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In this episode Trent sits down for an interview with Protestant YouTuber Cameron Bertuzzi to talk about his conversion to Catholicism and what Protestants should keep in mind when they examine the Church’s teaching.
Welcome to The Counsel of Trent Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Hey everyone, welcome to The Counsel of Trent Podcast. I’m your host, Catholic Answers’ apologist and speaker, Trent Horn. Today, I want to share with you an interview I did many months ago with Cameron Bertuzzi of the channel, Capturing Christianity. Cameron is Protestant and Capturing Christianity focuses on defending neo-Christian theism, like the existence of God, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In fact, at his conference, he hosted a conference back in August on defending the existence of God and these other themes.
Trent Horn:
I was there, I gave a talk on the Argument for Motion, and I also debated Ben Watkins. The flagship event was the debate that we had on the existence of God, and it’s probably the favorite debate I’ve ever done. It was a great event. The conference went well and it was just really fun to meet everyone there because Cameron is Protestant, and most of the people who are at that conference, and many of the people who support Capturing Christianity are Protestant.
Trent Horn:
But they were familiar with my work and agreed with a lot of it. Some Protestants even came with my book, The Case for Catholicism and asked me to sign it. Cameron himself has always been interested in Catholicism. He hosts dialogues and debates on the subject on his channel. Recently, he was speaking to Matt Fradd, talking about four things that he changed his mind on in studying Catholicism. Now, by the time I post this episode, I don’t know if it’s out of date, Cameron’s interested in Catholicism. He’s open mind. He’s willing to follow the evidence where it leads.
Trent Horn:
Maybe by the time I post this video, it’ll be out of date and he’ll decide to become Catholic or he’ll decide he never wants to be Catholic or he’s still searching and he doesn’t know. I don’t know, but I had a really great opportunity chatting with Cameron back in August in this interview. That’s why I want to share it with you, so you can see how we can have these kinds of dialogues and engage one another in a friendly way.
Trent Horn:
I really enjoyed that. But two things before I share the interview. Number one, this was done way back in August, almost one year ago. I look a little bit different. I’ve actually, and this is something I might share on a Free For All Friday soon, I’ve committed to losing weight since then. Especially if you’re watching this on YouTube, I probably weighed about 30 pounds more in this interview than I do now. Also, another reason I might look a little bit inflamed and the reason I’m wearing glasses is because I had just gotten over COVID and shingles. I had shingles all over the side of my face and it was still inflaming my eye. So, I wore glasses to try to cover the red inflammation that I had in my eye that I just got over before I went to the episode.
Trent Horn:
I think I was even extra inflamed and puffy from the shingles. Then also I was just heavier. Maybe I’ll have Jimmy on soon and we can talk about the mystery of weight loss, I don’t know. But I’ve been committed to it, and I’ll talk about it another time, but I’ve lost about 20, 30 pounds since that interview, and it’s good.
Trent Horn:
That’s number one. Number two, I just want to say that Cameron’s an awesome guy. Obviously, there are many things I disagree with him on, but there’s many, many things I agree with him on. I always enjoy chatting with him when I get the chance. As I said, I really appreciate he’s open-minded. He wants to follow the evidence where it leads. Just pray for Cameron. Just pray for him to continue to be open-minded and to have the breathing room to be able to discern if he wants to be Catholic or not, because he’s in a difficult position.
Trent Horn:
It’s one thing to try to determine if you want to be Catholic or Protestant, and then it gets even more difficult if you have a family and they might say, “Hey wait, we didn’t sign up for this.” Which he’s married, he has children. That’s something else he has to discern. But even more than that, it’s very hard, almost unfair I would say, for somebody to discern their religious experience when they host a religious channel like Cameron does.
Trent Horn:
You feel that if you were to discern your religious position, that you’ve got thousands of eyes watching you, judging all the positions you take, when most people, the vast majority of people, nearly all of them who become either Catholic or Protestant or Orthodox, they’re not in that position. It’s a personal decision they make, and then they share with others.
Trent Horn:
Sometimes it is public. Maybe soon I’ll have Francis Beckwith. Francis… Frank, as his friends would call him. Frank Beckwith teaches out at Baylor. He was Protestant. In fact, he was the head of the Evangelical Theological Society before he stepped down and became Catholic, even though he said he didn’t have to step down, but he thought it was better.
Trent Horn:
It’s a lot to go through one of these conversion experiences, discern it, knowing that people are watching and judging you and might have harsh words. Whoever you are, whether you’re Cameron or whether you’re anyone else discerning these things. I would just say, pray for Cameron, that he can have clarity in this, and to be charitable towards him and be charitable towards the other commenters that you see on Cameron’s channel or my channel. Please, I am begging everybody.
Trent Horn:
I’m going to go off topic here a little bit, but that’s okay. I was tempted for a little bit to deactivate the comments on my videos. Why? Some people do that because they don’t like when atheists come in and flame wars and try to refute everything. I don’t care. You want to talk on my comments, you want to have theological apologetic arguments, go right ahead. I don’t care about that. More, I was concerned in seeing uncharitable Christian behavior in the comments section.
Trent Horn:
I don’t moderate the comments. I do not have time to be the comment police on YouTube. Everybody needs to own up to that, needs to be in control of their own behavior. I thought if I can’t moderate and some people are going to make Catholics look bad, should I shut the comments off? No, I’m not going to do that. But I would just plead, be charitable. Treat others how you would want to be treated, and pray for Cameron during this time.
Trent Horn:
But I hope that this interview gives you a nice framework and model for how we can have these conversations with our Protestant brothers and sisters as we both journey together towards our ultimate spiritual end. Check it out, and definitely be sure to go subscribe to Cameron’s channel, Capturing Christianity and I’ll link below to the interview that he had with Matt Fradd, where he’s talked about how his positions have changed on some Catholic teachings, but check it out.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Hey guys, welcome to Capturing Christianity. My name is Cameron Bertuzzi, and today I’m here with Trent Horn and we’re talking about his story from Protestantism to Catholicism and his conversion. Would you call it a conversion?
