One more point: Catholic apologists, essentially devalue scripture — despite the fact that their church considered scripture to be one of two sources of divine revelation – because many of their own beliefs and practices directly contradict scripture. And they *know* this. That’s why they use scripture as ex post facto justification for those beliefs and practices, and use the church fathers as a fig leaf.
As a former Catholic, I believe Catholic apologetics is nothing but rhetorical excrement. Like the leadership of their church, these apologists essentially make things up as they go along while acting as PR flacks. And if you don’t believe the Catholic Church “makes things up as it goes along,” let me post some of articles that I have written about how John Paul II and Francis engaged in theological revisionism concerning punishment, and how Francis tried to normalize homosexuality in the Catholic Church:
Mr. D'Hippolito, could you clarify what you mean by "make things up as they go along while acting as PR flacks"? Are you implying that RC Apologists are being ad-hoc in their arguments?
While it's indeed disheartening to witness the ecumenism that fosters indifferentism, I find it curious how this situation compares to Protestantism. After all, significant changes have occurred within Protestantism that would have been unimaginable in the post-Reformation era.
You haven't mentioned which Church you joined. Did you become Protestant? If so, which denomination? It's important to recognize that many major Protestant Confessions have historically anathematized one another. This is often dismissed with the argument that these differences are "not infallible," which seems to be a common justification among modern Protestants. Additionally, the definition of "Biblical" appears to be continually redefined to accommodate these differences. Wouldn't this also fall under the category of "making things up as they go along while acting as PR flacks"?
This article I wrote for a Catholic newspaper several years ago will help you understand what I mean concerning Catholic apologists. About a third of the way down, the part that would interest you starts with a paragraph beginning with the phrase, “Reinforcing that gambit…”:
Mr. D'Hippolito, there's no article that I have read that doesn't point to the crisis in Rome right now. Even Joe Heschmeyer, who has been critiqued in this article, unleashed his frustrations with the Francis pontificate in his book Pope Peter. At least he's better there than talking heads like Michael Lofton, who attempt to shame anyone as being against the papacy for even whispering concerns about indifferentism or ecumenism since Vatican II (or starting from Vatican I if you're a Peter Dimond or Taylor Marshall fan). I've perused through your article, and it doesn't say anything new.
I think some of your views on the death penalty are simply too extreme. I don't have an issue with the death penalty no longer being used or used only in extreme cases, or showing mercy to those who seek repentance—especially compared to murderers who laugh at victims' families. But I hate the way it was worded with Universalist-sounding language and an overuse of vague appeals to “human dignity.”
What I am against is the attempt to use these troubled times as evidence that Rome isn’t the true Church. You’ll find similar problems everywhere, either in their initial stages or already on full display. The Apostolic Canons forbid praying with heretics—yet who excommunicated the Eastern Orthodox bishops and patriarchs who pray with Rome or who attended Assisi? Some of their own patriarchs are now soft on Rome. I recommend reading Fr. John Behr’s article Who Guards the Guardians? and the concerns he raises about some of their hierarchs.
Now this brings me to Protestantism and the usual inconsistencies that get excused with “not infallible.” You literally have Lutheran Confessions calling the Papists followers of the Antichrist and calling those who deny infant baptism heretics. That’s either been reversed or quietly ignored today. Yet with all these confessional condemnations, the author of this article—as well as Baptist theologian Dr. Gavin Ortlund and Lutheran apologist Javier Perdomo—want to talk about “ecclesial anxiety,” when Protestant confessions themselves paint Rome (or even Baptists) as being outside salvation or at least in grave danger.
That highlights the deeper problem: Protestant doctrines remain under the tyranny of human opinion. If heresies can be reversed that easily, how can you be sure of what is actually revealed? Even sola fide—a rallying cry of the Reformation—is no longer universally agreed upon, not even among the Reformed. If sola fide isn’t the Gospel, why schism from Rome in the first place? This Reformed apologist argues just that at point number four in this video:
Be careful before throwing around terms like “Catholic Apologetics Complex.” At some point, “not infallible” won’t be enough to save Protestantism—just like the kind of individualism promoted by some “Orthobros” won’t be enough to answer the problems beginning to surface in the East.
