Transcription
All right. So, I recently just watched Brian Holtzsworth give a response to one of Gavin Ortland's arguments in regards to the Catholic view of authority. And honestly, I feel like his reasoning was simply all over the place. You know, if if I'm just being frank with you, and I know I know many of my, you know, regular listeners are probably like, "Really, Jana again with this guy? Like, can we just ignore him at this point?" Because what is this now? Like the second time I'm responding to what he said in just like in a matter of two weeks. But look, what can I say? That man Brian has a large audience. And unfortunately, every single time that I go to his comment section, there are so many people that are just eating up everything that he says uncritically, which is honestly both hilarious to me and also kind of concerning at the same time.
Now, for those who are unfamiliar with what Gavin's original argument was, his argument was actually pretty simple. You see, Gavin basically says that if you need an infallible interpreter to explain an infallible authority, like let's say sacred scripture, then eventually you're still going to run into the same exact problem all over and over and over again because now you're going to need an infallible interpreter of the infallible interpreter. And unless the person interpreting the interpreter, which that would be you, is also infallible so as to stop the regress, the problem, as you will see, never actually goes away. Right? You're never going to get that certainty that, you know, of course, Catholics and Orthodox are promising you because you yourself are not infallible, right? That's the force of Gavin's regress argument. And honestly, I think it's completely brilliant and it's very logically sound, very coherent, and it's really hard to overcome from the Catholic and Orthodox perspective because think about it. What is the entire point of this idea of an infallible interpreter in the first place? Well, according to Rome and even Orthodoxy by extension, it's so that people can rightly understand what the Bible actually teaches, right? That's the entire justification for it or at least part of the justification for it. But the problem is that people themselves are still fallible. And so you're still going to have people misunderstanding what the Bible actually teaches or even what the infallible interpreter actually teaches because, my friends, that's the nature of just being human.
Now, in the video, Brian actually has a couple of reasons to this argument. And I want to play maybe three clips for you because I honestly think that his logic starts falling apart very, very early. And I actually think it starts with this one.
>> It falls apart is in an equivocation of this word infallible. That makes it sound like the magisterium in the Bible are doing uh the same thing of communicating infallible information when they're not. Which is why Catholics wouldn't use the word infallible for both because again, uh that implies that the Bible serves a function and then the church steps in and says, "Hey, we're just going to go ahead and add a layer of redundancy with the exact same function and say that we're in charge of that." But that's not what Catholics believe or or what the church teaches. So instead, it's helpful to make a distinction with our language to portray this distinction and understanding. We wouldn't say the Bible is infallible and the church is infallible and you need both to know what is true. We would say that the Bible is inherent and that the church is infallible and that this distinction describes how they serve different roles in helping us all arrive at the truth of the faith.
Now, some people might object right away and think that by saying scripture isn't infallible and the church is, I've somehow demoted scripture to a position lower than the church, which is definitely not the case, and that's not what the Catholic Church teaches. Infallibility doesn't describe a higher authority than like inherency. It describes the difference in function, which is that one is a record and one is an interpreter of that record. Gavin's claim about an infinite regress of infallible authorities implies that we think that they're both just information of of truthiness. And and why bother having two when one will do? And since we all recognize that one is a reliable record, that should be good enough for for everyone. But it isn't because the church's teaching magisterium isn't a record of truth. The way scripture is, it's an interpreter of that church or of that truth for for the application of the living followers of Christ in every successive generation. Dave Verbam from the second Vatican Council explains it like this. It says, quote, "Sacred tradition and sacred scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God committed to the church." End quote. In other words, it's a deposit. It's a record of God's word. Okay, so that's what the word of God is. It then goes on to say, "The task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the church." So one is a record and one is an interpreter, which is why we should have different adjectives like inherent and infallible for each in order to make this distinction. Otherwise we fall into errors of equivocation. And and that's that's what Gavin's argument seems to suffer from. And the reason these two functions are necessary should be pretty obvious. But let me offer at least a couple analogies that I think will help illustrate it. So think about something like a legal system in which you have the written law as it's defined by by binding legislation and then the judiciary who applies that law to living contemporary circumstances. So we have the law which is a record or an account of what is just or what ought to happen in certain circumstances, often broadly defined and principle-based. But then you need legal experts who can apply those principles to particular situations as interpreters of that record. So if someone breaks the law, someone will inevitably make an accusation against them and and naturally the accused will say, "No way, man. I'm innocent. I didn't break the law." So okay, fine. What happens next then? What do we do in that case? Do we just sit back and and and wait for the law to act and resolve the dispute? No. Because the law doesn't act. It doesn't apply itself. It's just information. It requires a judge who is an expert in the law to consider the claims and then make a judgment. And in that scenario, the law and the judge aren't they're not adding redundant layers. They're not competing with each other. They're working together to ensure that the law is accurately understood and applied. And if there were such a thing as an ideal justice system, it would be composed of a law that accurately describes the truth of morality um without any errors, which would then be applied by an infallible judge who is incapable of making errors. It's the distinction between uh contain not containing errors or inherency and not being capable of making errors or infallibility.
