Pints With Aquinas - DEBATE: Is it WRONG to pray to the Saints in Heaven?

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

In this episode, Cameron Bertuzzi joins me for another debate - this time about praying to the saints. We discuss:  - Catholic versus Protestant understandings of the word “prayer.”  - The relationship between the saints in heaven and Christians still on earth.  - What Scripture says about this topic.   Sign up for my free course on St. Augustine's "Confessions"!   SPONSORS Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/ Ethos Logos: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints   GIVING Patreon or Directly: https://pintswithaquinas.com/support/  This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer co-producer of the show.   LINKS Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/   SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd Gab: https://gab.com/mattfradd Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/pintswithaquinas   MY BOOKS Get my NEW book "How To Be Happy: Saint Thomas' Secret To A Good Life," out now! Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx   CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

G'day, g'day, g'day, and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name's Matt Fradd, and today I want to share with you a debate that I engaged in with Cameron Bertuzzi from Capturing Christianity several months ago now. It was originally just for our patrons. We have done several debates on Patreon, on the Eucharist, Sola Scriptura, prayers to the saints, purgatory, all these different things. But we decided to share this with you today because we're very generous. Also, I think it's really important that you as a Catholic understand how to respond to those who

object to Catholics praying to the saints. I should point out that if you're a Protestant, I should point out that if you're a Protestant, you're awesome, and I'm glad to have you here. And this is not like a debate where either of us were trying to slam dunk each other. We were just trying to share the position as best we could in a humble way. So I'm going to be playing this video, and I'll scroll through to the 8 minute 24 second of this debate, there's a lot of kind of intro and you don't want intro. Who wants intro? Not this guy. Let's just get into it.

So we'll play it and you let me know what you think in the comment section below. I would love your opinion. If you're a Protestant, especially, what do you think of the arguments I made? If you're a Catholic, what do you think of the arguments Cameron made? It turns out Cameron agreed with more things than I thought he would. But this was a really interesting back and forth, and I think you'll like it. Do us a favor. If you want this video to travel far and wide, click thumbs up and please share this on, say, Facebook.

That would be a really tremendous help for us. I don't know if YouTube has an incentive to push videos on Catholic apologetics. So if you want to help us, you can help us in that way. And we'd really appreciate it. You might have a Protestant friend who just struggles with this. They're like, look, I'm open to it, but I just don't think it's biblical. I think it's kind of idolatry. I don't know why anyone would think this is okay. Share this with them. Because again, no one's trying to be mean. No one's trying to slam dunk on each other we're just trying to have a good conversation so i'm going to play that video right now and when i throw it up i'm going to scroll through to like the eight minute mark because i'm playing the

video from my desktop here because again eight minutes of just like you know intro padding who wants padding god bless your friends. Here we go. Let's do it. All right. Ready? Here we go. Into it.

So it's perfect collected for a while. And so I've learned, even though it's not necessarily explicitly sanctioned or like taught as something that you've got to do in the Bible. Nevertheless, it's something that you can do in good conscience. And so anyways, why don't I pass it over to you, Matt, unless you have anything else to add before we get started? No, no, I appreciate it, Cameron. I always enjoy engaging in these interactions because it forces me to take a deep dive into topics that I may have neglected for a while. And so I've learned a great deal in my own research. Before I sort of try to make something of a positive case, I want to say thank you to the

following people whose books I've read in preparation for today's discussion. Trent Horne's book, The Case for Catholicism. Patrick Madrid's book, Any Friend of God's is a Friend of Mine, Jim Burnham's Beginning Apologetics, and then I also want to say thank you to Eric Ybarra, who pointed me to an interaction that St. Jerome had with Vigilantius in the 400s, which I got to read. So, you know, certainly benefiting from these people's work. Okay. All right. So today we are debating the historic Christian practice of asking our departed brothers and sisters in Christ, the saints, for their intercession. Though this practice dates to the earliest days of Christianity and is shared by the vast majority of Christians today, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and other Eastern Christians, as well as some Protestants, it is disputed by the majority of those in the Protestant movement

today. Now, I want to set myself a modest task here today, right? I don't see my task as convincing Protestants to pray to the saints. I want to make it more modest than that. And that's simply to help them see that this practice is more reasonable, biblical, and historical than they may have been led to imagine. I was doing a bit of research on different Protestant websites regarding this, Cameron, and I saw one website that said that Catholics, and I'm sure most or perhaps all of your viewers wouldn't think this. most or perhaps all of your viewers wouldn't think this. Okay. So this is quite fringe, I think.

But they claim that Catholics were polytheists who had gods for every day of the year. And what they were referring to are the feast days on which we celebrate the deaths of certain saints. So that's a bit insane, I think. But I would love to, if a Protestant today could watch this and hear our interaction go, okay okay, I see where they're coming from, even if I don't go the whole way, I'd be happy, right? So can we pray to the saints? First, let's define our terms. Even though in Protestant circles, prayer is often used to be synonymous with worship, when a Catholic uses the word prayer, he might mean a few different things. And when we talk about praying to the saints or even praying to God, we're using prayer in that old English sense of

the word. I like to read Grimm's fairy tales to my kids. And if you've ever read that, you'll see the contraction for, I pray thee, privy, you know, privy, shut the door, privy, pass me a beer or something. And that's, you know, prayer is just a way of saying ask. So by prayer, I mean any kind of request made by one person to another. By saints, I mean Christians, members of the body of Christ on earth or in heaven. Okay. So, you know, one response to the question, can we pray to the saints? Both Protestants and Catholics would say, absolutely.

In this sense, a Christian can ask another Christian on earth to pray for him. What is contested by the Protestant is whether or not a Christian on earth can ask a Christian in heaven to pray for him. So let me see if I can offer something of a positive case for this and the reasonableness of it. I think the first thing to keep in mind is that we as Christians are all members of the body of Christ and are so mystically united one to another. You know, many Protestants will even recite the Apostles' Creed. And in the Apostles' Creed, they pray, I believe, in the communion of saints. Well, this is what we're talking about, this sort of mystical union between the church and Christ as the head and then us also to each other. You know, John 15, 5, I am the vine, you are the head, and then us also to each other. You know, John 15, 5, I am the vine, you are the branches, right?