So I agree this isn’t Joe’s best work but you really seem to be talking past each other.
If I understand you correctly you are just saying that fallible means (like ears or what have you) can transmit infallible teaching infallibly. Cool. No-one is contesting that. Do you think Joe is contesting that? It feels like you do. If so, please read with charity.
What Joe is saying is that there are two options (let’s use the ear case for simplicity) either Moses’ (fallible) ears heard the words of god infallibly or they didn’t. If they didn’t, then how can we trust the content of the scriptures if Moses could have misheard? If they did, then while in their natural capacity they are fallible, in their capacity within transmitting Gods revelation they are infallible. Now replace Moses’ ears with the Church and you have effectively the Catholic position on how infallibility works. If that is all Gavin is saying, he is making a distinction from the Catholic position without a difference.
Moses is fallible but the reason why divine revelation is infallible is because the Holy Spirit is infallible. He is the one who carried Moses.
God did not use "the nation of Israel" as an institution to give us His divine revelation. He used fallible prophets carried by the Spirit such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, etc. Similarly, in the New Testament, He did not use "The Church (gathering of believers) but God used the Apostles (fallible men) carried by the Holy Spirit to bring us divine revelation.
Right so this is interesting. In as far as this argument goes, I see little to no difference between your conception of how we get infallibility and mine. There is never a point where the source of infallibility is not the Holy Spirit, and when any human acts by themselves, they act fallibly, but can be protected from error by the intervention of the Spirit.
The difference is perhaps in the extent to which God extends his infallibility, and the relation between the individuals who directly receive infallibility and those who receive that infallible revelation.
I am working on a multi-part series on this and may add an entry on this idea. If you are interested I will @ you when I am done.
So then, would you at least clarify and say that the Roman Catholic church is fallible but the Holy Spirit ONLY uses that institution?
I would be interested how you would answer these differences. It seems like you are conflating an institution with an individual (s).
1) Where does God promise to protect an institution instead of a prophet or an apostle?
2) How does "I will build my church" mean "infallibility".
3) Did the Old Testament Church, before the council of Florence (or Trent) have the books of the Bible correctly? If so, what council or institution gave them that list?
4) Where in the Old Testament does God use a nation (group of people) to speak infallibly to the people of God?
Ok, so your question is phrased in an interesting way and one that I would not really think to use. So, if by fallibility you mean "ability to err full stop" then yes of course the church is fallible. Even Catholics can point to e.g. the Avignon papacy, or (especially the later) Crusades, or how it handled abuses leading up to the reformation and say the Church/Pope/bishops made errors in what they did there. I can point to Pope Francis and say that his grasp of theology was deficient in places and that especially in non-formal settings was often poorly presented or even incorrect. That's not what Catholics mean by infallible.
When Catholics say the Church is infallible, we are referring to a specific power of the Church from the Holy Spirit, which guards particular individuals (in virtue of their authority) from binding the faithful to error. All other times, all individuals and the church collectively are subject to normal human error, though we also believe the Spirit mystically guides the church in other ways as well.
So, I this question of individuals vs groups is something I will go into in more depth in the essay, so I will be brief here.
1) I'm not actually sure what passages you have in mind regarding His protecting individuals, if you could help me out with that I would really appreciate it. I would say that the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, especially where they say "It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" would be an instance of the Church collectively claiming the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which as we agree is infallible. I also don't see any indication that that phenomenon is meant to be limited to the Apostolic Age.
2) "I will build my church" isn't a proof text for papal infallibility as much a papal primacy. You could maybe derive infallibility if you think that the Church will be protected from error (that's more "and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against" though that passage isn't definitive) and that the Pope is the head of the Church. However, as will most Biblical proof texts, more assumptions are required than those explicitly stated in that single passage.
