Transcript

How's it going, everybody?

I'm Okay, looks like audio's working.

Yes?

Okay, cool.

Clock's ticking, dude?

I was under a minute.

Outrageous.

Blocked.

Blocked and reported.

I'm just kidding.

Um, okay, so this is like the third or fourth time I've done this, so I think you know the rules of the game.

But just in case, um, I will be answering a couple of the questions I've gotten through Patreon, which you can join at shamelessjoe.com.

Uh, we do like Monday and Friday episodes.

Usually this is a Monday one.

Unbelievable, uh, accusing me of being late.

It was under a minute.

All right, fine.

Um, you know, just, just doing what I can.

I mean, I'm technically I'm a day late, so I guess 24 hours and half a minute, it's a little bigger.

All right, so anyway, I wanna answer some of the questions I've gotten on Patreon.

But also if you wanna add questions, uh, in the Super Chat thing, Vanessa, That One Catholic Girl, that's her username, not just me not remembering people's name, she'll add them to like a, a Google Doc we've got going.

And, uh, so yeah.

Welcome, everybody.

It's a new day in America.

That's a Reagan, uh, reference for those of you who had children on this stream.

It's just like, hey, exciting new things are happening.

That's what that means.

And I feel like that with our, um, American Pope, I would say our first American Pope, because I understand how adjectives work.

But some people find that a very controversial thing to say.

All right, so feel free to send in your Super Chats, and I will answer those.

In the meantime, I've already got a couple questions I wanted to answer.

Uh, BP said, um, Think it's good to study issues from multiple perspectives.

Who would you say are particularly exceptional Catholic apologists you'd want everyone to study?

We can agree that everyone at Catholic Answers is fantastic, so let's go with non-Catholic Answers apologists that still hold up to modern day Protestant objections.

Could be a YouTuber, blogger, author, et cetera.

Thank you.

So I don't know how modern you Well, you said, It still holds up to modern, so I don't know if it has to be people who are alive right now.

Um, I really like Ferris from How To Be Christian.

He's got a little bit of, uh, spice to him, which I know some people don't like.

But I, I think if you've got the right, uh, audience for it, he's very good.

You know, and, and I guess I'd say this, like, it's like with food or anything else, not everyone is gonna be suited for every palate.

And so you've gotta kind of match the person with the audience.

And I, I mean this for myself as well, like, I'm not for everybody.

Nobody's for everybody except for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

There's, uh, as an aside, kind of a cool thing about, like, if you look at the classic temperaments, you can categorize the different apostles and everything pretty neatly into, you know, introverted, extroverted, which temperament they are, all that.

Jesus really does stand out where he seems perfectly comfortable being introverted and extroverted, and, uh, uh, he kind of combines the best of all temperaments.

Not kind of, he combines the best of all temperaments.

So yeah, Ferris, um, Eric Ibarra, especially on, uh, Catholic orthodox things, Michael Lofton as well.

Um, those guys are doing some really good stuff.

There's a lot of Like, Voice of Reason, I, I feel like I can't keep up with all the really good YouTube channels that are going on right now.

So those ones are just the ones kind of off the top of my head.

And I know I am woefully, uh, omitting some other ones.

Uh, but I wanted to make sure I mentioned some good, uh, books, because some of you would do well to read and watch less stuff.

Uh, so number one, Saint Francis de Sales, Catholic Controversy.

Uh, number two, Saint Edmund Campion, uh, De Sacramentis is, is like the 10 Reasons, but if you Oh, yeah, Christian Wagner from Scholastic Answers, he's punchy, he has a lot of trollish titles and he likes to pick fights, but he's, he knows his stuff on a lot of things.

He's, he's a good I don't always agree with him.

I often agree with him.

Uh, uh, oh, Sam Shamoun, I mean, Sam is a g- Also, he's, he's a little punchy, he likes to, he likes to throw down, and he sometimes burns bridges, but I think he's a, he's very sharp and there's a lot of issues where he, he knows his stuff better than most of the people that, uh, are out in the space.

So again, I mean, part of it is what area are you looking for?

This question particularly is asking about Protestant objections, which is, uh, not as much what I think is like Sam's wheelhouse.

Um, oh yeah, Joshua Charles, uh, Eternal Christendom.

Yeah, there's so many.

Like I said, there's so many.

But anyway, books.

Uh, Francis de Sales, Catholic Controversy, it's got arguments on the Reformation I haven't heard anybody else make that are really good.

The one that I always go to is he talks about how in the Bible everyone with the authority to preach is sent.

And so Saint Paul can actually say in Romans 10, How can they preach unless they're sent?

And when you see people who, uh, go out without authorization in Acts 15, they are criticized for this by the Council of Jerusalem.

So you don't have a Wild West style Christianity in first century Christianity.

Or if, if you do, it's just the heretics.

Um, and so like early Christianity is, uh, institutional.

It is structured as organized.

And so you're sent in one of two ways.

You're either sent directly by Jesus, as Saint Paul is, a, a call that he defends in Galatians 1. Or you're sent through the church.

And Saint Paul, you'll notice, gets a right hand of fellowship in Galatians 1 from Saint Peter.

So even Paul, who has this direct calling from Christ and can prove it with miracles, et cetera, uh, still thinks it's important to go through the church.

So, uh, this is what's called the immediate or mediated call.

Like either Christ immediately calls you or you're called through the bride of Christ.

And that means that a call is a two-way thing, a call is a vocation.

And I can't just say, Hey, um, I really hesitate to use anyone's name because, you know, I don't wanna- make my wife angry, but if I'm just like, Hey, uh, I should be married to Natalie Portman, I think my wife might have something to say about that.

Natalie Portman would also have something to say about that, and I don't know who would have more of a negative reaction.

Um, so, you know, the calls are two-party kind of agreements.

And that's true whether you're talking about a marriage, or a vocation to religious life, or a calling to the priesthood, or a calling to preach.

And so you can't just say, I feel called to do X, and expect that to be the end of it, story.

Uh, anyway, all this coming from Francis de Sales.

And I don't hear anybody else really talking about that in the same way.

And his point is, the Reform Nobody sent the Reformers.

They don't claim to have been sent directly by Christ in the sense of, like, a road to Damascus experience.

They don't have the ability to back that up with miracles or anything the way Paul could.

And they're clearly not sent by the Church.

The Church doesn't say, Hey, go start a Reformation.

And so in the Biblical sense, there is no authorization for the Reformation.

And that's why, you know, you have a lot of more traditional Protestants who will say, Oh, yeah, like, look, our denomination's hundreds of years old, and they'll look down on those Protestants that just have, like, a kind of pop-up shop where it's, like, a, in a strip mall and they've just, like, built a worship center or whatever, and it's just some guy who feels, uh, qualified to call, like to call himself basically.

And it's like, okay, obviously that's not how Christianity works.

And m- more traditional Protestants recognize that, but in the Reformation, their guy was doing that, whether their guy was, you know, Martin Luther or whoever it was.

So, that's pretty cool.

