Protestant/Catholic Authority DEBATE, Jimmy Akin vs. @TheOtherPaul

hey welcome to capture and Christianity I'm Cameron bertuzzi what we're doing today is a dialogue on Catholicism and protestantism I've got a Catholic and a Protestant with me and we're looking at uh we're looking at a very uh broad issue on Catholic versus Protestant Authority so they're going to be sharing their respective views we have 10-minute openings on either side from the other Paul he's our Protestant and then Jimmy Aiken he's our Catholic and what we're going to do is do 10 minute openings followed by around 70 minutes or so of just moderated dialogue between the two of them usually what I do with my moderated dialogue what I am the host is I don't interrupt too much like unless I need to I try to stay out of it so I'm just going to have a scene up which is the two of them talking back and forth it's going to be a lot of like that's I'm sure what most of you guys are looking forward to after that we're going to do some q a it's going to be a really fun time it's gonna be a really good time so let me go ahead and introduce my guest so I've got the other Paul as I mentioned he's down there the bottom corner over here first time on the channel he's vaping Jimmy are you do you have your pipe with you as well are you gonna be smoking well I I do but I don't don't know if I was going to be smoking it on the air I may oh especially I wouldn't want wouldn't want other Paul to feel left out so sure yeah right who showed you I've got a ride here cuz well Jimmy you've been on the show before and usually when I do debates or streams or anything I I don't like to spend a whole lot of time on introductions during the Stream So if you'd like to learn more about my guests you can check the description of the video but since it is the other Paul's first time on capturing Christianity we're going to let him just introduce himself briefly for about 60 seconds just to let you know about what he does and uh because most of you I assume are not going to be super familiar with the other pause as you might be familiar with with Jimmy and his work so uh Paul go ahead and take it away and let the audience Know Who You Are yeah 100 Camp seriously super big honor thank you so much for like allowing allowing this to really happen and also especially thank Dr Gavin Nolan for actually putting us in contact this is super unreal like honestly surreal my heart's still kind of racing that's kind of why I have this here um because as I said off stream it's kind of me and no name versus the Tom Cruise of Roman apologetics so like I mean you know and I know yeah Jimmy being all humble like no no anyway anyway um so I myself the other Paul I am enjoying too much don't butter me up too much or I'll start jumping on a couch while holding your breath for six minutes which my arguments will do oh snap no but uh thingo uh I'm an Anglican under the Sydney Anglican archdiocese uh so obviously good old Protestant perspective um I am a kind of kind of amateur kind of not really amateur um YouTuber and blogger on any areas of Bible History and theology which I find a particular utility and need in and so there's my channel in the description the other Paul and then there's my main website itself uh the other paul64.com um and yeah basically any areas of interest uh with respect to Bible History theology I'll make content on for the edification of the church um and in particular a lot of my stuff is focused on these ecumenical issues of authority uh uh discussion with Roman Catholicism with Eastern Orthodoxy um especially on these on this particular like foundational issue of authority I have a fair bit of content on that so it's only fitting that this is where the debate is centered because really to an extent no other issue between us really matters until the issue of authority itself is settled because Aya Protestant I could give all my arguments I want on like ex-doctrine under Roman Catholicism but as in the end the Roman the Roman Catholic or the Eastern Orthodox could say well my church is the Church of Christ we have the universal magisterium and so it settles it your take doesn't matter and so ultimately these discussions on fundamental Authority this is really the only one that matters in itself um so yeah that's that's me uh in brief I'm uh uh yeah I've just turned 23 last week I know the beard doesn't really uh give that away but that's me with my Lebanese genes and so uh yeah and I'm also a very proud Zuma as a result as you can see I got my Zoomer credentials right here with the with the good old stuff all here ready for the stream and uh yeah thank you for having me and that's well that's me did you even mention that you're Australian I don't think I caught that uh oh yes well I did say Sydney so the king sorry could pick that out so yeah Australian uh not kiwi I'm in the Great South land of the Holy Spirit which uh that title alone proves the uh Universal uh jurisdiction of Australia so uh yeah that's the authority I rest on yeah I feel like it's important to note that like you're at when okay so for Americans anytime someone's got an accent it's like important to at least mention it but that's true yeah it's to recognize to let people know America like there's more to the world than America well yeah well that we can debate that um okay so let's get into so what we're going to do is uh we're going to have a a there's going to be a debate it's not a it's not really like a formal debate but it's it's a sort of informal debate so as I mentioned the very beginning of this if you're just joining now we're going to do 10 minute openings from each guest followed by moderated dialogue for about 60 minutes or so and uh following that we're gonna have some some q a so what we're going to do is we'll have Paul start he's gonna he's gonna go for about 10 minutes turn it over to Jimmy 10 minutes and then we'll do some some dialogue back and forth so Paul I'm gonna go ahead and pull up your your screen it's just gonna be you and you've got about 10 minutes to lay out your opening statement and what your thoughts are as a Protestant on the Catholic and Protestant Authority debate so yeah whenever you're ready I'll go ahead and start my timer and we'll get rolling excellent no problem I'm ready right now um so my positive case uh well fine my case is going to be split up into kind of two both a positive and a negative case and I think it's necessary because establishing what the positive view is uh that's that really gives the context to everything and so often you'll see a debate with an opening statement where it's just like uh oh Soul scripture is true here's why or like oh the Roman Catholic Church is is false uh because the pope couldn't save my Minecraft world therefore Rome debunked nothing like that nothing like that um so ultimately I want to establish my positive case uh which is hopefully going to be largely if not entirely a common ground for myself and Jimmy and then from that I'm going to work on to my negative case against the specific claims of an inherently authoritative binding uh continual oral tradition as well as a universal binding magisterium and so to start with my positive case it will be as follows so uh to start with ultimately the holy scriptures which we all Grant praises and elevates the word of God the very words of God as that Firm Foundation that is itself without error and binding on the conscience and no other ultimate source of teaching has this quality so I'm not saying there's no magisterium I'm saying no other ultimate source nor the ultimate mind perhaps if you will has this quality of no error because God himself is the foundation of the universe he's the foundation of all truth and every word of his uh well the universe is upheld by the foundation of his work um so you can look at for example in Deuteronomy 8 chapter 8 verse 3 where it says that uh man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God and really just any number of holy scriptures uh on this on this very topic sorry my camera's gone a bit weird foreign Naval stuff right now as well um but yeah that's that's that's the ultimate starting point for all of us and then likewise when we move into the New Testament era we see that these inspired or binding sources in this time as articulated by the apostolic writings are those of the Old Testament as affirmed by Christ the apostles repeatedly uh Christ himself and his teachings and the teachings words of the Apostles as directly derived from Christ whether through whether from him in his Earthly Ministry or in the uh in the special office that he's given to them which allows them to receive and to promulgate to the whole Christian World divine revelation as a consequence they had the power the apostles to speak uh words or teachings that were inspired in themselves I.E they were breathed out by God and thus they are foundational for the faith and binding on all the faithful and thus following from those uh basic points all divinely revealed teachings whether written or oral are inherently binding in themselves and so you can see for example Paul himself will raise his Apostolic Authority like in First Corinthians 14 37 where he will say uh if if anyone is a prophet among you they'll know uh they'll know what I'm saying is true or from God uh then likewise of course II Thessalonians 2 15 uh telling the Thessalonians to hold fast to the Traditions that were revealed to them they were given to them whether by word of mouth or by letter now likewise other non-revelatory authorities have been established throughout salvation history who act with authority although are not necessarily every time protected from error like God's word like God's inspired word is and so we can think of Kings we think of Judges we think of individual Bishops themselves and that moving into the New Testament era as well these key authorities that Christ established uh perpetually Perpetual key authorities uh they're non-revelatory but they are authorities nonetheless and they are established for the guidance and the edification of the believer and so the these these Shepherds for example so these key offers established would be the Deacon and the Elder slash Bishop I don't know if we'll get into the whole three or two tier uh Ecclesia ecclesiology debate I don't know if we will but just either way um generally speaking these Bishops are the primary are the office the office that Christ's uh or the Christ through the apostles rather uh established as the authority to teach the flock and to discipline them on the basis of the apostolic deposit of faith and so key areas where you can see this would be for example uh First Timothy chapter three where Paul gives the role and the qualifications uh for Bishops and now likewise because these are authorities established by God over us it is a sin to resist the authority of one's ecclesial leaders as they are God stewards and his normative Authority his normative human authorities on the earth except for when they demonstrably promote false teaching which is liable to happen and this this whole principle is really panscriptural like if there is an authority you submit to it that's just the thing in in itself um I spent well pretty much if a goddess if God himself establishes an authority and so we can see this in passages such as for example Hebrews 13 17 uh where where the demand is given uh by the writer of Hebrews uh to submit to one's leaders likewise Ephesians 6 1-4 which is regarding uh the authority of fathers over their children parents Julie but also specifically fathers over their children but this uh this status of fatherhood is also granted to the bishop himself in first Timothy 3 where he says if a man cannot manage his own household how can he manage the household of God and so we can see an interplay of the two concepts in there as well as with the whole concept of shepherding in itself now on the resistance of false teachers who may come among the bishopric uh we can see for example in Acts chapter 20 where Paul is empowering and encouraging the elders slash Bishops of melitus in doing their due to their Duty as leaders of the flock but he also warns them that there may that there will be false teachers who arise among them and so they must keep out on keep a look out for such false teachers um and likewise uh by their thus by Nature the authority of a bishop is under that of an apostle because the apostolic office itself was very unique and you can see a very early Christian testimony on this with Ignatius of Antioch in his letter to the Romans chapter 4 verse 3 where he says where he's admonishing the Romans to not prevent his martyrdom he says I do not command you uh like a like Peter or Paul they were Apostles I am a convict so on and so forth and finally the testimony of the historic church itself stands as a sure witness to the teachings of Christ and his Apostles Faithfully preserving their words throughout the ages and in turn being corrected by them with the Holy Spirit mediating the whole process including and especially the opening of our hearts to receive this witness and that is ultimately my positive case which I believe can be summarized in for example uh the uh the 39 articles uh in the Anglican tradition I didn't have it written up here I've got my thing there but it's going to take too long um either way that's my positive case and that is ultimately my foundation for the supreme authority of the apostolic teachings now on to my negative case starting with oral tradition first both the oral and written sayings of Christ and the apostles were divinely inspired and thus inherently binding however only those sayings preserved in writing have survived and that's the key distinction there thus for anything the apostles may have taught beyond what was recorded in scripture we only have the articulations in the honest yet fallible teachings of later authorities admit amidst the proliferation of many other non-apostolic ideas both true and false thus these less reliable which doesn't mean unreliable doesn't mean it doesn't also mean not really reliable it just means less reliable Witnesses must be judged against the certain standard of these inspired teachings as preserved in the writings of the Apostles um and so side note there are also doctrines which do have unanimous and super early attestation um but these doctrines are out as I would argue all attested to in Holy Scripture and so they do not constitute a separate oral Authority but rather confirmation of what is already written and you can see this concept in certain scholarship where there may be a distinction between tradition one versus tradition two where tradition one would refer to if my memory serves correctly uh that both the written writings the apostles and also the testimony of the church they work together but it's because their content is identical they fundamentally work as one Authority uh which is thus a very very much the uh a classical Protestant conception of souls Cryptor and not very much Evangelical and that's a key distinction I want to make here as a classical classically oriented Protestant myself I'm not going to be arguing for some very uh loosey-goosey Evangelical form of soulscriptura where it's like oh well I'll just whip out my Bible and just whatever I see only that only if I'm convinced personally is a binding on me which is just very silly but it's not the same thing as the right to private judgment which we may get into now for something to be a reliable source that is used as a rule against which claims are measured it must be a concrete piece of information like a written text or of the or of the beige I'm saying teachings that are preserved merely in the abstract cannot act as this rule in themselves since they exist amidst a sea of other incorrect ideas and are fundamentally subject to the fallible articulation of individual teachers or Bishops thus oral tradition cannot act as a certain rule akin to scripture and apart from and distinct from scripture unless it is pegged to a magisterium which has the divine power to sift through the Sea of oral traditions and discern only that which is true which then leads to the second part of my negative case on whether such a magisterium has been established now by the way you've got about 15 seconds oh crap uh okay so Rome in the East they they that went fast they asserted actual inherently binding teaching office over the whole universal church that has the power to enable certain conditions which guarantee an infallible statement on faith or morals and both sides Grant the necessity of divine revelation or unction to establish a Divine infallible status of a source office and what I'll argue is that there is no such account uh from the divinely from divinely revealed scripture or really just generally reliable sources at all that Christ did establish such a universal inherently binding distinct office which has the power to issue infallible statements or teachings and this fits perfectly with salvation history where even the highest divinely established authorities were subject to error and liable to Corrections such as the high priest Aaron and also with church history the only Perpetual leadership office established by the apostles is the elder slash bishop and is never invested with divine inspiration or infallibility therefore no such Universal magisterium as articulated by Rome or the East does exist and is binding in itself on the faithful and that's my opening argument okay so Jimmy it's now your turn and we're gonna give you a