3) Ooh I love this and this is what the main point of my article is going to be about. I'll give you a taste here: On the Catholic position, infallibility isn't saying that the Church must have always defined some doctrine or that something isn't true or binding until it's infallibly defined. That's a sort of infallibility fetishism that sometimes sneaks into online Catholic circles which is not correct. Rather, the idea of infallibility is that, necessarily, if the Church formally states that p, then p. But that doesn't mean that p wasn't true or binding beforehand. I know this is meant as a gotcha for a specific Catholic argument against Sola Scriptura but I need an essay to rebut that fully.
4) I think this question misunderstands the Catholic claims. The institutional church is not separate from the faithful, such that there is some separate thing "the institution" which God uses to infallibly speak to the church. Rather, God uses individuals within the people of God to guide the people of God. Prophets weren't a separate thing apart from Israel, they were part of the covenant community. Moses, David, and Solomon were all leaders of that community and all wrote infallibly in some capacity. But that looks a lot like what Catholics have with Papal infallibility doesn't it? God acts through a fallible individual to bind the faithful to some truth that they are failing to live up to. There's a lot more that I will say on this later but it's important to remember that the Church doesn't stand apart from individuals in the way your question seems to imply.
Gavin, Javier, Ben, annd other Protestants doing retrieval do think that the Church failed to correctly discern the canon of scripture.
Consider this question: did the Church fail to correctly discern the canon of scripture at the
- Council of Laodicea (yes the canon 60 is disputed but I’m throwing you a bone here)
- Council of Rome AD 382
- Synod of Hyppo AD 392
- Council of Carthage AD 397
- Council of Carthage AD 419
- The Council of Florence (1431-1449)
For council of Laodicea, if canon 60 is authentic, then the answer is it almost got it right but ultimately the church failed there, missing revelation, and including Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah.
For other pre-reformation councils, I know you think the church failed at Florence (you said as much) but what about the other councils listed here? This list comprises every church council known to address this issue, and they all (with the exception Laodicea), include the deuterocanonicals.
The western half of the church certainly thought that way of the deuterocanons as these councils show. But, even up to Trent, there were dissenting voices both in the west and certainly in the east. If these books had been contested for 1500 years of the churches existence since Trent, it seems to follow a protestant shouldn't be so quick to consider these books as part of the canon proper.
I love the part in one of his video where he highlights a line from Luther to slander him but leaves in the rest of the passage on the screen and the sentence refutes the very claim he’s trying to make. Seems like the Sophists haven’t learned a thing in 500 years; perhaps they never will!
If this is your idea of elevating the discourse, I’m wondering what you consider uncharitable and unproductive
Enough equivocation and accusations. State your support for a fair and moderated debate between the parties, like intellectuals. This back and forth about “you didn’t state what I think correctly” is juvenile.
If Protestants have the truth on their side, then let the light shine upon it. This back and forth via response videos and interested parties brings no Glory to God
And all this back-and-forth "my truth is more true than your truth" is giving God Glory *how*??? And I'm calling out all sides. Choose your own sect and live it as best you can and quit throwing stones from your own glass patio.
Satan cheers over any and all dividing of Christ's flock. How about we all refrain from being his cheerleaders. As the old saying goes, "it takes two to tango".
So lets get real, kids. Start spending less time on the sectarian social media gameboy digital field and more time loving your family and neighbors IRL. I'm sure an old lady or single mom down the street could use a smile or a helping hand with something.
And please, get over thinking that boxing with brother Christians brings God Glory. It doesn't.
Hey Luke, thanks for your response, it was a good read. I have a question if you don’t mind?
If I am understanding your position correctly, you have confidence but no certainty that the books you have are scripture? If I’ve got that right, my question is by what method / means do you use to continue to check that you still have the correct books? How would you continue to affirm, for example, that the longer ending of Matthew is scripture? What is your sense check? If in the future your method shows that it is not scripture would you remove it?
I hope my question makes sense? I am happy to clarify if needs be. Cheers!
As fallible men, we ultimately cannot be completely confident in anything. Are we all just a figment of some greater being's imagination? Are we a simulation? Is everything we believe programmed into us? If we are going to be pedantic, we can never be certain in anything, at least not intellectually. There will always be that possibility that everything has lined up to make us think reality is one way, when it truly it is another.