Like, de Sales has a lot of stuff, and he's such a He's got such a good heart that I think there's just something so admirable about him.

Um, Saint Edmund Campion.

I love Campion, my, literally my son's middle name is Campion.

But he's, he's a little spicier, so just know that I mean, he gets tortured and killed by the Anglicans, and so I think he's authorized to have a little bit of spiciness.

Um, but he has ten reasons to reject the Reformation.

He's actually an Anglican convert to Catholicism.

So yeah, again, woefully inadequate in terms of, uh, reading and watching list, but you could spend so much time just absorbing good Catholic content.

I think, you know, Cy Kellett, he doesn't get normally, like, top billing in terms of, um, you know, like when you talk about a Catholic answers apologist, but I think he's got great stuff, and he's so good at just preaching kerygmatically.

Uh, A Teacher of Strange Things, his book on Jesus, does a good job of just capturing what makes Jesus so weird and unique, and that's, again, not really responding to Protestant, uh, objections as, as such, but just getting to the heart of Christianity really well.

All right, uh, Catholic Christian said, Can I live in your basement?

Uh, you know, he sent $5, which I think is an insultingly low amount for rent.

Um, I'm inclined to say no, and that I'm doing you a favor by not having you stay in my basement, because it's, uh, shared by wild children and periodically bugs.

So I, sometimes, like at night, I have to be the one who goes down and puts stuff in the washer and dryer, 'cause there's, like, these weird creepy flying bugs.

I don't actually find them that creepy.

Other member of the house does.

Uh, so yeah, there you go.

Uh, I'm honored that you would want to or think you would want to.

I don't think you would actually want to.

All right, Dinkle Dork Maybe the best part of the live streams is just having weird names that I have to say.

Uh, Dinkle Dork says, I'm Catholic, but my entire family is either LDS or SDA. So for those not in the know, that's Latter-day Saints, like Mormon, or Seventh-Day Adventists.

Easiest way to debunk the Great Apostasy?

I tend to point to Ignatius and Clement I or other succession passages.

What's ironic is LDS had their own succession crisis.

They did, the great succession crisis of 1844.

So did the Democrats before James K. Polk, but that's another story.

Uh, so the LDS now will say that they, uh, have basically perpetual presence, that they don't have to worry about this happening anymore, because Christ established his own Church, and so they aren't worried that they're ever gonna go away.

Now, that's true for Joseph Smith, like, reestablishing the Church.

What's weird is that they don't, um, they don't think the same is true of the Church in the 1st century.

In fact, the LDS have the clearest argument on Great Apostasy, and it's bad.

I mean, I say it's the clearest 'cause a lot of times when you ask, like, more normal, like, a Protestant, I wouldn't say Mormons are Protestants, but if you ask, like, a Protestant, yeah, why was the Reformation needed?

They'll just say, Oh, yeah, the Church went astray over time.

And if you're like, Well, details, citations, like, what, what do we got?

How do we know that, like, schism was okay in the 16th century and not okay in the 1st century when it's, you know, clearly condemned in scripture?

Uh, the details are often vague.

It's just like, Well, over time things got bad.

And I, I do think this is very strange that you have these Protestants who, when you talk about human origins, are totally con Like, opposed to vague evolutionary theories that, you know, apes became humans over time eventually.

But if you talk to them about Church history, it's like, Oh, yeah.

The Papacy just evolved over time.

It was, it was something good that became something bad, or, The Church went into apostasy over time.

It was something good that became something bad.

And then when you ask, like, Well, when and whom, and how do we know?

Where's, where's the line between, um, when this was good and when it was bad?

It's often very vague.

So the Mormons are clearer that they reject Christianity from the 1st century onward.

They think that the apostles failed to spread this thing.

The, uh, the arguments I would use in response to this are a few.

Number one, you've got, uh, passages like the Acts of the Apostles that show Christianity as very successful.

You have even Jesus' words of warning and, uh approval to the seven churches in Revelation.

So, if you read the first three chapters of Revelation, uh, you've got Jesus t- talking to the churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, uh, Pergamum, uh, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea.

And they don't all have equally good report cards, but some of them are doing very well.

And this is why most, uh, consensuses, the last written document of the New Testament, maybe around the year 90.

And so, the church seems to be going strong at the close of the first century.

And yet, uh, the Mormon view is that at the close of the first century, there's no next generation of faithful, believing Christians.

So, they have fallen into heresy immediately.

I don't think you can say that without repudiating the Apostles.

Right, I don't think you can say the Apostles successfully converted nobody to authentic Christianity in a lasting, enduring way.

That they couldn't ordain a single person as successors?

They couldn't find one person to ordain as a faithful successor to them?

That the priesthood was just lost after one generation?

The, uh, gates of Hell just overcame that quickly?

I think that's remarkable.

Um, I think it's a, kind of an embarrassment to- to make that claim.

Because I don't think you can make that claim without saying the Apostles failed when the New Testament says they succeeded.

I don't think you can make that claim and still believe the mustard seed has grown into a mustard tree.

Uh, I don't think you can make that claim and believe Jesus is a good teacher.

Because apparently, not such a good teacher, he's able to teach teachers.

That you have some people accordingly, uh, you know, uh, supposedly who, like, become faithful followers of Christ and are priests in the first generation, but not in any generation after that.

That's the Mormon claim.

I don't think it works.

So, all of the stuff about the gates of Hell not prevailing, et cetera, I think doesn't work.

The Mormons will point to Amos Chapter 8 about people who are like, hungry for the Word and not finding it.

They're taking that very obviously out of context.

This is about the 10 tribes being split off from the two southern tribes, and how the 10 tribes are going across the north, east, and west to try to find the Word and are not finding it.

Because they're not going south to where the Temple of God is in Jerusalem.

That's what Amos 8 is talking about.

That's the hunger for the Word.

It's not talking about priesthood being taken away from the Earth.

That's, it's a complete misrepresentation.

So, there you go.

That's the Mormon one.

On Seventh Day Adventists, um, Ellen G. White claimed that the Papacy in Constantine invented Sunday worship, like in the fourth century.

So, I'd start by just showing all the earlier passages talking about Sunday worship.

Uh, so like, First Apology by Justin Martyr, the Didache, uh, Ignatius comparing Jews who worship on Sun- or on Saturday with Christians who worship on the Lord's Day, and then tie it in with Revelation 1. In Revelation 1, John talks about where he is on the Lord's Day, which shows, in the New Testament itself, the keeping of Sunday worship, and there being this thing called the Lord's Day.

Now, the standard Adventist response to this is, Oh, well the Lord's Day in the Bible means Saturday.

Give me a break.

The idea of the Lord's Day means Saturday in the year 90, and it means Sunday in 107 when Ignatius is writing, and nobody noticed?

That's completely implausible.

And either way, Ellen White is clearly a false prophetess, 'cause she doesn't have any idea of, uh, church history.

So, sorry, long answer to this.

But there you go.

Hopefully, that's all.