little bit more time just to to make up for the the time that Paul went over which wasn't too much longer so uh Jimmy whenever you're ready I'll go ahead and yeah yeah this stuff is wait till we get to the dialogue it's gonna go super fast all right uh Jimmy whenever you're ready I'll go ahead and start my timer okay so uh there is a certain degree of convergence between the views that other Paul expressed and uh the view that I would Express and that is the most significant element of convergence is that our ultimate Authority is the word of God uh God is the ultimate Authority for everything there is and consequently his word is supremely authoritative for us the question then is how do we receive God's word and this is something that has been subject to a process of historical development um originally when there was a time before any Scripture had been written it doesn't matter which book you view as being the earliest whether it's Genesis or something else there was a time before any Scripture had been written and in that period the way that God's word was communicated was orally and God appeared to the Patriarchs he appeared to prophets he communicated his word orally and it was then passed down orally and so we actually see oral tradition as being the primordial method by which God's word is transmitted to us now later the uh the Hebrews became illiterate people they had writing and under divine inspiration they began to write some of the word of God down and we began to get the different books of scripture so scripture was added to tradition as an authoritative source of God's word for God's people we see that do duality of scripture and tradition being passed down uh through the Old Testament period you know it doesn't matter when you look there were always uh individuals who were passing down God's word in oral form just look at the prophets for example there were many prophets who did not write a single book of scripture the most famous example would be uh the Prophet Elijah who was sort of the Prophet par Excellence after Moses well Elijah didn't write any Scripture and the only things we know about his Revelations which were undoubtedly many are those that are recorded in scripture and it's just a few lines here and there um there were other prophets who were mentioned in scripture as genuine prophets of God who we don't know anything they said so it's very clear that scripture did not simply replace tradition as an authoritative way in which God's word was passed on to us we see the same thing when we come to the New Testament in the New Testament Jesus Christ began his ministry you know around 80 29 and he taught for several years he gave new teachings after he departed for heaven his Apostles and others it wasn't just the apostles but others also continued to convey Christian teaching in oral form and it was authoritative for the very first generation of Christians now they had the Old Testament scriptures which were authoritative but they also had additional teachings many of them knew for the first time in the Christian era that were also authoritative for the first generation of Christians and we even see New Testament authors like the Apostle Paul recommending these Traditions to their readers as authoritative so for example other Paul alluded to Second Thessalonians 2 15 where Saint Paul tells the Thessalonians to hold fast to all of the Traditions regardless of whether they were handed On By Word of Mouth like when he preached to them in thessalonica or whether they were written down like in his letter first Thessalonians so we see the Traditions continuing to be authoritative alongside of scripture in the New Testament ERA this was the fundamental Paradigm or at least part of the fundamental Paradigm that we see New Testament Christians using Paul also commands the Corinthians in First Corinthians 11 2 for keeping the Traditions just as he delivered them to them so we see New Testament Christians even during the writing of the New Testament using this twofold way of passing down God's word both in scripture and in Tradition but there could come questions about how are we supposed to interpret God's word what implications does it have what does it mean and to deal with these the New Testament Christian Community also recognized the existence of a teaching Authority or to use the Latin word for it a magisterium originally after Jesus returned to Heaven that magisterium was vested in The Twelve Apostles later it was expanded to include other Apostles like Paul and Barnabas and we see them serving as authoritative interpreters of God's word for example one passage where this happens is in Acts 15 a controversy had arisen about whether or not you had to become circumcised and become a Jew if you wanted to be a Christian and be saved and God had actually initially revealed the answer to that question very clearly through the Apostle Peter back in Acts chapter 10 but that didn't stop the controversy which only goes to show you that not everybody listens to what the Pope says and to make the point more firmly the Holy Spirit decided and we know this because Paul refers to him going up to Jerusalem as by way of Revelation so the holy for the council so the Holy Spirit had given a revelation you all need to get together in Jerusalem and hold a council on this subject and that will make the point more dramatically and we see this Council being authoritatively Guided by the holy spirit in an interesting way because the Holy Spirit did not give any new Revelations at the council it's not like he gave the fathers of the Jerusalem Council a vision by which he settled the question instead he let them reason their way through the issue and he guided their reasoning process such that by the conclusion of the Jerusalem Council they could send a letter to the churches where this had been a controversy saying it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us that you follow these practices and so we uh see the Holy Spirit guiding the council in a kind of Subrosa way not with not through an explicit Vision but through the workings of human reasoning and guaranteeing a result that can be counted upon as being coming from the Holy Spirit so what we actually see in the New Testament is a pattern where the first generation of Christians relied on scripture as authoritative and Apostolic tradition as authoritative as interpreted by a magisterium so we see God's word expressed in scripture and tradition as the authoritative source of our faith and we see the magisterium that God established as the authoritative interpreter of God's word and so that was the fundamental Paradigm that the early Christians used now as a Catholic I would say well that's our position too we're using scripture and tradition as interpreted by the magisterium that's the Paradigm that was used by the First Christian Community it's the one that had Divine authorization and therefore if we're going to abandon that for some other Paradigm then since this one was divinely authorized we're going to need Divine authorization for a different Paradigm if the Paradigm that was used in the apostolic age is not to be used after the apostolic age then we're going to need to have Divine authorization to depart from it and there we get to a real problem the idea of solar scriptura has an interesting requirement that's built into it solo scriptura of course is a Latin phrase that means by scripture alone and the idea fundamentally is that we should form Christian doctrine by scripture alone with scripture as its only ultimately authoritative Source um now if that's true that we should form Christian doctrine by scripture alone then the doctrine of Sola scriptura is itself going to be something that you need to prove by scripture Alone um because it is after all a Doctrine and so we'll need to find passages in the New Testament that either state or imply that there is to be a new paradigm in that after the apostolic age Christians should look only to scripture as their ultimately authoritative source of information about the faith the problem is there's there are no such passages and there have been some passages which we may want to talk about which people have proposed as teaching solo scriptura but when you examine them carefully they don't and it's easy to see why because the authors of the New Testament themselves were first generation Christians so in their minds is the scripture tradition and magisterium Paradigm and it was also a very common belief in the first century that Christ was going to be returning within their own lifetimes you see that in John's gospel and other places where it's expected Christ will return very soon and consequently there's almost no awareness that there will be a post-apostolic age and therefore there are very few passages that deal with a post-apostolic age and none of those passages say anything about shifting foreign thank you none of those passages say anything about shifting our Paradigm in the post-apostolic age and so consequently solo scriptura actually fails its own test it must be proved by scripture alone and it can't be okay so now let's turn to some dialogue between Paul and Jimmy and as I said at the very beginning this I'm going to try to stay out of it as much as I can so unless I feel compelled to jump in and help guide the conversation I'm going to stay out of it and just sit back and relax and enjoy the conversation between you two guys so I'm just going to hand it over to you Jimmy or Paul you can take it however you'd like to and uh yeah and then I'll hopefully I won't have to jump in until it's time for Q a but you guys have fun yeah I was gonna say if Jimmy's okay with it too like if you if you really want a certain subtopic in this to be brought up then I'd say at least for me like you're cool to just it's cool if you just bump in if you want to orient things but that that's just with me I don't know what uh Aiken wants yeah yeah no I'm fine cam wants to interact or ask a question that's great solar scriptura seemed to be at least in Jimmy's case it seemed to be like a really sort of the Crux issue here and so uh maybe maybe that's where we could begin is maybe get Paula your thoughts on what Jimmy just said about solar scripture are needing to be proved through scripture and then can that even happen so that's right yeah and so my my first reply to that is that and it's really funny is because almost everything Aiken said until the last bit until the last section is entirely with harmony with my position with really a classical Protestant decision uh at large uh because thankfully it's not me just uh Joe Blow from the uh from the Evangelical Church down the road saying oh scripture only and nothing else is authoritative and if this Apostle spoke something in my ear that doesn't mean anything at all I mean to be fair evangelicals likely wouldn't say that um but it can often come across that way um and so where my ultimate problem with Aiken's case uh relies lies rather yeah with your case and I'm not going to talk about you in the third person this is the dialogue so I'm gonna talk about you in the second person um but I think the big problem I have is that there is a really really really big equivocation on what is meant by magisterium and tradition especially as it is attested to in the apostolic text and so I grant that in a respect the New Testament does affirm such authorities so I agree that Holy scripture attests to a universal magisterium of the Apostles individually and collectively I don't know where you'd lie on that but that might be an issue to address um and that their teachings in oral form were equally binding as that as that what was written the problem though is that for for your position Aiken and for Roman Catholicism uh more generally rather is that there's a very specific understanding of what the magisterium is and does and so what I hope what I want to hopefully keep us focused on is not just the idea of a magisterium in the abstract but in your specific uh in Rome specific view of this Universal magisterium because it's one thing to say to prove an idea of a universal binding magisterium in the abstract but if it's not actually rooted in a position that has some level of historical uh pedigree then it's then it's really useless and it wouldn't wouldn't help anything and I think you'd agree with that you you'd say look if we can just prove some random View and it's not actually uh shall we say present anywhere today then that's a problem and so my issue is that this very specific definition of the magisterium under Rome is that this is a universal perpetual and inherently binding office that is capable of making decisions that are in themselves binding upon the faithful it's able to guarantee its own infallibility uh when it so chooses so like Pope calling an ecumenical council for example and this I believe is very very different to that magisterium of the Apostles because this was vested in their unique office as Apostles their unique offers as profits if you will because they did have divine revelation as well as being unique witnesses to the life and teachings of Christ when he was on Earth um and likewise let me jump in and interact with that a little bit yeah sorry no problem yeah so you know I can certainly and we may we may somewhat get into the subject of what is the Catholic magisterium and what are its historical credentials and so forth but that's really a separate discussion than what Paradigm should we be using and so I don't want to unduly limit the discussion to Simply a Catholic understanding because the although the Catholic understanding of authority does involve scripture tradition in the magisterium that's not unique to the Catholic position you also have Orthodox Christians and Assyrian Christians and Oriental Orthodox Christians who also share that same fundamental Paradigm and so I don't want to unduly make this a Protestant versus Catholic thing because the general Paradigm is something that is broader than that I mean what we're really talking about is you just like you have different groups using the Catholic Paradigm you have different groups using the Protestant solo scriptura Paradigm and so in my mind it's really a discussion between these two paradigms and so that's the first thing I'd say the second thing I'd say is you haven't engaged my argument um I made two arguments in my opening statement one of them was positive which is here's the case for the Catholic understanding and the second one was a negative argument where I said here's a problem with the Protestant understanding or with solo scriptura and I laid it out that Sola scriptura claims that the that Christian doctrine must be proved by scripture alone Sola scriptura is a proposed Christian doctrine therefore Sola scriptura must be proved by scripture alone and it can't be therefore solo scriptura is false so it seems to me that in order to attack that you're either going in order to engage that argument you're either going to need to argue that Sola scriptura doesn't imply this that Sola scriptura is not a Doctrine or that solo scriptura can be proved by scripture alone if you're off on another subject it may be an interesting subject to explore but it's not actually engaging my argument well actually that's that's well part of the issue is that I was engaging a certain aspect of your argument this specific idea where I believe you do equivocate in what the magisterium is in Holy scripture with your view of the magisterium and I don't think really briefly and I will actually get to that argument uh but really briefly as well it's not really enough just to and I think this is part of the problem it's not enough just to uh address this on the issue of a paradigm but in a very vague sense because paradigms if you want to just talk about very vague Paradigm then yeah sure okay there's there's Rome and there's East and all that the problem is though paradigms are insta uh uh shall we say instantiated historically there's a specific way in which they work out and so if part of this is not just going to be engaging what's the Paradigm but what is the uh what's the historical manifestation on that how did that work because in a very if we left that in a super vague sense then even I as a classical Protestant could grant that that scripture oral tradition and magisterium have authority and they're authoritative the problem is what does that mean and how does that work out in history and so what my argument was going to get to basically was that with Rome's specific claim and I do genuinely believe this is necessary to address because again not enough to Simply say a vague Paradigm but actually what is the case in history you're using some prejudicial language there describing this as a vague Paradigm I would challenge that I don't think the Paradigm is vague at all in terms of what is a magisterium I already defined that it's a div it's a divinely instituted teaching Authority that's a basic question I affirm that as Protestant I can affirm that in the local level of Bishops I can affirm that onto the level of local councils and even higher Universal councils but the problem is what does that actually mean what's the nature of their Authority and that's where we need to get into the meat of like the specific details of what has happened historically um so and what I was gonna what I was going to say if you want me do you want me to address your main argument on Souls yeah 100 so the issue first issue um actually no I think I think I might leave that one to later main issue