However, using reason and logic, using evidence, acknowledging the power we've witnessed of the Scriptures in our lives, or on spiritual entities, or a host of other methods; we can be confident in our beliefs. We have been convinced that the Scriptures are God-breathed. Our understanding of God is that He cannot be in error. Therefore, what comes from God must be true. Therefore, if these Scriptures are God-breathed, they must be infallible. We are still ultimately fallible men and cannot be certain of anything; but we are convinced that the Scriptures are divinely inspired, and therefore they are infallible, and therefore we hold to Sola Scriptura.
Hi Matthew, thanks for your response. I few comments from my end.
"As fallible men, we ultimately cannot be completely confident in anything."
I am completely confident that God exists. I am completely confident that I am a sinner who needs a savior. Mathematically speaking there is proof that 1 + 1 = 2. I believe there a certain things we can know intellectually, say the laws of logic for example.
"but we are convinced that the Scriptures are divinely inspired, and therefore they are infallible"
I whole heartily agree with you on this point. But the question that I am trying to raise above is that you don't know with 'certainty' what the scriptures are. If you can say with certainty that these are the scriptures then yes I grant you all your points made. But under the Protestant framework (if I understand it correctly) you cant do that. If you don't have the scriptures it logically follows you cant have Sola Scriptura.
Now I may be miss understanding the confidence vs certainty distinction and I apologize for that. I think I would better understand if you could answer for me the following. Can Sola Scriptura still be true, if you don't have a closed canon? Thats also a point of clarity that I need, do you hold to a closed canon? If not, I think my original question still holds. How do you continue to check that you still have the right books in your bible that are scripture? How do you continue to check with new evidence that those books outside your bible should not be considered scripture?
Sorry for all the questions. I am trying my best to understand your position. Cheers!
You seem to think trusting in one institution gives you "certainty". I think it is juat pushing the can.
How can you be certain that the Catholic Church you attend is truly giving you the correct books?
How do you know for certain that the other Western part of the church and even other churches (not just Protestants) are incorrect in describing which books?
I could be absolutely wrong, but that does not automatically prove you right. Since this article and this thread has been about the Protestant side of the argument, I have been asking questions to clarify and hopefully also to get my concerns addressed. I have not asserted anything here. So I will grant you for sake of argument that I am wrong and the Catholic church got it wrong. Please prove your side, or at least answer my questions so that I may understand your position better. I am not looking for a slam dunk win, I am honestly just trying to understand your position and better understand my own in the process.
Hey. my point that we all start somewhere. Continuing pushing the can leads to "solipsism".
I am perfectly fine starting with an axiom.
For some Protestants, the axiom is the Bible is the word of God. Where as, your axiom seems to be "the church is the word of God".
You requesting "certainty" is unattainable because "empiricism" never leads to an 100% certainty but at best "high probability". But high probability is still not certainty.
I’m not asking an ontological question I am asking one of epistemology. How do you know that the books you have are the word of God.
Again, I am trying to grant your axiom or your standard and I am trying to follow it down the path forward not backward. Given that you don’t have certainty it makes sense to me to ask why do you still have confidence in the books you have or don’t have? Moving forward. Do you have anything to give you confidence moving forward.
This is not the first time Joe has done this to Dr. Ortlund.
Nor will it be the last.
One more point: Catholic apologists, essentially devalue scripture — despite the fact that their church considered scripture to be one of two sources of divine revelation – because many of their own beliefs and practices directly contradict scripture. And they *know* this. That’s why they use scripture as ex post facto justification for those beliefs and practices, and use the church fathers as a fig leaf.
As a former Catholic, I believe Catholic apologetics is nothing but rhetorical excrement. Like the leadership of their church, these apologists essentially make things up as they go along while acting as PR flacks. And if you don’t believe the Catholic Church “makes things up as it goes along,” let me post some of articles that I have written about how John Paul II and Francis engaged in theological revisionism concerning punishment, and how Francis tried to normalize homosexuality in the Catholic Church:
https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/3460-killing-capital-punishment-how-pope-john-paul-set-precedent-for-pope-francis
https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/4010-changing-doctrine-pope-francis-vs-cardinal-john-henry-newman
https://stream.org/queering-the-catholic-church/
Mr. D'Hippolito, could you clarify what you mean by "make things up as they go along while acting as PR flacks"? Are you implying that RC Apologists are being ad-hoc in their arguments?