Romans 12, 4 through 5, St. Paul says, For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function. So we, though many, are one body in Christ and, listen to this bit, individually members one of another. So this is mysterious, but no less true because of that. So we're all united. Now, second thing to realize is that death doesn't separate us from the body of Christ. Christ doesn't have two bodies, one on earth and one in heaven,

nor are the members of his body in heaven relegated to an amputated or paralyzed part of Christ's body. They are part of the body of Christ and we may not say of them, I have no need of you. And sometimes Protestants say we shouldn't pray to the dead, but it's important to keep in mind that the saints in heaven are not dead. They are, in fact, more alive than we are. Two scriptures to keep in mind regarding that would be John 11, 25-26. I am the resurrection and the life, says Christ. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Also Mark 12, 27. He is not God of the dead, but God of the living. Third thing to keep in mind is that the saints in heaven are aware of the saints on earth. We could look at a number of different passages. We could look in the Old Testament, we could look in the Gospels, we could look in the Epistles, and we can look in the book of Revelation. We can even look at what sort of Jews of Christ's day thought of these things. So first of all, up till the 16th century, Protestants and Catholics had the same Bible. Even Luther's first German translation of the Bible contained the Deuterocanonical books.

One of the reasons Luther was keen to get rid of them is that they did teach things that he wanted to contest. So 2 Maccabees and Tobit, which Protestants don't have in their Bible, though I think they should, gives, I think, a good example of this. Okay, so in 2 Maccabees 1511, Judas Maccabeus has a dream which the Bible says is, quote, worthy of belief, and it depicts the deceased high priest Onias and the prophet Jeremiah, quote, praying with outstretched hands for the whole body of the Jews. In Tobit, we read that the angel Raphael is praying for Tobit. He says, Tobit, when you and Sarah prayed to the Lord, I was the one who brought your prayers into his glorious presence. Now, as I say, I understand that Protestants don't view these books as canonical, and so therefore

they may not help a great deal, except to show that the Jews of this time did understand that the saints in heaven and the angels can pray for us. In fact, the Talmud also describes the practice of visiting the graves of deceased loved ones to invoke their prayers and intercession. So it's important to realize if you want to deny what Catholics teach about intercession to the saints, one option that's not really available to you is this was some medieval invention that the church invented for some such. This is very ancient. And we can look at Matthew 17 as well. Now we can look at Matthew 17 as well.

If we are not meant to be conversing with the saints in heaven, why would Christ set the example of him communing with both Moses and Elijah? Also in Hebrews, this is a very important passage. The author writes in chapter 12, Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, Now, some Protestants have tried to argue that these Old Testament saints, because throughout chapter 11 of Hebrews, he's referring to these different saints and how they loved God. of Hebrews, he's referring to these different saints and how they loved God. Some Protestants have tried to argue that these Old Testament saints are witnesses to us in the sense of being examples to us. And while that's true, that's hardly the point the author seems to be making.

The imagery he is using is that of a stadium. As Protestant scholar William Barclay says regarding this passage, Christians are like runners in some crowded stadium. As they press on, the crowd looks down, and the crowd looking down are those who have already won the crown. Finally, if we want to know what takes place in heaven, there's no book we could look to perhaps to give us more of an idea than the book of Revelation. book we could look to perhaps to give us more of an idea than the book of Revelation. This might be a mysterious book, but that doesn't mean it's not coherent or interpretable. In Revelation chapter 6 verse 9, Saint John says the following, quote, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?

These martyrs St. John speaks of are both conscious before the second judgment, which is, I think, a refutation of the idea of soul sleep, which is a doctrine held by Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, and a minority of Protestants. And it also shows that they're aware of what's going on on the earth. We also see in Revelation that not only are they aware of what's going on on earth, they are even offering the prayers of the Christians on earth to the Father. Revelation 5, verses 8-10 says, And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb,

each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. The saints, of course, referring to the Christians on earth. So notice that the elders aren't offering prayers for the saints. The saints, of course, referring to the Christians on earth. So notice that the elders aren't offering prayers for the saints. They are doing that, but they're offering the prayers of the saints. So the prayers that the saints have offered, these elders are offering to God, which seems to be a powerful argument for the Catholic and Orthodox view. argument for the Catholic and Orthodox view. Now, who are the elders? Well, one article from the Protestant site gotquestions.org says the following, quote, they are most likely representative of the church. It's unlikely that they're angelic beings, as some suggest. He gives reasons for that,

which we can get into if that's something contested. Now, here's my fourth point, okay? And that is that the Christians in heaven are more alive and more charitable than we are. Are we to think that St. Paul, who continually told the Christians on earth that he prayed for them, would suddenly lose interest in them, though he is now perfected in charity before the face of God? before the face of God. Jerome, St. Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin in the 300s, or maybe into the early 400s, says this, If the apostles and martyrs, while still in the body, can pray for others at a time when they ought still be solicitous about themselves, how much more will they do so after their crowns, victories, and triumphs?

And then finally, I would say, you know, the idea that we cannot pray to the Christians in heaven, I think, is not only a minority fringe view, it's also a novel view, right? So the first person that I've been able to find who denies this is Vigilantius, who also lived in the 300s with Jerome. He called into question, praying to the saints, and Jerome absolutely blasts him, calls him a dog even. One of the things he says to Vigilantius is, how is it possible that a living dog like Vigilantius is more powerful than a dead lion, St. Paul. It's good. I think Protestant and Catholic relations have advanced since then. Of course, he wasn't a Protestant. He was a priest, this heretic.

