In this episode Trent reveals a new course he is filming for the Catholic Answers School of Apologetics about the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, or creation from nothing. He explains why Mormons don’t accept this doctrine and how we know the Bible teaches it.
Welcome to The Counsel of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Welcome to another episode of the Counsel of Trent podcast. I’m your host, Catholic Answers apologists and speaker, Trent Horn. Before we get into the topic of today’s episode, I want to let you know about an event that I’m going to be speaking at. May 22nd through May 24th, Virtual Catholic Conference is going to be hosting the Online Love Life Conference hosted by chastity.com. That’s Jason Evert’s Chastity Ministry. And what Jason is doing is he’s putting out this mega conference with 70 different speakers who all of their talks are going to be online, May 22nd through May 24th.
I’ll be speaking there. I have a new talk called Evangelizing at LGBT Pride Parades. Matt Fradd will be speaking, Chris Stefanick, Jason and Crystalina Evert, Cameron Fradd. There’s going to be other priests, religious. I think Bishop Porteous will be speaking there. It’s something you’re not going to want to miss. And I mean, we’re all locked in still. Hopefully, around the end of May, the lockdowns will be safely loosened where we can find the proper balance between keeping people safe and also not causing undue damage to the common good, to the economy, things like that.
But the sad fact of the matter is that these are the conferences we’re going to have over the next few months and maybe even the next year, and I will tell you that depresses me. I got an email today from Franciscan University of Steubenville that the Defending the Faith Conference at the Franciscan University of Steubenville which was slated for the end of July. You’ll remember I was talking about that with Scott Hahn when he came on the show to talk about his new book on the Christian view of death, dying and burial, and we were both hoping that it was going to go through because there’s going to be a lot of great people there and I was going to get to emcee for the very first time.
I spoke at Defending the Faith a year ago and I got to do two workshops, and then this year I was going to do a keynote and actually emcee the whole thing. We’re going to have Scott Hahn. We’re going to have myself, Stephanie Gray, lots of other speakers. My sponsor who helped me come into the church who’s, I think he’s the vicar of evangelization now in the Diocese of Phoenix, Father John Parks was going to be there. Who is hilarious, I will say, and also easily one of the top three dancers in the world. No joke.
I’ll have to have Father parks back on the podcast. He was on a long time ago to talk about masculinity, what it means to have true authentic Catholic masculinity. And so we talked about that a while ago, but I’d love to have him and my other cohorts from Phoenix, the other priests I knew. There was a time when I went to my youth group at Saint Teresa Parish in Phoenix, Arizona. I was part of the young adult group there. And one by one, all the guys were picked off to go to seminary. One by one, they all left and suddenly, all my friends who were my guy friends, they packed up and went to seminary.
I went to seminary for a week to do my obligatory. And I actually really enjoyed the time when I was there, but it wasn’t for me. I was called to another vocation that I am supremely satisfied with. Father Park’s going to be there, we’re going to have a lot of people, but it’s been canceled. And so that it depresses me because on the one hand, conferences are a lot of work. Sometimes we’ll be done with them and think, “Whoa, this is hard on somebody who’s more of an introvert like me.” But I know there’s something just being able to get so many great voices together and meet so many people, it’s awesome.
Nothing will ever truly replace them. And I know at least in, at most, a few years they’ll be back. But maybe sooner than that, I’m hoping. I mean, I’ve been watching the news with bated breath probably like you have. It’s always hard. You watch the news, news, you’re putting me on a roller coaster. First it’s like, “Trial’s over remdesivir show promise to treat coronavirus.” “Oh yes.” “Remdesivir doesn’t work well in trial. No statistical difference.” “Oh no.” “It turns out remdesivir has 30%, going to emergency applications.” “All right.” And then, “Turns out all of the remdesivir was destroyed by murder hornets that have invaded the country.” “Oh no.” “Turns out Coronavirus kills the murder hornets.” And it’s like, “News, I can’t keep up with this.”
It’s just been hard to see the news going up and down like that. But I think these conferences that are going to be coming up here, at least the virtual online ones, it’s something, it’s a start. At least, it’s a way to be able to pass your time, especially if you’re under lockdown or you just want to quarantine more. You don’t want to go out as much anymore. If you want to check out the virtual Catholic Conference, you can register for free or you can purchase a premium pass which gives you perpetual ability to watch the talk. There’s 70 talks, so there’s going to be dozens of hours worth of talks for you to be able to watch. And you may not be able to watch them the entire weekend or you might be busy that weekend, May 22nd through May 24th. If you buy the premium pass, you get unlimited access to them and I think you have access to them perpetually.
