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In this episode Trent and Suan Sonna breakdown a Protestant argument which claims that Catholic approaches to proving the papacy could also be used to show that St. Paul was the first Pope, thus invalidating the argument. But Trent and Suan show how these arguments misunderstand scripture and Catholic defenses of the papacy.
Welcome to the Counsel of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Counsel of Trent podcast. I’m your host, Catholic Answers apologist and speaker Trent Horn. When I speak to people about the papacy, I’ll present to them arguments from scripture that seem to show that Peter had unique authority among the apostles, that he would often speak for them as a group. One interesting note that I like seeing in scripture or sharing with people is when you look at the list of the apostles, in the apostolic lists that contain all of the apostles, I believe there are four of them, Peter is listed first in all of them and Judas is listed last. It’s interesting. Well why would that be? Well Peter is the leader of the group. So people will make these arguments trying to to show that Peter had a very important role in the early church and that provides evidence for the papacy.
Trent Horn:
I came across an article from a Protestant blog though saying you could run these same exact arguments and say that Paul had a special primacy. Maybe Paul was really the first pope. Look at all these special things about Paul. If you’re going to say special things about Peter make him pope, then special things about Paul make him pope as well. If everybody’s a pope, nobody’s a pope and the argument doesn’t work. To help us dismantle this argument though, I have asked my friend, Suan Sonna, to come in. He’s probably one of the most able defenders of the papacy out there today. So I’m excited for him to break this argument down for us. Suan, welcome back to the show.
Suan Sonna:
Hey, Trent. Thanks for having me on again.
Trent Horn:
Well can you also share? You have some news, vocation news if you will, if you could share with our listeners, I think they’d be excited to hear about.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. Well I was accepted into the Dominican novice class of the Central Province. Basically, come July 19th, I’ll be in St. Louis and then on August 3rd, I’ll be in Denver, Colorado starting my novice kind of spirituality year discerning with the Dominicans, wearing a habit and living the life. So I’ll be off the grid, but I’ll be very much still in the church.
Trent Horn:
Oh, no. Thank you. I mean that’s awesome. I mean you’ve got yourself a giant brain there. The Dominicans are giant brain trusts. That’s going to be amazing. I’m so excited to see that.
Suan Sonna:
Oh, Trent. I appreciate it.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, but you won’t be gone. We’ll be getting your … Your service to the church will be amplified. I just know it. The order of preachers, it’s going to be good. Let’s talk then about this article. Why don’t you maybe summarize kind of the … I’ve summarized it a bit, but you can lead us into the argument and then you have some specific points you wanted to address.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. Basically, this article on this blog called, I think, Triablogue, it has like 51 kind of examples of Pauline primacy. The point of this article is to kind of parody Catholic arguments for Petrine primacy and show that you could run, as you said, the same arguments to show that Paul was the first pope. I guess I just want to say a few things first. Right? I mean there is some value in parody objections because if a parody objection works, then that shows you that there’s something wrong with the argument that you’ve been using. So for example, sometimes I see some Catholic apologist use, “Well Peter is mentioned this many times in the scriptures and that shows that he has a primacy.” I mean it can show that he is an important character, but I think I’ve also seen a lot of accounts that have Paul mentioned more than Peter. But I also don’t think in the first place that’s a good criterion to use, how many times someone gets name-dropped. Right?
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
The other thing too is that some of the parodies on this website-
Trent Horn:
Yeah, I mean if you think about it Judas is mentioned more than many of the other minor apostles.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. Right. Right.
Trent Horn:
He’s not more important.
Suan Sonna:
Well then I looked at some of these examples and some of them were bad. Some of these parodies were not all that great. So I was wondering is that the point of the parody, to not be good? Because you would want the parody to be good in that it kind of shows there’s a flaw in how Catholic apologetics is done. So what I’ve decided today, Trent, is to just focus on maybe six of the examples that actually kind of worked or I thought were interesting, but I just want to begin first off by making two other comments.
Suan Sonna:
The first is that these kinds of arguments that you see to establish Pauline primacy, they really aren’t at the same level of quality as the Petrine primacy texts. For example, the have the summative list that you talked about, especially in Matthew 10:2 where Peter is called Protos which is like first, principal, or chief. You have passages like Luke 22:31 and this one actually … Til this day, I’m just like, “Wow, this passage is really remarkable.” Jesus says to Simon, He says, “Simon, Simon. Satan has come to sift you all like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail and so that when you return, you may strengthen your brothers.” That’s incredible, right? So Satan is coming after all the apostles and Jesus only expressly prays that Peter’s faith may not fail so that he may come back and strengthen his brothers. I mean there, you see this elevation of Peter that’s really remarkable.
