Transcription
So today we're going to be doing a little bit different of a video. We're going to be reacting to a response from a messenger of truth to one of my original videos titled a simple logical proof that destroys solos script shur. It was basically a video where I went kind of step by step through some logical flaws with solos script shur and he made a reaction video to my original video. And so today I'm just going to be going through his claims and responding and showing kind of why he's wrong. This is not a personal attack on him. It's just simply meant for us as Christians to seek the truth and by extension seek Jesus Christ. And so, yeah, we're going to be going through today and reacting to his video on me. Let's just get right into it.
>> I was sent this video today to react to. So, let's check it out.
>> It was one of the core theological ideas put forward by Martin Luther during the Reformation >> and the countless people that came before him that were either, you know, persecuted by the one true church and slaughtered and early church fathers like Athanasius, for example.
Okay, so right here he um he cites the church fathers as someone who supports solos scriptura, but I made a previous video actually kind of following up this first one basically going through five of the church fathers and showing how some of them actually did not support solar scripture and kind of the need for a unified body of Christ, unified church to stomp out heresies, right? So St. in against heresies for example he calls out the gnostics who are like these people that are basically going around and taking scripture and then saying hey it says this one thing when in actuality it doesn't and so St. uh Eryaeus basically says, "Hey, like we actually need to listen to these people who come from the apostles. We need to listen to them and listen to their interpretation of scripture because these other guys who are kind of running around, they're misleading people into their own interpretations of scripture." So, um that's one example of St. Erenus.
So, there's a saint called St. Ignatius of Antioch and he was born in 35 AD, which means he was literally there right as the early church was getting started. So sending issues of Antioch basically in his seven epistles says basically the same thing. He says, "Hey, like you need to be listening to your bishop." He explicitly calls out the bishops and deacons and kind of this already early church formation that was going on that was basically kind of coalescing to fight against these early heretics who could take scripture and then kind of twist the words, right, and and use them against people. So the idea that the church fathers even supported soul scripture is just patently false. and the there actually was a lot of a need for a unified body. I mean, even St. Paul, right, St. Paul is going around within the first, you know, 100 years, there's already a ton of people that are just completely completely just saying nonsense, right? They're just And so he's going around, his entire mission basically is going around saying, "Hey, you guys, like you need to like get in shape. You need to check yourselves." and um because people already so early on are falling into heresy, right? So, um let's continue.
Teaches that the Bible is the sole supreme and infallible authority for Christian belief and practice. In other words, no other source, not church leaders, not tradition can make a claim that is infallible. Therefore, source I've never heard anyone say this in my life. Honestly, this is the first time I'm hearing of this. 2+ 2 is four. That's an infallible statement made by me.
Okay. So, right here I I I assume he's just confused, but basically in the sentence before I explicitly say it is regarding Christian belief and practice, right? So, this idea that when I rewarded it and I was just kind of explaining it more, I said, "Oh, well, no infallible truth can come from anywhere except the Bible. I'm clearly talking about Christian belief and practice." So, I think this maybe he just misheard me, but it has nothing to do with math. Um I I made that very clear in in the previous sentence. So the infallibility is simply just referring to Christian belief in practice uh when I'm defining solos scriptura.
Cool. Jesus is God. That's an infallible statement. Repent and believe the good news. You should repent and believe the good news. That's an infallible statement.
Okay. So even by his own logic right here, if he if we're being like extremely pedantic, right? We say Jesus is God. Technically that is not part of the Bible. It doesn't say that explicitly with those three words verbatim. Right? Now, we can look to John chapter 1. In the beginning was the word. We can see I and the father are one. Right? We can see all these things. But we have to use reason to look at these pieces of scripture and basically make that judgment, right? We can say, "Oh, okay. So Jesus is saying the word was with God and the word was God." Then he's referring to himself when when he's talking about him and the father are one. Um even in John chapter 20 when uh Thomas says to Jesus my Lord my God right Jesus accepts that. So the idea that this is explicitly found in the Bible right is not true. Now granted, we can look and see other passages and use our reason to form this. Even you look at people um or excuse me denominations such as let's say the Mormons right who will say something like well Jesus was a god but like they have u multiple gods and there's like and and I'm not super well verssed on Mormon theology so but there are people who use the Bible who in their religion and their denominations and they still will say things like well Jesus they reject the triune God right and so and again even with something like the trinity right the trinity is never explicitly mentioned in the Bible anywhere you can look for it. That term will not be used. But because we use reason to look at the way that Jesus is interacting and the things he says with people, we can say, "Oh, he is he and God the Father and the Holy Spirit are all three distinct persons who share one divine essence." Right? That is the essential doctrine of the Trinity. But nowhere in the Bible does it say the Trinity. Now granted, can we look at that and and reason that and make that position? Yes, I think most Protestants would agree that the Trinity is real. Um I guess by definition, if you reject the triune God, you're not a Christian. But um this idea that it has to explicitly only be in scripture to make it infallible, I think he honestly even agrees with, right? He's even agreeing with me that saying, hey, um Jesus is God is an infallible statement. I agree with that. But the issue is by his own logic it doesn't explicitly say that you have to use some other type of interpretation to pull that out and reason with that. Right? So let's uh let's continue.
