THE GREAT DEBATE: Sola Scriptura | Joe Heschmeyer v. Doug Wilson

Father Hazenol, Pastor Wilson, Mr. Heshmire, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Graashian Kresevsky. I am director of intellectual formation at Vandal Catholic and your moderator for that which I would like to warmly welcome you to tonight, our sixth annual great debate. It's nice to be here and so handsome an arena, especially in the still lit afterglow of a basketball season when both the Vandal men and women's teams won the Big Sky Conference and advanced onto the NCA tournament. It might not be the amphitheater in Verona completed in AD30 and still in use recently as seen during the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics or even a grand super doome like they have in New Orleans. But as far as the Paloo is concerned and with the ever lovely Kibby Dome hovering out there in the background, I consider it a most worthy space to host such an important event.

Solos scriptor scripture alone is it enough? Is it enough as a rule of faith, a rule of life for doctrinal disputations in questions of ecclesiastical authority for the ultimate last things questions pertaining to salvation. Solos scriptor the topic and exclusive focus of our debate tonight.

Arguing the Protestant position is Pastor Doug Wilson, holder of three degrees, including a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Idaho. Wilson is a founding board member of New St. Andrews College and a founder of Canon Press Publishing House and the Classical Christian Academy Logos School. Pastor of Christ Church Moscow since 1977. Wilson is the author of numerous books including Mere Christendom, Reforming Marriage, The Case for Classical Christian Education, and the novel Evangelifish, winner of Christianity Today's Best Fiction Award in 2012.

Arguing the Catholic position is Mr. Joe Heshmire, a staff apologist for Catholic Answers. He is the host of the YouTube channel and podcast Shameless Popery. He holds three degrees as well, including a degree in sacred theology from the Pontipical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome and a jurist doctor from Georgetown University, after which he worked for a time as a litigator in Washington DC. Heshmire is the author of many books including the Eucharist is really Jesus, a man named Joseph, Pope Peter, and the early church was Catholic.

This debate will proceed in a very straightforward manner. Very shortly, I'll invite Pastor Wilson to offer his 15-minute opening statement, which will be followed by Mr. Heshmire doing the same. 8-minute rebuttals will follow thereafter. Then 40 minutes broken down into two 20-minute sections will be dedicated to crossexamination. All that will remain after that will be closing remarks, nine minutes each. And before you know it, I will be back at this podium thanking you for coming out. hopeful you have received much spiritual food for thought and wishing you all a good night and safe travels back home.

We do ask you, we do ask you to please show our participants and your fellow audience members the highest level of respect and refraining from any noise making and or disturbances while our participants are speaking. We are here for a very special evening. I thank you indeed for being here to listen to something I believe is sorely lacking in our contemporary society: honest and open and respectful debate. While we certainly come to this arena with differing opinions on the subject at hand, I believe we share all of us an equal interest in open intellectual exchange. For being many of us professed followers of the one who is the way, the truth, and the life, we find our appetites ever wedded for discovering the truth in all things. And so, I'd like to invite Pastor Wilson to the podium to begin our evening with his opening statement.

Let me begin by thanking the organizers of this event and looking at the turnout, they are very organized. I'm very grateful and appreciate the opportunity to discuss such a crucial issue. Since I only have 15 minutes of prepared remarks, please don't measure the depth of my gratitude by how long I spend on it. So turning to the subject, I'm happy to take the affirmative this evening. Is solos scripture enough? Is the Bible the sole infallible rule of faith? I want to argue the affirmative arguing that as a formal principle of all religious authority, scripture is sufficient for all of our spiritual needs. This would encompass both the life of the individual Christian and the life of the corporate body of Christ, the church.

So let's start with the definition. Here would be my definition of solos scriptura right out of the gate: Scripture alone, all 66 books, is the only spiritual authority in our lives that has the twin characteristics of ultimacy and infallibility. This is the only definition I am prepared to defend and or argue for. I begin here because there's a common distortion of the doctrine that I'm not prepared to defend. Unfortunately, it is a view held by many contemporary evangelical Christians who do do this even though it's wrong. Soloscriptura is not to be confused with solo scriptura, a just me and my Bible approach. Solas scriptura means that the 66 books of holy scripture are authoritative in a believer's life and in the life of the church and that this authority is distinguished by two unique characteristics that other spiritual authorities do not have. These other spiritual authorities are true spiritual authorities but they don't have these two characteristics.

So first, scripture is the only ultimate and final authority and secondly, scripture is the only infallible authority. There are other genuine religious authorities in our lives and their secondary authority must not be dismissed as a nullity. These authorities would include parents, pastors, teachers, church councils, statements of faith, church tradition, and so forth. You might be surprised at my inclusion of tradition, but historic Protestants do believe in authoritative tradition, just not ultimate or infallible tradition. This was understood by the Baptist pastor who said once with a twinkle in his eye, "We Baptists don't believe in tradition. It's contrary to our historic position." In other words, tradition is inescapable. The issue is not whether you have tradition or authoritative tradition. The issue is where does it rank in the org chart. So these subordinate authorities are not ultimate. Appeal can be made past them to scripture and they are not infallible. They can be corrected by scripture. The church using the regular feday, the rule of faith, which is derived from scripture, interprets scripture within the framework of this regular feday. The content of the regular feday would basically be the content of the Apostles' Creed, which we at Christ Church recite weekly. In short, in English, we interpret scripture in the light of the gospel.

So in the words of Keith Mat, the doctrine I'm defending here emerges as "natural, organic, medieval, and apostolic." Mat again, "As long as Protestants attempt to maintain this defective version of solo scriptura," he's meaning solo scriptura, "and as long as this version of the doctrine is allowed to be identified as the Protestant position, Roman Catholic and Orthodox apologists will continue to effectively demolish it and gain frustrated seekers." I agree with that entirely. One last definitional point. I'm not making this claim for mere cherry-picking, cherry-picked portions of scripture or for snippets gathered from here and there. My claim involves tota et solos scriptor, all of scripture, front to back, side to side, top to bottom, and only scripture.

So a brief glossary of terms: Tradition zero. This would be the solo scriptura position. Just me and my Bible. The Bible in this scheme is the book that fell from the sky. It just, it just is. And we appeal to it. It has authority because it's bound in leather and there's gold leaf on the edge. Tradition one. This would be the position of the reformers and also, as I would argue, of the early church for the first three centuries. The scriptures are the sole material basis for doctrine, to be interpreted by the church in the light of the gospel. As I referred to earlier, tradition two. This is the view that the Christian owes equal respect to scripture on the one hand and a handed-down oral tradition on the other. Unwritten ecclesiastical traditions have here assumed an authoritative role. This starts to take shape with Basil the Great, and it is possible that Augustine held this view. Tradition three. This is a recent development, a development among some Roman Catholic theologians where there's only one single source of revelation, that being the present Roman magisterium. In other words, whatever the church is currently saying is authoritative and binding.

Now, a strong case can be made that the reformers held consistently to tradition one. The position of the early church and much of the medieval church and the magisterial reformers was that scripture was the sole source of revelation. The Bible was the final and authoritative norm for both doctrine and practice. Scripture was to be interpreted in and by the church. And the key to that interpretation was the gospel, as represented by the regular feday. "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, etc." I'm proceeding on the assumption that this debate tonight is between tradition one and tradition two. We would both agree that scripture is God-breathed and perfect in every respect. And we both agree that there is an authoritative tradition in the church. Our differences would boil down to two issues. First, is there an uncorrupted apostolic tradition apart from the scriptures that we are required to accept by faith? And secondly, is there a particular church body that is infallibly guided by God in discerning and identifying this tradition? What this debate boils down to is this: When it comes to teaching the people of God, what God wants us to know, does the church hew the stones of truth from one quarry or from two? The Protestant says one, tradition one, scripture alone. The Roman Catholic says there are two quarries, tradition two, scripture together with the unwritten traditions handed down from the apostles.

So let's talk about what I regard as lack of specificity in tradition two. Now, my first argument is straightforward. I do not believe in tradition two and would advance an excellent reason for not doing so: in that advocates of tradition two don't really believe in it either. One of the easy ways that you can tell that I'm defending solos scriptura is that I'm willing to define for you what it is that I'm calling scripture. Notice that I've set precise boundaries, 66 books for the source of the authority I'm pointing to and defending. Everyone in this audience should know by this point that I would submit to the authority of Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Matthew, and Romans. I would not submit to the Gospel of Thomas, the Shepherd of Hermas, or Tobit. Protestants who defend solos scriptura have a table of contents that they can and do point to, and then we say, "This is what I'm talking about." The table of contents sets the limits of the debate and it has the virtue of being a clear debate. But why is there no corresponding table of contents to guide us through the traditions of the church? If we need the traditions of the church, wouldn't it follow that we would also need to know what they are and where they're actually located? What would you think of a Protestant apologist who said that he was prepared to defend anything that was stated in any of the books of the Bible and then when he was asked which books those might be, he got suddenly coy and said, "Not telling."

According to tradition two, God's revelation comes to us in two forms: written and oral. Sacred scripture and sacred tradition together form one sacred deposit which is divine. But why are we given the precise boundaries for the first part? Although the Catholic boundaries here are admittedly a bit larger, 73 books, and no boundaries for the second part, tradition. How can tradition be an infallible guide to when the very first thing I discover is that I need an infallible guide to take me around in search of that tradition? Mat is correct. Tradition is far more difficult to interpret than scripture. Shoot, it is difficult to find. I mean, there are different kinds of traditions and different levels. Tradition is an umbrella term and it is a huge umbrella. There is apostolic tradition, which would naturally be infallible. Then there's ecclesiastical tradition, which is teaching that is consistent with scripture and apostolic tradition, but then also with other councils and church fathers, and only the church has the authority to teach us about all of this, which brings us to the magisterium. This would be the teaching of the pontiff or of the councils in union with a pope, and the history of the magisterium has left us a document trail, first of the ordinary magisterium, the result of the ordinary teaching responsibilities of popes and bishops. Then there's the extraordinary magisterium, meaning the solemn teaching of popes and councils. Throw into the mix the teaching of various saints and scholars down through the ages, men like Thomas Aquinas, a doctor of the church. There would also be the universal ordinary magisterium, which would be doctrines that are universally accepted by everyone that mattered. And last, I'm sure we would have to include pronouncements of the pope when the pope spoke ex cathedra. But ex cathedra pronouncements have illustrated the point nicely. I have a simple question here: How many times has the pope actually done that? Does anybody know? Is there an authoritative list of the ex cathedra pronouncements? Some Roman theologians say there have been only two, some say more. Where can I go to sort this out? An authority that does not speak into the microphone cannot really function as a genuine authority. If you take a phrase like "the tradition of the church" and if you look at it closely, you're looking at something on a dimmer switch and not at a binary toggle switch. Where must I go? Where must I look to find my much-needed infallibility? A pious Roman Catholic who wants to submit to the tradition of the church has an arduous task in front of him because the first thing he must do is find it. This is a very practical problem, and let me give an example of what I mean. Unam Sanctam teaches that Muslims as Muslims cannot be saved. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, page 223, teaches that they can be: "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims." Now I have two dissenting voices coming from within the jammed room that we might call tradition hall. And so I need somebody to set me straight. Which one of these authorities is correct? Or how, how am I to decide between them? But when a guide shows up to tell me, I realize that the only thing I can consistently do is to shove him into the room, too.

