Transcript

Do Protestants really worship God?

This has been a question that's been talked about quite frequently in the last few days due to Trent Horn's recent video on this very question.

Joe Heschmeyer, another Catholic apologist, made a video on it quite a while ago, a few months ago, maybe a year ago, and Anglican aesthetics Sean Luke, a very cool guy I've dialogued with in the past before, and Dr. Gavin Orland, another Protestant apologist, just made a video today responding to Trent Horn.

Now, I thought I could offer some pretty insightful distinctions, opinions that I think can push back on the Protestant side, of course, because I am Catholic, but could kind of critique or criticize my own side.

I like to be very fair; I like to criticize what are not good arguments or what could be more helpful in dialogue.

I think basically what's missing in this discussion is the distinction between personal or internal worship of God and external or communal worship of society.

Because when you listen to Trent Horn's video, Joe Heschmeyer's video, but more importantly to the common narrative in like comment sections or just Twitter threads or whatever between Catholics and Protestants, Catholics give off the idea that the sacrifice of the Mass, you know, where we offer up Jesus to the Father, is the only way you can worship God and then everything else is just totally worthless.

And that can give the low church evangelical the idea, like, so when I tell Jesus I love Him and that I hand over everything in my life to Him and that He is, and I praise Him for saving me and being 100% the reason of my salvation, that's worthless?

Is that what you're saying?

That my personal...

and that's obviously, if that's what Catholics were saying, that's not what we're really saying, but it can give off that vibe.

It can give off that idea; it really can be, because it makes them think, well, if I don't go to Mass tonight, it's all or nothing.

Pretty much all my praise for Jesus, all my love for Him is worthless.

That's obviously not biblical, as I think Dr. Whirling rightly pointed out.

Romans 12:1, Offer up your body as a living sacrifice to God; this is your spiritual worship.

Latria, that is what God is due and what God is due alone.

So when we talk about latria, what God is due alone, what does God do alone?

Well, God is not the only person due praise, and I don't think Protestants would have a problem with this.

I can praise my mom for good cooking, my wife for good cooking.

We start getting into some hard territory when I talk about singing.

Is singing a song to a saint or to Mary?

I can sing a song to my wife and praise her for her beauty or for how good of a wife she is, how good of a mother she is.

I can write a poem to her, and so obviously, and I don't think this is like a gotcha moment for Protestants.

I think most Protestants would be like, yeah, that makes sense.

Theoretically, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with writing a poem to Mary or one of the saints.

So writing a poem to or singing to is not a rebuttal section right now.

What I think God is due alone and would be idolatrous, right?

Giving latria to idols is the recognition of total dominion over something, over creation.

Now, obviously, Mary and none of the saints created anything, and so giving them total dominion over this creation would be idolatrous.

And that's what we do in what we call sacrifice of animals or oblations or immolations, right?

And so that's how it was in the Old Testament; offered sacrifice of animals to God.

So the real question is, is there a New Testament sacrifice for the community, external worship, external sacrifice that is offered up to God the Father?

Now, Dr. Gavin Orland pushed back and said no, there isn't. I would obviously push back on that, and I will in a second.

But I just want to finish off by saying I do think, in a sense, if I was Protestant, I would be pretty frustrated too, saying what this kind of narrative sounds like is, well, if we don't go to Mass, then we're doing nothing; we're worthless before God.

And that's not...

I know that's not what Trent Horn or Joe Heschmeyer are trying to do at all, but when you get into, you know, when you just listen to that narrative over and over again, it's really what it sounds like.

It makes it sound like the Protestants are just, you know, don't love God at all.

So I would point to Romans 12:1. It's true that a true contrite heart that loves God above all else and acknowledges God and gives Him total dominion over the world—I mean, He already has total dominion—but acknowledging that total dominion over creation is a personal true worship, a true latria.

That is exactly what God has due from us, and you know, He's due infinitely more from us, but that's the most we can give Him at least.

So I'll establish that; I will agree with Dr. Gavin Orland on that.

And that personally, anyone can do that from your room; you don't have to go to Mass for that, obviously.