Solos scriptor does not say that other people can't make infallible statements. It simply recognizes that human beings are sinful people. They suppress the truth and unrighteousness naturally and so we can't trust them to always be infallible. But who can we trust to always be infallible? God. Cuz he's perfect. And so his scriptures, his word, that's what the Bible says his word is. Jesus affirmed that the scriptures are God speaking to us today. And so the essence of solos scriptor is simply this. God is infallible and we're not. All right? That doesn't mean
All right. So I I agree with with what he said. God is infallible. Period. Like end of story, full stop. I agree with that. um the issue is the the sole aspect of the of what he's saying, right? So he's saying that anything that is without that is not directly inside the Bible is open to to error, right? And and by his own logic by even saying Jesus is in Jesus's God is infallible, that is I I agree with that. I I agree with that. But it's not explicitly in the Bible. So this idea that like no other knowledge, no other infallible knowledge can come from anywhere unless it is directly stated in the Bible. There already is some type of interpretation, some type of reason that applies outside that will allow us to interpret the the Bible and make statements of truth, right? And so he's kind of actually agreeing with me. I think I think he would agree with me that there is some type of interpretation but the the idea that something has to be explicitly in the Bible is is uh to be true is clearly not
that I can't agree with God on some things and make infallible statements like God has because I derive that authority from God. If there's any church tradition or council that's correct, it's because they have derived that correctness from God. And when it comes to us knowing what's correct and what's not correct in any council, right? If I go over to the Mormon temple over here and they hold a council, am I supposed to just take their word for it? We're the one true church. That's what they say. No, I check it with scripture. Scripture is the ultimate authority. It's God speaking.
If I can log So, okay, so logically here what he's doing is he's trying to say something to the effect of, oh well, if there are multiple true churches, right? If there are multiple people who are claiming to be true churches, then he's conflating. He's kind of insinuating that, well, there can't be anything, right? Cuz they're all claiming to be the true church. Just because someone says, let's say five people say I'm the president, that doesn't mean that one of them is not the president. There can only be one president, but just because everyone's making claims to it does not invalidate the idea that there could still only be one. Um, so yeah, I mean, the Mormons are not the true church. their theology is flawed. But at the same time, that does not by extension invalidate any Catholic claim to have authority and to be the one true church. Ally prove to you that there exists at least one other source which must be supreme and infallible, then solos scriptura cannot be true. And to clarify the solar scripture stance, it does still mean that there can still be useful knowledge from church tradition or theology, but ultimately only the Bible can make statements that are
again just the phrasing here is presupposing solos scriptor is false. There is no such knowledge that comes from church tradition. No, knowledge only comes from God. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
Okay, so right here um I do fundamentally disagree with what he said. So like for context, the Bible is part of tradition, right? There is no like, oh well, and maybe I could have been more clear in my video with kind of the way the circles are drawn, the the way the ven diagram kind of display, but essentially the Bible is part of tradition, right? Tradition gave us the Bible. So like when he says if if I go back, right, he says
the biblical epist and to clarify the solos scriptor is false. There is no such knowledge that comes from church tradition. No, knowledge only comes from God. So the the idea, right, that there is no knowledge that comes from tradition, that's just patently false. The the Bible itself came from tradition, which was which came from God, right? It came from God speaking through prophets and and the church and then everyone acknowledging what is scripture and what isn't scripture. So this this idea that they're somehow at odds with each other is just not true.
Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. The biblical epistemology says we only know by what God has revealed. Either in general revelation, something that's innate to our minds like the moral law, you shall not steal. Everybody already knows that. Or of course in special revelation, the scriptures or the prophets, right? And the point is simply that God speaking in scripture is not the same as your claim that God is speaking in other places as well.
So, okay. So his he's basically making the claim that God speaking in scripture is not the same as me saying somewhere else that God is speaking. But the problem is is what we're about to go into with the video, which is that the divinely inspired table of contents of the Bible is not in the Bible. Right? So you have to inherently rely on some other method outside the Bible to self-justify why the the Bible is the way it is. By definition, scripture cannot justify its own epistemological certainty. Right? It can be ontologically true, but the epistemology, the reason why we actually can justify and say, "Hey, it's true," cannot come from within itself. That that is how um that is how epistemology works. You can't have this circular reasoning here as well.
That means only the books included in the Bible can be said with certainty to be the divinely inspired word of God. Everything else is open to error and interpretation. Again, if you give me a test of basic theology, is Jesus God? Did Jesus die for our sins? I would be able to infallibly answer every question on that quiz. But me as a person, you can't look to me as your ultimate authority because I am not infallible. Redeem Zoomer makes the exact same mistake. They are equivocating on the person being infallible and the text or the propositions being infallible. But let's continue.
Okay. So, right here again, we're going to go back to kind of the ontology versus epistemology approach here, right? So he is basically so I I will agree with him that if you read a piece of scripture the ontological truth of it can be true but if you're like interpreting it and you're reading it and you're saying hey like what can we get what knowledge can we derive from this piece of scripture you don't really have any way to justify this and you can see this even so like this idea that Protestants are somehow unified on their interpretation of the Bible right something very critical is baptism right so like take for example baptism this idea that hey should you be physically you know washed with water in order to receive salvation? Now there are lots and lots of Protestants out there who will say something like no like you don't need to or yes you do need to right and so this is a very important concept something that's very fundamental to the faith and Protestants can't even agree on that despite having the same exact scripture right so this like this idea that like oh well the Bible is is self-evident it attests to itself it it it it gives the truth and it's very clear and crystal clear and cut is is not true right we can see disagreements ments among each other. We can see disagreements obviously between Catholics and Protestants on even the composition of the Bible. So the on the ontology is not certain and the epistemology here the the why we can say something is true is the issue right the the ontology or excuse me I guess the ontology of the Bible is true but then um how we know it's true the Protestants don't have a very good reason why whereas the Catholics through the authority given by Jesus um which we'll get into later does simply going to prove that the Bible alone own cannot be the only supreme and infallible authority over Christians by showing that there must exist at least one other source which is both infallible and supreme.