Trent Horn:
Oh yeah. Well, I would say not just from Protestantism to Catholicism, but I guess you could call it deism to Catholicism, really.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Okay. Were you ever… Well, deism, you think that there’s some kind of creator, maybe they’re not omni benevolent or anything, but were you ever agnostic or atheist or did you always think that there was a God?
Trent Horn:
I was raised in a nominally religious household. My dad is Jewish. My mom is a Protestant who is a former Catholic. What’s funny is she tried to enroll me in the local Catholic school, because that was the best school around, and the nuns at the time said that they wouldn’t take me as a student because my mom had left the church and she’s going to contradict what they’re teaching. Why would they try to teach me at their Catholic school, if I have no chance to grow up to be a good Catholic? I showed the nuns wrong and that’s always fun.
Trent Horn:
We didn’t go to church though. We didn’t go to church on Sundays. We had Christmas and Hanukkah. After that, it was, choose whatever you want to believe. Growing up as a kid, I had always believed there was a God who was out there, and that didn’t seem to be a strange notion to me. Even going into junior high and high school, that made sense to me that somebody struck the cue ball and got the universe going, but it was a very mysterious first cause. Then as a little kid, I watched Bible stories. I still show them to my kids. They’re the Hanna-Barbera Greatest Adventure Ever Told. They are the best Bible story, in my opinion.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Is this a YouTube video?
Trent Horn:
I watched them on VHS tapes. Now, you can get them… Hanna-Barbera made like Jetsons-
Cameron Bertuzzi:
[inaudible 00:08:31]
Trent Horn:
Totally. They made the Jetsons and the Flintstones. The same people that made the Jetsons and the Flintstones made Bible cartoons, and they’re done really well. They’ve got really good celebrity voice talent, like Ed Asner, the old man from Up, plays Joshua. All these great elements in there. I watched that as a kid and I like the Bible stories. Then when I get into high school, I ask my parents, where’s the evidence this stuff ever even happened, and no evidence is presented.
Trent Horn:
I just dump all that. At the same time, I got really into dunking on Christians for believing in young earth creationism. I lumped all of Christianity and into an anti-science, anti-historical framework. I thought it was just a crutch, basically.
Trent Horn:
I liked science. When I was 10 years old, I was in the Young Astronomers Club. We did a field trip to Jet Propulsion Laboratories. I saw the big Cassini spacecraft getting built. I believed in a God that made everything, but I didn’t think there was any religion I’d be a part of. Then that changed though when I was midway through high school, I was getting an English paper graded in my English class, and a group of students came in. Some I knew, some I didn’t, and they were part of a Catholic youth group, it was called Life Team.
Trent Horn:
They were having just their lunchtime meeting. They had free pizza. I figured I would stick around. I went to a few of these meetings and they would have the food and then they would have a conversation. They’d do a little talk and then take questions on God or Jesus. I thought, wow, it’s interesting, they’re willing to take my hard questions. I appreciated that. More and more I looked into it, and then someone invited me to go to mass and I wasn’t sure exactly what that was. They talked about it being the holy sacrifice of the mass.
Trent Horn:
I said, “If you’re going to kill a goat up there on the altar, I’m probably going to check out right now. It’s not… ” Because I didn’t know anything about this, really.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
How old were you?
Trent Horn:
16.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Okay.
Trent Horn:
Probably. About halfway through high school. This encouraged me to give Christianity a second look. What I did, this would’ve been in the early 2000s; 2000, 2001 and 2002. During that time, I read books, I went online to try to find as many atheist Christian debates that I could find. This was before YouTube. This is just like finding any MP3 that I could download on a 56K modem. Though, I did find, and a lot of them were the William Lane Craig debates, the old school-
Cameron Bertuzzi:
The old ones.
Trent Horn:
… the old school, 1990s.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Which are still really good.
Trent Horn:
They’re super good.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Yeah.
Trent Horn:
When I would watch that or I would… Honestly, the writers and thinkers that helped me to come to understand Christianity were primarily Protestant. People like William Lane Craig, J.P. Moreland, some of the work of Josh McDowell. That got my feed into the door. Though, there were other people like the writings of Peter Kreeft that I really enjoyed.
Trent Horn:
That was interesting, one of the first apologetic books that I bought doing my research was The Handbook of Christian Apologetics. It was originally published by InterVarsity Press-
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Is that by Kreeft?
Trent Horn:
Yes. It’s by Peter Kreeft and Father Ronald Tacelli. I didn’t really know they were Catholic authors when I first bought it. Essentially, it’s a defensive mere Christian theism. I was just really hooked, and especially listening to the debates and the arguments seeing, wow, the Christians have really good reasons to believe in a robust view of God, and also to believe that God revealed himself in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
Trent Horn:
I just remember one night I was just praying, and it all clicked. I said, “Jesus, I believe in you, you’re real. I believe in you.” I remember having my hands up, even when I prayed that and it all just clicked for me.” But then I was just at a crossroads. It’s like, now what do I do? Do I keep going to the Catholic church, my friends had invited me to, or what about the other Protestant churches that I had gone and visited?
Trent Horn:
What’s funny is that I actually enjoy going to some of the Catholic churches because I am a painful introvert and Catholics are notoriously bad at welcoming people. You’ll go to some Protestant churches and suddenly there’s like eight greeters that surround you and want to invite you to everything.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
That’s so funny.
Trent Horn:
I’m the kind of person who’s like, please don’t talk to me. I’m uncomfortable by all of this feigned attention you’re giving me. I know it’s not authentic right now. Whereas with going to a Catholic church, here’s your worship aid, now you can sit in the back. I’m like, I could get used to this. I like that it’s just business here.