So this is Mat again: "Rome has never been able to definitively indicate to anyone exactly what all these supposed unwritten traditions are. Rome has never definitively provided a canon of the God-breathed and authoritatively binding unwritten traditions. Since the statements of the church are not God-breathed and since there's no surviving God-breathed unwritten traditions to which one can point with any certainty, scripture is the only place to which any of us can turn for authoritative God-breathed revelation." We all agree on that. In sum, tradition two lacks the specificity needed to enable us even to evaluate it as a claim. The only reason that this debate tonight is even a possibility is that the Protestant side has defined boundaries: Genesis to Revelation. If we define scripture, if we Protestants define scripture the way Catholicism defines tradition, the debate tonight would not be very exciting. It would be the collision of two banks of fog.

So, second point: Protestant or just human? My second main argument is that the Roman Catholic apologists have a tendency to take an ordinary human dilemma, turn it into a uniquely Protestant problem. As I put it in my book on all of this, "Personal judgment rightly understood is an epistemological question and not a question of final or ultimate authority." The book is Papa Don't Pope. A good deal of shade is cast over personal judgment or private interpretation, as it is called. It is argued that we cannot resort to the scriptures alone because we need an interpreter. This need is supplied by the church. But this does not rid us of private interpretation, but rather just pushes us back one step. How do we interpret the church? Scripture comes to us in human language, which is said to be beyond me. I needed an authoritative interpreter. But how does this interpreter come to me? He comes to me in human language also. Why isn't this beyond me also? This is truly challenging and is made even murkier by my first objection, the blurriness caused by the table of contents problem. I'm just a private individual. Should I listen to Father Murphy, the Latin rite guy, Susie, Sister Susie, the feminist, the Catholic catechism, Unam Sanctam? But once you've picked one, what does it mean to listen? That is a hermeneutical question that dogs every mother's son of us. It has nothing whatever to do with Protestantism. No matter who you are, all your choices come down to private interpretation. Who decides whether to join the Catholic Church or not? You do. Who decides whether to leave the Catholic Church or not? You do. Who decides what Paul is talking about in Romans? You do. Who decides what your parish priest means when he is talking about Romans? Well, you do. This is not the Protestant dilemma. To the extent that it is a dilemma, and I don't think that it is actually, it would be the human dilemma.

So last, Christ is the way. These are challenging issues, and perhaps working through them is making your head hurt, but I would not want anybody walking away from this debate with the attitude of, "Oh, what's the use?" The text of scripture and scripture alone is very important, as I trust you have gathered. But we should want to have a high view of scripture without becoming the bibliolaters that Jesus rebuked. They studied the scriptures so closely that they missed the entire point of the scriptures. "You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of me." John 5:39. Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you to everyone for coming out. I'm amazed at this crowd. Thank you to the organizers. Thank you in a special way to Doug. We had a lovely breakfast this morning. It's been good getting to know him better. And this is also a topic on which we have a lot of agreement and some very important disagreements. He has started to lay out some of them. I want to expand on that. But first, a word on agreement. We believe scripture is divinely inspired. It is the word of God. It is written for our salvation. And we even agree that scripture derives its inspiration and authority from God and not from the church's subsequent recognition. We can talk about that more later if it comes up. My job tonight is to show why scripture alone is not enough. My job tonight is not to lay out all of the arguments for the Catholic Church. To the extent I talk about Catholicism, it will be because I think we can see in the infallibility of the church something more that is given to us biblically. But there's a lot you might come out of here with a lot of questions about Catholicism that I do not intend to answer for you tonight. But hopefully, you'll come out of here seeing very clearly that solos scriptura is unbiblical, unworkable, and illogical.

Now, those are big claims. So let me lay out the argument for it. As we do so, I want to make sure that you don't conflate the word of God with the Bible, because that's not actually biblical. When scripture speaks of the word of God, it doesn't just mean the Bible in the fullest sense. It means Jesus Christ, who is the Word, as John 1 tells us. He is the full revelation of God. But the word of God also includes God speaking through men. And this is true whether it's transmitted orally or in writing. And I would like to quote here Doug Wilson, who said on his blog last fall, "Because the scriptural writers were inspired by God, their infallibility was guaranteed. They spoke and wrote as inspired by the Spirit, and the Spirit cannot err." End quote. So these are equally authoritative means by which the Holy Spirit expresses his word to us. This is clearly biblical. First Thessalonians 2:13, St. Paul says, "We also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers." He would later tell them, "So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions." The Greek word there is paradosis, which you were taught by us either by word of mouth or by letter, literally by epistle. So I want you to notice two things there. Number one, St. Paul describes the scriptures themselves as traditions. They, and they literally are paradosis, or tradition is a thing handed on. How do we have the Bible? Because it was handed on by those who came before us, going back to the apostles. So Paul can simultaneously affirm scripture as God-breathed but also as apostolic tradition. Therefore, pitting scripture against apostolic tradition is self-defeating. Second, Paul is clear that scripture isn't the only form of apostolic tradition. They're passing on tradition both by word of mouth and by epistles, and they're expecting them to be treated with equal authority. Christians are to hold fast to them.

Now, this raises the question: How do we know what those traditions are? How do we know they're accurately preserved? And I would say for the moment, just recognize that this problem exists with the manuscripts of the Bible. We don't have the original autographs, but the Holy Spirit protects the preservation, the passing on, both of the written and proclaimed apostolic teaching. So, as I said, I think we see quite clearly in scripture that there is something given to us beyond scripture alone. I'll get into some of the problems of trying to use scripture alone, but I thought it might be good to give a little bit of a positive case. In Matthew 16, Jesus says he will build his church. And then he tells Peter, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." That seems to point to a divinely protected authority to be used by Peter. And then in Matthew 18, by the church collective. In John 14, at the Last Supper, Jesus promises to send the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name. He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. So the church is not just promised, "You'll have the right books, and then you have to interpret them the best you can." The church is promised all truth, that the Spirit of Truth will come and lead us into the fullness of truth. Then in John 16, he says again, "When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he hears, he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come." We see this illustrated in the Bible in Acts 15, at the Council of Jerusalem, where the church speaks and acts on behalf of God, saying, "For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no greater burden upon you than these necessary things." Now, this is both a clear distinction from scripture alone being infallible, because the church is—you cannot have a church that is simultaneously the possessor of all truth, having been led by the Spirit into all truth, and wrong on important doctrinal things. So the logic of revelation as such means that we should expect this. As St. Paul said of the plight of the Israelites in the exodus, "Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction." Scripture, one of the many reasons for it, is to instruct us. And an instructor has failed if you don't understand the instructions. As the legendary UCLA basketball coach and former English teacher John Wooden said, "The most crucial task of teaching was to distinguish 'I taught it' from 'they learned it'." If God taught it and no one learned it, he did not succeed as a teacher. If I give the greatest airtight case and none of you understand what the heck I'm saying, I have failed as a teacher, as a communicator. That it is more than just God said it; he also must guide us into understanding it. Which is why the Holy Spirit comes to lead us into all truth. This means that the Holy Spirit is preserving not only the text of scripture, but also the meaning, which is how we have an infallible magisterium. In the words of St. Jerome, "It's not enough to quote scripture, because the devil himself quoted scripture. And the essence of the scriptures is not the letter but the meaning."

So why is solos scriptura not enough? Several reasons. Number one, it is self-refuting. This self-refuting nature is relatively easy to establish. Number one, if scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith, all doctrine must ultimately come from scripture. As the Westminster Confession says in chapter 1, "The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down in scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture, unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the spirit or traditions of men." So everything doctrinally can be derived from scripture explicitly or by necessary deduction. And you can't go around forcing your own private interpretation. There are other things in scripture that aren't necessary deductions, right? There's other things where like two people could read scripture in different ways and come to different conclusions. Those cannot by definition be binding doctrine. If you and I read it differently, I can't force you to accept my reading if it's not a necessary interpretation of scripture. That's the first point. The second point: this doctrine of solos scriptura is itself a doctrine. Clearly, a doctrine is a teaching. This is chapter one of the Westminster Confession. This is maybe the most important teaching in Protestantism itself. Westminster feels the need to explain their doctrine of scripture before they get into their doctrine of God. The Trinity is chapter two. So it's not only a doctrine, but the most important Protestant doctrine. Problem is, point number three: that doctrine of solos scriptura is not taught in scripture. It is neither expressly laid down, nor is it explicit, nor is it something that is deduced necessarily from scripture. You'll notice Doug never quoted any passage that teaches solos scriptura anywhere. And as we saw from St. Paul, it was not true at the time the apostles were teaching, writing, and speaking. Conclusion: Therefore, we must necessarily reject solos scriptura. If I came to you and said, "I've got a new rule: we need to reject rules written on or rules created on Tuesday." Let me try that again. "I've got a new rule: we should reject all rules created on Thursday." That's what day of the week it is. You would necessarily have to reject that rule because I've created it on Thursday and told you not to accept rules created on Thursday. Well, likewise, solos scriptura is a man-made tradition that tells you not to accept man-made tradition as authoritative and an ultimate final interpretive sense. So it is hoisted on its own petard.

In addition to that, we have two other ways of self-refuting. These are variations of what's called the canon problem, because chapter one of Westminster goes on to tell you which are the 66 books. Now, Doug said one of the advantages of scripture alone is that you have a very clear list of which books are scripture. Yet, he acknowledged we don't all agree on that. We've got 73 books. The Ethiopian Orthodox have even more. The early Christians did not agree on exactly which books were in the Bible. This is a problem because to have solos scriptura, you have to know for thing for sure which things are scriptura. Major doctrinal conclusions hang in the balance. For instance, 2 Maccabees 12 praises Judas Maccabeus for making atonement for the dead that they might be delivered from their sin. Westminster says, "This book is of no divine inspiration and is of no authority in the church of God, nor to be otherwise approved or made use of than other human writings." St. Augustine considered it God-breathed scripture, as did many of the early Christians. Whether that is or is not is of huge importance. Nowhere in scripture tells us which books are and are not to be included. So that's like, whatever canon you come up with, that canon is itself an extra-biblical tradition. There is no canon of scripture within scripture. These are things that we believe in not because scripture tells us these are the books of the Bible, but because we've been taught that they're the books of the Bible by the earliest Christians and ultimately by the church. This leads to what I'll call canon problem number two. I'm indebted to Peter D. Williams for this one. I'm going to steal and adapt his argument. The argument goes something like this: Point number one, only God knows the text that he inspired. And therefore, all of our knowledge about canonicity has to be revealed by God. We can't even have a fallible canon by mere human authority, because there's nothing internal to a text that tells you that it is inspired or not, unless God has revealed that. Point number two, this means that even a belief like the Gospel of Mark is inspired scripture, an uncontroversial belief in the early church, is a truth that must be revealed by God. Point number three, God does not reveal this within scripture. So, if you're wanting a list of beliefs we have that are believed as dogma, believed as inspired, but are not found within the pages of scripture, "Mark is inspired scripture" is a good place to start. Point number four, therefore, our knowledge of the canon of scripture is divine revelation. We know only from tradition and not from scripture alone.