But after that, I could find John Wycliffe, who lived shortly prior to the Protestant Reformation. Then, of course, you have Luther and Calvin who fully deny this. And of course, you have Luther and Calvin who fully deny this. And so we could look at a ton of examples from the earliest Christians on prayers to saints and prayers to angels, and maybe we'll do that. And I understand that the early fathers aren't inerrant. Protestants are sharing the same Bible verses, reading the same Bibles, and coming to different conclusions, a helpful way to interpret them is to say, what are the earliest Christians who knew the apostles believe? And I think what you'll find, and when you look at the earliest Christians,

there's no objection to praying to the saints. And if they are, this is a fringe view that's condemned by the church fathers, or it's one that's supported by them. So I understand, I think, the Protestants' apprehension to pray to the saints. I also don't deny that there aren't pitfalls that Catholics can fall into. I could imagine a Catholic becoming so enamored with their little devotion to this particular saint that perhaps they even cease to read the scriptures or cease to attend Holy Mass and even forsake their relationship with Christ and even go off into sort of superstitious elements. And that is concerning. But the Catholic would also want to condemn that. And just to realize that the abuse of something does not negate the proper

use of something. So even though there are abuses amongst Catholics in their devotion to the saints, it doesn't mean devotion to the saints are wrong any more than, say, a Protestant's devotion to the Bible may lead him to neglect his family, not gather together in a church. And you wouldn't thereby say, well, devotion to the scriptures is wrong, right? So the abuse does not negate the use. And with that, I'll wrap up. Thanks for your patience. Okay. So as I mentioned earlier, I don't have many objections to this view. I will say that probably the biggest objection that I've got has to do with the idea of soul sleep. But the reason why I don't want to get into that today is because

really for two reasons. So A, I have not done my research on this area of eschatology and I don't have a firm view on it. But B, I think that would take us sort of away from the topic today, which is basically, I want to try to keep it sort of contained to whether or not it's wrong or in some sense problematic to pray to the saints in the sense of making a request to them to pray for us. And so I think that while I, so here's, here's why that could be a potential objection. I think that if you, if you're not familiar with soul sleep, soul sleep is the idea that there's no intermediary state. So when someone dies, they sleep that the Bible uses the term sleep all throughout the New Testament. And I don't know if it's used in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament,

all throughout, sleep is used as a euphemism for death. And so what the idea of soul sleep is, is that when you die, you don't have any more conscious experiences until the general resurrection at the eschaton, at the end of time or when Jesus comes back. So, and obviously on that view, if the saint, if when anyone dies, they're not having any more conscious experience. So it wouldn't really make sense to pray and ask a saint to pray for you because they're not having any conscious experiences. So that's, that's why soul sleep is a sort of, I don't know, it's, if that view were correct, then, I mean, not only would Catholicism be false, but it would mean that

prayers to the saints, maybe it's not morally wrong, but it would just be irrational or, or you wouldn't want to do it. You wouldn't need to do it. So, but, um, I think that that would take us away from sort of the idea that we're getting at here. Do you have any thoughts on that? Because I don't want to get into it. I'm not going to defend soul sleep. The only thing I'm going to say is that I'm sort of undecided on that whole thing. Well, I guess I would ask if soul sleep is true, why was necromancy forbidden?

Like necromancy is a means of divination whereby one conjures up the dead. If soul sleep's true, then that's impossible. So I understand you don't want to get into it, but I mean, just to respond to it, I've offered several examples as to why the saints in heaven are conscious, which I think refutes that. I think it makes sense to use phenomenological language describing death as sleep, because when someone dies, they look like they're sleeping, they're laying down, they're not moving, and so forth. But you said if soul sleep is true, Catholicism would be false. Yeah, that might be true, but it would also mean that the absolute vast majority of Christians have been wrong on this, whereas the Jehovah's Witnesses are right somehow. So I don't mean to put you on the spot,

but that would be a question to consider, right? Like if necromancy is forbidden, it's forbidden because we're not meant to commune with the dead, and we can't commune with the dead if they're not conscious or aren't able to be conscious. with the dead if they're not conscious or can't aren't able to be conscious yeah i mean uh i don't know i'd have to i'd have to look into those those passions a little bit more deeply and kind of figure out how that would fit in so again i haven't really done my research on on soul sleep i've heard arguments for i've even uh interviewed a guy who who defends it and has a sort of that that's his view on the the end times so which but is your point just okay let's set that aside and for the sake of argument grant that the the kind of possible all christians yeah okay so you want to proceed with that

assumption right right because that is the view of most of most people and because i'm i'm not decided on it and i could and I could go either way. I think that there are some good reasons to think that soul sleep is true, but I also see that there are reasons to think it's false, and there's even numerous proof texts that are used to argue this. One of them is when Jesus is on the cross today, you will be with me in paradise. Those kinds of things. There are positive reasons to think that soul sleep is false. But I don't really want to get into that

today. I just want to highlight the fact that that is something that people have talked about in this conversation about prayers to saints, is that soul sleep could be a potential objection. But let's not get into that. What I would love to do, and I think will be very profitable, because as I mentioned at the very beginning of this, if you're just joining us, we have 47 people watching now, which is about double what we had when we began. What I mentioned at the very beginning of this is that in my research, because as I look into these different topics like the Eucharist and purgatory, I'm not coming into these with a set view. I'm like, okay, I know that I want to come out of this on the Protestant side or whatever. Like I want to reject the Catholic view of this. I don't come into these with that view or with that goal.

So in this case, what I did was I looked into the arguments against prayers to the saints and I found them very poor. And so what I think would be helpful at this point would be to look at these objections that I found. And you've even in your write up that you sent me, Matt, you've you've mentioned some of these as well. So it'd be profitable, I think, to run through some of the common objections that people raise against prayers to the saints. We've already talked about soul sleep, which we're not going to get into today. But well, actually, Matt, Matt sort of got into it and argued against it. So you've got something there. But there are others. That's not the typical one because people, as you said, it's not a very popular view, so it's not really raised a whole lot.

You don't really see that as a common objection. What you see more common is prohibitions against necromancy and stuff like that. So one of the strongest or most commonly cited proof texts against this is Deuteronomy 18, 10 through 12. And so what I'll do is I'll just read that really quickly. So in verse 10, there shall not be found among you, anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.

And because of these abominations, the Lord your God is driving them out before you. So some Protestants will use this. I don't think this is like the number one proof text that Protestants will use against praise to the saints. I think the more common one is in 1 Timothy, which we'll get to in a little bit. But so this one on the surface of it, and we even mentioned this in the live stream yesterday, this one does seem on the surface to be some kind of evidence against praise to the saints. But as I looked into it, I found that the broader context of this and even looking in a Protestant commentary found that that's not what this passage is really about. So I can I'll talk about it a little bit and then you can add whatever you want on top of it.

