Gavin Ortlund & The Papacy

In this episode, Jimmy responds to some arguments raised by Protestant apologist Gavin Ortlund, primarily concerning the papacy. Gavin claims that there was no bishop of Rome (pope) until well into the second century and that—even if we grant that Peter was the first pope—so much hangs on the idea that there are later popes that, if this were true, it needs to be taught in the New Testament. How can one respond to these claims? What does the historical evidence show? And does Gavin’s own system meet the test he is proposing?

 

Transcript:

Coming Up

GAVIN ORTLUND: We don’t have anything that says in effect, it doesn’t need to be in these words, but something to the effect of there’s going to be an infallible teaching office, there’s going to be a Pope. And I would say that that’s a problem. In other words, we’ve only got one tire on the car. If we don’t have that, we’ve only got Peter. We don’t have, the car can’t drive unless you get the ongoing. And I would think that that should need to be clear because so much is at stake. If there’s anything that would be important for the New Testament to tell us, I should think it’d be this, that there’s going to be an infallible teaching office in the church.

Let’s dig in!

 

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What I’m Doing Today

I’m going to be doing something today that I wouldn’t normally do. I’m going to be responding to some arguments made in a discussion that I was not part of.

Recently, someone asked me what my thoughts were on an argument made by Protestant apologist Gavin Ortlund about the papacy.

Offering my thoughts on arguments is something I’m totally fine with, but it turned out that these arguments weren’t in one of Gavin’s own solo videos on his channel.

Instead, they were part of a discussion he had with my colleague Joe Heschmeyer that was co-hosted by the YouTube channels Gospel Simplicity and The Cordial Catholic, and this complicated things.

We’ll have a link to the original video so that you can watch the whole thing.

Normally I don’t respond to arguments made in debates or discussions that I was not part of if a fellow Catholic apologist was involved—because it could look like I’m kibbitzing, like I’m offering advice where it’s not wanted.

So I contacted Joe and asked what his thoughts would be if I responded, and he very kindly said “Oh, no! No problem! Go right ahead!”

Also, to be friendly, I contacted Gavin to let him know I’d be offering some thoughts in response.

So that’s what I’m going to be doing today.

 

Who Is Gavin Ortlund?

For those who may not know, Gavin Ortlund is a Reformed Baptist apologist who runs a YouTube channel called Truth Unites.

On the channel, he does videos on various theological topics, including Catholicism.

Gavin is a really nice guy. He is more thoughtful and better versed in history than many apologists, and I really appreciate the fact that he seeks to stay friendly, to be fair to those with other views, and to keep the temperature of discussions low. All of that is really great.

I’ve interacted with Gavin a number of times, and—despite the fact that we’re coming from different sides of the confessional aisle—I’ve also worked alongside him on issues where Protestants and Catholics are on the same side.

For example, Cameron Bertuzzi of Capturing Christianity had us both on his channel to respond to some claims made by atheist apologist Paulogia.

And I’m happy to do that kind of thing with Gavin in the future. He’s a good guy who I’m happy to work with!

Having said all that, we don’t always agree, and so here I’m going to be offering some thoughts as a friendly response to some claims he’s made about the papacy.

 

The Papacy and Sola Scriptura

Even though the discussion Joe and Gavin had was on the issue of the papacy, this topic intersects with other things, like the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura.

The reason is that they both deal with the broader subject of how Christians are to form their doctrine.

According to Protestants, we are to form our doctrine sola scriptura—a Latin phrase that means “by Scripture alone.” So we are supposed to form our doctrine by Scripture alone.

What that means is a rather complicated subject, as different Protestant authors use the phrase to mean different things, but we don’t need to get into the details here.

Actually, Gavin’s understanding of sola scriptura is quite similar to one recently explored by Austin Suggs of Gospel Simplicity, and I interacted with that a couple of weeks ago—in Episode 21 of The Jimmy Akin Podcast, so a lot of what I had to say there also applies to Gavin’s view.

In contrast to sola scriptura, Catholics hold that Christians are to form their doctrine using Scripture, apostolic Tradition, and a divinely guided Magisterium or teaching authority.

The Magisterium is the bishops of the world teaching in union with the pope, who is the head of the Magisterium. That’s why the pope is relevant to the issue of how we form doctrine, and that’s one of the key things that Joe and Gavin discussed.

 

The “Ultimate Backstop”

Early on in their discussion, Gavin said:

One way to put it is to ask the question, does the gospel regulate the church or does the church or some teaching office within the church regulate the gospel? Are the people of God under the word of God or is the word of God under the people of God? What’s the ultimate backstop that’s going to sort of regulate where the boundaries are and what the gospel message is?

This is a rhetorically skillful way of phrasing things. “The gospel” is a high and exalted concept that connects us to God, and so it sounds irreverent to suggest anything “regulating” the Gospel.

Similarly, “the word of God” is another high and exalted concept that connects us to God, and so it likewise sounds irreverent to talk about putting the word of God “under” the people of God rather than visa versa.

But while rhetorically skillful, this ultimately uses prejudicial language and a prejudicial way of framing the issue.

First, regarding the prejudicial language, Gavin is using the term gospel in a different way than the New Testament does. He appears to be using it to mean the sum total of Christian doctrine—since that’s what the Church’s teaching office or Magisterium can teach on.

The New Testament generally uses the term gospel in a much more restricted sense. For example, the existence of angels is part of Christian doctrine, but the New Testament authors would not say that the existence of angels is part of the gospel.

We’ll discuss how the New Testament understands the gospel in a future episode, but we don’t need to be detained by this now.

Second, Gavin is also using the phrase word of God in a different way than the New Testament does. Like many in the Protestant community he’s using it here to refer to just the written Scriptures.

However, the New Testament tends to use the term more broadly. Scripture actually conceives of any information God reveals to man to be the word of God, and it does not matter whether this information is transmitted in written or oral form. Consequently, the New Testament envisions the word of God as including both Scripture and Tradition.

By assuming that “word of God” means the written Scriptures, Gavin is biasing the discussion in favor of sola scriptura rather than the alternative Catholic paradigm.