A fourth problem is that solos scriptura fails and necessarily fails as a rule of faith. Now, Doug is right to distinguish between solo and solo scriptura, but the problem is this: If you disagree about the meaning of a biblical passage, should you trust the church or not? If the dispute is over the meaning of scripture, to say we'll just turn to scripture when that's the entire debate would be like a constitutional law question being taken to just have them read the constitution together in the room. At a certain point, someone needs to be able to decide with an ultimate authority about how to interpret scripture. This is necessary for a key reason. Jesus says in John 17 that he prays for the future disciples, that's us. And what does he pray for us? He prays that we will become perfectly one so the world may believe the Father sent him and loved him, loves us even as he loves Jesus. So unity is not an optional part of the Christian life. It is a necessary divine imperative. It is a thing specifically prayed for. Jesus prays against schism. So we can put it like this: Number one, schism is a damnable sin (Galatians 5:20). Number two, heresy is a damnable sin. Number three, Christian controversy will arise. This is a human problem, absolutely. Number four, if we have an infallible church, we have a means of resolving these controversies and we can stand together in unity. We may not, because of sin, but we have a means to have both unity and truth. On the other hand, number five, if we don't have an infallible church, then we will become convinced, and we see this in the history of Protestantism, that the rest of the church is wrong and we're right. And we have to choose between heresy, which is damnable, and schism, which is damnable. The only way out of this is if there is an interpreter that we can trust every time. Hence, infallibility. In the words of G.K. Chesterton, "We do not really need a religion that is right where we are right. What we need is a religion that is right where we are wrong." Finally, I would just point out that this is actually the Petristic case. You don't have to go even as far forward as Basil or Augustine. Irenaeus compared heretics who misused the Bible to someone taking a tile mosaic of a king and then rearranging those tiles to look like a fox or dog. The tiles of scripture are not by themselves enough. We need the regular feday, the rule of faith, telling you how to arrange them. But notably, the regular feday is not contained within scripture. It's an interpretation of scripture. Scripture could be read a different way. So to say that scripture is enough would be like saying, "Here's a pile of tiles. That's enough. You've got the same thing." It's clearly not. If you give me and Michelangelo the same slab of marble, you're not going to get the same result. Tertullian, in his Prescription Against Heretics, describes being aghast that there would bring in some other rule of faith differing from and contrary to that which they were proclaiming through the Catholic churches. But he argues it is a waste of time to debate scripture with such people because "you will lose nothing but your breath and gain nothing but vexation from their blasphemy." Instead, he says, we should just remind them from where the scriptures that they are misusing came from, namely the church. That both the church, excuse me, both the scriptures and the rule of faith come from the church and cannot be reliably interpreted apart from them. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much for wonderful opening statements. We move to the second part of the debate. Pastor Wilson will go first. He will offer his first rebuttal to Mr. Heshmire's remarks, after which, for eight minutes again, Mr. Heshmire will offer his rebuttal.

Thank you. This is a delight. Thank you first for quoting the Westminster Confession of Faith. Um, to hear a Catholic apologist quoting the Westminster is a blessing to my soul. The, the millennium is almost upon us. The first thing I want to point out is that I still need a table of contents. What I want to be able to do is go into a Catholic bookstore and ask for a bound set. And I would like a leather-bound set of the traditions of the church that I, that I would need to submit to. I want to know what it is. What am I signing up for? What am I agreeing to? Uh, the Roman church has a doctrine of implicit faith, but I think where you can just, uh, trust the church. But I, I honestly want more than that. I want to read the scriptures and study the scriptures. And if I'm to submit to this authoritative tradition of the church, I want to know what it is I'm submitting to. What, what's involved? Could I have a leather-bound set of ex cathedra pronouncements? And I would want an imprimatur in the front of it indicating that this is the official list. This is what we're talking about. And I still don't know what we're talking about.

In the abstract, a number of good points were made. And I want to work through a punch list here and just make a few incidental comments about each one and then spend my remaining time on one crucial issue. We agree that in the, let's say, in the first two centuries of the church, you might have someone in Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, who came to believe in Christ because he heard a preacher preaching orally, speaking the word of God, speaking the gospel. He doesn't have a Bible. And to make it even more festive, the preacher doesn't even have a Bible. He is preaching what he heard from his father, who heard it from Polycarp, who heard it from John. Okay? So, it's an oral tradition. John said, "You have to believe in Jesus if you want to go to heaven when you die." Polycarp said the same thing. That led his father to Christ. He learned it at his mother's knee and then he preached it. Yeah. So there's an oral tradition that contains the content of the gospel that is not dependent upon a Bible being physically present. I agree that that happened. I agree and it's a good thing that it happened. But what I don't want, what where I start to kick is what once this guy has converted and has become a Christian and joins a church and saves up and buys a Bible. Everything he heard in that oral tradition can be found in the Bible that he bought. He can go back and check and say, "Oh yeah, that that's right." Uh, if, if he is being asked to submit to doctrines that, you know, some immaculate conception, for example, that is not in the scripture anywhere. Now, what, okay, now what? So that's where we would part company. I agree that there is a, there was an oral tradition and I agree that to the extent that it was faithful to the gospel, it was authoritative. So we agree there. Uh, the church is, in fact, authoritative. The church's interpretation of scripture is authoritative. Remember my two criteria: it's not ultimate and it's not infallible. It's not ultimate and it's not infallible. That doesn't mean it has zero authority. The church has teaching authority. The church has interpretive authority. It simply means that the Protestant position is that at some point the parishioners can say, "Now wait a minute. What's going on here?" C.S. Lewis once said, "There are some divines, preachers, who if the text had had smallpox, the sermon wouldn't have caught it." All right, you're looking at your Bible and you're looking at what he said, and you look at your Bible, and I needed to, I, I need to see what you're saying in the scripture, or I, I agree with Westminster, or by good and necessary consequence, it can be derived from scripture. But that's pretty God created everything. Uh, I believe I can say that the word of God teaches that God created porcupines, even though it doesn't mention porcupines, because by good and necessary consequence, if God created everything, porcupines are part of everything, it follows.

So, the question had to do, the one of the questions had to do with the, uh, different, uh, table of contents that Roman Catholics have and Protestants have. Uh, the apocrypha. My understanding is the Jewish church, the church of the Old Testament, Paul says in Romans that to the Jews were entrusted the oracles of God. Roman Catholics and Protestants agree on the New Testament. We agree on the New Testament and the collection of books and the formation of the canon was the task of the church. We agree on that as well. The canon was formed by the church. I believe it was the Jews' responsibility to, uh, receive the word of God that was given to them through the prophet, through Moses and the prophets. And, uh, the apocrypha is in some Bibles today because it was included in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. The Hebrew Old Testament, as it was used in Palestine by Jesus and the apostles at, in the first century, is identical to the Protestant Old Testament. Uh, now the thing that I want to, uh, spend some time on. Uh, I was asked where, where would I go in scripture to, um, argue for the doctrine of solos scriptura. I want to grant at the outset that when you look, when you open your Bible and you look at the table of contents, the table of contents is not inspired. The table of contents is not part of the, is not part of the Bible. Whose word is it? The table of contents is the word of the church. It's the first and most fundamental creed of the church. So the table of contents is the word of the church, not the word of God. It's the word of the church about the word of God. It's testifying to the word of God. As Martin Luther, um, said, using his, his illustration was when John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." John was not making Jesus the Lamb of God. He was testifying to Jesus as the Lamb of God. In the same way, the church, the early church testified to what books would, would be included in the canon or not. There were, there were a number of books where there's universal agreement, and there were other, uh, books where there was debate. Book of Revelation, Second Peter, and so on, some debate for some time. So the, the table of contents is infallible not because it's inspired. It's not inspired. It's infallible because it's true. It's infallible because it's true.

Um, quickly, I see I'm running out of time. The, my, my case for solos scriptura would be twofold. Deuteronomy 6:4-9, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." So that's the positive side. To solos scriptura, every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And then in Galatians, the Apostle Paul rebukes the Galatians by saying, "If we or an angel from heaven preach to you a gospel other than what you received, let him be anathema," that, let him be accursed. That tells us that there are certain things that will come to us. False teachers will come to us. Certain people will come and claim, "This is the word. This too is the word of God." And we're supposed to be discerning. We're supposed to weigh it and say, "Is it or is it not?" And so the word of man is to be rejected. The word of God is to be accepted. Um, one, in my next round, I will talk a little bit about infallibility and uninspired sources, and I promise to show that a fallible authority could write an infallible book. All right.

Thank you again. I want to say a few words at the outset. First, Mat is good at distinguishing the two different Protestant traditions, tradition zero and tradition one. I would point out that they're both man-made traditions. Scripture teaches neither of them, but he's right that they're different. He's wrong in his description of tradition two and what he calls tradition three. And if you want a better source of that, look to what the church says in the First Vatican Council and in the Second Vatican Council, particularly Dei Verbum 8 to 10, where it describes God revealing himself in this deposit of faith being found in scripture and tradition, not two separate deposits, one deposit expressed in two forms and then interpreted infallibly by the church. But the church is not a third deposit of faith. There is one, not two or three. So to that end, it's simply an incorrect understanding of the Catholic view. But we're not ultimately here to debate the Catholic view. We're here to see if solos scriptura is the sole infallible rule of faith. And so far, we haven't seen any biblical reasons to believe that it is and several biblical reasons to believe that it isn't. Doug just introduced one reason, namely Galatians 1, in which St. Paul warns against those who are turning to a different gospel. And then he says, "Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preach to you, let him be accursed," or let him be anathema. Notice there he is not saying you can get no additional information beyond what you've already received. Remember, Galatians is written partway through the writing of the New Testament. And you know what an angel does give additional revelation, namely, this is Revelation 1: "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants, but soon take place. And he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John." Doug's interpretation to say all you've got is the written stuff and anything beyond that, even if revealed by an angel, would be anathema, would condemn the last book of the Bible. So that's a misreading of Galatians 1. Instead, he offers what are basically prudential or pragmatic things, not that this is actually a true biblical doctrine, but that it's helpful because it'd be hard to figure out what were the actual traditions. I would point out that without the guidance of tradition and the church, it'd be hard to know which are the books of the Bible. The reason you have a leather-bound Bible is because we did the leather binding, not originally leather, but you get the idea. And so, the reason there is a clear canon of scripture, which by the way is 73 books and not 66 in the early church, by the time you get to the Third Council of Carthage in 397, and then this is repeated throughout the history of the church, etc., that's coming from the church. On what authority would you name any other book as inspired scripture? For that matter, as I said in my earlier speech, by what authority do you know the Gospel of Mark is inspired? It's not written by an apostle. Does not claim to be. It doesn't declare itself to be inspired scripture. It's rather because you're told this by

Tradition and the church. So, if you won't stand on the infallible authority of tradition in the church, you won't have an infallible Bible. This matters because it's not just that you don't have an infallible canon. It's that you don't have infallible scripture at all. Because every book like the Gospel of Mark needs this. And so if we can't trust that Mark is scripture, then we can't say Mark is binding. If my knowledge that the Gospels are in fact the inspired word of God has no greater authority than my best guess, then by what means can I insist someone else live according to the gospel?

