Gavin Ortlund Vs.Trent Horn: Is Sola Scriptura True

All right, that's bright. Uh, are we ready, Matt? All right, g'day, and welcome. Thank you so much for being here. Uh, let's see, who came from out of Ohio? Amazing, amazing. Who came from Texas? Happy Independence Day, Texas. Uh, who, anyone come from out of country? No, you did not. Not for this. Like, no. I came when I was a child. But still out of country. You did. Where did you come from? Oh, terrific. They let you in. Well, there you go. Great to have you.

Well, this is going to be a fantastic night, and I'm really grateful that all of you for all of you being here. Um, I wanted to just kind of give a shout-out to two people who have done just so much to make this event possible. The first is my amazing assistant, Melanie. You guys should know how I took a Melanie on the show. That's me. Only up the back. She's amazing. Best assistant ever. If you ever leave, I'm going with you. Um, and also to Thursday, our new producer, who's worked really hard to get this all together. So, also, he's single, ladies. So if you're single, he's single, and maybe we can make that happen. Okay, so thank you to Thursday.

I want to let people know too that immediately after this debate, the two debaters will be here for no more than 15 minutes because immediately after that, we're going to have a locals' meet-up at my cigar lounge in, uh, on 4th Street. So if you do go up and see the debaters after the debate, feel free to get a photo, have your book signed, but please don't ask them deep theological questions because they don't have time for that. We need to whisk them away so they can smoke cigars and drink whiskey, unless they don't want to. Not sure about your Baptist credentials there, Gavin.

I want to say thank you too to Franciscan University of Steubenville for hosting this debate. Also, if you have cell phones, please turn them off. Don't be lame and silence them. Turn them off. You'll be fine.

All right, this is going to be a fantastic debate, and I think it's going to be fantastic because of the two debaters that I've selected. They're both brilliant, right? Scary smart dudes. But they're, they're both, I think, men of good will. And I'm sure both of them want to win tonight's debate. But I truly believe, having known both of them, I know Trent obviously a lot more than Gavin, that they really want to follow the truth wherever it leads. And I also ask that no matter where you are, um, on this issue, that you keep an open mind. I think it was Aristotle who said, "It's the mark of an intelligent person to be able to entertain an idea without having to accept it." So try to entertain it because at the very least, even if you leave holding the same view that you currently hold, hopefully, you'll do a better job at not straw-manning the Protestant or Catholic position next time you talk about this issue of Sola Scriptura.

All right, a couple of bios. Gavin Orton serves as a senior pastor of First Baptist Church of, how do you say it there? Oh, Hi. In Ojai, California. He holds a PhD in historical theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the author of eight books, including "Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn't." Why God Makes Sense in a World Because this bio doesn't. That doesn't. Yeah, good. All right, "Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn't." We'll be selling those books out there, so please pick one up. And "Retrieving Augustine's Doctrine of Creation," as well as numerous academic and popular articles. He runs the YouTube channel Truth Unites, and he is married with five children. Crushing it. Please give it up for Gavin. And then I'll do Trent's bio as well. All right, thanks for, thanks for being here. It's a big deal. Like, just flying today is brutal, let alone leaving five children and a busy schedule. So thank you.

All right, Trent. After his conversion to the Catholic faith, Trent Horn earned three show-off master's degrees in the fields of theology, philosophy, and bioethics. He serves as a staff apologist for Catholic Answers and hosts his own podcast, "The Council of Trent." He is an adjunct professor of apologetics at Holy Apostles College, has written for the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, and is the author of nine books, including "Answering Atheism," "The Case for Catholicism," and "Why We're Catholic: Our Reasons for Faith, Hope, and Love."

Let me tell you the format for tonight's debate. So, since Gavin will be taking the affirmative, that is saying, "Yes, Sola Scriptura is true," he'll begin with a 15-minute opening statement. And then Trent will have a 15-minute opening statement. Then we'll move into seven-minute rebuttals, then four-minute rebuttals, and then we're going to move into a time of 20 minutes of cross-examination each, followed by 30 minutes of Q&A. And I'll let you know how that's going to go as we get closer. And then we'll conclude with five-minute closings each. All right, so without any further ado, I'd like to invite Gavin up to give his opening speech. Thank you.

Okay, let me start by just giving a huge thank you to Matt Fradd and everyone at Pints with Aquinas for hosting this debate and to Trent for participating. I really do admire Matt and Trent in so many ways. And I hope that all of the non-Protestants out there, that you'll feel the love and respect in my heart for you, even while we disagree about this topic. Let me dive right in, hoping you can hear me okay, by stating my essential argument: One, the Bible is an infallible rule for the church. Two, there is no other infallible rule for the church. Three, therefore, the Bible is the only infallible rule for the church, which is the doctrine we call Sola Scriptura, as it's been defined in historic magisterial Protestant documents and as we've agreed to define it for this debate. So, the logical structure of this argument would be comparable to saying, "One, planet Earth has life. Two, no other planet in our solar system has life. Three, therefore, Earth is the only planet in our solar system with life." Now, I suspect that Trent and I will have a general agreement that the Bible is an infallible rule. By the way, a rule just means a standard that governs the church's faith and practice, and infallible means incapable of error. Where Trent and I will likely differ is on point two: Does the church possess any other rule than the scripture that is infallible? Now, that is what this debate is about. It's not about Calvinism. It's not about me as a Baptist. It's about the location of infallibility for the church's rule. And I want to emphasize this point for just a moment because debate about Sola Scriptura is sometimes misframed. For example, Sola Scriptura is sometimes misrepresented as the idea that the Bible is the only authority. But infallibility and authority are different. For example, the umpire at a baseball game has authority to make a definitive call on whether the pitch is a ball or a strike, but he's not infallible. He can be wrong. When you think about it, almost 99% of authorities are fallible. That doesn't mean they're not real authorities. Sola Scriptura does not deny ecclesial authorities, whether in the form of creeds, catechisms, confessions, councils, etc., but it maintains that they are not infallible and thus subordinate to scripture. But they still have real authority. For example, my ordination vows have real authority over me. I could lose my ministerial credentials if I opposed them. My church's statement of faith has real authority over me. I could be barred from the Lord's Supper if I opposed it. Another misrepresentation of Sola Scriptura is the idea that it means all doctrines must be explicit in the Bible. This is targeting a related doctrine, the sufficiency of scripture. But even the strongest articulations of the sufficiency of scripture, for example, in the Reformed tradition, speak of "good and necessary consequence" in relation to this doctrine. Other Protestant traditions have even greater latitude for the sufficiency of scripture. You could see Article VI of the 39 Anglican Articles, for example. Unfortunately, over and over, the words "by good and necessary consequence" are lopped off in criticism of the sufficiency of scripture. We've often heard people say, "Sola Scriptura is not in the Bible, therefore it's self-defeating." These criticisms reveal that the doctrine has not been sympathetically understood. Another reason for that is Sola Scriptura is not a doctrine proper, it's more of a prolegomenal matter. So don't let this debate get misframed in your mind as we go forward. And I emphasize this because of what I call the 80% rule, and that is about 80% of critiques of Sola Scriptura misframe where it actually departs from the alternatives. So remember, only infallible rule, not only authority or explicit source for every doctrine. Now, conceptually, Sola Scriptura shouldn't be too hard to grasp because the basic idea has resonance with how many religions will work, where you have a supreme set of texts and then ongoing subsequent authoritative bodies that are subordinate to that set of texts. This is how Muslims relate to the Quran. Many Eastern religions relate to their sacred texts. For example, it's not a bizarre idea to suppose that a religion's founding texts will have unrivaled, unparalleled authority. But why should we think that Christianity works that way? Because, and here's my essential argument, it is the cumulative entailment of two considerations: first, what the Bible is, and second, how the Bible functions. So, first, scripture's nature. Second, its role. So, first, scripture's nature. What is scripture? Scripture claims to be the inspired word of God. Now, in a debate on Sola Scriptura, you know, the word "God-breathed" is going to come up from 2 Timothy 3:16. We all know this word. It's a very powerful word. But this is simply saying something that is found in many texts of Holy Scripture. Second Peter 1:21: "The Holy Spirit carries along the words of the author." Richard Bockham translates that phrase "born of the Holy Spirit for the words of sacred scripture." Romans 3:2 refers to Old Testament scripture as the "Oracles of God," or you could translate "just the words of God." Uh, in Matthew 19:5, a very important, often neglected passage, Jesus will quote Old Testament scripture as God speaking. To sum up, scripture is the speech of God through a human medium, and it's on that basis that we speak of scripture as infallible. For example, John 10:35: Jesus says, "The scripture cannot be broken." Now, as Roman Catholics and Protestants, we have more agreement here than is sometimes realized. Vatican II taught that public divine revelation ceased with the deaths of the Apostles, and the Catechism distinguishes the church's charism of infallibility from the deposit of divine revelation. You can see paragraph 2035. Furthermore, Catholics typically will speak of sacred tradition as not the inspired word of God, not God-breathed, spirit-carried, and so forth. So, we can agree today that scripture is ontologically unique in its nature. No other rule of faith that we possess is the God-breathed, spirit-carried, unbreakable Oracles of God. Sola Scriptura is simply suggesting, as an implication from that fact, that as the Bible is unique in its nature, so it is correspondingly unique in its authority. The alternative positions, such as those of Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, etc., separate infallibility from inspiration. Those positions have the burden to show why another rule of faith that is not the inspired speech of God should nonetheless be accepted as equal in authority to the inspired speech of God. A simple way to put Sola Scriptura at a metaphysical level: God is unique, therefore his speech is unique. That which isn't the speech of God is subordinate to that which is the speech of God. That leads to the second point: scripture's role among the people of God. Within the scripture, we see other authorities, including legitimate authorities, consistently subordinated to the greater authority of scripture. One of the clearest examples of this is Jesus placing scripture over tradition in Mark 7. Now, people will often say, "Oh, those are just the traditions of men." But here is a challenge: How could anyone have known what are "just the traditions of men" at that time? Jesus himself affirms that the Pharisees had a legitimate, God-given authority to teach. Matthew 23:2-3: He says, "The Pharisees sit on the seat of Moses. Therefore, quote, 'Do and observe whatever they tell you.'" End quote. That's real authority. Now, the Pharisees in Jesus' day claimed a similar kind of two-source theory that the Roman Catholic Church does today. They affirmed an oral law from Moses, handed down through successive lineage, and they claimed it was comparable in authority to the written law. That is why they accosted Jesus and the disciples for daring to disobey their traditions. To defend this theory, the Pharisees could well have asked the same appeal that we often hear today: "Jesus, where does the Old Testament explicitly say that it has greater authority than our oral traditions?" But the answer to that is simple: The Bible need not anticipate every possible later error or alternative. It is enough to know that the scripture is the inspired word of God, and oral traditions or not. It's important to know that the problem Jesus is addressing is not traditions that contradict the scriptures. There's not one verse in the Old Testament against the hand-washing traditions that occasion this dialogue. The problem is making traditions that lack scriptural warrant necessary and binding. That is what Jesus is opposing. In other words, the problem wasn't that the Pharisees were simply offering bad traditions; it was their inflated view of tradition as such. And Jesus speaks of the word of God here as written scripture and prioritizes that over the tradition. Now, someone could say, "Well, that was just the Pharisees. We know the Pharisees are bad." But in the New Testament, teaching from other authorities is also tested by scripture. This is why the Bereans are called noble in Acts 17. Frequently, it will be proposed there's some other reason, but in the text, the testing of the apostolic preaching by the scripture is portrayed positively as a reason for their nobility. More basically, in Galatians 1:8, Paul goes so far as to command that not only his own apostolic teaching, but even angelic teaching, must be tested according to the deposit of divine revelation given in the apostolic age. This is the heart cry impulse behind Sola Scriptura. We want to test that which isn't the inspired speech of God by that which is the inspired speech of God. So, the question then arises: If the Bible is the inspired word of God, and if the Bible functions with greater authority than other legitimate authorities, what other rule of faith exists for the church that is comparable to that? Some posit oral Apostolic traditions. I have one simple challenge to that: What are they? Who in this room can tell us they know which are the genuine oral Apostolic traditions? Already in the second century, vigorous disagreements emerge about a simple and factual matter like the date of Easter, and guess what? Both sides say that their position is the one that is established by Apostolic tradition. If transmission errors happen on basic historical facts within two generations of the Apostles, how much more can they happen on complicated dogmas two millennia from the Apostles? There's a, this is the key point, there's a difference between the teachings straight from the mouth of the Apostle versus the fallible transmission process by which it is bequeathed to subsequent generations. The scripture is the only reliable guide to Apostolic teaching that we actually possess. It's the only one that can function as a rule for us that we actually have. The real alternatives to Sola Scriptura are those that posit mechanisms of infallibility to the post-apostolic church. For example, ex cathedra statements from popes, certain of the deliverances of ecumenical councils, certain teachings of the universal and ordinary magisterium. But the idea of infallibility as an ongoing feature of the post-apostolic church, whether through those mechanisms or any other, has four decisive problems: First, it's without precedent in the Old Testament. The Jewish people had no organs of infallibility, so this would be an innovation within redemptive history if it came into being with the church. That leads to the second point: it is without ground or instantiation in the New Testament. This might be the deepest thing in my heart on this topic. You can read carefully from Matthew to Revelation, you will not hear one word about infallibility being given to some post-apostolic function in the church. It's all about the apostles when it's spoken of. We have no reason to think that Jesus and the Apostles envisioned a church that could speak with the same level of authority as the very speech of God. Thirdly, it's also apparently unknown in the early church, more on that in just a moment. And fourthly, once it does arise, it's overturned by the facts of later church history. Now, you don't need a PhD to see that I know that there are responses to these points, but I find these problems pretty overwhelming. Do some basic research on what did the Roman Catholic Church infallibly teach about capital punishment 800 years ago and was universally accepted versus what is written in the Catechism as of this moment that we all stand here? What did Nicaea II claim about icon veneration versus what did the early church teach about that topic? How did, how do both the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic traditions interpret the phrase "no salvation outside the church" versus how was that principle universally understood in the medieval era? Now, Sola Scriptura is often portrayed as a late innovation, unknown to the early church. But while the term is new, the basic idea of the paramount position of Holy Scripture on ground of its uni, on grounds of its unique infallibility as the inspired word of God has been recognized by many people throughout church history. William Whitaker, in his 1588 text on this, goes through 20 examples of church fathers, for example, on this topic. In my own research, I focused on Saint Augustine. I spent a year of my life studying Augustine. That was my whole job for a year, and I want to tell you that he taught with about as much clarity as you could hope for that the scripture is infallible, but all post-apostolic productions of the church are fallible. And he includes in that latter category "plenary councils formed for the whole Christian world," and he gives Nicaea I as an example. Some people say, "Well, how would the early Christians have practiced Sola Scriptura?" This must be understood that Sola Scriptura is a conceptual framework for the church as such. It does not require that every individual Christian, regardless of circumstances, will be able to employ it in the same way. Similarly, Christians today who don't have the scripture don't employ the framework in the same way. Just as a Catholic Christian who doesn't have the latest papal teaching and therefore is unaware of it, that's a circumstantial question. It doesn't refute the whole Catholic position. Bottom line, when you strip away the caricatures and think about what it actually means, Sola Scriptura makes a lot of sense. It's a very modest and conservative doctrine. It's saying, "Put the words of God at the top. Popes and councils are not equal to it. Measure those things which are not the inspired word of God by that which is the inspired word of God." Thank you.

