Catholic Apologist Matt Fradd Answers My TOP OBJECTIONS to Catholicism

hey guys here we go scoot over screw that I'm here with Matt Fran hi yeah this is Matt Fred so we already have a few people here in the lab Chet let me know if you guys if it's are you Catholic someone's asking oh I am Matt is I'm not I am an evangelical protestant Protestant I don't know why I'm doing the air quotes for that I'm Protestant and he is Catholic and so we're talking about three objections that have come up in my mind that are just sort of common objections to Catholicism and Matt is going to share his thoughts the reason why I'm here with Matt is because he actually invited me to be on his podcast pints with Aquinas and will tell everyone a little about your show and what you do and why you wanted to invite me and then we can talk about the objections yeah so pints with Aquinas as the title implies it's basically just you know 13th century philosopher theologian Thomas Aquinas bringing him out of the ivory tower of academia and discussing questions about faith and philosophy and Aquinas did a really good job at formulating his opponents positions better than they could often and then responding to it so very thoughtful guy faith and reason kind of guy so I love what Cameron's doing on capturing Christianity and I wanted to invite him over the chat so we'll be doing we'll be recording it on Monday and it'll release play that right excuse me and so both of us are very ecumenical right we're not this is a very friendly conversation this isn't like I'm not grilling him about Catholicism this is just a friendly chat we just decided to do it about minutes ago literally about 10 minutes ago I got here a little early I'll actually be hanging out with dr. William Lane Craig tomorrow I'm gonna go check out his his class so we're gonna have lunch together but we decided that tonight we have a little bit of time a little bit of extra time so why not talk about some three common objections to Catholicism get his thoughts go back and forth a little bit and then we'll take some live Q&A questions from you guys so the first objection is praying to the Saints why is that part of Catholic doctrine why are we praying to Mary or any of these other Saints what's what's that all about is that question you've had for a while or is I just don't you had other people ask but does that well be yeah no that that's I guess that would be something that I've seen other people will raise yeah objections about and what I guess when it comes to Mary that is a big question I have in mind in my mind is why what's the what's the purpose of that where is that found in Scripture what's the sort of basis yeah I guess that those would be more of like my personal questions yeah so I think that when Catholics and evangelicals use the word pray they sometimes mean by it different things so I think usually when evangelicals use the word pray they might mean it synonymous with worship okay that might not always be true but I think generally it is whereas when a Catholic uses the word pray he might be using it in the Old English sense to ask so EEP you read Shakespeare there's a contraction of I pray thee I privy bring me the book pretty close the door or whatever mm-hmm so when a Catholic says is praying to Saints he does not mean that he is worshiping the saints in heaven he means that he's requesting their prayers okay so it's like I'm the supreme is escaping me but it's like a intercessory prayer yeah yeah yeah yeah so the idea would be if if we are one body of Christ and that Christ doesn't have two bodies one in heaven on earth hmm and if death doesn't separate us from that body and if no part of the body can say to another part I have no need of thee see we all need yeah everybody to I think we could say that is to look at the churches either Church has always understood that the saints in heaven pray for us they intercede for us if it's true the prayers of a righteous man availeth much and if it's true that those in heaven are more alive than we are in a sense then why couldn't they pray for us and so the church has always pray pray to the saints in heaven asking their intercession well give me an example of something that you like who do you pray to and what is a what's like the content of that prayer like what is that yeah so in just like I asked you to pray I might ask you to pray for me okay and in so doing I'm not usurping the authority of God okay right it would be one thing if I was worshiping you and make sacrifices to you if I was like hey Cameron pray for this thing about going on you wouldn't say don't come to me don't erect Lee to Jesus Yeah right you would be like yeah I'll totally crazy you and you would recognize that I'm also bringing it to Christ okay and so I so just think ssin you're trying to make is between prayer and worship so it's what you're saying is that it's the same exact thing as just going to like your friend who's living today yes and it's asking them to intercede on your path essentially you're not worshiping Mary Louis not you're not attributing divinity to Mary or Saint John Paul the second but but maybe someone has a particular devotion to a saint maybe a saint of their country so up here that people can't see but this is Saint Mary MacKillop that's the one and only canonized saint of Australia and so if I mean up here like they can't see that can't see so yeah thank you for yeah but yeah so it's you know so if I'm going to preach in Australia I might say Mary MacKillop like pray for me I pray that this event goes well and that these people's hearts and minds would be open to what I'm about to say I'm ready they would come to Christ and those sorts of things so would you also do that like someone that you know well living and save and say ask them just to do the same thing like yeah absolutely I would say to my wife you know hey I'm bet they'd give a talk to several hundred teens please pray for me mm-hmm and so that's it okay so here's here's another question that I have about that well I still want to get like what's the what I guess you just give me you're caught like what you would pray to them right so you just have it so here's here's the question then is how how does that work because God is omniscient and he's also how many present he's everywhere but with the Saints like how do they know what you're praying gum chef that so someone could say if you want to claim that Mary who is a finite being can hear and respond to prayers all over the earth isn't it does she have the omniscient powers yeah or if not omniscient close to it how is this possibly happening that's a good question I think we would say something like just but if I don't just because I don't know the mechanism by which something works it doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't work so I don't have any at all as to how a YouTube YouTube livestream works but I understand it at all I understand that this person here max someone is how he's listening to me but I know that he is I trust that he is for different reasons and so I guess we would say God makes the prayers known to the Saints mm-hmm okay but I was like and I'm like on one little um I'm okay with that epistemological II yeah because you don't have to know how you know in order to know I think that's a custom Allah just point that out all the time like