Again, it's like people who deny soul scriptura, they don't speak English very well. What does supreme mean of authority or an office or someone holding to it superior to all others? You can't have multiple supreme authorities. It doesn't make any sense. It's incoherent. This is so I don't know why the idea that me refuting solos scripture is somehow connected to my inability to um to speak English but I do clarify the definition of supreme later on. So yeah we'll just continue and um we'll just kind of go through this part of the highest authority but this one is as well.
When we say something is supreme we mean its authority stands above all other sources. If two sources conflict, the supreme source is the one that determines the truth. In other words, when a contradiction arises, the supreme authority overrides anything beneath it. Next, when we say something is infallible, we mean it can't.
So, he understands the definition of supreme, but is trying to say that there could be multiple. I guess he just missed that entirely. I don't know.
Okay. So, this is kind of what I was saying earlier, right, with the idea that the Bible is technically a part of tradition, right? It's not mutually exclusive. tradition isn't like these random things that we kind of just believe and they're completely outside the Bible. Everything, the entire tradition of the Catholic Church is built on the Bible. Nothing the Catholic Church says will contradict the Bible. Now, I know that's probably already going to be a hot take and some Protestants are going to get mad at me by even saying that. In the case of, let's say, confession, for example, um you might look it up. You might say, "Hey, like why does the Catholic Church believe that you have to confess your sins to a priest?" and they'll say, "Oh, well, in John 20 23, Jesus explicitly says to the disciples, he says,"If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." Right? Now, we can go back and forth on kind of the what that means and like how to interpret that, but the point here is that everything the Catholic Church teaches does line up with the Bible and is supported by scripture. It will never contradict it, right? It will never ever contradict it. So um yeah so that and and tradition is Bible the Bible is a part of tradition right the Bible is something that tradition gave us but tradition is a holistic umbrella that holds a lot of different things right it's not just like this mutually exclusive um one and the other right and and maybe in my first video I could make that more clear but the point still stands that the Bible is a part of tradition tradition gave us the Bible so wrong. Not just that it isn't wrong, but that it can't possibly be. This means
once again, this distinction is completely useless. 2+ 2 is 4. That's true. Well, if something is true, it can't be false. Okay, I've never understood this
fallible swords can. So, to clarify what I'm saying here, right? Like 2 + 2= 4 is ontologically very obvious and true, but the epistemology behind math and why it works is not true. Or it's not, excuse me, it's not obvious, right? We can't justify with a high degree of certainty why 2 plus 2 equals 4. And so in that same vein, it is very difficult to assert the 66 book canon of the Protestants in with a degree of certainty that is comparable to saying 2 plus 2 equals 4 and ontological certainty. Right? That's the issue. And I would agree that you know let's say the the gospel of John is infallible. We would agree on that. But the issue is that it's harder for a Protestant to justify why they believe it's correct because they don't really have any way outside of scripture to confirm it. And they and so they constantly arrive at contradictory claims. You can see this with Catholics and Protestants with the canonical list of texts, but you can even see this within Protestantism like the necess necessity of baptism only contain infallible truths. Conversely, a fallible source can produce fallible truth, which is a fancy way of saying that something prone to error can mess up.
Cool. Humans are fallible. The church is fallible. The church needs to be saved from her sins. That's why Jesus died for her. And so, the church should submit to God who is infallible, right? Case closed.
This means I mean, we agree with that. I agree with that. The church should submit to God. No uh no disagreement there. that it is not possible for a fallible source to also produce an infallible truth.
Again, I am fallible. I am a person. But I can also know true things and infallibly state that 2 plus 2 is four and Jesus is God and he died for my sins and God loves me. Okay, these are all infallibly true. These can't be wrong because they come from scripture. I have to go over this even with atheists.
Okay. So, so here's the thing, right? So ontologically speaking, yes, those statements are true. But epistemologically, you cannot justify, there is not a good way to justify with certainty why the 66 book cannon of the Protestant Bible is more correct or or is the true, let's say, version of the Bible than the Catholic one, right? That's that's the issue here because I agree everything in the Protestant Bible is true. It's ontologically true. But their justification for why each piece of scripture is part of the Bible is not is not justifiable. Because if the Holy Spirit were to reveal itself obviously reveal the truth of the Bible obviously in the same way that we can obviously say 2+ 2= 4 to Christians, we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place. And it's not like we are this is some minor like 1% of of of Catholics and 99% Protestant like completely most Christians agree on this. It's not even that's not even true, right? There's more Catholics in the world than Protestants. So like and it's like 5545 or something like that. So like this idea it might even be higher actually. I'd have to double check. But this idea that like oh well, it's obvious like the Holy Spirit will reveal this to us. It's not right. It's not as obvious as 2 plus 2 equals 4. I'm sorry, it's not. Or else we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place. It's
because they're so dead set on this very idea that we are fallible. We cannot produce infallible truth. We can't know anything for certain. You know, we all should be agnostic. That's the true humble position. We can't know this huge god in the universe. Even if he does exist, how can we know him for sure? Well, again, we're not the source of truth. The Bible doesn't say that we gain truth by ourselves cuz obviously we're fallible. We gain knowledge by the fear of the Lord. He reveals truth to us in his word and we trust him.