And as I pointed out, this has pragmatic decision pragmatic implications both because of things like Second Maccabees as we saw before, but also because all of the if I don't know which books are in or not in the Bible, I can't live according to the Bible. So you actually need an infallible or at least completely trustworthy, which sounds like inherent or infallible list of which books are in the Bible if that is going to be your rule of faith. That's why it's self-defeating.

Uh, he asked how many ex cathedra statements there have been since Vatican I. Uh, there have been two. Uh, there are other times the Pope acts infallibly, but that's different than the specific formulation of ex cathedra. We can talk about all that. But either way, this isn't a debate about how many traditions there are or how many infallible church teachings there are. It is simply about the fact that there are infallible teachings, traditions, and papal declarations. So every Catholic could tell you, for instance, that the Assumption of Mary is defined ex cathedra infallibly. We don't have to get into the fact that there might be other disputes or canonizations of saints infallible. That's irrelevant for the fact that we can and have seen unity in the truth by using the infallible authority of the church. And that's different than this problem that I've presented in Protestantism where you have this catch-22.

And we can see this play out in history. In the early church, disputes arose. Disputes will always arise, but they were settled. People taught heretical doctrine. The heretical doctrine was condemned. The heretical doctrine went away. You don't see a lot of Gnostics around anymore. People have gone so far, they've become agnostic. That's a stupid Greek pun. You don't have to laugh at that.

In contrast, look at the major divisions within Protestantism. You have these major divisions between the Lutherans, the Calvinists, the Anglicans, and the radical reformers, and the Anabaptists. And those disputes are basically the same 500 years later with a bunch more denominations and movements and everything else. There is no unity in Protestantism. We're getting progressively away from unity even within Protestantism. Forget Protestantism reuniting with the church. Protestantism can't unite with the rest of Protestantism. And this has gotten progressively worse year by year. Anyone with eyes can see this. This is a failure of a mechanism.

If we're meant to have a sole infallible rule of faith, and Jesus prays that we'll all be one, then we would expect that anyone who is faithful to that sole infallible rule of faith would be able to be one with everyone else striving to live by that sole infallible rule of faith. That's not what we find within Protestantism, that good faith Christians come to opposite conclusions. Dr. Gavin Ortland grew up Presbyterian, became Baptist. Doug Wilson grew up Baptist, became Presbyterian. Both are solid defenders of sola scriptura. Both show by their own life that these don't work. It's not that one of them practiced it and the other one didn't. It's that you can't practice it and come to any reliable orthodox conclusion. That's a problem for a standard of faith which is allegedly final and ultimate.

This ultimately gets back to that problem because you can say, "Hey, this is sola scriptura, not sola scriptura." The church has a real interpretive teaching authority, but the limit is unless the church is wrong. And so the church can settle the dispute, but I can't trust that it's settling it correctly. That creates a problem anytime there is a dispute. This explains the history of Protestantism and why it can't be the one church that Jesus created or the one church that he calls us to be part of. These are inherent and inescapable difficulties.

Instead, we need both the beautiful gems of sacred scripture and an infallible, reliable, trustworthy means by which we know how to arrange them. This is a regular feed that the church spoke of early on. And we see this play out in history, in tradition. Doug gives the example, if you're a Catholic, should you listen to the crazy feminist or, uh, should you listen to the catechism? That's not a hard question to answer, right? Should you listen to the person following the rule or disobeying the rule? Following the rule, easy, solved it. In contrast, if I go to two faithful Protestants who believe radically different things, I don't know which one to trust. The issue is not about good Catholics versus bad Catholics, or it's good Catholics and good Catholics can agree on basic unity. Good Protestants and good Protestants cannot.

Thank you both very much. We move into the most drawn-out, longest part of tonight's, uh, evening, but that will be most, uh, conversational and the only time when both our participants will be from a seated position. 40 minutes total, 20 minutes each. Pastor Wilson will first cross-examine Mr. Heshmire for 20 minutes. Mr. Heshmire will return that for 20 minutes following. Pastor Wilson, you may begin whenever you're ready.

All right. So, I'd like to begin. We don't have to spend a lot of time on this one, but you said, "Where are the Gnostics today?" I, I see them everywhere. Do you not?

Well, fair enough. I think they've probably arisen since the Reformation in a much broader way. We've seen similarities come back. I don't think we saw a lot of Gnosticism prior to the Reformation. I don't want to blame all of that on Protestantism, but there are Gnostic strands in certainly 19th-century evangelical thought. Uh, and there are a lot of popular Gnostics today outside of Christianity. Oprah Winfrey, Jordan Peterson has some leanings that way, etc. So, yeah, that, that's fair. My point was about people faithfully following the rule of faith within the church.

Okay. So, um, uh, the Westminster Confession of Faith, when it's talking about, uh, how do I know this is the word of God, describes the scriptures as self-authenticating. Yes.

It's the word of it's it's the word of God and and, uh, it speaks with the authority of God. So if we, I just want to ask you about the category of self-authentication. So if you have a preacher, a random preacher come through a town and his dad was led to the Lord by Polycarp, that illustration, and he says, "This Jewish carpenter ran a fellow the authorities. He was crucified outside Jerusalem. He rose again from the dead, and if you believe in him, you can be saved." Now, everybody who's been converted, we heard a testimony earlier tonight. Um, God speaks in his word. All right. In the Helvetic Confession, uh, a reformed confession, it says the preaching of the word of God is the word of God.

So there's a, a preacher, uh, and Peter tells us, "The one who preaches, the one who speaks should speak as the very oracles of God." So a preacher should get up in the pulpit and say, "Thus says the Lord," not "It seems to me." Yes.

Right. So when that happens, when someone speaks with spiritual authority under the unction of the Holy Spirit, do you think that there is such a thing as self-authentication?

I think self-authentication is something of a misleading term for it. That the Holy Spirit can work through the preaching, can work through the scriptures. Someone can pick up the Bible, be convicted to the heart. What you can't get is number one, you're not going to get the canon of scripture by a mere burning in the bosom, you know, to use the line from the Book of Mormon. Uh, you're not going to know which books are and aren't in the Bible that way. That's not ever how any Christians have come to know which books are and aren't scripture. Like, you can't pick up Deuteronomy and say, "Ah, this is obviously inspired," and then pick up, pick up First Clement and say, "This obviously isn't." Well, what you've done there is transferred the Holy Spirit's guidance of the church and infallibility of the church and put it within the individual. And once you do that, you lead to these disastrous conclusions where someone can say, "Well, I'm convinced the Holy Spirit is leading me to this thing that you know to be objective."

But that goes back to my second point where leaving it up to the individual. That's the human problem. That's not the Protestant problem.

Uh, this, I think there's a question there. So may I answer that as a question? Okay.

So.

Everyone does have to make an act of faith. Scripture distinguishes between the faith by which we believe. That's why you can say, "Ye of little faith." "I have not seen such great faith in all of Judea," and so on. You can have subjective faith is one term for this, or fides qua, like the faith by which. There's also the faith in which we believe, the faith delivered once for all to the apostles, as Jude 13 says, that is.

Objective faith.

Yes, object. The ob. So the object of faith is fixed, infallible, and inherent. My grasp of that can be impacted by lack of faith, by, uh, the effects of original sin, by intellectual deficiencies, by misunderstanding. All of those things. So you're right that there is a subjective dimension, but don't turn that into the object of faith. Like the object of faith remains infallible and inspired and inherent.

Sure, we, I think we agree there. Um, but the subjective response to the. Is there an objective quality to the word of God?

Yes, there is.

Right. That resonates with true faith.

Right. We're, we are, you're right. We are closer on this than sometimes Protestant and Catholic apologists act like we are, because there, there is a problem of personal interpretation in both traditions.

Right?

Uh, and there is something more than personal interpretation that we're both claiming is authoritative and binding.

All right. Uh, I, when I was, I read through a bunch of the contested books, for example, um, the Shepherd of Hermas, which reads like Jim Morrison of the Doors on, on drugs trying to write.

You don't have to convince me. No, I'm just kidding. Trying to write the Book of Revelation.

It is, it is tricky. Yeah.

Okay. And, and I, I come, boy, am I glad that I don't have to defend that.

Um, so when, when I.

But I would say the Book of Revelation reads like Jim Morrison on drugs to a lot of people, including Martin Luther.

He doesn't say exactly that. He just said, "I think a book called Revelation should reveal something." G.K. Chesterton, uh, said, "I saw," my favorite papist said that, um.

Second, where I.

Well, you, you haven't had much, haven't had much time yet. Um, so he said, "St. John the Divine saw many strange monsters in his vision, but none so strange as any one of his own commentators."

There you go.

Right. So, yeah, there, there are challenges there, but I'm fully prepared to study it and it, it speaks to me as the authoritative word of God. So it's, self-authenticating, self-authentication seems to me to be a legitimate category.

None of the church fathers use that because that is modern subjective. I feel.

Well, no, we agree it's not modern subjective if we agree on it. I mean, it, it is modern subjective in terms of the mechanism. Like, yes, God can and does speak through scripture, but the idea that I'm just going to know from reading these books and I'm going to have a better idea than the church reading those same books and actually guided by the Holy Spirit, as I said, we're, we're moving the locus of infallibility and authority from the church to the individual, which, which is why sola scriptura ends up in solo scriptura territory, because once you do that, where does it stop?

So, I, I want to go back to, I'm gonna, this is going to be, I'm going to be the little drummer boy. Same drum beat. I still need a table of contents. You said earlier, the reason we have a Bible is because the church did the work.

Right. The church, uh, sorted through, made the list, developed a canon. Uh, uh, so that, all I want the church to do is to con. Good job for the first three centuries. Why, why can't the church keep doing that? In, in terms of listing every tradition. I think there are a few problems with that.

No, not every tradition, but every tradition that I need to know about.

Some of these things, uh, it would be a little bit like saying, why don't we just list every, like, true divinely intended meaning of the Sermon on the Mount or of the Prodigal Son? I don't know that you could come up with an exhaustive list of all of the implications of the teaching of Jesus, but one of the things tradition is dealing with is applying the deposit of faith in the proper way to situations that that come later, not with some new information we didn't have before. But so when situations come up and we want to say, "What is the Christian position on in vitro fertilization or vasectomies or contraception or bioethics or AI or any of these things?" We're not going to find that within the pages of scripture. But we've been given the tools by which to solve these problems.