a farmer riding down in his field he doesn't know how he doesn't have to know how the tractor works in order to know that the tractor works right so I think you're kind of making the same point is that you don't necessarily have to know how yeah Mary or these other Saints can hear your prayers hmm but but then you also did kind of get an answer is it maybe just God revealed it to them let them know yeah their prayer if you want to but I also think like it would be interesting like if you're an evangelical protestant who has trouble with this belief and I understand why I mean look there's like what five or six hundred years in which Protestants and Catholics have been separated and so there's a lot of terminology that sort of develops and it makes it difficult to talk to each other also this practices the Catholics engage in that might seem strange you know like you came to my house over here and saw those icons on my wall we like that's kind of different but I think it's important to say well like what do you mean by that Yeah right exactly yeah and I also think is an evangelical like you ought to be interested in what the earliest Christians believed and if you've got good reason to think that the earliest Orthodox that is to say who were considered Orthodox at their time leaders in the church believe that we could pray the Saints and things like that that's something you should take seriously and I can get absolutely is the case I think if you go back and you read Augustine st. John Chrysostom Justin Martyr whoever you're not going to find any of them criticizing praying to the Saints and you will find many examples of them Frank disaster so I'm pretty open on my channel that I'm like I'm more about I'm more on the philosophy side I'm not like the theological guy they don't have all the knowledge about early church history and everything so give me give me an example of you mentioned a few people what's a good example of someone who was praying to a saint well here I just enter out this tree so he would be an example of sanctum old ustin let's see here by the way as you're looking for that we are going to take QA so as you find it yeah okay yeah so well they let me say just just real quickly so we are gonna take questions QA so it looks like we have a few people already sitting in super chats I'm going to get to those but I can't get to them right now we're gonna cover up these three objections try to get through them fairly quickly and then we're gonna pass it over to you guys Q&A so yeah I also think like what I love about this discussion is like I'm okay if people disagree with me but I really appreciate the approach you're taking because you're trying to understand what I mean by this and I think very often if someone listens to say a Protestant apologist who is think the church is wrong they might they might sometimes talk about the Catholic Church and the Catholic Church's beliefs in a pejorative way that make you think I'm I guess this is ridiculous this is basically like necromancy that's like okay but no it's not actually like that like when not conjuring up the dead rather we think that that our God is the god of the living not the dead and that those in heaven are affected in charity and would want us to love Christ and to follow him and to avoid sin so he would be an example just st. Augustine from the 5th century for the souls of the pious dead are not separated from the church which even now is the kingdom of Christ otherwise there would be no remembrance made of them at the altar of God in the partaking of the body of Christ in order to do any good in danger to run to baptism that we might not pass from this life without it that's not really helpful I don't think it is true that Christians pay religious honor to the memory of the martyrs both to excite us to imitate them and to obtain a share in their merits and the assistance of their prayers so that's just one example right of an early church father that even evangelicals respect who clearly believes in praying to the martyrs mm-hmm so okay so here's here's another sort of the theological objection that sort of just popped in my head just let me know what your thoughts are on this so there's there's a view I think that what Catholicism is sort of committed to is that right after you die you're taken to purgatory right that's that's where is that where Mary is right now where is she oh okay so another thing I think that's important as we talk about these things is to realize that like language can often be an obstacle so I don't need you to accept the term purgatory to accept the reality of it so the basic argument for folks are gonna get into that let me to get into that a good deal no we can yeah yeah so my Mary's in heaven okay yes so my question is not in purgatory purgatory is is the purification that we undergo prior to being in the presence of God okay so so that's the place of sanctification yeah Jerry walls by the way I'll tell me about this in the car right earlier is that there's there are Protestants certain Protestants who accept purgatory so this isn't necessarily something that as a Protestant you have to reject yeah see yes someone else who accept yeah exactly he was angleton yeah he accepted Protestant or purgatory but he but so might the the question or objection is something like this so I know that there are some Protestants who believe in soul sleep where right after you die there's nothing basically it happens until sort of the eschaton at the end of the world the general resurrection of all the saints at the end and so some Protestants believe that right now people who have died are just dead and they don't have any experiences until the general resurrection but it sort of seems like that's may be inconsistent yeah anybody had to accept that yeah I think you could look at different scriptures and some might seem to imply that and then others might not one the description that comes to mind I think is from Revelation chapter 5 where it talks about the martyrs crying out for vengeance upon the earth we also see an example in where is it Matthew 17 is it where you have Moses and Elijah who are conversing with Christ who are clearly not in soul sleep now I'm sure there are other verses that you could point to the mites might seem to show that but yeah that wouldn't be the Catholic Church's position mm yes so my question would be would someone who accepts that doctrine would they just have to reject Catholicism if they thought that that's wisely thought that uh yeah they because I don't want to be a faithful Catholic they would have to yeah that's one thing that's like I think kind of nice about Catholicism and then also kind of bites you back is that it you have this sort of sort of like one overall teaching of the Catholic Turks like this is what the Bible teaches this is what you got to believe and so in one sense if you like deviate on that at all like you can't accept a doctrine like that right so I think that's like good thing in the sense that there there are the good aspects of having like one overall interpretation of the Bioman look a bit see that's not but that well that would be - that would be too strong I would say that the church comments on what we cannot accept more than it says what we ought to accept so the Catholic Church doesn't necessarily say you have to choose tome