He is thus framing the issue in a prejudicial way when he says:

One way to put it is to ask the question, does the gospel regulate the church or does the church or some teaching office within the church regulate the gospel? Are the people of God under the word of God or is the word of God under the people of God? What’s the ultimate backstop that’s going to sort of regulate where the boundaries are and what the gospel message is?

Gavin thus envisions two situations. The first is one in which the true Christian doctrine that God has revealed—what he calls the gospel—regulates the Church. He also expresses this situation by saying that the word of God—by which he means the written Scriptures—is above the people of God. This is the good scenario.

The second scenario Gavin envisions is one in which the Church or its teaching office—its Magisterium—“regulates” the gospel or revealed doctrine. He also expresses this situation by saying that the people of God are above the words of God, meaning the Scriptures. This is the bad scenario.

He’s thus proposed a “who’s in charge?” dilemma: Is it God or man? Either God’s word is in charge of man or man is in charge of God’s word. Given that way of framing the issue, the obvious answer is that God should be in charge, and so his word—which Gavin here limits to the Scriptures—should rule man rather than the other way around.

But this is not the only way to frame the issue. For example, a Catholic might call attention to the role of an individual’s own interpretation of Scripture. He might say, “Hey, what you’re really doing is exalting your own private judgment above Scripture. Your ultimate backstop is what you think Scripture means. The real choice is between you ruling the word of God by your private interpretation or you submitting to the teaching authority that God himself instituted in the Church!”

A Protestant might then object that this is a prejudicial way of framing things, and I agree. That is why I personally don’t use this framing.

But both Gavin’s way of framing things and the alternative one have elements of truth in them. So how can we frame matters in a way that doesn’t prejudice the question?

 

Catholic View
Word of God (Scripture, Tradition)	Magisterium	Person’s Interpretation
Protestant View
Word of God (Scripture only)		Person’s Interpretation

Both sides agree that Christian doctrine is to be based on divine revelation or the word of God. In the Catholic view, this is understood as Scripture and Tradition, while in the Protestant view it is understood as Scripture only.

On the other side of the spectrum, both sides also agree that the individual must make his own choices when interpreting the information he receives. It’s up to him to decide what he believes and how he interprets the information that is presented to him.

What’s different is that in the Catholic view there is also a Magisterium whose job is to help the individual interpret the word of God.

There also is no “ultimate backstop”—in either system—that will ultimately prevent a person from interpreting the word of God incorrectly. That’s a possibility that can happen no matter which view is correct.

This is a neutral way of framing the issue that does not prejudice the discussion in favor of one side or the other. It does not tell or imply which system is right.

I would note that if the Catholic view is correct, it has some advantages over the Protestant view. First, it recognizes more material as the word of God. Catholics have a slightly larger canon of Scripture, which means we have more data to work with. The Catholic view also recognizes apostolic Tradition as the word of God, and so that also gives us more data. More data is better than less data, so that’s an advantage.

Second, the Catholic view has a divinely guided Magisterium, and additional divine guidance is a good thing. Further, the Magisterium is still with us and active, and so if a misinterpretation of the word of God arises—or if a misinterpretation of the Magisterium’s own statements arises—then the Magisterium can issue a correction. This is also an advantage.

But those advantages only exist if the Catholic understanding is correct. The mere fact that one view has advantages doesn’t prove that the view is correct. It may be more desirable to have these advantages, but we’d still need to turn to other sources to prove which view is correct.

And so I recommend that we use this neutral, unbiased way of framing the issue rather than the biased one Gavin proposed.

 

Engaging the Papacy

We now come to some material that engages the issue of the papacy more directly. Gavin is prepared to acknowledge that Peter had a leadership role among the apostles, and he is willing to grant—at least for purposes of argument—that we could regard Peter as a pope.

But if Peter was meant to pass such an office on to later individuals—so that we’d have it today—he thinks that this ought to be mentioned in the New Testament.

The problem is that the office of Apostleship is redemptive historically unique. There’s no apostles today. Apostles were eyewitnesses of the risen Christ, and they played a foundational role in the formation of the Christian Church according to Ephesians chapter two. So I’d say if there’s going to be a transfer of the responsibilities given to Peter, shared with the apostles to specifically the Roman bishops, we’re going to need to see clear evidence of that fact, and that is what I see as lacking in the New Testament. . . .

I don’t think it’s too much to expect that there’d be teaching. I mean, if there’s going to be, not just among the apostles, but an ongoing throughout the church age, infallible teaching office, I don’t think it’d be too much to expect that we’d be told. So in the New Testament. . . .

We don’t have anything that says in effect, it doesn’t need to be in these words, but something to the effect of there’s going to be an infallible teaching office, there’s going to be a Pope. And I would say that that’s a problem. In other words, we’ve only got one tire on the car. If we don’t have that, we’ve only got Peter. We don’t have, the car can’t drive unless you get the ongoing. And I would think that that should need to be clear because so much is at stake. If there’s anything that would be important for the New Testament to tell us, I should think it’d be this, that there’s going to be an infallible teaching office in the church.

Gavin will return to this subject later in the discussion, so I’ll address this line of argumentation there.

However, first I’d like to respond to some additional arguments he makes.

 

The Monepiscopacy

Gavin now discusses a concept that is known in theological circles as the monepiscopacy.

In Greek, monos means things like only, sole, or unique, and episcopos means bishop, so the idea of the monepiscopacy is that each church is to have only one bishop. The bishop is then assisted by his presbuteroi—from which we get the English words “presbyters” and “priests”—and also by his diakonoi or deacons.

Under this system, each local church is governed by a bishop, assisted by priests and deacons.

This system is very ancient in the Church, and Gavin acknowledges its presence in the second century.

The question is whether it goes all the way back to the apostolic age, and the matter is complicated because the terms that came to be used for church offices were still fluid then and were often used in non-technical senses.

For example, the Greek word presbuteros also means “elder” and in 1 Peter 5:1, Peter describes himself as a “fellow elder” of the presbuteroi working in the churches to which he is writing. But we know that Peter was more than what today would be called a priest. He was an apostle, after all! So when Peter calls himself a fellow elder, he is not using the term in the technical sense that we use it today.