Suan Sonna:
Then later as you know, as the night goes on, eventually the disciples, they fall asleep in the garden, right? Who does Jesus blame when they all fall asleep? If you look at the Gospel of Mark, Jesus … And Matthew. Jesus names Peter as the one that He blames. Then when you go to John 21 and this is kind of just me kind of putting all the pieces together, who does Jesus forgive in John 21 explicitly? Peter. So there’s a sense in which when the disciples fail, Peter is that chief representative. When the disciples succeed, Peter’s the chief representative. So actually in John 21, what I started noticing are these what people called undesigned coincidences where things start coming together and you see a kind of harmony that is really striking. So there’s this idea that all the disciples fail, Jesus blames them, and then when all the disciples, except for John of course, abandon basically Christ on the cross, it’s through Peter that all of them receive the absolution. If Peter’s forgiven, then all of them also receive the forgiveness in John 21.
Trent Horn:
The buck stops here.
Suan Sonna:
Right.
Trent Horn:
All right. Well let’s talk about some of those better examples because you’re right. I read the list a while ago, but just pointing out things that were unique to Paul maybe on his seafaring voyages or who he wrote to, we don’t make any of those similar arguments for Peter or for anything like that. I mean you might get into this a little bit because he brings up the point that Paul wrote the most in the-
Suan Sonna:
Yeah.
Trent Horn:
… New Testament. I don’t want to jump ahead too fast, but I can’t help myself. It’s my show. I can do what I want. He says Paul wrote so much. He wrote so much in the New Testament. Yeah, that’s true, but how relevant is that? I was thinking about it more. I thought, “Well Peter also wrote. His writings are included in the New Testament, but unlike Paul, they’re universal in scope.” Paul’s letters are to specific communities. Peter’s have more of a universal application to them which is something you might, you would tend to see more with an office like his and being the leader of the church.
Suan Sonna:
Well I could see a response to that given 1 Corinthians 7:17 when Paul talks about a rule that he lays down on all the churches. Then obviously given the cannon of scripture now, that is Paul’s texts are universal, but I mean let’s just … Yeah.
Trent Horn:
For me, I would not … That’s why, it’s why these arguments are helpful. That’s why I would not press this argument myself in favor of Petrine primacy because of course John writes letters that are received. They’re not written to a particular audience either or Jude or things like that, but it’s just I find it funny when people, when they make these kinds of points, they are susceptible to kind of a different sort of reply. So I’ll throw it back to you. Bring up the examples you thought were the most promising that could show Paul had some kind of primacy and why they’re not like the arguments for Peter’s primacy.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. The first one I have on the list, and I’m quoting from the website, number 20, he says only Paul refers to himself as having a rod, a symbol of authority and he quotes 1 Corinthians 4:21. Well if you read 1 Corinthians 4:21, here’s what Paul says. “What do you desire? That I come to you with a rod or with love and a spirit of gentleness?” So already this is-
Trent Horn:
A misquote.
Suan Sonna:
… off to a bad start.
Trent Horn:
It’s more of a misquote. He’s not even saying, “I have one.” He’s saying, “Aren’t you glad I didn’t come to you with one?”
Suan Sonna:
Right. It’s very casual unlike for-
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
… instance the keys of the kingdom which play a major role in Matthew 16:19. So that’s the first kind of thing to doc, right?
Trent Horn:
It’s not like Aaron’s rod. It’s like the rod just a parent uses to whap their kid on the butt.
Suan Sonna:
Like the Book of Proverbs, right? Spare the child the rod, you spoil them. Then also obviously here in the case of Paul describing himself, this is an instance where Paul is saying, “Okay, look. Let’s just try to be charitable to this objection.” I mean Paul is saying that he can have this rod of discipline, right? But if you look at, for example, Matthew 16:19, the keys are being divinely given to Peter. So there’s a sense in which there’s something already another point of difference between what Paul is saying here and what is being given to Peter. One is self-described with Paul with the rod. The other is divinely given with the keys to Peter.