[Applause]

Thank you very much, Gavin. Trent, you have 15 minutes whenever you begin.

Well, I'd like to thank Matt for the hosting, the date, and Gavin for participating tonight. We're debating whether scripture is the only infallible rule for the church's faith and practice. My opponent has to show a particular set of writings are infallible scripture, and nothing else is an infallible rule of faith. But how could he do that? There's no logical proof scripture has to be the only infallible rule, like how a bachelor must be an unmarried man. And there's no theological proof, such as it being directly taught in scripture. What about 2 Timothy 3:16? "All scripture is inspired by God." John Poirier, in his recent academic study of scripture's inspiration, shows that the word "inspired" (theopneustos) actually means "life-giving." According to the Baptist scholar Lee Martin McDonald, there is no evidence that the early church confined inspiration to an already past apostolic age or even to a collection of sacred writings. In the early church, the writings of church fathers, letters from ecumenical councils, and even epitaphs were all considered theopneustos, which shows that this word was not synonymous with being an infallible rule of faith. So, it doesn't prove Sola Scriptura. Gavin even admits this passage does not teach Sola Scriptura in his video, "Sola Scriptura Defended." He says, "The scripture possesses this kind of God-breathed, unbreakable, divine authority, but these verses don't say that they're the only thing that has that kind of authority." So, I'd admit that those verses in themselves don't get you to Sola Scriptura.

In a review of a recent book on biblical inerrancy, my opponent said the Bible's infallibility is a quote "theological inference from the Bible's claims about itself and not directly claimed, except for perhaps in a few passages." One of these is John 10:35, where Jesus says, "The scriptures cannot be broken or set aside." But the Protestant scholar James Dunn says this refers to the force of God's promises and not to scripture's infallibility. To put it simply, if we have to infer the Bible is one infallible rule of faith because this statement is not directly taught in scripture, then there's no way scripture directly teaches that it's the only infallible rule of faith.

What about when Jesus said the Pharisees' tradition contradicted scripture's authority in Matthew 15 and Mark 7? First, the word "scripture" is not in these chapters. This says nothing about Sola Scriptura. It references the "word of God," but the phrase "word of God" is never used in the Bible to describe a biblical text. Now, I believe the Bible is the word of God, but that's not how the biblical authors use that term. Here's what Poirier writes: "Scripture uses 'word of God' or 'word of the Lord' in two ways: as a reference to prophecy, 'the word of the Lord came to Elijah,' whereas a reference to the apostles' preaching. The phrase 'word of God' never appears as a reference to scripture itself." The discussion in Matthew 15 and Mark 7 is not about scripture versus tradition; it's about bad tradition contradicting what God etched in stone and told to Moses on Mount Sinai. That's why textual variants of Matthew 15:6 say, "You have made void the law of God" or "the commandment of God" rather than "the word of God."

Now, perhaps the Bible indirectly teaches Sola Scriptura. Consider this argument: "I know it's not the exact one Gavin presented, we'll get to that soon. Scripture is one infallible rule of Faith. No other infallible rules of Faith exist or have proven to exist. Therefore, scripture is the only infallible rule of faith." So, what we'll change that? Let's say they haven't been proven to exist because my opponent didn't really show that they don't exist. He's saying, "Well, they haven't been," or let's say they haven't been proven to exist, therefore scripture is the only infallible rule. Well, that's an appeal to ignorance. That's like saying, "Science is one reliable rule of knowledge. No other reliable rules of knowledge exist, or have been proven to exist. Therefore, science is the only reliable rule." But the problem here is that these arguments start to implode on themselves. In order to know what science is, you need a reliable, non-scientific rule of knowledge, like philosophy. And in order to know what scripture is, you need an infallible, non-scriptural rule of faith, like sacred tradition. More on that later.

But the main fallacy in these kinds of arguments occurs when you assume one member of a kind is the only member of that kind. White is one color of swans; people thought it was the only color until black swans were discovered. Atheists are correct, the natural world is one existing thing, but they're incorrect to assume it's the only existing thing or that naturalism is true. If one kind of thing exists, at best, we should be agnostic towards whether there are other members of that kind. That's why atheists should reject naturalism and be open to God, and Protestants should reject Sola Scriptura and be open to other infallible rules of faith existing. But we don't have to remain agnostic on this question on whether scripture is the only infallible rule of faith, since there are good reasons to believe Sola Scriptura is false. Let me offer three of them.

First, there is the argument from scriptural sufficiency. The 1689 London Baptist Confession says, "The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture." The Reformed apologist James White says, "The Bible must provide to us what God intends for us to have to function in the manner described by the doctrine of Sola Scriptura." Now, proposed the Bible does provide what God intends for us to have through material sufficiency. All the dogmas of the faith are in scripture, at least implicitly. What is not in scripture is a clear understanding of everything God intends for us to have. That's why Saint Jerome said, "The devil himself quoted scripture." The essence of the scripture is not the letter but the meaning. If you believe in the Protestant formal sufficiency of scripture, then you must believe everything God intends for us to have is clearly found in scripture. But since Sola Scriptura is not in scripture, this means God does not intend for us to have this doctrine. This can't be because it's a minor doctrine. God chose not to reveal it. The Calvinist scholar B.B. Warfield says, "Sola Scriptura is the cornerstone of universal Protestantism." Instead, Sola Scriptura must be a major, yet false, doctrine that God never revealed at all.

Number two is the argument from apostolic and patristic silence. Prior to his Ascension into heaven, our Lord never told anyone to write anything down at all. And after Pentecost, the only infallible rule of faith was the oral preaching of the Apostles. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 2:13, "When you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God." Eventually, apostolic writings were deemed to have authority on par with apostolic preaching, as can be seen in Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians, where he instructs them to "stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter." But did the Apostles change the standard and only leave the church one infallible authority in scripture? Well, the New Testament never says this did happen, and never says it would happen in the future. And if this change happened, we'd expect the earliest Church Fathers to talk about it, but they don't. According to the renowned Lutheran scholar Jaroslav Pelikan, "In the anti-Nicene church, there was no notion of Sola Scriptura." The fathers even condemned people for practices that are not described in scripture, such as when Hippolytus of Rome denounced Christians who celebrated Easter according to the Jewish calendar. Michael Kruger, whose work my opponent uses to defend an early knowledge of the canon, admits that "for many modern scholars, the key time is the end of the second century. Only then, largely due to the influence of Irenaeus, were these books first regarded as scripture." I'm not endorsing that view, but if scholars are not even sure the Church Fathers thought the New Testament was one infallible rule of faith, then there's no evidence at all that they thought it was the only infallible rule of faith. Ignatius of Antioch never calls New Testament books scripture, though he quotes from them, but he tells his readers to follow the bishop as Jesus Christ follows the Father. The Protestant scholar Bruce Metzger says Clement of Rome's Bible was the Old Testament, but Clement says the Apostles chose successors to carry on their work. In fact, while the Apostles' Creed mentions the Holy Catholic Church, it never mentions scripture, which is bizarre if scripture were the church's sole infallible rule of faith. Now, I'm not saying every doctrine must be found in the earliest Church Fathers. What I am saying is that since these authors do not describe a transition to Sola Scriptura, we can conclude that written and unwritten infallible rules of faith continued after the time of the Apostles. According to Lee Martin McDonald, "In the first one and a half centuries of church history, no prominence was given to a gospel writer or to a gospel as a written document. The church's rule of faith was simply what the Apostles handed on, whether it was written in scripture or unwritten tradition, which tells us how to interpret scripture." That's why Saint Irenaeus said in the second century, "For how should it be, if the Apostles themselves had not left us writings? Would it not be necessary to follow the course of the tradition which they handed down?"

Finally, my third argument is that other infallible rules of faith do exist. I'll give two examples: sacred tradition and the early ecumenical councils. Nearly all Protestants believe public revelation ended in the first century and there are no more living Apostles. But the Bible never says that. Instead, it's a long-standing Christian tradition. Protestants also believe the 27 books of the New Testament are equally inspired. But once again, this infallible truth is not in scripture, so it's an obvious counterexample to Sola Scriptura. In the past, my opponent has appealed to Michael Kruger's claim that scripture authenticates itself, and so the canon is, in a way, in scripture. But as the Protestant author Jonathan McClatchy says of Kruger's argument, "It is an epistemological non-starter. The book engages in blatant and unashamed circular reasoning upon which the book's central thesis is predicated. Moreover, if the canon authenticated itself, we'd expect the earliest Christians to describe the New Testament as scripture as often as they describe the Old Testament as scripture. But they don't come anywhere close to doing that." Scholars like Gordon Fee even say the term "scripture" meant only the Old Testament for Christians until the end of the second century. Now, I don't think that's universally true. There are exceptions to that. But in my survey of 15 Church Fathers writing in the first 100 years of post-apostolic history, I only found six definite and three ambiguous formal citations of the New Testament as scripture. Compare that to over 50 formal citations of the Old Testament as scripture and over a hundred citations alone in the work of Justin Martyr. And instead of commanding Christians to follow the New Testament, these Church Fathers command us to follow the Bishops as Jesus Christ follows the Father. This echoes the words of Hebrews 13: "Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as men who will have to give account." Now, this, this data is bizarre if Sola Scriptura were true, but it makes perfect sense if the Apostles gave the church scripture, tradition, and the magisterium as ultimate authorities. If my opponent says, "We have no way of knowing what is and isn't a sacred tradition," well, the same problem affects his knowledge of what is and isn't scripture. Well, is the longer ending of Mark scripture? Is the woman caught in adultery in John's Gospel scripture? Protestants disagree. It's a harder problem than you think. If my opponent says, "Traditions contradict each other, so they're not infallible," then he opens the door for atheists to make the same argument when they say the Bible contains thousands of contradictions. If he says the Bible only has apparent contradictions that we can resolve, even if we don't know how, well, I can say the same of sacred tradition, that it only has apparent contradictions. What about ecumenical councils? The late Protestant author Walter Martin denied Christ as the Eternal Son of God, saying, "The Bible, the Bible is right, and Nicaea is wrong." William Lane Craig denies Christ as a human will. He says, "No earnest Christian wants to be considered a heretic." But we Protestants recognize scripture alone as our ultimate rule of faith. Therefore, we bring even the statements of ecumenical councils before the bar of scripture. Well, it turns out the Arian heretic Maximus thought the same thing. He appealed to 2 Timothy 3:16 and said the Council of Nicaea's non-biblical language about Christ being the same substance (homoousios) with the Father was not binding on Christians. He writes, "Those words which are not found in the scriptures are under no circumstance accepted by us, especially since the Lord warns us, saying, 'In vain they worship me, teaching human commandments and precepts.'" In response, Saint Augustine said, "Homoousios must be accepted because it was declared at, quote, 'the Council of Nicaea by the Catholic Fathers with the authority of truth and the truth of authority.'" Saint Ambrose said, "Neither death nor the sword can detach me from the rule of the Nicene Council." And Theodoret said, "I test my teaching by applying to it, like a rule and measure, the faith laid down by the holy and blessed Fathers at Nicaea." Without these infallible rules, doctrine is decided by debate. I'd be a tad worried about debating William Lane Craig. Fortunately, I don't have to, because an ecumenical council says he's wrong, and we can expect this infallible guidance from the Church of the Living God, which 1 Timothy 3:15 says is "the pillar and foundation of truth." In closing, there are no logical or theological reasons to believe Sola Scriptura is true. The evidential argument for Sola Scriptura either commits a fallacious appeal to ignorance by saying scripture is an infallible rule and no other ones have been proven to exist, or it uses a false assumption when it claims there are no other infallible rules that exist, when that statement has not been proven at all. Protestants who believe in the formal sufficiency of scripture should reject Sola Scriptura because it is not taught in the Bible, and the lack of biblical and patristic testimony shows there was no paradigm shift in the early church towards Sola Scriptura. Finally, the same kinds of evidence that would lead us to believe scripture is an infallible rule of faith that are accepted by my opponent would also show that sacred tradition and the early ecumenical councils are infallible rules of faith, thus showing Sola Scriptura is false. In my rebuttal, I'll break down more of what's wrong with the arguments that Gavin made in his opening statement. Thank you.

All right, thank you very much, Trent. We're now going to move into our first round of rebuttals. Gavin, you have seven minutes whenever.