ISM over modernism right there are different different theories okay in regarding satury ology or something else yeah the one can accept and be within the bounds of Orthodoxy okay but then one se cannot be a Pelagian yeah well knowing that they can work their way to heaven and be a good Catholic and so it would fall in that same category like you have the essentials of the Christian faith like one essential would be you've got to believe that Jesus rose from the dead bodily physically so a lot of Protestants think that that's something that you have to believe as a Christian no matter what you believe so you're saying that the under Catholicism it's sort of the same thing we have these essential doctrines that we have to hold but then there are some areas it would be a strange thing at Christ established a church the church who wrote the scriptures but then we cannot be sure what they mean that would be strange I think like one example would be baptism like how is it after two thousand years that the church could still not understand what makes a Christian a Christian obviously there are some evangelicals who would accept that as more regeneration others would deny it how is it after two thousand years we're still confused about this issue which would seem central so one of the things I appreciate about being a cat like is it says no yet Christ has established a church he's given us the scriptures and and we we can know we can know what they mean yeah so on the topic of something that is central salvation is obviously central to message it is actually a good time to turn it on to the second objection which is about salvation and this one we talked about this before is what what is salvation because a lot of Protestants will say well Catholicism is incompatible with faith by grace or salvation by grace because it's all about works like you have to do these additional things in order to merit salvation yeah yeah so what is salvation um again I just think it on the spot here but I guess I would say like because of our sin we are separated from God and if he did not take the initiative to save us we would be lost forever in our sins he has I think Protestants can agree with that yep I think hope so yeah that he has sent His Son Jesus Christ to redeem us you could say that he paid a debt he did not owe because we owed a debt we could not pay right and so by his death and resurrection he has redeemed the human race and then I think we'd want to say well how is that Redemption applied to me personally so that I can come into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ and the church would say that the baptism is the means by which you're you you are saved and so you come into a relationship with Christ and Christ is your salvation and it's so long as you don't choose to reject Christ knowingly and consciously and deliberately that you'll be saved that's that's the Catholic Church's teaching now so yeah one of the things that you were talking about though is it it's important how we define what a work is well that's right because if somebody says to me like you think you need to work out your salvation I'm like well Paul talked about working at his salvation with fear and trembling I mean there are many passages within the Scriptures that would seem to lend credence to that view and then if you do not forgive your brother your heavenly Father will not forgive you and so it kind of gets down to like what do you mean by work you know because I think my understanding and you correct me if I'm wrong is that the Calvinistic view is that really there is nothing on your part that you do their grace wins you over entirely but if you're not a Calvinist I imagine that you would say well yeah I have to I have to accept salvation well is that a work at something you well yeah that I think is going to get it a little bit more dicey because some Calvinists are compatible lists so they think that we do have free will and God determines what we do so they would say that their will does play a part but that's just that's to my point though if your will does a part it's doing something maybe yeah like I mean Ison's have this idea that catholics feel like they have to run around like feeding the poor giving them enough money to charity in order to do enough good works to out yeah their sin and look I mean the Catholic Church is bloody huge if you add up all the Protestant denominations and Eastern Orthodoxy it doesn't make up half of the Roman Catholic Church and I say that not in a triumphal istic way quite the opposite it's basically saying if you have a big group of people the chances that you'll have a large percentage of that people not living out the faith in the way that they should is quite high if you have a house church with twelve people and then you have this church which is much larger that you're going to have people who are not living at the faith of the way they should right and my month so my point is it's probably due to the bad example of Catholics that people that evangelicals may have a legitimate beef they're like you you seem to think that if you're just good enough God will let you into heaven and maybe that's true maybe some God maybe some Catholics do think that and if they do well they shouldn't but I so measure some Protestants would also say something like that yeah I think from prop from the Protestant perspective one of the things that I think about and I see in the Catholic Church is that when you go into Catholic Mass or you see like what they do in their services and stuff it just seems like there's a whole lot of extra stuff you've got to do in order to be yeah and so yes like it seems like you have to do these additional things which we could consider a work which seems to require that it wasn't enough gee what Jesus did on the cross wasn't enough we've got to do these extra things yeah so we think that's where they would come could you think of baptism like that that's a thing we have to do to be saved but do you believe in baptismal regeneration that's a good question I'm sort of undecided on the role of baptism and well whether it's necessary well let me just use that as an example right because this is something I think that evangelical should change their mind on if they deny baptismal regeneration if you read the church fathers in the first few hundred years of the Christian Church whenever they whenever they comment on John 3:5 where he says unless you're born of water and spirit you will not inherit the kingdom of God universally they all take that to mean baptism and the first prominent theologian to deny baptismal regeneration was all rigs when we in the 17th century as the first prove me wrong people if you'd like I'd love to know if I'm wrong but I'm quite convinced that that's the way I've quite a big study on that now or exhuming Lee in his work obviously Protestant reformer daily baptized most says when it comes to the matter of baptismal regeneration I can only conclude that all of the father's and doctors have been in error and one of the things I love about being Catholic is I view it as a sort of historical Christianity that do I I understand it if I were a Protestant I would look at Catholics and say okay you've got praying to Saints in this Eucharist stuff and purgatory it just seems like a whole bunch of extra biblical content that you