Now, I don't know. I always think it's very rich whenever I hear a Catholic apologist accusing another Protestant apologist of equivocation, especially considering how often Rome itself equivocates with passages like, you know, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2:15, where Paul of course tells believers to hold to the traditions that they were taught either by word or by letter. And then of course, what do Catholics and even Orthodox, you know, do with that? Well, that they then take a verse like that and then stretch it to mean that, oh, Paul is referring to, you know, the Marian dogmas or papal infallibility or icon veneration, right? As if those things are what Paul was actually talking about, right? Uh, and so what they do is they read all of that back into the passage. They equivocate and they say to themselves, "Okay, so whenever Paul says tradition, he's actually talking about these traditions." And I'm like, "No, he doesn't." Right? That's not uh sound at all. You're going to have to prove that he means that because you don't see any of that in sacred scripture. And so whenever I hear this charge that Protestants are equivocating, I honestly can't help but to laugh a little bit at that. And that's honestly what you have to do in a lot of situations like this. I'm like, I know you're not saying that we are equivalent. Isn't that literally what y'all always do? Um, but even if we're putting that aside for just a moment for the sake of argument, right? I want you to notice very carefully what Brian is doing here because this is literally the key move in his entire argument. Right? Without this move, if this move is not sound, his entire argument basically just collapses. You see, Brian claims that Gavin is equivocating by treating scripture and the magisterium as though they are performing the same exact role. And so Brian says, "No, no, no. Scripture is merely inherent while the church is infallible, right? One is a record and the other one is an interpreter of that record." But here's the problem with that, my friends. And there's actually many problems. We're going to tease them out in this video. That distinction does not actually solve Gavin's argument at all because Gavin's argument was never depended was never contingent on scripture and a magisterium having identical functions. Right? Gavin's whole argument is about epistemology. And for those who don't know what that means, because I don't like to assume everybody knows what these big terms mean, even though you can kind of Google them. Epistemology simply deals with the study of how do we know what we know? And and so Gavin's argument is about how a fallible human being comes to know infallible truth without ending up in an infinite or an endless chain of interpretation. Because of course you're always searching for, okay, how can I infallibly know this? And well, you're going to need an infallible interpreter to un understand the infallible interpreter and so on and so forth. And so, as you can see, Brian's solution does not actually solve that problem. It just renames the categories and hopes that you actually forget what Gavin's original argument actually was in the first place. And you know what's actually funny about all this? It's that Roman Catholicism still teaches that scripture is infallible in the sense that it is incapable of teaching error because it is breathed out by God himself. And and so the irony of all of this here is that Brian is actually, whether he is intentionally doing this or unintentionally doing this, it makes no difference to me. What he's actually doing is he's creating this massive tension within his own tradition. Like I I want Catholics to kind of see that and be like, "Hey guy, hey, you're contradicting your own magisterium. Don't know if you know that. But even if we put that aside for just a moment for the sake of argument, right? I want you to notice very carefully what Brian is doing here because this is literally the key move in his entire argument. Right? Without this move, if this move is not sound, his entire argument basically just collapses. You see, Brian claims that Gavin is equivocating by treating scripture and the magisterium as though they are performing the same exact role. And so Brian says, "No, no, no. Scripture is merely inherent while the church is infallible, right? One is a record and the other one is an interpreter of that record." But here's the problem with that, my friends. And there's actually many problems. We're going to tease them out in this video. That distinction does not actually solve Gavin's argument at all because Gavin's argument was never depended was never contingent on scripture and a magisterium having identical functions. Right? Gavin's whole argument is about epistemology. And for those who don't know what that means, because I don't like to assume everybody knows what these big terms mean, even though you can kind of Google them. Epistemology simply deals with the study of how do we know what we know? And and so Gavin's argument is about how a fallible human being comes to know infallible truth without ending up in an infinite or an endless chain of interpretation. Because of course you're always searching for, okay, how can I infallibly know this? And well, you're going to need an infallible interpreter to un understand the infallible interpreter and so on and so forth. And so, as you can see, Brian's solution does not actually solve that problem. It just renames the categories and hopes that you actually forget what Gavin's original argument actually was in the first place. And you know what's actually funny about all this? It's that Roman Catholicism still teaches that scripture is infallible in the sense that it is incapable of teaching error because it is breathed out by God himself. And and so the irony of all of this here is that Brian is actually, whether he is intentionally doing this or unintentionally doing this, it makes no difference to me. What he's actually doing is he's creating this massive tension within his own tradition. Like I I want Catholics to kind of see that and be like, "Hey guy, hey, you're contradicting your own magisterium. Don't know if you know that. But even if we put that aside, you you recognize we already put two things aside. Now, we can still clearly see that Brian trying is still trying to sharply separate inherency from infallibility. And we recognize that doesn't work. And honestly, it just feels much more like a rhetorical maneuver designed to escape the infinite regress rather than actually uh meaningful distinction that truly answers Gavin's argument in the first place. And you know, I think that actually leads us to the second major problem with Brian's so-called solution to Gavin's argument. And I think it really has to do with how he fundamentally understands or really misunderstands scripture itself.