is that yes I do believe it can be proved from scripture because the issue is tell me how 100 100 uh because the issue is it's not just that everything in scripture uh with the souls Couture especially with the classical Protestant Paradigm must be proven with an explicit statement from scripture but also by giving necessary consequence and I I didn't I said I said I don't need to do state or imply so I'm on board and I'm not saying you're disputing that either but that's I just want to make that clear um and also what this necessarily does involve is how we see what's happening in history how does how's the world actually come about and what I point out in my negative statements uh well I didn't really flesh it out entirely but the issue is that with respect to what is itself unerring what is binding in and of itself and I'm not saying just binding in general because I do believe that the authority of one's Bishop yep that is binding on a person it's not binding in the same way as an ultimate Authority like scripture for example uh but what I wanted to say is that with respect to what is binding that being the word of God that's the ultimate source like in terms of ultimate sources that is what there's this sole thing that is ultimately binding the issue is is that with respect to for example oral statements right so oral tradition if you want to say that that's a paradigm that's continued in scripture nowhere says that it's stopped the problem is that doesn't actually establish that as a as a continual Paradigm because what we have historically what we do have historically is that with respect to to the inspired words and statements of Christ and the apostles all that we have now now in the earliest periods including like for example here in naps 100 that granted they could actually point out saying hey here's a specific statement of Jesus or the important apostle that was given uh orally and they can actually provide that statement we don't have that privilege today and well I'll tell you that okay let me let me challenge that well go ahead okay so and I believe I actually would apply would appeal to Second Thessalonians uh in that as a demonstration of that because the second Thessalonians where it says uh uh hold faster the Traditions that were given to you whether by letter or by word of of mouth and I'd say I would say simply this what do we know that Paul taught to the Thessalonians by letter well easy we have these two letters of the Thessalonians but then what did Paul what do we know about what Paul taught to the Thessalonians without reference to the letters we don't have such things we don't have such oral statements that are preserved in oral form all the way up until today that's part that's actually part of the that's really The Logical issue that necessitatesura on a historical basis because we do not have oral statements of the Apostles that have been preserved outside of writing and that would be my ultimate response that soul scriptura is necessitated by the simple logic of what has happened historically okay so firstly you're mistaken that we don't have teachings that come from the apostles okay it doesn't have to be statements if I know the apostles said something it doesn't matter what words they used the truth that if I know this truth was communicated to the first generation of Christians by an authoritative apostle then that truth is binding on me I don't have to know the exact words in fact most Christians don't know the exact words that were used because number one they don't speak Greek and number two even the Greek itself for example in the gospels is paraphrased so the issue is not can I quote exact words the issue is do I know this truth has been passed down authoritatively from the apostles and we do have such truths for example the mode of baptism is not simply immersion alone we can document that down through history we can document that in the first century in the dedicate which in the relevant passage is likely written contemporaneously with the New Testament the dedicate indicates that if you don't have sufficient water you can just pour water over the head three times and so that's something that has been passed down continuously through Christian tradition down through the down through um tradition it is not something that is stated or any in any way clearly implied in the New Testament the ddk indicates there can be more than one mode of baptism so I would say you're mistaken about that but you're still not addressing my argument because what you're doing is appealing to what happened in a later age after scripture was already closed and that argument you can try to mount an argument and say well um in order for something to be authoritative we would need for it to have come from the apostolic age and we don't have anything like that when in fact we do have things like that I'm not saying that well I'm actually much more specific than that but um you can run the logic the other way and say okay we know based on the Paradigm of scripture tradition the magisterium we know this is authoritative therefore we know it's been passed down from the apostolic age and so you can't simply assert except on a solo scriptura assumption you cannot simply assert that we don't have things from the apostolic age that are authoritative and so consequently and I'm not saying consequently your argument is circular if you're appealing to what happened in later centuries and your perception of what we do or don't have then you are assuming Sola scriptura as part of that process because you can from a non-solus scripture point of view you can read it exactly the other way furthermore you still have not yet tried to show that Sola scriptura can be proved from scripture alone you're going to need to find verses that either singly or collectively state or imply that after the apostolic age we are not to look to anything but scripture alone authoritatively to form Christian doctrine and you haven't even attempted to do that yet so I would invite you to tell me what passages in the New Testament either alone or together either state or imply that there's going to be a shift in the Paradigm that Christians use to formulate their Doctrine once the last Apostle dies where would you go to show that okay first problem is that I'm not saying I haven't said that that we can't discern truths from uh from what the apostles said apart from scripture or apart from a Verbatim statement and perhaps I could have made this more clear the issue is with respect to your rule with respect to an authority by which such doctrines are provided so for example if you want to say the mode of baptism I haven't studied that for uh myself but but let's just grant that for example that we do have such a reliable Apostolic testimony on the specific mode of baptism that's not revealed in scripture and I as a classical Protestant and other classical Protestants we totally grant that because why there is a difference between a rule versus a specific Doctrine what we are trying to assert is that scripture the written words of the Apostles The Preserves Words of Christ and of God so on and so forth these constitute an authority by which such doctrines are judged this only uh inherently binding divinely inspired infallible uh rule by which such doctrines are tested against not that we get not have to get all of our beliefs on everything including for example the Paradigm of soul scriptura from scripture alone that's actually a different that's actually a different kind of claim it's simply that this scripture the words of the Apostles that which has been preserved by them is itself the ultimate rule by which such things are measured and I myself do appeal uh in in not just not just doing it just so I can win a debate and demonstrate it but I actually do in real life appeal to external authoritative tradition uh from after the apostles but near contemporaneous to them uh as demonstration of apostolic teaching or rather a proper uh proper interpretation of apostolic teaching and to give one really brief example I very often appeal to the letter of first Clement so in here good old collection the apostolic fathers Greek text English translations I like to appeal to Clement uh particularly on the issue funnily enough of egalitarianism um because you'll have egalitarians for example who will say that oh well scripture teaches is uh that there's this flight to put it bluntly a flat hierarchy like there's no there's no gender distinction with respect to Authority in what the genders can do and one of their things that they may point to what might be for example First Corinthians 12 where Paul says uh that all the body all the parts of the body give due honor and so on and so forth but then I actually like to appeal to First Clement because the letter first Clement um I believe for one I hold to an early date of first Clement so like 70 or pre-seventy um and thus yeah 100 epic and thus that this was actually written by the contemporaries who receive the words of Paul himself and I can Echo the words of irenaeus where he himself says um he talks about how Clement May supposedly have the words of the Apostles still ringing in his ears and it's precisely because of that contemporaneous in the context or uh nature of the authors and I like to say authors plural of first Clement but that's a that's another that's another topic altogether I believe was done by the whole Roman hierarchy which kind of bolses it really even further the authority other um not just from one bishop and I use that as an authoritative interpretation uh an explication of the apostolic preaching precisely because of its Antiquity uh and well it's claimed to Antiquity and so I like to Lodge that uh when I can uh at egalitarians as well as when Clement says that um uh how would I say men of good repute he doesn't use a gender-neutral anthropoy he uses Andres specifically adult males and so that combined with his interpretation well I was going to say his interpretation of First Corinthians 12 he gives the same uh he basically Echoes Paul's entire argument from First Corinthians 12 about how all the parts of the body work together but he gives it in the analogy of an imperial military hierarchy which to me demonstrates a clear authentic Apostolic interpretation of Paul's teaching that such analogy of the body does not exclude the existence of hierarchy within it and so that is actually an example where I do appeal to traditional Authority for the interpretation of Holy Spirit scripture the only difference is that Clement is not in himself infallible or binding as an apostle okay so in towards the beginning of that I mean we kind of I appreciate your example it you know um but towards the beginning of that you it seemed like you were a proceeding to use a tactic that is very common among Protestant apologists when they realize they're on the defensive on this subject because um I mean I well and and I would say with good reason but um when I was Protestant had an inter I had an inbuilt internal lived experience that showed me how solar scripture was used in the community that I was part of and it's a broadly shared experience in the Protestant world where for example if someone maybe a Catholic maybe not a Catholic maybe another Protestant proposes a particular Christian belief and says this is a doctrine that we we should believe as Christians one of the reflexive questions is there's that in the Bible and that reveals that solo scriptura as it's understood in the Protestant community on the lived experiential level is used to form as is it conveys the idea that every Doctrine is something that needs to be provable from scripture alone you know there needs to be some Bible verse that says or implies it or set of verses and so that Doctrine among Scholars uh theolog Protestant theologians is sometimes called the sufficiency of scripture that scripture is sufficient to tell us everything we need to know for Faith or morals and that is commonly understood as what part of what solo scripture means but when this argument is challenged Protestant apologists will then start to shrink their definition of solar scriptura and instead of and they'll start to distance the definition they're using from one that implies the sufficiency of scripture and they'll say things like it's the only infallible rule of faith and that's all it means and sufficiency of scripture is something else and that's well that's not what they're saying anything but whatever okay well good because um in Prior discussion that you and I have had you know before this debate you indicated that you did believe in Solo scripture and that you did Con in the sufficiency of scripture and that you did consider it one of the implications at least of Sola scriptura so if that's what you believe that scripture needs by itself to be able to provide a proof for any Christian doctrine then you're going to need to show me and the audience versus that singly or together state or imply that after the end of the apostolic age there is to be a shift in the way Christians develop their Doctrine and they are only to use scripture alone as a as the ultimate basis for Doctrine because if you don't show me those verses of scripture then I can say well this is the pattern that was set up in the New Testament scripture tradition and magisterium that was what God willed Christians to use and therefore when we shifted from the apostolic age to the post-apostolic age that pattern is still to be used and that means that not only do we still have scripture it also means that we still have authoritative tradition and it means that we still have a magisterium that is the ultimate interpreter of scripture and tradition so I on on my Paradigm I'm just going to assume that yeah it all continued after the apostolic age and if you want to show me that that's not the case and that solo scriptura is not self-refuting then you need to show me in scripture where scripture implies a shift in the post-apostolic age well no you see this is actually part of the problem and this is actually why I constructed part of my positive statement the way I did uh because I made it clear that with respect to ultimately prior to the issue of solar scripture or magisterium what have you what is The Binding infallible source of Doctrine it's the words of God argue that from the necessary consequence and I'm going to get to that I'm going to get to why that why I don't believe you can actually substantiate that with your magisterium and by good and necessary consequence of that what do we have of the words of God with us today we have that which is written that which is passed down from the apostles that was preserved from the teachings of Christ we do not know other Bishop claims to have another source of divine revelation which is in itself binding upon the conscience now the magisterium does not true that's very true they have you do so do you do you actually claim sorry I was being not very specific do you actually believe that Rome has more Revelation upon which to establish Doctrine yes I do so the catechism is wrong when it says that there's no other public Revelation upon which to establish a new public Revelation to establish Doctrine no I agree with the catechism public Revelation ended with the death of the last Apostle Revelation has not been given public Revelation has not been given since the death of the last Apostle but that doesn't mean that public Revelation hasn't been preserved since the death of the last Apostle in fact the catechism and Vatican II are explicit on the fact that the word of God which is our only ultimate source of information for Christian faith and morals also known as the depositive faith has been passed down both in the form of scripture and in the form of tradition since the apostolic age and this is the problem because we don't dispute that and this is actually part of the problem of When you mention how old what a Protestant apologists do uh what definition they give the issue is we're not you're not engaging with Protestant apologists or this uh this uh house shall we say lived experience that you had with solo scriptura because that's kind of part of the problem that's not necessarily universal one and certainly not mine well it was potentially back in my Pentecostal age although then again I didn't really have much of experience with soulscriptura on that like they never really did engage with that but I myself my lived experience is with the magisterial Protestants who don't have that idea of solar scriptura where every single belief that we have must necessarily be established of verbatim in Holy Scripture now what would be in it what would be an example if I may believe that's not established by scripture alone and they get to what you were also saying so you mentioned before I'm trying to I'm trying to go back to what you were trying to go back to what you were saying before um but ultimately what I wanted to do is part of the problem is you're assuming a certain understanding of a magisterium in order to say that well this is the default this is the scriptural Paradigm but the problem is what is the nature of that magisterium in Holy Scripture and that was fundamentally with respect to the infallible inherently binding aspect of that magisterium it was with the authority of the Apostles and they do not ever establish another office that can in itself instantiate infallible statements and I'm not denying that the teaching also came down orally all I am saying is that all that we have for certain with what we teach