Catholic Vs. Orthodox Vs. Protestant: Full Panel

So, we believe, along with other Protestant denominations, that it is possible for someone to forsake their salvation.

Confession to a singular priest, private confession, is definitely my goodness. I think we're tampering with the gospel at that point by requiring something that God doesn't require.

Well, I think actually the greater difference we have between us. It's actually not justification. It is the question of course. So, so if someone confesses their sins to their non-priest, their Christian brother, but not to a priest, then they die, will they go to heaven?

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Now for the moment you've been waiting for, let's get into this video. Okay, so without any further ado, ladies and gentlemen, we have Gavin Ortland. Yeah, everybody. All the way from Canada, we have Josh Nato. And last but not least, my Catholic brother in Christ, the legendary Trent Horn.

So, here's what's going to happen. We are going to have an armchair conversation about the differences between the Protestant position, the Catholic position, and the Eastern Orthodox position. Uh, this is not a debate. Gavin and Trent have debated at least once before, right, on Solar Sweep Store. So if you guys want to see a debate, it is the most polite debate you'll ever see in your life. Okay? There's no chef hats, there's no this. It's a real classy, real classy debate. Uh, and here's the objective. We, we really just want to steal man the differences in the positions and to say, what are the differences specifically around stuff like justification? How are we saved? Uh, where do works play into this, right? Are we saved with works? Are we saved by works? Are works a result of being saved? Uh, and really just try to accurately represent instead of much of the blood sport debate that happens on the internet. Okay. Uh, so that's the objective for the next, I'd say, we're going to go about 45 minutes, and then we're going to do something fun. Ray Rock, where's my brother Ray Rock? Ray Rock is going to be taking your guys' questions. Okay. So, and he's a wizard at this. Okay. Okay. So, he's going to cue your question, make sure it's good, and then we're going to take your guys' questions. You guys in?

All right. All right. So, everyone, really quickly, introduce yourself. Josh, uh, Josh is responsible for a lot of our art that you guys see here.

Okay. Sword and Pencil. So, let's start with you, Josh. Introduce yourself, your journey, and, uh, and then we'll, we'll go over to Trent and Gavin and, and hop into it.

For sure. Uh, thank you guys so much for having me. My name is Josh Nadau. I'm a writer and illustrator full-time. So, I did do this art. Um, my journey into the East. I'm an Eastern Orthodox catechumen. So, I'm not, I don't have a big YouTube channel. I'm a very small guppy in a big pond right now. Um, I was taking my masters at a reformed Baptist seminary, writing a paper on the deity of Christ. So, when I went to one of the theological libraries in Toronto, I requested a big stack of books. And the librarian gave me another stack of books. "Hey, have you considered these?" And that was some Catholic writers and some Eastern Orthodox writers. And reading them for the first time, I thought, "Whoa, like, where's this been my whole life?" And so I essentially stopped being Protestant or Baptist at and reformed at my reformed Baptist seminary. That was 15 years ago. Uh, and then it was a very long journey. So, I'm 37. I don't, I didn't change at the pace of like the modern YouTube world. And so this has been like a 15-year kind of process for me, rethinking, tearing things down, trying to figure out how to build things up.

All right. So, a little bit of background for myself. Uh, my family, my mom used to be Catholic, then she left the Catholic Church. Um, my dad's Jewish, but he hadn't been to Temple in a very long time. So, I was raised in a kind of non-religious household. Um, we had exposure to things like Bible stories through the Hanna-Barbera Greatest Adventures Ever Told, which are awesome. And on YouTube, if you have children, show that to them. It's, you know, makes the Bible, uh, it's, it's the real deal. The '80s cartoons don't spare kids' feelings. So, um, so it's good stuff. Uh, when I got to junior high, I kind of thought, "Okay, these are just a bunch of stories. Why would I believe in this?" So, I was, I was never an atheist, but I was a deist. I thought there was a God who started everything, but I thought Christianity was for simpletons. I, I thought science is all I need. I don't need God. Don't need religion. You know, I, in the late '90s, I was, you know, on my parents' computer like debating people and, and I thought Christianity was bunk. Uh, then in high school, I met some Catholic friends, and that got me searching first just for the case of Christianity, and I was really convinced. I just watched, uh, well, downloaded audio waiting on the dial-up internet to get that William Lane Craig debate. You're spoiled today, by the way, the amount of debates you can get to. Back in the day, we had to, we had to wait for all the little blue bars to come across to get that, that Bill Craig debate, J.P. Morland. Um, so there was a lot of evangelical philosophers who were helpful in my journey to Christianity. Uh, and then I had figured out, okay, what church should I belong to? So, I went, I started going to churches. I went to this wonderful evangelical church, and I remember like five people came up to me and said hi, introduced themselves. They're super happy and nice, but I am horribly introverted. So, like, I never wanted to go back. And then I went to a Catholic church, and I walked in, like, no one said hi, and, um, one person, stand, this is my place. Introverted.

These are my people. Exactly. Hands me the the missal, and I sit in the back by myself, and I'm like, "This is, this is where I could be. This is where I could be." But, you know, so, you know, there's different ways you got to reach out to people, but it really sent me down a journey to just like reading about the early Christians, uh, the differences between Catholics and Protestants. So, it was about a year, year and a half after I became Christian. I sorted through everything. I, uh, entered the Catholic Church and was baptized, uh, 2002 when I was 17. Uh, and I've been doing apologetics or Catholic Answers since 2012, and I started my YouTube channel, well, posting content regularly, probably around, uh, 2020.

So. Cool. All right, Mr. Gavin Ortland.

Yeah, Gavin Ortland. Run a ministry called Truth Unites. Really happy to be here. Happy to have this discussion. Uh, I grew up evangelical Protestant. I've always, I had a really healthy church upbringing, which I know sadly is not, uh, feels like more the exception for for many people today. Never really was in these conversations, Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox, until I started a YouTube channel. I got bored during COVID and started a YouTube channel, and about 3 months in, needed something to do. Uh, was writing a book on general Christian apologetics, and so planned to do videos in that. I still do that. That's my next book as well. But I've just gotten pulled into these conversations, uh, really out of a pastoral burden. I think a lot of people have anxiety about their place in church history, their place amidst different Christian traditions. They feel overwhelmed. We get so much information bombarding us through the internet. People don't know how to find their bearings. And so my goal is to provide assurance in the gospel. And, uh, that's my, my heart's cry in these conversations. Try to take the approach of, let's celebrate common ground, and let's be transparent about differences as well.

You know, there's the really ecumenical side of things where we don't talk about our differences. Then there's the really angry, feisty side of things. I think the healthy place is to have love in your heart. I have love for all three of these, uh, brothers. Um, but also just be really honest and say, here's the arguments for this position and so forth and work through things. So, happy to be here and dive in. And since we, we literally have everything represented on the stage, it just kind of hit me. So, I, I grew up Oriental Orthodox, going to the Armenian Apostolic Church. Shout out to my Armenian brothers and sisters in the house. I think there's one of you, my man Art, who you guys will hear from later. And I, uh, was, was baptized and, was an altar boy and all the things. And none of, like, no one shared the gospel with me. Like, no one explained how am I forgiven of my sins? How do I get to heaven? It was a lot of beauty and a lot of beautiful tradition, but no practical explanation. And then when some personal stuff happened in my life, the way it was handled or not handled by the church really did a number on me. And so,

I, I ended up probably being the youngest atheist walking around. Uh, I was 11 years old saying, "There, there is no God," and I'm an atheist. Literally using the word atheist at 11. Uh, which is a trip because my son's 11 now. Um, and I ended up having people repeatedly share the good news for me. Now, I'm not one of those people. I heard it once and it clicked. It was four years of kicking and screaming to finally come to Jesus the end of my sophomore year of high school. Uh, and it was, it was an encounter outside of myself in an evangelical context that completely, uh, transformed me, gave me a new heart, new desires. The sin I used to, I used to love, I now hate. And the sin I used to, I mean, the things I used to hate, I now love, like, like Christians and worship music. And I've had the privilege of sitting with, I would, I would say, some of the brightest, uh, thinkers. I had you on in 2022. I've sat down with a lot of, um, Eastern Orthodox folks and, uh, priests of of all persuasions. And I think there are commonalities, like you said, that we could agree on, and then there are differences. And I want to jump into, I would say, the most significant one, um, which is, how is one saved from their sin to go to heaven? When I, when I take a plain reading of the text, I think of of passages like, uh, Ephesians 2, "For it is by grace you have been saved." Verse 8, "through faith, and this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do." Uh, in Romans 11, verse 6, Paul writes, "And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; and if it were, grace would no longer be grace." So, it can't be based on works, and if it were, then grace would no longer be grace. And so, I think if we could just jump into the justification conversation, how is one justified before God? Is it the Protestant position where you're saved by grace? It's a gift. It's outside of myself. I didn't do anything to earn it. And, and, and through faith, I place my confidence in Jesus. I don't have all the answers. I, I, I can't make sense of, I don't know why there's suffering in the world. I, I don't have all those answers, but I'm placing my confidence in Jesus. And, and then I'm being saved to good works that, that, that we should be producing good works. We should be fruitful. We should obey God's commands. We should get baptized, right? We should do these things. Or is it grace and works? Or is there a more nuanced position? And so, I just want to open it up to you guys. Feel free to jump in because I think it's, this is, in my opinion, the central question is, how is one justified and how is their sin wiped away so they can go and be with Jesus in paradise?