I've done some videos on, uh, Great Apostasy stuff.

I think Great Apostasy's a great way to have the conversation, because not only do Adventists and Mormons need to prove a Great Apostasy, but I think Protestants functionally do as well.

Uh, if, if there isn't a Great Apostasy, then you're left with a situation where you're committing schism, and schism is a damnable sin according to Galatians 5. So, y- that's a problem.

When Jesus says there's not gonna be an apostasy, there's no, uh, no Okay, let me clarify.

There is apostasy in one sense, but not in the sense that Protestants, Adventists, and Mormons mean.

Apostasy means falling away.

So, the, you know, it is possible to apostatize from the Church.

You know, you were raised Catholic, and then you believed, and then you fell away from the Church.

That's what apostasy literally means.

What Protestants have redefined apostasy to mean in this context, and what Mormons certainly take apostasy to mean, is not people falling away from the Church, but the Church itself becoming bad.

Now notice, this is a total inversion of the Biblical meaning of apostasy.

The situation with apostasy, Biblically, is you're supposed to be in the Church, and it's bad that you left.

But Mormons will say, No, actually the Church is bad.

So it's good to leave the Church and, and be part of this re-founded Church instead.

And that's also, of course, the Adventist view.

So, you will find apostasy things that mean the opposite of what they are, uh, taken to mean.

There's nothing about the Church itself falling into apostasy, Biblically.

That is a completely un-Biblical principle.

All right.

Socrates McGowt, you guys have the best names.

As a Protestant in process of converting, I have a lot to learn.

Regarding praying, is it proper to address prayers directly to God, or stick to rosary?

Oh, you can absolutely both-and.

Uh, you should go directly to God.

If you pray the rosary, there's a bunch of our fathers in there.

And, uh, this is, uh, part of how we form this relationship.

I think the question we should be asking is how much we should be praying to Jesus and to the Holy Spirit.

'Cause a lot of the way prayer is depicted is towards the Father, when we're talking about prayer as, as part of Christian worship.

But in other contexts, for sure, um, praying to the Son and the Spirit are really big and, and underappreciated.

I, I mention this special context 'cause they, the way corporate worship works, like the mass is directed to the Father.

It is a presentation of the Son to the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit.

So, it's very Trinitarian, but in a, a particular way.

Um-So, uh, yeah, you pray directly to God, all three persons.

I, I, a prayer that I really like that I got from my pastor is a qu- it's called an Examen, like an examination of conscience prayer, and it's just a little three, two, one Examen.

So, you go to God the Father, and you thank Him for three things from your day.

You go to Jesus Christ, and you ask contrition, uh, forgiveness, I mean, uh, for two things from the day, and then I usually do an act of contrition there.

And then, uh, you go to the Holy Spirit, and you make one resolution for the next day with His help.

And then the next day, you either did the thing you said you were gonna do or you didn't, and so then you're either thankful or contrite.

All right, hopefully that's helpful.

Let me know.

Sir Marhouse says, Joe, you've been a great help for me, both me, a new Catholic, and my girlfriend, who was at the time discerning the faith.

Just wanted to say thanks.

Well, thank you, and, uh, I don't know if everyone heard that, but if you support Shems Popri, you too will have a girlfriend if you don't yet.

Unless you're married, in which case you won't, or are a girl.

So, so there you go.

It's a guaranteed vocation, um, that there's no, no warranty on that.

Uh, Doron III just sent two bucks and said, No question needed.

Thank you.

Well, thank you.

Very kind of you.

Mother Loving Christian said, Advice for someone doing apologetics on YouTube.

Yes, um, a few things.

Number one, don't let it be corrosive to your soul.

Like watch out, 'cause there's a few dangers you wanna watch out for.

I'm gonna talk about the dangers and then how to do it well.

Oh, yeah, someone in the chat said, Become a priest instead.

Yeah, don't have a girlfriend if you're supposed to be a priest.

So, there's some caveats to my earlier claim.

Um, okay, warnings about apologetics.

Number one, you can make it It can be very spiritually dangerous.

C.S. Lewis talks about this.

I don't have it in front of me, but he talks about the danger with apologetics is you can make it feel like it's you rather than God who's in charge of the truth.

I'm very heavily paraphrasing in a way that is probably not doing justice to his claim.

That when you're making an argument, you might be aware of some of the weaknesses and possible responses of the argument, and so you can sort of reduce Christianity, or Catholicism specifically, to the arguments for it in a way that's actually spiritually dangerous.

Because then when you hear some really good response to that argument, then you're like, Oh, well, I guess I was wrong.

Therefore, Christianity's not true.

That's a problem because then the credibility of Christianity isn't dependent upon Jesus and the resurrection.

It's dependent upon your brilliance in making winning arguments for Jesus.

So watch out for that.

Um, second, I think it's important to have Make sure that you're actually meant to do this thing and have some accountability for it.

A lot of people just want to say something.

Look, 80% of the apologetics space is young men, or is men, and a lot of that's young men.

And if you've ever been to, like, a talk that has Q &A, you know there's, like, a handful of people who are gonna raise their hand, and instead of, like, asking a question, they're going to, like, give a short speech that they wish that the speaker had given.

But it's, like, I, I was just watching, um, from, like, seven years ago this chat where, uh, it was actually a Protestant speaking, but he was making some good points on, on the particular topic I was looking him up for.

But it was e- like a Zoom call or something, and there was, like, a guy who just kept jumping in and just offering his own two cents, and I was like, Stop, block him.

Just stop, stop letting him inter- interject.

It's not making it better.

So all this to say is, like, YouTube is a very low barrier to entry, and the danger with that is some people are getting into this space who, uh, maybe shouldn't in the sense th- uh, everyone is called to share the Gospel, so 1 Peter 3:15.

But the way you're supposed to do apologetics is first and foremost by explaining the hope that you have within you.

And so you can actually do damage if you're not called to this kind of area, but you just want to, uh, and you're not really equipped to do it.

So I would say read a lot, listen to other people, practice small, listen to feedback, and remember that the case for Catholicism, the case for Christianity, the case for Jesus Christ is stronger than your particular arguments, which are gonna be only so good.

Um, yeah, and then if you still have something to say, the other things I would add here are, be prepared to be very consistent about kind of production, for lack of a better term.

Uh, you wanna be timely.

Uh, uh, you know, you saw these, these monsters in the chat after I was like 40 seconds late.

Um, but yeah, so, like, don't let it monopolize, but be consistent.

And so Trent is better than me at this.

He has prepared stuff for, like, weeks, uh, ahead of time.

I'm, like, scrambling every week to get up, like, the two episodes for the week.

This is partly just our, our styles.

Like, the more time I have, the more time I spend doing, like, way deeper dives than I need to, and then I leave everything on, like, the cutting room floor.

Um, so yeah, get a sense for what area am I going to do apologetics in?

If you remember the very first question, different people are, are the people I would go to for different topics.

You don't have to be the go-to person for everything.

You might have something that you are really good at.