If you want to check that out, a good way to go and find that, is go to my Twitter page. Go to Twitter, just search Trent Horn Twitter, should be easy. There’s me and I think one other guy named Trent Horn who lives in England. And I feel bad because when people get mad at me, they sometimes tag him and I’m like, “Leave him out of this. He didn’t do anything.” But Trent Horn Twitter, you’ll find my page really quick. The first post, the pinned post on my Twitter page has a link where you can go to register and get your premium pass.
Just go to my Twitter page, Trent Horn Twitter. Go to the pinned post, click there, register for the conference. It’s free to register. You can also purchase a premium pass, which I think is a good investment as well for you to look into. And then hopefully soon, maybe… And I’ve actually been thinking about maybe trying to do a virtual conference of my own, maybe on apologetics. I’m looking into that now. Let’s pray and see if that’s where God is leading us in this endeavor.
Now, moving ahead to the topic of today’s show, I wanted to give you a sneak peek at a new course that I’m filming for the Catholic Answers School of Apologetics. We’ve put up our appropriate safeguards. I was able to go up to a studio in Vista and we were able to make this work, to be able to record my new course. My previous course was Evidence for Catholic Moral Teaching, so that’s my full six-hour long. It’s part of the main core series we’re doing. I think Carla is going to do a course on Evidence for God.
Tim Staples is doing a course on Evidence For The Church. Jimmy Akin is doing a course on Evidence for Christianity. He already has a course called a Beginner Apologetics, Introduction to Apologetics. And then my old course that is up and available for you to purchase is Evidence for Catholic Morality. You can get all of that at schoolofapologetics.com. We affectionately call it CASA, C-A-S-A, not because it’s a house, la casa, but because it’s Catholic Answers School of Apologetics. And so now that we have the four main courses up, we’re going to be doing different electives. That’s at schoolofapologetics.com.
And I’m excited for the courses because they’re broken down in a neat little lessons and you can watch the lessons, you then answer questions to show comprehension of learning. There’s going to be downloadable workbooks. And then eventually what we’re hoping to do with the lessons is have instructor feedback, and then maybe one day bundle them together and you could transfer them for graduate level credit to be able to go for different universities. I think that would be super cool. I mean, I’m already an adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Holy Apostles College.
If you want to take a course on Catholic morality with me, you can also register there as well to take my course. We’re hoping to migrate it over, but now we’re doing more electives. Chris Check is going to go up soon to do a course on the inquisition, and I thought… I told you I want to say John Priscilla, “Oh wow, that’s unexpected.” Why would that be unexpected? “Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition.” Anyone, anyone money Python, money Python. Got to have a cultural reference here on the Counsel of Trent Podcast.
They asked me what mini course, Trent, would you like to do for a two-hour elective course? And they also told me, “We need you to put together a course in a bit of an accelerated timeframe because we’re filming now.” And I just found out that Chris… I was supposed to film at the end of the two-week period and then they said, “Could you actually do the beginning of the two-week period? It works better. Some people aren’t feeling well, can’t go and get their courses films.” I said, “No problem. I can burn the midnight oil and get it done.”
And then I did and it all came together, and I apologize if this is TMI. I developed a sty. I hate when this happens. Oh man, this happens to me all the time. It’s been happening to me ever since my mid-20s and it doesn’t go away. I get this little blocked tear duct or a blocked… not a tear duct. It’s Like a blocked little vessel or duct in my eyelid, and then it just expands and you get this swelled eye. And people are like, “Do you have pink eye?” I’m like, “No, I don’t have pink eye. Okay. It’s just a sty. It’ll go away.”
I’ve actually had to go twice for surgery to get them removed and I will tell you, it’s a very unnerving process. Because you lie there with your eyes open first, and then you get the needle of anesthetic, and then they go in there and dig the sty out. Once again, I’m sorry for TMI but I just have to let you fill you in when you eventually watched the course. You go there. The hardest part for me was obviously it was the local anesthetic that they inject in your eyelid, because you’re just sitting there and you watch the needle coming towards your eye, and you get ready for them to stab you and inject the local anesthetic.