Trent Horn:
Though I had been to smaller Catholic parishes where it does feel more familial. Catholic could definitely work on that. But for me, I like that. But still it was like this sacred mystery I respected, but didn’t totally understand. I’m like, what is going on with all of this? I was thinking, okay, where do I go from here? I thought, okay, I’ll just read the Bible and just try to figure it out for myself or try to read the very first Christians to see what they believed.
Trent Horn:
I think though, in my journey, I noticed something that I think that people have to consider now, especially Protestants, because I think there’s a resurgence in protest looking at, especially Eastern orthodoxy and Catholicism. It’s this idea about the default position and the burden of proof. I think sometimes you and I might feel a little bit frustrated if an atheist treats atheism like it’s just the default, I don’t have to think about. I’m going to start with atheism, and if you can’t convince me of theism, then I’m going to be an atheist. I can just start here.
Trent Horn:
I think you and I would say, “Well, no, you can’t really start there. You should just start with, I don’t know if there’s a God or not.” Agnostic about the whole thing. Maybe atheism, maybe theism. But you can’t start there, you should start in a more neutral position. I think that’s something that we have to do also once we come to believe in mere Christianity, which for me, I just came to believe God exists, Jesus had divine authority and he vindicated that authority by rising from the dead. But then, from there, it’s like this default position, you look off… Do you remember the end of the movie, Cast Away, Jersey Cast Away?
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Yeah. That’s one of my favorite movies.
Trent Horn:
Even though they spoiled the ending in the trailer, they show him getting rescued. I’m like, what are you doing showing him getting rescued in the trailer? But at the end of it, he’s trying to find the lady to deliver the package and he’s standing at the crossroads and then she’s like, “You go this way, it goes here. You go this way, it goes there.”
Trent Horn:
I really believe that mere Christianity is that central point, a lot of people get to, where it’s like, yeah, I believe in God, and I believe Jesus is God and he rose from the dead. But then I feel like there’s three options you can go to from there. It’s, do I believe in my authority is scripture, 66 books of the Bible that are fully inspired and are inherent, which are additional beliefs to just God and Jesus. Those are additional beliefs we’re jumping onto. Or do I go to scripture and a sacred tradition that guides us, which would be like Eastern Orthodoxy. Or do I go to sacred scripture, sacred tradition and a magistarium, a teaching office, universal one, which would be in Catholicism? That was the place where I was at, though, I didn’t put as much thought into it like that as I do now. But I’m not concerned, but I think for a lot of the people-
Cameron Bertuzzi:
You were nevertheless at a crossroad in your life.
Trent Horn:
Absolutely. I think that, especially for Protestants who are thinking about, well, what should I believe? I would just encourage, don’t treat Protestantism as if it were just some kind of default position. It’s just, well, obviously if I believe in Jesus, I’ll be Protestant and then can Catholicism or orthodoxy defend their claims? If they can’t, I’ll stick with Protestantism.
Trent Horn:
I don’t believe that is illicit move. Why couldn’t you just be someone who says, yeah, I believe Jesus rose from the dead and God exists. Everything else though, there’s these other ancient documents, and I just live my life based on what Jesus tried to tell me to do. I feel like a lot of people just make… I don’t want to make this contentious or anything. It’s like, I’ve adopted mere Christian theism, Protestantism automatically follows, but I don’t think it does. There’s more things we have to logically get through to get to that point. That’s what I had to do when I believed it in Jesus, but it’s like, okay, is it Protestantism, or is there some kind of apostolic succession that I have to look for? I don’t know if that makes sense.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Yeah. My case is a lot different because I didn’t start out as a deist or as an agnostic, I started out in a Protestant tradition, very charismatic tradition. That’s my background. Not just that.
Trent Horn:
Yes, I’m sure even more. Well, what’s funny is that I am, being the painful introvert that I am, I have been to chars somatic worship services and I do enjoy them, but sometimes I always don’t feel like I belong. I always give names to things like the high five, the dual high five, the bowl. For you is more like a default because that’s what you knew, it’s what you grew up in.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
That’s what I’ve grown up in.
Trent Horn:
Sure. Yeah.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
There’s tradition that I’ve got to grapple with and other experiences that I’ve had at Protestant churches. There’s more to it. I think that you’ve got a good point. If someone is coming to this with no prior background and no prior experiences, I think that’s right, that if you become convinced that mere Christianity is true, that God exists, that Jesus is God and Jesus rose from the dead, I think at that point, it does make sense to say, look, you’re at a crossroad here, which way are you going to go? There are three options. There’s three legitimate options. Obviously, within each of these, there’s still wiggle room in each one.
Trent Horn:
Sure.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Protestantism, probably more wiggle room than the other two.
Trent Horn:
Protestantism, very, very, very much. Eastern Orthodoxy, maybe a little bit, because there are the Assyrian churches of the east, which are even older than Eastern Orthodoxy. They broke off in the fifth century. Though, among Eastern Orthodox, the divisions tend to be more ethnic or national. It’s like your Greek Orthodox, your Russian Orthodox, things like that. Then you have Catholicism much more truncated in any differences there. The differences there are usually just differences in worship. I attend an Eastern Catholic church, for example.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Isn’t that what Matt-
Trent Horn:
He was.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
… I think I went to it.
Trent Horn:
Yes. Matt was attending a Byzantine Rite Catholic Church. When we say Catholic church, we should say Catholic churches, that there are these autonomous churches preserving the deposit of faith, though they are all United by their union with the Pope and the bishops. Sometimes I tell people like, yeah, I love… You go to my Eastern Byzantine church that continues the liturgy of Constantinople. You’ll feel like you’re in an Eastern Orthodox church, it just has a picture of the Pope in the vestibule.
Trent Horn:
I do believe that, especially… That’s where I was, it’s like, okay, well, which way should I go? I think sometimes, in order to understand that, it’s like, well, try to look at it. I would say, it’s always hard to remove our preconceptions. Whenever we read scripture, we don’t realize how many preconceptions we bring to it.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I think that’s right.