Let me just actually get this set up. Actually, and I'll let you know. All right, whenever you're ready. Okay, congratulations to Trent for a great opening and for also quoting James White. Very well played. That's an inside joke. Um, one thing to keep your mind listening to carefully, carefully, constantly as the debate goes forward, the 80% rule. Listen carefully at each juncture of the argument to make sure we're defining Sola Scriptura according to the proper framing. It's often individualized, for example, as though, uh, you don't believe in the necessity of the church. It's just you on your own. That's something just bear in mind. Be careful about. Um, let me respond. I'll be curious what Trent has to say about my opening. I'll respond to his arguments here. Just to reiterate, though, what I argued is that the scripture is unique in its nature and in its role. Nothing that Trent has said thus far disputes that. Only the scripture is the inspired speech of God. So, be curious what he has to say about that. But let me address a few things he said.

One of his concerns that I've heard him articulate obliquely here and more fully elsewhere is that with Sola Scriptura, we can't agree on the essentials of the faith. Now, just to touch on that very briefly, I've written a whole book on how we can know what are the essentials and what aren't. At the end of the day, Trent is right that disagreements will remain, but the same is true for the Roman Catholic Church as well. If you, if I ask 10 different Roman Catholics, "Am I saved and why?" I will get eight or nine different answers. I know that because I've done that. Vatican II says the plan of salvation includes Jews and Muslims. Okay, how many? Which ones? Important. Uh, having a purportedly infallible magisterium does not remove ambiguity on important questions that pertain to salvation. That's just simply, that's not particular to Sola Scriptura, that's just a human problem. Okay.

Let's talk about the canon. This is brought up very frequently. Maybe the most common argument against Sola Scriptura. Trent mentioned it a couple of times. Is the canon an argument against Sola Scriptura? As Protestants, we agree that the church recognizes the canon. The necessity of the church's witness unto the word of God is a classical Protestant doctrine. But the church does not need to possess infallibility in order to recognize infallibility. The role of the church with respect to the word of God is servant and testimony, like John the Baptist pointing to Jesus. J.I. Packer said, "The church no more gave us the canon than Isaac Newton gave us gravity." The church's role in canonization does not place her on par with scripture any more than John the Baptist's role places him on par with the Messiah. The simple fact is, you don't need to be infallible to discern that which is infallible. When Moses heard God at the burning bush, he didn't need a secondary voice whispering in his ear confirming that this was indeed God. Now, if you think you do need to possess infallibility as the church in order to discern infallibility in the canon, you end up in a state of continual regress because now you need infallibility to receive and interpret the infallible teachings of your church. The way that we can know for sure that the church does not need infallibility in order to discern the canon is simply the facts of history. It did not happen this way with respect to the New Testament canon. The process of canonization was bottom-up, not top-down. It was a gradual, cumulative, widespread, and organic process by which the church discerned the word of God through the direction and activity of the Holy Spirit. It was not the result of any exercise of infallibility, whether a statement from a pope or an ecumenical council or anything. Athanasius's influence was arguably far greater than any pope, including Pope Damasus I, and prior to the fourth-century councils, New Testament books were routinely quoted as scripture by the early church. The only dispute was the fuzzy edges, like Revelation. Even more decisively, throughout the Old Testament, the people of Israel did not have an infallible teaching office, yet they were able to discern and receive the word of God given to them in what we call the Old Testament scriptures. Jesus held the Jews of his day to the authority of those scriptures. This doesn't mean that there couldn't be disagreement about the fuzzy edges, a book like Esther, and it doesn't mean that there weren't outlier views among other groups. But the, the relevant fact is that Jesus presupposed that the people of God were capable of discerning the word of God apart from the operations of an infallible teaching office. This issue of the canon, it comes up over and over, but it really falls apart if you just think it through. Even the Roman Catholic Church had an infallible canon for most of her history, since the canon was not infallibly defined until the late Middle Ages at the Councils of Florence and Trent.

Now, let's address a separate point. Trent appeals to various statements in scripture and in the Church Fathers about tradition. This is another common, uh, retort. 2 Thessalonians 2:15, for example. The problem with this argument is imprecision and equivocation on the word "tradition." The Lutheran theologian Martin Chemnitz listed eight different definitions of the word tradition. The first seven, he said, are not contrary to Sola Scriptura. Some refer to, for example, what is co-extensive with scripture. That would be how Irenaeus will often use the word tradition as well. It routinely, any appeal to tradition or any use of that word will be latched onto as though it were the same as the idea of tradition at the Council of Trent. So, let me just cut to the chase here, as my time is going fast. What Sola Scriptura is rejecting is the claim that scripture and tradition together constitute the word of God, that they must be received with equal reverence. That's what we are opposed to because tradition is not the inspired word of God. And when you do that and you put the magisterium on top in the role of interpretation, the magisterium is really calling the shots because interpretation is everything. That's how you can end up with obligatory dogmas that have no testimony in scripture or the early church, like the most recent Roman Catholic dogma, the Assumption of Mary. That is a good example of what has at stake in this debate and in, in the issue of Sola Scriptura. That's the kind of tradition we are opposed to and concerned about, not that kind as in 2 Thessalonians 2:15. By the way, on that passage, first-century tradition mentioned in the New Testament, of course, particular local congregations in the first century that are founded by Apostles will receive Apostolic tradition. That would be true for every Apostolic church that happens during the Apostolic era while scripture is still being written. Those oral traditions do not exist as a rule for the church today or throughout church history. We don't know what they are, not to the extent that we have a clue. Paul's teaching in Thessalonica is summarized as an exposition of the gospel and its implications for the Christian life in Acts 17 and 1 Thessalonians 1, but we don't have that as a rule. Just a few brief comments on other things Trent said: "Theopneustos" does not mean life-giving. Look that one up in the commentaries. We talk about that. Mark 7 does use the phrase "word of God" for what is only contained in scripture. That's what Jesus explicitly quotes. The Bible is not like science. Science is one discipline among others. The scripture is the only inspired word of God. It's not like a white swan either. Um, nothing Trent has said has undermined the fundamental point that only the scripture is the inspired word of God. Um, I'd love to tell you more about that, but I am out of time. So you will see me again. Thank you very much.

Gavin. Trent, you have seven minutes for your first rebuttal.

All right, let's take a look at Gavin's central argument: "The Bible is an infallible rule of Faith." Now, I agree with that, but I think we actually agree with that for different reasons. Because if you just look at the Bible alone, Gavin hasn't presented a lot of evidence. He just kind of cited, well, John 10:35 and theopneustos, and inferred from that the Bible is infallible. And admits his own writings, this is an inference that is made. I trust the Bible is infallible because the church has authoritatively told me that. In fact, the question of whether the Bible is infallible is something that is hotly debated among Protestants. For example, like the issue of biblical inerrancy. And his second premise is, "There is no other infallible rule for the church." And my question is, how does he know that? Does the Bible say there is no other infallible rule of faith besides scripture? No. If it did, Gavin would have cited that. So he's basically saying, "Well, sacred tradition and councils are not infallible, therefore there are no other infallible rules of faith." And why should we, why should we believe that? All he's done is he's brought up, "Well, there's these alleged contradictions." And I would love to sit down for four hours and talk about icons. I would love to sit down and talk about the death penalty. Time precludes us to doing that here, but I'm serious, I will sit down and talk with you about that. I'm happy to do it. But I have an atheist here who could rattle off a thousand alleged contradictions in scripture, and merely referencing them doesn't prove that they actually exist. The contradictions can be resolved. I also, I think it's interesting that Gavin brought up that if you embrace sacred tradition, you get things that are not a part of the deposit of faith, like the Assumption of Mary, something he's criticized for only showing up in apostolic writing centuries later. And yet, the earliest writer he has cited for us as being a witness to Sola Scriptura is Saint Augustine, who wrote over 350 years after the time of Jesus. So I find that interesting that he's relying on, he's so far, maybe he'll give us something earlier, I don't know. But his Sola Scriptura shows up in the fourth century. That's fine. If something else like the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption does, well, it's clearly not a positive faith. That seems like a double standard to me. He says the church can be authoritative even if it's not infallible. Well, it can't be spiritually authoritative. I could lose my job at my church. Yeah, I could get fired from Catholic Answers, but it doesn't have eternal consequences. That's what we're wondering. Does the church have spiritual consequences? Now, I agree, the church can be authoritative even without being infallible. Most Catholic teaching has not been infallibly defined. But the Protestant church can't be authoritative because it lacks essential unity. And not like things that Catholics might disagree about. Should I baptize my baby? That's a big deal, and Protestants will give you different answers. Is remarriage after divorce adultery? Protestants will give you different answers. Can a persistently gravely sinful Christian be saved? Protestants will give you different answers. Once

Saved, always saved. People like Charles Stanley say yes. So, and there's a lot of people who believe that. Is homosexual conduct sinful? Depends on which Methodist or which Anglican you ask. Now, of course, there's going to be Catholics who think it's not sinful. But we act, but we have an authoritative teaching within the catechism that says otherwise.

What are the essential doctrines of the faith? That's right. Gavin had to write a whole book on what are the essential doctrines because the Bible alone doesn't tell us. And Protestants don't even agree on the essential doctrines. How could Protestants agree on the essential doctrines of Christianity when Protestants can't even tell you what the essential doctrines are? Then they clearly don't agree on that. And if you only pick a church to belong to because it agrees with your interpretation of scripture, then you are the authority, not the church.

Uh, going through here, the cumulative entailment. Uh, once again, to know the difference between scripture and tradition. Uh, I would say scripture is prior, but not higher than tradition. And I'm just defining tradition as that infallible way of defining the scripture. As Saint Jerome says, the essence is in the meaning, not the letter. And he asks us, well, what are the, or what are the sacred traditions? Well, what are the inspired writings? You might say, well, that's easy, here's this list. Where did that list come from? Well, Gavin says it's a cumulative effect. It didn't come from a church decree by fiat. That's correct.

But here's an inconsistency in Gavin's argument. He says, well, look, the canon of scripture was something the church recognized. It was a cumulative, ground-up approach. And that is a part of it, that you see a growing recognition of these documents in the early church, going from the second, third, fourth centuries until you have the regional councils of Hippo and Carthage. But then it's not in foul. The church doesn't infallibly define things until somebody is really trying to get a heresy out there. And that happens in the 16th century when the church has to respond to Protestants who want to alter the canon, getting rid of the deuterocanonicals, or saying Hebrews or James are not inspired.

But here's the inconsistency. I think he'd also agree that the early church, there was a cumulative, ground-up recognition in doctrines like the papacy, the mass as a propitiatory sacrifice, baptismal regeneration, seeking the intercession of the saints. So that, that also is a cumulative, ground-up, these traditions of the early church. So my question to Gavin would be, how does he know those traditions are wrong, and the canon, the tradition related to the canon of scripture, the same church gave us, is right? And if he says, well, those traditions are wrong because they contradict scripture, well, then he's arguing in a circle, because he's using the very same source of tradition that he considers to be fallible in other respects.

Uh, well, the Jews, though, the Jewish people in the Old Testament, they knew what the canon of scripture was. They didn't have an infallible teaching office. They didn't have anything like the magisterium. And because of that, the Jewish people disagreed about the canon of scripture. And I don't think Protestants would want the Christian church to be like that, where we say, well, you know, Hebrews, we don't know who wrote it. And if it's not an apostle, I don't believe it. I don't think Protestants would be too keen on something like that. Because when you look at the Jews, you have the Sadducees and the Samaritans who only believed in the first five books of the Old Testament. That's why when Jesus was arguing, arguing with the Sadducees about the resurrection from the dead, he didn't quote from Daniel 12, that obviously talks about the resurrection from the dead. He made an indirect argument from the book of Exodus, because he argued to them based on the canon that they accepted. So they had a fallible understanding of it, with different books having it being at different areas of authority for them.

Uh, let's see here. Uh, finally, bringing up Augustine. Uh, well, I would just say, I would commend you to read a great article that Gavin recommended on his channel by Robert Eno on Augustine and doctrinal authority. Because while he notices that some people make overreaching conclusions about Saint Augustine, he goes on to say, no firm conclusions can be drawn from De Baptismo 2.4 concerning the fallibility of these plenary councils in Augustine's mind. Though Eno himself, a scholar that Gavin recommends, leans to the view that Augustine believed these universal councils did not err. The Protestant church historian Mark Ellington says, against the Manichean heretics, Augustine contended that the reason for believing is not found in the scriptures alone, but is grounded in the Catholic tradition.

Thank you. Thank you, Trent. We're now moving into our second round of rebuttals, where each debater will get four minutes each. Gavin, whenever you begin. We can get lost in the details, so let's review the big picture of this debate so far. I opened by noting two considerations that cumulatively entail Sola Scriptura: one, the Bible is unique in its nature as the inspired word of God; second, the Bible functions with greater authority than other legitimate authorities in the church. Then we considered alternative models for purportedly infallible rules of faith, and I noted four decisive problems with them: no precedent in the Old Testament, no instantiation in the New Testament, unknown in the early church, repeatedly overturned by the facts of later church history. I mentioned clear changes to the death penalty. Look into that one, by the way. What that yields is, if the scripture is an infallible rule, and if we don't have any other infallible rule, it follows logically that scripture is the only infallible rule. There's nothing wrong with that kind of empirical reasoning. Nothing that has been said in this debate overturns that thread of reasoning. And one of the problems with Trent's responses is he'll take one piece of the argumentation as though it were the entire argument. Okay, I gave Sola Scriptura as the cumulative entailment of these multiple considerations: scripture's nature, scripture's function, and then the consideration of the alternatives. Mark 7. I haven't caught a response to this, but essentially, again, these Jesus does put the word of God, which is he is referencing scripture, over tradition. The Pharisees could have made many of the same arguments against Sola Scriptura, against Jesus. Said, where is it explicitly said? But it doesn't need to be explicitly said. The Bible doesn't need to anticipate every later error. We know that the scripture is the inspired word of God, and their oral traditions are not. And there's no contradiction with their traditions. What he's opposing to what Jesus is opposing is binding people apart from scripture, not having traditions that contradict the scripture. Now, why would Jesus do that? Why is the scripture more authoritative than tradition? It's because of a simple reason: scripture is ontologically unique. Trent just mentioned he said that I didn't really provide much evidence. I just quoted John 10:35. And that is not true. I talked about 2 Peter 1:21, born of the Holy Spirit for the words of scripture. Romans 3:2, the oracles of God are words of God. Matthew 19:5, 19:5, the scripture is quoted. Jesus quotes scripture as God speaking. So, um, those are passages that I mentioned that just haven't received a response. The fact is, in Roman Catholic Church agrees with this: scripture is the inspired word of God, and nothing else is that we possess as a rule. I ask my question again: why should that which isn't the speech of God be put at parallel authority with that which is the speech of God? I need a reason. If you're going to tell me I need to accept something and be yoked under something that isn't the inspired speech of God as though it's that same level of authority, I need a reason for that. Um, okay, a few other responses here. He mentions contradictions in the Bible. Atheists can use that. Contradictions in the Bible are not the same as contradictions in tradition. The contradictions in tradition are admitted to be contradictions. They're all admitting, yeah, the date of Easter, you say it's that, we say it's that, we're both appealing to apostolic tradition. It's acknowledged as a contradiction. There's nothing in the scripture like that. I don't accept that there are scripture, the contradictions in the scripture. I think most of those boil down to the genre of the scripture in question. He says I appeal to Saint Augustine, who's in the fourth century. We could make similar appeals to Irenaeus, who's earlier. But my main argument was from the scripture itself. So it's not like the Assumption of Mary, a later accretion. Trent says that, why should authority be real unless it sends you to hell? It's not the only kind of authority that is real. If it has eternal consequence, there are temporal consequences to authority that make that authority a real authority. Trent mentioned that Protestants don't agree on the essential doctrines. I always kind of chuckle at this. Neither do Catholics. Look at all the diversity and breadth between the arch-conservatives and the liberals. Ask them both, what do you need? What are the essentials? Trent said the scripture is higher but not prior. Well, if the scripture is higher than tradition, why receive them both with equal reverence? Um, he mentioned other doctrines that don't have a foundation in scripture, but I'll have to tell you about that next time. Thank you, Gavin.