I’ve had one person who does a fantastic job, amazing, got it out. And another doctor who completely botched it. It was a nightmarish experience to endure. My point is when you watch my new course, Evidence for Creation; From Nothing, which is what I’ve put forward, you will notice, if you listen to the podcast, eventually notice, in my right eye it’s a little bit inflamed. Because I was staying up late to put the course together to meet the deadline, got the sty, and you’ll see it a little bit there. They did their best with the lighting and the makeup to make me look presentable, but I think the content will speak for itself.
And I am fascinated by this topic, by the way, the topic of Creation From Nothing. And the reason I picked it was because I thought it’d be a really cool interdisciplinary course. I think it’s neat with electives where you can cross different disciplines together. The course is a two-hour course, about 18 lessons dealing with the doctrine of creation from nothing. And that is the idea that God created the world of His own free will from absolute nothing.
You can go in the catechism and see it’s around paragraphs 293 to 297. Paragraph 295 says that the universe does not emanate from God. It’s not some kind of pantheistic emanation, but that God created the world from nothing. That’s why He’s God. Our course, I start off with just the doctrine of creation and then I present scientific evidence that the universe came from nothing, philosophical evidence that the past cannot be infinite. And then what I’m going to share with you on the podcast today a little bit, some of the biblical and patristic evidence from the church fathers that shows that sacred scripture and sacred tradition teaches the doctrine of creation from nothing.
And this is an important doctrine because it really comes down to the question of who is God? Who is God? How do you view God? Saint Athanasius, in the fourth century, was dealing with Greek critics, with Gnostic critics, especially those who were inclined to accept Greek philosophy, who believed that God did not create the world from nothing. This is how he puts it. “Others take the view expressed by Plato, that giant among the Greeks, he said that God had made all things out of preexistent and uncreated matter, just as the carpenter makes things only out of wood that already exists.
But those who hold this view do not realize that to deny that God is Himself the cause of matter is to impute limitation to Him. Just as it is undoubtedly a limitation on the part of the carpenter that he can make nothing unless he has the wood.” And here’s the important part. “If He only worked up existing matter and did not bring matter into being, He would be not the creator but only a craftsman.” Not a creator, but only a craftsman.
Now, the first time I had heard that phrase is actually a while ago, I was reading a book published… there’s an anthology published by Francis Beckwith, a Catholic philosopher at Baylor University called Answering The New Mormon Challenge. One element where this doctrine comes into play is in dialogue between Catholics and Mormons. If you’re not familiar with the difference between Catholic theology and Mormon theology, this is one of the big differences. Because Mormons believe that the universe and creation is actually eternal and that God did not create the universe, but He actually reorganized preexisting matters.
Here’s how Eric Schuster, he wrote a book on this. He was Catholic and then he converted, or I would say he fell away from the Catholic faith, and became Mormon. And so he wrote in the book different differences between Catholics and Mormons. Now, Catholics and Mormons actually do share a lot in common. There’s a particular Mormon apologist online who I’ll read his works. And a lot of times he cites Catholic apologists on things like baptismal regeneration, arguments against Sola Scriptura, arguments against Sola Fide, arguments for a covenantal priesthood or a New Testament ministerial priesthood.
Catholics and Mormons actually have some things in common, but then we start to divert an important way. This is what Schuster says in his book on Catholicism and Mormonism. He says, “Latter day Saint doctrine holds that the universe was formed and organized, not created ex nihilo, out of nothing, as Catholic doctrine holds. This is not an insignificant difference.” Mormons believe this, that the God of this world, heavenly father, used to be a man. Okay? And he was created by another God who used to be a man, who was created by another God.
And there’s this eternal cycle called eternal progression, where men become gods. Gods make men, the men become gods. And so this is the eternal cycle of what they call exaltation. The God of this world used to be a man in another creation, and then he made this world after he was exalted. You have to follow the Mormon ordinances, be married in the Mormon temple, and then you can become the God of your own world eventually. And so this process goes all the way back for all eternity. Mormons would deny that there is one single God who created the entire world from nothing in the finite pass. Mormons deny that.
And also the course that I put forward is applicable to atheist because they deny creation ex nihilo. Even if they affirm the ex nihilo part, that maybe the universe came from a vacuum fluctuation for no reason, they reject the creation part. That’s a good way to summarize it. Atheists would, some atheist, not necessarily all, but some may say, “Yeah, I believe the ex nihilo, the universe came from nothing, but I don’t think God did it.” They deny the creation part of creation ex nihilo.