So if you are called to do it, figure out your kinda niche and your target audience and your style, and keep it somewhat consistent and understandable.

Now, this is actually more true in the YouTube era because YouTube will put you in a certain niche that you cannot get out of very easily without just, like, deleting your channel and starting all over.

Um, and so, you know, anytime I do something that's a little bit off-brand for me, like, the view count is like, whoo.

And, you know, I, I often know that that's going to happen, uh, but I'll just be like, yeah, I want to, uh, I wanna talk about why atheism is wrong or something like this.

But that's not what people normally come to the channel for, so et cetera.

So yeah, uh, hopefully there's something helpful in that.All right.

Frankie says, What is the response when someone asks why in the Old Testament God deceives, such as Ezekiel 14:9?

So Ezekiel 14 says, And if the prophet be deceived, and speak a word, I, the Lord have deceived that prophet and I will stretch out my hand against him and will destroy him from the midst of my people, Israel.

Yeah, this is part of the way causality language is used in the Old Testament.

One of the great examples of this is when you say who hardens Pharaoh's heart?

Is it God or is it Pharaoh or is it both?

Exodus seems to say all three, where it talks about Pharaoh hardening his heart and talks about God hardening Pharaoh's heart.

So, let me pull up those verses.

See that one verse written in the passive voice, Pharaoh's heart was hardened.

And so that doesn't tell us who did it, doesn't have, um, the agency tied to it.

Exodus 4 says in verse 21, I will harden his heart.

Likewise, Exodus 7:3, um, and then Exodus 8 though, When Pharaoh saw there was a respite, he hardened his heart.

So who hardened Pharaoh's heart?

Was it God?

Was it Pharaoh?

Well, Exodus 7 says God, Exodus 8 says Pharaoh.

And then, uh, Exodus 8 goes on to say in verse 32, Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also.

Exodus 9 says, The heart of Pharaoh was hardened.

Exodus 9:12 says, The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh.

So what I hope you're seeing is the writer of Exodus doesn't see a difference between saying God hardened Pharaoh's heart and that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

And that is a very different way of speaking in terms of causality verbiage than we use in English and makes it sound like, uh, God is forcing Pharaoh to do something.

And that's not what's happening.

So one of the early church fathers talked about this in terms of the sun, where the sun hardens the clay and it melts butter, but that doesn't mean the sun hates clay and loves butter or something like that.

What is really going on there is that clay and butter are reacting to the same sun in different ways.

So if I say like, Oh, I gave this talk that alienated my audience.

Well, I'm not saying like I was trying to push people away.

I'm, I'm forcing them to reject what I'm saying.

What I mean by that, and I think what an English speaker would understand in that context is, I'm doing something that some people are not going to receive well.

So they really alienate themselves.

They, they choose not to accept whatever I'm, I'm speaking on.

Well, likewise, we can choose not to accept whatever God is presenting and so we can, uh, harden our hearts.

So that is described as God hardening their hearts but we would, in English say, we've hardened our heart towards God.

Likewise, you'll notice in Ezekiel 14 that the person who chooses to believe falsehoods is described as, as being like punished for this.

The, If the prophet be deceived and speak a word, I, the Lord have deceived that prophet and I will stretch out my hand against him and he will destroy, and will destroy him, excuse me, from the midst of my people, Israel.

It's, uh, someone who is basically hardening their intellect by refusing to accept what God is actually telling them and, and going with something false instead.

So it is self-deception in response to God but in the same way that hardening of heart language is used, it is described in the language of Hebrew as, as if J- like God is, is deceiving him.

But there's plenty of other passages that God cannot deceive in both the Old and New Testament so we know that language is not to be taken literally.

Um, that's one of the principles of hermeneutics.

If, if a literal interpretation would be heretical or contradictory, that is a red flag that a non-literal interpretation is to be preferred.

All right, let's see.

Dinkle Dork says, Thanks Joe, you've been very instrumental to my conversion.

Well, God bless you.

When's your next debate?

Yes, uh, I am debating Alex from needgod.net and Are you telling me I didn't put this on my own calendar?

Oh yeah, no, I did.

Okay.

It is May 25th, which is Sunday, at 6:00 PM Central and the question is, does water baptism save?

And the Bible says yes, and I say yes, and many Protestants like Alex say no.

So we'll have to find out whether we should listen to Alex or the Bible.

That's obviously I'm, I'm being a little bit tongue-in-cheek there, but there you go and I'm very much looking forward to it.

Um, I'm going to be present at the Voice of Reason debate this week.

What Voice of Reason debate is it?

He does so many debates.

I knew there was one he had coming up.

I thought it was in like three weeks.

Oh, did I say Alex?

I did.

I mean Ryan, sorry.

I even have Ryan.

It literally says Ryan at Need God on my Outlook calendar and I still said Alex.

Sorry Ryan.

Hope they'll do better in the debate.

Oh, Las Vegas at 11:00 AM Voice of Reason is debate Uh, 11:00 AM what day?

Okay, well Voice of Reason is doing a debate upcoming and I don't know when that is, but I bet it'll be very good.

Tanner says, That awkward moment when you're Saint Paul as an Adventist and have to preach at synagogue and church at the same time.

Yeah, that is kind of funny, uh, where, you know, it is like how do you harmonize those thing?

I Yeah, there's a lot of groups that it's like your, your vision of what Christianity would look like is just so different than the way Christianity works in say Acts that it is untenable.

All right, Mr. Anglo says We should have a contest for who has the weirdest and best YouTube name.

So, uh, Mr. Anglo, In what sense is Mary the mediatr- mediatrix of all graces after the cross?

I don't think anyone can deny an incarnation in the cross but ongoing Yeah, so-There's this question about how God's grace comes to us, and whether grace works independently of the church or through the church.

There's all sorts of things that are kind of related to this.

So certainly, you have the obvious sense in which through the incarnation, uh, when Jesus says in John 6 that the bread that he gives for the life of the world is his flesh, he gets that flesh from his mother.

She says yes, and, you know, as the church fathers are very fond of saying, by her obedience, unties the knot of Eve's disobedience.

So as far back as you have something like the New Testament, you also have Christians saying that part of the meaning of the New Testament message is that Mary has this important role in cooperating with God, uh, for the plan of salvation.

That doesn't mean Mary dies on the cross for your sin.

Obviously, nothing like that.

But that Mary has this really important role that she plays, uh, and that in the plan of salvation if you cut Mary out of the picture, it doesn't work the way that it actually works biblically.

Um, so yeah.

That, but then how does that continue to work?

Well, through the maternity of Mary in part, that Mary's the mother of the living.

If you look in John 19 at the cross when he changes her name, well doesn't really literally change her name, but goes from calling her woman to calling her mother.

This mirrors the name change in Genesis 3:20 when Adam changes the name of his wife.

Originally Eve's name is not Eve, it's woman, and then it's changed to woman.

She goes from woman to mother.

And likewise in John 19 when he says, Woman, behold your son, and then he says to John, Behold your mother.