Yeah, I mean, so what we said earlier is a great starting point of just that, uh, relentless carefulness to distinguish between where we agree and where we disagree. I think this area gets really nuanced, and a lot of it has to do with how we define the terms. So, I guess maybe a helpful starting point is to distinguish between, kind of, the technical theology where we can with charity stretch toward one another and see overlap, but then also just the street-level experience of people. And I would say one of the reasons I'll talk more about this in my talk later today, I'll keep my opening comments here kind of on the briefer side and hear what they have to say. One of the reasons I love Protestantism and I value Protestantism is I believe it led to a greater clarity in the experience of justification. So, you think of Luther before he comes to understand the phrase "the righteousness of God" in Romans 1:17, and he's spilling the wine during mass because he's so in dread fear of God. By the way, I think a lot of people today, the anxiety that is epidemic in our culture, that's related to spirituality. That's not just mental health, though it is that. It's, it's related to our soul and where we're at with God. And a lot of people today are aching for the same experience that he had. When he goes from that to, he says, "I feel like the, the gates of paradise have been opened, and I can walk through," as he realizes the righteousness of God is not a hammer to smash you. It's clothing to cover you. And a Protestant position says the righteousness of God is the, uh, imputed alien righteousness of Christ when you stand before God on judgment day. What he is going to see if you've placed your faith in Jesus or united to Jesus is the perfect, spotless righteousness of Christ, like you've been clothed in white garments. Protestants can affirm that experience in other traditions too. There's lots of justified Christians outside of Protestantism. Part of the value for Protestants will be the clarity and the, uh, articulation of that leading to that experience. Then we can also, I want to flag so we get on the table, faith alone, faith plus works. That's where it gets really nuanced. We can talk about that too.

Yeah, I'll, I'll offer the other side, and then Orthodoxy will be a mysterious.

Seriously in the middle. Yes. You see how it's set up. You see how the stage is set up. That's what how the conversation ends up, ends up going through. Uh, the Catholic Church would say that we are saved by faith working through love, as Paul says in Galatians 5:6. Uh, in paragraph 2010 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it says that no one can merit either by faith or works the initial grace of justification. Uh, so what saves us is that Christ died on the cross for our sins, and he died, as John says, not just for our sins, but the sins of the whole world. Uh, so Christ's sacrifice was super abundant. And so the question is, how do we apply the graces that Christ merited for everyone on the cross? How is that applied to an individual's soul? And so what the church teaches is that the church has given sacraments, ways of communicating God's grace to the faithful through faith. So when we think about being saved without any works you can boast of, I think the Catholic position on infant baptism, which is shared also by Lutherans, uh, and Anglicans, and this will get into also, we have to be very clear, we really can't say the Protestant view of salvation because there are many denominations that are very similar to the Catholic view, which is say, for example, that as we agree with Lutherans and Anglicans, when a baby is baptized, they go from being a child of of Adam in original sin to being free from all stain of sin, and nothing would hinder their entrance into heaven. And to think for that little baby who is baptized, they cannot boast of anything. Like, I mean, even if you were an adult and say, like, "Oh, I, I made an act of faith in Christ." You could possibly boast of that. But that baby can't boast of anything. And yet, he's saved through the waters of baptism because baptism says, as 1 Peter 3:21 says. So the Catholic view of salvation would be that through baptism, we experience initial justification. And that's something you do not merit either by faith or by works. It's something you just, you receive. Uh, and then the only thing you have to do after that point is that you have to recognize it is possible for you to freely reject God's gift of salvation. Uh, people will say, "Well, if you did nothing to earn it, you couldn't possibly lose it." Well, Adam and Eve did nothing to earn friendship with God, but they were still able to lose it. So the Catholic Church would say that, um, salvation, there's initial salvation, uh, we receive through baptism, and final salvation is when we arrive in heaven. Romans 13:11 says, "Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed." So, since you can forsake salvation, the only thing you must do in order to enter heaven is to not permanently forsake your salvation, uh, through an act of grave sin that is unrepentant. And so this will, and I think a lot of times when we talk about what to do to be saved, when you look at the life of a faithful Protestant, the life of a faithful Catholic, I think they will look very, very, very similar. We're just going to describe their similar actions through different kinds of of rationale. But I do think the Catholic view is firmly rooted in what the Bible teaches about what we are to do with the great gift of salvation God gave us.

Mhm. Um, from our position, my understanding would be very simply just participating in the divine life. So, if we rejected the divine life in Eden, uh, God is the source of life. So how else do you find life? You need to participate in God's divine life. The Orthodox Church calls that theosis. So that's like your ultimate salvation. In every aspect of your current life is God's open invitation to you to continue to participate and be reconstituted and remade into him. Now, the reason I bring up that I think I want to piggyback off what Gavin said for definitions, because I was brought up with the Protestant imputational view, and, um, one of the reasons it started struggling, I started struggling was just developing an understanding of anthropology. So, I think one of the reasons why Protestants and Orthodox and Catholics differ is our understanding of like, what humans are constituted of and what the fall actually did. I think that's like, kind of the source of the justification problem. Understanding what Christ did on the cross has to address the fall. And I think the fall has to address humans, humans' nature and their person. And I think there's a fundamental difference between how we view people between the three camps, or however we want to describe it. So, I'd be interested to see, I don't know if you guys would agree, where, like, the Orthodox views, so I am a person. I have every human has like an essence and nature and a person, and so their essence and nature is just what makes us human. So every human has the same essence, and like God is the same thing. God has one essence expressed in three persons. That's the Trinity. And so when you think about what makes up God's essence, it's the fact there's things that we can say about him. One, God is love. God is uncreated. And so those things the East will say and say, "Okay, what can we talk about for human nature pre-fall?" There's definitely one thing, which would be God made us in love and to be free. And so freedom expresses itself in love. And then a person, each individual person is just an expression of their nature. So for me, what happens at the fall, I think will be different than say, my understanding of Rome would be the nature. There's like these powers you have that are created, and then powers you receive only by grace, like the beatific vision. Does that make sense?

Well, beatific vision is something you would, you would receive when you enter into heaven.

Right. A grace at the end. Yes. But there are there are means of grace that you receive that you could never acquire of your own human nature. There's just, what I'm trying to say is, um, you were made with particular, humans are made with particular powers, and everything else that they receive or acquire for salvation would be a means of grace.

Right. Yeah.

And so I think if at the fall, those things, and I don't want to put words in your mouth for nature, I'll stop talking in just one second. The fall, Trent and I are going to begin to start understanding what's happening to humans slightly differently. And I think that that slightness is going to lead to how we have different interpretations of the cross.

Yeah, I, I don't know if we would necessarily differ on the fall, but that also widens the scope of the conversation so much that in 23 minutes, we may not be able to resolve it. I think, you know, on the specific issue of justification, that that's the area that I hear you asking about where I do see the, we've got the overlap, we've got the differences. Just to throw, in case it's helpful, throw out a category, I would say some of the overlap is initial justification. And part of this is we use different terms. So we use the term justification specifically for that following Paul's usage, Romans 3, Romans 4, it's right there. Um, how does forgiveness of sins happen after initial justification? You get baptized, whether as an infant or an adult, because I see baptism as kind of a related but a little bit distinct issue as well. You get baptized on a Tuesday. You commit a sin on a Wednesday or Tuesday night. Okay, this is reality. We're going to, you know, need to know the answer to this. Now, how do you get justified? And, uh, so what, what, what I would say, I mean, one of the, probably one of the biggest concerns for me with the Catholic view specifically would be, you commit a mortal sin, the necessity of confession to a priest specifically for forgiveness. That'd be so, as I look at things, I see, look, we've got some big picture structural agreements. We all agree with, for example, um, the necessity of grace, the necessity of Christ's death, the necessity of faith and repentance. We can recognize Christian realities common among us. The ongoing, on the ground experience for how you actually have assurance of your status before God. That's an honest area of concern. I, again, I value the Protestant Reformation because I think it recovered something that is really, um, clear and bright and beautiful in the Apostle Paul's writings, especially. So, I guess I'm just trying to locate where we're, where we're honing the discussion for that ongoing experience.

Let me, let me phrase it this way. In your guys's view, uh, and I don't want to generalize because there's distinctions between your views. I think, I think, and I don't mean to speak for you either, but I think here's, I'm going to paint a scenario. Okay, someone comes to faith in the Lord on Sunday. They get baptized that same Sunday. Monday, they have a relapse with alcohol, God forbid, they get into a drunk driving accident, they die. Okay. I think we would feel comfortable in our position to say that even though they had that moment where they failed and they sinned, that the blood of Jesus covers that.