Mormons, however, deny the ex nihilo part of creation ex nihilo or creation from nothing. They say, “Well, of course, God created the universe, but He didn’t create it all from nothing. The universe, the world existed before He became divine because He was a man once and then He became God.” In fact, this is what the legend prophet, Joseph Smith, the founder of The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormon Church. This is how he described this doctrine of exaltation. It’s called the King Follett Sermon. He gave it at a funeral for one of the churches’ elders, a guy named King Follett, and this is what he said.
“I’m going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea and take away the veil so that you may see God himself was once as we are now and is an exalted man.” Exalted like he was a man, but now he’s a divine man. “And God is an exalted man and sits enthroned in yonder heavens. Here then his eternal life, to know the only wise and true God, and you have got to learn how to be God’s yourselves.” The only wise and true God doesn’t mean the only God that actually exists.
Mormons believe in a plurality of gods. There’s an infinite number of gods out there. There’s only one heavenly father who created this world that you’re supposed to worship, because he says, “You got to learn to be gods yourselves and to be kings and priests to God. The same as all gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another and from a small capacity to a great one, from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation.”
The fifth Mormon President, Lorenzo Snow, put it this way, “As man now is, God once was. As God now is, man may be.” Now this contradicts, of course, the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, which says that the universe is not eternal. It’s not preexisting with God. The universe is not some kind of eternal matter that has always existed alongside God and one day God was like, “Maybe I should turn this into a universe and creatures to worship me.”
No, God existed in a perfect, timeless state without creation and then freely willed to bring… And by then of course, I don’t mean temporarily. It’s not like God was just out there in the void and, “What do I do now?” Rather, God manifested His own super abundant love and divine nature to create, in freely bringing the universe into existence from nothing, and that he created all things. And there’s lots of Bible verses that attest to this.
You look at Hebrews 11:3, we even just start with the New Testament. “The world was created by the word of God so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear,” or in other translations of Hebrews 11:3, “Was not made out of visible things.” Then he might try to say, “Well, maybe it’s made out of in visible things that always existed.” Well, no, because Colossians 1:16-17, Paul makes it clear that it was in Christ that, “All things were created.”
And notice the important affirmation here in repetition of all things were created, not just that they were formed at a preexisting matter. Anything that exists that is not God was created by God from nothing. Colossians 1:16-17 says, “All things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or principalities, or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things and in Him all things hold together.”
This isn’t just evidence of creation from nothing, but it’s also evidence that that which created everything from nothing. God is not a solitary person. God is not just the father. God is father, son, and Holy spirit. Because in the passage, Paul is very clear that it is Jesus who Colossians 2:8-9 says, “In whom the fullness of deity dwells bodily.” Jesus who has the fullness of deity. Jesus who is God created all things.
This throws a monkey wrench into other, what I would call quasi Christian theologies. Mormonism would be a quasi Christian theology. It’s not Christian even though it claims to be because it denies fundamental tenants of the Christian faith, namely, that there is one God who exists as three co-equal and co-eternal persons. And because Mormons flagrantly deny the Trinity, just as one as Pentecostals do and Jehovah’s Witnesses do, they are not Christian. They could be very nice people.
C. S. lewis dealt with this once. C. S. Lewis said, “Look, saying someone’s not a Christian doesn’t mean they’re not a nice chap.” That’s what C. S. Lewis chafed about. He said, “Look, Christian has now become a way of saying somebody’s a nice chap, and if you say they’re not Christian, it’s like saying they’re rude.” No, there can be very gentlemanly and kind, and nice non-Christians, and there can be just rude, awful Christians. I mean, sometimes if I get in a really bad mood, I can be one of those rude, awful Christians.
Being a Christian, the label Christian is not a reference to one’s disposition or temperament. It is a reference to their theology, to what they believe about God. And if you deny the Trinity, then your baptism is not a valid baptism as a result. And so the only body that I know of the church has pronounced that their baptisms are invalid. God is a Trinity. God created the universe from nothing. That means the father, the son, and the Holy spirit brought the universe into being from nothing.
Jesus, contra what Jehovah’s Witnesses will say, Jesus is not a creation of the father. Jesus is not creature. Jesus is not a thing that was made. Jesus is the creator. He is Lord. And so that’s why Jehovah’s Witnesses have to mistranslate Colossians 1:16-17 in order to get around this fact. They mistranslate it by adding the word ‘others’. If you go to the New World Translation, that was the translation commission I think back in the ’50s or ’60s when the Jehovah’s Witnesses got started more in doing their door to door evangelism.