Suan Sonna:
The third thing I’ll point out too is that I just don’t see, for instance, a typological argument like the Isaiah 22, Matthew 16 argument being able to be deployed here. Right? So already then we have three reasons why this is not a good parody. The first is that the metaphor is too casual with Paul’s use of a rod of discipline. The second is that this rod, even if he has it in some substantial way, it’s self-described versus divinely given. The third thing is that you can’t really draw a strong typological argument like an office of Eliakim in this case as in the Peter case with the keys.
Trent Horn:
Very good. All right. What’s the second one?
Suan Sonna:
Second one is this is the name count one, right? The Book of Acts which mentions all of the apostles, this is number eight on the website, discusses Paul more than any other apostle. Actually, that’s number 11. Number eight is Paul is mentioned more in the New Testament than any apostle. One of the issues that I have with this is that a mere name count is not entirely useful. Okay. It might be the case that someone is present, let’s say, more often in the narrative or they might be located in the room, but for instance, let’s take Acts 15. Obviously, Paul is mentioned, but when you look at who gives the bulk of the speeches there, it’s Peter and it’s James. Right? So not every instance where Paul is even mentioned is going to be an instance of him being a main or primary character.
Suan Sonna:
I mean suppose for instance that Peter is mentioned, let’s say, maybe 150 times in the New Testament. Let’s suppose that every time he’s mentioned, he is the primary character of the story whereas Paul maybe half of the time he’s a primary character, other times he’s a background character. Well that makes a difference. How often is this person a primary character?
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
So just the mere name count, I’m going to say just right up front, is not a good argument and I don’t think Catholics should use it either. If you really want to play it that way, in the gospels, Peter is mentioned the most among all the apostles below Jesus Christ himself. We can kind of pick and choose, right? If they use this example, I can use the gospel examples.
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
I mean that’s just a nonstarter.
Trent Horn:
It’s not just that. It’s not just quantity. It’s quality.
Suan Sonna:
Right.
Trent Horn:
How is Peter referred to in the gospels is what’s more important. You ably show that it’s in a leadership capacity and other things like that.
Suan Sonna:
The other thing I’ll say too is just we mentioned this quote multiple times before, but it’s worth mentioning again. In JND Kelly’s book The Anglican Scholar: A Dictionary of Popes, he talks about how Peter in the first 12 chapters of Acts has an undisputed leadership over the entire church. In that instance too, you have Peter dominating the first 12 chapters of Acts. Of course, Paul is mentioned in the narrative as well so it’s not as if … To nuance this objection, it’s not as if Peter isn’t there in the Book of Acts. Clearly in the first 12 chapters, he does have this unique foundational role.
Trent Horn:
And Peter is depicted in a leadership role. The primary narratives in Acts are specifically about Paul’s missionary journeys and other things like when he’s sent to Rome for imprisonment there. They’re narratological. They’re narratives about Paul’s life as a traveling missionary versus Peter’s role where you have a leadership capacity there.
Suan Sonna:
All right. Number three, this is another very popular one. It’s Paul wrote more books of the New Testament than any other apostle.
Trent Horn:
There it is. There it is.
Suan Sonna:
I mean there are three responses that I want to give. The first is that, look, I think there’s an alternate explanation for why we have more of Paul’s letters and it’s because Paul was literate. He was trained to be … He was trained under Rabban Gamaliel. He was obviously literate. He obviously was very highly educated whereas in Acts 4:13, we know that Peter was illiterate. He was unlettered. He was quite ordinary in terms of his educational backdrop as a Galilean fisherman. I mean already then it’s like well we’re not really assessing, let’s say, what that person was objectively given by God if they were given a primacy. So suppose we look at the amount of books that Trent Horn has written versus the amount of books that Pope Francis has written, right? Let’s say we see that Trent Horn has written more books. Does that mean that he has a greater authority?
Trent Horn:
Right. Or think about that same argument. You could say well Paul had more … There’s people who do. This isn’t … I mean it is a crazy view, but this is a view some people hold which is that Paul has more authority to us than Jesus does. You have dispensationalists who hold this view. You could argue well Paul had more authority in the church because he wrote more than Jesus did. Jesus didn’t write anything. You’re right. The arguments just fall apart.