So that's why Gavin's argument doesn't work and why the Catholic approach doesn't lead to an infinite regress of infallibility like he argues. It's because he's not making a necessary distinction in his argument between the two roles and how they are different, which is why the same word shouldn't be used to describe both. The distinction is that an inherent record is one that doesn't have errors. An infallible authority is one who is incapable of making errors, which is a question of action. Which is why you can't say that the Bible is infallible infallible because the Bible doesn't do things. It it doesn't act. And because it doesn't act, you don't describe it as not being capable of making future errors. That's like saying that rock over there is incapable of breaking your heart. It's like, yeah, how is that a useful way to describe it? But an interpreter has the potential of acting now and in the future. In so far as they do, they can act correctly or incorrectly. Infallible is an adjective that means incapable of making mistakes. That's that's the actual Webster's definition. To be capable or incapable means you have ability, but scripture isn't capable of acting. So, it doesn't make sense to use that terminology, which is why Gavin's argument falls apart. It depends on an equivocation of the word infallible where it's used for two different things as if they're doing the same thing when they're not.
Now, to be honest with you, this has got to be Brian's biggest problem in the entire video, and it's that he simply has a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very low view of scripture. Now, I know in the video he says, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not trying to demote scripture. Don't misunderstand what I'm not uh what I'm really trying to do. But my friends, just because you say that you're not trying to demote scripture, that doesn't actually mean that you haven't just demoted scripture, right? Like we all understand this. I could say, "Hey man, I'm not trying to hurt you, but if I keep slapping you across your face all over, you know, over and over and over again, at that point, you understand that my actions are now contradicting my words here." And that's exactly what Brian is doing right here. Because Brian is fundamentally misunderstanding scripture, right? He thinks that scripture is just a record that it's just a deposit that is just a you know this data set that has to be decoded by uh you know an infallible institution. But that is not how scripture speaks about itself. That's not even how his tradition speaks about itself. But neither here nor there. Right? We all know 2 Timothy 3:16-17 is very clear. It says that all scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Now, I want you to notice how scripture speaks about itself there. Paul says that scripture teaches, it reproves, it corrects, it trains. Now, my friends, I just wanted you to pause because that sounds like it's very active to me, right? It sounds like it's doing things, you know, I if I'm being honest with you. But, you know, for Brian, scripture almost becomes this lifeless code just sitting there, you know, waiting for Rome to unlock it, waiting for Rome to, you know, decode it as if it's like Rosetta Stone or something like that. And again, remember in that clip, Brian specifically says that scripture does not act, which I think it's a completely wild statement because what I find incredibly interesting is just how much his statement there completely contradicts what the author of Hebrews says about the word of God. Because I don't know if you notice, the author of Hebrews says that the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. Now, did you catch that? He says that it is living and active. Now, I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty active to me. That sounds like it's acting, that it's doing things. Likewise, the prophet Isaiah says that the uh word of God goes forth and accomplishes the purposes for which he sends it. Again, I want you to notice the language of the prophet right here, right? He says that the word of God goes forth and that it accomplishes something. My friends, that's incredibly personal right there. That's active language, right? Then you have what the psalmist says in Psalms 19, which says that the law of the Lord revives the soul, makes wise the simple, and rejoices the heart and enlightens the eyes. Now, I don't know about you, but I find every single one of those descriptions absolutely fascinating because every single one of them is actionable. And again, notice who is or what is doing those things. It's scripture. And and so honestly, it's no wonder why GA Brian is so confused and confounded and confuled by Gavin's entire argument because it's because he and Gavin are operating from two completely different paradigms, from two completely different understandings of what exactly scripture even is. You see, for Brian, scripture is not enough to clearly speak on its own. For Brian, scripture is not enough to settle disputes on its own. For Brian, scripture is not enough to preserve unity on its own. Scripture, according to Brian, is not enough to properly function apart from Rome interpreting it. And honestly, I'm willing to wager that I feel like whenever Brian reads 2 Timothy 3:16-17, I think he mentally inserts this magical phrase in that passage that simply is not there. It's like whenever he reads it, he probably sees something like this, like all scriptures breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for correction, for training in righteousness only if Rome infallibly interprets it for you. But if you recognize, my friend, Paul never says that. He never inserts that little magical phrase there at the end. Paul just says that scripture can do those things, that is profitable for these things. Period. And so I'm sorry, Brian, but you actually do not hold a very high view of scripture. You, if anything, it seems like the more and more you try to strengthen the necessity of an infallible magisterium, the more and more you unintentionally start diminishing the role and the nature of scripture itself.