All right, Trent, you have four minutes for your second rebuttal whenever you're ready. It goes fast, doesn't it? Well, we looked at Gavin's single argument, and remember, his single argument boils down to an assertion in premise two: there are no other infallible rules of faith besides scripture. But he can't cite anything in divine revelation that says that. He's made fallacious arguments to try to reach to that conclusion. Then, remember, I gave three positive arguments against Sola Scriptura that have not been addressed. I said that if God intends for us to have Sola Scriptura, it would be clearly taught in scripture so that a person using ordinary and due means would be able to find it, and yet it's not there. It's not explicit in scripture. If God would want us to believe such an important doctrine, and that wasn't addressed. I gave the argument from patristic silence, that we don't see any early fathers affirming what Gavin is saying, that scripture is the only infallible rule of faith. We didn't even really get a citation like that from Augustine, and I've addressed that. Irenaeus was name-dropped. I got nothing to work with there without a citation. Uh, there aren't, you know, what they are authorities even if they can't send me to hell. Well, they aren't actually spiritual authorities. Yeah, I agree. A church is going to kick you out if you don't play by their rules, but so will any social club, so would any human organization that I'm a part of. The Protestant church can't have theological authority because a person is always free to say to the Protestant church he belongs to, well, they contradict the Bible, so I'm going to a different church. But is that the authority God intended for his church? Is that what Paul meant in 1 Timothy 3:15 when he says the church is the pillar and foundation of truth? I hardly think so. Um, the other, here's what's interesting. The other passages Gavin brings up, well, I have these other passages that show scripture is infallible, and the Bible affirms that. Second Peter 1:21, we have the Holy Spirit. Oracles of God, Romans 3:2. The oracles of God in Romans 3:2, by the way, that phrase doesn't necessarily refer to scripture. That's referring to divine revelation being given to the Jews. Matthew 19:5. But notice here what's interesting, and I think this is a double standard with Protestants. If we want to believe scripture is infallible, anything that connects scripture to God, even if it doesn't directly say it's infallible, oh well, that means it must be infallible. But when the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus says to Peter that I will pray for you that your faith will not fail, and you will strengthen your brethren, that sounds like Jesus was giving a gift of not failing or being infallible to Peter. Yet apparently for most Protestants, all Protestants, that's not good enough to show the charism of infallibility there. But when it comes to showing scripture is infallible, anything that connects it to the Holy Spirit or God is good enough. In fact, being God-breathed. Well, in John 20:23, Jesus literally breathes on the apostles, he breathes on them and then gives them the power to forgive and retain sins. That sounds like ecclesial authority to me. Uh, and Gavin's, you know, I still hold to this, that Protestants disagree on essential doctrines. That if there is a set of Catholic churches that shall not be named right now that change the teaching on homosexuality, Pope Francis has warned them, they will be in schism. That this is a way to be severed from the branch and die. But when this happens in Protestant churches, well, you're just these Methodists and these Methodists, you're these Anglicans and these Anglicans, because the church doesn't actually have any Protestantism, actual spiritual authority in that effect. And is that what God wanted? Back to Mark 7. Gavin just asserted, no, theonistas doesn't mean life-giving. I've cited an academic source and given an argument to that it actually makes sense that it's life-giving. In 1 Timothy 3:15, Paul talks about the scriptures being able to provide spiritual life to Timothy. That's how theonistas is used. In contemporaneous documents like in The Testament of Abraham, we see references to ointment that is, feonistos is that what infallible ointment or something like that? When you do a deep study on these words, as recent biologists have done, you see they're being overextended in the use of these arguments. And when, so when it comes to Mark 7, by the way, uh, this is clear. Jesus doesn't say scripture, he says he says word of God. And the Protestant scholar Craig Keener says a Pharisaic teacher could have offered the same sort of argument Jesus offers here.

[Applause]