The same name change thing is going on there where now she has this new role in a spiritual maternity over John and, and over all Christians.

And if you don't see that, you see that reiterated in Revelation 17 when we're told that she's the mother of those who believe in Jesus.

So excuse me, it's Revelation 12 verse 17.

Uh, the dragon was angry with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring.

So notice the mother of Jesus has other children because this is the woman who gave birth to the one destined to rule the nations who is Jesus.

So the mother of Jesus biblically has other children, but they're not biological children as, you know, Protestants often say.

It is rather those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus, and so if you keep the testimony, the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus, then you have Mary as your mother.

Now, you could say, Oh, maybe Revelation 12 is the church.

We'd say that's also true.

Um, it's, it's a both end.

Like the church is our mother, Mary is our mother.

And then oh, uh, Vatican II talks about this, by the way, also like in what sense we can say this and what sense we don't.

She's still a creature.

We're not claiming anything other than creaturely-ness for her, but she is sort of the embodiment of the church.

I mean, if you think about the original, uh, presentation of Christ to the world, it's Mary's the only disciple.

And so Mary is the church's personification, and the early Christians recognized this.

For instance, uh, Saint Embers of Milan in the fourth century said what we say of Mary we can say of the church and vice versa.

So even that question Revelation 12 is the mother of Jesus in Revelation 12 Mary or the church?

We would say yes.

It's a both end.

Patrick says, Patrick Steele, not a funny name, but I guess that's fine.

I'm not gonna pick on everybody's name, sorry.

No one's ever going to donate again.

Um, says it seems to me that a big error and Sola Fide is that faith/trust is split from love.

It seems to me the Catholic teaching is that faith is one facet of love which is why you cannot separate them.

Now strictly speaking, you can have faith without love but faith without love as Saint Paul tells us is nothing.

So, um, this is why Benedict XVI famously said you could affirm Sola Fide if you had faith, hope, and love.

Like if, like if you don't divorce faith and charity then you could believe in, you know, justification by faith alone if you don't actually mean that faith is alone.

And that's important because many Protestants will, when they say faith alone actually mean that you're not doing something apart from the grace of God.

And it's like yeah, yeah, that's fine.

We're fine with that.

We're not saying you need to have some like salvific works to earn your relationship with God, but we do think that you need to be transformed by the love of God in such a way, uh, and so here's the questions I would ask.

I, I wrote a piece on this many years ago on in 2015 called Is St. John Key to Settle in the Justification Debate?

And, um, I asked these questions.

Number one, can you go to heaven without loving God and your neighbor?

And I think the answer to that has to be no because First John 3:14-15 says we know that we've passed out of death into life because we love the brethren.

He who does not love remains in death.

Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

So as Saint Paul says in First Corinthians 13, If I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing.

Now Paul would say you can have faith without love 'cause he just said if I speak in the tongues of men and ang- gils but I have not love, I'm a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

No one I, I've seen has ever, um, denied you can speak in tongues and not have charity.

Then he says if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, you could do that and have no love, right?

You can be knowledgeable but not loving.

But then he says if I have all faith but have not love, I am nothing.

Now you'll have Protestants who say oh, that's literally impossible.

Paul doesn't think it's impossible, but fine.

If by faith alone you actually mean faith plus charity, okay.

We're, we're okay, but either way we have to say To go to Heaven, you have to love God and your neighbor.

These are the two great commands upon which everything else hangs.

Which then leads to the second question: Can you love God without keeping His commandments?

And biblically, I think the answer to that has to be no.

In John 14 to 15, Jesus reiterates this several times.

For instance, in John 14, verse 15, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Verse 21, He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.

And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.

In the next chapter, John 15, verse 10, If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love.

And then in 2 John 1:5-6, uh, John tells us, This is love that we follow His commandments.

This is the commandment, as you have heard from the beginning, that you follow love.

So you can't love God and not keep His commandments.

Re- repeatedly, we're told that.

And that leads to the last question.

Can you keep God's commandments, which are again, necessary, without doing good works?

Well, biblically, uh, the answer to that is no.

Jesus says I'm gonna cheat a little bit and quote Matthew as well as John.

In Matthew 7, Jesus says, Let your light shine so before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

So that's one of the things that we're commanded to do.

And likewise, John, in 1 John 3, it says, beginning in verse 17, If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?

Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in deed and in truth.

So w- we have to say faith needs to be accompanied by love.

And love isn't just love in word or in speech, but in deed.

And the normal way we describe love in deed is good works.

So someone who believes in Sola Fide, I'd love to hear kind of the objection, can you have faith without love?

Can you have love that is just in, in thought or in word or in speech, or does it have to actually be in deed?

And if you track with all that, then hopefully, uh, you see why a proper understanding of justification is, yes, we are gratuitously saved by God, but our reaction to that has to be one of not only faith, but also love, a love that works itself out.

Okay.

Mr. Lepanto says, Joe, the Catech- Creators Conference is coming up.

What kind of drip are you gonna have?

You gotta one-up the Catholic Answers Conference outfit.

Oh.

My wife's gonna kill me, but I think you're right about that.

I think I do need to, uh, get some good drip, as you say.

I don't know yet.

That challenge, accepted.

I'm, I'm gonna have to think about that.

You know, I will take advice in the chat, but I will probably do something nobody's thought of.

We'll see.

All right.

Tanner Gibbs says, Mom, brother, and sister just entered the church.

God bless you, brother.

That's, uh, I say brother.

Tanner's usually a guy's name, but if, if apologies are needed, apologies are, you know, given.

But yeah, congrats to your mom, brother, and sister.

That is beautiful.

All right.

Matt says, Joe, what are some ways the Church can do a better job of catechizing its members?

We need to focus better on, uh, how we reach young, like kids and young people, for really obvious reasons.

The Church has been very awkward about interacting with small kids since the abuse crisis.

But we see in the numbers this is having a, a deleterious effect, because people are leaving the Church, like in the early teenage years.

That's when they're becoming disaffected and disaffiliated, and they become too cool for church.

And then this leads them on this trajectory right out of the church, that it's very hard to have any kind of inroads with them from that point on.

So, um, we need to be better at that kind of approach.

Like, a lot of what we're doing very well, I think, is high-level apologetics.

People who are willing to sit through an hour-long YouTube video, or they're willing to, like, read a long book, or those kind of things, they're gonna see a lot of really good arguments for Catholicism.

But a lot of what we're doing, like, in Sunday school, that sort of thing, is, it's weak tea, frankly.

Um, so I think getting kids exposed to the kerygma, to the basics of the story of salvation, to the biblical events, uh, that sort of thing, we need to do a lot of work on, and keeping it in this relational context.

And I think pedagogically, one of the things that we're getting wrong is we're doing too much of a, Oh, what do you think, kind of level of catechesis, whereas, What does this mean to you?

What are your reactions?

And those questions aren't bad, but they're actually inappropriate for the earliest stages of learning.

Uh, little kids learn best by rote memorization.

That's why they like to listen to the same songs over and over again.