I, I would assume your position is different. Is, is that fair? I think a lot of us have been in seasons where we're trying to figure out, what am I actually supposed to be doing with my life? Like, we want to be faithful. We want to build something meaningful, but it's hard to get real clarity on our purpose, our direction, and what God's actually calling us to do. And if you've been struggling to figure that out, to get clarity, that's exactly why I'm doing the Godly Ambition Tour. We're kicking this off April 10th in Chicago. And these nights are designed to help you get clarity and actually move forward. This is what my book, Godly Ambition, is all about. It's currently a USA Today bestseller, and I wanted to bring these ideas into a live experience. I'm doing a full keynote breaking this down and going deep. We've got new music, a live podcast. I'm taking your questions in the room, and I've got a few things up my sleeve for the night, too. So, yeah, I love seeing you guys in the comments. I love the chat. But this is one of those things where being in the room is, is just going to hit different. So, tickets start at $35. And if you want to go even deeper, we've got premium tickets that include a private Q&A before the show. But don't wait. Go to rooslockad.com or hit the pin comment and get your tickets now. I'll see you in the.

Well, it's, it's going to be different when it comes to different cases. So, uh, the Catholic view, similar to many other Protestant denominations' views who would also have to answer this question, is that is it possible to forsake your salvation through grave sin? Uh, some people might say we can only forsake your salvation through lack of belief. If you say, "Well, God, I don't love you anymore. I don't believe in you."

Apostasy. Apostasy. But we would say it is possible to apostatize through action, uh, and not just through belief. Like, if you have a husband who says, "I love my wife. I love my wife." And then he, he goes and he cheats on his wife, and he goes to his wife says, "Well, honey, I still love you." Does he though? I would say that he, he through his actions, he has forsaken the marital vow that he's made. And grave sin, which is freely chosen of a serious matter, uh, because we all agree that all Christians sin. Um, I have an episode actually coming up soon dealing with this where I think it's very clear there's two kinds of sins in the Christian life. Ones that you will commit and don't make you doubt your Christian faith, but others that are in that, if they were habitual, are incompatible with the Christian lifestyle. So, you're right. Someone is baptized, they're saved, and then they commit a grave sin and they die.

Would, would getting drunk be a grave sin?

I'm sorry. It would depend. Well, let's just pick an example of someone who chooses to commit adultery.

Okay. Because being drunk, you know, alcoholism, you know, someone who has.

Rage, would rage be a grave sin? They instead they're not drunk. They just they're in a rage incident and they, they spin out of control.

But we, I mean, we, let's just pick murder. We'll just pick a clear example. They're just sick of their boss and they're just like, "Forget the quiet quitting." Oh yeah, it's the boss is quiet now. Yeah, it is kind of quiet quitting.

They're just sick of it. So, we just pick a clear example there. So, we, so we would say that if someone dies, if they forsake God through grave sin, then that's why Jesus said, "There will be those who say to me, Lord, Lord," we'll say, "Well, not unless you, those who persevere to the end, those who do the will of my Father." So, it is possible, we believe, along with other Protestant denominations, that it is possible for someone to forsake their salvation. For Protestants who don't believe that's possible, who believe in eternal security, if you say, "Well, they were saved, then they commit a grave sin and they die." We think the blood of Christ still covers them. What if they commit that grave sin and they stay in that grave sin for a month, and then they die, or a year, or five years? Then I think you might start to say, "Oh, well, he was never really saved in the first place." Or if you're free grace, you'll say, "Yeah, he's definitely going to heaven, of course."

No matter what. So, we, there's lots of things we have to sort out here. And I think the view that you can forsake salvation, while God may have mercy and save someone knowing their individual circumstance, we don't know, because it is possible, and I don't use the word lose, by the way. Can you lose your salvation? Like, you can't lose salvation like you lose your car keys, but you can forsake it through gravely freely chosen sin. And the question is, will you repent of it? So, the Catholic view of salvation, if I had to sum it up, you know, just like, I would say it's the three Rs: repent, receive, remain. Repent of sin, receive Christ in baptism and faith, and then remain united to him. If you're separated from Christ, be reconciled to him.

But if I, if I could just say to clarify from where I look at where we differ, it's how the ex, uh, the forgiveness of sins is actually acquired. What does that repentance look like, right? For example, after a mortal sin, it's necessary to confess to a priest specifically to receive a judicial act of forgiveness from God. And as Protestants, we would say you just repent. If you have a pastor to repent to, great. If you've got your brother, your neighbor to repent to, great. James 5 says, "Confess your sins to each other." But we wouldn't require it to a priest specifically. We'd say, "Look at David after Bathsheba. He repents, but there's no judicial act from a priest." Um, so that is where I did a video on penance. That was one of the issues where I'm looking at it because I want to be as ecumenical as I can be. That was one of the issues that really gave me pause. And I thought, "Oh my goodness, I think we're tampering with the gospel at that point by requiring something that God doesn't require," because I would say God requires us to repent and remain. Absolutely. But not to repent and confess to a priest specifically. Uh, I think Jesus is the one necessity you have. And the pastoral outflow for this would be, look, people are going to commit a sin. They're going to commit mortal sins. Some of the things that are classified as mortal sins in the Catholic Church aren't as serious as as murder. They're going to be things where, you know, misuse of of sexual faculties, for example, um, certain kinds of anger, things like this. You're going to sometimes it's a gray area. You're going to wonder, am I forgiven? If I die right now, am I going to hell?

And what I would want to point people to is the sufficiency of Christ. So, yes, repent. Yes, confess. But do it to Christ. Do it to your brother as well. But Christ is the one necessary ingredient to be assured you will be saved. That's what I would say as a Protestant. Yeah. I wasn't going for applause, but thanks.

And I, I think my reply to that, I would point out that the New Testament never instructs us to confess our sins to Jesus. There is no verse that says that. But in John 20:23, Jesus does tell the apostles, "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven. Whose sins you retain are retained." And I would say also that in James 5, talking about confessing sins to one another, it's talking about the duties of the presbytery, the elders in the church, who also will anoint with oil and sins will be forgiven when they go and do that. Uh, I would say that.

Wait, let me understand. You're saying in James 5, yeah, your understanding is it's confess sins to the presbyter.

I'm saying the context in James 5 is referring to the role and functions of the presbytery, the elders in the church.

Okay. But the confession is to other brothers, not necessarily to the to the presbyters.

Well, no, I'm saying that it, it fits within the presbytery, and one can take a reading from that that it's referring to confession to them.

Oh, okay. You said one can take that reading.

Yeah. So, in, in James 5, that it is very clear. It says the presbytery, the elders in the church, if someone is sick, they can go and anoint them with oil, and their sins will be forgiven. So, I think that if you're, if you are concerned about why would I have to go to a man to be saved, just as it is not licit to practice auto-baptism, like you can't baptize, I think hopefully everybody agrees on that, that you have to go to, um.

There's probably some Protestant out there who's done it.

I'm sure. With Protestantism, uh, because while it's ever-reforming and flexible, you get everything from soup to nuts, you know. So, uh, but I think, but I do think it's bad to mischaracterize that the nuts are few and far between. We should stick to the major traditions and creeds and confessions. But if you, but we would say, just as it's normal and natural to seek to be, uh, united to Christ the very first moment through a minister of the church who baptizes you, it makes sense to be reconciled to God again would be to approach the minister of the church because you're also separated from Christ's body. You're separated in that way from receiving the sacraments if you're in grave sin. And I, and I think I find this very, uh, early historically, in the third century, Cyprian talks about the salutary medicine of confession to priests. This is not some kind of late medieval concept. So, I, I think it's quite understandable.

I, I want to get Josh in on this. See your, your take. I just say, just summatively, I think we got to talk more about this. So, we'll have more times, but I don't, his are great because the, your, your special father puts a great blanket over you.

Totally. He covers me of a multitude of sins. I do have a YouTube chat about this.

Summatively, I don't think James 5 is talking about confession to a priest. I think it's to, to other Christians. And John 20 is the apostles.

And I have my own sketch in my video on this on the historical development.

Confession to a singular priest, private confession, is definitely medieval, not patristic. Just my take.

Can I, can I read it real quick and then you could respond?

If you'd like. Sure.

Yeah. So, James, uh, 5:13 says, "Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of prayer, uh, praise, excuse me. Uh, verse 14, is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." Yeah, I'm not arguing for that as a proof text for the sacrament of confession. I'm just saying that it's illuminating and it makes a lot of sense of the role that the elders are placed in there. I find actually just the, the role the elders in administering the sacrament of anointing of the sick and the forgiveness of sins associated with that is, I think that's very interesting, especially if you don't consider the anointing of the sick to be a, a sacrament. If you think there's only two. But I, I would say though, well, I would say no, I would say that we do have confession to priests in the ante-Nicene Church. Uh, I think we, we clearly do have that, that, uh, there's elements in understanding the theology of it that do develop later.

But I'm trying to figure out.

I want to ask a clarifying question, but I don't want to hijack. I mean, so, so the, the nerve center of the difference here, I think, is necessity to a priest for, so, so if someone confesses their sins to their non-priest, their Christian brother, but not to a priest, then they die, will they go to heaven?

It would, when you say necessity, we have to distinguish between, um, strict necessity and other forms of necessity. So, for example, you might say it's necessary for someone to have faith in order to go to heaven. But someone might die at a very young age before they're able to attain faith, but they're still able to go to heaven. So, it's not a strict necessity. It's a general necessity. We would say the same thing about, uh, confessing sins to a priest who stands in the person of Christ and offers through the sacrament of reconciliation to be reconciled to God in his church, that if you are unable to see a priest, if you're unable to avail yourself of the sacrament, just like for someone who is unable to find someone to baptize them, God will not hold that against that person. But to choose to forsake the ordinary means of salvation is not great for one's person's soul, whether it's confession, baptism, having faith in Christ, being obedient to Christ, things like that.