could just shave away you don't need it um but the thing is if you read the earliest Christians you find that they are talking about things like purgatory Mary being sinless st. Augustine does that these sorts of things so I would just say to evangelicals who are watching this again I you know if you if I'm wrong I'm wrong and I hope I I'd be courageous enough to change my mind but I've always found that a quite compelling argument that if the earliest Christians all believed something about say baptism then which it seems that we should still believe that today like how is it that only after 2,000 years with my you know NIV Bible or whatever it is I can now come to the conclusion on my own and put through the arguments of other Christians who love our Lord that doesn't mean that that's anything doesn't that bother you that it doesn't it doesn't let me wishes that I'll let you speak okay how does it not bother you that for the majority of Christian history and the majority of Christians today believe that baptism regenerates the soul that's the means by which one becomes a Christian but now you're not sure about it now because if that's right if it's right that battery doesn't regenerate this does regenerate the soul and you look at the Bible and you listen to friends and you're like yeah I don't have an opinion on that it just seems like something you should have an opinion about and if you and if you say oh I don't think I need to it would seem that it would seem to me that the church should know that means by which feels it so that this is the way that I look at the does that makes sense yeah no not going to be abrasive no no you're you're super abrasive you need to back off okay first of all that you're the one who called me close see what baptism is not that important that's not a great argument okay so statement so this so this is my view map right Matt all right I'll talk in an American accent there we go we're just talking really an accent the rest of the time my view is that you could give that argument as some sort of supporting evidence free of you I don't think that could be like the deciding factor for a Protestant I think it's more about just authority lies in the biblical scripture itself so that is really what ultimately determines what a great unity is all about whether or not early Christians taught this or that they could be wrong right it's really just about they're not infallible what's infallible as Holy Scripture so I think that's ultimately where the evidence would have to to go so that so the the credence if I really thought the Bible taught X yeah and I found out that the early church taught not X then I would believe X even if I thought it was taught you know why this other thing the whole time so that's that's sort of where I come from like tradition yeah so I think tradition can play a role but it's not like the ultimate deciding factor I think what ultimately needs to make these types of decisions is what the Bible actually says so that's that's sort of my view and I think we're a lot of Protestants would ya pity answer so I would I would agree with with most of what you said I think that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God and we are bound to accept what its teachers and I also would agree with you that individual church fathers could be wrong Origen famously castrated himself after having read the passage about eunuchs for the kingdom of God so I'm not sure we want to say well because he was an early Christian and interpreted that verse that way therefore we can't disagree with it right up someone just called you extra Catholic by the way yeah but I would yeah but I think the problem is that when we get in these conversations between evangelicals and Catholics the problem isn't what the scripture says because we all kind of know what it says right and we all have our verses that we like to point to and show how that makes my point we're all reading the same Bible basically we're all in the same Bible so my question is well how was this interpreted for the majority of the Christian that's just that's just something I lack managers well let's move on to the third one because we're only in about 25 minutes and we do want to get to your Q&A so let's talk about the Eucharist where is that in Scripture and why we why should a Protestant believe that this actually turns into like the body of Christ the blood of Christ yeah I would say because Jesus said it would in John 6 John 6 can you go ahead and read that are you already look yeah so I remember when I became a Catholic and I seventeen embraced the Catholic faith and I'm gonna find it here and people would talk about the Eucharist oh my god I don't know how to defend it and I had a reading John 6 I'm like this seems pretty good you know I mean yeah I mean when you read it it is at least prima facia yeah we should give it that I write I was certainly joke Jesus I'm the bread of life he who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in Me shall never thirst any kidding he goes on you might say ok but you could interpret that in all sorts of ways and the Jews were getting increasingly angry with him and rather than dialing back his language he intensifies it and so you come down here to 53 he says truly I say to you unless because they say you're not really saying this he's like yes unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you shall have no laughing you my blood right just missed my spot there but you know so I think the Catholic looks at that and says did you give the exact reference 652 yes 6 I just read 635 and 653 and so and then what I would say as well and I know that the as you say the early Christians aren't individually infallible but I do think it's worth taking seriously which I know you do that you take it seriously but here's an example right from st. Augustine again I use sent Agustin to know both evangelicals have a little respect for san agustin we could quote others christ was carried in his own hands when referring to his own body he said this is my body there he carried that body in his hands and we can give the reference it's from his explanations on the Psalms 33 1 my point is I I I think it's also the case that for the majority of Christian history the Christian Church has believed that when they received the Eucharist they're receiving not merely a symbol obviously it is a symbol but it's not merely a symbol but rather it's a symbol which contains what it signifies and this is something that was believed until around the Protestant Reformation and this is something that Francis Chan recently spoke openly about which caused a lot of waves and over the evangelical world where he he was kind of rattled by that I'm actually not familiar with this yeah yeah I'm sure your listeners are Francis Chan he's like I I had no idea and he it was really humble of him to admit that he's like no idea what he had no idea that for the majority of Christian history Christians believed that when they receive the Eucharist they were receiving the body blood soul and divinity of Jesus Christ yeah ok so here's here's another objection of that and I was I was actually talking with the Catholic buddy of mine and he's sort of soften my views on this particular objection a little bit how how can we understand like how how does it actually turn into because it still