Right. On.

But there's a difference. There's a difference between the quarry from which we extract the truth and the interpretations of the truth once extracted. So you're talking about the interpretation of the, of the parable or the interpretation of this passage or not. I just want to know what it is we're interpreting.

I guess I would say we have some things that are clearly taught that way. But the canonicity of the different books of the Bible being one obvious.

We agree on that. Well.

But if there are any, if there are any, then sola scriptura is false. Even if we disagree on some other traditions that would like the, in other words, the resolution before us is not defend apostles. The resolution before us is whether the Bible is the sole infallible rule of faith, and because we have things that aren't within scripture that are still binding, like the inspiration of the books of the Bible, uh, then we know that there are several, uh, you know, that's 66 or se 73, depending on the person you're asking, different statements we can make about scripture that we believe are of divine authority, revealed by God, and that are not found within the pages of scripture. The reason this has to do with the sola scriptura debate is if I'm being asked to, um, there, you're right, there's one sacred deposit, but the sacred deposit has two.

Sources. Right. There's.

No, there's one source expressed in two ways, but.

It's all right. Well, expressed in two ways. It's, there's some of it's here and some of it's here.

Kind of. They, they rejected. The reason I'm, I'm pushing back is because that part, *Dei Filius*, formula.

Is rejected by the Council of Trent in favor of *at* like *an* like scripture and tradition are the deposit of faith, but the relationship between them is more like the relationship of Matthew and Mark where they're synoptic, rather than like the relationship of First Kings and Second Kings where they're two totally different, uh, deposits of information.

Yeah. But there's a difference between the synoptic Gospels where, oh, Jesus went to Capernaum another time, over, you know, we're looking at three years of ministry, and we've got episodes in one Gospel that we don't have in another, and we can harmonize them. We can harmonize them, but there are components in tradition that are just not anywhere in scripture and not hinted at in scripture. I couldn't get there by good and necessary consequence or even by induction. I.

Amen. I, I completely agree with you. The, the Sermon on the Mount, you couldn't have gotten explicitly in the Gospel of Mark or by good and necessary deduction, but it's still inspired by God. There may be other things. There are other things that are also not gettable by, uh, good and necessary deduction or explicit. This is a failure of Westminster, not a failure of the Bible.

So, um, and this is not to, um, I'm not, I don't want to pick on anybody who's not here, but for example, if Joseph Smith said under inspiration, if Joseph said that there were inhabitants on the moon.

Okay.

Okay. Um, and he's laying claim to be a, a teacher. It's a matter of relevance whether or not there are any inhabitants on the moon.

There.

Okay. So, one of the things I, one of the reasons I want to do, let's say I'm a searcher. I'm, I'm assuming that, uh, the crowd here tonight is not made up of simply convinced Protestants and convinced Catholics. There, there have to be a number of searchers out here. I don't know, man. The world's a mess. I'm a mess. Where do I go? How do I.

Yeah. Right. And, and if the claim is made, if the person is seriously contemplating Catholicism, one of the things that I want him to be able to do is to check, is this claim about tradition falsifiable or is it always going to be able to say, "Oh, that's not a tradition." Right? So, if, if someone comes to me and is considering Christ and wants to become a Christian, I'm explaining the gospel to him and he says, "What about evolution in Genesis?" or what about, what about where did Cain get his wife? Or, you know, all the questions that come up. Uh, I want to be able to answer him from within the system. So, and I want to, uh, appeal to him saying, "The Bible is an anvil that has worn out many hammers."

Yes.

You, you don't have to worry about coming to the scripture. There are answers for all your questions. I don't see the same thing with tradition. I, if, if someone's an honest searcher and he doesn't want to buy a pig in a poke,

He, he wants, what am I signing up for exactly? What do I have to believe?

Yeah, I would suggest that the searcher trying to say, "What do Catholics believe?" can find a much clearer and unambiguous answer to that than someone saying, "What do Protestants believe?" That people, if I said, "What do people who believe in sola scriptura believe?" Well, they believe in sola scriptura, and everything beyond that is basically fair game. I'm exaggerating slightly, but.

Yeah, well, let me, let me exaggerate slightly also.

Okay. Please.

Um, and remember that you started it.

A good Christian principle ever there.

Good. Agree. Yeah. So, uh, you appealed to the, the fragmented nature of Protestantism.

Which I regard as a human problem, not a Protestant problem.

Um, because Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy have been fighting with each other for a thousand years.

Protestants have only been fighting with each other for 500 tops. I mean, I'm sorry you weren't around before. I, I think if, if you were the way God intended the church to be structured, you would have.

Oh, no. We were. Here's this is the difference between the Anabaptist Protestantism and the magisterial reformers. If you were to ask me, is, and you just by implication just did, where was your church before the Reformation?

I would say, "Where was your face before you washed it?"

Okay. All.

Right. The church, the church of Boniface is my church.

Okay.

All right. So I.

You're still welcome in that church.

I still, I still am in that church. So, so the, so the issue is I don't, uh, if I believe that my church started in 1978. Look, if you can't trace your church back to Abel, if you can't trace it back to the first pages of Genesis, you're in the wrong religion, right? Uh, God's, God's truth is for all of history. I mean, there's not really a question there, but I, I will answer it as if there was.

Okay.

Um, tease out a question.

We can actually point to an unbroken line without using our imaginations. If I want to say, "Where was the Catholic Church in the 10th century?" I can ask a Catholic, a Protestant, an agnostic, whoever, and they can point to it. If I say, "Where was.

What if I point to Avignon?

Uh, yeah. I mean, even there you have the Roman line, and then you have people claiming to be the Roman line. Like, you can believe in monogamy and still have a situation where you don't know who someone's valid spouse is, right?

You know, like someone has, let's say somebody has a courthouse wedding and then later they want to get married and there's a question, who's the true spouse?

You, you can have confusion without becoming a bigamist.

So the fact that you have three people claiming to be the Pope at one point doesn't mean that there are three Popes. It means there's one Pope and two people claiming to be the Pope. Like if I say I'm the Pope tomorrow, that doesn't threaten the doctrine of the Papacy at all.

Right? If, but if you're confused enough, you might become a bigamist.

Yeah. I mean, there are people who, uh, believe in monogamy are mistakenly under the belief that they're married to someone they're not, and God will judge them probably mercifully if they're not intentionally committing adultery. If they are confused about the legitimacy of the person they're married to, uh, Jesus prays on the cross, "Father, forgive them. They know not what they do." This gets to the level of how culpable they are. It's still objectively wrong.

So, one of the things that, um, John Knox wrote a letter to Mary of Guise, the Queen of Scotland, and he, he was asking her to lay off the persecution for a bit. He said, "There's currently a contest."

It's the first blast against the monsters for.

No, no, that was that was, uh, that was an unfortunate thing that was against Bloody Bloody Mary. Okay. There's three too many.

All right. There are too many Marys. I know, even as a Catholic, I have to say that in this particular context.

Way too many Marys. Um, I, I should just say quickly that John Knox wrote the monstrous, the First Blast of the Trumpet Against Bloody Mary. He let fly with the pamphlet. Mary died and Elizabeth.

Yes, I know. He then had to be like, "Actually, maybe women can't be rulers."

Yeah. Well, he, well, he, he clocked Elizabeth on the forehead with his pamphlet, and Elizabeth was displeased, which is something she knew how to do. Um, but this is the another Mary up in Scotland, and he asked her to lay off the persecution for a bit. He said, "There's currently a contest between us and the papal party in the church." John Knox was thinking of himself as a faction, a faction within the church. Yes. And he says, "I, I'm, we want an ecumenical council to sort this, sort this out." And but for him, it was church politics at that, at that point. So a magisterial Protestant does not believe that our church started at the Reformation.

Sure.

Right. We believe it goes all the way back. And I want.

Yeah, I understand you would say that. I think some an observer would not say, "Oh yeah, look at the Presbyterians under, you know, Boniface or like, you look at the Presbyterians in the First Crusade." Like that's not going to be a thing someone besides you is going to say about you. Like it, you can tell yourself whatever story you want about church history, but church history still exists. I mean, we can see that it's the Catholic Church, and even in terms of the Orthodox Church, since you alluded to that earlier.

There is a means by which we can have reunion, and this nearly happened at the Council of Florence. The, uh, Byzantine Emperor, the Eastern Roman Emperor, sent delegates, including the Archbishop of Constantinople, and they sat down and they hashed out the major areas of disagreement, and they announced their intention to submit to the authority of the Pope. They accepted the *filioque*, and so on and so forth. The Coptic, uh, church then sent delegates because they wanted in on it. There's some dispute about how much authority those delegates had, but on paper, in the 1400s, all the visible churches on earth acknowledged the Pope as the head of the church and acknowledged these major Catholic doctrines that Protestants today reject. So there is a means of unity.

But there's still. Yeah.

Yeah. There is disunity. Disunity is a problem of there are non-Christians as well.

And yet Christ has one holy Catholic apostolic church. We Protestants have the means of unity also.

When I'm, when I'm asking a question, I'm going to ask you about what that solution is and why it hasn't been tried yet.

I will have an answer for you when, when.

I look forward to that in two minutes.

Um, so you, you said earlier, "This is not a hard question." You, near the end of your rebuttal, you said, "This is not a hard question." Uh, you know, uh, Sister Susie, you know, this, their set of, set of a contest, the papal chairs are currently empty. There are people who say Pope Francis was a heretic. There, you know, you've got all these.

An array of choices. And for many people, it is a hard question. And it goes right at the root of, if the church were speaking with a solitary voice, and everybody was singing off the same sheet of music, then yeah, okay, not a hard question. But currently, in the morass of today, it's a hard question.

There are people who don't trust the church because of Vatican II. There are people who don't trust the church because of Pope Francis. These are cases of people not trusting the Catholic claim or the Catholic standard.

But the qu, the point I'm making is people who do say yes to this know where to find it, and it's not going to be in a state of absenteeism. State of absenteeism, by the way, is already condemned by Vatican I, which says that the Papacy is a perpetual institution. State of absenteeism is impossible because it doesn't have the Papacy as a perpetual institution. It is declared within anathema in 1870, a decree they accept but just don't apply to themselves. Uh, likewise, the people who are in rebellion from the Pope while acknowledging him as the Pope. Those are not hard questions. Should I obey lawful authorities or should I disobey lawful authorities that have been entrusted over me? Hebrews 13:17 gives the answer to that, where to obey our leaders and to pray for them. And so that's what I mean by not a hard question. There, there are, to be sure, like there are areas where two Catholics might say, "I don't understand what to make of this doctrine," or "I need to interpret this." I don't want to oversell the Catholic claim and say you'll never have a problem again. My point is that when problems arise, as they inevitably do, we have a means of resolving those problems within the church. And if you look at the 2000-year history of the church, you see problems arising, getting resolved, and then we move forward more unified. Doesn't happen right away. You mentioned Basil before. He described the situation in his day as disunified, but it got better, and that's what makes it different than the Protestant.