So basically in in this passage, what's happening is that the Lord God is giving, he's talking about what, he's basically telling the Israelites, don't do what these nations that are close to you are doing. And during that time, and this is, I'm getting this from this commentary, around that time, the ancient peoples in those parts of the world were very concerned about war and winning wars. And so because they were not Jews and they didn't have the right God, they were engaged in all sorts of like weird and wacky things in order to find out what God's will was or find out like, you know, how can we win these wars? And so if you read the broader context, you can see that basically God is saying, don't do those things.

Instead, you're going to discern my will through the prophets, through Moses. And so if you read the whole chapter, you can see that pretty clearly, but I'll just read some of the verses before and a couple of verses after the section that I just read you, and you can kind of see this a little bit more clearly. So the full context, and you can read the whole chapter 18, if you want Deuteronomy 18. But here's verse nine. So when you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. That's a pretty important verse to me. Like, why would you not want to include that in this? So

God is saying, don't do what these other nations are doing. More than likely, these other nations weren't praying to Jewish saints, right? So it's important to keep in mind, God is saying, don't do what these other nations are doing, because those are abominable practices. So it really is about what those other nations were doing. What were they doing? And then the list is, they give a list of things that they were doing. And so, but in the broader context, actually, let me read on here. So actually, I think the later verses kind of tell the same story. You shall be, this is verse 13, you shall be blameless before the Lord your God. For these nations which you are about to dispossess,

listen to fortune tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this. And then the rest of the chapter talks about the right way to discern God's voice, and that is through the prophets. And so going back to the commentary here. So this is all, this passage is really about how the correct way to discern God's voice.

Because again, they were very concerned about winning wars and surviving. And so what they were doing to survive these other nations, what they were doing was they were trying to get information from the dead. They were trying to like talk to the dead and try to get information from them, you know, kind of, they were doing all sorts of weird things, sacrificing their children and everything. And so God's saying, don't do those things. Listen to the prophets if you want to discern my voice. So that is really the point of this passage. It has nothing to do with asking or petitioning a saint to pray for you in the same

way that you would ask your family or your friends to pray for you. These are two completely separate things that are going on. And that's basically the view that I came to after looking into this passage. What are your thoughts? Yeah, well, just the first thing to say is that the Catholic Church strongly condemns all forms of divination, conjuring up the dead, these sorts of things. So in case people aren't aware of that, I would also say that when asking the saints for their intercession, we ask them to pray for us. When performing necromancy, someone uses magic to summon up the dead to reveal hidden information to them. So in a way, what we do is the opposite of necromancy. In necromancy, I perform satanic rituals to conjure up the dead to get something from them,

but I'm not doing that when I say, St. Paul, pray for me. I'm actually giving them information. And I think like a little kind of a humble example can show why none of us really think that praying to the saints is equivalent to necromancy. Suppose you go to a grandparent's funeral, and maybe there's a showing of the dead body and maybe it's your grandpa who has died and you're with your grandma and she comes up and she's pretty stable. And as she sees her dead husband, she begins to tear up and she kisses him on the head and she says something to him like, John, please pray to God that I have the strength to get through this funeral. Now, I don't think anybody would accuse her of practicing necromancy. This is a very different thing. So yeah, I think we're on the same page there. When Saul goes to the witch of Endor and sinfully calls back Samuel, he's using illicit means in order to gain information

instead of relying on the providence of God and prophets to tell him what he needs to know. And so for that reason, it's sinful. Yeah. So it's all about knowing what God's will was and the way that they would do that was through necromancy and trying to get information from these dead people. And that's not what's happening in the case of praise to the saints. So I think that's the takeaway there. So probably let's move on to the next objection. This is probably the biggest objection that I've seen, the most common one. The first one that gets raised is the Bible says that there is only one mediator between man and God, and that's Jesus.

the Bible says that there is only one mediator between man and God, and that's Jesus. And so in 1 Timothy 2, 5 through 6, actually, they typically only cite verse 5, which it's important to read the whole thing in context. I don't understand why people don't do that more often. 1 Timothy 2, 5 through 6, I'll read both of them. For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And that's typically where Protestants will stop. Here's verse six, who gave himself as a ransom for all, talking about the atonement, which is the testimony given at the proper time. Testimony given at the proper time. That's not really relevant here. The point though here is

that they'll say, okay, there's only one mediator between God and man, and that's Jesus, and so therefore we shouldn't pray to the saints. But what a lot of Catholic apologists will point out is that if that's true, that would mean that you shouldn't petition your friends or your family members to pray because there's only one mediator, right? But that seems to be wrong. I mean, even in the New Testament, people were praying for other people. Offer your prayers up. Testament, people were praying for other people. Offer your prayers up. So when I looked into this,

I found that the word mediator in Greek, I'm not going to try to pronounce it, but basically it means guaranteeing the performance of all the terms stipulated in a covenant. So it goes back to the atonement. What Paul is expressing here is that Jesus was the sole person that paid the ransom for our sins, but it doesn't communicate anything about intercession or asking people to intercede for you. So that's basically my view on this verse, and I don't think it supports the Protestant position. Yeah, no, I mean like to give the protestant they

do at face value i can see why uh someone might respond with this right it's like but then they're not reading it in context they're not reading the next the very next verse which says who gave himself as a ransom for all that's the that's the point that he's making here the mediator yeah that he's the one who made the contract possible, basically as a ransom for our sins. So they're not taking the verse in context. They're wanting to just find a proof text that supports their position. At least that's...

Right. But even if you put the scriptures aside and you just kind of look more generally at what's going on, right? I can see why the Protestant is concerned. He sees his communion being interested in Jesus Christ and the Holy Scriptures. He goes to a Catholic church and he sees all these candles ablaze in front of a statue of some French woman or something. And you think, well, if that's not what worship looks like, what would it possibly look like? It seems to me that you are going to

the Father through a number of different humans when there's no need to do that. So I think that's the kind of general point the Protestant would make. Now, certainly Catholics agree that Christ is the one mediator. He is fully God, fully man. So only he was able to sort of bridge the gap between God and man. But just as you say, Cameron, when somebody asks you to pray for them, you don't say, why don't you go straight to God? Nobody would say that. But in a way, it's the same sort of logic as the Protestant saying, why are you praying to Mary? Why don't you go straight to God?