At first, the first time they did their door to door evangelism, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, they took like a gramophone, like a record player, and they would play it. And it was the guy like the president at the time would give the spiel and then they started doing it themselves. But then they saw the need that people said, “Hey, wait, what you believe is not in the Bible.” They would say, “Oh, but look at The New World Translation, our Bible. We are the only ones who translated it right,” in order to get it to fit to their theology.
In The New World Translation of the Jehovah’s Witness Bible in Colossians 1:16-17, it says of Christ, “Because by means of Him, all other things were created in the heavens and on the earth. All other things have been created through Him and for Him.” They add the word ‘other’ because of Jesus… It says, Jesus created all things. Wait a minute. Jesus was created by the father. This is what Jehovah’s Witnesses will say. The guys say, “Well, Jesus created all other things, not all things,” which is quite a stretch because the word other is not in the passage.
You go to the Greek texts of Colossians 1:16-17, it doesn’t have either of the two words that are translated as others. Heteros and Allos. You think of hetero meaning others. Homogenous would mean that a group… Like let’s say a homogenous group of people, they’re all basically the same. Heterogenous means there are others differences or others there. You think heterosexual, think seeking the difference of the other in that regard.
Now the Witnesses will say is that, well, you can infer because in Colossians 1:15, Paul says that Jesus Christ is the firstborn of creation. That means He was the first thing to be created. No, in that framework, firstborn means the ruler or the heir. Firstborn doesn’t mean literally the first to be made. Because in Psalm 89:27 God says of King David, “I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the Kings of the earth.” Now, what does that mean? David was not the first King. He wasn’t even the oldest member of his family. Remember, his older brothers went to fight the Philistines and he showed up and they’re like, “What’s David going to do?” It’s their little brother showing up here.
Now, what it means is the firstborn, just as David was the firstborn of Kings, he is the King of Kings. Notice the prodo messianic title there. Just as David was the rightful ruler of all the Kings of the world because he represents the true kingdom, God’s kingdom, Jesus is firstborn of creation. He is the rightful heir to creation because He is the creator itself. The prologue of John’s gospel makes this abundantly clear, so that would be John 1:1-3.
“In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.” And so that’s just the New Testament evidence. When you check out the course at the Catholic Answers School of Apologetics; Creation From Nothing, I have the scientific evidence, the philosophical evidence and the biblical and historical evidence.
That’s just the New Testament evidence. There’s a lot more that I cover in the Old Testament, especially about the creation account in Genesis. What I want to leave you with is probably the most explicit mention of creation from nothing in the Bible. And that would be in the Deuterocanonical books of scripture. I was doing a study of the Deuterocanonical books not long ago because I was planning to debate Pastor Steve Christy on whether the Deuterocanonical books are scripture, what can and should we hold?
And it was so refreshing because I love all the little gems and nuggets of wisdom. The book of Sirach is easily one of my favorite books in the Bible. If you listen to the podcast a lot, you’ll know my favorite Bible verses Sirach 2:4-6, “Accept whatever befalls you in crushing misfortune, be patient for in fire, gold is tested. The worthy man is put in the crucible of humiliation. Trust in God, make straight your ways and hope in Him.”
And it’s sad when Protestants reject the Deuterocanonical books because there’s so much there that they would totally agree with it and love it if it were within the protocanonical books that they already accept. And one of those is a clear affirmation of the doctrine of creation from nothing in the second book of Maccabees. What’s happening here at Maccabees is that there’s a mother who’s comforting her sons, which by the way, this is referenced as a heroic act of faith in Hebrews 11:35.
The fact is the author of letter of Hebrews, which Protestants say is inspired, affirms that this, what I’m telling you here is part of biblical history. And so, the New Testament, while not directly citing the Deuterocanonical books of scripture, does affirm certain parts of them as being biblical history or containing predicted prophecies such as Wisdom chapter 2, which prophesies that the son of God will be killed and people will mock Him saying, “You are the son of God, save yourself.”
The only place you find that, that’s in Matthew 27, the priest mocked Jesus and said… It says, “The son of God. If you are the son of God, take yourself down from there.” And they’re mocking him because that was prophesied in Wisdom chapter 2, which said that, “They mock Him as the son of God. If he was the son of God, he could save Himself.” I mean, they would love. Look, predictive prophecy of Christ in Wisdom chapter 2, creation from nothing in 2nd Maccabees 9:28.
