitive for Christian views. And if you want to support my ministry link below is on subscribe star as well. It’ll be highly appreciated to help me turn this into a proper job. And that’s pretty much me and a final comment before we finish up today. Got you all. How does Rick rolled my entire audience? How good.
Trent Horn:
I got to find those. That’s funny. That’s good.
Moderator:
Oh yeah. Mate get, do you stream yard
Trent Horn:
No.I haven’t. I’m still stuck on zoom. So I think next, I know.
Moderator:
Find the light man. Seriously. Streamy yard amazing. Even just with the basic plan. Whatever clips you want. And it’s amazing stuff.
Trent Horn:
I like it.
Moderator:
Anyway, gentlemen, thank you so much for joining and viewers. Thank you so much for watching weather right now, live or later on in the future. And thank you once again to those who support me and yeah. So this has been Trent horn. This has been father James, and this has been the other Paul. I hope you all have a blessed day. See us later.
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