Well, I am going straight to God. And I'm also asking Christians in heaven to pray for me. So 1 Timothy 2.5 needs to be read in light of the preceding verses, as well as the verse that comes after it, which shows that we participate in Christ's unique mediation in a sense. So if you begin with verse 5, it says, first of all, then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made for all people. All right. So in just like we don't steal or usurp Christ's unique mediatorship by praying for all people, nor do the saints in heaven. And so I would point out that Jesus shares many of his unique roles with Christians in lesser ways. And here are three examples.

First, we know from scripture that Jesus is the creator of all things. John 1, 3, for example, and yet he shares this role with men and women when they procreate. Two, we know from scripture that Jesus is the shepherd, and yet he delegates this role to Peter in a lesser way. You know, when he says, feed my sheep in John 21, 15. Thirdly, and finally, Jesus is the eternal high priest mediating his once for all sacrifice for our redemption. We learn that in Hebrews 3 1, and yet Christians are also called to join in Christ's priesthood, and Peter talks about that in 1 Peter 2 5, and we also learn about that in Revelation chapter 1 verse 6. So that would be my response to that.

chapter 1 verse 6 so that would be my response to that okay so let's move on to the next objection that you see sometimes is that praying to the saints means that you're worshiping them what do you think okay yeah so to worship at least in part means to attribute divinity to and there have been certain catholic heretics who have attributed divinity to. And there have been certain Catholic heretics who have attributed divinity to Mary, kind of making her a sort of fourth person of the Blessed Trinity, Blessed Quadrinity, I suppose. And these people were excommunicated, you know. So it is possible that people can attribute divinity to humans. They would be wrong, and it's an evil thing to do. humans, they would be wrong and it's an evil thing to do. But when I ask the saints in heaven to pray for me, I'm not doing that. I'm understanding that they're humans, but they're perfected. Yeah, I guess it kind of gets back to the other point. I don't think that you're divine when I

ask you to pray for me, but I understand, as James says, the prayers of a righteous man availeth much. Matt, you don't think I'm divine? I mean, your hair almost convinced me, but no. Borderline. You get a great, great head of hair. Yeah, I mean, what did you honestly think about that objection when you first heard it? Did you think, okay, come on, this just seems like you're now grasping at anything to throw at the poor catholics or or did you sort of were you sympathetic to it no i was not sympathetic to it at all i just my my only notes on this were no it doesn't

doesn't mean that you're yeah i don't know if i offer if i if i offer a sacrifice you know if i take an unblemished lamb and slit its throat and offer it to St. Agnes that she would see to it that I am given this, this, and this or something, then I'm worshiping her. But Catholics don't do that. And we also understand that whatever good gift we receive through the intercession of somebody, it's given through God, not through them. So if I pray that my wife is cured of her illness in the rosary, say, and she is, I don't attribute that miracle to Mary. I attribute it to God. All right. Here's another objection is that the Bible doesn't instruct us to pray to saints. So I'll just say something very quickly about this. I hate this objection because it doesn't really understand the purpose of the Bible and what it is and what it isn't. And so the Bible is not like a full list

of things that you should or shouldn't do. Like that is not the purpose of the Bible. The Bible also doesn't tell us to not look at porn. Does that mean that we should look at porn? No. So again, the Bible is not like a complete list of actions that you should or shouldn't perform. And so the fact that you don't find some prohibition or some instruction that you don't find that in the Bible doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it or that you should do it. So that to me, it's just a really poor objection. I think that what you'd need to do is to look at a broader theological case that could be brought like the one that we heard from Matt earlier. And then also what's important is to go through the various objections

to the view like we're doing now and see if any of the objections are good. And if they are, then that would give you some reason to think that it's wrong. But just because it's not explicitly instructed in the Bible, that alone is not a good reason to refrain from engaging in that behavior. You're going to make me defend the Protestant now. I feel like I've been making you defend it the whole time. Well, I mean, because sola scriptura is sometimes mischaracterized by Catholics as to mean a Protestant or a Christian ought only to accept that which is taught explicitly in Scripture. And this isn't what sola scriptura means, you know, at least a broader version and at least a more accurate, even if it's not fully accurate. I know these things can get complicated, but, you know, the Protestant also is open to there being sort of an implicit argument based on different verses of Scripture that one might put together.

So, for example, thou shalt not look at porn is not in the Bible, but whoever looks upon a woman with lust has committed adultery in his heart, and adultery is a grave sin. So I think the Protestant would say, okay, fine. I don't need maybe a direct, you must pray to the saints, but you got to give me more to go on than just there are saints in heaven and they are offering our prayers, you know? But let me, I mean, unless you're, I'll give you my response to that unless you wanted to. Oh yeah. I mean, what you're saying just now was completely compatible with what I was saying, because I was saying that what you would need to do instead of forward this objection is that you would need to look at a case like the one that you gave and then look through the objections. Okay. That's fair.

So I think that's kind of like what you're getting at too, is that you'd want to look at a fuller case. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, to me, if we know from scripture that the saints are aware of what's taking place on the earth, that they're even offering our prayers to the Lord, if we can make that case, which I think we can, then I'm going to need a specific prohibition not to ask them to pray for me, given everything else, you know? Here's a question I've got for you. given everything else, you know? Here's a question I've got for you.

Before you try to hold that thought, if you can, is there any, like, additional non-biblical support that you could give for prayers to the saints within the Catholic tradition? Oh, sure. Do you want me to do that? Yeah, yeah, I think that'd be... Yeah, so, I mean mean when you look at the earliest christians and how they thought of this i mean they they were really i i wouldn't say or

like does this does the yeah has some pope said that the you know this is what you should do or i don't know or is it in well yeah i mean is it in vatican one vatican two yeah i mean the second vatican council in lumigensium does talk about this, as do preceding councils, but this dates all the way back to the earliest years of the Church, or at least close to the earliest years of the Church. For example, in the 200s, Origen says, quote, but not the high priest Christ alone prays for those who pray sincerely, but also the angels, as also the souls of the saints who have already fallen asleep. Notice there that he's using anthropomorphic language, sleeping, and yet clearly believes them to be conscious. Cyprian of Carthage in the 200s says, let us remember one another in concord and unanimity. Let us on both sides of death always