looks like bread they'll taste like wine so like what yeah totally and this is something that the Christians earliest Christians understood and when you read them they'll say things like what looks like bread and what tastes like wine faith tells us is no longer present that this is actually so did something happen like quickly or is it spiritual or well so here's the kind of explanation that the Catholic Church gives and I'm an Eastern I go to an Eastern Catholic Church and so there's different ways of expressing doctrine right so we can agree on the same thing and express it differently so you know Catholics would explain this different say to Eastern Orthodox even though Eastern Orthodox accept the same reality that the Eucharist is the pudding that's all they've been of Jesus Christ but the language of the church uses is transubstantiation and so this kind of harkens back to sort of Aristotelian language the idea is that there is a change in the substance what the thing is but not in the accidents so the accidents of the thing remain so it looks like bread tastes like wine etc but what's actually present is is Jesus Christ and that the bread and the wine are substantially no longer present now I get that that's complicated and and obviously we'd have to speak a lot more about it too even maybe you'd be sympathetic to language like that it might just sound a little like I'm trying too obvious Kate it but I think your your earlier answer would also work here too it's like even if we don't know how this is happening if if the bible does teach us and if Jesus said this this is happening that's that's what's happening even if we don't know how what's happening mm-hmm just like if tractor is working it's working even if we don't know how it's working yeah so I think that same answer would apply here up this this objection I'm a little less it's it's it's in credits in I say incredible not in the in the in the kind of etymological kind of sense I'm not saying it's unbelievable but yeah it's it's it's kind of crazy like you hear something like that you're like what are you talking you wouldn't mean you're telling me yeah no it's something I'm not saying it's so crazy wouldn't make it up maybe you would make it up people have made up all sorts of crazy things my point is I get it like it's a radical radical belief but I guess we would say Christianity is a radical religion the god of the universe spoke the universe into being from nothing you know he United his nature with with a human nature so if it's possible that God could actually feed us with his body and blood and this this kind of harkens back to the book of Exodus so typology is a theme that comes up in in the New Testament Paul talks about how how Adam was a type of the one to come and then Peter talks about Noah's Ark being a type of baptism right and we see this all throughout Scripture the Israelites were led out from under the tyranny of Pharaoh through the waters of the Red Sea where they were sustained by manna and guided by a pillar until they reached the promised land and we would say Christians are led out from under the tyranny of Satan through the waters of baptism where they're sustained by the Holy Eucharist guided by the pillar which I know we had different interpretations here but which Paul says is the pillar and foundation of the truth to heaven all right so the point is just like the Israelites had to kill the lamb and eat it in order to be saved there's something similar going on here and this is how the earliest Christians have understood it as well I think ok so we're gonna turn to questions if you pull with that yeah okay so this one is a super chat actually from Michael fibber Pfeiffer 23 he says biblically speaking and this is kind of going back to the first objection where do we find any evidence of the Saint assuming the role of praying for us isn't that Christ's role as high priest yeah so I we just kind of jumped on this check and so I haven't done much kind of thing thinking about what scriptures I would point to I did reference one though didn't I coming from Revelation chapter 5 where it talks about I think it's 5 where it talks about the martyrs crying out for vengeance or something to that effect so that would be one example where we see like consciousness in heaven requesting something of God here would be kind of my systematic argument and I kind of laid it out really quick but if if the if if Christ has one body and that body is not separated by death and so that those in heaven are alive and they're perfected in charity then what's up giving a positive argument maybe I know that earnest proof is on me because I'm making the claim but I'd be interested in like a positive argument that would prevent me from requesting the Saints to pray for me in heaven if you lost a loved one your wife say and you were confident she would be in heaven I think you'd be really sympathetic to the husband right who says darlin would you would you pray for me help help me you know I really need the grace from God to love my kids and to raise them well it just seems intuitively obvious not obvious but it seems we couldn't be saying we couldn't blame him not that we wouldn't blame him because I guess you could say well he's not culpable for doing something that's unbiblical but you know his wife just died whatever he feels that way but I think it's a sort of sympathetic kind of example where I think we would understand it mmm and I think that coupled with as I already mentioned the kind of unanimous witness of the early church and having no problem with it I'm not sure why you would now I can't see a Protestant being uneasy where they say it looks like they're taking the focus off of God and putting it on to all of these other people but again if I can ask you to pray for me without usurping the authority of God I it seems to me that I could ask her heavenly Saint to pray for me without doing that as well yeah and that's that's actually an interesting point think about that okay so this is a next Super chat from Ronald Minnetonka I hate pronouncing these names I'm sorry I'm probably butchered butchered that terribly he says and if this isn't super relevant to what we're talking about that's okay okay he says where did Jesus go between his death on the cross and his resurrection yeah this so my understanding which of course is limited in actually thala ball is that Christ saved those who were in the bosom of Abraham so he did not save the Damned but he did save those who were waiting for the resurrection and and led them into heaven which I know is very sort of antropomorphic a way of speaking about it but that would be way all right fair enough let's go into the next one there's another super chap from Ronald does Adam and Eve real or metaphor and again this isn't necessarily yeah anything strictly to do with Catholicism is there does the Catholic Church take a position on this it's been yeah so um I'm trying to think of the papal document Humana generous is that is the papal document and in it the Pope said there doesn't seem to be a way to reconcile evolution and an Adam and Eve in other words he the church has never been opposed to evolution the Catholic Church but this idea of how do you reconcile original sin and Adam and Eve but but MOT but my response to those who would want to say well therefore we have