Transcript

Hey, everyone.

In today's episode, I'm gonna do something a little different.

A few days ago, Redeemed Zoomer released a video saying he studied Catholicism intensely for a month, on top of a previous study he's done on the faith.

And he shared a few reasons why his studies led him to the conclusion Catholicism is false.

So, Redeemed Zoomer, RZ for short for the rest of the episode, he gave a casual explanation while playing Minecraft rather than, you know, like, a formal knockdown argument.

So, in today's episode, I'm just gonna give my own casual response to him while playing Super Mario World.

Why?

Well, because I was born in the 1980s, so I don't know how to play Minecraft.

But I can still play a decent game of Mario, though, though as you'll see, I'm a little bit rusty.

And yes, this is me playing.

Here's me with my Super Nintendo that I got for Christmas when I was seven years old, and it still works.

I don't have a capture card, so just bear with the footage I recorded on my phone, but I figure you'd prefer this of me playing to just generic play footage from somebody else.

So, RZ's basic argument is that he's not Catholic because Catholicism proposes an infallible rule of faith beyond scripture, the magisterium, mostly in the form of ecumenical councils.

However, RZ says this rule has contradicted itself on things like salvation outside the church or papal authority, so it's not really infallible, therefore Catholicism is false.

First, I wanna point out that RZ faces the same problem.

He believes scripture is the only infallible rule of faith, but those who reject Biblical inerrancy, well, they claim scripture has contradictions, so it's not infallible.

Now, RZ says the contradictions in Catholic history are irreconcilable, but the alleged contradictions in scripture, he says, can be reconciled.

But both cases have similar difficulties, even on the same doctrinal issues.

Consider the issue of no salvation outside the church, which RZ first brings up.

It comes down to this question.

Is it possible for non-Catholics to be saved, or is it impossible?

RZ says the Council of Florence and Unum Sanctum say it is impossible, but Vatican II says it is possible.

He also says Bishop Barron and others go further, saying it's probable that they're saved, but Bishop Barron's less than ideal answers in an interview with Ben Shapiro are not magisterial teaching.

The same goes for me if I don't articulate my thoughts as clearly as I wish I had in an interview.

You see, RZ faces the same problem of alleged contradiction on this issue, but in a synchronic way rather than a diachronic way.

Diachronic means across time, so when people say Catholicism contradicts itself, they will go across 2,000 years of church history to try to find alleged magisterial contradictions.

Synchronic means at the same time, so when people try to say the Bible, especially in the New Testament contradicts itself, they will go to different books of the New Testament written around the same time period.

RZ says, Look, Florence teaches non-Catholics are not saved, but Vatican II says they can be saved.

Contradiction.

But a critic of Biblical inerrancy can do the exact same thing.

He will say John 14 teaches non-Christians can't be saved, but Romans 2 teaches non-Christians can be saved.

Contradiction.

We know there's a tension in scripture on salvation outside of Christ because Protestants are divided into two groups.

There are the exclusivists, who think non-Christians cannot be saved, and they have to explain the scriptures that seem to say non-Christians can be saved.

And there are the Protestant inclusivists, who think non-Christians can be saved, and they have to explain the scriptures that seem to say non-Christians cannot be saved.

So this latter group, like Catholics, say these apparently exclusivist verses teach that nothing besides Jesus Christ saves us, but Jesus Christ can save a person without that person knowing Christ saved him, which explains how someone who was not a part of the visible church could still have received God's saving grace in some invisible way.

Saint Thomas Aquinas even proposed that God could use some extraordinary mean to save a man who had been raised by wolves, and God would not let that man go to hell just because he was ignorant of the gospel through no fault of his own, or what we call being invincibly ignorant.

A century before Vatican II, Pope Pius IX referred to people being invincibly ignorant, so this isn't a liberal post-Vatican II concept.

Pius IX did condemn the idea that we can have good hope in the salvation of non-Catholics in his Syllabus of Errors, and Vatican II says salvation is a possibility for those who are ignorant of the gospel through no fault of their own.

It admits that people often succumb to lies and final despair, so that's why the church, quote, fosters the missions with care and attention.

So I agree, some people take this too far and start to become quasi-universalists.

My answer to RZ on this issue is that the church has always taught that a person cannot be saved apart from the church Christ established, but there's always been a strain of thought, which can be seen even in early church fathers like Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, that God provides a way to save those who are outside of the church through no fault of their own.

In fact, in the first three centuries of church history, the phrase, No salvation outside the church, was used for Christian heretics, not people who had always been pagans.

During the time of the Council of Florence, many people believed that those who were not Catholic were fully culpable for their non-belief, and so one could say if they were not Catholic, they weren't saved.

But the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus 50 years later caused theologians to question the empirical assumption used in applying no salvation outside the church, because they saw some people were truly ignorant of Christ because of geographic isolation.