pray for one another. Let us relieve burdens and afflictions by mutual love, that if one of us, The earliest prayer to Mary we can find dates back to the third century. It's an Egyptian papyrus, and it's a beautiful prayer to Mary. I won't read it. But also, you know, St. Augustine is very clear on this. This is very clear. Listen to this. He says, he's referring to Holy Mass. At the Lord's table, we do not commemorate martyrs in the same way that we do others who rest in peace so as to pray for them,

but rather that they, that is the martyrs, may pray for us that we may others who rest in peace so as to pray for them, but rather that they, that is the martyrs, may pray for us that we may follow in their footsteps. So yeah, I mean, I know that we differ on this because you're a Protestant and you want to go to the scriptures, and I do too, but I don't believe in sola scriptura, and I think it's a compelling argument to me. don't believe in sola scriptura. And I think it's a compelling argument to me. So what I would say, the benefit that the early church fathers give us is that they help us interpret scripture, I think, because we can kind of see that they're obviously closer to the events. They're closer to the language and the culture. And so if they interpret the passages some way, I think that does lead some kind of credence to that position right but it doesn't

it it doesn't do everything right it's it but it does lead some it does lend some amount it's it is evidently and another thing to point out too is the church the church rarely holds a council to define never actually holds a council to say define things that aren't in dispute. You know what I mean? Like when you hear the church defining things loudly, it's precisely because there is all of a sudden heresies that have arisen concerning these things. So there were heresies that were concerning the natures of Christ, and that's why in 325 at the Council of Nicaea,

you know, those things were defined. You know, you've got Pope Damasus I in 382 at a local council in Rome defining what the books of the Bible are. And those books are exactly what the Catholic has in his Bible today. But they weren't actually defined sort of dogmatically until the Council of Trent. And you think, goodness, Trent, that's really late in the game. Well, yeah, but that's because they weren't seriously in dispute until the Protestant revolt. So the fact that you don't see saints, say, condemning these prayers to the saints, when it's so common, I think it's a sign that this was accepted by the church as a whole. And when you

do have someone question it, like Vigilantius, you've got people coming down on them really hard. So, I mean, think of it this way, the water is purest, closest to the spring. And at the end of the day, we all work with a tradition. We're all looking to other people to help us explain the scriptures. And so what I would say is I would rather, sure, errant men in the first few hundred years of Christendom, I would rather take their interpretation than I would someone from today or 400 years ago or 600 years ago. Put it this way, if everyone of the early church or virtually everyone who's say like a prominent church member in say the first or second century thinks something, I don't want to go against that. And I think a Protestant, that should make a Protestant nervous. Like if a Protestant is against praying to the saints, then what that means is, if we found a time machine and went back to Jerusalem to like the hundreds, 200s, 300s, I would feel more at home than he would.

And that's, I think, got to make you rethink certain things, you know? Yeah. Can I just? You go. You go. You had something else to say? Because I mean, I did. I want to give you a chance to respond to that.

Yeah. Yeah. I did, but I want to give you a chance to respond to that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, maybe it'd be good to do a debate on the evidential value of the early church fathers, at least the different perspectives on it. I mean, the way I'm kind of seeing it now is that I think it does lend some amount of credence to these various interpretations of scripture because they were closer to the events. And I think they use the same kind of language. So like you even

mentioned earlier, what was it? Use the same euphemism for death? Oh, sure. Yeah. Sleeping. Was it origin? Yeah. Yeah. And he used, he used the same language. And so, I don't know. I think that it does lend some amount of credence. And so, but, but ultimately I think that that could be overturned. So if you're, if you're very convinced that the scriptures teach something else, then you could just hold the view that these people, even though that it was a, it was a very common view, they nevertheless were, were mistaken because of, you know, some, some sort of evidence that's very powerful and overcomes it. So I will say though, that, uh, I think it does lend some weight, but it's not sort of, you know, something that can't be overcome by other considerations,

but that would depend on what particular verse we're looking at and what the different interpretations, the various interpretations are and how plausible they are and stuff. So if, for example, so if the early church fathers all believed that babies went to hell, like I wouldn't be inclined to really accept that view just because all the early church fathers accepted that view, I would want to really look at the scriptures and determine if that's what the Bible actually teaches. So while that would give us some pause and some, I think it does actually provide some evidence for the view, but nevertheless, we'd still want to look at the scriptures themselves and see if the way to interpret those is the best way to do that because groups of people that have all sort of had the same view have been wrong and we know that and so it it but i think it does add some it does provide some

evidence but it's not evidence that can't be ultimately overcome. But if we were to be in that situation, we'd have to get into specifics. Sure. And I think one of the things that Catholic... I'm talking very general right now. I think one of the things the Catholic Church can offer you, Cameron, in all sincerity, is a certainty that God wants for his people when they think about these different things. It may seem to us today that we read the scriptures and we come up with interpretation of our own, and in 300 years, people might overturn that. But God wants us to be led into all truth. He gave us a church that could define things infallibly. And I know that's not the topic of today's debate, and so maybe it's unfair even just to throw it in there.

But just to think how wonderful that we have a God who not only revealed himself to us, but then saw to it that we couldn't be mistaken regarding those things he needed us to know. I mean, it's just a beautiful thing. It's one of the reasons I just love being Catholic. Let me just kind of respond, though, to the objection, because I think it's I understand where it comes from, right? The Bible doesn't state nor give examples of praying to the saints. And I'm not pretending that there hasn't been doctrinal development in this area, right? So by doctrinal development, I don't mean a recreation or a creation out of nothing, some sort of doctrine that was totally unknown. But that when you think of perhaps the two natures of Christ, the hypostatic union,

I think it's fair to say there was doctrinal development in this area that that that the church at say nicaea knew more perhaps than saint peter did um because of this development you know and i think there's that's also true with praying to the saints um but in regards to the fact that bible doesn't state or give examples of it the Bible doesn't state or give examples of it, the Bible doesn't state or give examples of many things that Christians take for granted. So one example would be the sinner's prayer, which I think is a beautiful thing to pray and a good thing to pray. I was looking this up online, and multiple Protestant websites point out the fact that you can't find this in the Scriptures. The gospelofchrist.com says a person can search his Bible from Genesis 1-1 through Revelation 22-21 and never find this prayer or any variation of it mentioned anywhere in Scripture. Another thing that isn't stated in Scripture, nor are we given examples of, is prayers to the Holy Spirit.