and thus what acts as the rule for determining that is that which has been preserved in writing because oral statements oral passing down does corrupt inevitably and yet and yet we do have unless God guides human things whether they're written or not corrupt because after all we don't have the original autographs of scripture we have a very good approximation but that's the point there there has hang on hang on there has been some there has been corruption in the scribal process so human things do corrupt over time unless God provides guidance and that's precisely why we have a magisterium now the term infallible is not actually used in scripture that's a post-biblical term so I'm not going to show you passages that use that term in scripture but what I can and have shown are passages that indicate that God instituted an authoritative teaching Authority in the New Testament originally vested in the apostles but not limited to the apostles because it doesn't have the same Authority as the Apostle hang on dude it it it is not limited to the apostles because there were other authors of the New Testament who were not Apostles and at the Jerusalem Council it was not simply a meeting of the Apostles we are explicitly told that it was the apostles and the Elders of Jerusalem and so they were also participants in that Council and therefore the magisterium as expressed in the Jerusalem Council was not limited to the apostles now coming from a Catholic Paradigm if or in Orthodox or Assyrian or Oriental Paradigm if Christ established his church with the view that we should form Christian doctrine by scripture tradition and the magisterium and if Christ willed that his church continued beyond the apostolic age then I am entitled as a Catholic to infer that scripture tradition and the magisterium continued into the post-apostolic age and thus just like the early church fathers said when the apostles passed from the scene they handed over their teaching authority to the Bishops and so I can that is perfectly consistent on my reading of this Paradigm if you want me to reject that and say I need to abandon the Paradigm that was used by the first generation of Christians by Christ's will then you're going to need to do more than simply assert well we don't have this anymore we don't have any authoritative Traditions anymore we don't have an authoritative magisterium anymore you're going to need to show me once again on the sufficiency of scripture that scripture itself teaches that after the apostolic age there is to be a shift in how Christians develop their Doctrine and that after the apostolic age they are to use scripture alone for that as an author as an ultimately authoritative source and if you don't show that then solo scriptura is self-refuting so I I said I wasn't going to interrupt much and I haven't I haven't please do gotta give me that well what I want to do is I want to get back on that though Paul yes no that's what I wanted you to do is we we've kind of like danced around that issue is like how can we prove solar scripture from scripture and that's that's what I would like to discuss now so I think earlier you said that you've got some scriptures or arguments that you wanted to present in in that regard so I just wanted to make sure that that's what we were turning to now yeah could you recall precisely what I was going to say with scriptures and arguments in that or no I I just thought Oh I thought you said that you had a case that you could make that solo scripture can be approved from scripture I thought you said I thought I thought so I thought so too but I may have misunderstood yes I do but I wanted to first get back because again oh good I get back to the problem of equivocation uh because when he's because again when Aiken says that look they give the Paradigm a scripture tradition and magisterium again we're talking about we're not talking about mere abstractions we're talking about something that's Concrete in history what Aiken is trying to argue what he needs to argue for this debate to have any meaning because this isn't between two abstract entities but between concrete things in Jimmy's case in particular the magisterium of the Roman Catholic church and fundamentally what they assert and what Eastern Orthodox and others assert is that there is an Institutional office that is capable of establishing in itself that is able to establish conditions in which they can provide inherently binding and infallible teachings uh apart from or distinct from the authority of the written teachings of the of the Holy Apostles and that's part of the problem because again okay so let me know can you say that again well let me let me take a stab at that then um so you're concerned about no really not articulate the question clearly there just so it's really cool yeah yeah sure so my question clearly is where do Christ and this is the problem that I have with the frame of this as if it's I who has the ultimate burden of demonstrating this like look I'm just going tradition scripture and magisterium but that's the problem I don't grant that you do have that default I grant that there is a default of scripture tradition magisterium in the sense of the ultimate authority of the Apostles and precisely why their Authority is Ultimate was because it was established under Vine Revelation and everybody subsequent to them is beholden to that standard there is and and thus um the problem comes however is that as we both Grant the authority of an apostle as in the apostolic office itself was temporary it was just with a specific generation of people with for example looking in Acts chapter one where it says in order to establish a new guy in the place of Judas he needs to have been an eyewitness of Jesus Christ since then beginning that's part of the problem what I'm wanting to get at is the fact that with respect to certain proof or with respect to as a certain rule of demonstrating what comes from the apostles all that we do have is scripture what is taught in scripture but also I grant that there is certain testimony of Doctrine outside of scripture in the earliest ages of the church but with respect to Doctrine and I do believe there's a distinction between Doctrine and Praxis or that's something we can get on later point being to to frame a question with you where does Holy Scripture establish that there will be and inherently binding Universal magisterium Universal teaching office be it in a pope or in an ecumenical council that can in itself by virtue of teaching in that office bind the conscience of all the faithful and that they cannot deny it okay so um first thing let's let's to avoid some um potential side Trails you would agree that the term infallible is a theological term that emerged in later centuries and so it's not used in the New Testament correct however I also well not not not the term itself the concept is there though okay so that's that's my next point the uh you would also agree that Christ established a magisterium at least of the Apostles in the first century and that it had this authoritative quality such that it was authoritative up to the point they could speak infallibly is that also correct that is correct Okay so we've agreed that Jesus set up an authority in the first century that could teach up to the level of infallibility even though that term is not used the question is then where did he vest this well he did vested in the apostles but he didn't limit it to the apostles because as I mentioned in Acts 15 we also see the Elders of Jerusalem participating in the in the authoritative Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 in that discussion in formulating those conclusions there is not a limit to oh it's just the apostles deciding this it's a joint decision including more than just the apostles we also find Jesus saying at the end of Matthew that he will be with his church until the end of the world so he indicates there is going to be ongoing guidance for the church as long as the world lasts and that's going to end that's going to stretch beyond the apostolic ages we now know we also find Paul in first Timothy describing the church as the pillar and Foundation of Truth in the world that's a fundamental quality of the church it had it in the first century and it's going to have it in all the subsequent centuries we also and this one is a little more debatable but in John we see Jesus promising that the holy spirit will guide the disciples into all truth and so what we see is Christ instituting a magisterial office capable of teaching up to the level of infallibility and we see promises that Christ and the Holy Spirit is going to guide the church throughout history such that the church functions as the pillar and Foundation of Truth in the world coming without assuming solo scriptura I would say hey that just continued to happen that magisterium continued now yes there was a shift in that the apostles died off Christ chose not to appoint more Apostles but as the church fathers say because remember I'm not limited to solo scripture here the church for me the church fathers can be authoritative they said they they said when the apostles passed from the scene they handed over the their teaching office to the Bishops and so today the Bishops represent the authority represent the magisterium that Christ founded and they therefore have the same level of authority as the magisterium did in the first century they are capable of teaching up to the level of infallibility they're not getting new revelation but they are guided in such a way that they can teach up to the level of infallibility it's it's a syllogistic implication from the New Testament itself so there I've done that if you want to rebut that then I once again invite you to show me the money you know show me how you can prove Sola scriptura from scripture alone that there is going to be a shift in the post-apostolic age in how Christians formulate their Doctrine I I've studied the New Testament very carefully I cannot find any verses that collectively or singly say or imply that and therefore I conclude solo scriptura is a self-refuting Doctrine and I would ask you to show me where I'm wrong okay and now this is this is actually part of the problem with without appealing to later history I want to see it from scripture itself okay no and that's actually part of the problem because okay actually let me deal with your text first of all so again we do not deny Authority was passed down from the apostles down to the Bishops and such to teach or that they can be guided by the Holy Spirit to do that to do such we do not deny that we affirm that quite a lot you'll see you'll see for example classical Protestants we'll talk about how uh flipping the Council of nicaea itself spoke by the holy spirit in such a mean the issue is that with this specific claim of the magisterium is that it is capable of affecting such conditions where it can know and it is certain that it will speak infallibly in any given instance where if where it chooses already conceded you've already conceded that the magisterium in the first century had that quality I'm saying crisis Christ instituted a magisterium as part of his church his church still exists therefore it still has a magisterium and the magisterium still has that quality that's the problem though because the key example that you raised with acts 15 where the elders participated that's true the artists participated that doesn't have anything to prove that therefore those Elders also enjoyed the charism and infallibility of the Apostles we would easily say that actually the precise reason why such an in Council was inherently binding in itself was because of the confirmation of the Apostles and even then we don't even say that the that only the apostles can discerned and as and as a Catholic I would say no individual Bishop today except the pope is capable of teaching infallibly and the reason an ecumenical council gains its infallibility is because of its confirmation by the pope just like the acts 15 Council was confirmed by the apostles even though they it was not limited to the apostles in the deliberations but we're still not getting to the issue of what scriptures prove that there's going to be a shift in the Paradigm once the last Apostle dies and that's that's part of the problem because I'm making that case unfortunately I'm a big Mega nuanced brain kind of guy and I like to work things down even if it takes a little bit of time so do forgive me if I do take a bit of time with you well I I there needs to be some balance in our discussion I mean I can't let you just go on for 40 minutes I know and that's why I can't judge you for when you you take when you take some time as well but that's the problem as well we know that this was an authority invested with the apostles the power to reveal things divinely in themselves infallible um as well as having the witness of the uh of the Life Ministry and teachings of Jesus Christ himself a privilege which is not granted by anybody itself nowhere does Christ in any reliable historical documentation and this isn't even just talking about scripture we're talking even just reliable early sources where it is established wherein there is a specific office be it a pope or be it a certain conferral of a council where they can guarantee that they speak infallible and this is not to say that people can't speak fallibly there's actually a conceptual distinction there we could affirm for example if someone is to say this guy he spoke by the Holy Spirit and if in ontology that is actually true that someone spoke by the Holy Spirit then they spoke infallibly the issue of infallibility with this issue with this debate it comes with respect to the infallible uh to the confirmation of such what is the infallible confirmation that someone did indeed speak by the Holy Spirit and we have that privilege with the apostles and the only other office authoritative teaching office established apart from the apostles is the Bishops and yet nowhere is such a uh and even then part of the I kind of want to avoid the language of infallibility or that's partially my fault for bringing that up so whatever um I'm also like to frame it as inherent bindingness and inspiration um but that's part of the problem that privilege that right that power was never granted to the office of Bishop and if you want to say well we don't think that either go ahead believe that for individual Bishops that's fine but now you have to say well where else do we look for where did the apostles or Christ establish some other office or mechanism that allows for inherent in itself bindingness not because they can confirm it on the authority of scripture but in themselves because we said so in this circumstance it is okay so I would say that I see you making a lot of distinctions to try to avoid a fairly straightforward implication you know I've made it I've made I've made a case that I let you talk I made a case that Christ established a magisterium it had the quality of infallibility of capable of teaching infallibly and that his magisterium endured and therefore it has the same quality and you have asserted that oh there's you've used an argument from Silence you've said oh there's nowhere that this is discussed well not until the language of infallibility became a commonplace in theology but as soon as it did you find Church documents Church authorities saying yeah the councils and Bishops and popes they have this Authority that they're capable of exercising can you provide an example because sorry Jimmy you you cut out for a second yeah let's wait just a second for you to come back uh okay looks like you're back now awesome so um it's illegitimate to appeal to early documents before this language was developed by theologians but once it is developed in the Middle Ages actually um you do find theologians and later magisterial documents affirming that the church does have a charism of infallibility that is ma that is manifested in several ways but among them through the Bishops teaching and Union with the Pope and therefore in the modern conception of the magisterium that it can be infallible it can teach infallibly uh I can cite passages and I can cite passages in Thomas Aquinas that deal with that I can cite more recent passages but you won't find such passages before the language of infallibility develops but once again let's go back to scripture alone give me those great golden juicy passages where it teaches even by implication that there's going to be a shift in how Doctrine is developed after the apostolic age and we're only supposed to listen to scripture alone there are no surviving authoritative Traditions there is no surviving authoritative magisterium teaching infallibly show me the money where are those great passages again not my argument and that's actually why I gave him my opening case and I do have scripture citations and mainly I didn't read them there but that was actually for good reason because of the time limit but that's why I established this is fundamentally proven skull scripture Soul scripture rather by a negative case it is proven by good and necessary consequence from scripture and yes that's true it does rely on our perception of History so what because the problem is what I'm arguing with solar scriptura is that that with scripture itself it affirms that the word of God itself is unerring it is in itself binding on the conscience again I bring up for example once again Deuteronomy 8 uh generally eight uh verse 3 and then as Christ cites it in Matthew 4 4 that