Okay, so this is actually exactly my point, right? So he actually kind of agrees with me on this. Um we just need to take a look at this graph, right? So he actually agrees like we are agree agreeing that the cartisian view of the world, right? This idea that each person I think therefore I am and that each person will has to ascertain certain truths. It's on the individual. The individual is the only real reality. everything outside of the individual could be an illusion or a hallucination or whatever. I actually agree with that. And so that's what this graph is representing, right? The arrow is coming from the fallible person and it's depositing it's it's ascertaining the infallibility of reality. Now the correct way the correct way this graph should be which is what he described which is what it's more of a platonic or Christian worldview is this idea that reality is objective and each source is trying to interpret the reality and trying to um receive the revelation receive the the knowledge of God receive the truth and interpret it them themselves but the there is an objective reality to this world and to the existence that we live in and so I he would agree with my previous drawing where um or excuse me, it wasn't a previous drawing. He would agree with my with a graph that would say, hey, like no, the the actual the way that this truth is flowing is from the infallibility of God, the revelation given to the humans, the the fallible humans, right? That is the that is the point and we agree with this. So I again there there's a nuance here but I think it's very important to understand is that we agree that fallible sources cannot produce infallible truths because that is fundamentally a cartisian way of viewing the world. It is not a Christian way of viewing the world with the objective reality that is real and exists.
All right
by definition. However, if something is not capable of error or infallible then that means everything it claims must be true. Thus, if the Bible is infallible, we can say with confidence things like Christ rose from the dead, lying is a sin, or we need God's grace. And a quick side note, some may object.
Yeah. And so those are infallible statements. I can make those infallible statements as well, but not because I'm God or I wrote the Bible. Because God inspired the scriptures and he's omniscient. He can't be wrong, right? He's the source of all knowledge.
So, okay. So, again, right here, it is funny for context. When I was making that graphic of those three truth statements, I was trying to find things that every Christian would agree on. And that was actually a lot harder than you might think. Even though we all have the same Bible, there were a lot of things where I was like, "Ah, well, I guess you know, these this very specific group, like for example, baptism saves, these specific groups of people wouldn't agree with us." So, this this idea that like all of knowledge we can just get from the Bible and it's just this easy like, "Oh, we all can agree on it. It's true. it's done done deal is not it's not the case right we can see that there are constantly denominations fracturing you see this within Protestantism fracturing and fracturing of different different agreements and and different conflictions between what the actual truth is how do we actually interpret the Bible because you can get extremely heretical things like if you see the resurrection of Christ as something that was let's say metaphorical right that completely shatters the entire Christian worldview Christians have to believe that Jesus Christ physically rose from the dead or else the theological implica imp implications of that basically just shatter and they completely implode. So and again right this metaphorical versus literal interpretation and kind of all these different ways of reading the Bible there's so many ways to interpret it and read it that the truth does not manifest itself from the Bible in a very obvious way in a practical way. Now granted, everything in the Bible is ontologically true, but interpreting it and epistemologically knowing and justifying why something is true is extremely difficult from a Protestant point of view. Logical claim by saying something like, well, a fallible source actually can produce infallible knowledge. Like how a first grader who is
All right, I'm going to try to stop pausing so much, but the phrasing here is just incoherent. No, there is no first grader that produces knowledge. All knowledge that anybody has is derivative. It's given. It's a gift. The example that Eli gives often is uh my mother's middle name. I only got that knowledge because she revealed that to me and that's infallible knowledge. Does that mean that I'm an infallible person and I'm right all the time? No. It means that I simply know something that is true because someone told me
can come to the So, okay. So, right here he's making a uh he's kind of actually arguing against this counterpoint which I'm giving to Protestants, but um we'll just let the video continue and we'll kind of see where he goes from here. But conclusion that 2 + 2 equals 4. Therefore, it is possible for a fallible source to incidentally make infallible knowledge.
Yeah. But once again, who made 2 plus 2 is four? The first grader didn't do that. It was revealed to the first grader. Okay. So, this is why I have to emphasize that solar, it's not just this doctrine here like any other. It's a recognition that God alone is the source of information, true information. Okay.
Okay. So, I agree. God alone is the source of true information. Totally agree on that. The issue here is that the epistemology, we still have the epistemology issue, right? Because we have two large groups of Christians, right, that are claiming that the Bible is this way. No, the Bible is this way, right? And so you you're basically always confined to this circular line of reasoning of my interpretation is correct because my interpretation is correct. Right? And so Protestants explicitly deny the fact that authority can exist outside the Bible separate from God. And the issue here is that we have two competing sects of the Holy of of of denominations claiming guidance of the Holy Spirit and they're teaching mutually exclusive doctrines, right? And they're both sub very large and very substantive portions of the Christian population. So this idea that God reveals this to us and makes it obvious is not true. So God gives us the truth of the scriptures. The first greater is fallible, but the arithmetic is infallible. But this leaves out a fatal flaw. The only reason we can confirm that 2+ 2= 4 is infallible is from an outside source to confirm. We would need a teacher who has knowledge developed from a mathematician to know that 2 + 2 does in fact equal four.
Okay. So where' the mathematician get that? Huh?
So okay, so fair enough. You know, the mathematician used logic, used the logos, you could say, to derive this information and ascertain the ontological certainty of the statement. The problem is is that the scripture is not like that, right? We do not have ontological certainty of the canonical list of books. Period. Flat out. Or else we wouldn't be having this conversation. It's not obvious.
And spoiler alert, this is what the Catholic Church looks like, too.