Trent Horn:
It’s like the passage in the book of Revelation where Jesus says of the churches like in Laodicea and Colossae, “You’re neither hot nor cold, you are lukewarm, so I shall spit you out of my mouth.” We take that to mean, well, Cameron, you can’t just be lukewarm about Jesus. Jesus would rather have you be on fire for the faith or totally cold to him. The thing he hates the most is being lukewarm.
Trent Horn:
That makes no sense at all. Jesus, he would rather have me hate him than be lukewarm towards him. Actually then, when you actually read the passage more in its historical context, the hot and cold referred to the temperature of water that fed two very spiritually healthy communities. I think it’s in Hierapolis and Colossae. In that passage, one of the communities that was very spiritually vibrant had its own hot springs and the other one had naturally cold water running in from the mountains.
Trent Horn:
These were both spiritually vibrant communities. I want to say it was Laodicea, I haven’t read the passage in a while. The one that had the lukewarm water that had to come in through an aquifer. It’s also [inaudible 00:21:57] was kind of bitter. You drink it, you’re like, “Ugh, gross.” That was a symbol of how spiritually malformed that community actually was. It’s interesting, if you didn’t… 2,000 years later when we read stuff, and that’s just one little example-
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Culturally removed.
Trent Horn:
You’re so far removed. That’s why it’s difficult then when we read scripture, especially when we try to read things like the dispute about when Paul talks about faith and works, for example. That’s why one thing has been helpful for me in my spiritual development is reading the works of the new perspective on Paul, or you can call it the new perspectives on Paul.
Trent Horn:
These would be people like James Dunn, E.P. Sanders, who these are Protestant authors who say no, Protestants since Luther and Calvin, they read Paul, his dialectic with the Judaizers and they read the debate between Catholics and Protestants in the 16th century back into this dispute, and they get it wrong. This idea that Jews never believed that you had to do a certain number of works to get into heaven, for example. No Jew would think that. Rather, Jews believe that you came into the covenant by grace because you’re born a Jew. God picks if you’re a Jew or not.
Trent Horn:
Rather, the dispute is not about doing enough works to get into heaven, the dispute is about whether being a part of Jewish identity is what matters most for being a part of the covenant community. But back, I guess, in my conversion, I tried to look at scripture and the early church-
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I wanted to mention, because I want to come back to it, the question that you were asking about default positions and from mere Christianity, where do you go from there? I do have some thoughts on that, but I want to hear your story and how you went from there.
Trent Horn:
I just go, looking and reading through, and it’s interesting to see, I look at, just starting with the gospels. I’m like, okay, what does Jesus want from me, and from other people? Is it for scripture to be my highest authority, and that’s what I follow and intend to implement, or is there some kind of specific church that endures over time, I’m supposed to be a part of?
Trent Horn:
I find it interesting, Jesus’s continual references to a single church. Yet, Jesus never tells anyone to write… Prior to his ascension into heaven, he never even tells anybody to write anything down ever. Then going forward to see what the apostles, I see a focus on laying hands on others. Nobody is able to become a pastor of their own initiative. It’s like today, it’s like, how do you become a pastor? You hang up a sign, and if people come to your church, good for you. Or maybe you’ll go to a seminary.
Trent Horn:
But that’s not what I was seeing in the New Testament, or in the early church, especially when you get to people like St. Ignatius of Antioch. As I was reading through, like, wow, this is so different from a Protestant framework that I had been used to with Protestant friends. Seeing with St. Ignatius of Antioch was talking about, about a single Bishop, following him, like how Jesus Christ follows the father. To me, it made sense in looking in these different directions to see how faith and authority and continuing authority had been revealed.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
It sounds to me like you almost got to Catholicism from reading your Bible.
Trent Horn:
Yes. When I would read through, I thought there were a lot of passages. There were some doctrines that stuck out to me more clearly than others, at first. That made certain Protestant beliefs no longer live options. Like going through the Bible, it seemed very clear to me that Jesus taught things like baptismal regeneration, the possibility of salvation could be lost, a very high view of the Eucharist, if not the real presence, for example.
Trent Horn:
Even just right there, reading through, I’m like, okay, but some Protestant denominations that would be, I can’t believe that. Others, maybe like Lutheranism for example, would start to be more appealing there. But then the more fundamental authority framework of what authority do I look to? The old problem of the cannon, why do I believe in these books and not other books? For me, I think a lot of it was just, I just want to read the first Christians and just figure out what did they believe? What did they act like? That involved reading things like The Didache, Ignatius, Justin Martyr. It was fascinating.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Were you reading these church fathers like, you were still trying to figure out where you wanted to go at this point? You were still investigating.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. I would read that, though, I think something like Orthodoxy or Catholicism was starting to make a lot more sense in just seeing the preservation of the faith over time, in this way. Then after that, reading those sources and then what I did with atheism and Christianity is like, okay, I read atheist books, was it Michael Martin had atheist… Philosophical Justifications for Atheism. That was one of the first ones, or George Smith, The Case Against God. I remember that’s was probably written back in the ’70s. Although these atheist books already… I was doing this before the God Delusion came out. Obviously, this was before the new atheists really hit their stride. I was reading the old atheist stuff.
Trent Horn:
Much, the same, then I would read what do Protestants have to say about Catholics on these issues? To me, going through that, sola scriptura seemed untenable that there wasn’t a biblical or a historical justification for it. I felt like no, there is a church. That’s interesting in scripture actually, when you read, you never read about someone going to his church or starting a church. There’s always the church in Rome, the church in Ephesus. It’s always, Jesus tells people, if you have a dispute with your brother, go to him, two to three witnesses, last resort, go to the church. After that, he’s a tax collector to you.
Trent Horn:
It seemed to be a very uniform and enduring thing, and that was the thing that wanted to find. I think though, that, especially like the papacy, that I think is probably one of the key differences between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, provided this kind of uniformity, especially seeing in the early church to keep the whole church together. For me, especially, that made sense. I know this is more of an intuitive argument, but it’s like, I remember in the office when Michael and Jim are co-managers. Do you remember that episode of [inaudible 00:28:51] office?