While it's indeed disheartening to witness the ecumenism that fosters indifferentism, I find it curious how this situation compares to Protestantism. After all, significant changes have occurred within Protestantism that would have been unimaginable in the post-Reformation era.
You haven't mentioned which Church you joined. Did you become Protestant? If so, which denomination? It's important to recognize that many major Protestant Confessions have historically anathematized one another. This is often dismissed with the argument that these differences are "not infallible," which seems to be a common justification among modern Protestants. Additionally, the definition of "Biblical" appears to be continually redefined to accommodate these differences. Wouldn't this also fall under the category of "making things up as they go along while acting as PR flacks"?
This article I wrote for a Catholic newspaper several years ago will help you understand what I mean concerning Catholic apologists. About a third of the way down, the part that would interest you starts with a paragraph beginning with the phrase, “Reinforcing that gambit…”:
https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/fetzen-fliegen/item/4050-idolizing-papal-personality
On Thursday morning, I found the following sub stack article Chris Jackson wrote. It provides the perfect summary:
https://open.substack.com/pub/bigmodernism/p/how-to-tell-if-you-are-trad-inc?r=fk4ns&utm_medium=ios
Mr. D'Hippolito, there's no article that I have read that doesn't point to the crisis in Rome right now. Even Joe Heschmeyer, who has been critiqued in this article, unleashed his frustrations with the Francis pontificate in his book Pope Peter. At least he's better there than talking heads like Michael Lofton, who attempt to shame anyone as being against the papacy for even whispering concerns about indifferentism or ecumenism since Vatican II (or starting from Vatican I if you're a Peter Dimond or Taylor Marshall fan). I've perused through your article, and it doesn't say anything new.
I think some of your views on the death penalty are simply too extreme. I don't have an issue with the death penalty no longer being used or used only in extreme cases, or showing mercy to those who seek repentance—especially compared to murderers who laugh at victims' families. But I hate the way it was worded with Universalist-sounding language and an overuse of vague appeals to “human dignity.”
What I am against is the attempt to use these troubled times as evidence that Rome isn’t the true Church. You’ll find similar problems everywhere, either in their initial stages or already on full display. The Apostolic Canons forbid praying with heretics—yet who excommunicated the Eastern Orthodox bishops and patriarchs who pray with Rome or who attended Assisi? Some of their own patriarchs are now soft on Rome. I recommend reading Fr. John Behr’s article Who Guards the Guardians? and the concerns he raises about some of their hierarchs.
Now this brings me to Protestantism and the usual inconsistencies that get excused with “not infallible.” You literally have Lutheran Confessions calling the Papists followers of the Antichrist and calling those who deny infant baptism heretics. That’s either been reversed or quietly ignored today. Yet with all these confessional condemnations, the author of this article—as well as Baptist theologian Dr. Gavin Ortlund and Lutheran apologist Javier Perdomo—want to talk about “ecclesial anxiety,” when Protestant confessions themselves paint Rome (or even Baptists) as being outside salvation or at least in grave danger.
That highlights the deeper problem: Protestant doctrines remain under the tyranny of human opinion. If heresies can be reversed that easily, how can you be sure of what is actually revealed? Even sola fide—a rallying cry of the Reformation—is no longer universally agreed upon, not even among the Reformed. If sola fide isn’t the Gospel, why schism from Rome in the first place? This Reformed apologist argues just that at point number four in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXCFBXO88RI&t=250s
Be careful before throwing around terms like “Catholic Apologetics Complex.” At some point, “not infallible” won’t be enough to save Protestantism—just like the kind of individualism promoted by some “Orthobros” won’t be enough to answer the problems beginning to surface in the East.
I almost fell out of my chair at the 8 minute point of joes video, perhaps the worst trash tier content I've ever seen from Catholic answers
That's saying something.
