Pints With Aquinas - DEBATE: The Marian Dogmas Contradict Scripture, Trent Horn Vs. Steve Christie

Episode Date: April 23, 2022

Trent will debate Steve about whether or not dogmas about the Blessed Virgin Mary contradict the Bible. 15 minute openings, 7 and 4 minute rebuttals, 10 minute cross examination, 30 minute audience Q+A, 5 minute closing statements. JOIN our Locals community for FREE Morning Coffee podcasts: https://mattfradd.locals.com/ 📿 Get the BEST Rosaries ever! (Get 10% off with code: MATTFRADD): https://catholicwoodworker.com/collections/designer-rosaries?utm_source=MATTFRADD&utm_medium=YOUTUBE&utm_campaign=easter 🙏 Hallow (3 month trial when you use this link): https://hallow.com/partner-mattfradd/?%24web_only=true&_branch_match_id=1025820321409181777&utm_source=Youtube&utm_campaign=mattfradd&utm_medium=influencer&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA8soKSkottLXz0jMyckv10ssKNDLyczL1k%2FVz00sKUkrSkxJAQASAEBXIwAAAA%3D%3D  

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Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd and today on the show we'll be hosting, in fact we are hosting a debate between Steve Christie and Trent Horn. We're going to be debating that the Marian dogmas contradicts scripture. Obviously Steve being the Protestant is going to take the affirmative. There's going to be 15 minute openings and then seven minute rebuttals, then four minute rebuttals, then a 10 minute cross examination. Then we're going to have a 30 minute audience Q&A, and we'll be drawing from our local supporters and patrons and any super chats we might get in

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All right, good. Here we go. G'day, Steve. G'day, Trent. Nice to have you. Good to be here. Ditto. Okay, Steve, you are going to be beginning with 15 minutes,

so whenever you're ready, I'll click the timer. Some of the ways Trent and I would agree that a dogma contradicts scripture is explicitly, implicitly, or partially. So even if that dogma is defined ex cathedra by a pope, by an ecumenical council, or by the magisterium, if it contradicts scripture, that dogma must be rejected. The dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary contradicts scripture in the following ways. While the Greek word Ad al-foi translated brothers can

have numerous meanings in scripture, the specific Greek word Ad alphoi translated brothers can have numerous meanings in Scripture, the specific Greek word Adalphai translated sisters only has two. One, one's natural sister, such as a sister of the same parents or a half-sister, or two, a believing sister, such as a Christian sister. It is used this way consistently in the New Testament as well as in the Septuagint, where it is used over a hundred times such as the sister kingdoms of Israel and Judah, who worship the same one true God of the Old Testament. It is never used for a female non-sibling relative in either Testament nor in its Greek. When the New Testament writers wished to convey female non-sibling relatives such as Elizabeth

and Mary, they chose other Greek relatives such as Elizabeth and Mary, they chose other Greek words such as sumgoonis or anepsios. See also Luke 14, 12 and 21, 16, where the evangelist uses different Greek words to distinguish relatives from brothers. Therefore, when Mark 6, 3 refers to Jesus' brothers and sisters not honoring him, we know this refers to Jesus' younger half-siblings. When Matthew 1.25 writes, Joseph kept Mary a virgin until she gave birth to a son, the specific Greek words, heos hu, when translated until is used consistently in the New Testament to refer to a change in condition. While the New Testament does use different Greek words translated until to refer to a change in condition. While the New Testament does use different Greek words translated until to refer to the condition continuing after the event, such as acre,

mecre, ice, and even haeos on its own, haeos who is never used once this way in the entire New Testament. The NAB, a Catholic translation authorized by the confraternity of Christian doctrine and approved by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the United States Catholic Conference supports this. Quote, the Greek word translated until does not exclude normal marital conduct after Jesus' birth. If Matthew wished to convey Mary's virginity was perpetual, there would be no need to add until she gave birth to a son. She would have simply ended with,

he kept her a virgin, or added throughout her marriage. The Isaiah 714 prophecy only indicates that Mary was to remain a virgin during her pregnancy and up to the Messiah's birth. The NAB continues, quote, the evangelist is simply concerned to emphasize that Joseph was not responsible for the conception of Jesus. Which is why Matthew stresses the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. When Isaiah prophecy states that the virgin will bear a son, it is not implying her virginal integrity remained intact after his birth, nor that her virginity would extend throughout her entire life. after his birth, nor that her virginity would extend throughout her entire life, but only distress that the Messiah's birth would be supernatural and that

Jesus was divine. As a believing Jew and Christian, Mary would not have disobeyed God who commanded married couples to be fruitful and multiply, nor would she have deprived her husband as the Apostle Paul wrote, the wife must fulfill her duty to her husband and does not have authority over her own body so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 1st Corinthians 7, 3 to 5. Luke 2, 7 describes Jesus as the firstborn of Mary. Although the Greek word prototikos translated firstborn can indicate firstborn opening the womb and is used

this way in the New Testament. Both the Old and the New Testaments also use firstborn to indicate firstborn among other siblings such as Esau being Isaac's firstborn and Ruben as Jacob's firstborn meaning they were not firstborns out of their father's wombs considering men don't have wombs, but firstborn among their other children. See Genesis 35, 23, Deuteronomy 21, 15, Joshua 6, 26, 1 Chronicles 3, 1, and Hebrews 11, 28, where firstborn is also used this way. If Luke was communicating Jesus was Mary's only child, he would have used the Greek word monogamous translated only begotten rather than prototikos like he did elsewhere in his gospel such as in Luke 7 12 8 42 and