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Yeah. It was like a whole season, I think.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. It was a whole arc where Michael and Jim are going to be co-managers of the office. Oscar is like, “Of course, what country doesn’t have two presidents?” Where would Catholicism be without the Popes? But it hits on something that even among earthly institutions, even among human institutions, we naturally create a pyramid like structure of leadership to provide unity and continuity over time. You have a CEO, you have a president, you have a prime minister, you have a supreme allied commander of the army or armed forces or general-
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Or Jesus.
Trent Horn:
Right. But then also… You’re right. Someone might say, well then for the church, Trent, you have Jesus being the head. But what I saw though, that if Jesus establishes a church, it’s kind of like how God establishes the kingdom of Israel. You might say, well, who’s the king of Israel? Well, God is the king of Israel, and David is the King of Israel. Is it both? Well, yes. Ultimately God is going to be king of all. Much like how with Israel, you would have the king or you would have the prime minister who oversee.
Trent Horn:
That’s why there’s many Catholics will point to a parallel in Matthew 16 about Jesus giving the keys to Peter, being similar to the keys that are given to what was essentially the role of the prime minister of Israel, the regent that oversaw the kingdom in Isaiah 22, for example. I found that to be fascinating.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Okay. Let’s return now to the crossroad and how someone who accepts mere Christianity, just the core tenets, let’s say God exists and Jesus is God, and Jesus rose from the dead. Let’s just stick with those three for now. When do you go from there? Can you just jump straight to Protestantism or are all three on par? I think that’s a really interesting point. As we’ve been doing this interview, I’ve been thinking about it the whole time that-
Trent Horn:
Think about it, why do we believe the Bible’s the word of God? 99 times out 100, isn’t it because somebody else told us? It’s one of our parents, it was our pastor. It was an apologist we saw on YouTube. We accept that tradition. The Latin word [inaudible 00:31:07] comes from the Greek word, paradosis, that which is handed on.
Trent Horn:
In a sense, scripture is a kind of tradition. It’s just what’s handed on to people. For me, why couldn’t you just be this? You could just be, I believe Jesus rose from the dead. I just do whatever Jesus says. You could say, there’s all these ancient documents. That’s what I did in my journey. I’m like, look, you’ve got the canonical gospels, gospel of Thomas, gospel of Peter, gospel of Philip. You’ve got new Testament letters. You’ve got other early writings, I Clement, the Didache, The Fragments of Papias.
Trent Horn:
Not just the Bible, but what if you just had this whole collection of everything that talks about Christianity, let’s even throw Joe [inaudible 00:31:50] in there. Why not? It is just all there in the first century. Now, what do I do? What if I just said, “Well, I believe Jesus is God.” So, I’ll just be a red letter Christian. Everything Jesus said, that’s what I need. That’s all I need.
Trent Horn:
There’s people like that. Then there’s other people, the hyper-dispensationalists who say, the only Jesus was only for the Jews of his time. We only have to follow Paul right now. That would be in Protestantism, hyper-dispensationalism.
Trent Horn:
Well, where do you bridge the divide? I guess, for me, when I look at all of it, where does Jesus give his authority? To me, he gives it to the apostles. That is where he wanted people to look. He talks about them sitting on thrones, judging Israel. That is where the authority lies. He never mentions anybody writing anything.
Trent Horn:
Then you move from the time prior to Pentecost to after, and then it’s like, well, what do we see in the church? We still see a very apostolic church where the apostles lay hands on others to be elders, to be overseers, deacons. Priests, Bishops, deacon, whatever word you want to use. We see the growth of a church more.
Trent Horn:
To me, I’m like, well, does that church, does it still exist today? I think some people might say, well, yeah, it’s everyone who’s baptized. The church exists, it’s all of us who are Christians. But for me I’m like, “Well, it’s not a very helpful church. It’s like, can I go to this church for doctrinal guidance or to help with some kind of disciplinary matter?” It seems like if the church is just everybody who is Christian, cool, but there’s not really much I can get there because it’s very contradictory in its existence. You see how that would be frustrating, kind of?
Cameron Bertuzzi:
You mean, Protestant, the different denominations?
Trent Horn:
I mean everybody. When I was reading scripture, there is a church, you just established the church, John 17, praying for believers to be one. The big question I had in my journey, when I’m looking at Protestantism, Catholicism, East Orthodoxy, where is that church? Does it still exist today? Because some people like the Mormons, for example, will say, it died and it was restored in 1830 by Joseph Smith, that you could believe it or not.
Trent Horn:
I don’t believe that, and that’s a whole different conversation. But it’s an interesting view. Others might say, “Well, no, it still exists. It is continued.” Where is its historical continuity and what is it? Is it an enduring, visible, hierarchical structure? Hierarchy just means sacred order, [inaudible 00:34:31] I would believe that Jesus made a church who would have a sacred order to it.
Trent Horn:
But my point is, I think a lot of people might say to me, the church is just Trent and Cameron and every one else who was saved, baptized, whichever word you want to use. But to me, I think you can look to the church more for just, hey, we all happen to be Christian. You can receive spiritual nourishment, guidance, under salvation. The church should lead you to salvation.
Trent Horn:
That’s why St. Cyprian in the third century said, one cannot have God as father, if he does not have church as mother. But I think today for a lot of us, especially in the Protestant world, the church is not what leads me to salvation. The church reinforces the path to salvation that I biblically discerned, so to speak. I don’t know if that makes sense.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Would you say at this point you’re giving reasons to favor or privilege the Catholic path to take that one?
Trent Horn:
At this point, do you mean in my journey or what I’m saying right now?
Cameron Bertuzzi:
What you’re saying right now? Not necessarily in your journey, but just in general? Because we were at this crossroad. It seems like you’ve been giving some reasons that church to go this route.