All right, thank you very much. Now we are going to move into a time of cross-examination, where each debater will have 20 minutes to cross-examine the other. We've got a couple of minutes before we're going to get into that, so the fellas can have a drink. I'd suggest you could get up and go to the bathroom right now, but it would be a madhouse. So maybe just get up whenever you're ready. So take a couple of minutes, uh, if you need to go to the bathroom, feel free and come back, and then we'll get underway again. So if you haven't yet got the app, hello, what are you doing? If you have a smartphone, go and download Hallow. But first, go to hallow.com/mattfrad. Hallow is the number one Catholic prayer and meditation app on the web, and it's fantastic. And it actually beat TikTok recently as far as in the app store, did you know that? It's crazy. It's legit. Hallow.com/mattfrad. Go over there, sign up. You'll get three months for free. 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Go to everythingcatholic.com right now, and when you use the promo code PINTS, you'll get 15% off. So go support an excellent Catholic company, as well as, as I say, excellent Catholic small businessmen and craftsmen. Everythingcatholic.com. Thank you. Can't see anything, so you might have to move over and let me know when I can begin. To when we're going to begin recording again. Go. All right, welcome back. So we have about 1,200 people watching now from around the world. I've just been told. Yes, that's very good. Plus you, so thank you for being here. All right, we're now going to move into a time, as I say, of cross-examination. Gavin will go first, and he'll have 20 minutes to cross-examine Trent, and then after that, Trent will have 20 minutes to cross-examine Gavin. I think it's important to realize that during this time of cross-examination, the cross-examiner is free to interrupt his opponent, if we can use that word, and direct the conversation where he'd like, and that this isn't a sign of being rude, that's just how the debate works. So, uh, Gavin, you have 20 minutes. Do you have a timer there? Yeah, good. You maybe you should do it then, because, uh, right. Thanks. All right, hopefully everybody can hear me. Um, I just have to say hi to my kids at home. Love you all. Hi, Esther. So, I'm going to, some of these questions will take just a minute to set up, so I'll warn you in advance if that happens, and I'll try not to interrupt too much, but I have a lot I want to get to, so I might move it along at points. First, let's just work through where we can agree in our view of scripture. And so, if you could answer these a little more on the briefer side, that'd be great, because I got a couple of these. Can we agree that scripture, can we agree that public divine revelation ceased with the deaths of the Apostles? It's, it's ceased, uh, with the death of the Apostles or the last apostolic man, probably sometime at the end of the first century. Okay. Okay, good. So that's okay. Another, and I expect you to say that, but I just want to establish that. Can we agree that sacred tradition differs from sacred scripture in that it is not the inspired word of God? It is, it has not been described as inspired. No, but it is the word of God given to us in unwritten form. Okay, so this is the fundamental heartbeat then that I want to ask, and we can just tease this out. Why should I accept that which isn't the inspired word of God to be equal in authority to that which is the inspired word of God? Because it's the word of God. Okay. Now, you said higher but not prior. Before, are you saying that the word of God, in the sense of sacred tradition, is equal, is the same as, is not higher than, or, or excuse me, that inspired scripture is not higher than sacred tradition? Let me make an analogy. So you and I would both agree that the Father and the Holy Spirit are equally divine, but there is an order of possession or a hierarchy in the Godhead where the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. So there is a difference there in what we would look at in, like, the order in the Godhead of the Holy Spirit, like the Father doesn't proceed from the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, but they're both equally divine. All right. So when I look at scripture and tradition, uh, scripture would be more prior in one sense of being the written inspired word of God from the Apostles, but sacred tradition, what I'm proposing, or sacred tradition in this debate, is that interpretation of scripture that is infallibly given, that comes from the word of God to know what scripture means. Okay, so just make sure I understand the metaphor. So in the metaphor, the Father and the Son are being compared to Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. The Father and the Spirit, like we say the Father is prior but not higher than the Holy Spirit, when we look at, you know, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, or the Son is generated by the Father, prior but not higher, they're equal in divinity. So scripture is prior to tradition, okay, but it's not more or less infallible or anything like that. But if public, if public divine revelation ceases, why isn't public divine revelation higher than sacred tradition? You know, I mean, to say that that's like God the Father and God the Spirit, who are the same being. I don't think that's a, I don't recognize that as my understanding of the Catholic view as I read through Vatican II. What if divine revelation ceases? Why does the word of God, in that sense, retain the same ontological nature? Because the word of God that has come from the Apostles has come in two different forms. It's come in a written form and an unwritten form. Just because one form is given the adjective inspired, it doesn't follow that the other form is not authoritative. I mean, you and I are going to disagree. I agree it's not authoritative, but I'm asking if they're the same to be received with equal reverence. Because yes, they flow from the same divine wellspring, as Vatican II says, but one is public divine revelation and one is not. Correct. No, they both are sacred scripture and sacred tradition are both public divine revelation. The mode of communication differs, but what is revealed is the same. Okay, so this would touch into where, and I'm just trying to be honest with my sincere concerns here, because if you're saying that, onos it all does come from the first century, sacred tradition is all out, is from the wellspring of divine revelation, the first century, what am I to do when I encounter dogmas that are obligatory in your church that I look into? I'll start with the Assumption of Mary. I look into this. I've found 20 lists of, uh, people assumed to heaven in the Church Fathers, and all 20, without exception, it's Enoch and Elijah, never Mary mentioned. I found, I've read them too. It's interesting. I've read several lists of people who examine what happened at the end of Mary's life as late as the late fourth century and later, in one case, who are saying nobody knows what happened to her. Why should I accept that that's a true, that truly does go back to the first century as an expression of sacred tradition? I, uh, because it is not God-breathed. And I don't think the word inspired is just a generic adjective. I also referenced, uh, 2 Peter 1:21. I don't think it's generic either. I'm just saying that it's not equivalent with being an infallible rule of faith. Okay, it's spiritually life-giving. Okay, but it seems to me that if I am confronted with a claim that is not from the words of God and seems to roundly contradict the historical evidences everywhere, I think that's the problem where we're having an impasse here. Is that you're treating the phrase word of God as being synonymous with scripture, when that's not how the Bible uses that term. The Bible uses it to us, it uses it to the utterances of prophets, to the apostolic preaching. Like in first. I agree with you. I agree with you. And I would say the fired word of God. See, I make a distinction. In my tradition, we speak of my sermon as the word of God, but it's not the inspired word of God. It's not the Holy Spirit carrying the words. Um, it's not, I would never refer to it as God speaking, as Jesus speaks of the scripture. So I make a distinction between the inspired word of God and just how we might use that phrase, the word of God, in other places. And I'm curious about how you see that distinction, because I'm trying to get clarity about your view. You said not prior. Why should we receive that which is no, I said I said prior, not higher. Thank you. Thank you. Why should we receive that which isn't the inspired word of God to be with equal reverence to that which is the inspired word of God? Because we need that which is not the written word of God to infallibly settle what the written word of God means. And that gets back to our primary disputes. That when you look at the disputes in the church's history, when it's dealing with the Modalist controversy, the Arian controversy, uh, the Monophysite controversy, going even up to the to today, this debate is not about what is or isn't scripture. It's, well, what does this scripture mean? It doesn't mean this, or does it mean that? And sacred tradition gives us that. For example, one concrete example of sacred tradition is infant baptism, because the question of whether you should baptize your baby is an essential question. Okay, sorry, you can, I apologize to interrupt so much, but you're allowed to. It's fun. And, uh, I still feel bad doing it. Um, but I'll just say, even if that were true, the fact that it's necessary to interpret, why would that mean it has to be received with equal reverence? Because we want to know what the written word of God means. If we get it wrong, 2 Peter 3:16 says, but there are those who misinterpret it to their own destruction. Because we want to know what it means, I still am not seeing why it follows that that's to be received with equal reverence, or that it should be considered to have equal authority. The necessity of interpretation is not the same thing as equality of ontological nature. It still seems to me that scripture is ontologically unique as the, the born words of the Holy Spirit. And I would say that it is ontologically unique. Just because there is a different adjective to describe it, just like we have different adjectives to describe the Father within the Triune Godhead, it doesn't mean that sacred scripture and sacred tradition are ontologically separate. They, the reason we receive them is because they are both the authoritative word of God. Like, what you preach is good. I've listened, I enjoy. But, you know, we call it the word of God. It's a colloquial term. It's a way of sharing, you know, what is it's more generic. It's not the inspired words. But let me, let me just do this, and then we'll move on. Go ahead. What I would say is that we receive as the word of God because that's how the first Christians received it. Like when you see in the New Testament, like I quoted 1 Thessalonians 2:13, Paul commends the Thessalonians for receiving the word of God. The words they spoke were the word of God, not the words of men. Acts 17:13, the Bereans saw that the word of God was preached among them. Right. And so that would be the word of God in the general sense. But, but let me ask you this, so to get to where it matters so much, uh, in Matthew 23, Jesus says, "Do and observe whatever they tell you with reference to the Pharisees." Right? We know from eight chapters earlier in Matthew 15, not everything the Pharisee said was good. How could the people of Israel have known what traditions to follow from the Pharisees and what not to, other than by testing them according to scripture? Well, they would have tested them according not just to scripture, but in the Old Testament, there were a variety of ways that God's authority was transmitted to the people. Sometimes it's through the oral teaching of the mediator of the covenant, like Moses, for example. And if you had a leader or teacher saying one thing, you'd go to Moses, maybe to settle a dispute. Okay. But the people in Jesus' day, Moses is not alive. So what do you do? You're in the first century. How do you know when you're being yoked to error? When you're being yoked to error? Yeah, when the Pharisees command a tradition that is not what they should follow, how would they know that? Well, what you would do is that's the author. Jesus is referring to the fact that that's the authority that God gave them. I mean, I would ask, what do you think he meant when he clearly says, "Do what they say, not as they do"? His primary complaint is in Mark 7 and Matthew 15 was that the, the Pharisees were using the Corban rule. They were interpreting a vow in the book of Numbers to get around trying to support their aged parents. So I think what Jesus would say is that, do what they say, just don't do what they do with these hypocritical acts. Well, but okay, so in Mark 7:13, he says, "Many such things you do." So they had a lot of traditions where Jesus is saying, you are yoking people into error. You're teaching them to do things that are wrong. I'm asking how somebody could know. You're you're appealing to a thread of reasoning that Jesus employs against them. How could the average first-century Jew know when the Pharisees were yoking them into error, except by testing their teaching according to scripture? I, I'll just give you another shot of that. And I would say that that was a perennial problem in the Old Covenant. That it is a progressive covenant leading up to that which is the perfect covenant. That in the Old Covenant, we don't have like an infallible magisterium. We have progressive revelation. So you have disputes about, well, this is said in Deuteronomy, this is said here. And so you would go to your, you know, to the rabbis, you would go to other spiritual authorities. But God, in the fullness of time, gave us his Son, who then gave us his church in order to finally resolve these ambiguities. That I would, I would say the same problem would exist in them knowing, well, what scripture is, is the correct one. And let me move on to the next question. A multiplicity. There, I do, I do feel bad cutting off, but I'm, we're at 12:11, 11:30 in, and I got so many more things. I would say it seems like a bum deal for the Old Covenant people, uh, that you just gotta say Jesus is awesome. Well, Jesus is not. Amen to that. It's happy when we find something we agree on. Okay, next question. I want to ask some questions about papal infallibility because I think if we're considering Sola Scriptura, it makes sense to consider the alternatives. And this is basically one of the reasons why I believe in Sola Scriptura. So I want to ask about the death penalty. I brought this up earlier. Gives us a chance to talk it through. Sure. Um, I'll just, it'll take me a minute to set up the question. Okay, I'll go as fast as I can. Uh, just on my plane flight here, I was reading a book that he co-wrote on the subject by Ed Fazer, very capable Catholic theologian, I respect. He said, quote, "The traditional teaching on the legitimacy in principle of capital punishment clearly meets the criteria for being an irreformable part of the ordinary magisterium." End quote. I totally agree with him. I think it's shot throughout the tradition and in magisterial teaching in scripture, in tradition. Under Pope Francis' leadership, the Catechism of the Catholic Church was revised in 2018 to say that in the light of the Gospel, the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person, and the Catholic Church works with determination for its abolition worldwide. Now, here's my question. My burden, my genuine burden. Sure. Why should I accept your church's magisterium as infallible when it so manifestly reverses a supposedly irreformable teaching? Because the magisterium, excuse me, the, not every teaching act of the magisterium is infallible. The vast majority of them are not infallible. And this is one of them. So the death penalty, right? This is, this is, so you would disagree with Fazer then? That, no, Ed Fazer would agree with me that the, the revision in the catechism, Pope Francis is not exercising the gift of infallibility. The revision isn't infallible. You're right. Right? Okay. Yeah, but, but, but what good, here's the pr, I agree with that. Here's the dilemma I have. What good is having a purportedly infallible magisterium if its irreformable teachings get performed? Well, then I would follow up with that. That is, there is a contested here, a few different things. First, there would only be a true contradiction here on two assumptions: one, that the original teaching on the death penalty is infallible, and there are theologians who disagree with Fazer and say that it was never infallibly defined, it was just long practiced. Number two, you need two assumptions that that was infallible, and then that the revision is infallible. That was the only thing that would disprove papal infallibility. You would need two infallible teachers about the practical value of it. I mean, what good is an irreformable teaching that gets reformed? It doesn't get reformed though, because the teaching is not infallible. If it were an error, it would be recognized as such. But there's many ways of understanding this teaching. Another way to look at it is to say, look, the death penalty was something that was done to preserve the social order, but then there is a development in understanding how to apply it and when it should be applied. In fact, a similar dilemma could be made against the Bible and Protestantism. Like an atheist could come up to you, Gavin, and say, Gavin, is slavery evil? Well, if you're so confident it's evil, what about all these passages in the Bible that say in Leviticus, you can own slaves? Why don't you ask me about that in your Q&A? Because that's a fair point. And then I will just put that as an example to show that if Protestants are able to resolve the tension from a Bible that commands the ability to pass on slaves perpetually to now saying slavery is evil, the Catholic Church can do the same thing in our application of the death penalty over a long-standing time. Well, okay, I'll address it maybe another time, but let me keep, keep pressing you on some of these points where I sincerely don't accept that there hasn't been, see, revision. We say revision, and here's what I'm not saying infallible revision. I'm just saying the catechism, even if you were right, this, this debate is not about Catholicism. Even if you were correct that papal infallibility is false, there are other options. That would, you still haven't proven Sola Scriptura is true. Orthodox. It'd be like if we're arguing about whether you're not a Republican. It'd be like if we're arguing about whether you should be a Republican, and then I bring up a point about being a Democrat. Right. It's true, you could be neither, you could be something else. But let me ask you another example, uh, on no salvation outside the church. This is a statement at the Council of Florence from a papal bull that most people see as meeting the conditions for ex cathedra. It says, "The most holy Roman Catholic Church firmly believes, professes, and preaches that all those who are outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but Jews, heretics, and schismatics, cannot share an eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the Catholic Church before the end of their lives." It goes on to say that sacraments, almsgiving, and martyrdom can't save you unless you are Catholic before you die. Now, this is another example where I say, I look at that and I try to reconcile the Vatican II, and I'm saying I don't think that's infallible because I would put my question like this: How could Pope Eugene more clearly have said that all the non-Catholics are damned than by that statement? And just as you said, slavery would take us too far afield to be able to discuss here, the same thing would occur with the doctrine, no salvation outside of the church. Church. That would require going through the sources in a meticulous manner. But what I would say is that, are looking at the apparent discrepancies here would be similar to looking at the Bible and seeing some passages that seem to teach if you are a non-Christian, you are damned, and other passages like in Romans chapter 2 that make it seem like it's possible for non-Christians to be saved by the light of conscience or things like that. Once again, I would say it's an apparent contradiction. And I realize, and I appreciate, I'm putting you in the hot seat with complicated things that do take a long time to unpack. So that's totally fair. Let me ask you another question. This is at the heart of it. Where does the New Testament ever envision post-apostolic infallibility as an ongoing feature of the church? And I'm emphasizing the adjective post-apostolic. The same place where it envisions a particular collection of writings, infallible writings, as the authority of the church. That where that the idea that, well, wait. So your question said, I would say that one, if you interpreted it strictly, well, no, it does. It doesn't talk about really any kind of post-apostolic authority, whether it's written or unwritten, if you read it strictly. What about Ephesians 4? There's there's offices in the church mentioned all over the New Testament. First Timothy 3, they're all over. There's just none that are infallible that I'm aware of. But what I would say is, you would apply the same thing that the, that the New Testament does not say there will be a collection of infallible writings that will serve as the authority of the church. And I think what I would say then, if we didn't read it as strictly, I would say there are scripture passages that talk about the role of the church, like 1 Timothy 3:15, "The church of the living God is the pillar and foundation of truth." Matthew 16:18, "The church, uh, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church." So if the gates of hell will not prevail against it, that would seem to imply the church will never formally succumb to some kind of heresy. Okay, fairness. So, so am I interpreting your position accurately? And those words would seem to imply that you would agree there's no explicit mention of post-apostolic infallibility in the church. Yeah, I could say there's no explicit mention of it either, written or unwritten. So we'd both be in the same boat. Okay. Um, let me, uh, it seems to me that if there is a body of teachings that is held to be infallible, the least we can do is identify what it is so we know exactly what we're talking about. So let me start with the easiest category. How many instances of papal infallibility have there been that have been defined? How many instances of papal infallibility? Theologians debate that. There's not a set number. Just like Protestants. I'm going to answer your question then in this way. You are correct. There is no fixed number of sacred traditions or infallible papal pronouncements that everyone agrees upon, just like there is no fixed number of essential doctrines that Protestants agree upon, or even a fixed New Testament, because Protestants disagree about textual variants, some of them important. Okay, so would it be fair to say, in summary, then, that there's a fallible list of infallible teachings? There's a fallible, a fallible list of infallible teachings? Sure. Well, it depends what you, what there is. Like the catechism, for example, is a fallible list of teachings. Some of them are authoritative but not defined, others are infallible. There are second-order objects in infallibility, like this ecumenical council is valid, or their dogma like, uh, God exists, divinity of Christ, Perpetual virginity of Mary. I have a, I have a great question, but this question would be so great, but I'm out of time.

All right, thank you very much. Now we go to Trent. You've got 20 minutes to cross-examine Gavin, and then I want to let everybody know that we're going to have 30 minutes of Q&A after this cross-examination, and that the microphone, if you're looking at the stage, is on the left of the stage. So immediately after this cross-examination, try to think of a question now, and I beg you to keep it short. According to Catholics, really, there ought to be only one person pontificating, and it's not you. Okay, so get up, ask your question quick. Um, but Trent, you've got 20 minutes whenever you want to begin.

Alrighty, so let me understand how you come to a rise of the canon. Because one example I gave is that the, the canonical list, the list of the, these, let's take the New Testament for simplicity, these 27 books are the inspired word of God. Now, I would say that that is an infallible rule of faith. Someone, you cannot deny these books or scripture. Uh, now, was your reasoning for that, why we believe in the canon, is because of an early, ground-up church tradition, and that's where it came from, and why we accept it? Yeah, it would be essentially qualitatively the same kind of process by which the, the Israelites received the Pentateuch. It's not an edict, it's not infallible, it's the work of the Holy Spirit. It's the, it's Jesus, "My sheep hear my voice." It's the people of God discerning the word of God. Uh, there are criteria that that you can look to. One of them is apostolicity. So almost every New Testament book is either written by an apostle or by someone who's closely associated with an apostle. Um, the only real struggle there is Hebrews, depending on who you think the author of Hebrews is, but I think you can make a good case for Hebrews even there. There are other criteria you'd appeal to as well. Um, but the, the phrase I like to use is conservative traditioning. So you're trying to be as conservative as possible in looking at how the Holy Spirit led the church into consensus. What has precedent? And then, well, then here's my question: Why do you accept, let's say, the church, the Holy Spirit led the church to a consensus on the canon centuries after, uh, the time of Christ? Why do you accept that tradition on the canon, but not traditions related to baptismal regeneration, the mass as a propitiatory sacrifice, the role of the episcopate? Why do you accept that tradition from the early church, but not the others? I, I think that there are differences from one tradition to another. Some have a foundation in the New Testament, some don't. Some have a greater unanimity among the early fathers. Um, I thought you were going to ask about the papacy and other things like that. Baptismal regeneration is one where, as soon as you define the term, you realize there's multiple competing views that are in view there, in my opinion. We could talk about propitiatory sacrifice of the mass as well. I would say, would you agree that the early church reached consensus on positions that you reject? No. So is everything you believe the same as what the early church believes? No. That's also not true. So, wait, so you're not, everything I believe, right? Okay, so let me rephrase it then. So there is no consensus position, not universal, but a widespread belief in the early church, there's no widespread belief in the early church that you reject? It depends on how early. Let's say the time of the, and let's say the, let's say the time of the fourth century by Nicaea and the councils of Hippo and Carthage. There's probably things I could think of. Um, you and I have talked about some of those universal views that come in. How do you define the sin of usury? So that's why my question is then, you can agree around that time, there are traditions you don't accept from the church at that time, but you do accept the tradition of the canon. And it's traditions. I mean, I don't know if I'd call that when I mentioned tradition, but yeah, I mean, there's differences. You have to take everything on a case-by-case basis. Not everything that happens is equally good. Um, the, the canon is one that the process starts in the New Testament itself, because we've got Luke's gospel referred to as scripture by Paul, quoted as scripture. And we've got Paul's writings quoted as scripture by Peter in the New Testament. So, so we got 13 out of 27. Well, Paul's writings, yeah. So you've got, but it's not just which ones you have, it's that there's a recognition that there is scripture, that these documents are scripture. So the process and the tradition then is developing from that foundation. Does it concern you that I mentioned earlier in my studies that in the second century, you have dozens, if not hundreds, of citations of the Old Testament of scripture, but in the time before Irenaeus, you have maybe like nine citations of the New Testament formally as scripture, like we're saying it is written or calling it scripture? I don't think so. The, the, the frequency of those citations doesn't disprove the point that I made that it, it begins in the New Testament, and that therefore distinguishes it from other traditions. I have other, I have other fun questions here. Do you agree with the Westminster Confession of Faith when it says, "The infallible rule of interpretation of scripture is the scripture itself"? Yes. I think what, what it's trying to get at there is

that you're it's trying to reject the alternative position within the Roman Catholic Church that you're going to have an infallible magisterium. That's that rule. Uh, are these terms important to know for our salvation? The gospel and works of the law? Yes, they are important to know.