Well, it's good. We're, and I'll let Josh jump in too, but we're, we're narrowing, we're, we're identifying the disagreement then, because, because I would say that it's not the necessary way to have your sins forgiven to confess to a priest specifically. It's to one another and it's to God. But I, so that's the disagreement. Is, is that the ordinary?

But that's what's interesting for me is the Bible says to confess your sins to one another, but the New Testament does not say to confess your sins to Christ. So that's.

Yeah, but that's an argument from silence, isn't it, Trent? Well, if we're arguing that you shouldn't confess to a priest because it's not in scripture, I'm bringing up something else that's not in scripture.

Yeah, but we're, we're pointing to a prescriptive passage. So, yes, you're right that they're both arguments from silence, but we're giving you a prescriptive passage saying repeatedly to each other, to each other, pray for each other, to each other.

And that's why I think actually the greater difference we have between us, it's actually not justification. It is the question of authority in determining which doctrines are binding and which aren't and how we're going and how the written word of God resolves the doctrinal disputes we have, because even now, that's what we're basically doing with the sacrament of confession, but you're operating from a principle of sola scriptura in trying to solve the question, and that's a paradigm both of us would reject as being unbiblical.

Because you guys would say scripture and the Church Fathers and the Catechism. Be a question of normative authority, like if you have a text, how do you interpret the text, and how does that text have any authority over you? So before we hop into that, just like from the Orthodox perspective, this is why I brought up the anthropological thing, where, so it's a Monday, I'm baptized, a Tuesday, a Monday night I sin. What happens to me? From the Orthodox perspective, the results of the fall are consequential. So death is a consequence, not like this punitive thing where God is saying, "The penalty for your sin is death." It's a consequential thing. This is where it would become a disease. So when you are united to Christ and salvation, so through baptism and receiving the Eucharist and the other means of grace, the holy mysteries, um, God begins to heal your passions and reorient you towards him. So there is a more mysterious thing when it comes to what is my right standing before God. But I, I do think that the idea of assurance, I know you had a debate with James White on assurance, I think on his home turf.

Oh, it's fun. And, um, I think the idea of assurance is a little bit more nebulous than Protestants. I mean, I was a Protestant, and I had tons of, I was an alcoholic. Um, I was not assured of my salvation. I was a reformed Baptist. I was Calvinistic. And I remember being in seminary. I remember sitting, I lived above a restaurant, sitting on my bed being like, "If I'm saved, then it doesn't matter what I do. God will get me in the end. If I'm not, I'm pooched anyways. So I'm just stuck." I just, I had no clue what my standing with God was. And so the idea for us would be healing the passions. It'd be Christ is the cure to the disease of sin and death that we have.

Yeah.

Ch. Um, well, Trent makes a great point about the larger paradigmatic differences we have. That's why almost every discussion I have in these spaces, I try to just focus on the sola scriptura debate because that's like the rudder on the ship that steers us. But it's also good to talk these things through.

And you guys had a great, solid debate.

Yeah, people can check out the debate. Three years old as of.

And it was long. It was extensive. It was like 3 hours long.

You know what? Even as long as it was, it felt like we just skimmed the surface.

There's so much more discussed. I think we can have when it comes to assurance, uh, I think there's many people who may feel concerned in Catholicism, Orthodox, like, "Well, where, where is that assurance? What if, what if I die? Where, where am I going to go?" I will be frankly honest with you, I think the only people that can give you an easy answer to that question are the so-called hyper-grace or free-grace theologians, people like Bob Wilkin and others who say, "Oh yeah, as long as you made an act of faith, it does not matter. You could become an apostate and you will still go to heaven." And there's, there's a non-negligible number of people who hold to that view. But everyone else, everyone else is going to have to discern, okay, Catholics and and Orthodox, like, "Am I in a state of grace? Have I committed grave sin?" But even Protestants, even those who believe in assurance, will start to say, "Well, was I, was I really saved in the first place? Did I, was I mature enough to make that commitment? Or is my sinful life now a consequence of showing I need to get saved all over again, or saved truly for the first time?" Everyone has, everyone has that issue to discuss.

And then I'll go after Josh. I just, I think one of the things that might like elucidate it would be where Trent and I would say faith working itself out in love. So justified by faith, how.

We define justification or faith, um, would be important because there seemed to be, there seems to be a very mental or intellectual ascent in the Protestant view of faith. I believe I have this mental thought of belief, and so therefore, it's divorced from these actions you do. So you can say, "Well, I believed, but I'm not living in harmony between my belief and my life. I'm living a certain way, but it doesn't matter because I believe." And Trent brought this up earlier. So, what if someone's like, "I love you, honey, but I still cheated on my wife?" The Orthodox would say the whole person is the uniting of their belief, so their soul and their body through grace. So, the saints and who we will become in the new life will be body, soul, and this third thing, which is God's grace in our lives.

I agree with that. I don't think that's a Protestant versus Orthodox difference. Protestants agree with James, too. Faith without works is dead. If you, if you are not changing, you do not have faith in Christ. And it's true that there's human ambiguities for all our positions. People on Tuesday can feel differently than they do on Wednesday. It's true that people can forsake their assurance by being a genuine Christian, but they're living in, in sin to a degree that it, it drains the vitality of their assurance.

But what the, uh, reformed theologian Francis Turretin said, this is strong. I remember sometimes you read a sentence, you think, "Did he really say that?" He says, "You can, it is possible to have an infallible assurance of your own salvation." And what he meant by that is you are placing your trust in the promises of God. And this is what I would want to offer to anybody who, I mean, this is the most important question in your whole life: where am I going to spend eternity? Nothing more important than that. My heart burns with a passion for people to be able to rest secure in knowing the answer to that question, provided you simply do what the New Testament commands. Okay? You, you place your faith in Jesus. You say, "He's my sufficient savior. You repent of your sin and follow him. Not perfectly, but sincerely. You get baptized. You join a church." I would want to tell someone, if you do that, you can have assurance of salvation because Jesus is not a liar. And when he says, "Whoever believes in him who sent me shall have eternal life. He shall not perish." He meant it.

And I, so that's the assurance I want. Remember, but John 3:36 says, "Whoever believes will be saved. Whoever does not obey will not be saved." So that continual obedience is an issue that I agree you could have assurance in this moment right now. I wouldn't call it infallible, but you can have moral certainty that I am in right relationship with God right now. Any, no Catholic should be like, "Oh, I don't, I don't really know." You can examine your conscience just like a Protestant would. But the future is not, is not for us to know. And there have been many people who said that who have left the faith, who have left Christianity, and we pray for God's grace that we will persevere and not be like them.

Kevin, could I ask you a question? So, bring up Tur, um, do you bring up Turin or Tutulian?

Turretin.

Turin. I shouldn't have quoted these obscure theologians in this context, but my mind got to learn. There's other people before 1980. We got, yeah. Um, I think it was Tertullian who was more, he was a lawyer. I think a trained lawyer. So it might not apply, but there seems to be, there is a more judicial view as in a more legal view of right standing with God in the Protestant faith would be my understanding as in like, it is a more central idea of like the legal transaction of Christ paying the price, the penalty for my sin. I, is that fair to say? It's more like, are you saying that? Because I was just trying to understand how saturation.

So, so Protestants would say the legal aspect of our relation to God is one, and that's where justification comes in. The word justification means made right in God's sight. So this is one real aspect of our relationship with our creator is that he's our judge, and we're going to give an account of our lives. So that's one lane, but that's not the full, uh, spectrum of salvation because we also need a resurrected body. We need, uh, you know, our adoption as God's children. So there's so much to salvation, but for that lane, justification is, is how we experience salvation. And Protestants simply believe that at the moment of faith, you're fully justified, and then from that, you grow in righteousness.

Can we go down that path just a bit more? So say you are just seconds.

Can we go?

And I got to say,

Oh, damn.

Go, go, go, go.

If, like, so if you are justified in your view, like your specific view, will you get to heaven? Can you lose your salvation?

If, if you are justified, you're headed to heaven. Yeah. That you're, you're.

But is it a guarantee? So like that infallible security, say. So in that legal declaration, no matter what you do, if you are truly justified, you're in.

If it's a genuine justification, there's lots of people who experience tremendous spiritual realities of some kind or another, but are not genuinely believers, are not genuinely justified in the sight of God.

So I think some of this too would just be a difference in, in definitions.

Yeah. So let me, let me read this quote over you guys. "Faith alone saves, but the faith that justifies is never alone." That's a very Protestant.

Well, yeah, that was the point. That was the point. So, so faith alone saves. Faith alone saves. But the faith that say, that justifies is never alone.