every that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God which very clearly entails that God himself he does not lie he does not speak untruth and so by that necessarily implication and given the fact that such is never said uh by for any other ultimate source of teaching or of authority uh and in fact where this is variously contrasted with for example the traditions of men in the when Christ told them to the Pharisees and I'm not don't worry I'm not making the argument right there like oh look traditions of men therefore romanism debunked I'm not saying that don't worry um but rather the fact that this is consistently contrasted with other things um and is only spoken of the words of God by good and necessary very consequence that the only the fact that the only words of God we have in our possession today are written that is the good and necessary consequence that proves solar scriptura you keep saying that um but if you're appealing to history rather than scripture for your good and necessary consequence I mean that's not what the 39 articles of religion say in article 6 I mean yeah when it talks about good and necessary consequence that means of scripture alone and not um if you know what the words mean and you understand the logic of scripture then you can show by good and necessary consequences this Doctrine is true whatever the doctrine may be but if you're agreeing that you can't and you keep asserting and I don't buy the assertion at all that we don't have authoritative Traditions now and we don't have an authoritative magistration but and by authoritative I mean incapable of teaching infallibly that's what I mean when I say authoritative I think you do disagree with that uh I do disagree that you can affect such conditions where you can say okay at this moment I'm teaching infallibly which is what your magisterian claims right so we do disagree there and it but it seems to me you keep appealing or attempting to appeal to later history to prove this and not to scripture alone and therefore I I thought you heard it kind of towards the beginning of your previous exchange you admit that this can't be done by scripture alone that you cannot give me verses that show that there is going to be a shift when the last Apostle dies and therefore I think you've conceded that this can't be done and I would therefore say well if it can't be done solo scriptura indicates it must be done therefore at least doable and therefore solo scripture is false so I think that you've conceded my key point that this can't be done and therefore I conclude solo scripture is false and we should stick with the apostolic paradigm okay and to which I say that's a wrong framing because you have said this a few times now and honestly to my fault I have neglected to respond to that but the problem is is the issue of framing because with respect to solo scriptura we Grant uh classical Protestants we would say uh depending on how you frame it some would say no but others not but with respect to the uh specific Nuance idea of it we would actually agree solo scriptura as the doctrine articulated today yeah that's a development because even the language itself solo scriptura was a response to a certain historical issue of the idea of the Church of Rome claiming an infallible or more more preferable language rather because again I want to avoid that of and apparently yeah as you've pointed out things that you don't disagree with I would point out I don't have a problem with the language of solar scripture I'm not asking for the language of soulscriptura to be found in scripture I'm looking for an application that's it and I'm saying that by implication that solo scripture is necessitated and historic Protestants do not deny in the formulation of the doctrine itself of the idea the if you will the foundational Authority that is soul scriptura we do not deny the appeal to history on that and that's why I believe there's somewhat of a conceptual error where we're talking about with respect to Doctrine proving everything by scripture alone because obviously the issue is everybody grants we have to appeal there are things we appeal to outside of scripture for everything we appeal to we appeal to our common use of language for example to understand words on the page such as with scripture for example if it's in English or with dictionaries lexicons what have you with ancient languages like Hebrew Greek and all that such and also historical data such as the witness of the historical church to determine uh what even the Canon or scripture is that is not denied because the specific thing of Doctrine is with respect to the beliefs of our faith what must I believe to be saved that is the specific point that solo scriptura tries to respond to that there are people who claim their Apostolic teachings beyond what is beyond what was in Holy scripture not even perhaps not even necessarily implied by but true articles of Faith Beyond Holy Scripture which are binding on us today and are infallibly revealed by magisterial documents what we say is that by implication of what scripture says what is the Divine Authority we submit to the words of God and then yes we appeal to to history what has history shown us that all that is preserved for certain that's the key thing for certain of the words of God these inspired words is that which is written and and okay two points two points first one um you had an equivocation in there between what's necessary for salvation and what what are we required to believe um we're you know what's necessary for salvation is the doctrine of satiriology it's you know Christ died for our sins and repent believe and be baptized things like that but there's loads of teachings that God wanted us to have that are not required for salvation like the existence of angels so solo scripture you also sometimes see Protestants trying to restrict Sola scripture to just what's necessary for salvation and that's really not what it is it's all doctrines everything we're supposed to be believed um yes any any doctrine that is bonding on us must be affirmed by the apostolic testimony and the only certain witness of that today with respect to inspired words we have Holy Scripture and I don't deny and and that leads to the second point which is you you keep asserting that that's all we have but that assertion is based on solo scriptura because now it's my hang on if my Paradigm is correct then we do have authoritative Traditions that have been passed down from the first century and we've got an authoritative magisterium to interpret them for us so the only way to get rid of those is to actually assume that we that we don't because this is not a matter capable of being proved by historical examination you know history is history under determines this this is a matter of faith and consequently um your argument ends up being circular because you're assuming that we don't have these things when I would say absolutely we do so the argument you're presenting is circular and it is not um it is not being based on scripture alone and I still therefore have to conclude if you can't prove solo scriptura by scripture alone then it's self-refuting and then I'd like to get Jimmy what was the passage that you gave Paul from Deuteronomy um thanks uh Jimmy can you uh let me know what your response is to to that because I think that was like from what I could tell that was like the only tangible verse that we've got well so I would say a couple of things uh the first one is now this is an Old Testament passage and so it has to be read in terms of the times in which it was given and Jesus does quote it later in The Sermon on the Mount but originally it comes from the Torah and the Israelites are instructed that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God and I would say absolutely Amen to that man sure does whether the word is passed down in writing or whether it is passed down orally anything God teaches us is binding on us whether it's in scripture or tradition totally agree with that it does not remotely prove solo scriptura because scripture is only one of the ways that God's word was being passed on even in the Old Testament itself God's word was also passed on passed on Authority iteratively in Tradition in the Old Testament period and therefore this passage does not teach scripture alone so yeah Paul what do you what do you make of that yeah and that's why I respond with again the issue of framing because I do not deny if I could have made this clear I definitely could have uh with respect to for example the early church witness on let's just say the basic assertion Jesus's law so not even the deity of Christ because you've got the later area in crisis and all that jazz but the simple assertion Jesus is Lord do we have certain witness from the from the testimony of the church historically that this is Apostolic Doctrine yes 100 we do but that's part of the problem part of my assertion and I'm not simply going to be assuming this but that is part of my assertion that of those doctrines revealed uh with respect to that which we must believe that which we are bound to believe Doctrine um from the apostles everything that is everything that is certainly preserved in the early church for example classical classical Protestant position again refer to the concept of tradition one verse tradition two all such certain doctrines which are certainly preserved by the earliest periods of the church and which therefore we have a certain Foundation to believe are from the apostles all of those doctrines are found in Holy Scripture and that's part of the problem because what the magisterial position here with Aiken's position is that there is a distinct oral traditional Authority which teaches things that have not been preserved in themselves from Holy Scripture and so for example I appeal to um Aiken you did a podcast uh maybe a few months ago an open Forum on Catholic answers where someone asked you do you affirm material sufficiency or pardon pardon and you said you commented how that that wasn't really the question being addressed to the Council of Trent but then you said if I had to choose one or the other I would probably go pardon pardon because doctrines like for example the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption of Mary uh those are the candidates of scripture all the kind of scriptures well if you want if you want to go there but again I distinguish that distinguish that epistemic issue from Doctrine but we can get to that and you say that apart from potential little Illusions in certain passage yes scripture does not demonstrate the Assumption or the Immaculate Conception that's why we need the authority of the oral tradition and of the magisterium and that's part of the problem especially with respect to the magisterium is that unlike those doctrines of uh of that are all equally preserved in scripture from the certain witness of the apostolic testimony we do not have anything close to a certain witness to such problems okay so what what is the Criterion by which one would have certainty if you're using the apostolic Paradigm of scripture tradition and magisterium like I am then you can say yeah I do have certainty of those you are rejecting that Paradigm and judging it on some kind of non-faith-based historical criteria which means you're assuming solo scriptura and therefore your argument becomes circular again um so I that's my fundamental response on that you you keep asserting we don't have these things and I would say absolutely we do and the only way you avoid that conclusion is by rejecting the apostolic Paradigm and using an alternative Paradigm like Sola scriptura which allows you to say oh well here we have these we don't have uh sources that are early enough for me and strong enough for me on these points and and you're mounting a historical argument that uh that presupposes a fundamentally different Paradigm so your Paradigm is being assumed here without being proven because if you want to I hate to sound like I'm beating a drum but if your paradigms of soul scriptura is going to be proved it's going to have to be proved from scripture alone and you haven't even attempted to do that and again problem of framing because we do not claim for example that the full orb specific assertion that Holy Scripture alone is all that we get for Doctrine we're not claiming that this is full orbs a certain Holy Scripture but from consequence which I believe I have demonstrated but then the key thing that you you have not demonstrated from scripture alone can I jump in real quick can I just ask Paul what do you mean by uh issue of framing what do you what is like so basically how this is Being Framed as an entire argument in a discourse and part of that is actually where I want to dispute where Aiken he you keep asserting that well this is the apostolic well I still that still doesn't tell me that still doesn't tell me what you mean because you just use the term again in your definition what do you mean by and I'm dreaming and I'm going to demonstrate that what my what I mean by that in a concrete example because okay for uh well going back to what was discussed earlier uh where he says look this is the Paradigm of scripture tradition and magisterium problem is though Aiken has to assume a very specific conception of the tradition and magisterium such as that an oral tradition is infallibly passed on distinct from Holy Scripture um and then also that there is an infallibly binding magisterium a capable office that's able to consistently bring that about at its will and that's the problem that is not granted that is not demonstrated but the key thing I want to respond to really quickly first is that Aiken keeps saying this is the apostolic Paradigm Paradigm to which I say well that's just not granted that's that's a very big assertion he asserts that and he keeps saying I assert things and I don't prove them which I believe I have but then here's a problem he says this is the episode he this is the episode Paradigm but what do you mean by that because if I look at for example if I if I was irenaeus or I lived in the time of irenaeus would I be a soul scriptura no I wouldn't because what does irenaeus do for example uh and he's really he's really one of if not the key uh example of this issue where a lot of these debates Focus because here's such an early example and he has such a rich uh description of the nature of tradition and scripture and so on and so forth and the problem with it um lost my train of thought for a second no the problem with that is that he does not assert this Paradigm as Aiken himself says that there is an infallible magisterium capable of bringing about infallible teaching because what happens here is that with this magisterium in Rome it is not per se based on whether they can historically trace a teaching back to the apostles through each person in the link of Bishops for example whereas with irenaeus when he talks about demonstrating the teachings of the of the Apostles what does he do he says look at the holy scriptures this is what the teaching of the Apostles or go to the churches whom estab whom the apostles uh who sorry whose Bishops were established by the apostles and then reckon with them go to go to their distinct succession of Bishops and see what those Bishops taught demonstrate by means of historical inquiry that this bishop taught this this bishop this bishop this bishop all the way back to the apostles they taught the same thing and that's very important because again if I was back then then no I wouldn't be in a Solo script or a paradigm because soulscriptura granted that is something that is uh that is a historically contingent issue um but then when you get with friends to respond to some of this okay go with it oh okay now oh great I just wanted to put in a marker okay um so you said I'm assuming so uh several things um one of them is that there is a an oral tradition passed on independently of scripture I'm not assuming that that's evident from the New Testament it's evident from second Thessalonians 2 15 where Paul tells the Thessalonians to adhere to the Traditions whether they were orally passed to them or in writing and therefore it's clear in the first century there in the apostolic age there was an oral tradition passed on independently of scripture second thing you said I asserted is that there was a magisterium capable of teaching infallibly and there was in the apostolic age we've already agreed to that thirdly you said I keep referring to this as the apostolic scripture tradition magisterium as the apostolic Paradigm yes because it was it was used in the apostolic age and the apostles expected their first century adherence to use that Paradigm so it I I haven't assumed any of these things and it was the apostolic Paradigm you then uh said well irenaeus doesn't claim an infallible magisterium in his day well that's because irenaeus is writing in the year 189 and the term infallibility had not become a theological term yet so this is an illegitimate appeal to a time before the term had Arisen you also furthermore granted that if you were living in irenaeus's time you wouldn't believe in Sola scriptura which to me is a really momentous thing to say because you are thereby admitting that just like Sola scriptura was not God's Paradigm for the apostolic age neither was it God's Paradigm for a later Church age and you said you wouldn't be a solo scripturist if you were living in irenaeus's day so you've conceded that the apostolic Paradigm was to be used even after the death