Okay. So, the example that's given here, Jesus to the church and then Mary's mother of God. And I found that out because the Roman Catholic Church told us to. No, I found that out from the Bible. Yeah, I read the Bible. I found out that Jesus is God and that he's a man. There's a verse that says that God purchased the church with his blood. God has blood. God died on the cross. Right. These phrases are biblical as long as you're saying that God died according to his human nature. Of course, I don't need your definition of the one true church to read the Bible and believe that Jesus is God because that's what it says. God speaks and he's a good communicator. Okay. So, right here again, we're we're coming into an issue here, right? Because it doesn't explicitly say in the Bible, Mary is the mother of God. It does not say that explicitly. You need some type of outside reason to come to this conclusion. We agree it's an infallible conclusion, right? We agree that this is a real ontologically true statement, but the epistemology of it, you ha you have to use this outside reason to to ascertain that, right? And so, so that is what the Catholic Church is doing when she says things like, "Oh, you can confess your sins to a priest." Right? We are using the information given from the Bible, which we also compiled. We we we composed it and we we put the Bible together and then we make statements based off that using our reasoning, using this this line of reasoning. man, trinity never mentioned in the Bible, but you had to use some type of outside reasoning in order to come to that infallible truth. That is what the Catholic Church is all about.
Unlike the Roman Catholic Church that is against the death penalty, right? That's the latest example. God says put, you know, murderers to death. Modern popes say no, don't ever enact justice in these scenarios.
All right? So, this is a mischaracterization of what actually happened. So in 2018 there was a change in the Catholic stance on the death penalty. But this was not just the pope just authoritatively just declaring it to be true. So the congregation of the doctrine of the faith basically proposed a document that said hey we don't want the death penalty to be instituted anymore. And they put that out in 2018. But the idea that this was just the pope declaring it to be true is just not the case. And there is a reason for that. Right. the the reason is around the idea that now we have the systems in place that we don't have to kill people in order to still protect the common good. There are more efficient and better ways to keep people imprisoned for life and we should still give them the opportunity to repent and believe in Jesus. So this idea that the pope just declared it and it just is so is not it reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Catholic Church actually operates. Now, circling back to the Bible and given that solar scriptura demands the Bible is the ultimate source of knowledge and truth. This begs the question, what exactly is the Bible? Protestants claim there are 66 books in the Bible drawn from many sources: historical narratives, poetry, prophecy, letters, and wisdom literature. But here's the problem. The Bible itself never tells us which books should be included.
So, this is just plainly false. Luke 24 explains that Jesus showed in the beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, and he interpreted to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures. Verse 44 as well, these are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all the things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.
Okay, so right here, right, he's making a claim that the Bible justifies the scripture. The issue is he's still using scripture to justify scripture, right? He's still making a circular claim. He's using the Gospel of Luke to say, "Hey, all these things in the Old Testament that are just true, right?" But the problem is is that the it it's not explicitly saying, "Hey, like the Song of Songs, right, for example, is part of the Bible." It it's not saying that. It's not saying it's not listing out a table of contents. And again, the obvious question will be, well, how do you know that this piece of scripture, the Gospel of Luke, is in in fact inspired word of God? How do you know it's actually part of the Bible? You don't have any way within the Bible to justify your own table of contents. You don't. Every single time I can, every single time you pull up a piece of scripture, I can always ask you, how do you know that that's scripture? And you can try to refer back to another piece of scripture, but at the end of the day, it's always still circular. You need something outside the Bible to determine the table of contents of the Bible.
We also see in second Peter chapter 3, Peter referring to Paul's letters as scripture and people distort his scriptures to their own destruction. One of the main
So again, this is not really an anti-atholic. In fact, honestly, this is probably a pretty strong point for Catholicism, right? because he's literally saying, "Hey, you have all this scripture and people are still taking it and distorting it and and making it something else. We need to have some way to interpret the scripture that will hold its own against the outside forces, right? That will hold its own against the Gnostics or the Aryans or all these other people or even nowadays the Mormons, right? All these heresies that are coming up that are justifying their heresy with scripture. main heresies that Paul fought against was the worksbased salvation heresy that the Roman Catholics teach. So of course Roman Catholics are just unstable in all of their ways they should repent and believe the good news. Right? So so okay so this is a again fundamental misunderstanding of what Catholics actually believe. We don't believe that if you do enough works you just get saved. Right? There's no Catholic. It's not like you have to, oh well, you get five points for telling the truth today and then you get 20 points for helping the lady across the street. Once you get 100 points, you get into heaven. It's not like that. The purpose at the end of the day, the only way we are saved is through the grace of God. There's nothing a human can do, nothing that will save them. It is ultimately always uh reliant on the grace of God. Our works help justify us. They help improve our standing with God. They help have him give us more grace, more favor. But there is never ever a system of if you do enough works, you get saved. That's just not true. So this idea that the Catholics say that, oh, works will get you into heaven is not true. Works will show that Christ is working in you and that his grace is overflowing through you. But it's not this idea that you just automatically get into heaven by your own merits from your works. Ultimately, it is grace. So again, this is a mischaracterization of the actual Catholic doctrine here. At the end of the day, what the Roman Catholics want to do is just question everything regarding God's word in your mind, not theirs. The scriptures are self.