Where does Scripture interpret the meaning of the Gospel? Well, I think First Corinthians 15:3-4 is one good summary of that term. In First Corinthians 15, does it identify the gospel that Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead? But it doesn't say the deity of Christ or believing in him to be saved. That's true. Not every summary of the gospel is going to give you everything. I think you could look at other, other passages for those doctrines. But there's no like scripture that interprets the gospel like you couldn't just say, "Oh, the gospel is defined here." The closest is there's a few elements in First Corinthians 15. Well, I think that's a good summary of the gospel. I mean, to exegete that passage, then you have to say, "Well, who's Jesus?" And you just widen it a little bit to the rest of Paul's writing. If Jehovah's Witnesses believe Jesus died and rose from the dead, do they have the gospel? Well, that's what you're saying. You'd have to ask the question, "What do those words mean?" And to exegete them meaningfully, you have to look at the author, and that's Paul. And Paul also says Christ was in the form of God. And he also says, um, uh, Colossians 1. There's actually a couple texts in Paul, but those other texts don't say this is a part of the gospel. That's true. Yeah, you'd be, so you'd be looking at First Corinthians 15:3-4 and you'd be just asking, "What does this mean?"

Let's try the other one. Uh, where does Scripture interpret the meaning of the term "works of the law"? Because Paul is very clear, we're not justified by these things. Where does Scripture interpret what those are? Well, there's certainly no passage that says, "Thus follows the interpretation of the works of the law: colon," and then, you know. But I would say that as you read through Galatians and Romans, you can actually make a good amount of progress on that because Paul uses that phrase pretty consistently, um, or pretty frequently. And, uh, sometimes he will, sometimes they'll even give examples like circumcision, for example. So, but he doesn't give a definition. That's true. You're not going to find a dictionary definition of every. If the point of the questioning is, "Where are the dictionary definitions for the importance?" I just want a definition. It doesn't have to be a dictionary one. Because some people, because if I could say, "Oh, well, the works of the law are just circumcision and kosher law," then the Protestant Catholic debate and justification is kind of over. When most people would say it's far wider than just those things. The examples that Paul lists. I have to say, I, I don't really feel the force of this question because I, I'm not committed to saying that every definition of the gospel is going to give you every word that you need. I mean, the doctor, the perspicuity of scripture, all it says, if you read Westminster 1.7, is that the things you need to get saved are clear enough that by the due use of means in reading scripture, you can get saved.

Let's, let's talk about essential doctrines. I think that's really important. Uh, so, are there, I love finding the right hill to die on. Good book. Definitely get it if you can. Gavin's book. He says, "Is there ever a time when a true Christian denies a first-ranked doctrine?" How much error may we tolerate before losing confidence in someone's salvation? It's difficult to say. So, are there doctrines that if a Christian were to deny them, it would reveal he's not saved, but is instead an unbeliever? For example, if he were to reject that Christ is the Messiah? Yes. Okay. So, we could call these essential doctrines. Well, yes, although that you could, you sometimes use the phrase "essential doctrines" for what must. Yeah. No, that'd be, that'd work. What's, what must not be denied? Yeah.

Does the Bible contain a list of essential doctrines? Um, no. There's no, again, it's the same as the last kind of question. There's, there's not going to be a systematic treatment of that. I would say that again, with the phrase, "the due use of means," reading the scripture carefully, um, you can make progress at that. What I said in my opening rebuttal to you on this point is, I think we have principles by which we can make progress and come to reasonable certainty about a question like this. Essential doctrines. I don't think that will take away every disagreement. So, there will be people who will disagree on exactly how you construe that. Uh, is, but that's not a problem. Is belief in Christ's human will an essential doctrine? Um, I love you, William Lane Craig. Hello. Um, I would say no, but I would say it's very close. How about Christ's human mind? Oh, man. The last time I got grilled on theological triage, I look back in crin. So, I hope I get this right. If we're going to go through a lot of these, what was this one? Christ's human mind. Yeah. There's a human mind. I, I honestly, is, I really would like to take some time to think about that. The last time I answered questions like this, I, I don't want to shoot from the hip on when you're talking about, "Is this going to make you saved or damned?" No, that's, I want to think of it. Then I would just like to know, do Protestants have a place I could go to get the answers to those questions? No. Well, first of all, Protestantism is not one church. So, if you do, you know a church that does have those answers? Not in the way you're asking the question. Like that. There's not, there's no Protestant church that's going to come and say, "Here's the list. It's 17. Here you go." Um, or if I could go and ask, "Do I have to believe to be a Christian that Christ has a human will or a human mind or a human body?" Like, is that an essential? As a human body, you could go to some of the classical Protestant texts, and they will treat those kinds of questions. Turertain, if I recall, has a treatment of Christology. What are the essential parts of Christology? Certain ones, though, because it seems like if I go to William Lane Craig's philosophical foundations or theology, I'll get a really different answer. You get a different answer to that. Of where are there places to look for? Or well, once you answer those questions, are, oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. There are Protestants like William and Craig who have a different view on on the, uh, question of, is, does Christ have two wills? Certainly. Or I could go to the ecumenical councils, and they have answers. You don't think that they're infallible, but they have defined those questions. Yeah, but I mean, if all of this is construed as a criticism of solo scriptura, I have to say, I don't really think it hits the target because the perspicuity of scripture never says no one's ever going to disagree on important questions like that. That does happen. It happens in your church too, if I may say.

Let's see here. Let's talk about the authority of the church, because we were talking about that a little bit. Uh, so, you believe the church is an authority for Christians, even though it's not infallible? Certainly. Okay. Uh, could the church teach that an act not in scripture, like using IVF and surrogacy to create a child for a gay couple to adopt, is gravely evil? Could it authoritatively teach on a moral act that's not in scripture? Certainly. Okay. Uh, could the church teach it's greatly sinful to use contraception, given that all Christian churches taught this before 1930? Well, my, my answer to your last question, I, I guess I need to amend that to say that kind of thing, certain moral practices, can the church give an authoritative decision on? Certainly. Um, so, yeah, in general. Now, whether it will be prudent for a church to do that will depend on the specific issue at hand. But yes, churches can and do offer authoritative rulings on moral issues. For example, many churches will say that if you are pro-choice, you may not be a member of that church. That's a real authority. Would God punish a Christian who left a church because he wanted to engage in these acts like IVF for gay couples or contraception or abortion, because their reason was, "These acts are not condemned in scripture"? Would God, would there be a spiritual consequence from God to Christians who left the church over that teaching? Um, I don't want to say what God is going to do, but I would say that all sin has serious spiritual consequence. But the question of whether it's a sin would be precisely what's in dispute. If the person leaves and says, "I think you're wrong. The Bible doesn't teach this." Yeah. So, the question of whether it would actually have spiritual consequence would not depend on their view, but on the truth, what God says, what God's view is. So, it's not like if I don't think a sin is really a sin, it won't have a consequence, right? I mean, there might be something I do that's wrong, but I don't think it's wrong, but it's still going to harm me. But we can always say, "But the church could be fallible and just be wrong about these moral teachings that are not in scripture." Uh, yes, the church can give fallible or it can give incorrect teachings. Yes.

Other things on the church being, because I, and I don't, you know, that actually is why, you know, we're Protestants. We think that has happened. That's exactly what we think happens a lot all throughout history. So, going back to the church being an authority. Uh, so, you, as a Protestant, you still believe in the church? I'm not going to ask you to unpack that term, but to leave the church has authority. Does the church have a teaching on if I have a duty to baptize my baby? Well, it depends on which church. How many churches? How many churches did Christ give us? One. One church. But that church is instantiated by local congregations. So, and this is a challenge for both of us because you, you know, as a Roman Catholic, I think you would acknowledge as Christians outside the one true church, right? So, it depends on which local congregation you're a part of. What was the initial question again? Does the church have a teaching on if I have a duty to baptize my infant? Well, the, the paito Baptist churches think so. That's why they're paito Baptist. So, we agree there's the church Christ gave us, and there are congregations. Yes. So, the church would seem like it has no teaching on that. The congregations have contradictory teachings. Well, I, I would say that when we say, when we speak of the churches in the Universal Church, for no Christian at all of any tradition today, is there any mechanism by which to enforce one policy on a question like that? Because to me, you need like a unit, some kind of universal teaching authority. Well, yeah, or you need, and even then, you'd have a challenge in enforcing it when you've got two billion Christians. But I, I don't, there are churches that are able to enforce these rules, even if they have like, like a billion members. They're like, "Well, I don't, I don't accept that the Church of Jesus Christ is restricted to one institution." I cannot, in my good, in good conscience, do that. I see the church, uh, in every way the church is described, reflected in multiple institutions. It would have to, I would have to tear my heart out of my chest to say that only Christians and only the true church of Jesus Christ is in that one institution that can enforce this policy, and they're all out of the church. None of these other ones are the church. I could not do that.

Okay, so, is Sola Scriptura? Let's go to my sufficiency argument. Is Sola Scriptura a doctrine God wants everyone to know is true? Like, Sola Scriptura is something God wants all of us to know is true? In general, yes. I mean, it's a conceptual framework for a specific question of how do we, as the church, so it's for the church as such. So, if you're Tom Cruise and Castaway on an island somewhere, you don't have the Bible, you know? Okay, circumstantial variation will factor into that. But yes, in general, um, I think that that is something, yeah, I can just say yes, God wants us to know it's true. Was Sola Scriptura true once all of divine revelation had been inscripturated? Yes. But it would be kind of like asking, "Is the Roman Catholic position true prior to the Council of Trent?" Or you could say, "Is the Roman Catholic tradition true prior to the completion of the canon?" Or something like that. It's not the Roman Catholic position, nor Sola Scriptura. Neither one is designed to function irrespective of context or what time in history you live in or what circumstance you're in. When Ignatius of Antioch was martyred, were of humor, you, the 66 books of the Bible, the sole infallible rule of faith for him and other Christians? Yes. Okay. Infallible rule of faith, absolutely. Is there, it's not, doesn't mean it's the only authority. Is, is there any Christian who who says that during that time period or even after? Yes. I have found in, I mentioned in my opening speech, William Whitaker goes through 20 examples of church fathers who speak about only the scripture. Scriptures at the top of the pyramid. It's the inspired word of God. Tradition and councils, uh, bishops, they are subordinated under the scripture. But then he gives examples. Agree with you that there are church, many, the church fathers agree, and I agree that scripture is materially sufficient, that all of the doctrines are found there. We must be obedient to scripture. But I'm curious, who is the earliest Christian to use the phrase to say their scripture is the only infallible rule of faith? Not just to say it is infallible, or to have problems with this rule or that rule, but to say it's the only one. Like, who says that? Well, there's the language that the scripture is infallible and popes and councils are not. So, I won't try to give you the earliest because I honestly can't remember the chronology off the top of my head. But the reason I mentioned Augustine is because he's such a weighty theologian who wrote on this specific question more than all the other church fathers combined. And Augustine, the way he hasn't used the exact terminology and phrase. Actually, there is one passage in Augustine, Zola, scriptura, or it's in the plural, but solely scriptures. But, um, but that's, I don't like to argue just from the language. But the idea, he says it.

Let's come back. I got 90 seconds here. Okay. So, God wants us to know Sola Scriptura is true. If God wants us to know something is true, it'll be in the Bible. I wouldn't say that that follows. Okay. I would say the main, the things that are essential to know for salvation are in the scripture, and the things that are important to know for the basic contours of Christian theology. I won't try to recall the exactly. Important for the basic contours of Christian theology. Well, it's not really a doctrine. That's why I say it said earlier, it's a more of a prologominal methodological matter. But yes, and I do think Sola Scriptura is the, as I've argued, the, the entailment of scripture's claims about itself and its portrayal of its role in the people of God. Is there a scripture verse that says scripture is the only infallible rule or says there are no other rules? It sounds like you're saying this scripture says it is an infallible rule, and we can reason there are no others. But you're, you're not going to put out a scripture where God says, "Scripture is the only infallible rule." Okay, this is kind of the challenge of trying to prove a universal negative or something like that. When the scripture makes a claim about itself, it doesn't, I would say it doesn't need to anticipate every possible alternative later view. Just like the Pharisees could say, "Well, like when it, scripture says Christ is the only name we are saved for example," which would be a universal negative. I'm looking for a similar verse that does that with scripture. We can wrap up now. Please. Um, I, I would say it is the entailment. So, yeah, I think I can bite the bullet and say, no, you don't have like a, like, you know, proof text. Like, here's this relation of scripture to nutrition. It's the, my argument has been an empirical argument. It's the entailment of scripture's claims about itself and its portrayal of his role in the life of God's people. And then a consideration of alternative models. All right. If we can, we're going to move now into a time of Q&A. So, I'd ask you, if you have a question, you can see Thursday over there on the left, very handsome and dapper in the blue suit. You can go over there and just form an orderly line, please. Is give each of you two minutes to respond or thereabouts, if that's okay with you. I want to remind people that immediately after this debate, we are going to have a private meet and greet at our Cigar Lounge on 4th Street for local supporters and members of The Cigar Lounge. So, you know, type in Chesterton's or cigar and Google, you'll find it. And we'll all party until at least 3:50 AM. Um, and that, that's not, you're not going to make it right away, but Trent will be there until 3:50 AM, or he won't. All right. So, it's tomorrow at nine. It's going to be funny. Matt, I know. All right. So, guys, I don't want to be too strict about this. I'd love to give each of you like two minutes each. And I know you've been excellent about the timing, so, you know, roughly two minutes each. I don't want to be too artificial about it, but, so whoever asks, uh, the, you know, if the question's directed at Gavin or Trent, you know, Gavin speaks for two minutes, then Trent for two minutes. And we'll, we'll, we've got half an hour, so we'll see how many of you we can get through. I don't think we're going to get through any more than we already have up here. So, go for it.