Similarly, the Greek term diakonos can also mean “servant,” and in 1 Corinthians 3:5, Paul describes himself as one of the diakonoi of God. But Paul is not saying that he held the office of a deacon. He, too, was an apostle! He clearly means that he was a servant of God, so we have another fluid, non-technical use of the term.

There are also passages where the term for bishops—episcopoi—is applied to presbyters—or presbuteroi. For example, in Acts 20:17, Paul calls the elders or presbyters of the church of Ephesus to himself, but when he finishes speaking to them in Acts 20:28, he refers to them as bishops or overseers.

So it looks like the terms for bishop and presbyter could be used interchangeably in the mid-first century, and many have proposed that—originally—local churches were ruled by a council of elders without a single bishop over them.

The question then becomes how we shifted from this model to the monepiscopal model with bishops, priests, and deacons as separate offices.

 

A Single Bishop in Rome?

Gavin has some thoughts on this and how it relates to the office of the pope or the bishop of Rome. He says,

There’s no evidence of there being a single bishop in Rome until well into the second century as opposed to a plurality of leaders in the church in Rome.

So the claim is that we don’t have evidence of a single bishop ruling in Rome until “well into the second century.”

How does Gavin support this claim?

In the second century, you see the emergence of a Monarchical Episcopal, so a bishop, a single bishop who’s over a geographical region with the letters of Ignatius and see, there’s two errors we could make with Ignatius. One would be to ignore him, and some on my side have done that, and that’s wrong. The other would be to filter all the data through him. And I would basically say that Ignatius himself acknowledges that the monarchical episcopate model is not universal at that time because he says there’s Christians who do all things without the bishop.

Okay, so here we need a little bit of background. The gentleman Gavin refers to is Ignatius of Antioch. He was the bishop of Antioch in Syria, and he lived in the first and second centuries. In fact, he had apparently known some of the apostles.

Just after the turn of the second century—around the year A.D. 108—he was arrested by the Roman authorities and sent to Rome for execution. And being a martyr for Christ was something Ignatius looked forward to.

On his way to Rome, Ignatius wrote a series of letters to various churches he was passing by, and these provide us a very early window into Christian belief and practice at the dawn of the second century.

One of the things Ignatius is very clear on is the monepiscopacy and the three-fold ministry of bishop, priests, and deacons. He refers to these concepts repeatedly, and in his letter to the church of Tralles, he even said,

Let everyone respect the deacons as Jesus Christ, just as they should respect the bishop, who is a model of the Father, and the presbyters as God’s council and as the band of the apostles. Without these no group can be called a church (Ig.Trallians 3:1).

So according to Ignatius you can’t even be a church if you don’t have the three-fold ministry of a bishop, priests, and deacons.

That—of itself—would suggest that the institution was very widespread in Christian circles, and this is reinforced elsewhere in his letters. Remembering that when Ignatius uses the term bishop, he means an monepiscopus or monarchial bishop, in his letter to the church at Ephesus, Ignatius wrote that

The bishops appointed throughout the world are in the mind of Christ (Ig.Ephesians 3:2).

So the monarchial bishops were not a local institution here and there. Ignatius says that they have been appointed throughout the world.

Furthermore, Ignatius wrote letters to six churches, and he either names or refers to the bishops of five of them. These churches were in the province of Asia Minor and on the Greek peninsula, so we can infer that the monepiscopacy was well established there.

Furthermore, we can infer that it was well established in Syria, as illustrated by the fact Ignatius himself was the bishop of Antioch in Syria and by the fact that he says in his letter to the Philadelphians that to celebrate the restoration of peace in the church of Antioch

The neighboring churches have sent bishops, and others presbyters and deacons (Ig.Philadelphians 10:2).

So the institution of the monepiscopacy was clearly widespread in the Christian world at the beginning of the second century. But for the office to be that widespread by the year 108, it must have started some time earlier than that—in the late first century.

Gavin might or might not agree with that, but he doesn’t think that it was universal, because you’ll recall that he said:

Ignatius himself acknowledges that the monarchical episcopate model is not universal at that time because he says there’s Christians who do all things without the bishop.

Now, I’ve made a careful study of Ignatius’s letters, and this did not ring any bells, so I went through them again and looked at every passage where Ignatius mentions bishops.

There are passages where Ignatius refers to people disobeying their bishops, which he says is wrong, but Gavin is referring to something else. He’s saying that there were Christians in churches that did not have a bishop, and Ignatius never says that.

I think that the passage Gavin is thinking of is one that’s found in Ignatius’s letter to the Magnesians, where he says:

It is right, therefore, that we not just be called Christians, but that we actually be Christians, unlike some who call a man “bishop” but do everything without regard for him (Ig.Magnesians 4).

This is clearly another passage about people disobeying their bishop. Ignatius indicates that the church he is envisioning has a bishop. He says these people call its leader “bishop,” they just ignore his authority in practice.

So this passage in Ignatius cannot be used to show that the monepiscopacy was not yet universal.

What else does Gavin have to say in support of this claim?

And then you’ve got other documents from the early second century that seemed to function just like the first century, where you’ve got Polycarp’s epistle to the Philippians, chapters five and six.

It’s just like one Timothy three. You’ve got two offices, qualifications for deacons, qualifications for presbyters.

Here Gavin is referring to a contemporary of Ignatius—Polycarp, who was the monarchial bishop of Smyrna. Ignatius had written a letter to Polycarp, and Polycarp himself wrote a letter to the church of Philippi immediately after Ignatius’s martyrdom—so, again, around A.D. 108.

Gavin refers to chapters 5 and 6 of this letter, which refers to deacons and presbyters, but he misrepresents the chapters a bit. He says that they list qualifications for these offices like the ones Paul gave in 1 Timothy and Titus.

That’s not actually what Polycarp is doing. If you read the chapters, he’s actually prescribing behavior for deacons and presbyters. He’s saying how they should act—not giving qualifications for office, though the two things obviously overlap.

The larger point Gavin is arguing is that because Polycarp only mentions presbyters and deacons, they must not have had a monarchial bishop, but there are reasons to doubt this.

In the first place, this is an argument from silence, and arguments from silence are notoriously weak.