to accept Adam and Eve as historical figures is that when a Pope says something like there does not seem to be any way to reconcile this is not authoritative language that he's using he's not saying I declare and pronounce this he's simply stating an opinion so I don't know enough to talk about this it seems to me that if Christ and Paul would talk about Adam and Eve as if they are real figures that I'm gonna go with that unless I have compelling evidence to go against it what do you think oh sorry oh I was actually gonna point people to an interview that I did with inspiring philosophy and Joshua Swamy knows where we talked about some some interesting news science that's kind of coming about with he basically makes a distinction between genealogy and I can't think of a turn my mind's gonna blink on the spot anyways go look for an interview that I did with Joshua's mama das in inspiring philosophy on Aven Eve and signs behind it looks like we actually just got another super chat I'll read that one out so there are faith and reason compatible yeah so the church is softball champion of faith and reasons during the 13th century there were what was known as Latin of Vera lists or Christians who followed the teachings of the Muslim philosopher Aveiro YZ and these people would say that faith and reason are different there can be truths of faith and truths of religion c.j of Brabant is an example he accepted aristotle in saying that the world was eternal and he accepted that the biblical claim was that the universe began to exist so he thought both were true and Thomas Aquinas said this is not he would say that truth is the equation of thought and thing and that all truth flows from the same source so if you have a contradiction in science and faith you either have bad science or bad faith that would be that there would be the kind of Catholic position the truth can't contradict truth that's okay so this is a question that is very relevant to something we talked about this is from I'm not gonna try pronounce this one yeah I'll do the initials TM okay Tian how do you reconcile Romans 3:23 all have sinned with the Roman Catholic belief that Mary had no sin not even original sin so I would say that if you want to say that all have sinned you you at least you accept you believe that there's one exception to that namely Christ and then I imagine he would go further and say that unborn babies would also be an exception to that and even severely mentally handicapped people would be an exception to that so I think if you're willing to make certain exceptions then you could also make Mary there's another exception now that's not an argument for that she was vernacular you can say we but I don't see a problem with it ya know I think that that's that's an important distinction to make because in Scripture we do see these sort of categorical terms being used sometimes when really that's not necessarily what they were trying to get across so you can say all have done this or this where some some people even like John Walton well when they're talking about or when he's talking about the Noah's Ark and the flood and how it covered all of the earth that was hyperbole that's what he was using it that's his interpretation of me out of that passage is that it was it was hyperbolic and and it's used that way throughout the Old Testament that phrased in Hebrews used hyperbolically my son I'm sorry I did any catch up no that was it okay my son said to me the other day like wouldn't Mary be kind of less than human like if she never sinned but it's like no like it said she would be fully human and I understand this as a point of contention so I put it softly and say if it's true if the Catholic Church is right and the Orthodox Church is right in saying that Mary's was immaculate and did not sin this is only because of the grace of God sustained her not because of her own brilliance or effort so we have another super chat thank you so much Benjamin he says nice to see you too talking about this I've been hoping for more important to Catholics that I know then I get to interact with I'm apologists online I'm not sure what he's trying to say there he says it would be great to see us come together better yeah and like I like I mentioned we're both very ecumenical this isn't like a battle this is a very friendly conversation that we're having tonight and then we all support each other's ministries I think he's doing really important work and he wants to have me on his show because we there's a mutual and let me say this all interview you on Monday and we'll release it the following month and there will be Catholics who will be angry at me that I didn't like really like go off to you and they would like that with Craig right um and I think often people don't know no you just he just interviewed dr. William Lane Craig so you can go check it out on plants with Aquinas yeah so but I think we would just say that well guess there's at this there's there's disagreements that we have and that and in saying we're not going to get to them all right now is in no way saying well we're just relativists about what God wants us to believe but rather it's saying okay we can disagree about things and we can also talk about the things that we do agree I think it's probably a good idea whenever you dialogue with another person that you begin with what you do agree about and I for one am like this is not me sucking up I mean I love my evangelical brothers and sisters and many of them I have a few in mind in particular teach me to love Christ and I see their devotion to Sacred Scripture their personal relationship with Christ their dedication to getting into small groups and studying the Bible and then inspires me to love Jesus more and to love the Bible so yeah I've been really blessed by the work of many evangelicals there's two things I want to talk about a little bit more with this with this question the super chat the first one is your analogy that you give the mansion analogy so give that mansion now I love that analogy and how it's sort of relevant here for having conversations between right so I like to think of apologetics means different ways you can think of it apologetics but I think classically you would explain the bigger things before you move on to smaller things right and so if you think of a three-story mansion you could think in this is from the Catholic point of view the first floor is theistic apologetics the second floor is Christian apologetics the third floor is Catholic apologetics and as a Catholic I would want to help explain why God exists if you're outside the mansion and an atheist if you believe God exists I would want to lead you into the second mansion and so you would come to know that Jesus Christ was reclaimed to be and if you are in a second mansion like I guess I would like like you come and I would like you to be a Catholic because I as a Catholic think that Catholicism is the fullness of God wants for his church now I might be wrong about that but that's what I think but I think the reason this analogy can be helpful is sometimes we say you think of the analogy you yell out of the second-story window about biblical inerrancy to a man sitting on the grass and he's may theist he doesn't believe that God exists so he cannot accept that the Bible is the Word of God so rather what we want to do is