So I would agree there.

Now, to push back a little bit on Dr. Orland, he says that there's no New Testament evidence pointing to this external or sacrificial element of the New Testament, of the New Law, similar to the sacrifice of the Mass.

Worship is never defined, or the Eucharist is never singled out as some kind of unique form of worship in the institution of the Eucharist by Jesus Himself.

In Paul's teaching about the Eucharist, not only is the Roman Catholic conception of the Eucharist nowhere identified as a unique expression of worship, it's nowhere identified at all.

Now to push back a little bit on Dr. Gavin Orlin, I think there is a lot of New Testament evidence for the sacrifice of the Mass and how this is going to be the way that Christians worship.

Dr. Orlin said that this is not biblical or patristic, at least early on, but I would definitely push back on that.

I would point to at least three passages off the top of my head.

You have, for example, in John chapter 4, the woman at the well.

The woman complains, the Samaritan woman, she complains about the Jews limiting worship to Jerusalem.

Now, what type of worship is being talked about here?

It's not just a worship of praise, a worship of self-offering, you know, offering up your body like in Romans 12:1. This is clearly a priestly sacrifice to God on the altar in the temple because you could pray, you could praise God anywhere in the Old Testament, but you could only offer sacrifice in the temple.

So that's exactly what she's talking about there.

I think that's undeniable.

And Jesus responds, You worship what you do not know, because the Samaritans were not worshiping the one true God.

But Jesus says that the time is now, the hour has now come when the true believers, the true worshipers of God, will worship God in spirit and truth.

Now, what does that mean?

Well, in truth, it refers to the fact that the Samaritans were not worshiping in truth; they were worshiping in falsehood.

But when it comes to spirit, this is directly related to the complaint of the Samaritan woman that you could only either worship in Jerusalem or on the mountain.

So Jesus is saying not only are we going to worship in truth, the true God, we're not going to worship like the Samaritans' false gods or idols.

We're going to worship no longer in shadow but in truth.

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

But when it comes to spirit, it's not going to be limited to the temple; it's not going to be limited to this mountain.

This is related to the prophecy of Malachi 1:11, where all nations will offer a pleasing sacrifice to God.

But again, the sacrifice that we're talking about is the worship.

It's not a worship of internal praise to God, although that is good, as I have admitted in this video.

This is clearly talking about a more liturgical, communal, actual sacrifice to God, an immolation, and that is only fulfilled in the Catholic notion of the Eucharist.

You can also point to 1 Corinthians 10. St. Paul talks about fleeing idolatry.

The word there has its root in latria, right?

Offering latria to idols.

And right after that, he talks about the Eucharist, and he compares the Eucharist to what the pagans, the heathens, offer.

Immediately after talking about the Eucharist, St. Paul writes, Behold, Israel according to the flesh, are not they, that is, the sacrifices, partakers of the altar?

So why are we talking about an altar here?

Immediately after the Eucharist, he continues, What then?

Do I say that what is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything?

So the implication there from St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 is that the heathens offer sacrifice to devils, whereas we Christians offer sacrifice to God.

What is the sacrifice that St. Paul is talking about?

The Eucharist.

This is what he's talking about right there.

So you have John 4 talking about how there's going to be an actual sacrifice, an immolation in the New Testament, in the New Law that's not limited to the location, and it's not going to be to false gods.

You have St. Paul juxtaposing or comparing the Eucharist to the sacrifices of pagans.

They sacrifice to devils; we sacrifice to God; we offer to God.

And finally, although I could point to many other passages, I would point to Melchizedek, the letter to the Hebrews, and Melchizedek's sacrifice of bread and wine to God, and this being the prefiguring of Jesus and his sacrifice of the Eucharist.

And if you read the Church Fathers, they interpret Melchizedek's bread and wine as not a snack for Abraham in Genesis 14, but as a sacrifice to God.

And later on in the Reformation and afterwards, you have like Saint Robert Bellarmine writing about how the early Church Fathers saw Melchizedek's offering, or his bread and wine, as an offering, as a sacrifice, and prefiguring the bread and wine that Jesus Christ offered up on the Last Supper and that we offer up now.