Furthermore, Polycarp says that the Philippians gave Ignatius a warm welcome on his way to Rome. But we’ve already seen that Ignatius didn’t regard a body as a church if it didn’t have a bishop, and—given his constant emphasis on the need to obey the bishop—he would have severely chastised the Philippians if they didn’t have the institution.

It’s quite possible—and even probable—that they did have the monepiscopacy but the office was temporarily vacant or their bishop was traveling.

There’s more to say about all this, but at best this is a weak argument in view of the Philippians’ interactions with Ignatius and the fact that Polycarp—who is writing them—is himself a monarchial bishop.

Now Gavin turns back to the subject of the pope and whether there was a bishop of Rome at this time.

Here’s the problem for the papacy, is that even in Ignatius, his letter to the Roman church makes no mention of there being a single bishop there.

And this is true. Ignatius does not mention a bishop of Rome in his letter to the Romans. This is the one and only letter where Ignatius doesn’t mention the monepiscopacy.

So we have another argument from silence. But this argument from silence is even more problematic than normal—and for a number of reasons.

First, Ignatius also doesn’t mention presbyters or deacons in his letter to the Romans, but Rome surely had them. Francis J. Sullivan observes:

We can draw no conclusions from the absence of any mention of a bishop of Rome in this letter, as the letter does not mention presbyters either, and it is hardly likely that Ignatius would have imagined that the church of Rome had no presbytery (From Apostles to Bishops., ch. 6).

The reasons why Ignatius would refrain from greeting the clergy of Rome is a matter of speculation. Sullivan states:

This letter differs greatly from the others Ignatius wrote. While the others deal mainly with the unity of the local church under the leadership of its bishop and presbyters, Ignatius makes no mention of a bishop or presbyters in the letter to the Romans, nor does he include any exhortation to unity. Rather, he makes an impassioned appeal to the Roman community to do nothing to hinder his attaining the goal of martyrdom. Ignatius evidently thought some members of the Roman church had enough influence to get his sentence reversed, and he wrote to dissuade them from any such intervention on his behalf (ibid.).

David Albert Jones adds:

Perhaps also he feels able to tell other churches to obey their clergy but does not feel . . . able to do so for the Roman church. His reticence may reflect an august respect for the church of Rome (an attitude clearly demonstrated by his terms of address) (“Was There a Bishop of Rome in the First Century?” New Blackfriars 80[1999], 140).

Ignatius’s desire not to have his martyrdom derailed and his august respect for Rome are plausible reasons for the letter lacking his usual themes of unity with the bishop and the other clergy. However, why are there no greetings? He doesn’t always greet local bishops (as in the case of Philadelphia) or name them (as in the cases of Philadelphia and Smyrna), so it could be simple chance.

However, I think there is another reason he didn’t greet the Roman clergy, and it is blindingly obvious: He wanted to keep them anonymous so that they would be safe.

After all, he—a Christian leader—is being taken to Rome in the expectation that he will be martyred for his faith. He thus perceives the attitude of the Roman authorities as lethally hostile to Christian leaders. He is therefore hardly likely to name the Christian leaders of Rome in a document that could go astray, identify them to the Roman authorities, and lead to their own deaths! All it would take would be for one of the soldiers transporting Ignatius to grab the letter and read it.

He said he was being conducted to Rome

by night and day, chained amidst ten leopards (that is, a company of soldiers) who only get worse when they are well treated (Ig.Romans 5:1).

Ignatius would scarcely be likely to dictate a letter naming Christian leaders in Rome in such company—given the hostility of his “leopards,” why they were taking him to Rome, and what he expected to happen to him once he was there! Since Rome was to be the site of execution, it is the one place Ignatius would be least likely to name any Christian leaders, lest they be similarly jeopardized!

It is noteworthy that the letter to the Romans is remarkably free of personal names. He does not name the letter carrier(s) and refers to advance messengers sent to Rome only anonymously as “those who preceded me from Syria to Rome” (Ig.Romans 10:2). He refers to his current hosts anonymously as “the Ephesians” (Ig.Romans 10:1). Apart from himself, the only other living person named in the document is a man named Crocus (Ig.Romans 10:1), who was apparently familiar to the Romans. He states that Crocus was with him in Ephesus, and we elsewhere learn that Crocus was from Ephesus (Ig.Ephesus 2:1). No indication is given that Crocus would be travelling with him to Rome, so the presumption is that—even though Crocus had visited Rome at some point in the past—he was going to stay safely in Ephesus.

What we can say from the text of the letter is that Ignatius clearly regarded Rome as possessing not only a genuine church but a highly respectable one. He addresses them as follows:

To the church that has found mercy in the majesty of the Father Most High and Jesus Christ his only Son, beloved and enlightened through the will of him who willed all things that exist, in accordance with faith in and love for Jesus Christ our God, which also presides in the place of the district of the Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of blessing, worthy of praise, worthy of success, worthy of sanctification, and presiding over love, observing the law of Christ, bearing the name of the Father, which I also greet in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the Father; to those who are united in flesh and spirit to every commandment of his, who have been filled with the grace of God without wavering and filtered clear of every alien color: heartiest greetings blamelessly in Jesus Christ our God (Ig.Romans salutation.).

He later says:

You have never envied anyone; you taught others. And my wish is that those instructions which you issue when teaching disciples will remain in force (Ig.Romans 3:1).

These and other positive statements Ignatius makes are inconsistent with the idea that he would have viewed Rome as anything other than a true church, which for Ignatius means that they had a bishop.

Indeed, the fact he repeatedly implores them not to stop his martyrdom suggests this, for he easily could have ended all efforts to intervene on his behalf if he took the occasion to rebuke them for not having a bishop and thus failing to be a genuine church. Such an alienating stance would instantly persuade Roman Christians not to stick their necks out for Ignatius and to leave him to his fate. He would thus gain his desired martyrdom and—in his view, given his emphasis on the role of the bishop—provide the Romans a vitally important spiritual lesson.

Based on the totality of the evidence from Ignatius’s letters, the presumption would be that in his day the church of Rome had the same governmental structure as the other churches with which he was in contact.