So, okay. So we are questioning the validity of the Protestant view of the scripture, right? That is what we are doing. We're saying, "Hey, you guys are interpreting it in all these different ways. You don't have a good foundation to testify to these things, right? You you might say, "Oh, well, the foundation is the Bible." I agree with you on that. But the problem is your interpretation, the truths that you get. Like we said, it's not obvious. Like we said, the Trinity itself, not obvious. It's not mentioned in the Bible. You have to use reasoning and interpretation outside the Bible to come to these truths. Right? And heresies come from when people read the Bible, read scripture, and then take things and twist them with their own interpretations. That's how you get Islam. That's how you get Mormonism. That's how you get Jehovah Witness. You get all these different people that will testify to the Bible, testify to the scriptures, but ultimately have some type of heresy that is that is propelling them forward and away from God. Authenticating, they come from God. And God as the good shepherd that he is, he causes his sheep to hear his voice. And he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. The reason why Christians broadly speaking have been able to agree on the 66 book Protestant cannon is because God's sheep as they have been born again they are able to hear the voice of God. They can agree about what God's voice is. Now is
now okay so this is just again patently not true. There are more Catholics in the world than Protestants. So even if you want to go by this idea that oh well, we all agree we don't all agree right? We don't. And in fact, the majority of Christians in the world actually support the Catholic 73 book cannon. Right? So like even by his own logic, he's kind of skipping over a step here, right? He's saying, "Oh, well, we all agree on the 66 books and Catholics are the only they're this one sect that don't have the correct version of the Bible." It's not true, right? It the fact is is that the majority of Christians have the Bible that is the Catholic Bible, not the Protestant Bible. And regardless, this logic doesn't even make any sense in the first place because it's not like this is a democracy where you get a majority vote and whoever and we that's not how this works, right? It is the Holy Spirit that will through what a Catholic would say through the magisterium of the church can make decisive and definitive statements about truth. It's all these people coming together and having that direct connection to Jesus through apostolic succession that gives them that that gives them the authority to make these claims about the ontological truth of the table of contents of the Bible. Is this an infallible ability? Does this guarantee that all Christians will always agree? Absolutely not. That's not required. It's a sufficient ability, but not an infallible one. we also see in first Corinthians.
So I'm I would question what he means by sufficient here because sufficient from my point of view it's not sufficient. Right? We have a very heavy debate between Protestants and Catholics right now between the canonical list of texts. So it's not manifesting itself in a way that's obvious ontologically. It's not the the Holy Spirit is obviously sufficient to do whatever he wants, right? The Holy Spirit can can do anything. But he is not revealing the obvious ontological truth of the table of contents in through some epistemological way according to the Protestant framework. It has to be through the Catholic framework because we have the direct line to Jesus Christ and the apostles. They are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they're spiritually examined. But he who is spiritual examines all things yet he himself is examined by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he will direct him? But we have the mind of Christ. So, there's a few different ways that we can actually answer this question. How do we know what scripture is? How do we know what is really God speaking to us? Galatians, Ephesians, what about Jude? I would say it's a combination of a couple things. Number one being the impossibility of the contrary. If the core doctrines of these specific scriptures aren't actually true, we couldn't know a single thing at all. And that statement he just said, if the core doctrines are wrong, then we can't know a single thing at all. the core doctrines of the scripture. Where does it say that in the Bible? Right? There is you're using outside logic again to justify your stance. It does not say that in the Bible. You are and second of all, which scriptures do you mean by that? Which scriptures actually self-justify themselves? Because that statement is a very handwavy statement, right? That doesn't it sounds like it actually meant something, but if you think about it for a second, it doesn't really mean anything. There's no actual substance there. It's not saying, "Oh, hey, well, if we just had the book of uh Isaiah and we had the Gospel of John, then we could determine every single book in the Bible, and I can prove it to you." And again, choosing those scriptures is arbitrary. There is no real way you can do it. It's not found in the Bible. You're making a judgment outside the Bible. And secondly, by the internal witness of the Holy Spirit, what do we see in 1 John chapter 2? As for you, the anointing whom you received from Jesus abides in you and you have no need for anyone to teach you. This is explicit support for my belief that I do not need such and such person for God to teach me. God himself teaches me. God himself lives in me. That's what scripture tells me. The infallible scriptures. So at the end, okay, so let's go back right here and let's actually look at what's being said, right? So you can see, so it says, "These things I've written to you about those who are trying to deceive you. And as for you, the anointing whom you received from him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you. Now, at first, it's like, oh, well, that just sounds like a little scripture. But if you look up just a few verses above, this is actually just not what uh he's saying. He says, they went out from us. They were not really of us. For if they were of us, they would have remained with us, but they went out so that it would be manifested that they are all not of us. So, already drawing a distinction, right? Some us and them. Second, um he is saying in verse 24, right? He says, "As for you, let that which you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the son and in the father." So he's not saying and and like um Ammont was saying earlier, right? He said, "Oh, well, you have the law written on the heart. Don't steal, don't murder, but then you also have the law of the prophets and the law of uh you know, the revelation of Jesus Christ. that is not written. Jesus Christ, the idea that he rose from the dead and that he did all these things in is in Jerusalem. The idea of Jesus Christ, the idea that he rose from the dead, that he had 12 apostles, these are not things that are written on people's hearts. They have to hear them, right? So, he's actually literally saying, "Hey, we told you these things already. We've told you, us, the apostles, us, the church, have told you, hey, we've told you these things. We've told you the revelations of the gospels. You don't need anyone else to teach you them. Right? He's saying, "We are sufficient. We told you it before. You've heard it before. You don't need anyone else
to teach you. There is clearly an us them. We are the church. They are not the church. We are the church. They are not the church teaching here." Right? That that is the whole point of what he's saying. This is explicit support for my belief that I do not need such and such person for God to teach me. God himself teaches me. God himself lives in me. That's what scripture tells me, the infallible scriptures.
So, at the end of the day, asking these kinds of questions about, oh, well, how do you know what scripture actually says? This presupposes that scripture is false and that the scriptures themselves are insufficient. We need this thing over here to tell me what scripture is. I don't need that. You're presupposing that. And I simply, so again, he was not born with all of the books of the Bible in his heart. He wasn't. He had to hear it from someone else. He had to be given the canonical list text. He didn't get 150 different letters and picked out which ones based on praying and and receiving and being like, "Oh, this one resonates with the Holy Spirit. This one doesn't." He didn't do that, right? At the end of the day, we all have been given the Bible from someone else, from the church, from the early Catholic Church, right? That is where we get the Bible from. It is not on us. It is not our responsibility to discern this. It's not our responsibility to be like, well, actually the the Gospel of Mary Magdalene is a heretical text and the the text in here suggests that it was a forgery and all this stuff. That is not our job, right? Our job is just to be part of the church, get the Bible given down to us, which we all have. We have not created the Bible for ourselves. We have not been given all of the options and and decided what goes in the Bible. We have been given it from someone else.