Trent Horn:
My reasons would be like, if I’m at the crossroads and I just believe Jesus rose from the dead and I’m looking, where did Jesus’s authority go after his resurrection? The authority that I listen to as a believer, to guide me in my life, I would say I cannot make the logical steps to get to sola scriptura and the 66 book Canon of the Protestant Bible. I don’t see how one can make those jumps. I think many arguments, I remember I was reading a Protestant to apologist defending sola scriptura, and his argument for the truth of sola scriptura was based on the idea that it would be fitting for God to give us his revelation in this way.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Do you remember who it was?
Trent Horn:
Yes, actually. I don’t want to paraphrase it incorrectly. It was in the book, Scripture Alone by James White.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Okay.
Trent Horn:
Now, I don’t know… Hi, James. I’ll talk to you about it on the Dividing Line later. I’m going to show up on the Dividing Line, I don’t know, which I have appeared on there every now and then recently.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I have to.
Trent Horn:
Hey, there you go. Common ground, Catholics and Protestants.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Yep. Can’t say anything about Catholicism without James White having some comments on.
Trent Horn:
It’s interesting there though, I find James though, to be an interesting evidence for Catholicism sometimes. In that James, being a Calvinist would hold to the view that human beings do not contribute to their salvation. He rejects what be called synergism. It’s not like you do your part and God does his part. God is sovereign. God is the one who saves alone. But if you are a Protestant who says, well, no, I can contribute to my salvation without earning my salvation.
Trent Horn:
There’s many Armenian or non-Calvinist Protestants that would tell James White, “No, no. I can contribute to my salvation without earning it.” Then I think when one adopts that attitude, that can help to diffuse objections to Catholicism, thinking that Catholics earn their way to salvation when it’s like, well, no, you see the merit that when we do something and cooperate with God, that’s not the same as earning a place before God, we just disagree about what is it that God wants us to do to cooperate with him?
Trent Horn:
Because actually, I think, to understand how does a Catholic get to heaven? You just get baptized and you don’t commit a mortal sin, that’s it. If you do commit a mortal sin, you get reconciled with God. I think a lot of Protestants feel the same way, honestly. How do you get to heaven? Well, you… Especially, if you believe salvation can be lost, it’s, you get saved and you don’t forsake your salvation. If you do, you reconcile with God. I think it’s a really similar path. We just disagree about what it is that God obliges us to do in our Christian walk. I think we could have some of that commonality there.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I like looking for commonalities. I think that’s really important. In fact, Ben Watkins is in the room and I’m about to have a conversation with him about some of the things that atheists and Christians can agree on. I want to get this, before we end out the interview, and I feel like I could talk to you forever. But I wanted to say this… Here’s one thing that I’ve been thinking about that might favor the Protestant routes as we’re at that crossroads.
Trent Horn:
Sure. Yes.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Let me say this as a caveat before I get to that reason, is that when we’re thinking about the definition, if you want to call it, the definition of Protestantism, it seems like we’d have to take into consideration what are the essentials of Protestantism? Cause you mentioned sola scriptura, I don’t think that’s essential. I would think that is an accidental-
Trent Horn:
Do you think Protestantism is different than mere Christianity?
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I’d have to think about it more. But I think that my initial intuition is yes, there are some differences. I just don’t know what they are. I’d have to probably-
Trent Horn:
For example, would you say someone who says, “I believe Jesus is God, I don’t believe the Bible’s inspired, but I believe the Bible historically shows Jesus rose from the dead. If there’s a record of what Jesus said, I follow it.” Do you think that person would be a Protestant?
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I’d honestly just have to think about it. That’s a question that I was raising for myself, was like, I don’t know what the essential properties are of Protestantism.
Trent Horn:
A Protestant is just someone who lacks belief in Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. So, one doesn’t have a burden of proof. You see the parallel I made earlier about atheism.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
What I was going to get at, and let me say this, and that’s why it raised the question of the essentials of Protestantism. Is that for Protestantism, it does seem on the face of it that it’s a more modest view in the sense that it has less assumptions. But then, while I was thinking about that, I was thinking, but hold on a second, if sola scriptura is part of Protestantism, that is an additional thing that Catholicism doesn’t have.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Then the question is, well, which view actually is more modest? Let’s just talk about camp out on modesty. Would you say that if… Take that conditional claim. If Protestantism is more modest, then that’s at least one reason to prefer Protestantism at the crossroads.
Trent Horn:
It maybe, provided that the modesty doesn’t come at the cost of the elegance of the explanation. I would make a parallel once again, to say to you, is naturalism would appear more modest than theism to many naturalists, would that be… That’s essentially what the philosopher Paul Draper argues as to why one ought to prefer naturalism to theism, it’s intrinsically more probable because it is more modest than what it proposes. It only proposes the physical world, theism proposes the physical and the mental.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Ben [crosstalk 00:41:58] He’s looking so fondly at-
Trent Horn:
Someone could say, well, Protestantism proposes the written word of God and Catholicism has the written and unwritten word. Although you might rejoin her and say, “Yes, but the naturalist though, his modesty comes at the elegance and it raises more problems than it seeks to answer.” Initially, it may be appealing, I will just say just initially naturism may be more appealing. Proposing more entities, if the world view is more elegant overall to explain everything, I think is better. Maybe I should write something, but I really see a lot of these parallels here.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I think I’ve got a good response to this and that is to say that, we need to focus in on the conditional claim that I was making. The conditional is, if Protestantism is more modest, it’s conditional, we’re not saying that it is more modest, but if it is, that’s at least one reason to favor it. It doesn’t mean that it’s like a decisive reason, it couldn’t be overcome by some other… I think that would be consistent with what you were saying is that, maybe in the end, Roman Catholicism would be more elegant or would be a better route in the end.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Nevertheless, modesty could be at least one consideration in favor of Protestantism. In the same way, bringing it back to the naturalism question that, if… Because I’m not convinced that naturalism is simpler than theism. But
Trent Horn:
But you could possibly agree with their conditional?