Suan Sonna:
I mean the other thing too that I should mention is even though we are indebted to Paul for giving us a lot to think about in terms of justification and in terms of just the relationship between Israel and the church, Peter’s testimony is our primary source of Jesus. So if we were trying to reconstruct the life of Jesus from Paul, we could get some substantial details like the death, the resurrection, some miracles, some teaching on divorce, but in terms of what we primarily know about Jesus, the stories that we love, if you believe in Marcan priority, then Mark based his testimony off of Peter.
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
So Peter’s voice is actually the chief voice by which all of us gain access to the life and teachings of Christ. Even there when we look at the New Testament, just doing a mere number count is not going to be helpful, right? Also, I don’t like viewing the New Testament as competing where, “Oh, Peter’s witness is the primary source of the gospels whereas Paul’s is the pastoral letters.” It’s like, “Okay. No, no, no. Let’s not do that.”
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
“Let’s not put them in conflict.” The last thing I want to say is this. I’ve noticed there’s this-
Trent Horn:
I apologize. I don’t want to interrupt your train of thought, but what you said there, I think that’s very helpful because I’ve noticed Protestants who put the New Testament in conflict. They’ll say, “Well Jesus didn’t really teach about justification. That was Paul’s job in Galatians.” It’s like, “No, now you’re trying to make excuses instead of looking at it as an entire whole.”
Suan Sonna:
Right.
Trent Horn:
I feel like sometimes I see that on the other side a little bit more, setting Paul and James and Paul or Jesus in conflict with each other in this regard. So I apologize. I didn’t mean to set you. I just noticed that, but I don’t want to derail the train.
Suan Sonna:
No, I appreciate it. The last point I want to make here is just also kind of a fallacy that I’ve noticed in a lot of Protestant thought and it’s this idea that the New Testament documents and texts are identical to the events themselves. What the New Testament is, obviously with the canon, it’s the divinely authorized and privileged inerrant witness for what happened, right? But just because, for instance, Paul wrote more books in the New Testament, that doesn’t mean that he is, if you will, more of the New Testament times or he’s more of the New Testament age. Right?
Trent Horn:
Interesting.
Suan Sonna:
So the text is giving us a kind of window. Right? But let’s suppose that Paul is just the one who’s the most vocal. That doesn’t mean that he is the bulk of the New Testament. What we’re doing is we have to look underneath the text to try and picture everything that’s going on. So just because Paul wrote most of the New Testament, that doesn’t mean he is most of the New Testament or he is everything that happened so to speak. That’s just another nuance I want to bring in because a lot of scholars, what they’ve done is when they’ve tried to reconstruct the history of the early church and picture what exactly was going on, they notice like, “Okay. We really have a lot of Paul’s perspective,” which is great, but it seems as if when we look at how the earliest Christians remembered Peter versus Paul, Peter was remembered, especially when you look at the gospels which come a few decades later, Peter is remembered very highly. Also from what I can recall, almost all of the early heretics in the church, they were split on the person of Paul. Paul was something like a polarizing figure-
Trent Horn:
Yeah.
Suan Sonna:
… whereas recent scholars have argued Peter seems to have been kind of more universally loved and remembered in the church.
Trent Horn:
Interesting. All right. What’s the next one?
Suan Sonna:
So the next one is Paul is the only apostle who is called God’s chosen vessel who will bear his name before Jews and gentiles. This is Acts 9:15. So this is when Saul is on his way to persecute Christians and then Jesus appears and then Ananias is told by God, “Hey, you need to bring Paul into the church and heal him.” So one of the points here is that God is saying yes, Paul is his chosen vessel to reach the Jews and the gentiles, to reach their kings. Right? This is a very significant honor given to Paul and so I think we just emphasize that at the same time that we’re nuancing, let’s say, arguments for Pauline primacy, that doesn’t mean that Paul doesn’t have a special importance in the New Testament.
Trent Horn:
Right. He’s not a nobody.
Suan Sonna:
Exactly. Now, the problem with this objection is that, look, obviously when God calls someone his chosen vessel, that is a very important and special title, but you can’t say that this is a title that only Paul has because in Acts 15:7 in the Jerusalem Council, Peter stands and he says, “Brothers, you know in the early days that God chose me for among you that by my mouth, the gentiles would be received into the church.” So Peter is also saying that he was distinctively chosen by God to bring the gentiles into the church, to minister to both Jews and gentiles. What we’re already seeing here then is we can’t say that Paul only has this title when we see Peter claim a similar one for himself and with divine authorization claimed with it.