>> Reject your presupposition. Sure, we can agree that the gospels of Matthew or St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians are inspired words of God. But how can we say that the dedicay an early text written by the apostles is not?
>> So I already answered this, but even if that answer is insufficient for you, I know for certain that the Roman Catholic answer should be way worse because
>> okay, so that is an extremely bold claim to be saying, right? That first of all, it's a twoqu logical fallacy. He's saying, "Oh, well, my even if my argument is bad, their argument is worse." Right? So that's that doesn't logically hold up. Second of all, the dedicay you can't just sweep under the rug, right? Because a lot of Protestants will say things like, "Oh, well, if it was written by the apostles, then it actually is scripture, and if it's not written by the apostles, then it's not scripture." The problem is the dedicay, we have very good historical evidence that it was actually written by the Gospel of Matthew. And there and we might you might say, "Oh, well that's not certain. It's not certainly written by Matthew." But we also have very good evidence that it's written by some of the apostles. Even something like Hebrews, for example, the authorship is not exactly certain, right? We aren't c we have good ideas of what it's written. And we all agree Hebrews is part of the Bible, but we do not have that same um that that certainty is not a requirement for being part of scripture or else the dedicay would also be part of scripture. But it's not. So any choice about what goes in your bible if you reject the dedicay there is an arbitrariness that you are choosing to do. So and and it wasn't I mean at the end of the day in the council 325 AD first council of na started putting together the books of the bible and then in 397 we actually um confirmed it and we we finished it. We said hey this is for sure the actual list of the bible. So this idea that we got it 1500 years later is just wrong. That was just a confirmation and a formal response from the Catholic Church. But the council of um believe it was Carthage in 397 AD was the one that actually and Hippo in 393 AD were the ones that actually affirmed the 27 New Testament books. So again, just not true.
>> When the dedicay was written in that first century, suppose I'm living in that first century and I get asked this question, how am I supposed to know if this is scripture or not? There is no Roman Catholic pope magisterian that I can go ask, hey, is this scripture? There is no infallible council until 1500 years later according to the Roman Catholic Church. So, okay, so this is just wrong. First of all, the people that you would ask in the first few hundred years before 393 would be your bishops, your priests, the people that were actually part of the church. You can look at the writings of St. Ignatius who was one of the very early church fathers who talks about the bishop, right? He literally says like, "Hey, you need to be treating these bishops with a ton of authority and you and you should almost be treating them as if he they're Jesus Christ themsself." There are so many different examples of people saying, "Hey, we have this authority." It's not just a bunch of like people running around like chickens with their head cut off, right? Like it's not like you go from Judaism, second temple Judaism, which is very strict, has all these rules, has all these things, has a temple, has leaders, and then now everyone's just running around and just interpreting letters that just arbitrarily. There there still is some structure. There still are people with authority, people with the ability to teach. Ultimately, they all get their authority from God, from Jesus Christ, right? But this idea that like, oh well, you know, St. Paul died. So now all we can do is just only look at his teachings from his letters and not his millions of other sermons that he gave when he was alive that all these people heard and all these people are presumably following. And the the students of St. Paul and St. Peter. This idea that we just throw all that out and we just say, "Oh, well, we only have the letters." It's just nonsensical. It doesn't make any sense.
>> It's not for another 1500 years until anybody knows infallibly what scripture is. Anyways, also even if I want to accept their idea of an infallible pope and magisterium and all this stuff, on what basis do I accept that? Who's telling me that this magisterium here is infallible as opposed to this one over here? Who am I supposed to trust? Oh, yeah. Circular argument. Trust us. Yeah, cuz we're the one true church. Oo, ma'am. Okay.
>> Or any other Okay. So this idea that there's a one true church and that it's just like I I think there's a um a perception here from Protestants of Catholics of what we actually believe. So I'm just going to clarify it for you. So the idea that we just say, "Oh, we're the one true church and no one else has any truth and we you have to follow." That's not true. There isn't this idea that everything outside the Catholic Church is wrong. We if you guess what if you were baptized in the name of the father, son, holy spirit from some random, you know, mega church or some or even heck by your by your uncle in in like wherever in the pool that is still considered a valid baptism by the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church actually still affirms the validity of that, right? And so, and you take the look and you take a look at like Eastern Orthodox for example, he um he's mentioned Eastern Orthodox a few times. We believe that their sacraments are valid. We believe that they actually truly do have the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that their confessions are valid. We just don't believe they are listenit. Right? There's a difference in Catholicism between listenit i.e. under the authority of the pope and valid which is did it actually happen? Is it real? Right? And so this idea of like oh well the Catholic Church says we are the only one true church. We we are completely above everyone else. So the Eastern Orthodox are still considered a part of the church. They have just been uh cut off. They're in schism from the the the Roman Catholic side, right? So my channel is going to be all about east and west differences and it's going to be a lot of talking about hey like what do we believe in the west? What do we believe in the east? And kind of reconciling a lot of that. That's what the purpose of this channel is. But this idea that Catholics are just only the one true church and everyone else is just wrong is not really how the Catholic Church believes. we there's a more nuanced approach to this that I think is really important in this conversation early apostolic Christian writing for that matter after all the Bible never gives us a divinely inspired table of contents by even making a claim about which books belong okay so on Catholicism apparently God did give us a divinely inspired table of contents in 1546 but obviously this doesn't help anybody because how do we know that that divinely inspired table of contents is divinely inspired oh let's Look at this divinely inspired table of contents for the table of contents for the divinely inspired scriptures. Sure. Yeah. They, by the way, they never ever ever want to answer this question. Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, ask them how they know their one true church is the one true church and all the other one true churches aren't the real one true church. They hate that question. They cannot answer. It's an impossible question to answer because it shows that they're just leaning on their own understanding. Well, you see, I've looked at church history. I've examined this. I've examined that. I've examined the councils. And at the end of the day, it's a lot closer to atheism than Christianity, honestly. They see themselves as being able, having the ability in and of themselves to judge this thing in church history, that thing, this thing, that thing, and I can decide what's true. I can decide what the one true church is. But actually, no. The real humble stance is to receive God's word and define what the church is based on what he has told us, not what we examine throughout church history. Okay?