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I could believe that, and say that I’m not sure which one is more simple, but I could at least agree with the conditional that if-
Trent Horn:
If naturalism
Cameron Bertuzzi:
… if naturalism were more simple or more modest, then that would be one reason, not a decisive reason, just one consideration in favor of that.
Trent Horn:
I could be open to that view of myself towards Protestantism. That if it were more modest-
Cameron Bertuzzi:
If it were more modest. That’s why I was like, what are the essentials of Protestantism-
Trent Horn:
But then we have to figure out-
Cameron Bertuzzi:
… how could you have a more modest-
Trent Horn:
Because I would say that might apply more to this fourth option that gets overlooked, which is just non-Protestant, mere Christian theism. One only-
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Say that again.
Trent Horn:
Non-Protestant mere Christian theism. Just believing the proposition, God exists and Jesus rose from the dead.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I feel like that would still be… My thought is like, non-denominational, someone who believes that, I don’t know.
Trent Horn:
Imagine you show up to your non-denominational church and you say, “Well, I don’t think Hebrew is scripture, because I don’t even know who wrote it.” How’s that going to fare at a non-denominational Bible study?
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I think it would probably go over… It depends on the church, depends on the number…
Trent Horn:
Sure.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Because some progressive churches would have probably no problem with that at all. I think it would probably just depend on.
Trent Horn:
Right. Then, of course, there are some Christian churches that are so diluted. They’re practically indistinguishable from atheism, and that God just becomes our hopes and dreams that we believe in and we have faith and faith. I would say, for example, like Unitarian universalism. We just believe in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Is that Protestantism? It’s really on the boundary for me.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I just don’t know what the essentials are. It’ll just have to open up another question-
Trent Horn:
I guess for me the classical essential-
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Catholicism, it’s more obvious what the essentials are under Catholicism.
Trent Horn:
It seems to me that the core essentials for Protestantism for 500 years were sola scriptura and sola fide. Now, you have Protestant authors who are critical, both of sola scriptura, saying that, well, maybe this is not a justifiable position. I think, was it Craig Allert wrote a book called A High View of Scripture? Where they’re questioning inerrancy, inspiration, sola scriptura, sufficiency.
Trent Horn:
Even on sola fide, there was a book, I forget the author. He was a Protestant author, but he wrote a book called Salvation by Allegiance Alone. He was saying that what Jesus and Paul means by faith is more, not the modern concept of faith, but the modern concept of allegiance would be a better term for us to understand there. Really transforming what we mean by sola fide.
Trent Horn:
I think you’re right, if we try to determine… If you’re at the mere Christian theism crossroads, and it’s like, where do I go from here? Protestantism, Orthodoxy, Catholicism. I think a lot of us have our heads wrapped around, well, what Orthodoxy entails though, that can get a little fuzzy. Catholicism, at least you have a universal catechism you can go to. When you ask me, “What do Catholics believe?” Here’s the 1994 catechism, enjoy all 2,700 paragraphs. With Protestantism though, because the field is so wide, even now when we’re trying to discuss-
Cameron Bertuzzi:
What are the essential-
Trent Horn:
Yeah, are Unitarians a part of it? Normally you would think sola scriptura, sola fide. But I think even you might say, well, there’s progressive Protestants that don’t really believe in those. I think they did a poll recently, like 40% of Protestants didn’t believe in sola scriptura.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
It doesn’t surprise me if that’s true.
Trent Horn:
Right. Catholics, we have our own problems, of course, with the rank and file getting the beliefs right. But at least with Catholicism, you’ll have like 70% of people who say they’re Catholic, don’t believe Jesus is present in the Eucharist. Now, that’s people that might show up to church once a year on Easter with grandma. But at least I can say, well, they’re wrong because the catechism says this. Well with Protestantism, it’s like, well the Unitarians are wrong, they’re not Protestants because… Well, what does make somebody a Protestant?
Trent Horn:
That’s a big question too. I think before one embraces that label, one must be able to say, this is what it means. Now, some people will go further. They’ll say, “I’m not just a Protestant, I’m a Calvinist, I’m a Lutheran, I’m a Baptist.” They’ll say, “This is what we believe. Here’s the justifications for it.” I think that’s good, but then along with that, don’t take a given, I would say. Don’t take the Bible, it is these 66 books. It is fully inspired, it is fully inerrant. Well, where’s the evidence for that? Because for me, here’s what I find interesting-
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Or be a separate kind of-
Trent Horn:
It is, it should not be taken as a given because here’s what I find fascinating, some Protestants will tell me, “I can’t believe in the papacy, if Trent, if the only thing you can give me on it is Matthew 16 and John 21. Or you’ve got these four Bible verses. If that’s the best you can do for something as central as the papacy, I can’t invest in that being the foundation of my belief system.” But then I would say, “Well then, where are the biblical verses for the foundation of your belief system?” It’s like, where are the Bible verses for sola scriptura? That’s an inconsistency I see sometimes, in that the Catholic can’t present enough evidence for his foundations, but the Protestant foundations are almost like a presupposition or a given. I think that’s problematic.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I can see how, as someone who, you interact with atheist a lot. I can see how someone who interacts with atheists, some of the same moves are being made by Protestants.
Trent Horn:
Yes.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I’m very sensitive to that because I deal with atheists a lot too. I don’t want to make the same bad moves that are being made on the other side.
Trent Horn:
I would just say, Isaiah 18 or 118? I’m always really dyslexic with Bible versus When I get them wrong, it’s just because I switch the numbers. If you ever get me to talk, usually I switch the numbers around. I’ll just quote it like Jesus would, the scroll of Isaiah says, come let us reason together. That’s why I think you and I have to do is say, okay, what’s nice is you and I have bedrock, like God exists, Jesus rose from the dead. The evidence to me is very, very strong for that.