So the argument from silence that Gavin makes on this point simply lacks evidential force.

 

How Did the Monepiscopacy Begin?

There are additional problems with the idea that the monepiscopacy should be regarded as a late development.

One of them is the difficulty advocates of this idea have in even naming a second century church that lacked it. The only two candidates that are proposed are Philippi and Rome, but we’ve already seen that both of those are very problematic given the evidence from Ignatius and Polycarp.

An even more fundamental problem is explaining how the monepiscopacy came to be so widespread by A.D. 108. It is not plausible that it appeared suddenly, all over the Roman world, all at once. Therefore, it must have begun earlier, which puts its origin in the first century.

But the first century is when the apostles lived, and so we need to consider whether the institution may have been of apostolic origin.

If it wasn’t, then it must have begun immediately after the apostles, but that has its own problems, as we would expect a shift in church governance to cause a controversy that we’d have a record of.

In the absence of such a controversy, it is more natural to see the apostles instituting the office of bishop as they were leaving the scene, and that is what early Christian records from the second century say they did. Around A.D. 189, Irenaeus of Lyon wrote:

It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times (Against Heresies 3:3:1 [A.D. 189]).

We can even see the office in the New Testament. It didn’t yet have the name that it does now, but we can show that the idea of one person being the leader of a local church was present in the apostolic age.

This is the case with James the Just and the church in Jerusalem. Our Protestant friends love pointing out the prominent role that James had at the Acts 15 council, and while they overplay that, James did achieve the sole leadership position in the Jerusalem church. That’s why later Church Fathers refer to him as the bishop of Jerusalem.

James achieved this position after the other apostles left Jerusalem. For example, Peter left it in Acts 12:17 after Herod Agrippa tried to execute him. And when Paul comes to Jerusalem in Acts 21:18, we read that

On the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present (Acts 21:18).

So at this point James was the leader of the Jerusalem church—assisted by the elders. But the surviving apostles are not mentioned and so were elsewhere by this time.

Eventually—before the beginning of the second century—the name bishop would become attached to the role of the man in charge of a local church, but we can see James fulfilling this role in the late A.D. 50s, well within the apostolic age.

And it is entirely natural to see the adoption of this institution in the mother church in Jerusalem leading to it spreading throughout the Christian world. As the apostles were starting to pass from the scene, they likely reflected on how well the model had worked at Jerusalem and decided to institute it in the other churches.

Thus, by the beginning of the second century, it had already spread throughout the Roman world, with critics of its apostolic institution having difficulty naming any second century churches that didn’t have it.

 

Popes & Ecumenical Councils

We now come to a part of the discussion where Gavin makes an argument concerning the relationship between popes and ecumenical councils:

I think one of the clearest ways that’s been most convincing for me personally, that you can see that the Roman bishop did not exercise universal jurisdiction in terms of infallibility as the ecumenical councils. You don’t have the Roman bishop and the councils working in tandem with one another. And I’ll just finish my comments with this because this I think is very significant. So Vatican two says that it’s the prerogative of the Roman pontiff. That’s the Pope to convo, preside over and confirm ecumenical councils. Now, how many of the first seven ecumenical councils were convoked by a Roman bishop? Zero. How many were presided over by a Roman bishop? Zero.

The first difficulty with this is that it involves another argument from silence. Even if we couldn’t find examples of popes using their infallible authority in regard to early ecumenical councils, that wouldn’t show that they didn’t have such authority, only that they didn’t use it in these councils.

Further, it is incorrect in saying that the popes and ecumenical councils weren’t working in tandem with each other.

Because the early councils were held in the eastern part of the Church, the pope was not personally there. But the popes were involved. Thus the popes sent representatives to the councils and wrote documents that were used at the councils. To cite just one example, the acts of the Council of Chalcedon record that that—in A.D. 451—

After the reading of the foregoing letter [i.e., the Tome of Pope Leo I], the most reverend bishops cried out: “This is the faith of the fathers, this is the faith of the apostles. So we all believe, thus the orthodox believe. Anathema to him who does not thus believe. Peter has spoken thus through Leo!” (Chalcedon, session 2 [A.D. 451]).

So this illustrates that popes and ecumenical councils were working in tandem, and the fathers of the fourth ecumenical council—or Chalcedon—are on record declaring that Pope Leo was Peter’s successor, and that Peter metaphorically spoke through him in an authoritative manner

When we come to Gavin’s quotation from Vatican II, he is right that it says:

A council is never ecumenical unless it is confirmed or at least accepted as such by the successor of Peter; and it is the prerogative of the Roman Pontiff to convoke these councils, to preside over them and to confirm them (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 22).

But Gavin is ignoring what the council said immediately before that, which was:

A council is never ecumenical unless it is confirmed or at least accepted as such by the successor of Peter; and it is the prerogative of the Roman Pontiff to convoke these councils, to preside over them and to confirm them (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 22).

And that only makes sense on the Catholic model. The pope is the head of the Church’s teaching authority, only he has jurisdiction over the whole Church, and so for the results of a council to be applied to the whole Church, the pope must approve or accept it as ecumenical.

Therefore, while it is the prerogative of popes to convoke, preside over, and confirm councils—meaning a natural part of his office—this does not have to happen. All that is required for a council to be ecumenical is for the pope to accept it as such, and that happened with all of the ecumenical councils.

Therefore, a council can be ecumenical even if the pope did not exercise his prerogative to convoke and preside over it. He just has to approve or accept it as ecumenical, which the pope did with the first seven councils that were held in the eastern part of the Church.

Gavin’s argument thus does not produce any kind of dilemma for someone who understands the Catholic position.

 

Infallible Offices in the Old Testament

Now Gavin makes an argument concerning the Old Testament and infallibility:

I think the idea that there’s always the buck stops with one person, and that’s kind of how the church has always been. I don’t actually agree with that. I think that there’s nothing comparable to the papacy throughout the Old Testament. You don’t have an infallible teaching office throughout the Old Testament.

This argument is based on a proposed parallel with the Old Testament period in Israel’s history. It would go something like, if there was no single individual in the Old Testament capable of teaching infallibly then there should not be one in the New Testament, either.