And it's, like, why they like to ask the same questions over and over again.

This is their learning method.

Um, and so having more rote memorization, uh, is actually good.

People knock on things like the Baltimore Catechism, but the truth is, that is pretty appropriate for the style of learner.

So a Q&A style catechism, all that stuff is really good.

So that's not my skill set, uh, but I know from the outside, that's the kind of thing that we need.

Um, so yeah, there you go.

Isaac says, How do you respond to the objection that Peter's name was changed, John 1:42, before his proclamation of faith in Matthew 16 when he received the keys?

That, uh, it doesn't say that.

It says the opposite of that.

It says that his name will be changed.

I actually think John 1:42 is one of the best arguments for reading Matthew 16 as about Peter individually.

So let me give a little bit of background.

In Matthew 16, Jesus famously says, You are Peter, Petros, and upon this rock, Petra, I will build my church.

And so the question is, all right, what's going on here? Petros and Petra both mean rock.

You will have people who claim that they don't, that one of them means, like, pebble and the other one means rock.

It's not really true.

Um, so then they'll say, Oh, well, really this is just Peter's confession of faith.

Or it's, you know, Martin Luther will say that anyone who confesses their faith in Jesus is, is a Peter, and so we're all called to be Peters because we're all called to be stones, you know, in, in the building up of the Church in Ephesians 2. And so it's Okay, the first red flag that this is wrong is no one besides Peter has his name changed to Peter.

Uh, the second red flag this is wrong is if you read through John 1, it's actually hilarious, uh, how this works.

Like, everybody besides Peter confesses Jesus, and then Peter says nothing, and then Jesus tells him he's gonna change his name to Rock.

So let's just go through it slightly.

John 1, um, verse 29, John the Baptist says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And then he says, Behold the Lamb of God again in verse 35.

Two of his disciples, he hears his name, follow Jesus, and then one of the two, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother says, We have found the Messiah.

So John the Baptist has confessed Jesus.

Andrew confesses Jesus as the Messiah.

Um, I'm gonna skip over verse 42 because we're gonna get back to it.

Verse, uh, 45, Philip tells Nathaniel and says, We have found Him of whom Moses and the law and the o- prophets also wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

So Philip has confessed Christ.

Nathaniel then, uh, meets Jesus and says, Rabbi, you are the Son of God.

You're the King of Israel.

Very similar, actually, to Peter's confession in Matthew 16.

And then, I believe there was maybe one other that I skipped over, but there's at least four people in there that confess Christ.

Right?

John the Baptist, Andrew, Philip, Nathaniel.

And then Simon Peter says literally nothing in John 1. And so in John 1:42, Andrew brings Peter to Jesus.

Jesus looks at him and says, You are Simon the son of John.

You shall be called Cephas, which means Peter.

So, the name change is not tied to your confession of faith is the rock.

Very clearly, if a confession of faith was what makes someone the rock, everyone besides Peter should have had their names changed, and Peter shouldn't have had his changed.

Second reason this verse helps is it shows that Petros/Petra, this Greek word play that al- allegedly matters a whole lot from the Protestant reading, this, and standard Protestant reading, there's plenty of different Protestant readings, it doesn't make any sense because we're told Cephas is what he actually calls him, which is Kepha in Aramaic, and this is a transliteration.

So, why does that matter?

Because Kepha just means rock.

There's no pebble versus rock thing going on at all.

You are Kepha, and upon this Kepha, I will build my church, is therefore what Jesus says in Matthew 16.

Now, notice he says, You shall be called Cephas.

Th- the name change has not seemingly happened yet.

It is an anticipation of a change that will happen in the future, and we see the fulfillment of that in Matthew 16.

And that's when you have the kind of formal name change kind of language in all of this.

So John 1 and Matthew 16 should be read together, and I think Matthew 16 we, we can say definitively, well, it must have been in Aramaic because John 1 says it was in Aramaic, um, You shall be called Cephas, which means Peter.

It does not say, You shall be called Petros.

So that leaves the question of why then the Petros/Petra thing in Matthew 16?

Very simply, the word Petros is no longer used for stone in the normal sense, uh, anywhere in the New Testament.

By the first century, the word is archaic.

So Petra is what you use.

You use lithos for a stone and petra for a large rock.

And so Petros/Petra is, is used in an archaic for- form of Greek by that time.

So why then do- does Jesus name him, or why does Matthew record his name as Petros rather than Petra?

Because Petra is a girl's name, but more importantly because Simon Peter has been preaching and he's known as Petros in Greek.

We know this from his own letters.

We know this from other references to him.

He's known as Kephas or Petros.

Read about Peter in Acts or Galatians or anywhere else.

Those are the two names by which he is known.

John, or Matthew is not gonna add a third version, give him a girl's version of the name.

So he can't do Petra, and it doesn't make sense to say, you know, You are Petros and on this lithos, 'cause that would just be a little stone, not a big rock.

And it doesn't make sense to say, You are Petros and on this Petros, 'cause it's no longer a word used in first century Greek.

So, that's a lot, but there you go.

Um, Billy says, Does Justin Martyr seem not to hold to the Trinity?

No, he holds to I think he has maybe an incomplete Trinitarian theology in some ways because it hasn't been clearly defined at this point, but I think he believes in something approaching Orthodox Trinitarianism.

There's a question of whether he thinks that Jesus is equal to the Father.

And to be honest, I don't remember all of the kind of passages that were in that dispute.

'Cause you will find stuff where the earliest fathers are sometimes a little shaky on Trinitarian theology, just 'cause it's not something that's been carefully defined yet.

But I would, I would say read them generously and not technically.

You know, like you can find things in the New Testament itself where if you read them in a technical sense, Oh, the Father is greater than I, what does Jesus mean by that?

Those kind of things.

If you're expecting that to work the same way as a technical formulation, you might come away with the wrong impression.

All right, Cherpumer, Cherpumier, apologies if I'm mispronouncing that.

Well, good.

You say, Hi, Joe.

Sorry for having a weird Slavic name.

I've got a Slavic wife, so, you know, she's a ƒrist.

My question is, I mean, she's not anymore, but I'm used to weird Slavic names, but not good at pronouncing them.

So, apologies.

My question is, is there a better argument for icon veneration other than you have pictures of your family that I could give to Protestants?

There's two questions.

'Cause th- the thing with icon veneration is you have to figure out exactly where the point of disjuncture is.

So, I would start with that.

Are they against all images?

Usually not.

You'll find some more radical Protestants who think any images are, are evil.

Um, that's the true, kind of iconoclastic view in the most extreme form.

But most are gonna say, No, that obviously that's too much.

They'll have plenty of pictures in their house.

But then you say, Okay.

Well, maybe I, I can have pictures but not of like I'd have a picture of George Washington on my money or in my house, but I can't have a picture of a great saint.

That seems like a pretty insane kind of place to settle, but that's where a lot of people have settled.

You can't have anyone who you, you revere for religious reasons, but if you revere them for like political reasons or something, that's okay?