Pope Benedict, Pope Benedict the 16th actually says something very similar in one of his homilies that he said, "The formulation Luther uses, faith alone, is true if faith is not divorced from charity." As I cited Galatians 5:6 earlier, faith working through love. Though I will be clear though, that this view of, of assurance that justification can never be undone, that is one Protestant view. Others don't hold that. Luther himself held that because justification occurs by faith through apostasy, justification can be undone. And so that would be the Lutheran view. So I would say the Catholic view, if I had to make an analogy people to understand it, salvation is, there's, uh, there's a past, present, and future element to our salvation. So we can say, "I was saved in the past by grace alone." Uh, it's kind of like if you're on a sinking ship and you make the radio call, Coast Guard, come help us. You were saved in the past, that moment you made the call. They're going to get you. They say, "All you got to do is just wait and we will come get you." You're there in the water. Just wait. Just listen and wait. Some will say, "I'm going to swim on my own. I'm going to make it to shore." They try to go on their own. Never heard from them again. So there's a present element. As Philippians says, "Work out your salvation in fear and trembling." And then finally, a future element where we are saved when we set foot back on heaven's shores. Uh, and so we would say that, uh, that's when salvation is final and completed. So I think that, and Protestants could see it this way too, but seeing salvation as a process, I think makes sense of how we view many of these instances and help people make the Catholic view make more sense.

We would agree with that.

Yeah, we would agree with that. We, we would say sanctification is that you're being, you're saved, you're being saved, you will be saved. Two, two quick things. "Work out your salvation for fear and trembling." The very next verse says, "For it is God working in you and giving you the power to."

We would say the only power you have as a human being is to get your, help yourself to hell. The only way you can get to heaven is through God.

That was back to the anthropology thing of like by your nature.

But that we have, even as Christians, we are capable of doing that. As Jesus says in John 15, "Those who do not abide in me shall be gathered up and burned." So we would say, yeah, let in doing, in being obedient to God to go to heaven, only you cannot do that of your own power. It's only by cooperating with God's grace. So you can't get to heaven on your own. You can certainly get to hell on your own.

Yeah. And so I think the, the, the pushback we would have is then the, uh, you have to confess in this way to a priest.

Sure. You know, the details, one of them. Yeah.

That's one of them. And so, you know, if I'm looking at, at First John, uh, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all righteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we may come out to be a liar and his word is not in us." That word, that verse specifically would, I would say, strongly imply that we're confessing our sins to Jesus there.

No, because the, the verb confess. I have a whole article on this. You can look up online, Trenhorn, First John 1:9, where I talk about the use of amalgo and examo, the word confess with only one exception in the New Testament. It refers to making confessions. So read verses 8 and 10. It talks about confessing or speaking to who?

It doesn't say anything about priests or priests in here.

No, no, but it talks about not to God. It's talking about if we confess our faith or confess.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

So, it's talking to other people.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins.

Catholics believe that the priest doesn't forgive us. God does.

Yeah.

But he works through the priest, just like he works through the minister of baptism.

Okay. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

Correct. So I would say that verses 8 and 10 are referring to making claims or confessions to other people, and verse 9 would fit into that format of confessing sins to other people.

Okay. Yeah. Well, uh.

And if you guys got questions, this would be the time to line up with Ray Rock.

Ray Rock. So, this is. Hold on real quick. Ray Rock is going to hear your question first. Do not take his microphone. You are not here to to to to preach. You were here to ask a question.

And keep it concise.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. And so, uh, Ray, take the qu, and then let, let's let Gavin make this, this final point.

Okay. Okay. So, I, I'll make a final point and then we'll do some questions. I was just going to say, I mean, for whether or not.

Okay. Okay. Uh, just summative comments here for whether the New Testament says confess to Jesus specifically, I don't really see that because I would say that's valid as a theological inference. And I bet you would agree too, just like we can pray to the Holy Spirit. We don't have that explicit. We could say it's a theological inference. That's fine. But the issue is, I think one thing that's emerged that we got to talk more about, right? Is we have some agreements on some of the, on a lot of structural foundational stuff. The actual experience of justification after your conversion, your your initial justification to use your language. That's an area where we have a lot of disagreements. The necessity of confession to a priest being one example. So, I'm just summatively kind of sometimes we get in the discussion. I'm abstracting some big picture thoughts of where we agree, where we disagree. But let's go to Q&A.

All right. All right. Ray, you got something for us, brother?

Yes, sir. Go ahead. Give us, give us your question, my brother from Apologia.

Well, thank you guys. Appreciate this conversation. I do think that the core of the issue is the authority of the church, as was brought up. But I really don't think that solves anything considering the fact that Josh and Trent both disagree on the authority of the church, and the Orientals to be added on to that disagree with y'all. So, it doesn't really solve any issues in regards to who's giving us the interpretation to these things.

Um, it depends on what you mean by solve the issue in the sense of, um, so Luther has his view of private conviction, which would be if you have a private conviction and the ecclesial body, so your church disagrees with you, you can have authority over the ecclesial body. And the normative authority of Rome in the East, uh, would be like, no, there's, um, there's an authority that helps that put the scriptures together, and there's an authority that helps you interpret those scriptures. Now, Trent and I may disagree on a handful of things, um, but we're far closer together on the majority of things than we would be say, from, to use Trent's word, the soup and the nuts on some broader topics. So, it does solve a lot of problems like in the church. Um, Trent brought this up as a joke. I, I submit to my spiritual father. So, I have two kids, and my kids do not understand my undergrad's in physics. My, my kids don't understand anything about the universe. They don't understand anything about anything, but they trust their dad. And I feel like that for the first time again, going to my church, I feel like I'm under authority. I feel like I'm a kid. I feel like for such of these is the kingdom of heaven. I am not the be-all, end-all of every single theological question that has plagued humanity for the past 2,000 years. I can trust that to the church and I can do my best to live a holy life and participate in the divine life. But I, I think though that we can have the question of authority even if there are other issues about how is it fully constituted. Uh, that yes, the Orthodox and Catholics are much closer. That we, we recognize the Orthodox have valid sacraments. They have valid holy orders. Uh, if you go to an Eastern Catholic church, because of different forms of of worship, Catholic means universal. The, you go to a Byzantine Catholic church, it probably is going to look like your church has a picture of the Pope in the vestibule and that's it, basically. So there are some of these smaller issues of disagreement, but it still does, it shouldn't send us into a kind of relativism that, "Oh, well, you haven't solved the problem either." Because an atheist could do the same thing saying, "Why should I bother being a Christian? None of you can agree on what the Bible says anyways." Well, that that shouldn't stop you from looking at the core truths and seeing, "Okay, well, at least which belief system has a greater preponderance of evidence from antiquity and scripture, um, going for it." But I see with Orthodox, like, like I just did an episode saying, like, I don't do a lot with Orthodoxy because my heart is to share Jesus with, find the people, the most number of people who are the furthest away from Jesus Christ. That is what I intend to do. Uh, and so that will reach primarily non-believers, uh, but also believers. I want them to receive Jesus in the Eucharist, his true body and his true blood. Uh, so I don't, so when it comes to Orthodox, I feel like it's like an inter-family. We'll figure it out. We'll get it figured out. We're basically bros anyways.

But is that true though? Don't you guys view them as schismatics?

The original way. I mean, they're way meaner to us than we are to them.

Yeah.

Yeah. I was. You're being very kind.

He even admits it.

How Orthodox talk about the Catholics.

Was much kinder and, and in that sense, would just be some of the differences. The East would say.

I think it's older brother, younger brother.

Frankly. And we would say, we, I think we call you guys the first Protestants.

Um, but I think.

You think you're the older brother. I just said that. So we, um, but I think that like there are some differences that we would have, but Trent is right, like you, you're kicking the can back and essentially saying, "Just because they're struggling with, struggling with what is the normative authority, we can't say there is no normative authority." Just one sentence for me, and then I know we got more questions, but I think it's a great question in so far as private judgment is often said as this great tremendous burden upon Protestants because if the rhetorical appeal is, "Well, you can submit to the church and you don't have to worry about that," you still have to figure out through your private judgment which church. And I think that's the part of the point of the question that is making a very val.

I agree. I would just think there, I believe there's more evidence for Orthodoxy than Protestantism and more for Catholicism than Orthodoxy. But that's how I. But but YOU GUYS ARE BOTH FIGHTING AMONG. You want to head. If you want to head over here. That's that's okay.

You guys all claim to be a true church.

We think you guys love Jesus.

All right, Trent. So since we just spoke about, you know, the Holy Sacrament, we have Amy here. Uh, sorry, Jenny from Vista, and uh, she has a question on John 6.

Hi. Um, so I've seen lots of Roman Catholics use John 6 to say that the Eucharist is true. And my question is, verses 53-54. Jesus says, uh, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." So I see Roman Catholics today say, "Oh, Protestants can be saved." But they also want to say that John 6 points to the Eucharist, which I know you guys believe gives you a form of grace, right? So how can both be true based on what Jesus says here?