kind of walk down if you want and begin to explain things sort of systematically this can help now this is not to say that one cannot encounter the person of Jesus Christ and in that encounter come to know both that God exists and the Christ was who he claimed to be but it's just to say that this is one method of approaching apologetics so somebody could we could work together to bring this person off of the lawn in least into the first level absolutely yeah I think you're doing a great job on that yeah we Channel so my next question is because he mentioned Catholic apologist Catholic people who defend the faith who are some of your favorite Catholic apologist they're doing stuff right now that if you're interested in you know look more into it Matt Fred show is one of the biggest Catholic apologetics Jude would you even call it apologetics or is it just I love apologetics but I chat about more things than that I just chatted with a friend Jason Everett who speaks all about you know the beauty of the virtue of chastity and the gift of psychosexual marriage and things like that and so yeah I guess you could say I'm involved in apologetics Catholic Answers is a very great group out in San Diego and Jimmy Avia who's that led by well are you just about to explain that I could no no you're fun it was founded by a bloke by the name of Karl Keating who really rejuvenated it helped rejuvenate apologetics Catholic apologetics because it was really thought to become anti ecumenical was downplayed for a long time within the church but I think it's really important and so I'd say Jimmy Aiken and Trent Horne would be two people that I look to who I think are doing great work they're very charitable and knowledgeable in defending and explaining the Catholic Church and like I said you in the car earlier if you disagree with the Catholic Church that you can dis really go to church but it's probably a good idea that you know what the Catholic Church teaches before you disagree with her as opposed to hearing something some Protestants said the Catholic Church believes when maybe that's not necessarily true and I would say the same thing as a Catholic like if you've only learned about evangelicals from Catholics maybe you should have like anyone want about Martin Luther maybe you should read Martin Luther and so on so I'm gonna I'm really upset with you right now okay the reason for that is that you didn't mention ed fazer oh gosh yeah who I've had on the show twice in discussion with Grandma P like the most prestigious yes anyways so talk about it phys ed phase is amazing we gotta ask we gotta answer this girl's question listen Lisa J she just seems like she wants to that question answered before it Lisa if you got a question you can ask one it is she says I guess we must wait for Q and a we are doing Q&A right now I would like feedback from any Catholics well if you have a question I'm happy to try my best to answer if someone says set phasers just done I like that oh very good all right well Lisa yeah you're still watching but your question Lisa is she can um oh sorry like Illya what well let's do let's do this super chatroom vision it phase is amazing and I'm so proud of you for having on the show he's he's a terrific guy and a really reason he's so great what's your what's your favorite phaser book um I read five proofs that's probably anyone I've actually rid of his oh really yeah last superstition was actually all that was very provocative wasn't it so what he does in that book is he responds to the new atheist like Richard Dawkins and really shows very conclusively that they don't know what they're talking about my favorite line is Richard Dawkins wouldn't know metaphysics from Metamucil so bad okay we didn't have a super chat here from Manuel he says if church tradition isn't good enough evidence but the Bible is wouldn't that be a contradiction since by definition Bible is actually tradition so I guess this one is sort of yeah so I think yeah so I think the Bible is part of tradition tradition just comes from a word which means to hand on and I would say that the Bible is not an instruction manual for a church still in shrink-wrap but rather the Bible presupposes a church already in existence who at least in the New Testament age wrote it and canonized it and said what was being in a word of God okay so Benjamin I think it looks like he is Catholic and cause more informed Catholics than I I mean it's good to see a Catholic better informed than me speaking to you guys trend horn would be good for this - yeah and Trent's lightyears ahead of me as far as knowledge on these things okay so let me see I don't think I see Lisa here that's R so yeah it's okay if I go look it's right here did she go there why was she saying oh stop pressing my face up against the screen and freaking everybody out uh yeah I don't I don't see it it was like it was there and then it disappeared that stinks that's right well let me just pop back up here and see if I can find another question all right so this one's from Brando he says do Catholics put any more importance on deceased posts to pray for them than of the general public no because there could be Pope's in hell and when you read the history of some of the despicable things Pope's have done then I would suspect that some of them are in hell I pray that they're not but it's certainly possible so no we would pray to people that we thought were in heaven if someone lived a wicked life oh here we go glad so that one can Matt explain Theotokos yeah that means I don't know if you know I don't actually they took us was defined at the Council of Ephesus it just means Mother of God or God Bearer so yeah we believe me Mary's Mother of God I think you should too that's something you could accept and still think we're wrong about a bunch of stuff repeat that I think you should be able to agree with me that Mary's the mother of God okay and still disagree with me on everything you want to disagree with me on mm-hmm it's a syllogism Mary is the mother of Jesus Jesus is God oh go yeah we're not saying Mary is the source of Jesus mmm-hmm we're saying that Mary is the mother of Jesus and Jesus is God therefore she's the mother of God and if you deny it if you say no she's not the mother of God then I would say well to whom did she give birth and I think you start to run into problems with your Christology that was the point at Ephesus when they defined the doctrine of Theotokos was to safeguard the divinity of Christ yeah okay so again just disclaimer real quick I'm not the theology guy but I still love to think about these questions so I guess my initial thought that would be from what I understand about Christology is that Jesus has two natures he has a divine nature and a human nature and so in one sense Mary would be the son of the mother of human nature but she wouldn't be the better as the problem divine nature the problem is mothers don't give birth to natures they give birth the person's and Christ was a divine person who had a human nature that's the problem okay so it be so then it would be a disagreement about Christology it seems well no but I there's no one you want to disagree on I think if my if mothers don't convert their natures but the persons and Christ was added but unless you want to say Christ as a human person which you don't want to say yeah then