isn't stated in Scripture, nor are we given examples of, is prayers to the Holy Spirit. Nowhere in Scripture, and this is at least as far as I'm aware, and I've done a bit of digging here, does it say we should pray to the Holy Spirit, nor do we have examples of this. And Matt Slick from Calm, C-A-R-M, points this out in an article of his. But then here's an excellent quote, I think, from Trent Horns. Rather than just ripping him off, I'll just quote him. He says, Protestants recognize that the absence of these prayers in Scripture does not prove that they are illicit, because a fundamental point of law, including moral law, is that people have liberty unless something is expressly or implicitly forbidden. or implicitly forbidden. The New Testament describes how Christians have freedom in Christ and they should live as free people provided they don't use their freedom for evil. Therefore, to show that we must not pray to the saints,

a Protestant must demonstrate that Scripture expressly or implicitly prohibits the practice. I think that's a really good point, and I think that should kind of put some Protestants at ease there, you know, like if, you know, that you don't need it explicitly stated. I want to swing back around to something that you said earlier, and then we'll get to one more objection. And that is actually my objection. It's not really an objection. It's really just a question. So swinging back around to what you said earlier about like the Catholic church and remind me what you said, the Catholic church provides confidence that. Right.

So it was like, like, like the, I'll say it quickly. Right. The Bible didn't fall from heaven. Right. To put it another way, the Bible is not an instruction manual for a church still in shrink wrap that we have to then go ahead and put together. Right. I think that's how many Protestants view the Bible. Rather, the Bible presupposes a church already in existence. And so it's a beautiful thing that God has not only revealed truths that we need to know for our salvation, but he has also seen to it that we can have certainty of those truths. So we don't have to end up in a constant disputes and Bible verse wars because he established a church to be able to

settle the matter for us. So what the sort of glaring thing that I see here is that, well, what do you do about the dispute between the Roman Catholic tradition and the Eastern Orthodox tradition? That doesn't seem like we've got some kind of divine revelation on which church is the true church. I think ultimately you've still got to use... I think we do. How? Well, the Catholic would say that the Orthodox are in schism, and they need to accept the papacy and come back into union with Rome. they need to accept the papacy and come back into union with Rome.

And that doesn't mean they have to throw out their beautiful tradition, which is of apostolic origin. Right, but where are you getting that from, though? Well, the belief that the papacy is true and continued, and that the Orthodox broke union, not vice versa. and continued and that the orthodox broke union not vice versa even if catholics acted very poorly towards pro towards orthodox yeah so i still think that you're you're still going to ultimately not be completely certain of that if you start to look into the arguments for and against eastern orthodox i mean didn't you just host a debate between an eastern orth and a Roman Catholic? I think the Eastern Orthodox is... Well, sure. I mean, all of it's debatable,

but I think the debate lands squarely on the Catholic side. We talk about Eastern Orthodox as if it's one thing. It's not one thing. It's sort of a multitude of ethnic churches that have valid sacraments, valid priests, et cetera, but don't have a way of sorting out certain disputes. I mean, right now, if you're a Greek Orthodox, you can't receive Eucharist in a Russian Orthodox church because the two are now sort of in schism with each other. So I think the idea that we can all just sort of be together in uh sort of brotherhood without there being a leader where the buck stops i mean this is a different kind of debate isn't it but yeah yeah yeah i don't want to get too off topic here no no i mean you're i'm well i'm happy to i'm happy to talk about it but i mean i i talked more about

this in our our solo scripture a debate too so so Yeah, I've come down on the Catholic side of that, and I think Orthodox should accept the papacy and these sorts of things But here's another analogy I've been trying to think about lately When you look at Orthodoxy and Catholicism and Coptic Christianity, these

are very early They all have apostolic origin, right? You've got the Coptics, I think it's the 5th century kind of breaking away, and then the 10th century of the Orthodox breaking away. You can think of like the Orthodox and Catholics as the older brothers in a family. And the older brothers probably know more about mom and dad than the younger ones. And so if I were a Protestant, I'd be like, why do these two ancient churches that go all the way back to the apostles agree on all of these things and we don't?

That would be another thing that would just be a pebble in my shoe that I'm like, okay, the Orthodox and Catholics, they both believe in prayers to the saints, the Eucharist, confession, calling priests fathers. I think, if anything, looking at what the Orthodox believe is also a kind of good argument against Protestantism. And so if I knew a Protestant friend who was considering Orthodoxy, I would encourage him because I think he would be closer to the truth, far closer to the truth in Orthodoxy than he would in a Protestant communion. Well, I like that analogy, but I'll leave that there. Let's get to the last objection, and then we'll either take some questions or close it out. What do you want to do? Do you want to take some questions? No, that's, no, well, I mean, whatever. I'm happy to kind of close it out, because I actually do have something else I've got to run to.

I'm happy to kind of close it out because I actually do have something else I've got to run to. Okay. Well, so let's get to the last objection. And this one is, I don't know if I'd call it my own, but I'll just give it and then let me know your thoughts. So the question is, and it's not an objection, it's a question. What is so special about asking saints to pray for us? Is God more likely to hear their prayers? And if so, why? If not, then given the millions of people that pray to

saints, instead of overburdening them with our requests for prayer, we should instead be asking our friends and family to pray. So I would say, I think there's good reasons to think that our prayers are more efficacious when the saints intercede for us. I used the scripture from James earlier that the prayers of a righteous man availeth much. So if I know two men, both of whom are Christian, but one is very holy and the other, while he believes in these things, doesn't really go to church or read the Bible or anything, I, like you, would go to the more righteous man and those in heaven are perfected in righteousness. Secondly, I don't think that Christians consider prayer requests as burdensome. I think we're called to carry each other's burdens. And for those in the Lord, this is an honor and a privilege.

You know, when you ask me to pray for you, or if I give you a prayer, you're almost honored. Like, thank you. I promise you, I will hold you in prayer. We're called to do that. And given that the saints are perfected in love, I don't think the saints are like, all right, what do you need now? I think to go back to that analogy of Hebrews 12, we're surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses who are cheering us on in the running of this race. They are our older brothers and sisters in the faith who have gone before us, and they intercede for us in heaven. Yeah, no, I like those two points, but it's not just that, like, you know, when you ask your friend to pray for you, or you ask your family member to pray for you, they're not getting, I mean, that's one or two requests. They're not getting millions and millions of requests every day or every hour.