This is going to go back to what I said about ordinary and extraordinary means of salvation. Uh, so I think many Protestants, not all. Now, I guess there's two kinds of Protestants if I were to reply to this. So the exclusivists and the inclusivists. So you might have an exclusivist Protestant who says, "Look, you got to have faith in Christ. If you are a nine-year-old Native American girl in 1000 AD Mesoamerica and you never heard about Jesus, tough cookies. You go to hell because you're a sinner and that's that. There you go." So if they have that exclusivist attitude, I could just say, "Yeah, you, you don't receive, you don't receive Jesus in the Eucharist, you're, you're, you're out of here, bud. You know, you're out." And you can't say that I'm being, you know, harsh because that's the same attitude you have. Uh, but that's, but the Catholic Church doesn't hold that exclusivist view. We would hold more of an inclusivist theology. One that also pro, many Protestants hold to, who would say that it's possible for someone to be saved if they have, um, ignorance that, uh, they could not overcome, what's called invincible ignorance. Uh, so if they are not aware of, of the means of salvation or was presented poorly to them, uh, just as someone could be, even if they didn't have faith in Christ through no fault of their own, based on time, place, circumstances, the Catholic Church would say that it's possible for those who have not fully understood the Catholic faith to be saved. Uh, and that would be different from someone who, who actively rejects it or who chooses to not discern the promises of Christ's church for, uh, sinful reasons, like saying, "Yeah, I know maybe it could be true, but I really don't want to change my life up for something like that." That could really put one's soul in jeopardy. So I think one could apply the inclusivist explanation for salvation for non-Christians to Catholicism in seeing an inclusivist understanding of the possibility of salvation for non-Catholics, including Protestants. But we do, that's why just in the same way, just as you would spread the gospel to any one to the furthest corners of the earth, even if it's possible they could be saved, you want probability and assurance. We would say the same for sharing the Catholic faith.

You want me to jump on? So on John 6, as one who thinks when we partake of the Eucharist, we are feasting on Christ. I would say feasting on Christ is a broader category. Eucharistic feasting on Christ is a sort of pinnacle expression of that in the life of the church. And one of the reasons I'd say that is we have a lot of biblical data that feasting on Christ happens before the Eucharist is instituted. John 6 is before you have anything. So would it. So in other words, the Eucharist is relevant to that. But I would say that 1 Corinthians 10 says the Old Testament saints feasted on Christ. Christ was the rock. So I would say that, um, the restriction of John 6 to that one kind of feasting on Christ, I think is problematic. And I also think, and one of the biggest differences we have in our Eucharistic theology is just where's a valid Eucharist? I think both of you would say, I've never had the Eucharist. And I think Protestants would say a true and valid Eucharist is wherever is the true and valid gospel. If you have faith in the real Christ, you can experience him through the Eucharist. And so we don't define a valid Eucharist institutionally or by apostolic succession, but rather by just presence of genuine faith in the gospel as evidenced by the spirit's work. So that's probably the deeper issue we have on the Eucharist.

But, but there are Protestants who are closer. So like Lutherans, for example, will say the bread and wine at the Lutheran service is Jesus's body, flesh. It is contained in the bread and wine. Uh, and so it communicates the forgiveness of some sins, but it does not become the body and blood of Christ. So they would call that sacramental union. Uh, some reformed call that consubstantiation, but they don't like that term. So remember, remember a lot of these differences, there are, it is, it is not a Protestant view. It is a pro, it's Protestant views. But the point I was just making, we agree with the Lutheran on. Neither the Lutheran nor the reformed restrict a valid Eucharist just institutionally.

So we just have differences in how we understand real presence, not where a valid. We would both say a valid Eucharist can be present outside of Lutheranism, reformed Christianity. You could just have an island over there where people without any bodily contact to prior Christians get a Bible, believe in Jesus, and they can have a valid Eucharist without apostolic succession. We agree on that.

It's got to be, for example, it's got to be like bread and wine. But even, but there's some Protestants say it could be grape juice. But there are many Protestants who say it has to be valid matter. Has to be bread and wine for it to be the actual sacrament of the Lord's supper.

Correct. There are, there are boundaries, but not institutional boundaries. That is my point.

Also, wouldn't the magisterial reformers have held to, um, transubstantiation? Calvin and Luther, for example?

I think they would have held him more Christ is fully present.

That's probably a bigger question. We got people in line.

No, they would not.

Luther would say it is present in the Eucharist whether you believe or not. Calvin would say it's only present in the Eucharist if you do believe.

Right. He had a spiritual thing.

Yeah, that's one of the differences. And then there's differences in just how you understand what does real presence mean. Uh.

There's a good book, four views. There's a good book by Zanderan, like Four Views on the Eucharist. If you want to check it out, you might find that helpful.

All right, we got Jared from California. Let's go, buddy.

Hey guys. Trent, good to see you again. Josh, love your artwork. Rousan, you're awesome. But I want to direct this question to Gavin really quickly. Um, I'm really in this space right now where I'm engaging more intellectually with my faith. I've been a very passionate person when it comes to faith. Raised in an evangelical church, all that stuff. All that, we go crazy. You know what I'm saying? But I really want to ask you how you personally engage intellectually with the faith while still maintaining a passion and a desire for Jesus because I find that they sometimes are at odds for me.

Yeah, what a great question. And probably all of us could come to agreement on, on just wanting to pastor people on this point. C.S. Lewis has a great quote where he talks about, um, the heart sings unbidden when you're working through theology. And I think a lot of it has to do with how we engage theology, but it, the problem is never the theology itself. Sometimes we can make theology seem like it's boring or disconnected from the passions of the heart. But honestly, if you think about what theology is, we believe God is a Trinity. That means love is eternal. We believe that God became a baby. Uh, we believe that God, the, the God-man died and then rose again. He was buried. I mean, you think about these things. It cannot not affect your heart if you're actually think about what it is. So I would say, just, we should approach theology from the standpoint of, I'm going to assume theology is not the problem. Theology is going to pull my heart into gear as long as I'm really thinking about what we're talking about. And then we just want to try to keep the mind and the heart together every step along that way. Thanks for the great question though.

I, I want to just quick add on to that, like I think sometimes you might see, because Gavin's channel Truth Unites is awesome. Frankly, if I, if I was a Protestant was doing this stuff, I actually think it would look a lot like your channel because you're not exclusively. No, I'm serious. Like frankly, when I am, when I am referring people, when I do videos on a lot of theological topics, uh, Gavin's probably one of the top channels. I actually say, "Go watch Gavin's video on this," because then these, the other Catholic apologists are on YouTube, but they're only talking about Protestants. I'm talking about monotheism in the Bible, and we need. Yeah, I would love my, if you Catholics are listening, there's got to get out of the bubble a little bit and reach the, the people, the most people are the furthest away from Jesus. So please help me with that. Uh, so just seeing this, it's, it's great. And I can see a lot of people like, "Oh, I'd love to do the same thing. I'd love to have a channel like Truth Unites or Council Trent, and, you know, help debate atheists and show this is wrong." I tell you though, like, if God like came down and told me, "You, I don't want you doing this anymore," I would just be relieved if I could not have to be on the, if I can have to be on the internet. If I could not have to like ever go on the, whatever podcast again, which I am going back on it.

Most people furthest away.

Most people, most people furthest away, right? And who's furthest away?

Whatever.

Think of, think.

The Whatever Podcast. Yes. So my analogy, and maybe Gavin you can relate to this too, sometimes like it is great when you can take the study of theology to enlighten soul. It's just beautiful. But sometimes I feel like the guard on the tower of the castle, and I'm just like having the shift there and constantly be vigilant for the, the heretics, the apostates, and the coming in who want to breach the walls, and the rest of you are in the great hall eating turkey legs. Yeah.

And it's like, I want to just eat turkey legs and be happy. I want to just do praise and worship and just be like, "This is great," and not have to worry about, you know, what ex-YouTuber, you know, is is saying or debating and stuff. But.

But it's like what Paul says in Philippians, like, "My desire is to depart and be with Christ, but it's better for me to be here with you." If you do feel called to this, know it. Hope you do it with reluctance, but to know if you can share your faith joyfully in the world, that's probably one of the greatest apologetics that we need, frankly.

Yeah.

Jared, I don't know where you went, but there's a, um, uh, an Eastern Orthodox theologian called Vladimir Lossky, and he said that all theology exists as means to an end, which is participating in the divine life. And theology is always intended to be worshiped and lived out. And so, like, the intellectual stimulation that I had say in seminary did totally dry me out because it was just some intellectual ascent without living a life of worship and love.

Good.

Beautiful. Dan, we have Dan here from Bakersfield. Go ahead, buddy.

Hi. Um, thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate the conversation. Um, I'm coming from like a reformed Baptist kind of view. So my question is, how does a fully sinful natured person change their nature to love God?

I would say they receive the supernatural gifts of faith, hope, and charity through the sacraments, primarily through baptism. And through that, uh, as Paul says in Corinthians, "Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation." And so by receiving this, we go from being children of Adam to being, adopted children of God. And we are capable of loving him through, and that, you know, that gets back to our justification debate, imputation, infusion, which also Protestants even differ about how we should split the hairs on there, but we would say that we're only capable of supernaturally loving God through the grace we receive from God, specifically in baptism.

Beautiful. I have a question here speaking of justification. Uh, go ahead, my brother. He he wants to know about walking away, specifically from justification.

Yeah. So you guys were talking about justification of salvation and, uh, to steelhorn Trent's argument, because I'm a Protestant, don't exactly agree with everything, but in the spirit of trying to find middle ground and agreements. You don't agree with losing that term, losing your salvation, which I also agree with, but I've heard also online and, um, some of my friends I talk with about walking away from the gift, um, that's been given to us. Can you guys kind of expound on that or if it makes sense in any sense?