oh this is where my my not sure and on and you could think about this a lot more and then see why I'm wrong I'm not trying to put you on the hot seat or anything but ya know I'll have the thing but I would just tell me what does it mean to have a nature and yeah what is it what is that yeah how does that work and describing who if this person I guess my point in saying that is breaking promises shouldn't be afraid to accept some things like maybe you are a Protestant Catholic so back on all these things well you could you could agree with us on certain things without fearing that you have to be Catholic right it almost sounds like you're saying we can believe in certain things with qualification because it in a lot of these certainly situations where it's like that seems like a weird belief that you have all you got to do is make a little clarification on education about it and be like that's not what I mean yeah I'm not worshipping Mary right I'm praying like purgatory purgatory sounds like an antiquated medieval word like okay I do not want to be associated with a word like that but suppose I said okay drop the word purgatory is it possible that those who go to heaven are still attached to sin when they die and if that's true and it was true that they would be sitting in heaven then it would seem to follow that there's some intermediate period in which we cleansed of that attachment the sin even if you don't want to say it's purgatory sorry no you're gonna have a whole lot of talk no purgatory is actually great because there's like I mentioned earlier Gerry walls is a Protestant who believes in purgatory and so just because yeah that would be an example you can accept a what's right rotation without having to accept the whole range a lot just because you accept one thing that's in common with Catholicism that's sort of traditionally inconsistent with Protestantism that doesn't mean that you have to accept the full-blown yeah and see this bloke here saying purgatory is a cult belief that's just a slur it's not an argument nor is it a response to what I've said and just like you wouldn't want me to misrepresent your evangelical beliefs and call them cult-like I don't think you should do that to Catholics I think you should be a little more charitable even if you end up disagreeing with us all right so we have another super chat it was oh it says it was about cams objection tradition does not equal evidence I'm not sure what he's referencing he's representing the the early church okay but I am but I concede it I agree with you that the scriptures are inerrant individual church fathers are not yeah alright let's move on to another question and then what we'll only go for a little bit longer let's see my wall I think kids are gonna be busting through the door sir okay well do one more question that there we go and then we'll close this one out I really appreciate you guys hopping on and joining us tonight so like I said this was super super last-minute he's literally texting his wife cuz her on the way over here right now so this is super last minute we just decided to do this and I it was not this wasn't a grill each other it's all yeah okay I'm just this is this is so good and I think these are the conversations we need to have right you might go away after this conversation and be like oh man Matt was wrong on these points at that point but this is how real conversations go it's not right yeah no that's true we have a real conversation and two people are trying to sincerely through all that was true yeah I think that's okay one more question I think we did get one from Lisa now Lisa she says question is why is Mary referred time as a referred time as a Virgin Mary he didn't marry have a sexual relationship with her husband yeah so the church would say no the that Mary did not have sexual relations with a husband and did not have any other kids and what's interesting is Calvin was explicit about Mary being a virgin so is Luther so what all the Protestant reformers of course they're not inerrant but it's interesting don't you think that you've got these Protestant reformers who made honest like I think it was Calvin who said when the scriptures say you know she did not do I forget the exact words was on the Catholic and bad at the Bible but where it says she did not have relations until they were married I think it was Calvin who said yes but until doesn't mean it necessarily happened it could just mean they didn't at all and he he actually referenced something from the Old Testament in support of that so anyway yeah okay so I wanted to point something else someone said capturing Chris Shay's talking about me Cameron doesn't understand basic Christology I wanted to point out real quick guys I don't know who do you think you are not piece of crap what else company is it I don't know everything what I don't know everything why am i interviewing you I love it I don't know everything I'm still learning it's okay it's all right let me look like we had a super shot but I can't there this all right one more see bunny ball here we won more is it possible to do the work of Christ without completely understanding all of this I would need you to define what you mean by the work of Christ if you mean living a moral life I would say yeah but I think what you should want is you should want what Christ wants so if Christ established the Catholic Church and wants you to be a part of it because you love him you should you should choose to be Catholic now if I'm wrong then there's another answer yeah all right so the last thing I want to leave everyone with what so for people who make or aren't Catholic or a Protestant evangelicals whatever and you follow my work who what what podcast episode should they go listen talk mine yeah yours would they be interested in listening to yeah I would say listen to my episode with Trent Horne on my youtube channel we spoke three hours and 58 minutes that's like a boy as longer than me was that the Irishman what was that thing on Netflix recently there was about that long yeah 3040 minutes where we just talk about faith and God and gods existence and atheistic claims and why the papacy and things like that and I think you'll find a trend is very respectful and I think if you're a sincere seeker of truth then you'll appreciate it even if you disagree with some of the things conclusions we came up with where can they find it we'll put let's put a link in the show notes coming over there yeah we can put a link in the show notes but if you drop in my last name frat or just pints with Aquinas you'll find it there's yeah so Matt frat is ma TT frat as fr ABB that's Ross so there you go just search for Matt Fred and you can see it yeah so someone said hit the like hit the like button on this video subscribe to my channel go subscribe to his channel and we will see you guys later so thank you so much for joining me tonight and in or

Channel: Capturing Christianity

Views: 183,056

Rating: 4.8657002 out of 5

Keywords: capturing christianity, cameron bertuzzi, apologetics, god, atheism, matt fradd, catholicism, christianity, objections to catholicism, top objections to catholicism, answering objections to catholicism, matt fradd pints with aquinas, pints with aquinas

Id: jmX190JG8-8

Length: 55min 56sec (3356 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 15 2020