Catholic Answers gaslighting at its finest
So I agree this isn’t Joe’s best work but you really seem to be talking past each other.
If I understand you correctly you are just saying that fallible means (like ears or what have you) can transmit infallible teaching infallibly. Cool. No-one is contesting that. Do you think Joe is contesting that? It feels like you do. If so, please read with charity.
What Joe is saying is that there are two options (let’s use the ear case for simplicity) either Moses’ (fallible) ears heard the words of god infallibly or they didn’t. If they didn’t, then how can we trust the content of the scriptures if Moses could have misheard? If they did, then while in their natural capacity they are fallible, in their capacity within transmitting Gods revelation they are infallible. Now replace Moses’ ears with the Church and you have effectively the Catholic position on how infallibility works. If that is all Gavin is saying, he is making a distinction from the Catholic position without a difference.
Are you then agreeing that the church is fallible just like Moses's ears are fallible?
So you don't really need infallible institutions or ears?
That depends. Are you saying Moses ears are fallible when transmitting divine revelation? If so no. Otherwise maybe?
Moses is fallible but the reason why divine revelation is infallible is because the Holy Spirit is infallible. He is the one who carried Moses.
God did not use "the nation of Israel" as an institution to give us His divine revelation. He used fallible prophets carried by the Spirit such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, etc. Similarly, in the New Testament, He did not use "The Church (gathering of believers) but God used the Apostles (fallible men) carried by the Holy Spirit to bring us divine revelation.
Right so this is interesting. In as far as this argument goes, I see little to no difference between your conception of how we get infallibility and mine. There is never a point where the source of infallibility is not the Holy Spirit, and when any human acts by themselves, they act fallibly, but can be protected from error by the intervention of the Spirit.
The difference is perhaps in the extent to which God extends his infallibility, and the relation between the individuals who directly receive infallibility and those who receive that infallible revelation.
I am working on a multi-part series on this and may add an entry on this idea. If you are interested I will @ you when I am done.
I would be interested.
So then, would you at least clarify and say that the Roman Catholic church is fallible but the Holy Spirit ONLY uses that institution?
I would be interested how you would answer these differences. It seems like you are conflating an institution with an individual (s).
1) Where does God promise to protect an institution instead of a prophet or an apostle?
2) How does "I will build my church" mean "infallibility".
3) Did the Old Testament Church, before the council of Florence (or Trent) have the books of the Bible correctly? If so, what council or institution gave them that list?
4) Where in the Old Testament does God use a nation (group of people) to speak infallibly to the people of God?
Cool!
Ok, so your question is phrased in an interesting way and one that I would not really think to use. So, if by fallibility you mean "ability to err full stop" then yes of course the church is fallible. Even Catholics can point to e.g. the Avignon papacy, or (especially the later) Crusades, or how it handled abuses leading up to the reformation and say the Church/Pope/bishops made errors in what they did there. I can point to Pope Francis and say that his grasp of theology was deficient in places and that especially in non-formal settings was often poorly presented or even incorrect. That's not what Catholics mean by infallible.
When Catholics say the Church is infallible, we are referring to a specific power of the Church from the Holy Spirit, which guards particular individuals (in virtue of their authority) from binding the faithful to error. All other times, all individuals and the church collectively are subject to normal human error, though we also believe the Spirit mystically guides the church in other ways as well.
So, I this question of individuals vs groups is something I will go into in more depth in the essay, so I will be brief here.
1) I'm not actually sure what passages you have in mind regarding His protecting individuals, if you could help me out with that I would really appreciate it. I would say that the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, especially where they say "It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" would be an instance of the Church collectively claiming the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which as we agree is infallible. I also don't see any indication that that phenomenon is meant to be limited to the Apostolic Age.
2) "I will build my church" isn't a proof text for papal infallibility as much a papal primacy. You could maybe derive infallibility if you think that the Church will be protected from error (that's more "and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against" though that passage isn't definitive) and that the Pope is the head of the Church. However, as will most Biblical proof texts, more assumptions are required than those explicitly stated in that single passage.