But you know, even more than that, you know what I found even more hilarious and honestly just fascinating? It's that when Brian finally tries to prove his position biblically, he actually ends up using examples that completely undermine his whole entire argument instead of helping it. And honestly, before we even get to those passages themselves, I find this whole section incredibly contradictory because if Brian really believes that scripture is so unclear, apart from an infallible interpretive authority, then riddle me this. How exactly does he know he's interpreting these passages correctly? Like, I really want every single Catholic to truly think about that for just two seconds, right? How does Brian know that these passages mean what he says they mean if Rome itself has not infallibly interpreted these specific passages for him? Right? Like, I know I'm not going crazy, right? Isn't this what he believes? Which means, ironically, Brian himself is functioning like a Protestant in this video by looking at scripture and saying, "Hey guys, this is what this means." Interesting, kind of contradictory, kind of hypocritical, kind of not being consistent, but I digress. Right. So, anyways, let's go ahead and look at this last clip cuz I think it's really revealing.
>> So if God can protect a writer from error in the process of recording his revelation, surely he can protect someone from error in interpreting that revelation for each successive generation. And since we've already seen it would be better to have both. Just from that logic alone, we can have some confidence that God would do that because he can. But aside from that logic, scripture even gives us further confidence in that arrangement because we see in places like Acts chapter 8 in which Philip discovers the Ethiopian reading scripture and asks him if he understand what he's reading. to which he says, "How can I understand it unless somebody shows me?" To which Philip doesn't rebuke him, saying, "What do you mean you how can you? It's an infallible text." No, instead he conceds the validity of his problem by interpreting it for him and helping him understand. In Nehemiah 8:8, it says that the way that the Levites or the priests taught the people was by reading to them the law of God or the scriptures and then explained it to them so that they understood what was read.
All right. So, like I said, this section honestly surprises me because I think Brian's biblical examples work much, much, much better against this argument than for it. And so, let's just work through them one by one, shall we? Let's start with the example from uh, you know, Acts chapter 8 involving Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. Now, Brian brings this up to argue that scripture requires an infallible interpreter because the eunuch didn't understand the text and Philip had to explain it for him. But my friends, I genuinely don't think Brian is saying the same exact uh text that we're saying in this passage. Now, yes, it is true. Protestants completely agree that teachers are helpful, that discipleship matters, and that God absolutely absolutely uses other believers to help us understand his word more accurately. Protestants have no problem in affirming that. And so, in that sense, Acts chapter 8 poses absolutely no problem whatsoever for the Protestant position. I don't know if Brian knows this, but here's where it becomes a massive problem for Brian's argument. You see, Acts chapter 8 does not present an infallible magisterial authority that is educating the Ethiopian eunuch, now does it? Right? Not even remotely close. Philip is not functioning as some infallible bishop of Rome in that text. Right? Remember, Peter is supposed to be the bishop of Rome at that particular time, not Philip, right? Um, and so unless Brian wants to argue that Philip himself was somehow acting as the pope, uh, or if he was acting as, uh, some person in the Roman, you know, magisterium, which to be honest, when you come to think about it, right, Rome does not even believe that one single bishop can act infallibly, right? And it can interpret scripture infallibly. The only person that they believe that they can do that is the pope, and they can only they only believe that he can do that whenever he speaks ex cathedra. Other than that, the bishops, you know, as a a unit can probably speak infallibly or teach infallibly, but only whenever they're gathered in ecumenical council, which is not what is happening here, right? All we have in this passage is a spirit-filled believer, which is Philip, explaining scripture to another person, that being the Ethiopian eunuch. And honestly, I think that fits perfectly within the Protestant framework because we fully believe that one believer who has the spirit can accurately teach scripture to another believer. Right? We don't think that people need to be the pope. We don't believe that people need to be a bishop or a priest. Right? We don't believe that they need to belong to some alleged uh infallible magisterium, right, to rightly interpret scriptures, right? They can be an ordinary believer just like Philip, who loves the Lord, who studies the scriptures faithfully, and uh, we believe that they can help another person understand the text better because scripture is actually understandable. I don't