Much. Um, uh, I'd encourage you in these next 20-minute sections, as much as you can for how impressive all of your different variegated opinions on many things are, try to keep us, keep bringing us back to this issue of sola scriptura and all the kind of supporting information again, is is quite impressive as it is exhausting. How does it relate to the main topic of sola scriptura?

Okay.

Um, you will begin your cross-examination, adjacent.

Yeah. We, I feel admonished.

Exactly.

All right. Number one, you said that there is a means within Protestantism to achieve unity.

Yes.

What is that means?

Uh, the Holy Spirit. Okay.

Um, and you, um.

Like I gave the example of you and Gavin because you were two people I respect as Protestants who I think are serious, intellectual, faithful people trying to follow Jesus Christ and committed to what I understand to be the exact same principle of sola scriptura.

Earlier this evening, I forget who did it, but there was an appeal made to the first part of Ephesians 4, where we are to labor to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is a unity that all true Christians have that is simply given.

Sure. It's a. I'm, I sit next to someone on the airplane, find out that they know the Lord, and we can have instant fellowship.

Right?

Um, it's just a given reality.

And, and I think it's probably worth addressing. I, I realize there's more than doctrinal unity. There's a unity of heart as well as a unity of mind, right? I'm asking specifically about the unity of mind, right?

How do you get on the exact same page doctrinally on the major issues? So, um, the, there's a second kind of unity in Ephesians 4, where if you work down through the chapter, God gave gave gifts to the church, apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor teachers, so that they can work in the church so that we can grow up into the unity of the faith.

There is a, there's a unity that's given that's foundational that we already have, and our job is to preserve it. And we preserve it by not sinning. By not sinning, by not hating each other, by not throwing elbows, by not being malicious, by, you know.

This still sounds like unity of heart, though, like we're, we're being nice to each other. But how does that get us to agree?

Well, no. Well, no. There's there's a doctrinal unity. Uh, Jesus is Lord. Jesus rose from the dead. The, the basics of the creed. So, I don't have great fellowship with someone on a plane if I find out that they're vaguely religious.

This person is a Christian, which means there's a doctrinal comm. Let's talk about baptism. Let's get it really specific.

Okay.

You didn't believe in infant baptism. Now you do. He did believe in infant baptism. Now he doesn't. You both use the same tools and got opposite results.

Right? And Ephesians says, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism."

It does.

Okay. And.

Seems like a first-class kind of issue, right?

Um, not for a magisterial Protestant, because.

I mean, chapter 30 of the Westminster Confession describes it as sinful not to baptize your babies.

Very true. Baptists would say it is sinful to baptize your babies. That seems like a big.

But all the, all the magisterial reformers received Roman Catholic baptism. They didn't rebaptize.

Okay.

So I was baptized when I was 10 years old.

Right? Didn't the Anabaptists rebaptize? Why are they called Anabaptists?

Yeah. Correct.

I mean, they're kind of the forerunners of the modern Baptists, right? They do rebaptize.

Right? And the magisterial reformers had as much a problem with the Anabaptists as they do with the Roman Catholics.

This is what I mean. But the Anabaptists are using sola scriptura and coming to a wildly different conclusion.

They're using sola scriptura.

So what are they doing wrong that they should do? They should listen to the church because the church is going to tell them baptism saves you and is regenerative and is necessary for salvation under ordinary means. Right?

Well, um.

Because you and the Anabaptist both reject the church's teaching on baptism.

Well, I reject baptismal regeneration.

Right. So Eric Ferguson, like, for the first 500 years of Christianity, says the church speaks with one voice on baptism. This is page 854 of his book. You can find he goes through like hundreds of pages showing the early Christians are unanimous on baptism being salvific and what it does. It makes you a child of God and all this.

Yeah.

You, I believe, reject all of that.

No.

Okay. You believe baptism is necessary for salvation and makes you a child of God. I believe that that baptism unites you to the visible covenant, making you a child of God visibly in the world.

But I'm asking in the sense the early Christians mean that you actually become born again of water and the spirit in baptism.

I, I dispute that the early Christians uniformly held that. Um, so.

Who is an early Christian who doesn't hold that?

Peter. The Apostle Peter.

Okay. Who is an early Christian interpreting the Bible? We're not just begging the question. Is there anyone in the early church? Because Peter says, "Baptism now saves you," comparing it to Noah's ark, right? Fathing through water.

Not the washing of dirt from the skin.

Yeah. No one. No one on the regenerative baptism side thinks baptism saves you by making you look clean.

They do believe that you have to have the application of water to be saved.

Yes. Water and the spirit.

Right. And so the thief on the cross is not saved.

No. That just like a baby who doesn't come to an explicit knowledge of Jesus.

Oh, so we don't need. Isn't condemned. When Jesus gives a command, implicit within that, that you are able to obey the command. Someone who's incapable of doing it, whether that's someone who isn't able to make a profession of faith because they die at two,

Or someone who's not able to get baptized because they're crucified to a cross.

One of the, one of the issues that you find out in pastoral ministry almost right away is you can have the doctrinal, uh, system,

Yeah.

Uh, laid out nice and tidy. Yeah.

And pastoral ministry is not tidy. So you lead someone to Christ. He, he calls on the Lord. He is converted, and let's go down to the river and baptize you. And he gets hit by a bus on the way down.

Yeah. The early Christians acknowledged, like, they treat this explicitly in baptism of desire.

Correct. Yeah. And so I, if you make those distinctions, I'm good.

Okay. So baptism is normatively salvific.

Yes. Baptism. Uh, so when.

So if a Baptist does not get baptized because they want to wait till they're a little older and can make more of a profession, and then they die.

He's sinning and it's a grievous sin.

Is he endangering his own salvation?

Well, you can't lose your salvation. It's not.

I'm saying endangering his salvation by not getting saved in the first place.

Salvation is not like a set of car keys that you can lose.

Is he forfeiting his salvation by not getting.

Baptized? Um, he, you have reasonable ground. People who despise baptism, there are reasonable grounds for questioning the sincerity of their faith.

Okay.

Okay. Um, so but I don't want to say that you can be a Christian, not a Christian, be a Christian, not a Christian.

I haven't gotten from you a clear answer on how I can use sola scriptura to figure out who's right on baptism because the Anglicans, the magisterial reformers, the Anabaptists are going to disagree.

And, and the Catholics are going to disagree.

Yeah. Um, Catholics disagree with one another just like Protestants disagree with one another.

On this issue. Not at all.

Now, one on the.

I'm saying specifically on the issue that I'm asking about. How do I know from scripture alone which interpretation is the right one?

You read the Bible and you read it again, you study it, you pray, you work.

So, did you or Gavin fail to do that?

Somebody did.

Do you want to vent your guess as to who?

I mean, is like, is your position seriously that Baptists have just never tried sola scriptura?

Um, so I grew up in the Baptist tradition.

Your father's.

Right? My father.

Um, so I, I know that world and love and appreciate that world. Um, Paul says in Romans 2 that there is circumcision. Those, uh, those who have faith, their uncircumcision will become circumcision, and those who are living up, uh, living poorly, their circumcision becomes uncircumcision. There, this would be in our category, the baptism of desire. Their Baptist parents who are bringing up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

I, I understand and appreciate your view on baptism. I don't know why I should trust it over any other Protestant's view on baptism.

Right. Why? Well, basically it's back to private interpretation. You have to make up your own mind.

Okay. So, how are Christians ever going to agree?

But that doesn't go away if, if I become a Roman Catholic.

It does. There was very clear teaching. The Council of Trent infallibly tells us what you believe on. It goes away if I step into your interpretive stream. Yes. With, within the Catholic tradition.

No, no, no. If you just, if you say, "I believe what the Catholic Church believes," there's a clear teaching on baptism. If I say, "I believe what the Protestant church believes," there isn't. If I say, "I believe what sola scriptura teaches," there isn't. Those are not apples and apples. Those are apples and a thing that's different.

I, I believe that Muslims are not saved. The Catholic Catechism says that they are, and they're not baptized.

It doesn't say they are. Actually, the, the paragraph you quote does not say they're saved. It says that the plan of salvation includes Muslims. That doesn't mean they're already saved. There's much more that could be said. I'm purposely leaving that issue aside because there's a misunderstanding of that that's very common, and it's too big to get into here. But God desires the salvation of all men to come to the knowledge of the truth. So, the plan of salvation includes everyone.

And, and good job.

That doesn't mean everyone is in fact saved.

Okay.

That's, that's so the Catechism is misunderstood on that point. So, if someone says, "How do you know your view of baptism is correct?"

Wait, you're asking questions now?

No, no. I'm, I'm.

You didn't ask him during your part. Now you want to ask the question.

I'm, I'm rephrasing your question. I'm, I was.

Okay. No, I was helping you with your question.

Okay. Yeah. I'm saying, how do I know not just what is Doug Wilson's view of baptism, but that Doug Wilson's view is the sola scriptura interpretation.

I would quote the prophet Isaiah to the law and to the testimony. I would say, "Let's have a Bible study."

Okay.

So that's always going to be my answer. Let's, let's crack open our Bible.

In 500 years, have Protestants just not had a Bible study to solve this?

We've had lots of Bible studies.

And it didn't solve it.

Okay, let me, let me address. Yes, it actually has. Um, so one of the things that, uh, I mentioned in my book, *Papadom Pope*, earlier, there's a chapter in there where going through the data, uh, collated in the World Christian Encyclopedia. Uh, he, there's an author who helpfully collated how many divisions there actually are within Christendom, how many divisions are there within Anglicanism, how many divisions are there within Protestantism, how many within Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Those, they're, they're not wild. It's common to say Protestants have something like 27,000. I'm not, I'm not, I'm saying that just for the, I'm saying that there's too many.

Yeah, I think there's too many also, but it's more like 19. And the Roman Catholic tradition has in.

I think I can name more than 19 just sitting here.

No, what, what he does.

I mean, are you including like the Mennonites and the Quakers? Are you putting all those in the same family?

No. No. Yeah. The Mennonites and the Amish would be in the same stream.

But they're not even in unity with one another.

They're different denominations. So, so for example, there, every Protestant denomination.

Uh, if they come to Christ Church, we receive their baptism, we respect their church discipline. We don't agree with them on, let's say, eschatology. We don't agree with them on paleobaptism, but if a family comes from a Baptist background or they come from a Lutheran background, we receive them. We don't say, "Okay, you have to start over as a Christian." There's.

No, I, I don't think anyone's arguing that they.

But that means there's a fundamental unity there.

But not on the question of what baptism does or who should receive baptism or how baptism can be performed.

There's a difference between having debates and having discussions where you differ and sometimes enthusiastically.

Okay. So is your position that sola scriptura practicing Protestants do not disagree on major doctrinal issues?

Yeah. On gospel issues, they don't.

Do they disagree about which things are and are not gospel issues? No.