And others even still remained in ignorance, as 16th century Spanish theologians noted, because people like indigenous peoples were given a deficient gospel at the hands of cruel conquistadors.

So, this is not a contradiction.

The church, through its theologians, harmonizes apparently absolutist, exclusivist past magisterial statements in the same way Protestant inclusivist theologians- harmonize apparently absolute exclusivist Bible passages.

They, both groups note the difference between object of salvation only through Christ and his church and subject of salvation, God saving a person who is outside the visible confines of the church through extraordinary means, like revelation to their conscience, which is described in Romans 2:14-16.

So, when it comes to this issue, I would recommend you check out some resources that show how the church's doctrine developed without being contradictory.

Uh, Francis Sullivan has a good book on this called No Salvation Outside the Church, though I think some of his claims are a bit too far for my taste, but it's still a very good book.

And Jimmy Akin discusses this subject in a chapter of his book, The Drama of Salvation.

Now, when it comes to the Vatican I definition of the papacy being found in the first millennium of church history, well, it depends on how you understand Vatican I and the papacy.

The historical claims on councils, like the papacy in Vatican I or icons in Nicaea II, they are not part of the council's infallible definitions of doctrine.

So, you have people like Eric Ybarra and Elijah Yossi, they've done great work at showing how a moderate or minimal understanding of Vatican I's doctrine of the papacy can be found throughout church history, so I recommend their work.

I'll link to Elijah's video in the description below on the minimal view of the papacy that is easily reconciled with the historical record.

Now, when it comes to icons, I'll revisit this hopefully in a dialogue with Gavin Ortlund at some point, but this is another example where Protestants also have a burden of proof.

Their view is that images are okay, even in churches, for some Protestants, you just should not venerate images.

However, the earliest Christians who were against icons didn't even think you could have images at all, which is not the modern Protestant position.

So, Protestants also have to say their view as a doctrinal development.

Now, Nicaea II is condemning those who don't follow the liturgical rubrics in the East that require icon veneration, but no such rubrics exist for the vast majority of Catholics in the West.

So, it is not the case that Catholics must do things like kiss icons.

They just cannot condemn someone who rightfully believes it's okay to physically show respect for a holy person depicted in an icon.

RZ also said that Nicaea II anathematized those who are friends with people who don't venerate icons, but I don't see a canon like that from the council.

There is a canon that anathematizes communicating with those who dishonor and revile holy icons.

That's different than just being friends with a Christian who does not venerate icons.

But this also brings up the issue, as RZ mentions, that not everything in a council document is an infallible declaration.

The councils use specific formulas for infallible decrees that are different from the disciplinary decrees in those councils that are not perpetually binding.

This is covered in Jimmy Akin's book, Teaching With Authority, so be sure to check his book out if you have a question on that.

I'll link to it below.

And this is also a good segue into some of the remaining minor points that RZ brought up in his video.

He said, for example, that the church's infallibility, well, it's not so amazing because Catholics put a lot of parameters on it, like that not everything in an ecumenical council is infallible or binding.

But Protestants do the same thing with the inerrancy of scripture.

They say scripture is inerrant, but only under certain conditions.

For example, RZ believes in theistic evolution, so he would say Genesis 1 is without error, but it's not trying to give a strictly historical description of how organic life came to be in the period before humans existed.

And Gavin Ortlund has done something similar in saying scripture is inerrant, but it teaches a local flood rather than a global flood.

But other Protestants disagree with RZ and Gavin Ortlund, saying that their approach to creation or the flood contradicts inerrancy and would prove Genesis is wrong.

Now, RZ would say, and correctly I would add, that biblical inerrancy does not mean everything the Bible says is true in a literal sense.

He would also say that doesn't mean everything the Bible teaches is normative today.

The New Testament says slaves should obey their masters and women should wear veils, but RZ would probably say those are culturally bound prescriptions that are not binding upon Christians today.

Women can worship without wearing veils, and it's not sinful for a slave today, in a part of the world where slavery is tragically still legal, to disobey his master and escape from slavery.

Well, the same thing is true for many of the disciplinary canons of the ecumenical councils.

They are temporarily restricted to a particular point in time.

They're not universal declarations.

They're not infallible declarations.

In fact, I thought it was interesting when RZ criticized the councils for getting more complicated over time.

I mean, that's what you would expect as Christendom becomes more expansive in history.

The first Council of Nicaea was held before Christianity was the religion of the Roman Empire.

And Christianity wouldn't become a unifying force for the state until centuries later, in the early Middle Ages, after Rome's fall.

That's the point when the councils start to become more complicated, as Christianity has to arrange the affairs of the entire world, and it needs to do things like excommunicate kings and heretics that are causing harm to the body of Christ.

In fact, some of RZ's critiques of Catholicism, they weren't even about infallibility at all.