know if Brian realized that's what he just proved, but remember, Acts chapter 8 is not the only example that Brian appeals to. He also appeals to Nehemiah chapter 8. And honestly, I think this example might even be more damaging to his position, which is, I know it's a pretty high, you know, bar, you know, pretty big statement that I'm saying because Acts chapter 8 was already pretty damaging for his position already because yes, it is true that Levites explained the law to the people. Brian is absolutely right for that. That was part of their responsibility. But again, nobody in the Old Testament believed that the Levites were somehow infallible interpreters incapable of error. In fact, the entire Old Testament repeatedly shows priests, religious leaders, and authorities being wrong over and over and over again. Sometimes even catastrophically wrong. Right? You had corrupt priests. You had false prophets. You had wicked kings. You had religious leaders misapplying God's law over and over and over again. And so Brian's example actually establishes something very different than what he originally intended. If anything, it establishes that although God's appointed teachers possess real authority, they are still fallible and their authority is derivative and ultimately subject to the authority of the word of God, right? Which ironically enough is basically the Protestant position. And so as you can see, my friends, Brian's entire argument depends on the assumption that if scripture can, you know, sometimes be difficult or if teachers are necessary, then therefore God must have established an infallible interpretive institution. But my friends, that conclusion simply does not follow from the premise. And honestly, this is one of the reasons why I wanted to dedicate at least part of this channel to exposing a lot of the sloppy reasoning that unfortunately exists within, you know, modern or pop Catholic apologetics because you would honestly be kind of shocked by how often the logic simply does not hold up under scrutiny as it relates to them. You know, unfortunately, like many of the people in Brian's comment section, people just continue eating this stuff up, you know, uncritically. And so, my encouragement to you is simply this. Please be careful to what you consume, right? If you're a friend of uh Brian, if you love, you know, his content, I really encourage you to go and actually read the scriptures for yourself because I guarantee you half of the times that Brian be quoting scripture, he's misusing it. Like he's literally just cherry-picking. Um, and I literally can dedicate almost every video doing what people do with Candace Owens where it's like, oh, they're like reacting to Candace and every five seconds showing how horrible she is or whatever the case may be. But I don't have time to do that for you when it comes to Bryant, right? I can only do it here and there, right? Because sometimes it just be like, what, what are you talking about? Right? Uh, but I can't literally dedicate my channel to debunking Brian because that would honestly be the worst. Look, and another thing I want to be very clear on, I absolutely have so much love for Brian as a person. I genuinely do, right? Contrary to, you know, what some of you may be thinking right now. But at the same time, I also understand that James chapter 3 is very, very clear when it says that not many of you should become teachers because those who teach will be judged, my friends, with greater strictness. My friends, that is an unbelievably sobering warning. It is an unbelievably sobering reality. And the truth of the matter is is that Brian is going to stand before God one day and he's going to give an account for every single thing that he teaches on this platform. Right? And the truth is so will I. Which means that we cannot afford to play these type of games with God's word. We cannot afford to be sloppy with understanding the scriptures. We cannot afford to elevate our tradition at the expense of scripture while claiming that we are honoring both equally. We're not.
Now, I know this video is probably not going to stop Brian from continuing doing what he's doing, and I know it's probably not going to stop many of you from continuing to believe, you know, what Catholic and even Orthodox apologists are are feeding you on a day-to-day basis. But look, at the end of the day, all I can do is just continue encouraging you to just study God's word because you can understand it just like Philip could actually understand it. Just like the Ethiopian eunuch who was being taught by Philip can actually understand it. Right? And so all I can do is keep giving you this truth. Right? All I can do is keep uh uh encouraging you to trust God's word with the results. All I can do is just trust that God's word is powerful enough to accomplish exactly what he intended for it to accomplish. As the psalmist of course says, right? Um, that's all I can do for you. But anyways, guys, look, if you enjoyed this video, please do all the normal stuff that YouTube of course likes, you know, the like, share, subscribe, do all that good stuff. Generally help helps out the uh channel a lot. Let me know your thoughts in the comment section. I love interacting with you guys, you know that. Uh, but until next time, guys. Peace. Hey, hey, hey.