Well, I think I would, I would say, um, and both of us will be similar. We just, it's, it's mostly, it's category and vocabulary to describe it. That's why I love like transubstantiation is a, is a term that was developed more in the Middle Ages, but you go back to like St. Gregory of Nyssa says mettoic chaosis, what happens in the bread and wine is transelementation, you know, so, so there's still that, that eastern reality of it. Uh, when it comes to that, when it comes to mortal sin, and we go back to, um, 1 John 5:17, which says, you know, there, not all sin is wrongdoing, but there is some sin which is not mortal. There are, I believe we can all agree, nearly everybody can agree, there are two kinds of sins. James 3:2 says that we all, we all sin, uh, but not, not all sins are equal in the effect they have on our relationship with God. Uh, that there are grave, freely chosen sins that by doing that, as a Catholic, we would say that we use the term venial sin to talk about sins that damage our relationship with God and or strain, I guess you say, strain it, and mortal sins, which sever that relationship, which are grave, freely chosen acts of evil, that would require one, uh, to be reconciled to God. Uh, so the question was walking away. I mean, I think you can talk about that with those two categories. I'm not sure there's anything else that's needed to make the explanation.

Um, go ahead, Josh.

Just from our view, the walking away would just be if you're leaving the source of life, you kind of have to start wondering, well, what's going to happen to me? I don't have the stuff to keep myself alive forever. And so, the idea of walking away would be, yeah, your own free choice, um, to reject life. And then, and you would experience the consequences of that rebellion. That's what the walking away and losing your salvation.

If you were unrepentant.

Yes. If you're, because then repentance would be turning back. So sin as like the missing the mark or rejecting the good, true, and the beautiful. Repentance would just be reorienting yourself.

So we would say in Catholic theology, sanctifying grace is what floods the soul with the life of God. Gives us the supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and love. Uh, that is destroyed though, if you choose to commit, uh, mortal sin and great, and sin grievously against God. Hebrews chapter 10 says, uh, "For if we continue to sin, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins." Uh, so in doing that, um, sorry, lost my, lost my train of thought here because my, my little kids are up all night.

Try flying on a plane with five of them.

Oh, sorry, sorry. Yeah, right. It's easier for me. He took a, he took him with him. That's a, that's a Lenten plea, right? That's a Lent.

If I see distracted, it's like my three-year-old running.

So, we say, sorry, we say sanctifying grace, uh, is what allows us to have God's divine life, to have eternal life with him. But even if we were to forsake that, we do not come back to God on our own. We still have, we can only come back to God through what's called actual grace. A kind of a spiritual kick in the pants where God says, you know, he, he waits for us like the prodigal, the prodigal son, and the father always calling us back to him, even when we sin. So I guess if there's a judicial image, it's often used, sort of the Protestant view of salvation of a judge declaring you not guilty. I think my preferred image for the Catholic view of salvation is filial. It's that, uh, God adopts us as wayward children. And if we were to ever leave him, like the prodigal son foolishly did, God the father always waits for us, just like the father, the prodigal son, every morning went and looked. I love in the parable that he saw him coming at a distance, which implies that he was always out there waiting, looking, praying for him to return. And we believe the father does the same for us if we're ever wayward with him.

The question was asking about common ground. So just to highlight, I think we can all agree on the experience and observation that there are people who profess faith, appear to be vibrant in faith, and then depart from faith. I think our differences are how to understand that categories and terms. Um, we all want to warn people not to do that. Um, and then we will just differ on the categories, like for example, two kinds of sin. That would be a point of difference. I would say there's a spectrum, some more severe, some less severe, so not all sins are, but we wouldn't chop it right down the middle, just two kinds. Um, so the differences are in the categories and interpretations, but we all agree there's a grave danger of something called apostasy. If you walk away from your Christian faith, don't do that. You will not be saved if you do that. So we, we give, we give that warning equally. We understand it differently.

I say though, it's true, even if you still claim to be a Christian, you go off to do of and you say, "I'm still a Christian and I'm doing this stuff." You, you have also walked away just through that kind of behavior.

Agreed. Mere, mere profession without possession of faith is not, is not going to save you.

Well, possession of faith includes obedience to the teachings of Christ.

Correct. If you do not, Jesus said, "If you love me, you will obey what I command." Let's be clear on this. As Protestants, if you do not follow Jesus, take up your cross, follow Jesus, being being increasingly conformed, formed to the image of Christ in your life, you have not experienced salvation.

So you need to follow Jesus. I mean, that the New Testament's urgency on that point is very clear. So we sometimes need to do a better job as Protestants of making that clear.

Excellent. Excellent. That's that deserves. Yes. Yes. Yes.

We have, speaking of category, we have a category, uh, question here and how sins connect to the category of idolatry with our friend Aurora here. Go ahead, Aurora.

AI. So, um, my, my question is, is probably more specifically to Trent here because this would be more Catholic geared, but my question is, idolatry in my understanding is mortal sin in the Catholic Church. But in the scripture, idolatry is associated as equivalent to lots of different sins. So Ephesians 5:5 equiv, um, makes equivalent that greed, sexual immorality, and impurity are also included as idolatry. And in 1 Samuel 15:23, it talks about how arrogance or stubbornness is al, uh, is equivalent to idolatry as rebellion is to divination. So my question is, some of these things can be done unintentionally, especially if lust is also adultery in, in, uh, scripture as well. So if all those things are all linked together as idolatry, then you're committing, how does a Catholic church would deal with you're committing mortal sin all the time that these other sins are happening?

Sure. I would say that we have to look at a strict definition of idolatry and more of a metaphorical definition of idolatry. So the strict definition of idolatry is a sin against the first commandment where you worship something as God that is not God. Uh, so that's why, uh, when, uh, the Greeks went to Paul and started to treat him like Zeus coming down from the mountain, he's like, "No, no, no, don't, don't do that. Don't treat me like a deity. I'm, I'm just a man." Or, you know, admonishing people for thinking that God exists in stone idols or wooden boxes that he's created, he's fashioned out of human hands with these statues. So idol, strict sense, idolatry is treating, worshiping something as God that is not God, giving worship that is due to God alone to something else. In the 4th century, there were heretics in the church who were offering sacrificial cakes to the Blessed Virgin Mary. So we say as, as Catholics, that of all of God's creatures, she deserves the most respect among creatures because she's the mother of the creator. You know, the creator, the creator of the universe, and you get to heaven and you look at him, he's going to look a little bit like this lady, you know, because he's her son. So she is, but she did not receive sacrifice. Only God can receive that. So the Mass, we offer the sacrifice of the Eucharist only to the Father. Uh, so that's idolatry in a strict sense. But there's another definition of sin that I like, which says that sin is when you love the creature more than the creator. Sin is when we love the creature more than the creator. Think about all the times that we've sinned. What, what do they all have in common? We could have loved God, but we loved this other thing more and chose it instead of him. So we can, so we can define many sins, or possibly all sins, as a kind of idolatry that the love that ought to have been given to God was given to this creature in perversion to what God wants for us. So we can speak of many of these other sins as kind of idolatrous in that sense as well. But of course, you know, we're, we're always going to love, um, minor sin. You know, it's in this life because in Catholic theology, we talk about concupiscence. We always have a tendency towards sin because of human nature. Even after we're saved, it's why even after we're saved, we keep, we keep sinning. We're not going to be able, it's, it's very, very difficult to have sustained perfect love of God in this life. But, um, in seeing this, we can distinguish that there are great elements where we love the creature in a way that's gravely injurious to our relationship with God and others, where it just strains and damages that relationship to make that distinction between mortal and venial sin.

All right, we got about 10 minutes before we break for lunch. So, we're going to do a couple more questions. We probably aren't going to get to all y'all questions on the side. Correct.

All right, we got Raone here from, uh, San Jose. Go for it, Ramon.

So, my question is, what is the stance of any of you on willful, uh, abuse of salvation, justification, or free grace? Like when somebody says, "I know all of this, but I want to become an apostate until they tell me I have cancer. I'm gonna die in five minutes."

What, what's the stance?

That's presumption, my friend.

I didn't catch the final scenario there. Could you just clarify what?

Yeah. If like somebody willfully says, "I'm going to ignore all this that I already know, even the salvation I already received, and wait till the last second." So abuse.

Oh, the deathbed, like deathbed, like purposeful deathbed.

The old okey-doke. Yeah. Uh, there's a great quote from J.C. Ryle about the thief on the cross. Oh boy. If I can get this. Come on, brain work. Um, "Late repentance is seldom true, but true repentance is seldom late." Does that make any sense?

Yeah. Say that again.

So what he's trying to say is, I, I'll summarize the spirit of it is, it's very rare that you're going to put off salvation, you're going to put off repentance, and then genuinely repent. But if you do sincerely come to your senses, like the thief on the cross, at, at the end of your life, and if it's sincere, then you still can be saved from that standpoint. But don't presume upon that. I think the question, if I understand it, is something probably we'd all agree on, of just a dire warning. You can't willfully abuse the gifts of God. In Catholic theology, we would call that the sin of presumption, where, "Oh, well, I'm, I'll just do this sin on Friday because I'm going to confess it on Saturday." And if you aren't truly repentant of it, when you do confess it, you're not, you're not forgiven of it. Uh, you know, trying to.