Trent Horn:
Then I would just say, the additional claims that are put forward, whether it’s the Bible is inspired and inerrant, inspired and errant, and our soul infallible authority or sacred tradition or magisterium. These other claims, let us see what is the evidence for each of these claims, and let us not follow the chain past where the evidence gets us. Because a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence, I guess.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
To close out this interview, what is one thing that you would tell someone like me who, I do have a few reasons, we won’t get into those today, but maybe at some point-
Trent Horn:
Another time, maybe.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Another time we’ll get into some of those.
Trent Horn:
Yeah.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
But someone like me who, I would like to be a Catholic. I think that there are certain things about Catholicism-
Trent Horn:
Yeah. Why?
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Well, I feel like it’d be a cool group to be a part of. There’s so many beautiful things-
Trent Horn:
We have some snazzy theistic philosophers to hang out with.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
You also have like Franciscan churches and I could maybe wear robe one time.
Trent Horn:
Oh yeah, and talk to animals-
Cameron Bertuzzi:
The churches are beautiful, a lot of them. In America, some of them are not as beautiful as in Europe and stuff. But still, there’s a lot of beautiful Catholic churches in America as well. It’s not just that. I also find the mass really beautiful. I find the Eucharist really beautiful. There was something else… But there’s a lot of confession. I find that really beautiful, just the process of confession. A lot of these things just don’t exist in Protestantism. Nevertheless, there’s a few things that are keeping me back. The question is, to wrap it up-
Trent Horn:
What would my advice be?
Cameron Bertuzzi:
What would be your advice to someone and like me who… You can answer it either way because you don’t know what my reasons are at this point in the conversation, but what would your advice be to someone who is considering Catholicism, that wants it to be true? What would be your advice to them?
Trent Horn:
I would say, the advice that I would give you would probably parallel the advice you would give an atheist who wants God to exist. What if you met an atheist who said, “I really wish God existed. I think Christianity’s beautiful.”
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I think that’s actually Ben’s view.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. Let’s see what happens with-
Ben Watkins:
I’m trying not to say anything.
Trent Horn:
That’s why next time we have to have a conversation with the three of us. What would you say to someone like that, and I’m not going to put words in your mouth, but I imagine you might say something like, why don’t you try living as if it were true? If you find something beautiful about Christianity, just enjoy it for its own sake. If it gives you fulfillment, just try living as if it were true. You don’t have to be fully, mentally committed, because that’s very hard to will our own beliefs, but say an atheist, say, if you enjoy, when you go out to Yosemite saying thank you to someone who’s made it, who created all of that, just say it. Even if it conflicts with other parts of your worldview about the problem of evil or things like that. Like, how do I remedy the beauty of Yosemite with the ugliness of the Holocaust? Just say, Yosemite is beautiful, we’ll figure out the Holocaust later and thank God for Yosemite or wherever.
Trent Horn:
Just find the things that are beautiful in Christianity and just enjoy them and let it fill up your soul and just enjoy that. Because life’s short, enjoy the beauty of it and those good things with it. From there, slowly try to work through the parts that are more difficult. There, I would make the parallel with the Protestant and Catholicism, if you find the mass to be beautiful, go and enjoy and just pray the prayers that… When I was in my conversion, there were some like Marion prayers I didn’t pray because I was spooked by it.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
No. When I’m-
Trent Horn:
I would pray the prayers that felt good to me.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Yeah. When I’ve gone with Matt, I think once or twice. But when I went with him, there was definitely some stuff that I had no issue praying back or-
Trent Horn:
I just enjoy that, and really, I would say just rest in it, enjoy it, fill up your soul with it. Then when you feel invigorated by that, look at some of the challenges. Though, I do believe then at some point where you are on the fence, if one is on the fence, then one could apply a Pascal’s wager the same you would between naturalism and theism, that you might say to an atheist, “If you really want it to be true, and you’re just right on the fence, just give it a try. There’s a 30 day money back anyways, return policy. Just give it a try. Just go ahead. I’m going to believe it, even if I’m not fully there, because it couldn’t hurt.”
Trent Horn:
Pascal’s wager is not about avoiding hell. Pascal’s wager is just, hey, if you’re already on the fence, the costs of being a Christian, you don’t sleep in on Sundays. They’re offset by the gains of Christianity. I would say, if you’re a Protestant who is just like crypto Catholic, and I know Protestants who sneak off to mass and don’t tell people. It’s like, hey, the costs that are involved, especially if you’re a Protestant who believes Catholics are saved, not damned, that they’re Christians, the costs are going to be minimal. Maybe awkwardness of friends and family, the benefits will be much greater.
Trent Horn:
I would just say, once again, the parallel, I’d have a Horn’s wager on Protestantism and Catholicism. You have very little cost involved, but much to gain if you’re on the fence there. Also, in becoming Catholic, you don’t have to give up Protestant stuff. It’s not like I’m saying, stop reading the Bible. Honestly, that’s why I love hanging out with Protestants, because Protestants, they can actually cite scripture versus chapter and verse. We could talk about a lot of these interesting issues that Catholics don’t, but a Protestant who becomes a Catholic, you don’t really have to give up stuff that you loved as a Protestant. You love [inaudible 00:55:59], you love Bible study. You love evangelism. That’s like the St. Paul street evangelization people I know of, they’re very Protestant at heart. I feel like there, the cost is little, you’re not giving it up what you loved before, but you’re gaining even more things you can love now.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
All right. I think that’s going to do it for us. We’ve gone a little bit over time.
Trent Horn:
That was fun.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Yeah. I feel like we could talk for another three hours.
Trent Horn:
Would love to talk again.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
I understand why your chats with Matt go for like five hours. It’s ridiculous.
Trent Horn:
Australians, it just rolls off the tongue. It keeps going. But yeah, it was real intriguing.
Cameron Bertuzzi:
Yeah. Well, thanks for coming on and yeah, we’ll see you guys in the next video.
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