And the Protestants pushing back and saying, No, it's just a snack; it has nothing to do with sacrifice there.

And then Eric Ibarra has a really good video on Swan Sona's channel; I would check that out.

And basically, I don't know what you could argue against it, saying that if Jesus Christ is going to be a priest in the form, in the order of Melchizedek, and Melchizedek offered up bread and wine, Jesus offered up bread and wine.

But then that would make two different offerings: it's the sacrifice on the cross on Good Friday and the sacrifice of bread and wine on the Last Supper.

So are they two different offerings?

Well, no, they must be one and the same, and ergo, therefore.

But I'm not going to explain it all in this video.

I would definitely go watch that video; it's a great video, and Eric Ibarra is a great mind in this field.

So I would say the New Testament clearly does talk about a sacrificial worship that takes place among Christians that I do think Protestants lack.

And I will say for the fifth time in this video now, I'm not denying Romans 12:1. I think Protestants who love Jesus are offering an internal worship to God.

That is, that Protestants are missing something that Jesus wants us to have, and I'm willing to defend that point.

I'm willing to elaborate more on it too from John 4, from 1 Corinthians 10, and from other places in the New Testament where I think that's very clear.

And I would push back against Dr. Orlin on that.

Dr. Orlin made some comments about offering the Mass as a propitiation for sins in purgatory.

No, the question is: What does it mean when we speak of the Eucharist as a sacrifice?

And we reject the idea that it's a propitiatory sacrifice reducing temporal punishment for deceased Christians, and there's other issues there as well.

I would say that's also very patristic language.

You see that very clearly in St. Augustine talking about how offering the Eucharist or offering alms for our friends who are dead is a propitiation.

He says propitiation to either obtain a formation of sins after they have died or at least make their condemnation more tolerable.

This is for the souls in purgatory.

Dr. Orlin made a comment about communion in both kinds.

I think, if anything, studying the issue of communion in both kinds, that's an issue where the Catholics clearly take, I don't know, the win or whatever, or are clearly historically consistent there.

I have offered in the past, Dr. Orlin, to talk about that.

I'm more than willing to discuss that and dialogue on that.

I don't think he seems – most Protestants don't really seem to understand.

I was actually talking to somebody about it yesterday, and they were very heated up about it, and they really misunderstood what the Catholic position is on that.

So I'd be willing to talk about that.

But that's all I have for this video.

I hope it was helpful.

Basically, I would just conclude with saying it's wrong to say that Protestants never worship God, but I think it's right to say externally, as a community, they don't have that worship that the Bible talks about that Christians will have: John chapter 4, 1 Corinthians 10. So I would push back on this Protestant idea that sacrifice is not essential to Christianity, and I think Psalm 51 is beautiful for that.

Psalm 51 does end in saying that if your heart is not there, then your sacrifices are worthless to God.

But if your heart is there, if you do have a contrite heart and you are walking upright before God, then will God delight in your sacrifices.

So it's not an either-or; it's either a contrite heart and loving God internally, or you have sacrifices.

It's a both-and, and I think Psalm 51 is beautiful in that.

I'll just read it here and finish the video with: Burnt offerings you will not be delighted; a sacrifice to God is an afflicted heart, an afflicted spirit, a contrite and humbled heart.

O God, thou wilt not despise.

Deal favorably, O Lord, in thy goodwill with Sion, that the walls of Jerusalem may be built up.

And then it doesn't say, Well, you know, we have a contrite heart; we don't have to offer sacrifice to God.

It finishes saying, Then shalt thou accept the sacrifice of justice, oblations, and whole burnt offerings; then shall they lay calves upon thy altar.

So I think as Catholics we can learn the lesson of just because you go to Mass doesn't mean you're saved, doesn't mean you're worshiping God.

Your heart has to be there for you to actually worship God, and I think Protestants have that first step.

I think they're missing that second step.

I would be willing to dialogue about this with anybody if you'd like, but this is all I have for now.

So have a good day, and God bless you.