I find that a very strange position and completely unbiblical position.

But at least try to hammer out if, if that's where they're at.

And then you'll have people say, No, actually, religious images are okay as long as you don't venerate them.

And then you'll want to make the distinction.

Are they okay with images of Jesus Christ?

Are they just having a problem with this being Like 'cause sometimes people's issues in terms of iconoclasm is actually just an issue with not wanting to reverence the saints.

Other times it is specifically tied to the idea that because it's an image, therefore it's idolatry.

And so figuring out exactly where they are is I think an important preamble to knowing how to answer that.

Um, because you can point to any number of things, you know, in with the Ark of the Covenant.

God commands the cherubim be created above the arc where people are literally bowing down in worship, and here are these two golden angels, and God is perfectly okay with that.

In fact, he orders it.

You have the serpent who is raised up in the desert, and this is a model that Jesus gives of the crucifix in John 3, and there's clearly veneration paid to that.

It actually crosses into straight on idolatry in the, you know, Old Testament Israel loved to worship false gods.

And so in that sense, um, th-you know, you, you have that.

So yeah.

I see somebody in the comments as just quoting Exodus 20, and but quoting like a bad translation of it.

Like graven images are the problem?

No.

In Hebrew, פֶּגָעוּ״, like idols are the problem.

And so just understand like a lot of people think that the Bible literally forbids images and then orders images in the same book, and that just makes God contradictory.

So, uh, that's what I would say to that.

Like make sure that they understand biblically that what is prohibited is not images, and it's not veneration, it is idolatry.

And that if you don't get that, then you actually can't make sense of the Old Testament or the New Testament.

Um, Mr. Engler says, Are Catholics allowed to have a post-nill view?

And so in terms of like rapture or something?

Uh, I don't know why you would have that view necessarily, but I don't think it's something that's actually forbidden.

Let me see something real quick.

Um, ba-ba-ba-boom.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Well Yeah.

I want to know if you are talking about like the rapture.

There is a Catholic answers tract on the rapture that is available online if you look up that, and you'll see why you shouldn't believe in that.

I think it's a misread of it, of scripture.

It's from the 20 Answer Series on the End Times.

Uh, I don't think that you can sustain a kind of rapture view in light of scripture, but I don't think it's something that is explicitly condemned.

So I think it's wrong, but I don't think it's like an explicit heresy.

But I think if you delve deeper, it involves misreading a lot of passages that the church has a very different reading of.

Uh, Dr. Schwimmer says, Can Filioque be revised from a Roman Catholic perspective?

Depends what you mean.

Could you pray the creed without the Filioque?

Absolutely.

Uh, popes have done that even in recent years.

I think John Paul II did that in a kind of ecumenical gesture.

Uh, but could we say, No, the Holy Spirit doesn't proceed from the Father through the Son?

Not without being heretics, because the Holy Spirit does in fact proceed from the Father through the Son.

Um, Israelite Defense says, Hey, Joe, are works of the law good works?

No, those are two different categories.

I mean, there might be some that are both works of the law and good works, but those are not the same thing biblically.

DinkleDork says, Sorry, again, easiest way to explain the Trinity to a Mormon?

They confuse it with modalism.

I usually send them to Carl Sagan's Flatline video to talk about the complexity of explaining higher dimensions.

The Yeah.

The I think it's important to just say person refers to who, nature refers to what.

There is one divine what and three divine whos, and they share in one what-ness, not just in a unity of purpose, but a unity of being.

We don't have a normal experience of that.

You can point to some sort of imaginative things that are sort of pointed in the right direction, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Freaky Friday, those kind of things.

None of th- none of those are very good, none of those are perfect, even like multiple personality disorder.

Uh, those things are, uh, they're also all negative, uh, which doesn't help, but it can at least point to you could have multiple persons sharing one body, uh, which is maybe not helpful to use with Mormons since they tend to think God is bodily, which would be wrong.

But yeah.

And that So that There you go.

But yeah.

So basically the Trinity's hard to explain, but pointing in that direction that w- when we use this techno language of person and substance, we mean what versus who or who versus what.And so yeah, there's not an easy way.

Heresy tends to be a lot easier to explain than orthodoxy for the simple reason that people, and often dumb people, come up with heresies so they make theories that, that work really well to, like, you can explain it very simply, because a simple person created it.

But reality is often more complicated.

Eugenio says, Recently I'm at a group of very liberal Catholics that were promoting LGBT stuff.

I'm new to faith and didn't know how I should approach it.

How would you recommend we handle these types of conversations?

I would ask them for what their relationship with Jesus is like, and I would watch out for them having the kind of like, Oh, yeah.

Jesus is just like, 'Love you, do whatever you want.' But like, what does Jesus actually say?

'Cause he says things about this, and Saint Paul says things about this.

And I would just really challenge them on that.

Like, by all means we want to be loving and welcoming for everyone, um, but we don't want to, like, affirm people in sin and we don't want to pretend things that are sinful aren't sinful.

So I would just stress that.

I think there's a it depends a little bit on your own.

It sounds like, you know, as, as a newcomer to the faith, you might be in a different box.

Many people, liberal Catholics in the sense that you mean liberal, like, like people who are maybe heretical even in their approach to the faith, um, want to just affirm in some un-nuanced way that doesn't call people to conversion, and that's actually deeply un-Christian.

On the flip side, they are going to be turned off, and people who are struggling with same sex attraction or living a lifestyle contrary to the church are going to be turned off if we are not obviously warm and welcoming and loving towards them.

Now, uh, sure, it's a love that doesn't want to leave people in their sin.

It's a love that is transformative.

I mean, anyone who's married knows you can love someone and think they need to work on something, and you maybe even love them enough to want them to.

Uh, oh, Saint Edmund Campion, Sherry.

I just saw your comment, your question.

But ho- so yeah, let me know if that, uh, Campion is champion without the H. Uh, let me know if that helps, Eugenio, 'cause it, it is a hard conversation to have.

I, please don't be scandalized when you meet someone who, like, grew up Catholic and believes things that the Catholic Church doesn't.

It is possible to, for someone to have a very complicated relationship with Catholicism, a complicated relationship with Jesus, and we, you know, we accompany them, we love them, we might challenge them.

All right.

Cruz says, Lofton has been arguing that the Magisterium teaches most people are saved by a truce in their religion, and evangelization isn't a priority.

Thoughts?

I think evangelization is a priority.

We want to be hopeful.

There's actually a danger in being overly pessimistic.

If you say, Only a tiny, tiny handful of people are saved, a lot of the world immediately is like, That sounds insane, and they're gonna just tune you out.

And so I don't, I don't think you want to do that.

I think the thing that you should instead be doing is, is saying, Look, there's plenty of passages where Jesus seems to suggest salvation is difficult, and so we strive for, uh, the conversion and salvation of everyone.

We don't have to assume that they are or aren't saved.

We can know if somebody doesn't have a complete picture and we want to give them a more complete picture.

I don't have to make a diagnostic of the soul of somebody else.