All right, this question is for Gavin. Um, so, you said that Saint Augustine would be on the side of your, um, of your position. Today, I read a quote from him which said something to the effect of, "I only believe Holy Scripture is, uh, infallible and inspired because the Catholic Church has said so." Have you heard of this quote? Do you know of it? Um, and like, what would you say to that? Thank you for the great question. Uh, since we have so many in line, I'll try to be as succinct as possible. I do have a video on this where I address that exact question. It's the first of two response videos on this, Augustine Solo Scriptura videos. So, the brief answer is, I actually want to clarify. I, I don't think I said, and I wouldn't say, Augustine is just generally on the Protestant side of scripture in every way. Obviously not. Look at his view of the canon. But on the specific question of Sola Scriptura, where do you locate infallibility with respect to the rule for the church? I think he's explicit and clear. It's only, only in the scripture. It's not even in the ecumenical councils. Um, for that passage that's in his Reply to Faustus, that is affirming something we can and do agree with as Protestants, the necessity of the church. Uh, in that video, I go through a number of the 17th century Dutch reformed theologians who basically expounded a number of different ways that the scripture, excuse me, that the church is necessary for the scripture. We wouldn't have the scripture without the church, uh, protecting it, or in terms of persecution, discerning the canon, preaching and proclaiming it. So, um, uh, we would agree with Augustine. But that isn't the precise question of Sola Scriptura. It seems to me the precise question of Sola Scriptura is, where do you locate infallibility with respect to the church's rule? The video unpacks it all more. Hope that helps. And we get replies, right? Matt? Yeah. And what I would say, that debating about what Augustine meant, that Augustine believed in Sola Scriptura or not, on the one hand, it's kind of a moot point because individual fathers can be wrong on certain doctrines. Even if, you know, if let's say he's the only witness to this, well, now we have Sola Scriptura only popping up in the fifth century, which usually was a Catholic. When that happens, people say, "Oh, that's not Apostolic at all." But I don't think we can just easily make the case Augustine believed in Sola Scriptura. With that particular quote, I see what Gavin is saying here, though. I do think that Augustine and others would look to the church as having an infallible foundation and an infallible guidance to make sure that it has protected scripture during this time, that it's not a historical happenstance. I think that even if you believe in Sola Scriptura and say, "Oh, well, I believe the church has this a lot of this authority, it's just not infallible." And Augustine believed that the church has a lot of authority, but it's not infallible. It's hard to say that Augustine had that Protestant view of Sola Scriptura. BB Warfield, well-known Calvinist theologian, says the Reformation was the triumph of Augustine's doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the church. So, I think that the, what, how Augustine viewed the church, uh, would not merely be fallible historical happenstance giving people the gospel, but that there is a spirit-led infallibility behind it all. All right, thanks. And that's just a reminder to keep your questions short. Go for it.

Well, I've got a short one right here. All right. Is this, could it really all be boiled down to a chicken or egg argument? Trent, why don't you begin, since Gavin went last time? Well, I'm not sure exactly the frame of the question, but I would make an assumption that especially if it's related to the question of how we identify what scripture is and we determine that it's infallible. I do think there is a chicken and egg problem here. That, for example, if we say, "Well, I accept the fourth century church's tradition on the canon of scripture, but not its traditions about the Mass or baptism because those are unbiblical." Well, how do you know what's biblical in the first place when you needed the traditions to find out the answer to that question? So, I think there is, it, there is a vicious circularity there. That either you have the two Protestant options seem to be a self-authenticating canon, which I would say is invalid and circular, or that the canon of scripture, it's, oh, it's a fallible list of infallible books. It's possible these books are actually not inspired. You know, that that is on the table, but I don't think that's an option anyone here really wants. Briefly, since we've got so many, um, I don't accept that temporal chronology always maps on to authority. So, I don't think it follows at all that if something comes later in time, it's lesser, has lesser authority. We've talked about Israel versus the church. You say, "Hey, Israel came first. That doesn't mean Israel had greater authority in our offices or something like that." Also, just want to clarify quickly, it's not my position that I reject fourth century traditions just because they're unbiblical. You want to look at the early church record too. Most of my concerns about Roman Catholic theology are, it's really, I think I can say all, all of them, it's because of the early church as well.

Next question. Hello. So, uh, how do you reconcile the fact that schismatic groups such as like the Eastern Orthodox or the Oriental Orthodox also reject Sola Scriptura, even though they broke off in like the 6th and the 11th century? Gavin, Trent, that one's for you. Well, they're just kidding, right? Well, they were, they reject Sola Scriptura because they recognize there are other infallible. Just because you disagree on some, whether some things are an infallible rule, like whether a Pope, a papal ex, like we disagree about whether a papal ex-cathedra statement is an infallible rule of faith, but we agree that sacred tradition is an infallible rule of faith. And because we both have that agreement, we would both reject Sola Scriptura, and we just have different reasons for doing so. There. That's it. So, I was joking when I said that was for you, but I'm happy you went first so I can gather my thoughts. Um, I, I would just say it does not follow that if something is held in multiple groups, it must be true. And there are circumstantial and historical reasons why that may be the case. Look, there's a lot of Protestants out in the world. There's almost a billion Protestants. How can you explain that all these, Bill, almost a billion people all believe the same thing about Sola Scriptura? Well, they could just all be wrong, right? So, I don't, I don't think it's, to me, it's not a compelling argument if it, the belief is present in multiple churches, therefore we must accept it. Um, I would say you have to go more deeply to say, what are the ultimate reasons for that, for that position being true? And that's what we've been kind of working through tonight. All right. Next question. Hmm. Meet all of her. This is more for for clarity for Gavin. Uh, if we had an Apostolic tradition outside of scripture somehow today that you were convinced of its validity, would you consider it to be infallible? Maybe if you saw like a videotape of Paul preaching that was in addition to scripture, would you say that's infallible? Thanks for the great question. Um, I'm not sure. I don't know that all Apostolic teaching was infallible. Sometimes the apostles disagreed. Sometimes the apostles needed to be corrected by each other. So, I am not sure that all Apostolic teaching is infallible. Um, it would depend. But I, I would say what I know is infallible is that which is given to us as the very words born of the Holy Spirit. So, that's how I'd answer that. Thank you for the great question. Yeah. And I would say the, the words of God that have been given to us are infallible, whether they're given to us in a written or an unwritten form. And that primarily, when you look, uh, in the, the history of the early church, as well as in the Bible itself, the term "word of God" was applied to utterances, like when God speaks or prophets speak or apostles speak. It's now, there are cases in scripture where it's applied, like maybe to a Psalm, but generally the Psalms were understood to be David's prophetic utterances. So, I think that we have to be careful in our modern age that when we hear "word," we instinctively, just instinctively think of the written word, because we live in a dramatically different context than those of the Old and New Testament, where "word" was primarily not something that was written down. And I think that has to be a forefront for us when we talk about what is and is not the word of God. I have an argument I want Dr. Orlin to critique. It has three points and a conclusion. No church can avoid schism without a Supreme Court. A supreme court has to be infallible, or else one party will appeal beyond the court to an infallible source. God intended there not to be a schisming church. Therefore, an authority must exist that is infallible outside of scripture. Thank you for the good question. Turning it over in my mind here. I agree with point three. God doesn't want schism. Boy, we could probably belabor that point a lot here. Um, I'm saying that in a spirit of grief at our schisms. I don't know about the first two. I mean, the first one was, I think if I remember correctly, me, in order to avoid schism, you need a central authority, something like that. I, I think that central authority is going to be helpful to that end. But I can well imagine churches that don't have a central authority that avoids schism by other means. On the second point, I think that was one where I would depart. And I'm so sorry, but it's been a long day. Refresh me on that one. Otherwise, one party will be like, "Well, I'm appealing above you to settle this." Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that that follows. I don't know that you'd have to be infallible for something to be accepted. I mean, the Sanhedrin had real authority, but it was not infallible. I, I don't, I've been thinking about this distinction between infallibility and authority a lot. I'm, don't, I'm not persuaded that infallibility is the save all that's going to, that's going to keep us together. And I, I will say one other thing in addition to my, um, disagreement with that, a point, and that is that there's a double-edged sword here, because the greater power you have to unify, the greater power to bind unto error. And so, that is the great fear that, uh, these kind of philosophical arguments, you know, if we need this, well, all the good it can do, it can be used for bad. And so, if that's not truly of divine institution, which is the question we would then want to answer on historical and theological grounds, not philosophically, then we, by adhering to such a thing, we could find ourselves in a situation where we are like the people on the Pharisees' age, getting jokes to error. So, that would be the concern in the opposite direction. But I'm trying to be brief. Forgive me if I didn't do your question justice. Yeah. And I would say that Gavin's concern about, well, if you have an infallible church, to be able to prevent schism, to be able to infallibly settle disputes, there is also the possibility that the church will infallibly bind people to error. Well, I would say that there's a similar argument that's made here by more liberal Protestants who question the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. If you like Peter Enns or or Kenton Sparks, his word, Sacred Word, Broken Word, who will say, you know, the more you invest into scripture infallibility, to settle our questions about things and to have, here's the determinant meaning, and it can't be gained, saved, the more likely you could have the Bible falsified by something in the sciences or history or or linguistics or things like that. And if Gavin would say, "Well, if scripture is infallible, we don't have to have that fear because the Holy Spirit will protect it from those kinds of contradictions." I would say the same thing would apply to the magisterium, the teaching office of the church. Christ gave us. This question is for Gavin. Um, so lonely, so lonely. I want to ask, how do you reconcile the plethora of translations of scripture that we have? Are there translations that are closer to or farther from the infallible truth of scripture that we agree is there? And how do we determine that without an infallible body? Okay, thank you for the question. Um, yes, some translations are better than others. Um, that gets into translation philosophy, and you know, um, I have my own convictions about that. Uh, but essentially, we will be working from the original texts, the original autographs, and the best translations are those that most faithfully convey the meaning. Now, you know, there may be some disagreements from one Christian to another as to what that means to faithfully convey the meaning. I don't know that we would need an infallible arbiter to arrive upon the truth about that. Again, I just don't really, I, I, there's this desire for infallibility that I am trying to sympathetically listen to and understand because I don't, I just think so differently. I just think an ongoing charism of infallibility is just never the way it's been, ever, anywhere. So, I, I don't see, and where you have that, I actually don't see that that solves all the problems. Um, anything that you get infallibly from that, now you've got to interpret that. And very rare is the circumstance where the infallible edict is just going to resolve everything. And so, as I, well, I don't want to go on too long here, but, uh, yeah, so, I, I guess, you're going to measure the translations by their faithfulness to the original Greek and Hebrew texts. Um, I don't know that you need an infallible arbiter to do that. That's my brief answer. But I have to ask for your patience in all of these because I'm not giving a great answer as much as I could if we had a longer period of time. I hope you all, uh, have patience for brief answers. And actually, I kind of agree with Gavin on this point when it comes to translations. Because the, the church does not have an infallibly defined translation of scripture. We always understand that there's going to be, look at Pope Pius XI's encyclical on, uh, scripture and biblical scholarship. You know, there's understandings that like the Latin Vulgate, the Nova Vulgate is different than the Vulgate that Jerome translated. So, Catholics and Protestants work together in forming the best Bible translations they can, and they have different philosophies about what kind of translation you're creating. So, I think though, there's two ways to look at this from a practical matter and a principled matter. On a practical matter, having a legitimate central authority, even if it's fallible, is still helpful with biblical translations because it's nice to have an authority. And I think Gavin would say the same thing. I'm sure Gavin, if someone came to your Bible study and had the New World Translation, you might be like, "Ah, we're gonna have to stop you right there. That's the Jehovah's Witness Bible." So, it makes sense for the church to say, "These translations are appropriate. These are not. These can't be used for liturgy. People shouldn't even be reading these translations." And they could be fallible because you could, you know, get it wrong or misunderstand a translation. So, it's helpful there, even if it's fallible, to have an authority you can appeal to to say, "Okay, here's what you can work with." On a principled matter, though, I think infallible authority comes into play when if you are divided over a translation and the translation reflects on a dogma of the faith. Like, there are non-Jehovah's Witness scholars who translate John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was a God." There are non-Jehovah's Witnesses who defend that translation. But aside from the exegetical arguments, you also have infallible teachings about the divinity of Christ and his relationship to the Father and the Trinity to be able to apply to those disputed questions. That's not the majority of, hardly any translations deal with that, but when they do, it's a, it's a big deal. God bless you both. Um, my question is, my questions for Trent. Earlier, you criticized Protestants for being an authority unto themselves. They'll find a church that agrees with their individual understanding of scripture and then go with that. But you believe that Orthodoxy has false teachings, you believe the Coptics have false teachings, you believe that Protestants have false teachings. So, aren't you an authority unto yourself when you judge them and find them lacking and choose to be Catholic? Right. No, I agree that everyone. And actually, I was watching Gavin's video, Sola Scriptura Defended, to prepare for the debate, and I show up in it, but he says I made a good point. So, I was like, "All right, cool." Because I said in in that video that there is an argument like, if you say, "Oh, so Protestantism is bad because you have to use private judgment." Well, we, at the end of the day, we all have to use private judgment to decide the data comes in, and I have to figure out what's true. Like, that is just, that's everybody. The point I was making there was that if the claim is that the church has authority under the model of Sola Scriptura, that to me seems like a very hollow claim when a person is always free to be able to say that the church has misunderstood scripture. I've noticed this a lot, like the pro, I engage with a lot of Protestants on YouTube, but I find the well-thought-out Protestants are the ones who are deeply committed to magisterial Protestantism. They'll read the reformers and those who came after them, and they're well-committed. And sometimes they speak derisively of, "Evangelicals, no creed but the Bible," or people who practice so low scriptura instead of Sola Scriptura. But I don't think there's warrant to be that derisive when the bare-bones framework, no other infallible rule of faith, they're both using the same methodology in that respect. So, my, my, uh, criticism was that because, uh, under Sola Scriptura, the church's authority can be gained, saved, so easily, you lead to these problems where the church isn't really an authority. You are to speak on many of these matters. But yes, ultimately, we do have to find out what is true, what is not. And I have to do, as a Catholic, like the church will teach things that I find uncomfortable, but I ascend to say, "Even though I find this uncomfortable, God has guided the church with the Spirit," and so I will, I will ascend to that. I'm glad I spoke positively about Trent in that video. He, because he makes many great points. He's a great debater, a great person. So, I know these debates are very charged, but happy. I want to emphasize that. I want to underscore the question. I think it's a great question. And I do think that this is a point where there really isn't as much difference as there is purported to be between Protestants and Roman Catholics or other Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian. I mean, you know, earlier William Lane Craig came up. I also want to honor him and say he's a fantastic Christian apologist who's advanced the gospel so much. But when it comes to his rejection of the doctrine we mentioned earlier, or something like this, he's really in the same exact position. If his local church has that doctrine, a statement of faith, he's out. You have to submit to the church. As a Protestant, I'll give an example. There's lots of things as a Christian I submit to the church too. Lots. One example is the doctrine of hell. I don't like that doctrine. Makes me exquisitely uncomfortable. I submit to it because it's the historic consensus of the church. There's things in my ordination credentials, my, my body of ordination, that are, you know, it's not what I would have thought of. I submit to it. So, there's a tension here for all of us. Private, private judgment makes the most important and poignant decisions of your life. Am I going to be a Christian? Private judgment. Which church will I join? Private judgment. Every day you remain in that church, private judgment. You could at any point leave that church and join another. In other words, your private judgment. But at the same time, then we submit so to what that church teaches. And then there are more less technical forms of submission to the broader Catholic consensus, we could say, lowercase C. So, I don't think adding infallibility suddenly enhances that too greatly. It seems to me that even the, the lowly Protestants in, in their, in their lowly church, will be submitting to that church every day they are there. They could be barred from the Lord's Supper at any time. They could be kicked out of the church, excommunicated at any time. That's a real active authority. They have to, they have to sign off on that church's doctrine to join that church. Unfortunately, we only have time for one more question. Right on. Make it good. Ultra, I'll try. No pressure at all. Uh, thank you both for being here. This is wonderful to have you. And this is actually a question for both of you. How would you feel about this statement? And I can't explain Mueller's ratchet right now, so I'll just use a statement instead. Catholicism has greater apparent unity in doctrine, but less ability to fix possible error. Protestantism has greater possible variation in doctrine, but greater ability to fix possible error. Great question. Really, both, both of you. You know, you could reply to the other side of it, or both sides. You know. Well, I would say is that I disagree, uh, with the statement. And I think a fundamental disagreement we're having here is we're equivocating a bit over the meaning of the word church. Like, it seems like we can have one church that Christ established, but an untold number of congregations that we also sometimes call churches. So, under the Protestant view, I don't see how you can have unity. If the church is the amalgamation of these congregations, then there are wide and very distinctions that I brought up here. Not what you see. Like, if I go to a Byzantine Catholic church, if I go to a, you know, if I go to other Catholic churches, maybe have different sets of canon law. We still have the universal catechism on important fundamental issues. And we know if some churches gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and they're in schism, and we have authorities within the bishop, or the bishop of Rome, who provides unity to all the bishops to address that, which has been done throughout 2000 years of the church's history. Whereas in the Protestant church, there you can't get unity amongst all of these congregations. And as I made that point earlier, you can't even get them to agree on what the essential doctrines are. So, I firmly believe the disagreements among individual Catholics or parishes pales in comparison when you see what church, what is happening in Protestant churches when they're voting on issues like homosexual conduct, when they're voting on lots of these other issues. I think it's night and day. I would agree with the assertion because of the adjective "apparent." So, I think that there is institutional unity has this greater visibility from a distance. The on-the-ground realities to me are pretty similar. In Ohio, where I serve, it's a very spiritually needy place, a beautiful place, wonderful place, I'm honored to live there. We partner with about seven other churches and put on church services together. We partner in the most fundamental of ways. And these churches are such an encouragement to me. We are not an institutional unity, but the unity we have, though imperfect and not fully realized, is real. And it is an expression of John 13, "By this all men will know you are my disciples." It is, it literally is. I mean, I hear that. So, it's, I'm not saying that institutional unity is unimportant, but the adjective of "apparent" highlights this. That, I mean, I don't, and then again, it seems to me that there are comparable. You mentioned, you know, churches wrestling over issues of gay marriage and that kind of thing. There's comparable tensions within Roman Catholicism, the full spread of liberal to arch-conservative. You find those tensions even amidst the umbrella of institutional unity. But the other point you mentioned is the more important one to me, and that is the ability to revise things, the ability to make corrections. That is why I'm a Protestant, because we make mistakes as the church, and we got to fix them. And you get stuck in the other traditions, it seems to me, with errors. And what can you do? You, you can't submit in your conscience to what you think is an error if you're stuck with it forever. And that's the glory of Protestantism is Semper Reformanda. You can continually reform. So, maybe I'll say more about that in my conclusion in a second. All right. Well, speaking of conclusions, we gotta get into our closing statements right now. Gavin, you have five minutes. And, uh, immediately after that, Trent, like five minutes. Should we feel free to go from our chairs? Yeah, I think standing up would be good to maybe stand up to give you closing statement without the podium, but I'll just slide back nevertheless. And, uh, give me one sec so I can thank you. Just gonna get the timer. All right. And whenever you're ready, take your time. Okay. Now, boy, now, now I can walk around. [Music] Um, let me just begin by stating my gratitude for this fantastic debate. I want to summarize five takeaways and then reflect upon what is at stake on this issue. Takeaway number one: One of the points established in this debate is that only scripture is the inspired word of God. Also, Sola Scriptura is saying that as the Bible is unique in its nature, so it is correspondingly unique in its authority. Keep infallibility with the one who's actually infallible. When God speaks, it's infallible. When we speak, not so much. I don't think there's been any sort of clear response to the unique infallibility of scripture on grounds of it, its ontological uniqueness. Number two: Scripture is prioritized over the other authorities of the church. In Mark 7, the contrast for Jesus is not between one kind of tradition versus another. The contrast he explicitly makes is between tradition and the word.