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
In both contexts then, what I think we can say is that, look, I have no problem saying that God chose Peter and Paul in a special way to minister to the Jews and to the gentiles. I mean I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying that.
Trent Horn:
Right. Go ahead.
Suan Sonna:
Well I was going to say too when God says, “My chosen vessel,” there is something exclusive and special about that, right? But obviously that can’t be to the exclusion of Peter. For example, I could say, for instance, this is my chosen water bottle. What I’m saying is that at this moment, I’m highlighting and forwarding this one. It has my authorization. It has my seal of approval. Likewise if God says, “This is my chosen vessel,” well He’s emphasizing Paul and He’s saying, “This guy has my certification.” That doesn’t mean he’s the only one with my certification, but it’s a way of saying he is certified. Does that make sense? There’s a difference between saying, “Hey, this is my chosen vessel and it’s only him,” versus what I think God is saying here is, “Yeah, Paul is my authorized vessel. He has my certification,” but being the chosen vessel isn’t just a singular exclusive position.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, he has a stamp of approval for a prophetic mission.
Suan Sonna:
Right.
Trent Horn:
All that verse is saying is that Paul was given a prophetic mission and we see in Acts 15, Peter was given a prophetic mission. What about John the Baptist? That same language is used to describe him, that the church will always have every baptized person who is called to be priest, prophet, and king. There are going to be multiple prophetic missions and of course each apostle and their successor has [inaudible 00:21:14] authority within the church, but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t someone who’s given supremacy or primacy.
Suan Sonna:
Right.
Trent Horn:
That language is more about, you’re right, the prophetic mission which is something that’s shared amongst different people. It’s not exclusive.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah, so at this point too I want to say that obviously none of these kind of Pauline primacy texts contradict Roman Catholic belief.
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
The other thing I want to mention too is just a distinction and this will be helpful as we go into these last few points. I want to distinguish between objective versus subjective authority. Objective authority is an instance where someone has authority independent of, let’s say, the approval of the people or their charisma. For instance, let’s say that, Trent, you and I are brothers and you’re my older brother. Let’s say dad leaves you behind as the one in charge. Objectively speaking no matter what I say, I can’t change the fact that you were given this authority over me. That’s an objective authority, but let’s suppose that I’m the more vocal younger brother. I’m very intelligent. I’m very witty. I know how to run and manipulate and I know how to do all these things. I am very skilled. Well in some sense, some people might say, “Oh, well Suan has greater authority because he’s the only who’s more vocal.” This is subjective or received authority.
Trent Horn:
He’s the one how always gets what he wants.
Suan Sonna:
Right, but for instance if you assert your objective authority that was given to you by dad, then that would actually count for something. What we’re looking for here is I think we have good evidence, especially with the Petrine primacy text that I’ve introduced and that we’ve talked about, where Peter has an objective handed down authority from Christ, a primacy given over all the other apostles whereas I think Paul has great subjective authority. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have authorized authority or he doesn’t have objective authority from God. Right? But that it’s not at the same kind of level as Peter or even above Peter.
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
But he does have a great subjective authority by virtue of his great charisma and calling to the gospel.
Trent Horn:
All right. Number five.
Suan Sonna:
So number five is Paul is the only apostle who refers to his authority over all the churches. It’s like, “Okay. Well …” So let me just actually include the scriptures. So 1 Corinthians 4:17, 7:17, and then 2 Corinthians 11:28. The first problem with this is okay, even if Paul is the only one who refers to his authority over all the churches, so what? I mean all the apostles have authority over the church. All of them have this kind of universal power so to speak. I don’t think that’s necessarily problematic. Now, I do want to include a nuance.
Trent Horn:
When you say all has authority, that means like when Thomas preaches in India, it doesn’t mean he loses his status as an apostle if he goes back to Italy or something.
Suan Sonna:
Right. Right. All of them have the status as being apostle no matter where they go. Now, one argument that people will give though is that, “Hey, this type of language that Paul is using, this was very papal language. So why doesn’t Peter talk this way,” or something like that. I just want to include a nuance that needs to be remembered here. The apostles have a unique authority because they are the chief guardians of the deposit of the faith.