So, evangelization is absolutely a priority, um, that the church has repeatedly affirmed.

Eh, Christifideles Laiciis, uh, Saint Paul Ne- Jo- Saint John Paul II gives instructions explicitly telling of the great need in the modern era to do evangelization.

So, I would be skeptical of any, uh, one saying that the great commission is not that big of a deal anymore.

Uh, I haven't heard Michael Lofton say that.

I'd be surprised if that is his view.

Patricia says, Beautiful explanation of faith and works.

Thank you.

I wish people would realize Catholics don't think you get into Heaven by serving soup to the needy.

That's right.

I mean, serving soup to the needy comes out of how much do I love God and how much do I love my neighbor?

And if I don't love God and my neighbor, I'm in trouble.

But the soup is a symptom rather than anything else.

Jacob, uh, says, Do you or any of the Catholic apologists ever take on younger apprentices?

Not in an explicit, like, you can come live in my basement sort of way, but, uh, we do have, like, affiliations with different kind of up-and-comers to try to cultivate the next generation of talent as, as we, uh, are gonna have to die and be buried soon.

Um, hopefully not that soon.

But yeah, we, so we have done various things to try to cultivate that, but it's not like a one-on-one sort of apprenticeship.

I actually think there's probably more we could do, but it's partly just a question of, um, yeah, and time and how we, how we kind of respond to the limited resources and time we have.

Geckoniner says, Just pray Traditiones Custodes is undone.

Your lips to God's ears.

I, I am interested to see where this I'm just gonna say I'm interested in seeing where that goes.

All right.

Um, last question.

Charlie says Oh, no.

Praxur has two hearts and two Vatican flags, which is great.

I agree.

Charlie says, What Bible verse do you use to prove the filioque?

Part of it is just having a sound Trinitarian theology that there is no So, we're talking about what individuates human beings.

We're individuated at the level of matter.

We don't mean the same thing when we talk about spiritual beings.

So, every angel, it's not that they have different bodies.

There's a different way that you have individuation at the spiritual level.

This is deep theology and deep metaphysics, a- in, like, the last couple minutes, so I apologies if this is just super drink from the fire hose, but I'm gonna do my best.

With God, it is not the Father, Son, and Spirit have three separate bodies, obviously.

But it also isn't that they're three separate spiritual beings because that would be tritheism.

That would be heretical.

That it is instead- uh, one being with three persons who are individuated by relation.

And so, the way we can distinguish between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is that the Son is everything of the Father except for the fatherhood.

And the Father is everything of the Son except for the sonship.

And one difference between the Son and the Spirit is that the Son is begotten by the Father, and the Spirit is spirited, breathed, uh, from the Father through the Son.

If you get rid of that then it is no longer clear how the Son and the Holy Spirit are two separate persons.

So, if you understand all that kind of philosophical, metaphysical framework, then every time the Son is spoken of as not the S- the Spirit and vice versa, then there's a clear distinction.

And it's, it's very clear from the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is not Jesus.

And Jesus talks in John 14 to 16 about spending, sending the Spirit.

And this wouldn't make any sense if he was the Spirit, right?

He talks about how the Spirit won't come until after he's ascended, uh, and then he says in John 16 verse 13, When the Spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all the truth.

For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

All the Father has is mine.

So, I, I see in that, uh, a clear distinction between Jesus and the Spirit, and, uh, even a sense of what their relationship is.

A few verses before that in John 16 verse seven, Jesus says, Nevertheless I tell you, the truth is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor, this is the Holy Spirit, will not come.

But if I go, I will send him to you.

Now, we need to make a distinction.

There is the inner life of God and then there's God's action in the world.

And God's action in the world reflects the inner life of God, but isn't the same as it.

So, if you understand this, and you'll see why it's fitting that the Son became incarnate and not the Father, because the Son is the Word spoken by God.

And so, it is fitting for the Word to become flesh.

He is, he is the message, and so, uh, as such he fittingly is the one who becomes incarnate.

Well, likewise, when he talks about how he is going to send the Spirit, this tells you why we think of the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity, and you can see in the earthly ministry of God, the Father sends the Son who sends the Spirit.

And so we can talk as well of the Father sending the Son through the Spirit.

Excuse me, sending the Spirit through the Son.

Mea culpa.

Uh, and so this points to the truth of the Filioque.

Now, this is, this is a deep bit of theology, so please understand if, uh, someone doesn't get that right away, that's totally normal, but that's where you're gonna get that.

All right, and then yes, I will be back in, I think, 13 days.

Let me look at my calendar to make sure I'm not going to be gone somewhere.

Yeah, that'll be the day after the debate too, so hopefully it'll be a very good livestream on Monday, May 26th.

Um, and so for anyone whose questions I didn't get to Oh, Jim says, uh, What would you recommend for someone who's a big struggle right now as whether Orthodox or Catholicism is true?

I'm gonna give you two quick recommendations.

If you wanna tune in in two weeks and remind me, I'd be happy to give deeper ones.

Number one, look at the role of Peter.

Or you can read my book, Pope Peter, which is all about this.

Does Jesus establish something like the papacy with Simon Peter in the first century?

Yes, he does.

And Orthodox are actually in a bad position to deny that 'cause they recognize a special Petran authority historically, and a special Roman authority historically.

Um, and so if that's true and that's the way Jesus built the church, we should be part of the church that Jesus built that looks like that.

Orthodoxy doesn't look like that anymore.

And then, um What was the second thing I was gonna say?

Oh yeah, well, okay, there's actually so many other things.

O- okay, I'm just gonna give you a second thing to explore.

How do we know which councils are ecumenical councils?

And look at the Robert Council spec- Council specifically, neither the East nor the West accepts it as a valid council because the Pope rejected it individually.

That tells you something of the authority of the Pope.

No other patriarch, no other bishop has that authority.

You've got other councils that were rejected by patriarchs, and that just meant they weren't in the church anymore.

But when the Pope rejects the so-called Robert Council, it is not a valid council.

And since 1054, or really after that, like 1220, when the Great Schism happens, Orthodoxy has never been able to call a council again that is recognized by the Orthodox themselves.

You'll have different groups of Orthodox who think there are different numbers of councils.

Seven is the usual view.

Some believe there are eight, some believe there are nine.

There's no consensus on what it takes in Orthodoxy to have a valid ecumenical council.

Therefore, there's no way Orthodoxy can respond in a unified way to any of the heresies that have happened in the last thousand years.

Everything from Protestantism to agnosticism and atheism and, and the like, and that's a, that's a big problem.

All right, you guys gave me, like, the two biggest, deepest questions at the very end, so hopefully, uh, there's something there for you to chew on.

And I will be back with another episode of Shem Hishpupri in a couple of days with a tier list of Protestant arguments against Catholicism, and then I'm working on a video right now for next week on, um, problems within Calvinism, on the love of God, and then, yeah, more to come after that.

And then I'll be back here in, like, 13 days.

All right, God bless you, and have a wonderful East- Easter season.

Peace.