The first thing to say in response is that such an argument misunderstands the role of infallibility in the Catholic Church. Infallibility is not something that is limited to the pope. The pope is uniquely able to teach infallibly on his own, but there are ways infallibility can be exercised by the Magisterium more broadly.

Second, the New Testament is not an identical copy of the Old. Therefore, even if there were no charism of infallibility in the Old Testament, that would not prevent God from introducing one in the New.

We could even expect such an introduction, since the New Covenant is better than the Old. Thus Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross actually does forgive sins, while the author of Hebrews tells us concerning the Jerusalem temple and the Old Testament animal sacrifices offered there:

Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:11-12).

Now, God had a teaching office in the Old Testament. As Malachi 2:7 says,

The lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts (Malachi 2:7).

And since the New Testament fulfillments tend to be greater than their Old Testament counterparts, it wouldn’t be unexpected at all if God took the Old Testament teaching office and upgraded it in the New Testament to include a charism of infallibility.

Third, I was surprised to hear Gavin say that the buck didn’t stop with one person in the Old Testament and that there was nothing comparable to the papacy in it. Really?

In the Catholic understanding, the pope is the head of the earthly Church—the Christian community of faith—after Jesus left for heaven. So was there a man who was the head of the Jewish faith community before Jesus came from heaven?

Yeah! Absolutely! The high priest!

There was a whole line of such men, serving one after the other as the heads of the Jewish faith community, and that sounds an awful lot like the papacy, so this was a surprising claim.

Fourth, did the office of the high priest have a charism whereby he could—on at least some occasions—speak infallibly?

Why, yes he did. The high priest was able to get limited information from God through the Urim and Thummim, which allowed him to inquire of the Lord. And, of course, whatever God reveals is protected from error and thus taught infallibly.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Urim and Thummim, check out Episode 215 of Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World at Mysterious.fm/215.

What’s more, the high priest’s charism wasn’t limited to using the Urim and Thummim, because in John 11 we read:

So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”  

But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.”

He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad (John 11:47-52).

So the Jewish high priest had a charism that resulted in infallible teaching even when he was in the act of plotting the death of the Messiah!

Thus the idea that there was no single man heading the Jewish faith community who could—at least on some occasions—teach infallibly during the Old Testament period is simply mistaken.

 

First Century Evidence?

We now begin to circle back to the argument Gavin made toward the beginning of the discussion, which concerned how early the evidence is that we have for the papacy.

I guess I’d say I just don’t think late second century evidence is good enough, especially given the stakes of the discussion. I think we need first century evidence.

When Gavin refers to late second century evidence, he’s apparently thinking of the writings of Irenaeus of Lyon. Around A.D. 189, Irenaeus of Lyon wrote that:

The blessed apostles [Peter and Paul], therefore, having founded and built up the Church, handed over to Linus the bishopric for administrating the church. In his epistle to Timothy, Paul mentions this Linus (Against Heresies 3:3:3).

Notice that he says they “handed over” the office of bishop to Linus, indicating that this office was of apostolic origin. He then gives a list of the succeeding popes, providing their names as:

• Linus
• Anacletus
• Clement
• Evaristus
• Alexander
• Xystus
• Telesphorus
• Hyginus
• Pius
• Anicetus
• Soter
• Eleutherus

And Eleutherus was the pope in Irenaeus’s own day.

But Irenaeus’s list did not come out of nowhere, and we have earlier references to the same succession. For example, during the reign of Pope Anicetus, an author named Hegesippus visited Rome and composed a list of the succession of popes. He writes:

While I was in Rome I made a list of succession up to Anicetus, whose deacon was Eleutherus, and Soter succeeded Anicetus, and after him Eleutherus. In each list and each city all is as the Law, the Prophets, and the Lord preach (in Eusebius, Church History 4:22:3).

So Hegesippus came in the days of Pope Anicetus, and after him, Anicetus was succeeded by Soter, who was succeeded by Eleutherus.

Anicetus was pope around A.D. 157—the middle of the second century—so that’s the timeframe in which Hegisippus visited Rome.

It was the Roman Christians who provided Hegesippus with the list of their bishops going back in time. But there would have been Christians in Rome who were 70 or 80 years old, which means they would have been children between A.D. 77 and 87. We’re thus within living memory of the late first century, and the Roman Christians certainly would have remembered the names of the bishops who were reigning at that time.

They also certainly would have remembered if there had been no bishop and only a group of elders.

We thus have quite strong evidence attesting to the list of Roman bishops extending back into the first century.

So our evidence is not confined to the late second century. We have evidence throughout the second century—including the memories of Christians in Rome that would stretch back to the first century.

This cannot simply be set aside.

 

Biblical Evidence?

We now come to the core of the matter for Gavin as someone who believes in sola scriptura or that we should form our doctrine “by Scripture alone.”

It, in my opinion, should not be simply assumed that responsibilities given to Peter are just going to roll on. That needs to be clearly established in the holy Scripture because so much is at stake if there’s a shepherd, a pastor over the whole church who can speak and teach infallibly. And yes, his main purpose isn’t just sort of jurisdictional matters, but those do fall under his purview.

If that’s the case, we need more than just Peter. We need to see teaching. The New Testament does have passages that envision the church as a big structure, or as I mentioned with Ephesians four, we’ve got lots of passages that teach us what are the offices of the church. And that’s where I would just say we need teaching on this to accept, because it’s not as though apostles continued. We need teaching to say that would clearly resolve. I mean, this whole discussion could be so clearly resolved that there was a passage in scripture that just said, there’s going to be a Pope. We don’t have anything like that. So I would argue that we can’t simply assume that Peter’s responsibilities are handed on to the Roman bishops.

This is the argument that we saw Gavin making in several clips at the beginning, and so now the time has come to respond to it.

The first thing I would note is that Jesus obviously recognized that the Church would need a supreme group of leaders. That’s why he instituted the apostles in the first place, even though they would soon be assisted by presbyters and deacons.

Jesus also recognized that—within the group of the apostles—they would need a supreme leader too, which is why he made Peter that leader.