And so that, I guess, is going to wind us up in speculation land because we don't know what heaven is actually really like. And I've seen some Catholics respond to this by saying that, well, time is different in heaven. And so it doesn't, it, I don't know. I, I think that it's, it is kind of interesting to think about though, the amount of Catholics who are petitioning the saints to pray for them on their behalf seems like, I mean, it's, it's gotta be in the millions every single day. And so if the, if all of these saints are doing that, how can they do that in a day's time? It

seems like they're just going to be every single day, all day long, praying and asking God on the behalf of people on earth. So I don't know. And that's more just, again, it's kind of speculatory. I agree that it's, you know, I've heard this objection before in first Corinthians 13, 12, you know, St. Paul says for now we see only a reflection as in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. So whatever else we say about the saints, we know that they are perfected in a way that we're not. We also know that God can give certain gifts to Christians on earth, you know, supernatural gifts such that they can prophesy or have words of knowledge. And so it would be surprising if the Christians in heaven weren't far more powerful and glorious than we are. Also, when we read Scripture, we see it

speaking of the demons as being powerful and almost omnipresent. 1 Peter 5.8, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, and this suffering is experienced of your brotherhood throughout the world. You think, gosh, well, how is he doing that? If he's just one spiritual being, how is he tempting all of us? And we don't really know, but we just know that he is. And so I think we could say, even though I don't know the mechanism through which the saints hear and pray for us, we can trust that God makes it known to them. So that's what St. Thomas Aquinas says. He says, God alone of himself knows the thoughts of the heart, yet others know them in so far as these are revealed to them. And so they somehow see our requests in God in some sort of mysterious way. But I would say, I don't know how I am communicating with you right now. I would say

through this application on my computer, but I don't know what to say if you keep asking questions. I know nothing about technology or how it is that I in Ohio can speak to you in Texas. And I think if that's possible, then it's obviously possible that God can do something like the intercession of the saints and giving them the power to respond and offer our prayers in heaven. offer our prayers in heaven. I think, I mean, cause the question is obviously speculatory. I think the only real answer to it is just to kind of speculate or you could just appeal to mystery and say that we don't really know things, things will be completely different. We'll have different bodies. And so it's not really a powerful objection. I think that it is something interesting to think about. And, but that's, I think that's, so let me ask you this Cameron, interesting to think about and but that's i think that's so let me ask you this cameron uh okay would it take what would it take for you to maybe offer a hail mary then to offer a prayer to the blessed virgin mary like what what um what obstacles would have to be removed for you to go okay like i'll

try this since there's no kind of injunction not to pray to the saints maybe i'll i will just pray one hail mary and sort of entrust myself to to care. So I don't know what the Hail Mary prayer actually is. So that would be the first obstacle. So I'd have to actually look that up. That's fair. But no, I think that's a good point. I don't really have any opposition to this. One thing that's actually in the background here that is pushing me toward

this direction that I haven't really talked about is the fact that my, my interview with Bishop Barron, I think I told you this and we were trying to fit, like it was almost time to go live. I think we had like three, three or four to five minutes left and like they were having technical issues on their side. Either they couldn't,

he couldn't hear me or something was going on and it just, the technical issues were basically going to prevent the interview from happening. And then just a couple of minutes before we were set to go live, he said, cause I, and I don't remember exactly the correct language to use here, but he said little flower flower, help us. Little flower, yeah, in this.

Yeah, that's beautiful. Tell me, what is little flower again? So little flower is a nickname of a French saint by the name of Saint Therese of Lisieux. And he is like... There's a little prayer that people say. It may not be this one, but sometimes people say, little flower, little flower in this hour,

show your power in the name of Jesus. I wonder if it was something like that or something similar. I think all he did was say, little flower, help us. Something like that. And like in the next second, the technical issue was solved. So that little thing right there is kind of like pushing me to the direction of like yeah doesn't seem like it's gonna hurt anything well here's what i'll do then i'll email you the hail mary prayer and you should do a video no either way you say why you won't pray it or why you will

that would be talk about clickbait cameron i think i think the mary topic is something i i haven't looked into the whole Mary thing yet. But see, praying to Hail Mary just involves you saying some scripture and asking her to pray for you and acknowledging her as the mother of God. As you say, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. That would be the only kind of part that might be questionable. But if you can acknowledge Mary as the mother of God and you're comfortable offering a prayer to a saint, then that's a prayer to a saint then that's that's a prayer that you could offer so i would i would i'm going to do that i'm going

to email you and say you maybe pray this as a video and see what happens because i was praise the hell mary and then immediately get struck by lightning no no no He just becomes Catholic. And then I help you get new patrons, Cameron. That's what. No, no worries. Okay. Well, I think that's going to do it for us today. And I really appreciate you guys tuning in. I'm sorry that this was not like the fireworks version that you may have been expecting. Honestly, I was expecting it to be Cameron. Like I've been studying my ass off for this. And I get on here and you're like, really? I think I pretty much agree with you. I'm like, why, why have I been reading this much? But no, I'm glad I did it. I think it's no, I think that, uh, and that's why I wanted at the very beginning for you to, to sort of get him, give your positive case because anyone who was

watching this is going to be interested in this topic regardless. And that's something that you can take away from this. But also I think it was also important to work through the various objections that we did and talk about those a little bit. So either way, I think this is going to be very profitable. And I don't, again, I don't want to just defend a position just because like, that's a Protestant position that some people hold. Like, I'm really, I really care about truth. I really want to get to the bottom of things. And so that's... I think that's a good point i think you know sometimes catholics will say well look you know luther thought this and you're like okay that's fine but like i want to know what the bible says i'm not terribly interested in what a 16th century german monk said so right um and luther was the one he was one of the ones who

who brought the the mediator objection and i'm like, so the same thing with the church fathers. Like, I don't really take Luther's word for it. I'm like, no, Luther, you got that wrong. That's not what it means. It means something else. You got to look at the broader context and you got to figure out what it means to be a mediator. And the fact that Paul is talking about a ransom, like what that has to count for something. You've got to interpret this passage correctly.

And so that's, yeah. Yep.