I mean, would, okay. So, you're telling me if I said to two Protestants, "Can you believe in evolution and be a saved Christian?" I'm going to get the same answer every time.

You're not going to get the same answer every time. You'll get.

Okay. Sounds like they disagree about.

No, you get, you'll get the same answer for me every time.

I'm. You're not the only Protestant.

I, I am tonight.

The idea is you, you're you're peddling a system you claim will produce unity, right? But the unity is just you agree with yourself.

No, no. What I'm, what I'm saying is that if I, I'm a creationist. I, a young earth creationist. Um, I, I wish that, you know, I believe it all.

Noah's ark giraffe sticking out of the window, everything.

Dinosaurs.

Was that.

Dinosaurs?

Uh, dinosaurs also. Okay. Um, so I'm, I'm just right in there. And if I talk to a, a fellow Christian, an evangelical Christian who's a theistic evolutionist.

I believe that's a serious error. But I believe he can be truly saved and a true follower of Jesus Christ.

But you would acknowledge that there is a dispute within Protestantism on some of these questions.

Oh, absolutely. Okay. Yeah.

So, it sounds like on major issues of possible salvific importance, sola scriptura practicing Protestants do not in fact agree. And if you asked, "What are the major issues of salvific importance?" they don't even agree on what those major issues are. They don't just disagree on the issues, they disagree on which ones are the.

I think if you go back to my first presentation and the reg and the regular feed. Okay.

Um, I think that you would find broad and deep agreement among Protestants and, excuse me, I'm going to exclude the liberals who don't believe in.

No, I am excluding the liberals too. I'm explicitly saying among people practicing sola scriptura, because I don't think it's a fair critique for you to point out Catholics who don't practice Catholicism or for me to point out Protestants who don't practice.

Great. All right. Like people not using the method. If I say, "Oh, this lock didn't work," and it turned out I just didn't lock the door. That's not a knock on the lock.

So, so, um, basically I've been involved in classical Christian education here in Moscow, and Logos School, which we founded, is a, a humming hive of ecumenicity.

Yes.

We've got Christians from all over, educating our children together, uh, respecting one another. Uh, it's, and, and we differ on all these things you're talking about. Yes. But there's a, there's a core, and the core is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, "What I delivered to you was of first importance, that Christ died, that he, according to the scriptures." And so that.

But that, that doesn't include things like the deity of Christ in 1 Corinthians 15. That's not on his list in the Corinthian creed.

Well, yeah. It's.

So that clearly can't be everything, right?

Well, that, that list is not exhaustive. Okay. But that list coupled with, um, First John gives you the deity of Christ, who, who Christ is, and what he did. That, that's.

But do Protestants disagree about what Christ did, who he is? Do they disagree about things like whether Christ had a human will?

Uh, no. Well, people do.

William Lane Craig, right? Yeah.

Is he not?

He's a heretic.

Okay. But is he? He's like, I, I agree with you, but he's practicing sola scriptura and is still able to be a heretic.

Yeah. But the point is, there's, um.

It doesn't seem like you're guarding against heresy if you can practice sola scriptura and be as brilliant.

And intentional about your Christianity as William Lane Craig is is the issue that he's not smart enough that he's not reading scripture enough. The issue is he's too smart.

Okay. So what hope is there for smart people within Protestantism?

There's very little hope for smart people anywhere.

All right. If I may, I want to actually pivot. Um do we agree solos scripture was not true during the apostolic age? that scripture was not the sole infallible rule of faith.

Uh, sure. Because scripture was not

Okay. Do we agree that scripture never teaches that it is the sole infallible rule of faith?

No, we don't agree there.

Where does it teach that it is?

Um, uh, Deuteronomy 6, as I said,

was Deuteronomy when Deuteronomy 6 was written, was soul scripture true.

Uh, it was supposed

You had a living prophet named Moses.

Yeah. They weren't supposed to listen to anything he said, just what he wrote.

No, you're supposed to listen to

I think they're supposed to listen to the whole word of God. Right.

Right. And didn't we already establish the word of God includes both the written and the oral?

I'm not talking about Deuteronomy 6 at the time of Deuteronomy 6 being written.

Okay. So, it didn't teach it then.

Did it change?

No. No, it doesn't. U there there's such a thing as progressive revelation.

Yeah, sure. Where in progressive revelation does it teach solos scripture?

Once the canon of scripture is complete,

what verse is that? uh Deuteronomy 6 and all the rejections of false teachers in Colossians, in First John, in Galatians. Um

Okay. So, I believe we should accept the full word of God and we should reject false teachers. Yeah.

How does that get me to soloscrip Torah? I already rejected false teachers and accepted the whole word of God. No,

I accept more of the word of God than you do.

You've quoted a few false teachers.

I I mean I I've accept seven books early Christians accept that you reject. Like origin describes how the the Christians accept books that were rejected by the Jews. On what biblical basis do you say the early Christians got the Bible wrong?

Um, first origin was

I know he was a little Yeah, but he's describing what the church

not just him like I would say Christian is bigger than origin.

I don't trust origin.

So you're saying he's just lying about the fact they use Tobin and Judas.

No, I think he was mistaken.

Like you're saying okay let me unpack this. origin says in passing in his letter to Africconus that the Christians in his day all of the churches used Tobot and Judas. You're saying he was wrong about that in like he didn't know and Africanist didn't know

out outside of Palestine when the Septuagent was the Old Testament translated into Greek

the Septuagent included those books.

That's right.

Okay.

Doesn't that point to the fact the Jews didn't have a closed cannon at the time of Christ? The Jews of the dispersion were a lot more liberal than the Jews of

like the noble Bereans.

The Bereas in Greece.

Yeah.

So they had the Septuagent which has those extra books as you as you've just said. And they're praised for reading those scriptures

when Yes. And for not accepting they were more noble than the the Jews in Thessalonica. They searched the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Acts 17:11. They received it with eagerness, but they checked it out against scripture. But I'm asking about the books. How do you know which of them had the right Bible? Because you you mentioned the Septuagent has this larger cannon. The vast majority of citations of the Old Testament in the New Testament are to the Septuagent.

Yeah.

So why would I believe that your Bible today is the right one and not the Bible used by the

Because all the quotations from the Septuagent, there are no quotations from those disputed books.

There are several books that aren't quoted at all. So is your standard that if a book isn't quoted that it's not inspired?

That's one of the standards. That's one of the standards. What is what is the the fundamental standard is that I want to use the cannon of Old Testament that was used in Palestine in Israel by Jesus and the apostles.

Okay.

The Aramaic

what what evidence do we have that there was a closed Jewish cannon in Palestine at the time of Jesus and the apostles?

We we know that the uh the Israelite cannon differed from the canon in the dispersion.

The Sadducees only accepted the first five books of the Bible. There were ongoing rabbitic debates about books like Esther, Song of Solomon. What evidence do we have that they had a single canon in Judea?

Jesus says u from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Barakia.

Yeah. Zechariah son of Barekiah. Go on.

All right. Which is Genesis to 2 Chronicles.

In 2 Chronicles, the Zachariah killed. Is that the son of Barakiah or the son of Edido?

That's a problem.

Okay. Zachariah, who is the son of Barakiah, is he serious? He not the prophet Zechariah in Zechariah 1, a completely different person. Like your your idea that Jesus is saying that the cannon is closed. And because he mentioned Zachchariah, son of Barakiah, this means you'd have to believe these things. It sounds like number one, that the Jewish cannon is closed. Number two, that it's also in order, which wasn't a thing that existed because they didn't have books. They were all on scrolls, right?

And number three in second chronicles like the modern Jewish Bible does. So Jews did have a word.

The Jewish Bible today doesn't even follow the same order as the Talmud's order of the Bible,

right?

And so we know that didn't exist in Jesus's day because it's medieval in its origin. Like your whole argument is assuming this we this thing we know to be medieval must have existed in the first century because you've mistaken two different Zechariah.

Well, I've not mist well aware of the problem of who's which Zechariah it is. Um but it it looks an awful lot the way Jesus formulates it. It's from the blood of Abel. It looks like from Genesis to Revelation. That's how it comes.

But only if you misunderstand with Zechariah. Right.

Well, if if that is in fact a problem.

It seems like one.

Well, sure. It seems like a problem.

Okay. Thanks. Thank you both uh very very much for that spirited debate. We come to our closing statements. Uh Pastor Wilson will go first for nine minutes. Mr. Heshmire will then speak for nine minutes as well. Pastor Wilson, whenever you are ready.