3) Ooh I love this and this is what the main point of my article is going to be about. I'll give you a taste here: On the Catholic position, infallibility isn't saying that the Church must have always defined some doctrine or that something isn't true or binding until it's infallibly defined. That's a sort of infallibility fetishism that sometimes sneaks into online Catholic circles which is not correct. Rather, the idea of infallibility is that, necessarily, if the Church formally states that p, then p. But that doesn't mean that p wasn't true or binding beforehand. I know this is meant as a gotcha for a specific Catholic argument against Sola Scriptura but I need an essay to rebut that fully.
4) I think this question misunderstands the Catholic claims. The institutional church is not separate from the faithful, such that there is some separate thing "the institution" which God uses to infallibly speak to the church. Rather, God uses individuals within the people of God to guide the people of God. Prophets weren't a separate thing apart from Israel, they were part of the covenant community. Moses, David, and Solomon were all leaders of that community and all wrote infallibly in some capacity. But that looks a lot like what Catholics have with Papal infallibility doesn't it? God acts through a fallible individual to bind the faithful to some truth that they are failing to live up to. There's a lot more that I will say on this later but it's important to remember that the Church doesn't stand apart from individuals in the way your question seems to imply.
Hope that helps! More to follow in my posts!
"Not his best work" but...what a cope.
Yeah...they seem to get worse and worse and lack self awareness about it.
A lot like atheists.
Gavin, Javier, Ben, annd other Protestants doing retrieval do think that the Church failed to correctly discern the canon of scripture.
Consider this question: did the Church fail to correctly discern the canon of scripture at the
- Council of Laodicea (yes the canon 60 is disputed but I’m throwing you a bone here)
- Council of Rome AD 382
- Synod of Hyppo AD 392
- Council of Carthage AD 397
- Council of Carthage AD 419
- The Council of Florence (1431-1449)
For council of Laodicea, if canon 60 is authentic, then the answer is it almost got it right but ultimately the church failed there, missing revelation, and including Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah.
For other pre-reformation councils, I know you think the church failed at Florence (you said as much) but what about the other councils listed here? This list comprises every church council known to address this issue, and they all (with the exception Laodicea), include the deuterocanonicals.
The western half of the church certainly thought that way of the deuterocanons as these councils show. But, even up to Trent, there were dissenting voices both in the west and certainly in the east. If these books had been contested for 1500 years of the churches existence since Trent, it seems to follow a protestant shouldn't be so quick to consider these books as part of the canon proper.
I love the part in one of his video where he highlights a line from Luther to slander him but leaves in the rest of the passage on the screen and the sentence refutes the very claim he’s trying to make. Seems like the Sophists haven’t learned a thing in 500 years; perhaps they never will!
I was answering your objection about certainty and how we all have to start somewhere.
You seem to be starting with the axiom - my church tells me so..
Whereas Protestant start with - 66 books of the canon tells me so..
I have no problem having an axiom and everything being built from that.. I think we both have to make an axiomatic claim.
But this whole idea about certainty is silly in my opinion because both parties have to wrestle with this question in mind.
Seems like you alerted some of the horde.
If this is your idea of elevating the discourse, I’m wondering what you consider uncharitable and unproductive
Enough equivocation and accusations. State your support for a fair and moderated debate between the parties, like intellectuals. This back and forth about “you didn’t state what I think correctly” is juvenile.
If Protestants have the truth on their side, then let the light shine upon it. This back and forth via response videos and interested parties brings no Glory to God
It’s strange to criticize someone for misrepresenting an argument and then in the same paragraph misrepresent a persons argument.
And all this back-and-forth "my truth is more true than your truth" is giving God Glory *how*??? And I'm calling out all sides. Choose your own sect and live it as best you can and quit throwing stones from your own glass patio.
Satan cheers over any and all dividing of Christ's flock. How about we all refrain from being his cheerleaders. As the old saying goes, "it takes two to tango".
So lets get real, kids. Start spending less time on the sectarian social media gameboy digital field and more time loving your family and neighbors IRL. I'm sure an old lady or single mom down the street could use a smile or a helping hand with something.
And please, get over thinking that boxing with brother Christians brings God Glory. It doesn't.
Just sayin'
Well Done.