Of God, and He does refer to the word of God as what is written in scripture. Jesus does elevate scripture over tradition in that passage.

Number three: Arguments against Sola Scriptura from the Canon fail because they confuse the recognition of infallibility with the possession of infallibility. The simple historical fact is that neither Jewish reception of the Old Testament scriptures nor early Christian reception of scripture occurred through mechanisms of infallibility.

Number four: Criticisms of Sola Scriptura frequently equivocate on the word "tradition" as though Irenaeus and the Council of Trent meant the same thing by that word. There are many different meanings of it.

Number five: First-century Apostolic Traditions don't undermine Sola Scriptura. They are not relevant to it, I'm afraid to say, because we don't have them. And you can't have something as a rule for the church if you have no clue what it is.

At the end of the day, nothing said in this debate establishes that there's another infallible rule of faith for the church. Now, it's not my burden to prove a universal negative. Let another candidate come forward if you think there's an infallible rule for the church other than scripture.

As we've seen, the ongoing, the idea of ongoing capacities of infallibility doesn't have any support in the Old Testament or the New Testament. I think Trent would admit that explicitly. He just sees it as an inference. Or the early church people are surprised to hear that about the early church. Look into it. It's a medieval debate when it does come into being. It's roundly contradicted by the later facts of history. And I'm sorry, but the death penalty move is not comparable to what atheists will say about scripture.

Now, I understand that that's a different way of thinking about Sola Scriptura for some people. I would like to invite you to consider that that is because Sola Scriptura is often caricatured as though it were just a dumb idea. So often the alternative positions in the non-Protestant traditions are set against the worst possible constructions of Sola Scriptura. And this is the fallacy of the excluded middle. The conceptual space then between a non-Protestant position and classic magisterial Protestant, and the worst possible controls of it, that is the magisterial Protestant view, is then excluded from visibility.

So, for example, people often lop off the "good and necessary consequence" clause when critiquing the sufficiency of scripture. Um, and essentially, I would say, if you, if you really think about it, the classic magisterial Protestant view makes a lot of sense. It's simply saying, put the Bible at the top of the pyramid. It's the inspired speech of God. Popes and councils aren't at the same level.

To conclude with the implications: People say, "Well, doesn't this open the door to erroneous private judgment?" Erroneous private judgment is a real problem. There's one problem that is 10 billion times worse: erroneous ecclesiastical judgments. To put it metaphorically, democracy may be clumsy, but it is better than tyranny. And we experience it, I say this with love in my heart, you've all been so kind, as a kind of tyranny when a particular church requires belief in seven sacraments, or that Mary was assumed to heaven, or that kissing and bowing down to icons is necessary, or that the Pope has universal and immediate jurisdiction over the entire church, or that the treasury of merits benefits Christians, or that indulgences and masses for deceased Christians grant them reduced time in purgatory, or that the Lord's Supper need not be taken in both kinds, and so on and so forth.

I'm not trying to get into all those for the sake of the truth or falsity of them. That wouldn't be fair. We don't have time to vet all that. I'm trying to give examples of why my conscience is so convicted over this. This topic is up, it's about nothing less than this: What is Christianity? Who has the boundaries to tell us what you have to believe as a Christian? And that's why it funnels down at the end of the day to a very practical question: Where are you placing your ultimate trust? Is it in the word of God, or is it infallible human words?

This wonderful simplicity of the Gospel is when we simply take God at His word, we put our faith in what He has said. It leads to peace and assurance in our hearts. I invite you to make the heart posture of Psalm 119 the bedrock of your life, as I have done with mine. Thank you. Thank you, Gavin.

Trent, your five-minute closing statement.

Well, I also believe in the wonderful simplicity of the Gospel, even though the Bible doesn't tell us what that is, because God did not confine all of divine revelation to the written word. We have to remember that Gavin had the affirmative burden in this debate. Now, in order to refute him, I did offer other infallible rules of faith as alternatives, but I didn't have to do that. He does have the job of proving a universal negative because he's making a claim. He's saying that scripture is the only infallible rule of faith and there are no others. Just like atheists say the natural world is the only existing thing and there are no other existing things, and I don't have a burden to disprove God. You have to prove God. No, if you make a claim that there is one thing and no other members of that kind, do we know that definitely? You have the burden of defending that. And Gavin simply didn't do that tonight.

What did he do for a second premise to defend it? There are no other infallible rules of faith? Well, he picked a few possible sacred traditions and he cast doubt on them, but that doesn't mean that all of them are false. And you can cast doubt on anything, but that doesn't disprove them. But that does nothing to prove his central argument, which is that scripture is the only infallible rule of faith. He also admitted that scripture does not directly teach this, but we would expect scripture to teach this. We also have a problem of circularity in that Gavin wants us to put our trust in scripture, and yet how do we know what is and isn't scripture? We either get something that is circular reasoning, arbitrarily selects one Catholic tradition over others, or just ignores the question to say what is and isn't scripture.

So I did offer, uh, opposition to this. And I think also when we talk, when we said about the word of God, scripture refers to the word of God as that which is preached, even in the New Testament. First Thessalonians 2:13 talks about how the word of God was received not as the words of men, but the apostolic preaching was received as the word of God. And so we've shown that the argument that Gavin gave doesn't support Sola Scriptura, and it's ultimately undermined by the existence of other infallible rules of faith, such as what is the canon of scripture, that divine revelation ended, the existence of ecumenical councils, the existence of other ecumenical traditions.

We heard a lot of assertions tonight. Assertions like, "Well, those apostolic traditions don't exist anymore, the unwritten ones." How does he know that? That's just an assertion. Origen and Augustine said that the apostolic tradition of infant baptism does exist, and there are other Protestants who agree with that, other Lutherans and Anglicans.

Another thing that relates to what Gavin is talking about with church authority: a church that is always reforming. I agree with you. The Catholic Church, like Catholic individuals, has to always reform, has to always grow in holiness. So the church is fallible in many of its teachings and practices and identifies errors and changes them. But if you have no infallible authority, if you have no living infallible authority beyond the scripture and what people think that it means, then a church that is always reforming is a church where any doctrine is up for grabs. And you can see that in the differences among Protestant denominations. You even have Protestants who are starting the Reformation project who want to change the church's teaching of homosexuality. Are there Catholics who want to do that? Yeah, absolutely. There have been Catholics who wanted to promote the Arian heresy, promote other heresies. But having an infallible teaching authority is kind of like "break glass in emergency" when there is something that will threaten the body of Christ. And this is something that was recognized going all the way back through church history.

I will end by quoting Saint Vincent of Lérins, who is a contemporary of Saint Augustine. Here's what he would say. If someone, it sounds like he's talking to a defender of Sola Scriptura here, "It may be someone will ask, since the canon of scripture is complete and is in itself abundantly sufficient, what need is there to join it to the interpretation of the church?" The answer is that because of the very depth of scripture, all men do not place one identical interpretation upon it. The statements of the same writer are explained by different men in different ways, so much so that it seems almost possible to extract from it as many opinions as there are men. No! And then he lists following heretics: Novation expounds in one way, Sabellius in another, Donatus in another, Arius, Eunomius, and Macedonius in another, Photinus, Apollinaris, and Priscillian in another, Jovinian, Pelagius, and Celestius in another, and later Nestorius in another. If I roll over his grave, if you saw how many heresies came later. Therefore, because of the intricacies of error, which is so multiform, there is great need for the laying down of a rule for the exposition of prophets and apostles in accordance with the standard of the interpretation of the Church Catholic. To that, I say, Amen. Thank you very much.

[Applause]

All right, thank you everybody for coming out tonight. Um, so Trent and Gavin will be available in the, uh, Atrium lobby area for about 10 minutes. So that'll be just about 9:35 is when they'll be leaving. So pictures and book signatures only, please. If you'd like to talk with them or ask them a question, we'd invite you to come out to the Chesterton Cigar Lounge for the meet and greet immediately following. The address for that is 183 North 4th Street. Um, and like Matt said, though, you can just Google Chesterton's Cigar Lounge. Um, and, uh, we all thank you all for coming out. Can we give one more round of applause for Gavin and for Trent? You guys have a great night.