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
Scripture and tradition, but not only that, one could argue that they are in a sense the deposit of the faith, especially Paul and Peter and the others who wrote Epistles. So the apostolic deposit has universal authority over the church and the apostles being the chief guardians, they can have universal rule through accessing that deposit and teaching definitively with it. Right? So Paul has authority not by virtue of being Paul, but by virtue of being an apostle. Now-
Trent Horn:
Especially one inspired to write scripture.
Suan Sonna:
Exactly. The distinction, however, with Peter is that Peter does have authority by virtue of being an apostle, but the argument of Roman Catholics is that Peter has an authority by virtue of being Peter. So the authority that was given to Peter is uniquely kind of Petrine authority. For example, when the pope declares something ex cathedra, he’s not declaring it as an apostle. What he’s doing is he’s declaring it as it were as if he were Peter as he’s in the chair of Peter. Remember, going back to Luke 22:31 where Peter is kind of the safeguard or the protector of the apostles, the apostles are the chief safeguard of the deposit of the faith, but who is the chief safeguard of the guardians? It’s Peter.
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
So Peter has this dual role as not only an apostle, as a brother, but also as an elder brother and a protector. So here, I don’t think it’s problematic at all that Paul claims to have this kind of universal authority to teach because what he’s doing is he’s accessing the deposit of the faith and he’s saying, “Through this deposit, I am teaching.”
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
But then when we go to other passages like, for instance I was reading St. Thomas Aquinas’ commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, what Aquinas argues is that the apostles receive the keys of the kingdom and the power to [inaudible 00:26:35] through Peter. Notice that Paul when he teaches and he gives his authority, he’s accessing the authority of the gospel of the deposit of the faith which Peter can do as well, but also the other apostles through Peter receive unique blessings, receive protection. So that’s where you can establish supremacy by showing that Peter has authority [inaudible 00:27:02] or by virtue of being Peter and that Peter is this chief protector of the apostles.
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
The other thing I want to mention too, Trent, just really quick, is that obviously Paul’s letters predate the gospels, but that actually stands to benefit the case for Petrine primacy because what the gospels reflect is the early Christian communities along with the eyewitness testimony reflecting upon the legacy of Peter.
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
So when you see these memories of Peter come out, these examples of his primacy and his importance, it’s also the early Christian community remembering the legacy and the role of Peter. Once again, I think that we need to remember that the gospels represent kind of the summative thought of even the early Christians and their beliefs about Peter.
Trent Horn:
Right. These are the stories that survive that were told more frequently and were then highlighted in sharing the gospel.
Suan Sonna:
Right. Okay. So here’s my sixth and last one.
Trent Horn:
All right.
Suan Sonna:
It’s Paul is the only apostle who publicly rebukes and corrects another apostle. This is in Galatians 2:11.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, classic.
Suan Sonna:
I actually had an article publish on Catholic Answers on the day that we film this which responds to this objection.
Trent Horn:
All right. Well I’ll link to it below then when the video airs.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. I’ll just say just a few things. I mean the first thing is that what’s going on in Galatians 2:11 is there’s a situation where in Antioch, the Jewish … I think it takes place in Antioch or in Jerusalem, but regardless, the emissaries of James, they come. They’re the circumcision faction. This is generally regarded as occurring after the Acts 15 council where they declare that gentiles don’t have to be circumcised. Peter, when he’s confronted by the emissaries of James for dining with gentile Christians, Peter ends up kind of chickening out and he moves away and this causes a scandal. Eventually, Paul is super upset because he’s saying that he’s the chief minister. He, Paul, is the chief minister to the gentiles. He points out that Barnabas and the other Jewish Christians follow Peter’s lead when he does this. So the first thing that I want to point out is that this is not rebuking Peter for false teaching.
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
Okay. So this doesn’t fall under papal infallibility. He’s pointing out a moral fault in Peter for chickening out.
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
The second thing that I want to point out too is it’s kind of telling how some people will say that after, let’s say, the first 12 chapters of Acts, Peter kind of loses importance or maybe he returns in Acts 15, but his influence, that’s it. Right? Well this would occur after Acts 15 and in this example, what happens is Peter, he does a simple action of not dining with gentile Christians and that causes the Jewish Christians and Barnabas to actually choose to follow the leader, Peter, over a council. That’s significant.
Trent Horn:
Wow. Yeah.
Suan Sonna:
Right. [crosstalk 00:30:15].
Trent Horn:
Yeah, he had scandalized them through inaction that he may not have even intended.