of the last Apostles and I think that makes a very strong case for there is no dividing line in church history other than the death of the last Apostle for when this shift would have occurred and therefore I think you have gone a long way to supporting my claim that the apostolic Paradigm should be used today so Paul let's get yours let's get your responses I was just gonna say let's get your response to this and then we'll we'll transition to q a we've gone a little bit longer than than we anticipated but um I felt like that's okay yeah so just get your response here and then we'll do some q a and this is the core problem again this is why I said right at the beginning that to Simply say in a vague sense the uh Paradigm of magisterium tradition and scripture that doesn't mean anything because Aiken is you're not arguing or rather you're not supposed to be trying you're trying to argue ultimately for a specific conception of those words you're not simply arguing we have a magisterium and there's a magisterium and exists and there is authoritative oral teaching there's a very very specific definition of such things which I am arguing is not the case now or was not defined as in Holy Scripture and um again I bring up with respect to the issue of the oral teachings of the of the Holy Apostles which we do have their words for example and this is the shore Foundation upon which we can measure against such doctrines which are passed down in other means like orally for example because once again I never denied that oral teachings can be passed down that they can be reliably passed down and that we can even rely on that to assert an extent the problem is though is that there is a specific understanding that you are or at least you should be trying to argue for in order for it to your argument to really have any meaning and that is the specific Roman conception that there's distinct oral teaching infallibly preserved apart from scripture with assertions not in scripture that's the key problem there because especially if you look at irenaeus with his conception really quickly really his conception of oral tradition what is he referred to as the tradition of the Apostles he refers to it as the rule of Faith the regular fide all of which he never distinguishes in terms of content Holy Scripture and what was passed down orally he goes through his entire work against heresies to prove against the various Gnostic sex whether it be the valentinians the mark unites so on and so forth saying hey look scripture scripture scripture scripture then he gets to a point where they'll say something like they confute the authority of scripture saying that they were some they're they're like they're without Authority or that they can't be understood apart from the living voice and then he says well okay let's go to those Bishops and what they taught and then he demonstrates historically they teach the same thing as Holy Scripture he does not assert your Apostolic Paradigm which is really the Roman Paradigm wherein there's a distinct oral tradition body with assertions apart from Holy Scripture and with equal certainty that will last for all time apart from Holy Scripture and that's the problem because then we Protestants point to the simple fact of reality that oral tradition gets muddy it can corrupt not that it will just fizzle out into into non-existence not that the whole message of the Gospel is just going to disappear in oral form but that there is problems with certainty and with measuring things and that is why on the basis of irenaeus's own logic even though and this is something I'd like to say is a nice Paradox that on the same basis that irenaeus would not hold the soul scriptura nor if I was in his time it is on that basis because he relies on historical testimony that we must accept solo scriptura today because we do not have such excess as he does to the living oral voices of those who converse with the apostles or with their contemporaries that's the ultimate problem and then of course same with and I won't go more but again the same with the magisterium where he says look there's a magisterium with the apostles and all and all that cool that's true and again forgive me I tried to avoid the language of infallibility but I'm more meaning uh again inherently binding and uh sorry inherently binding and inspired in itself he nor the apostles ever demonstrate such an office with the power like the apostles to be able to bind the conscience of the faithful to teachings by virtue of that office apart from what was passed down by Christ and the apostles that's the problem okay Cam I know you want to go to questions and I do too I'm really anxious to hear what the audience has to say I mean this this always happens it happens in every debate it's like right when it's time to transition to something else it's like the Crux so I I think I'm going to make a judgment call and just let's keep discussing because we are like this is a really important issue and we're just now getting to like the Crux of it so let's continue discussion for a little while and then we we have had a good amount of super chats that we're sent in so um are both of you able to stay a little bit longer yeah absolutely I'm free I've got I've got actually I've got my birthday party at five but that's like hours away happy birthday yeah yeah yeah okay um yeah let's do some more dialogue so there was a lot there that you laid on the table some of it was stuff you'd previously brought up some of it wasn't but you you continue to appeal to an argument from Silence based on uh post-apostolic data and number one arguments from Silence are notoriously weak unless you have a reason to expect that um that a subject is going to need basically must be addressed by a source and we don't have a reason why irenaeus would have to invoke the full exact Paradigm that I'm articulating especially when he didn't have the theological language to do that yet the situation is a little bit analogous to arguments that I've seen some not you I want to give you credit but I have seen some uh Protestant apologists say well look at when Jesus talked to the Samaritan to the Sadducees about the resurrection of the dead he appealed to scripture therefore solo scriptura is true and that's completely nonsensical because of course they recognize the authority of scripture so if he can settle the issue by appealing to that he doesn't need to appeal to say his own internal knowledge as the Divine Son of God of what of what happens in heaven and what's going to happen in the future he can settle it with what they share in common and in the same way irenaeus doesn't have to give a full orb description he's he's just doing the normal process that the magisterium continues to do today because he is a representative of the magisterium he's a bishop he's doing what the Majesty he's continuing to do what the magisterium does today which is appeal to scripture and appeal to tradition and reason our way through this so um so that's not a disproof of my position um one subject that we haven't even gotten into is the way in which we have knowledge of the Canon of scripture and it's clear now actually the precise boundaries of the Canon of scripture are not urgent for a person who uses the apostolic Paradigm because if there is a dispute the magisterium can clear it up so it's not urgent for for a person who uses the apostolic Paradigm to have a precise knowledge of the boundaries of scripture but it is urgent for someone who believes in Solo scriptura because if you accept even one book that is not inspired as authoritative for faith you've corrupted your deposit of faith and will draw erroneous conclusions similarly if you reject even one book that is divinely inspired you have truncated your depositive faith and will not be able to have doctrines that God wanted you to have certainly not with the same level of confidence consequently that's why the issue of the Canon of scripture became critical at the time of the Reformation because it was when the doctrine of solar scripture emerged prior to that time the church had not seen the need to infallibly Define it and it took it took centuries to work out by the early 4th Century you had as eusebius of caesarea describes you have certain books that everybody's confident of like the four gospels you have certain books that everybody is not is confident do not belong in scripture like uh the Canon of marcion and then you have other books that are kind of in the middle and some some Christians accept them and some don't and they were okay living with that ambiguity because they weren't using solo scriptura eventually by the end of the fourth Century you get a more definite New Testament Canon and on what basis did now and the way you got that was by acts of the magisterium you had local councils publishing Canon lists which they then sent to the pope for confirmation and then those authoritative catalysts were promulgated throughout Christendom so even though it wasn't infallible yet this was the magisterium developing the Canon of scripture and Discerning which books are genuinely inspired and which are not but on what basis did they discern that well it was tradition and it was tradition in two different ways the first way was did a book have a tradition of being read in the churches as scripture if a new book showed up out of nowhere and there was no tradition of it being read in the churches they would say that is not authoritative scripture there is no tradition of churches reading that secondly it was based on an internal Criterion of tradition where if if they read a book and let's say it had Gnostic teaching in it that disagreed with the doctrinal tradition that had been passed down from the apostles they would say this is also disqualified it disagrees with the doctrinal tradition that has been passed down and so we see the early magisterium using the Criterion of tradition both in terms of the reading of script of books as scripture in churches and of do they agree with the doctrinal tradition of the Apostles that was how we got the Canon of the New Testament and frankly the Canon of the Old Testament too so um we see the church authoritatively using tradition in that is not in Scripture because there's no divinely inspired table of contents using it centuries after the death of the last Apostle to authoritatively determine what books are we going to regard as authoritative and not only do we do that today Protestants do that because individual Protestants do not revisit the Canon of the New Testament not most of them they at some point in their lives whether it was in a Christian bookstore or as a Christmas present from someone or at some point in their life someone handed them a Bible and said this is scripture and they accepted it they literally had the Bible traditioned or handed on to them and accept the tradition that they received as authoritative even though there's no divinely inspired table of contents and so we see tradition being used as authoritative albeit without recognizing it for what it is in the Protestant Community as well as in the Catholic Community but once again without verses that demonstrate by good and necessary implication Sola scriptura Sola scriptura fails its own test and is thus a self-refuting Doctrine and no it is not because that relies on a very very specific and arguably that's a highly Evangelical definition of soloscriptor because even as the original Protestants of the Reformation recognize is that the Canon of scripture is something we do receive from the tradition and from the witness of the church even you'll see for example modern chemnitz himself in this section on the examination the Council of Trent in book two where he talks about the various meanings of tradition and how Roman apologists in his time are obfuscated references in uh for example the church fathers on what they mean by tradition and he lays out eight different definitions of that one of them I believe the second definition of tradition is the Canon of Holy Scripture and chemnitz himself will say that this tradition for this unbroken tradition we re from the witness of the church we do receive with respect to the Canon of scripture now the debate on the exact uh on what cayman's thought about the exact Canada scripture that's something issue is though Protestants in our defining of solar scriptura we didn't Define it as every single assertion is in scripture including including us certainly what everything that must be believed epistemically and that's part of the key issue here because there is as they would recognize and as classical Protestants recognize today there's a distinction between epistemic foundations Discerning that versus the doctrine of what what we must believe as Christians there is a distinction to that the question of the contents of divine revelation of the rule or rules of faith that is a prior question that we must discern first before and then once we get to that okay now that we have that question answered what must we believe to be safe these are actually distinct questions and so to to equivocate Soul scriptura as a Doctrine that's something that must be proven by word in scripture that's not actually how the reformers work they didn't conceive of Doctrine such a very wide and Technical thing as something that's believed or necessary but to believe epistemically because as we would all grant for example if we want to have such a wide view even the Majesty even the Roman magisterium or the three-legged all the full thing scripture regression magisterium it's not sufficient because the magisterium doesn't teach us how to use language for example how to discern that or um okay so I have I have refrained from going into the language argument because obviously in order to understand something like the word of God you have to speak the language in which it's expressed so I don't I don't go ha ha Greek dictionaries are needed therefore the similarly um and I wasn't saying you'd say that I was saying that as actually a point of agreement we both grant that in that extremely wide respect that we don't agree that the magisterium or any of our Traditions are sufficient in that sense of giving us all the necessary information and that's the issue though that solo scripture the Protestants did not claim that reform did not claim that the Canon of scripture was something that must be discerned from scripture alone because that is a that is if it's to be called a Doctrine it is of a different nature to that which must be believed by a Christian we would say for example um a Christian could be totally ignorant of the Canon of scripture they could or their entire knowledge of what is true could have been could be entirely sourced from let's say for example a missionary from America going to some obscure Amazonian tribe that has no access to Holy Scripture and yet we would still say that insofar as that missionary does accurately pass on the true faith that person does have a sufficient true and saving Faith because that is what is required what with respect to Doctrine versus epistemic foundations and that is why solar scripture is not required to establish what the Canon of scripture is within scripture itself because that is a Doctrine Doctrine or rather a belief more generically of a different nature too for example who is Christ what must I do or believe to be so okay so we're equivocating again with the difference between Doctrine in general and specifically salvific Doctrine so this could be a helpful point at which to like we already talked about the difference between soteriology and angelology for example they're both Doctrine but one of them is connected with salvation and one of them isn't uh this would be a good point to review the concept of Doctrine since you're drawing distinctions between them so the the fundamental meaning of the word Doctrine is a teaching and in the way the term has developed I mean doctrina in Latin means teaching and so the way the term is developed in theological use a Doctrine is something that is not just a teaching but one that is authoritative for Christians so that's a basic understanding of what Doctrine is it's an authoritative Christian teaching there are of course different types of doctrines like I alluded to satiriology the doctrine of salvation and angelology the doctrine of angels and um if you want to call it this canonology or the doctrine of what constitutes the Canon of scripture is another type of Doctrine you can draw all the different distinctions you want it sounds like what you were saying is that the reformers realized they could not possibly prove the doctrine of canonology from scripture alone and so they didn't try now there have been some later Protestants who have kind of tried but it really doesn't work as you acknowledge we have to rely on the church for this um what the reformers did do knowing that they could not prove canonology on the basis of scripture alone is many of them then said things like oh well the scriptures they wanted to get really high in spiritual oh the scriptures as the word of God are self-attesting it's like okay what does that mean because oh good I'm glad we found a point of agreement because if you mean it literally it would need to say this is scripture that self attestation you would need every book of scripture to say this is scripture Matthew says this is scripture Mark says this is scripture and they don't do that you can argue that a few of the books do things like that um but you certainly that's not going to give you the