Hey Luke, thanks for your response, it was a good read. I have a question if you don’t mind?
If I am understanding your position correctly, you have confidence but no certainty that the books you have are scripture? If I’ve got that right, my question is by what method / means do you use to continue to check that you still have the correct books? How would you continue to affirm, for example, that the longer ending of Matthew is scripture? What is your sense check? If in the future your method shows that it is not scripture would you remove it?
I hope my question makes sense? I am happy to clarify if needs be. Cheers!
As fallible men, we ultimately cannot be completely confident in anything. Are we all just a figment of some greater being's imagination? Are we a simulation? Is everything we believe programmed into us? If we are going to be pedantic, we can never be certain in anything, at least not intellectually. There will always be that possibility that everything has lined up to make us think reality is one way, when it truly it is another.
However, using reason and logic, using evidence, acknowledging the power we've witnessed of the Scriptures in our lives, or on spiritual entities, or a host of other methods; we can be confident in our beliefs. We have been convinced that the Scriptures are God-breathed. Our understanding of God is that He cannot be in error. Therefore, what comes from God must be true. Therefore, if these Scriptures are God-breathed, they must be infallible. We are still ultimately fallible men and cannot be certain of anything; but we are convinced that the Scriptures are divinely inspired, and therefore they are infallible, and therefore we hold to Sola Scriptura.
Hi Matthew, thanks for your response. I few comments from my end.
"As fallible men, we ultimately cannot be completely confident in anything."
I am completely confident that God exists. I am completely confident that I am a sinner who needs a savior. Mathematically speaking there is proof that 1 + 1 = 2. I believe there a certain things we can know intellectually, say the laws of logic for example.
"but we are convinced that the Scriptures are divinely inspired, and therefore they are infallible"
I whole heartily agree with you on this point. But the question that I am trying to raise above is that you don't know with 'certainty' what the scriptures are. If you can say with certainty that these are the scriptures then yes I grant you all your points made. But under the Protestant framework (if I understand it correctly) you cant do that. If you don't have the scriptures it logically follows you cant have Sola Scriptura.
Now I may be miss understanding the confidence vs certainty distinction and I apologize for that. I think I would better understand if you could answer for me the following. Can Sola Scriptura still be true, if you don't have a closed canon? Thats also a point of clarity that I need, do you hold to a closed canon? If not, I think my original question still holds. How do you continue to check that you still have the right books in your bible that are scripture? How do you continue to check with new evidence that those books outside your bible should not be considered scripture?
Sorry for all the questions. I am trying my best to understand your position. Cheers!
You seem to think trusting in one institution gives you "certainty". I think it is juat pushing the can.
How can you be certain that the Catholic Church you attend is truly giving you the correct books?
How do you know for certain that the other Western part of the church and even other churches (not just Protestants) are incorrect in describing which books?
Hi Jonathan, thanks for your message.
I could be absolutely wrong, but that does not automatically prove you right. Since this article and this thread has been about the Protestant side of the argument, I have been asking questions to clarify and hopefully also to get my concerns addressed. I have not asserted anything here. So I will grant you for sake of argument that I am wrong and the Catholic church got it wrong. Please prove your side, or at least answer my questions so that I may understand your position better. I am not looking for a slam dunk win, I am honestly just trying to understand your position and better understand my own in the process.
Hey. my point that we all start somewhere. Continuing pushing the can leads to "solipsism".
I am perfectly fine starting with an axiom.
For some Protestants, the axiom is the Bible is the word of God. Where as, your axiom seems to be "the church is the word of God".
You requesting "certainty" is unattainable because "empiricism" never leads to an 100% certainty but at best "high probability". But high probability is still not certainty.
I affirm that scripture is the word of God.
I’m not asking an ontological question I am asking one of epistemology. How do you know that the books you have are the word of God.
Again, I am trying to grant your axiom or your standard and I am trying to follow it down the path forward not backward. Given that you don’t have certainty it makes sense to me to ask why do you still have confidence in the books you have or don’t have? Moving forward. Do you have anything to give you confidence moving forward.
Still waiting for an answer.