But if the Church needed these kinds of supreme leaders even in the first century, when it was tiny, it would need such supreme leaders even more in later centuries, when the Church would grow enormously. Therefore, we would expect the Church’s supreme leadership to pass on to someone once the apostles began to pass from the scene.

And that’s exactly what the early Church Fathers say happened. As the apostles began dying off, they instituted the bishops to replace them as the supreme leaders of the Church. And Peter passed on his office to the bishop of Rome as the leader of the college of bishops.

Thus we find a college of supreme leaders with a single leader as its head in both the apostolic and the post-apostolic age. In the apostolic age, it was Peter leading the college of apostles, and in the post-apostolic age, it became the bishop of Rome heading the college of bishops.

And you can predict that this would have happened based on the Church’s leadership needs—and Jesus’ foreknowledge of those needs. The early Church Fathers then confirm that this is what happened.

So I think that if you’re going to acknowledge the bishops, you’re going to need to acknowledge the pope or bishop of Rome as their head. Gavin may not do that since he’s a Reformed Baptist, but here he is going against the evidence that we have.

The second thing I would note—and this is only a minor point—is that we actually do have a reference in Scripture that may refer to an ongoing papacy. In 2 Peter 1, Peter says:

I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things (2 Peter 1:13-15).

Peter says that he will make every effort so that after his departure—that is, his death—Christians will be able to recall his teachings.

So he’s going to make efforts—to do something—to ensure this. But what is he referring to?

We’re not sure. Many scholars assume that he was going to write something. Some have proposed that he’s referring to writing the letter of 2 Peter itself, but this interpretation is problematic since Peter uses the future tense when he says he will make these efforts, and that suggests something other than composing the letter he’s presently working on. Also, 2 Peter is an extremely short letter that in no way covers the breadth of his teachings.

Consequently, some scholars have proposed that he’s referring to the Gospel of Mark, which was based on Peter’s preaching, but this is problematic because Peter says he is going to take efforts, not Mark. Also, the sources we have indicate that Peter did not direct Mark to write his Gospel and only approved it after it was done. Finally, the chronology simply does not work. Mark was written sometime in the A.D. 50s, and 2 Peter was written in the mid-60s, so Mark can’t be what he’s referring to.

Thus some scholars have proposed that Peter was planning to write some other, longer work after he finished 2 Peter. But we have no evidence that he ever did so, and this would be very surprising since, if he had, it would certainly have been preserved in the Church as his dying declaration.

But notice the assumption running through all these proposals—that Peter is talking about writing something. If you read the text, Peter never mentions writing anything. He just says he’s going to make efforts—of some kind—to ensure that people will be able to remember the teachings. So those efforts might not involve writing at all.

They may, in fact, refer to him appointing someone—a successor—to carry on his teaching ministry, which is exactly what the early Church Fathers said he did.

Of course, this is not conclusive. The verse is mysterious, and—on exegetical grounds—no one can say with confidence what Peter is referring to. That’s why I don’t put a lot of weight on this and only raise it as a minor point. Peter could be referring to writing something or he could be referring to appointing a successor. However, the latter possibility cannot be ruled out, and so it is possible that in this verse we actually do have a reference to Peter handing on his teaching authority the way Gavin wants.

The third thing I would note is that I understand why Gavin finds his argument persuasive, but it has no force for a Catholic. On the Protestant perspective that Gavin believes, we should do doctrine by Scripture alone, and since Scripture doesn’t say “There are going to be popes after Peter,” I understand why a Protestant wouldn’t accept this.

However, that has no force for a Catholic, because Catholics do not operate on a sola scriptura system. They also accept apostolic Tradition as authoritative, and for a Catholic apostolic Tradition does indicate that there are to be popes after Peter. For Catholics, there is also a divinely guided Magisterium to help us understand Scripture and Tradition correctly, and this Magisterium has infallibly confirmed that there are to be popes after Peter.

So I understand why Gavin would find this argument convincing, but it has no evidential force from a Catholic perspective.

The fourth thing I would note is that Gavin’s principle of sola scriptura is itself problematic. This isn’t the place to do a full review of it, though—as I mentioned—I responded to a very similar view proposed by Austin Suggs a couple of weeks ago in Episode 21 of the Jimmy Akin Podcast.

However, I will note that Gavin accepts things that are not found in Scripture and thus can only be justified by apostolic tradition. For example, he said:

The problem is that the office of Apostleship is redemptive historically unique. There’s no apostles today. Apostles were eyewitnesses of the risen Christ, and they played a foundational role in the formation of the Christian Church.

Gavin is right that to be an apostle, one had to be an eyewitness of the risen Christ. Thus in 1 Corinthians 9:1, St. Paul writes:

Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? (1 Corinthians 9:1).

That is plausibly taken—although this is actually not certain—that Paul means you need to have seen the Lord to be an apostle.

The problem is, Paul was only an eyewitness of the risen Jesus. He was not an eyewitness of his earthly ministry—like the members of the Twelve were. Paul saw Jesus in a brief encounter on the road to Damascus in Acts 9, when Jesus commissioned him. In Acts 26:19, Paul actually refers to this encounter as a heavenly vision. So—if Jesus chose—he could continue to appear to people in heavenly visions and appoint them as apostles, just like St. Paul.

And there are Protestant groups that believe exactly this. For example, Five-fold Ministry churches or Five-fold churches hold that God continues to call people to all five of the ministries that Paul mentions in Ephesians 4:11, where he says that

[God] gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers (Ephesians 4:11).

So they believe that God continues to reveal himself to people and call them to be apostles. This is a very small minority opinion in Protestantism, but it is there.

On the other hand, Gavin holds the majority opinion that apostles in the full, biblical sense belong only to the first century—a position that Catholics agree with. But there is no way to prove this “by Scripture alone.” Scripture never says, “God is going to stop calling people as apostles.”

Consequently, such a doctrine cannot be based on Scripture. Its only possible, completely authoritative basis is apostolic Tradition.

The fifth thing I’d note is that Gavin is asking too much of the New Testament if he expects it to tell us about a handover of Peter’s authority in the post-apostolic age. Could God have included that in the New Testament if he chose? Sure! But can we demand that he do so if that is true? No.