Thank you first for a spirited and very enjoyable exchange. Thank you. Um, so I want to go back to first principles. If we affirm that that solos scriptura is essential, uh, I want to state what what I'm arguing again and that is that scripture is the only ultimate and infallible source of spiritual authority. It is not the only spiritual authority. Um uh and it's not that all the uh other authorities are little putt putt authorities with no uh real heft to them. uh I believe that I have a responsibility to submit to uh the apostles creed to submit to uh the nyine creed to submit to the definition of calcedin which I do their authoritative pronouncements of the church and I'm submitting not to the not simply to the authority of a of an ideological position but I'm submitting to the authority of the church but no human authority is absolute right Parental authority is not absolute. There's a line. There's a you can't cross it. Civil authority is not absolute. There's a line that the magistrate can't cross without becoming a tyrant. And there is there is a limit to ecclesiastical authority. There's a line that you can't cross. And when ecclesiastical authorities or civil authorities or parental authorities which are the main authorities that God has established when they cross a clear scriptural line and start exing start behaving in a tyrannical way uh a person a Christian with an open Bible has every right to appeal past them to say your authority is genuine but it's not absolute. Your authority is genuine but it's not fallible not infallible. You have made mistakes. I've seen them. You have exercised uh uh tyranny at different points. I've seen that too. And so I want to appeal to a standard above all of us. What I'm claiming is that that the only um authority we have in the world that fits the description that enables us to appeal to appeal past any possible tyranny um in family or in the state or in the church would be scripture. Anybody who is at all familiar with church history knows that it is a long sorted tale of sin. I'm a pastor. Sin gives pastors a great deal of job security because because people keep getting into things. They pe keep doing things. Anybody who looks at the history of the church and says there have been no periods of tyranny in the history of the church and I'm not excluding uh Protestant uh the Protestant chapters either. Um the there have been multiple examples of the church going way outside the bounds of what God established in his word for the church to do. I don't think it is the responsibility of a biblically literate Christian to sit there and take it. I think it is possible for him to say to his wife and to his children, what they're doing to us is not right. what they're doing to us is is contradictory to what God teaches in his word here. This isn't right. And uh when when he does that, he's appealing past the church authority in this case and he's doing so on the basis of scripture and scripture alone. I think that's the scripture alone is the only authority that enables us to do that. Period. And stop. Uh so if you picked some outrage or St. Bartholomew day massacre or something like that and someone said, "Papa, is this right? Is they're doing this in the name of Jesus or uh you know different outrages that have been done in the name of Christ." If someone says, "Is this is this okay? Is this all right? Is this what Jesus would have us be doing?" Every faithful disciple of Christ needs to be able to say there is a line that I won't cross and I'm not going to cross it simply because someone in authority, some human authority has told me to. I want to check it against the word. I always want to check it against the word like the Bereans did uh in Acts 17:11. I uh I wanted to get around to this. I wanted to uh close one loop in uh what I said earlier. I promised something that I want to make sure that I fulfill. I said earlier that I a fallible authority could write an infallible book. Infallible things like the Apostles Creed or the table of contents of scripture are infallible not because they're inspired but because they're true. Truth is infallible. If someone says something that's true, it's infallible. So, how could I write an infallible book? Page one, two oranges added to two oranges will get you four oranges. Page two, two apples added to two apples will get you four apples. Page three, two bananas added to two bananas will get you four. I could do that for a 100 pages. Mangoes being the last one. So, I could do I could write this book. I could print it off. I could have 10 friends proof it, you know, proof it. And then tada, here's an infallible book there. Here's a book with no mistakes in it. But it proceeded from a fallible authority. The just the fact that I'm a fallible authority doesn't mean that I get everything wrong. Uh a fallible authority can produce an infallible product. The church is fallible. The church has failed many times. The church has veered into heresy many times. The church has committed outrages many times and when we are confronted with it from the word of God, we should repent. Humble ourselves and repent. You see that same pattern throughout the Old Testament. God's people, the Jews, would repent. God would deliver repent. They were under oppression. God would deliver them. Two pages later, they're back worshiping idols again. And then they God brings the Philistines in this time. And then they they're miserable and they call out to the Lord. And you have this cycle over and over again. This is a cycle that has not gone away in the church age. And that means we have to have a standard. The standard has to be the word of God. Why why why shouldn't we settle on the standard that all of us agree is the breath of God. It is the word of God. Uh to hold ourselves. That's what I hold myself to. That's what I want to hold my friends and family to. That's what I want to hold my church to. And so if the church starts teaching heresy or starts veering into some kind of uh malicious u behavior or some bigoted behavior, things that not that of course is going to collide with what political correctness, I don't care about that. But if it collides with what the Bible itself teaches and um what Charles Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher of the 19th century, said of John Bunan, who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, and I would I would like at some point in my life to have that description be true of me. Spurgeon said of Bunan that if you pricricked him anywhere, his blood would run bibl. He would bleed Bible verses. He would bleed Bible, Bible, Bible, Bible. I want Christians to be saturated in Bible to uh to Deuteronomy 6. When you speak to your children about the word of God, when you rise up, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, uh covenant kids are to grow up in an environment dominated by the word of God. Uh I want our young people to grow up reading their Bibles and reading their Bibles over and over again. And I want to be reading my Bible over and over again so that when I'm confronted with a distortion, when I'm confronted with something that isn't right, there's something wrong here. This is really bad. Uh it could be Pope Alexander V 6th or it could be uh some outrage being done in in the Radical Reformation, the the siege of Monster for example, for Protestant history. And I say this is really bad. That's everything in me revolts against this. This is not the way of Christ. There's one simple question that comes up when I say that's not the way of Christ. The siegent monster or the shenanigans of Pope Alexander. The question is this. By what standard? What am I going to what am I going to appeal to? And for a Protestant, a magisterial Protestant, the only thing that we can appeal to in that position is going to be scripture alone. Thank you. First of all, I'd like to once again thank Doug Wilson for being so willing to do this. Uh second to thank everyone who organized this. Vandal Catholics, thank you. I think if uh St. Augustine would have known during the sack of Rome that the vandals would one day be the name of a Catholic group. He would be very confused. I thought I would close with why we should reject soloscriptor as our sole infallible or final uh interpretive authority. I I think I can give you five solid reasons we should reject it as unbiblical, as unworkable, and as illogical. But I wanted to address a point that Doug raised for the first time just a moment ago because I want to make sure it doesn't go unremarked upon. He talks about that there are bad things that have been done by church leaders and that's right and you know what Catholics have called those things out for all the ages without needing soloscriptor to do so. I mean for instance Dante has popes in hell. He doesn't actually list any of the popes in heaven. And so this is not some new thing. We've always been able to look to the regular feday and see if somebody is not practicing it. So I understand and appreciate Protestant anxieties around trusting that God means what he says when he says that he's going to send his holy spirit to guide the church into all truth. It does not mean that all Catholics or even all Catholic leaders are going to behave well. But it does mean that we can trust the teaching of the church as protected from all error. And we know this because Jesus tells us that he will send the counselor of the spirit of truth to lead us into all truth. So that can be the first reason to reject solos scriptorra. It is contrary to the words of our lord. He promises another standard. You notice there is still not a single bible verse Doug Wilson raised that even plausibly sounds like it's teaching solos scriptorra. There is Jesus telling the church that the gates of hell won't prevail against it and then promising one man Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven and then telling him whatever he binds on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever he looses on earth will be loosed in heaven. He doesn't say I'm going to give you a book. He gives him keys. Then he gives keys to the church collectively in Matthew 18 in 1 Timothy 3:15. The church not the Bible is described as a pillar and foundation of truth. This is that important authority of the church. We agree the church is an interpretive authority. That's good. But it is not just an interpretive authority. It is the pillar and foundation of truth according to the Bible. That's the actual biblical teaching. Soloscriptura is just a story Protestants have told themselves about the Bible that the Bible does not tell about itself. Second, if God wanted us to use solos scriptor as a standard, we would find positive evidence of it. We find none. Think about it. Imagine if you said anything else was a doctrine all Christians are meant to live by. And when someone said, "Well, where is that?" You said, "Well, it would be really nice to have this doctrine because it'd be confusing a different way." Like, I'm sympathetic to Doug saying knowing which things are authoritative church teachings or which things are tradition might be confusing. The question isn't are you confused by tradition or are you confused by church teaching. The question is did Jesus give us the standard that scripture alone is our infallible rule of faith. And and he did not. We don't see anywhere where he does. So a doctrine of that importance would surely be taught in scripture. And that leads to the second or third whatever. Well, I'm going to say the second problem. We're going to go with that numbering from here on. And I apologize if I've already gotten the numbering screwed up. Fellow script Torah is clearly a man-made doctrine. It's not something the early Christians believed in. They have the regular fed. We see them talking about the binding role of uh tradition. We see all of this evidence that they don't believe in it. It is not something that anyone has ever said the apostles taught them. When you read the writings of the church fathers, none of them say we were taught scriptures of the sole infallible rule of faith. This is a reformation era man-made doctrine that really, if you think about it, is only possible after the invention of the printing press. Prior to the printing press, the ordinary Christian didn't have the Bible in their home. Not because of some malicious church conspiracy, but because it took a lot of work to copy a Bible by hand. In Luke chapter 4, when Jesus goes in the synagogue, he didn't even bring his KJV with him. They have to hand him a scroll, and that scroll only has the book of Isaiah. Christians invented first the book and later the printing press to make a lot of that book. And only after those inventions can someone say this book is all I need is my sole infallible rule of faith. But that doesn't happen until the 1400s. This is a pretty recent man-made tradition. But solos scriptura tells us to reject man-made traditions as not binding upon the Christian. And I would say reject this man-made tradition. Then third, for solos scriptor to work, you would have to know which books are and are not scriptorra. Right? It doesn't say follow everything in scripture and if someone says which scripture do you say I don't actually know which ones but wherever you find them follow follow that because there are books that teach bad doctrine and there are books that were accepted by the early Christians that Protestants claimed teach bad doctrine. I gave the example of second Maccabes before. So for solos scriptorer to work as a doctrinal authority you would need to know which books are found in scripture. You cannot derive that information from scripture itself. And moreover, you can't even come to a fallible knowledge of that because as I pointed out in my opening statement, knowledge about the revelatory nature of a book is given by God. Now, Doug mentioned, couldn't people just, you know, know it by the burning in the bosom? Well, he didn't use that language. The Book of Mormon uses that language, but that points out the problem. The scriptures are not just ones where you can read them all and you're going to know which books are in the Bible and which ones aren't. If it worked like that, the early Christians would have known which books were in the Bible right away. And in fact, not only do Augustine and Jerome disagree about which books they regard as in the Bible, Martin Luther rejected four New Testament books that are accepted by Protestants today. He later maybe changed his mind. John Calvin accepted the book of Baroo, which Protestants today reject. So the reformers didn't seem to be guided by some sure knowledge of which books were and weren't in scripture. The internal model is a way of getting around this fatal problem soloscriptor has which is that it needs scriptures canon to work and it can't give you scriptures canon. So they invent this way that makes not the church infallible but the individual reader infallible. And the individual reader disagrees about both which books are in the Bible and what it means for the simple reason as God said through Jeremiah the heart is deceptive above all things. And once you shift the locust of authority, the pillar and foundation of the truth from the church to the individual reader, you end up with so low scriptorra. That was not where the magisterial reformers wanted to lead us, but the principles they employed logically lead there. And that's where we find many evangelicals today. Fourth, because of the logic of revelation, remember the point I made originally. If God is going to lead us into all truth, it's not enough that he gives us all the right books, we have to also know that we have all the right interpretations of those books. If someone said, "I have the exact right Bible," and they completely misunderstood it, we would not say that person has all the truth. And so when Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit to lead the church into the fullness of the truth, to remember everything he has taught, to know all the truth, this means more than just that the church will have the right cannon of scripture, but also that the church will have the right interpretation of the biblical books, which is why we can believe in the infallibility of the magisterium. Um, fifth I have here solos scriptor not true because Jesus I don't know what that means. So I would say that's also true. There was not actually an established Jewish cannon in Jesus's day. I I know this is a point we kind of touched on before. The early Christians were led by the spirit into recognizing the proper books of the Bible and proper interpretation of those books. Both the 73 book Bible and the interpretation of that Bible are rejected by Protestants using soloscript. Which leads to the sixth and final problem that solos scriptorra has never and cannot produce unity. That there's a reason faithful Protestants disagree with other faithful Protestants that they are much more divided on major issues or even in knowing which issues are major issues and have been unable to produce unity for the last 500 years. I pointed out in the early church problems arose and they were resolved. That's still true if you're a faithful Catholic, not if you try to follow solos scriptor. God bless you. I want to say uh first and foremost whether you've done this uh a thousand times or twice it's very very difficult and I'm so very grateful to both of you for accepting this invitation doing such a wonderful job and just presenting such a high quality debate and I want to thank uh all of you uh we all know we can do a billion different things and it's very difficult often to get out of our comfort zone to come to something in person to attend so well. Uh it's very special and um we're very grateful for that. Hope you have a wonderful night. Our pastor, Father Chase Hazenol, who began the night, will close us in prayer. Dear Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to reflect upon these very important principles and to have a lively sharing of uh where we might disagree. And we ask that the things that we uh can contemplate as we move forward from this evening can continue to nourish our own faith. We ask that you bless all those who are here that as they journey they may do so safely and that they may find joy in the way that Christ has offered. And we ask this through Christ our Lord. Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. Thank you very much.