>> In the So again, we we come to a crossroads here, right? Because Protestants don't agree on everything. They don't, like we said earlier, there's 40,000 denominations. They have tons of different disagreements within themselves. And this idea that, oh, that we are just like a Catholics are just like atheists, right? That we're just like we're determining everything. That's incorrect. We at the end of the day, the only thing you really need to decide to be a Catholic is do I believe in a unified body of Christ? Right? Do these pe these people have a direct line to Jesus Christ himself? They they it's just like a president, right? You know how you've heard the thing where, oh, if you shake the hand of a current president, you're 45, whatever handshakes away from George Washington. So, it would be the exact same thing with the pope, you'd be 267 or something handshakes away from Jesus Christ himself, right? So, like we have this direct line where if you shake hands with Pastor Bob in Louisiana, there is not a guarantee that you have that direct line to the incarnate God man himself, Jesus Christ. Right? That is what makes it different, right? we have this connection and and the issue is is that what Protestantism kind of falls apart is everyone starts becoming their own pope. Everyone starts interpreting the the scriptures in ways that everyone starts contradicting each other and there is there really is no unity at the end of the day other than this kind of handwavy generalized statement that oh well the Bible is the is the only source of truth. It's like the Bible has it has all truth in it. It is infallible. It is the inspired word of God straight up. But the interpretation and the practical applications of the word start having issues very quickly in Protestantism. Catholicism, we do not have that problem. We have a lot of problems, but that is definitely not one of them. You're already relying on something outside the Bible, a judgment not found within scripture itself. And according to the logic of solos scripture.
>> So again, he's just presupposing that the scriptures aren't self- authenticating and self-revealing about what other scriptures even are. Again, Acts chapter 17. How am I supposed to know that Paul and Silas are preaching the truth to me? Am I supposed to go to the Pope over here? Am I supposed to make a pilgrimage to Rome to ask the pope, "Hey, Peter." Oh, wait. Peter's not in Rome. Anyways, uh about that. No. Biblically, the noble-minded Jews, they received the word with great eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see whether these things were. So, there we go. Solo scriptor taught in the scriptures. The one again, that's not solos scriptura. The issue here is that if we were to go back to the what he's pointing out here, again, we have Paul and Silas, right? We have these people that have authority, that have uh interpretations that are going around teaching all these people. The issue here is is not it's not an only like again Protestants like to do this where they say oh well you see they examined the scriptures so therefore solar scriptura that's not a solo scriptura that's just scriptura right again Catholicism exact same thing if a priest if a priest goes and teaches you things you are totally within your right as a Catholic to go and find the scripture that supports that right there is scripture it we will never ever contradict scripture period end of story. And again, you might say, "Oh, well, they're wrong about whatever issue that I believe." That's fine. But you can go read the Catholic arguments and you can go see that there is justification through scripture about these arguments. You might disagree with it. But the idea that we just completely just ignore scripture and we don't follow it at all is just patently false.
>> Word with great eagerness examining the scriptures daily to see whether these things were. So there we go. Solos scriptor taught in the scriptures. the wise people of that first century, 2nd century, 3rd century, fourth, all the way to today, we test everything by the scriptures. And back then when scripture was still being written, they tested what the apostles were saying by the previous revelation. And again, totally fair. If you want to feel like I'm being a dead horse, but you can go and check Catholic teachings against scripture. They will be supported. All right? You might disagree with it, but do not make the claim that we just don't use scripture to justify our claims because that is patently and objectively not true. All right, so that's kind of where he stops reacting to most of my video. Um, he does not go on he he does not go on and look at the questions that I posited in the point two of the second half of the video where I mention a few questions that I think are good for Protestants to answer if they want to have a full and complete justification for solos scriptura. Um, but I do want to thank Amot uh for reacting to my content. Uh, I think I always appreciate a content creator who is spreading the word and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Although I disagree with him on his statements in the video, including calling me Satan, I still respect the fact that he is still trying to push the gospel of Jesus Christ and to and to evangelize and to get people to believe in the gospel. Right? I disagree with him on how he's approaching it. I disagree with many of the things that he says, but in the end, we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. And so at the end of the day, we should all be on the same team here trying to fight and find the truth and by extension find Jesus Christ himself. So that's going to be it for today. If you like this style of content or if you like my arguments, make sure to like and subscribe. I am going to kind of I'm going to start branching off a little bit from Soul Script Shur. I'm going to start focusing more on Eastern theology and kind of reconciling it with the West. There's a lot of good stuff in the East. And uh for those of you who don't know, I was I grew up Roman Catholic, but I've been attending an Eastern Catholic church, and I do really enjoy the uh the East. So, this channel will be devoted to that. And yeah, with that, thank you very much for watching. Glory to Jesus