whole Canon furthermore you know what else says that the Book of Mormon and so merely self-attestation does not prove that the work is scripture and perhaps realizing problems with that they then tried to avoid uh embracing the churches uh for the Canon by saying things like oh well the Holy Spirit Witnesses through the words of scripture to us that this is genuinely scripture and of course that's nonsense too um because it's not like they're reading other books and saying hmm what is the holy spirit telling me about this book you know they're not doing it they're not doing a comparison between books in the Canon and books that aren't in the Canon they're really just accepting what they were told is in the Canon they're really accepting it on the basis of tradition and they're just saying this about the Holy Spirit um and you know who else does that Mormons that's the burning in the bosom so there are problems with this uh from a Christian perspective and basically here we have a recognition that at least for the this one type of Doctrine we can't prove it by Sola scriptura and we must accept it from the church and that is consistent with the apostolic paradigm and no case has been made for why Sola scriptura should be exempt from its own test so I would say it's a Doctrine no case has been made for why it should be exempt from its own test it's it's not exempt well okay I would say no I I don't I'm gonna try to be polite I would say no successful case has been made and I'd say you're wrong the exempt I mean well okay we have a disagreement there uh my magisterium that I'm right okay um however I think a lot of people would say this is a Doctrine it's a very important Doctrine it's considered the the formal principle of the Reformation if any Doctrine needs to be proved this one does and without versus proving that there's going to be a shift in the apostolic Paradigm it fails its own test well let's give Paul a chance to respond just briefly as brief as you can and then we do need to move to some q a yep and that's why I again I say and really raise the whole problem where uh Aiken hey you have to you inject your own definitions of what these things are versus what Protestants and particularly me because don't forget I'm trying to keep this focus on what you believe as well because I know there's other Roman Catholic who could say all sorts of absolute doozies which even you yourself would say you know that's kind of cringe but fundamentally this is focused on what's the position being given here and I classical Protestant including with the classical Protestants of time before me we do not have we do not consider solar scriptural and well specifically the Canon of scripture um with respect to how do we conceptualize it it is not a Doctrine like for example the deity of Christ is and once again you mentioned the authority of the church and authoritative tradition once again like 12 000th time in this in this debate I granted authoritative tradition is a thing because Authority authoritative is not the same as uh well it's not the same as infallibility but even to avoid that language it's not the same as something which is in itself by its nature binding the whole Authority as I would articulate as classical Protestants articulate it the authority of the church's witness uh to the Canada scripture is by the nature of how wide and richly connected it is historically going down to the apostles and we would have an even stronger case of that if we were living in the time of irenaeus for example because he could he would personally go he could personally go to a church and say hey yo joe what were what were what were the guys before uh your Bishop here teaching and all the way back to the apostles he's like oh I remember my Bishop was teaching this and he remembers this guy who knew an apostle and they were teaching this thing that's awesome that's great and that's why we Grant there is such a thing as authoritative tradition in that sense but that's not the same thing once again as the authority of the Apostles as the authority of prophets because fundamentally that's what the apostles were they were prophets they gave the very words of God in that sense of authoritative nothing else in terms of an office has been established post-apostles and and that's why I addressed that with the X15 count so it doesn't demonstrate your example what would demonstrate your example would be another Council where well fundamentally just the basic uh demonstration that Christ did establish an office with the power with the same uh inspired and inherently binding nature as the apostles themselves because rather what we see in scripture is they establish an office the bishop which has the power to teach has the authority to teach and also to convict the faithful and all that stuff and yet just as we wouldn't say that the authority of the state means that they have an inherent bindingness in themselves on the level of scripture or the words of God or our fathers because we can find extremely clear statements in Holy Scripture uh with respect to the authority of a husband for example like wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord for example and I would say if such a text if that text was said with respect to I don't know the pope or a specific bishop or a specific Council I'd never hear the end of it from Roman apologists that that's the problem though the equivocation of authority with the inherently binding and inspired nature of the of the Apostles and that's the problem ultimately because you can't simply just assume that oh look there is a magisterium there are teaching offices and they have authority therefore the Roman magisterium which claims to have an office that can in itself instantiate okay I'm teaching infallibly you must believe this or you're anathema rather than hey what I'm teaching here this is binding on you on the basis of that this was taught by the apostles and we can prove this by the preserved testimony of the Apostles via Holy Scripture that's the problem there's a lot of conceptual going all over the place with Aiken's case here where with equivocating authority and the inherent binding nature of Holy Scripture the teachings of the Apostles that's the biggest problem I have here and admittedly in this I haven't been as clear as I could be hopefully I was clear enough for people other people to see it um but that's the ultimate problem here and and frankly something that should be Revisited in order to really settle down say okay what do we mean by this what do we mean by that um but yes that's my ultimate problem the issue of just assuming this was the Paradigm the apostolic Paradigm and again this needs to be anchored to a real historical example and Aikens is the Roman magisterium we look at the apostolic Paradigm in the Holy scriptures the scripture tradition magisterium not the same thing as the Church of Rome today which claims to speak infallibly on pain of anathema that you must believe in for example the Assumption of Mary when it cannot demonstrate it with any close degree of certainty such as irenaeus who could trace teachings by living memory that's the problem so that was kind of a that was kind of a lot and I don't want to delay us getting to questions but I do have one no no no no I I responded to 90 of that already but you just introduced the word anathema and that word is anathematized and that word is widely misunderstood um what does it mean a curse let him be a nathma okay so what does that mean in terms of how is it used in when when when a church Council says anathema what do they mean when they say let him be anathema actually I would I would no no no so when a council would say at least as at least as far as my knowledge of Roman magisterium which admittedly not as encyclopedic as you for example but as I've understood it when the Roman count uh when the Roman Catholic or really just general ideas ecumenical councils when they give that it means that this person their teaching is condemned so if you do not repent of that you are condemned and liable to excommunication that's actually a much better explanation of what it means than most people because the way the term is often glossed in Protestant circles is damned by God and so the idea is this person is sentenced to hell but that's not what it means in church documents an anathema was was it doesn't exist anymore it was a form of excommunication and so it was only applied to Catholics because if you're not a Catholic you can't be excommunicated and it was simply saying this person is teaching something contrary to the Catholic faith and so they're there by excommunicated didn't imply they were damned didn't imply they were no certainly not with certainty uh didn't imply that all Protestants but this is widely misunderstood which is why I wanted to bring it up but that's all I wanted to say yep okay yeah let's move now to some q a and what we're gonna do is let's go yeah we've we've gone uh two hours already and we have looks like about 11 questions queued up so um what we're gonna try to do is be as quick as possible in responding to these questions because we do need to end the stream as I mentioned I think before we went live is that I just got done teaching a class with Dr Craig and that lasted about two and a half hours and so like my brain is fried it's time to go to bed so um we're gonna do this as quick as possible and then uh and then end the stream out so what I want to do is take about 60 seconds if you can each and respond to these questions so very succinct very succinct Paul I'm gonna have to ask you to be as succinct as possible and Jimmy uh I think I'm sorry it's just me being Australian in Lebanese okay well let's uh let's just do our best please and so all right so this one is let's start with a question from the knowable and here it is on the screen should we reconsider Sola scriptura as a credible Authority structure in light of the disparities between doctrinal developments since the Reformation so let's hand that over to Paul first and try to stick to about 60 seconds I'd say that that doesn't uh so what was the credible Authority I'd say that this wouldn't impute the uh the reliability or really the truth of Soul scriptura any more than the fact that there's multiple people claiming the authority of the magisterium of the Church of Christ today who make disagreeing claims or whatever there's people in all systems who are claiming the same Authority and yet come to wildly different conclusions you have Rome which claims to be the True Church of Christ that can in itself bind the faithful and teaching you have these and Orthodox who claim the same thing yeah the Mormons who claim the same thing so on and so forth um that doesn't demonstrate the uh the truth or the sorry the untruth of a thing at best it simply demonstrates the sinful effects of the fall on man the noetic effects of sin um because there's disagreements in all systems in all systems of authority and so um no I would not it wouldn't demonstrate that it wouldn't show um even in an implicit way that soul scriptura is not credible and I agree with other Paul um I uh I for me the fundamental case uh is the one I sketched out initially I made a positive case from scripture for the apostolic Paradigm and I conclude solo scriptura since it can't make its case from scripture alone it's false and nothing that has happened since the Reformation would lead me to revisit those conclusions so we agree for different reasons okay moving on question from Ray Franco Paul when Anglican Bishops and Priests convert to Catholicism do you still consider them brothers in Christ assuming of course they believe what the Catholic Church teaches if they fully affirmed the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church consciously such as the uh the claims of the Council of Trent then no I don't any follow-up Jimmy um well um I I I've I view other Paul as a fellow Christian despite the fact he rejects um uh numerous Catholic teachings um my understanding of what a Christian is is it's a person who has been validly baptized and professes faith in Christ you can have Christians who have different degrees of adherence to Doctrine um but fundamentally a baptized believer is a Christian and consequently uh I I don't see that as I I I regret doctrinal differences but it's not material to are you a Christian or not in my view or in the Catholic Church's View all right from Edgar Wrangle question for Jimmy by what standard are Unwritten slash oral Traditions true for your tradition in the midst of different Apostolic Traditions how does your epistemology not become circular okay so um the there really is only one set of authoritative Apostolic Traditions the question is how to distinguish those Traditions from other human Traditions that surround them and it's the magisterium's job to sort that out just like originally there was a set of apostolic scriptures that were embedded in a wider body of scriptures that were written by gnostics and other people and the magisterium eventually exercised its judgment to discern which which scriptures were genuinely Apostolic and which were not in the same way over the course of time the church exercises its uh uh magisterium to discern which Traditions are genuinely Apostolic and which are not so it's same as with the Canon of scripture in fact I wrote a paper a while back called the two canons scripture and tradition in both cases the magisterium as the authoritative interpreter of scripture differentiates what's genuinely Apostolic from what's not Apostolic any thoughts Paul um pretty much just what I was saying earlier um that there is such a thing as an authoritative witness in the church with respect to um what is true what is not but ultimately the only certain in itself binding witness to such truth is from that which has been preserved of the statements of the sayings of the Apostles and of God which is in Holy Scripture all right let's move on to a question from mango Bingo Paul can you cite at least one verse proving solo scriptura yes uh man should not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God no other such or quality of in inherent binding and infallibility is given to anything but the word of God and the only words of God we have preserved for us is in written scripture which does not mean that there can't be authoritative witnesses to such outside of Holy Scripture but that the only in itself binding standard is in Scripture foreign and I covered that earlier um it given the context in which that verse is given oral tradition was still binding on the ancient Israelites so this proves this verse proves uh that the word of God is authoritative but it doesn't prove how it comes to us in the present age or whether there is anyone who's competent to give an authentic interpretation of it so it's simply diverse under determines the doctrine of Soul of scriptura it does not prove it right from La Fe de la Iglesia for most church history the predominant illiteracy and the huge cost of acquiring a Bible render Sola scriptura unworkable until around the 1800s so there's no question here but uh any thoughts on this Paul we'll start with you yeah so first of all I'd say that's not true because it assumes that that soul scriptura asserts that every single individual needs access to scripture in order to have reliable understanding and to know the truth of God which again I even brought up the example of preachers going to an Amazonian tribe that's not true people are competent especially people who are appointed to the office of a teacher or overseer what have you to expound the word of God even if they don't use the very word the exact words of God themselves but second there's also the problem that actually in the early church even for people who are illiterate the scriptures were read quite frequently you can see this in for example Justin March's own first apology uh where he describes how in the service the scriptures that is the the oracles the prophets and the Memoirs of the apostles were read for as long as time permits and so that is actually part of what spurred a lot in the ancient Church uh the wide practice of people memorizing scripture themselves something which I personally love to bring back especially for myself um so no it's based on some false on some false presumptions there foreign to is an argument that I actually pioneered I didn't bring it up today because it's a second order argument rather than a first order argument um I you can read about it if you want in a somewhat more nuanced form certainly more nuanced than what other Paul just articulated but you may not be familiar with it um in a paper I wrote called the Practical problems of solo scriptura it's an older version of the argument but it's on my website Jimmy aiken.com I wrote a somewhat I've also wrote about written about it in Catholic answers Magazine and there is a more recent version of the argument in my book uh the Bible is a Catholic book so you might want to check that out where I also lay out the arguments I went through today in more detail um but fundamentally there is no way that an illiterate peasant in the second century would be able to memorize all of the relevant scriptures and apply Sola scriptura for himself the real thing that allowed solo scripture to become thinkable historically was the invention of the printing press in the 1400s that's why you don't have articulations of Sola scriptura prior to the printing press it's in the first generation after the printing press in the early 