If you're going to try to cheat the house, you should probably make sure the house isn't omniscient and infinite in perfection.

Uh, so, but like I said, someone could have this. We, we also believe that there's two, there's two kinds of people who repent of sins. So we would talk about attrition and contrition. So we would talk about, uh, imperfect, uh, sorrow for sin, which is basically, "Lord, please forgive me because I don't want to go to hell." It's like, I mean, that can save you, but it's not the most perfect form of sorrow for sin that we can have. Now, hey, if someone could start there, hey, that's great. That's a good starting place. "Lord, please save me because I don't want to go to hell." But the ideal is to get them to, "Lord, please save me because I am sorry that I have sinned against you, whom I should love above all things." Mhm.

And so the goal is then, if someone struggles with a sinner, presumption could be a way to encourage them to get to perfect contrition.

So a pastoral cash value here would be, don't put off repentance. Not only because, uh, that is not, it robs your assurance of salvation, but just because it keeps you from Jesus for, from one more, for one more minute.

Yeah.

I mean, repent today and experience the light of the gospel coming into your heart. There's no experience in this world like having.

Your sins forgiven by God. So just do it right now. Don't put it off. But also, if you feel as though you're beyond hope, that's also a lie. You do not despair. If you're not in hell yet, seek God. Don't assume that you can't be forgiven just because you've committed great sins or you've delayed. And there are stories, as we know in church history, of people who delay their repentance for a long time and then eventually become a saint. So don't assume, don't despair either.

In Catholic theology, we call that the sin of despair. And it's the opposite of the sin of presumption. We got a label for 2,000 years. We got a label for everything. The scholastics, man, they were busy. I would just piggyback on what Gavin said. Um it's like letting yourself transition from this view of like, oh, I'm being saved from something, but being saved into life. So like even I know that whatever this is just like a hypothetical but if hell didn't exist which it will it just be like you're also saved to participate in the fullness of love and joy and peace and all of these things. So like salvation why would like Gavin said why would you want to put off participating in everything your heart was created for.

Plus an eternity of anything that is not that would be hell.

Yes. Yeah. Anything that is not that if you had it for eternity it would it would be hell. De facto. Truly. Let's do another question.

All right, we got time only for two more questions. We got an online question first.

Hey, shout out to the virtual viewers hanging out with us. Appreciate you guys. I see you chat. Okay, so the question is, if all humans inherit a sinful nature from Adam, how is it just for people to be born into a broken condition because of something they didn't personally choose?

Uh we don't believe in inherited guilt uh and nature the same way. Might be a semantic difference. It could be. I I think like if if what the question is asking is something around an inherited guilt from Adam, we believe in the east that we inherit the consequences of that so a propensity toward an inclination towards sin and that death reigns overall and so each person experiences the full consequences of sin sin and death by their own free choice to reject God. So, we all have our Adam and Eve moment in the garden. And we all took the bite of the apple and we all said, "No, no, no. It's okay. I'll be my own God." And so, I would say, "You can have children. Uh, you're not passing your guilt on to them and you can raise them up in the faith and you can get them baptized and they can participate in the divine life and they can enjoy God with you forever and for always."

I would say in Catholicism paragraph 404 of the catechism says that original sin it's not a sin of commission. Uh it is a sin analogically in the sense that it's a deprivation of the grace of God. So it's not that we are punished for what Adam did but we suffer for what he did. The analogy I would use is let's say you um let's say you had a guy and he wins the lottery and now it's like oh my gosh he won the lottery you know 10 million bucks his his kids his descendants they're set for life but then he says you know what I would really love to get 20 million so he cheats and his cheating is discovered he loses all the money so now all his descendants are born into poverty uh are they punished for it no but if he had not have committed that original sin uh they would have been blessed with with wealth and not to worry about poverty, but now they are born into it and have to be rescued from it. So, as Catholics, you would say that yes, Adam and Eve through their sin rejected God's grace and friendship. They could not pass that on to their children. But through baptism, that grace and friendship is restored to our souls and gives us the supernatural grace capable of having saving faith with God.

Just a one or two sentences. Sometimes this uh reality of being born into a state seems unfair to us because we live in the modern west which is very individualistic. And one of the ways that scripture can correct us and I think we probably have some broad agreement on these points is it pulls us out of that highly individualistic mindset where it's just about what I do. That's not what it means to be a human being. But one thing also we can emphasize too is there is in scripture that personal emphasis as well. And so I personally commit sins and Ezekiel says the soul who sins will die. And you also have this personal aspect of I as an individual will stand before the judgment day and give an account of my life. So the scripture has that emphasis as well.

Excellent. We have our friend here from Phoenix, Arizona.

Hello. Um my question is probably geared more towards um the Catholic belief orthodox belief. Um my church is going through a Bible study right now in Hebrews. where it talks about Jesus as the better prophet um messenger and high priest, great high priest, right? So I guess my question would be um does the Catholic Church hold to that same belief and if so um why the need then to confess to a human sinful priest?

So wait, are you saying the belief in Jesus being the high priest?

Well, the the priest like so he's our direct mediator to to God, right? So I think my question if to rephrase it a little bit would be um why go then to a human priest if Jesus is our great high priest.

Sure. So what I would say is that the Bible teaches that uh Christ is our high priest and he's the only mediator of our salvation. Uh he is the only one by presenting himself as presenting himself as a sacrifice of love on the cross is capable of meriting salvation for the whole world. He is our only mediator in that sense. But we are all mediators for each other all the time whenever we ask one another to pray for one another. Uh but we participate in Christ's one mediatorship but by still praying for one another. Uh so what the Catholic Church teaches is that just as in the Old Testament there was a three-fold priesthood. Exodus says you're a kingdom of priests. So every person was a priest in the Old Testament in a sense. Then there was the one high priest and then there was a ministerial priesthood like with the Levites. Uh we would say looking forward from Hebrews and going on that Christ is now our high priest. Uh Peter says that we are a royal priesthood. So it's a priesthood of the ley but there is still a role for a ministerial priesthood. Uh Hebrews 13 even talks about how we have an altar. We we as Christians have an altar that the priests who serve in the tent, the temple, which I think wasn't destroyed at that time when Hebrews was written, uh are not permitted to eat from. And in Corinthians, Paul talks about uh you cannot eat at the table of the Lord and the table of demons. But the word table there would then seem to mean altar because you can't go to a pagan altar and their evil sacrifices or the altar for Christians. But to have an altar where we offer a sacrifice of bread and wine which is Christ's body and blood. The only thing we can offer to the father is the son uh is to have priests to be able to do that. That's why in the early church, Ignatius of Antioch is very clear. If you don't have bishops, priests and deacons uh you don't have a valid church.

So do you want to say something?

Just a just a very simple um I don't know where the girl went. Just a very simple thought experiment would just be

She's right there.

There you go. We just be like just because we have the greatest form of something doesn't mean that we also can have lesser forms of it in some sense. So I have a heavenly father. I also have an earthly father and I am a father and I will point my kids to their heavenly father as the greatest father like the father from which all fatherhood deres its being. And so just because Christ is our great high priest doesn't mean that we can't have priests over us authoritatively or in some form of representation of Christ. and the father analog. Yeah. 1 Corinthians 4:15. So I'll go when you're done.

He's a Paul says, "You've had many guides in Christ, not many fathers. I became your father in Christ Jesus." So Paul gives an example of that spiritual fatherhood.

So I was just going to say as Protestants, we can also agree with intercessory prayer for each other. So we don't want to act like, well, Jesus is our our great intercessor as our high priest and therefore there's no place for Christians to intercede for each other. This goes back to what we were discussing earlier and why I put the emphasis upon the necessity of confession to a human priest to receive a judicial act of forgiveness for certain classes of sin. Necessity. Without it, you go to hell. That's where we differ. And so we want to I think as Protestants put the emphasis not on Jesus is the only kind of intercessor of any kind of intercession but specifically for the act of receiving forgiveness of sins. He Jesus alone does that. That's where I would locate the difference and I gave us 5 seconds.

Yeah. I think like when talking about the ministerial priesthood like Lutheran and Anglicans would agree that maybe not well they also practice confession of sin. Some of them do with a different theology to it. uh but they would talk about how like in celebrating the Lord's supper for it to be valid it would have to be you know an Anglican priest who is offering it. So there there there are other Protestants who would recognize the role of the ministerial priesthood uh and the role of of the pastorship. So I think we we are there's going to be a gradient of understanding but Hebrews 13 is very clear that there are elders there are people we must submit to. The debate is over which of these Christians are the people we are called to submit to. I'll give you the final word.

Okay. I I don't The point I was making is how you actually get your sins forgiven, not just a valid Eucharist. And I think I'm in agreement with the Anglicans and Lutheran I know that there is a difference here Catholic to Protestant in actually then again just I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but the necessity of confession to a human priest for the forgiveness of certain kinds of sins. Not to have your sins announced to you, but actually the judicial act of them being forgiven. I do see that as a difference. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that is our amazing panel. Give it up for them.