For example, he disagreed with the Council of Constance saying that only the bread should be given to the laity, the body of Christ, and not the chalice containing Christ's blood.

But there is no infallible prior teaching saying both the body and blood must be given to the laity at all times for this to contradict.

There's no infallible contradiction here at all.

RZ just says that Jesus commanded that both must be given, so he thinks that Constance is wrong here, but Jesus never said that.

Jesus gave an instruction at The Last Supper to the apostles, but that doesn't mean this is normative for all Christians going forward.

In John 6:58, Jesus says, Whoever eats his flesh will live forever, without mentioning his blood.

And in 1 Corinthians 11:27, Paul refers to those who eat the bread or drink the cup .

which implies that people may take one or the other.

Now, RZ also said Thomas Aquinas didn't believe in the Immaculate Conception.

N- some people, like Christian Wagner, doubt that, and so you can go check out his research on that.

This may just be a, a giant theological urban legend.

But regardless, Aquinas still believed that Mary was sinless.

He just thought that Mary's freedom of sin came just after her conception.

And since knowledge of human development was hazy during this time, like Aquinas believing in delayed ensoulment, this would make it understandable why he might have some doubts about the Immaculate Conception.

But Aquinas' views are still far from modern Protestants, and this doctrine was developing and would not be infallibly defined for centuries later.

Finally, RZ says he doesn't like Saint Thomas Aquinas because Aquinas endorses natural theology.

You know, using reason to know some facts about God's existence in nature.

RZ says this leads to Vatican II saying Christians and Muslims worship the same God, and I think he's implying this at least to the inclusivism that I think he disagrees with.

Now, Joe Heschmeyer and Jimmy Akin both did videos recently on Christians and Muslims worshiping the, quote-unquote, same God.

You can check them out on that.

If I can add anything else of substance, I might do so in the future.

But in their episodes, they show that saying Muslims worship, not the same God, but worship God, or worship the one God who created the universe, even though they deny the Trinity, they have a deficient theology, that this way of articulating Muslims has a long history in Christian thought, well before the Second Vatican Council.

But more to the issue of natural theology, if you don't start with basic facts about God built on reason, this can easily lead you into heretical views about God.

For example, through reason, we can know God exists and God is necessary, infinite, timeless, immaterial, and unlimited in knowledge, power, and goodness.

This means we must reject interpretations of scripture that make it seem like God is ignorant or powerless, or that He changes His mind and repents, or that He has physical body parts, that the Father has physical body parts.

That these are things, these are divine condescensions.

Ways of God coming down to levels of human understanding for ancient people in salvation history so they can better understand the ineffable God.

Not to give literal descriptions of Himself for people of all time to take and understand.

So once again, this doesn't deal with infallible contradictions in church history.

It just deals with something that RZ disagrees with as a matter of doctrine.

And if you disagree with Catholicism 'cause you think the doctrines are wrong, okay.

But maybe you're just wrong about the doctrines.

That's something we need to talk about.

Also, see my debate with Jay Dyer if you want a defense of Christians using natural theology.

Ultimately, the way I look at this is that anyone who believes in an infallible rule of faith, whether it's Protestants with sola Scriptura or Catholics with scripture, tradition, and the Magisterium, anyone who has an infallible rule of faith is gonna have the problem of apparent contradictions in those rules.

So the way I approach the denominational question is to ask which group has the least problems to deal with?

Each side has critics who say their rule has contradictions, but Catholicism and Orthodoxy have a much easier time showing how you get from Jesus rising from the dead to a 27-book inerrant canon of the New Testament because Catholicism and Orthodoxy have recourse to authoritative sacred tradition.

And I'll address in a future episode of the, on the canon why it is still a problem for Protestants.

Now, I appreciate that RZ wants to have a Reconquista and rescue Protestants from liberalism, especially some Presbyterians.

But he's gonna have to deal with people who tell him, Look, biblical inerrancy has so many contradictions.

We can still get the gospel from scripture without believing scripture is infallible, to which Redeemed Zoomer would say, No you can't.

That's how you got a mess of women sparkle priests officiating gay weddings.

But RZ says we can get the fullness of the faith from scripture alone and we don't need an infallible Magisterium.

To which I'd say, No you can't, because that's how you got the mess of Protestants who can't agree on essential doctrines.

You see this, for example, in Protestants who criticize Redeemed Zoomer himself for believing that Catholics are Christians.

And that's one reason that I really enjoy talking with him and engaging his work, and I really appreciate that he tries his best to understand Catholicism even though he disagrees with it.

Uh, he and I are scheduled to have a dialogue soon on my channel, so definitely stay tuned for that.

Maybe he and I could just both hang out in my living room and play video games and talk theology.

That'd be a lot of fun.

So with that said, thank you guys so much and I hope you have a very blessed day.