1500s that you have a bunch of well-off dilettants who had Leisure Time set getting excited and saying hey we could give a Bible to everyone and they could read it for themselves and decide their own Doctrine that's why School of scriptura came up when it did all right let's move to a question from cranman photo Cinema Jimmy what's the difference between the infallibility of the Apostles and the magisterium if it's the same then why doesn't the latter give revelation so um infallibility and inspiration which we can gloss is the same thing as public Revelation um are two different gifts uh in all infallibility is is a protection from teaching error whereas inspiration is giving new content from God whether or not the the same information has been given before if God is inspiring me and giving me Revelation that is new information in the sense that it is a new communication from God and uh the gift of inspiration which was one that uh was operative in the apostolic age it was not limited to the apostles there were other people who got public Revelation like Mark for example and Luke neither one of them were Apostles but they were divinely inspired and their gospels are God's word so um you didn't have to be an apostle to be inspired what changed at the end of the apostolic age was that public Revelation ceased but that doesn't mean that everything else ceased so um God wanted his people to have uh confidence in the teaching Authority he granted and so even though public Revelation seized the authority of the teaching Authority that enabled them to exercise the church's charism of infallibility continued all right Paul um let me read that again I mean what's the difference between public serum if the same wasn't given well that's that's kind of that's kind of the issue I bring up because the infallibility of the Apostles throughout scripture where they are infallible is fundamentally pegged to their ability of divine inspiration I'm not granting that in theory they couldn't be uh something as God saying okay the apostles are inspired and thus they're inherently binding and infallible and that's why again I'd like to avoid the language even though because Jimmy's right when he says earlier that infallibility as a word and as a concept was mostly brought about later on um although it is present in Holy scripture in the witness of God's word um and so I'm not against that in theory the only issue is where is that detached that's the problem and of course Jimmy Aiken brings up the example of Luke and Mark which true there's those those works are inspired but they're not by Apostles but where I would say that they're uh where their infallibility comes from is by what I would probably call like a Divine Fiat because I believe for example example we have poll uh citing Timothy as scripture in sorry not Timothy citing Luke as scripture in one of his letters to Timothy and thus by extension giving that Apostolic like stamp of approval as hey this is inspired this is revelation um and even then I as a charismatic I'm a charismatic myself I don't think I mentioned that before um I do believe in ongoing prophecy and Revelation not in the same way as the apostles though because their role was in uh was to establish a norm over the whole church um what's important is that there was the apostolic affirmation the stamp of approval so to speak on the inspiration of otherwise non-apistolic written books and it's the same with Mark because according to the ancient testimony of the church particularly for example of papias of hierapolis Mark was in fact just the teachings and the account of Peter uh written down by Mark as a scribe and so I would say that in a derivative sense Mark and Luke are inspired um and that's how we can show that all right from cactoy Jim he says Paul you stated in your opening that Schism is in fact sin doesn't Schism imply that there must be a real and singular Authority which is both visible and able to discipline believers I'd say no it doesn't it does require that there is such a thing as a real visible Church real visible body or churches if you will which I 100 affirm that the body of Christ is real it is visible it is concrete and so when you are in the legitimate Community the body of Christ with the body of Believers with the right authorities of the Bishops and so on and so forth if you start causing a ruckus for no good cause and the standards of that are extremely extremely high when one is able to start questioning things um if you start causing a ruckus and start to pull people away then normatively yes that is a sin uh because there is a real Christian Community where you are so uh the all that requires is that there is a solid local community visibly identifiable it doesn't require that there is a single authority over the entire church that can bind them to certain teachings that's a very different discussion Jimmy so um the term Schism has a technical meaning in uh Catholic canon law which is um I don't think what Cactus cactoid Jim is asking about um in so I'm trying to reframe it in my mind in terms of how would I approach this without that uh Paul does use the word schismo in the New Testament but what he means is something like factionalism and for that I would say you don't even need a visible church if you have like it doesn't matter if uh if he's writing to the Corinthians and he says you've got factions or schisms among you um and that's sinful he's portraying it as a bad thing um you don't even need a formal membership roster in the First Corinthian Church it could just be an informal Gathering of people and you can still have factions without a formal membership list so um I don't don't I don't know that I would see even a local visible institution as necessary for schisms in the um in the sense that Paul means it certainly um you do need a visible Authority for the technical meaning that Schism has in Catholic theology which is submission refusal of submission to the Roman pontiff or refusal of communion with those who are in Union with him um but that presupposes a Catholic point of view whether there's a middle understanding of schism and there probably is uh it might require an Institutional Authority but that might only be a local one like a local bishop and the church he oversees but I'd have to think more about it okay let's move on to another question from cranman photo Cinema Jimmy is the apostolic magisterium identical to the Roman magisterium in every way shape and form if not then aren't you equivocate equivocating between them so it depends on how you're using the term Apostolic magisterium uh if you mean the magisterium that is that dates from the apostolic age I would say it's the same magisterium but it has um different members today obviously it operates under you know different procedural rules uh because there was a shift when the apostles passed from the scene and they handed over their office to the Bishops so whereas in the apostolic age the teaching Authority was principally vested in the apostles and today the teaching Authority is vested in the Bishops so it's it is different in that way but it is um essentially the same teaching Authority that Christ gave his church it's just changed in who exercises it because it was Christ's will that this change take place Paul uh yeah absolutely not and I think that was a key demonstration in this debate um of the massive equivocation between the apostolic Paradigm uh with what Jimmy ultimately had to demonstrate was the Roman Paradigm which is vastly vastly a different matter um and whether it be from what we discussed in Holy Scripture or with our brief asides on irenaeus I don't think he came even close to demonstrating that and so no it's not identical like in key key areas where it must be okay examine truth says Saint Mark's gospel is inspired scripture and to be included in the church's Canon is this infallible what is the infallible source of this teaching looks like a a quote who's first I think the question is for you I'm not sure Paul probably well if buying fallible Source there's different senses you can take that if buy infallible Source like you mean what's its infallible Foundation that would be the fact that it's inspired that Mark in itself is scripture regardless of who believes it or who doesn't even if absolutely nobody knew of the Gospel of Mark it was just some big Papyrus scroll buried under the sand for 2000 years it would still be inspired by its very nature but as through the infallible source of the teaching that mass gospel is scripture then I'd simply say that well no no office has been given after the apostles this charism of infallibility which is not the same thing as good certain and authoritative witness um so that's what I would say we have good authoritative witness that a demonstrable authoritative witness that Mark's gospel is scripture I'm not infallible yeah so uh speaking from a Catholic perspective uh Mark is intrinsically authoritative because it is inspired by God in terms of how we and the church has infallibly taught that it infallibly taught that at the Council of Trent and so Trent is the um infallible witness to the intrinsic Authority that Mark's gospel has by virtue of its inspiration all right uh moving on we've only got time for two more questions this one's from Mike Q I know I know I'm I guys I am so out of it oh no you're you're doing yeoman's work I mean you you right I feel yeah so give you give you your props two more questions Mike q922 curious what part of the catechism calls Protestant separated brethren Cameron good meeting you at HBU Mike who I mean wait now I want to know I don't remember a mic and that's probably just I don't know uh well it's good to meet you too I don't know I don't remember which which person it was but uh okay uh let's get back to the question so who who is this for um well it's a uh it's a catechism question so I guess I should probably field it um and I'm doing a quick search so where the catechism is not the only expression of the magisterium um I I'm doing a search to see if the catechism uses that phrase um and I don't believe it does it doesn't look like it does however what does is the second Vatican Council uh the terminology of separated brethren was introduced um in the second Vatican Council uh in preference to terms like heretic um and schismatic because the church realizes that heresy and Schism are well they're canonical crimes but they're also sins and you can't accuse someone who grew up in a community of committing them as sins you know if they if someone was just born a Lutheran and raised a Lutheran they're not guilty of rejecting Catholic truth in the way someone who had been raised an educated Catholic was and so it's not fair to call them heretic and so the alternative terminology of separated brethren was introduced to describe other Christians who are separated from the Catholic church but who are presumed to be in good faith in their own traditions hmm and for my answer to this I think I'll actually take it as an opportunity to clarify something I said earlier um which in hindsight really bad the way I said it when there was the question of uh do I consider a Roman Catholic someone who converts and they fully believe it as a brother in Christ and I said no and in a sense that is true but I do affirm I do submit to the teaching uh of my superiors with respect to the Anglican church and the Anglican Sydney Anglican archdiocese that baptism is our entrance into the church and so in that basic respect um I'll say yes that we are brothers in Christ in that basic sense by our baptism but in the sense that we are in communion with each other that we truly are living according to God's precepts um and well in in that in that basic sense in that important necessary practical sense we're not brothers in Christ so that's apologies for that uh very confusing language but that's that's what I'd say all right last question a for Jesus since Rome allows for both partum partum and material sufficiency isn't this a tacit admission that Rome doesn't know how doctrines are grounded doctrines come first rationale comes later no I wouldn't say that um the there are different degrees with which one can analyze a question and this is true of any issue in theology um Christians have had a sense from the beginning that uh we're Bound by the teachings of the Apostles but exactly how are those expressed and exactly what are the limits that's something that it took a while to discern just like it took a while to discern the boundaries of the Canon I wouldn't say just because someone in the mid 300s was uncertain about exactly what books belong in Scripture that they didn't know anything about the Canon they certainly knew that Genesis is in the Canon they certainly knew that Matthew was in the Canon they might have some doubts on other points in the same way the issue of is all of tradition found also at least implicitly in scripture or is some of it not um that's a that's a rather subtle question and it's one that hasn't been fully sorted out but just because this subtle subsidiary question hasn't been sorted out to this to date doesn't mean the church has no idea of how we form Doctrine it knows that tradition has an authoritative role what we're considering here is exactly how much of tradition is also implied or stated in scripture just like we can know that the Bible is authoritative and still consider you know what exactly belongs in the Bible foreign ly agree with that I think that really does go to show the fact that this is such an open question that it really does show that this uh this Roman conception of authority really is something that's evolved because they can't answer such a basic question as whether um whether uh well basically that pardon pardon versus material sufficiency whether the scriptures are materially sufficient for Doctrine which I personally think is a very incoherent like nonsensical position to begin with um or whether this Revelation is partially preserved in scripture partially in Tradition or some other mode because I think I remember in that same open Forum I referenced Jimmy you you framed it the way you view it as there's the wide Venn diagram of scripture sorry of tradition and scripture is a smaller Circle within that rather than two circles that kind of overlap if I'm remembering correctly um but yeah I personally think the fact that this question hasn't even got an answer to it yet um that raises some eyebrows about Rome's certainty for their own claims okay that is gonna do it for us tonight and uh I just want to say as we kind of close it out I I just appreciate both of you and I know that you both put time and effort into preparing for this debate or you don't want to if you don't want to call a debate we don't have to we let's board formal discussion it was it was mostly a discussion discussion who cares yeah it's very informal yeah and uh I I thought it was uh it was very good there were some some good back and forth so I just wanted to say thank thanks thanks to both you guys I hope this was kind of enlightening uh for your own discernment of these issues I hope I at least did a decent job as decent as I could have um in my own position and I just wanted to thank Cameron for hosting as well for bringing us both on and thank you other Paul for the exchange it was nice to make your acquaintance mate likewise this is awesome honestly I wouldn't mind even doing this again one time on whatever platform because yeah this is great it was true it was true to my own Heritage of a nice like I and I do genuinely characterize as a blood sport because we're going back and forth and saying hang on let me talk oh no let me talk and this really engaged my Lebanese side and I thank you for that Jimmy well uh let's see if I can pronounce it the um the Lebanese way but uh oh well or in Lebanese yeah personally not much unfortunately I don't even know I don't even know my mother tongue well I know Biblical Hebrew Latin and ancient Greek better than I do my own Arabic mother tongue but I only just know the normal way normally only used by uh Muslims that's all the Hebrew way Shalom alaikum but yeah right back at you okay all right guys well uh well that's gonna do it for us tonight thank you guys for watching as always like really let us know what you think about this debate in the comments and uh yeah I mean I think that's pretty much it thank you guys for tuning in we'll see you later hey it's me again uh actually don't leave yet I've got something super super important to tell you so first of all you're awesome like you you just watched a really really long video just now and you're still watching it that is actually pretty amazing secondly we have hundreds literally hundreds of other apologetics related videos for you to watch on our Channel go check them out I've interviewed Exorcist hosted debates between Christians and atheists I've even made response videos to atheists all of that is available on our Channel go check it out third I rely on people that see value in my work people like you that watch videos to the very end to keep the lights on around here literally this is how I feed my family so if you see value in the work that I do please consider supporting this ministry and becoming a patron links to that are in the description oh and uh

Channel: Capturing Christianity

Views: 30,390

Keywords: capturing christianity, cameron bertuzzi, apologetics, god, atheism, existence of god

Id: wcI7k7xXuMs

Length: 148min 51sec (8931 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 28 2022