What’s happening here is that there is a mother who’s comforting her sons who are going to be executed by a Gentile King because they refuse to break the Jewish kosher law. They refuse to eat pork. And so he’s going to kill them and she says, “Don’t be scared.” And she gives this wonderful discourse that is actually quoted in the catechism, in paragraph 297 of the catechism, as the most explicit biblical witness to the doctrine of creation from nothing.
And so she says, “I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set and order the elements within each of you. Therefore, the creator of the world who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of His laws.” And she says, here’s the important part. “Look at the heaven and the earth, and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed. Thus, also, mankind comes into being.”
To understand God is all powerful. The fact that He can make something from nothing means that if He can make something from nothing, He can give you your body back in the resurrection of the dead. That is what the mother of the persecuted sons and 2nd Maccabees, that’s the point she wants to drive home to them in this their dire hour. And the point that we can have solace in, to know that God can give us a new heart, for example. You look in the Psalms, for example, and it promises in Psalm 52 that God will create in us a new heart.
David talks about this in his famous Psalm of lament about his sins. Paul says that we are a new creation in his letter to the Corinthians. That anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. “Behold, the new has come, the old has passed away.” 2nd Corinthians 5:17. God can do this because He can make something from nothing. And in fact, when I’ve read experts on the doctrine of creation from nothing, the experts who deny that Genesis affirms this.
And if you want to get my whole breakdown of Genesis, be sure to check out the Catholic Answers School of Apologetics course. Though I’m sure I’ll be able to post that as a bonus to the patrons, our patreon community at trenthornpodcast.com, which you should check out if you haven’t already. You get all kinds of great bonuses from my new courses, my new books just for as little as $5 a month, and it helps us keep the podcast going. Go to trenthornpodcast.com.
See, it’s the art of always directing people to give support and seamlessly continue on. I learned it from Ben Shapiro. I love how when you listen to Ben Shapiro’s podcast, he always ties it in so seamlessly. And he talks like a mile a minute and he’s saying, “He economy is completely falling apart because of the dumb things the Democrats are doing right now. Which by the way, if you deal with dumb things all the time, you need to go to this tutoring program or you need to buy this life insurance. He goes, if you’re dumb, you might die soon. You need your life insurance pay out to your family.”
And I’m like, “Ben, you got me sucked in.” I love it. Oh, it’s so funny. Be sure to go and check it out that more in Genesis, I’ll be covering there in the Catholic Answers School of Apologetics, but check out my Evidence For Morality course, schoolofapologetics.com. Hopefully, in a few months, they’ll debut my evidence for Creation From Nothing. But I was reading these experts on Genesis, those who deny the Genesis affirms creation from nothing, which it does. And I give three reasons for that in the course.
Even they will admit, well, at the very latest, that 2nd Maccabees 9:28 clearly affirms the doctrine of creation from nothing. Even the skeptics will admit that this is talking about it. I would just say to my Protestant friends, look, there’s so many treasures in the Deuterocanonical books of scripture, and because they are treasures, I’m willing to defend them. That’s why I’m going to… I’m trying to schedule debates here soon. We got the studio back up and running.
I want to do dialogues, I want to do debates. I know we’ve been missing that on the podcast just with the pandemic. Things have been totally weird and bizarre with everything that’s been… And tragic and mournful, and we’re finally getting back on our feet. I want to do more dialogues because I wanted to have Matt Whitman from the Ten-second Bible Hour. He’s a great Protestant guy on YouTube. He goes to different churches. I wanted him to come to my church here in San Diego and just have a chat with him about being Catholic and Protestant.
But with the pandemic, I don’t know, I don’t even know if we’re going to have airplanes in six months. I don’t know how the airlines are going to survive when the flight passenger levels on airlines are lower than what we saw in the early 1950s. But I hope to start up, the very least, we’ll do them online, dialogues and maybe debates, including one on the Deuterocanonical book of scriptures. Deuterocanonical scriptures, do they belong in the Bible or not? Hoping to do that.
Before that though, I think I would like to do a debate on whether Catholics can be socialists. Because I found a assistant professor who is willing to argue the antithesis to say Catholics can be socialists. We’re looking, hopefully, beginning of June to be able to do that and that’ll be a lot of fun. I haven’t done a debate since, goodness, either Dan Barker in Minnesota or maybe James White in Atlanta. I can’t remember. Well, regardless, thanks you guys very much and I hope you have a very blessed day.
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