Suan Sonna:
Right. I mean the other thing to point out too is that Barnabas was also Paul’s right hand man. I mean he’s there with him throughout the stories. He’s there being a minister to the gentiles. He’s there in Acts 15 alongside Paul speaking at the Jerusalem Council, but here, Paul doesn’t actually directly rebuke Barnabas. He focuses his rebuke on Peter because he recognizes that it’s really Peter whose kind of example here has the most sway.
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
That’s the second point. The third and last point I wanted to say here is that despite all that has been said so far, I don’t think it’s been demonstrated that there is an objective divinely instituted hierarchy of Paul over Peter or even of Paul being equal to Peter. I think certainly there are examples of Paul’s importance of his boldness in preaching the gospel, but when we look at the whole synoptic picture of the evidence for the papacy, I don’t think I’ve found anything really here that convinced me that okay, Paul was the real pope. The last thing I’ll say is this, Trent. It’s the See of Peter and Paul. The Roman See, right? It claims succession from Peter and Paul. I mean all I’m saying is you’re kind of sweetening the deal then for the church in Rome if you highlight the Pauline text because it’s really the See of both of the apostles.
Trent Horn:
Right. Right.
Suan Sonna:
I mean I don’t have any objections there.
Trent Horn:
Sure.
Suan Sonna:
I think that’s everything I have to say here.
Trent Horn:
I’ll add one point on Galatians for you and then we’ll close it out. I guess two points. One would be we would have to understand that the language Paul uses for himself, Galatians is told from his own point of view. It’s his letter. I think authority claims we derive from it comes how he tells a story. He’s telling it from his perspective whereas it’s striking to compare that to Matthew where we have the apostle Matthew how is narrating what has transpired in Peter being given the keys. It’s interesting. We have a different third-party perspective on any kind of an authority claim. That’s a minor point.
Trent Horn:
The more major point I would bring up is that the fact that Paul goes on and on about how he went up against Peter, that’s indirect evidence of Peter’s authority because in Galatians, the main objection to Paul is that he’s a man-pleaser. He just wants people to love him so he is just trying to please other people. Paul goes to great lengths to say, “I didn’t get the gospel from men. I got it from God. I don’t care about pleasing people. I’m not here to make people happy.” Then he adds into that that there’s other people in the church he’s not going to be intimidated by or try to please, that he says, “I even opposed Cephas to his face.” It’s interesting there. I mean that would be like if I said, if I was a representative in Congress and someone said, “Look, you’re just trying to move your way up in the chain. You’re trying to please all the people in the Senate,” and you said, “No, I don’t care what the senators think. I told the president to his face that he was wrong.” In saying that, you’re actually saying, “Look, I went to the highest guy in the room and I still said what I said and I don’t care.”
Suan Sonna:
Right.
Trent Horn:
To me, I always think of Paul as a melancholic temperament because I have a melancholic temperament and it’s very similar in that regard there. That’s what I’ve noticed in that episode. Where can people … So you published at catholic.com and I’m sure you’ve got other resources and great debates you’ve done that are on YouTube, but anything else you want to share or recommend for people?
Suan Sonna:
Not at the moment. I mean I’m just going to be publishing hopefully in due time some lectures and I’m hopefully going to be able to finish an article that I’m writing on typology that will help Catholic apologists make better typological arguments. That’ll be on my academia.edu page and just type in my name, but that’s about it for right now. I’m also trying to record some lectures to kind of give my summative thoughts on the Peter Eliakim typology argument. I had our friend, Joe Schmid, help me kind of revise it a little bit and make it stronger. I have Joe Schmid’s seal of approval, I guess.
Trent Horn:
Schmid or Heschmeyer?
Suan Sonna:
Joe Schmid.
Trent Horn:
Wow.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. I asked Joe to help me kind of polish it and everything and just reorganize the logic.
Trent Horn:
I would love to … For folks who don’t know, Joe Schmid is a baptized Catholic, but he’s an agnostic. He does Majesty of Reason. That’s so funny. I should ask him what he thinks about Catholicism versus Protestantism because he’s agnostic, but he’s a logical guy. He’s a sharp thinker so I’m glad he’s doing that. That’s cool.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah, that’s about it, Trent.
Trent Horn:
All righty. Very cool. Well thank you so much, Suan. I’ll link to your article below. Thank you guys all for listening and I hope you all have a very blessed day.
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