For a start, the first Christians originally assumed that Jesus would be coming back in their lifetimes. For example, in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, Paul writes:

The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).

So Paul envisions himself as still being alive at the Second Coming, and this was the common view among the first Christians.

It was only later that it was revealed that there would even be a post-apostolic age, and it is only mentioned in a very few passages. Off the top of my head, I can only think of three passages where the New Testament refers to a post-apostolic age:

• 2 Timothy 4:6-8
• 2 Peter 1:14-15
• Revelation 20:1-6

In 2 Timothy 4:6-8, Paul says that he knows his life is about to end, so that envisions an age after the time of St. Paul. And in the same letter—in 2 Timothy 2:2—he commands Timothy to continue passing down the apostolic Tradition through succeeding generations.

In 2 Peter 1:14, Peter says Jesus has revealed to him that he will soon die, and in the very next verse he has the mysterious reference we covered to doing something to ensure the teachings would continue on after he is dead.

And in Revelation 20:1-6, John indicates that there will be a long period of time—symbolized as a thousand years—before the end of the world.

But with the tiny number of passages that even mention a post-apostolic age, it is asking too much to demand that we have an explicit statement about a transfer of papal authority.

Furthermore, in the tiny number of passages we do have dealing with the post-apostolic age, the signs are not promising for sola scriptura. In 2 Timothy, Paul commands the passing on of apostolic Tradition in the post-apostolic age.

And in 2 Peter, Peter may be referring to establishing a successor—so this could be exactly what Gavin is asking for. Peter’s just not explicit enough for us to be exegetically certain.

The sixth and final thing I would note is that if Gavin wants to apply this test to Catholics, he should be willing to apply it to his own system. After all, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and he shouldn’t be using a double standard here.

To see that, let’s consider the two systems of formulating doctrine again.

 

Catholic View
Word of God (Scripture, Tradition)	Magisterium	Person’s Interpretation
Protestant View
Word of God (Scripture only)		Person’s Interpretation

What Gavin is asking for is an explicit New Testament passage documenting the transfer of papal authority to the next generation, but let’s put that in perspective of the overall Catholic view.

The Catholic view is that—in addition to Scripture and apostolic Tradition—God has also given us a Magisterium that God guides and that—in at least some circumstances—can speak infallibly on the correct interpretation of Scripture and Tradition.

The teaching that the pope—in particular—can exercise that infallibility is a subsidiary point in the Catholic system, which also incorporates Scripture, Tradition, and the rest of the Magisterium.

Nevertheless, Gavin is quite adamant that we need a New Testament passage proving this.

We don’t have anything that says in effect, it doesn’t need to be in these words, but something to the effect of there’s going to be an infallible teaching office, there’s going to be a Pope. . . .

And I would think that that should need to be clear because so much is at stake. If there’s anything that would be important for the New Testament to tell us, I should think it’d be this. . . .

That needs to be clearly established in the holy Scripture because so much is at stake if there’s a shepherd, a pastor over the whole church who can speak and teach infallibly. . . .

We need teaching to say that would clearly resolve. I mean, this whole discussion could be so clearly resolved that there was a passage in scripture that just said, there’s going to be a pope.

So Gavin thinks that the issue of the papacy is so important that he insists the New Testament should teach that Peter’s authority will be handed on to his successors, and this is only a subsidiary point in the Catholic model of Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium.

So if even a subsidiary point in the Catholic system is so important that the New Testament must teach it on the sola scriptura model that Gavin is using, what about Gavin’s own system?

After all, if so much is at stake with a subsidiary point in the Catholic model then just as much—and more—would be at stake in the Protestant model, which uses Scripture alone. If we need a New Testament passage teaching the subsidiary point in the Catholic model then we’re absolutely going to need Scripture that teaches the entirety of the Protestant model, because a system as a whole is even more important than and has even more at stake than a subsidiary point.

And yet there are no such passages. The principle of sola scriptura was not in use in the apostolic age, and it’s nowhere mentioned in the tiny number of passages that refer to the post-apostolic age. In fact, at least one and maybe two of those passages support the Catholic model—not to mention other passages that also support it and that show the Catholic model was used in the apostolic age.

Gavin himself acknowledges that sola scriptura is not taught in Scripture and that apostolic Tradition was in use in the apostolic age. In another video, he says:

Does the Church possess any other rule that is comparable to Scripture with respect to infallibility? What would such a rule be? Some point to oral apostolic Traditions that are mentioned in the New Testament. But these were given directly by the apostles during the era of public revelation while Scripture was still being written. We don’t have those oral Traditions.

So the reason Gavin says apostolic Tradition isn’t an infallible authority today is that we don’t have apostolic Tradition anymore. I would challenge that, but note that what he says concedes that sola scriptura was not in use in the apostolic age. It is the product of a later age. It’s what Gavin would call an accretion.

In fact, Gavin’s overall argument for sola scriptura is not based on Scripture alone. He bases it on what he takes to be later facts of history, such as the supposed loss of the apostolic Traditions.

And that’s an important concession, because it means that Gavin is employing a double standard. In considering the Catholic model, he thinks that a subsidiary point is so important and has so much at stake that it simply must be taught in the New Testament. But in considering his own model, where the entire system is in view and not just a subsidiary point, he relaxes his standard and does not see the need for it to be taught in Scripture, though even more is at stake.

Consequently, Gavin is applying one standard to the Catholic view and another standard to his own view. It’s a double standard, and he is insisting that the Catholic view must meet a test that his own view cannot meet.

This is one reason, among others, that a Catholic will not find his argument persuasive.

 

Concluding Thoughts

Having said all this, I want to reiterate that I think Gavin is a really great guy. I appreciate so much of what he does, including how he seeks to be fair in his apologetics and be friendly and charitable. Those things are awesome.

While we do have disagreements, as this video illustrates, Gavin still does a lot of great work, I really value what he does, and I’m always happy to work alongside him on projects of mutual interest.

So Gavin, I hope you find these thoughts helpful, and God bless you!

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Thank you, and I’ll see you next time.

God bless you always!

 

LINK FOR SHOW NOTES:

Original Heschmeyer-Ortlund Discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYj_6POocaA