9 38 and in John 3 16 where Jesus is the only begotten son of God meaning the only one. Lastly, Psalm 69 8 is a messianic verse. I have become estranged from my brothers and an alien to my mother's sons, because verse 9 begins with four, which is a conjunction, meaning because, since, or therefore, indicating that the same Messiah who would would have other children in verse 8, which prophesied Jesus' younger half-brothers not believing in Him in John 7, 3-5, and dishonoring Him in Mark 6, 3-4, which occurred earlier in Mark 3, 20-21, when they accused Jesus of being out of his senses, just as the future King David rebuked his oldest brother. When Jesus' mother and brothers approach him later in verse 31, Jesus contrasts his biological brothers

who dishonored him with his disciples who were his spiritual brothers who did the will of God. This passage also contradicts the dogma of the immaculate conception of Mary since Jesus' mother was with Jesus' brothers in verses 20-21 when they accused him of being out of his senses. This is also the view of St. John Chrysostom as late as the 5th century venerated as a doctor of the Church of Roman Catholicism who also believed Mary thought Jesus had gone mad. Other doctors like Ambrose, Augustine, Irenaeus, and others in the early church like Tertullian, Origen, Hilary of Portier, and seven

popes believed Mary was either conceived in sin or committed acts of personal sin including Thomas Aquinas as late as the 13th century. When Mary declared God my Savior in Luke 1 47, she understood that Jesus was the, quote, savior to grant repentance and forgiveness of sins in Acts 5, 31 and in Titus 2, 9 to 11, which included her own. Isaiah 49, 26 describes God as savior and redeemer, echoed in Galatians 4, 4 to 5. He might redeem or rescue from bondage

those who were under the law, because we, which includes Mary, have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1.14. Psalm 130 verse 8 promises God will redeem Israel from all its iniquities. Isaiah wrote, the deliverer will come out of Zion, I will take away their sins. This is how God as Savior is used in both testaments. The Greek root is used in Matthew 1 21 to describe Jesus who will save his people from their sins. Jesus is never referred to as a preemptive Savior, but as a redeeming, delivering Savior,

which includes redeeming and delivering Mary from her sins. The Apost Paul affirms this in 1 Corinthians 15 22, and Adam all die, meaning all of mankind spiritually, including Mary, which Paul clarifies in verses 47 to 49. The first man, Adam, is from the earth, earthy. The second man, Christ, is from heaven. As is the earthy Adam, so also are those who are earthy. And as is the heavenly Christ, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy we, which includes Mary, we will also bear the image of the heavenly, we and also, which again includes Mary. This means Mary was earthy like Adam before she was heavenly, once Jesus redeemed and delivered her. While Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, the psalmist wrote,

In sin my mother conceived me, echoed later by the apostle Paul. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The Greek word translated all, pos, translated everyone, which includes Mary in her conception, but obviously not Jesus, since Scripture explicitly states Jesus was without sin, since He is the uncreated, sinless deity conceived by the Holy Spirit, while Mary is a conceived-in-sin creation. If Mary was conceived sinless and kept the law perfectly, then Christ could not be her Savior. If righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly.

Galatians 2.21. If Mary kept the law, she could not be made righteous, since righteousness does not come from keeping the law, but through Christ's death. If she is not righteous, then Jesus did not redeem her, and she is still dead in her trespasses and sins. After Mary's days of purification were completed in Luke two, she made burnt and sin offerings, which according to Leviticus 12,

was required of mothers to make atonement or to cover their sins, which Mary would not need to do if she were immaculately conceived. This dogma was defined by Pope Pius the Ninth, but not ex cathedra in 1854, and is not shared by the Eastern Orthodox, despite not schisming with the West until the 11th century, demonstrating that this was a much

later development foreign to the New Testament writers and the early Church. Catholic answers affirms that while quote, Mary was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin, yet she was not made exempt from the temporal penalties of Adam such as death. This means not only was she conceived sinless, but remained sinless her entire life. Yet, evidence of her sinful nature was her lack of exemption of the temporal penalty of death passed on to her from Adam's. While the wages of sin is death refers to spiritual death, that is the second death, what plunged mankind into the fall was Adam's sin, which resulted in Adam and by extension all of mankind, including

Mary, physically dying. Just as eating from the tree of life would have resulted in Adam physically living forever, likewise Adam eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil resulted in him physically dying forever. Likewise, Adam eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil resulted in him physically dying. Quote, in that day you will surely die, which he eventually did. Had Adam not sinned, he would be alive today, as well as Mary had she not inherited Adam's sin nature, a view shared by Catholic answers and the second counsel of Orange. This contradicts the last dogma of the bodily assumption of Mary to heaven, infallibly defined ex cathedra by Pope Pius XII in 1950 which states, after the completion of her earthly

life was assumed body and soul into the glory of heaven, which strongly implies she died first, quote, what son would not bring his mother back to life and would not bring her into paradise after her death if he could? Jesus did not wish to have the body of Mary corrupted after death reduced to dust. The earliest source sharing this view that she died first is from the dormition. Yet if Mary did not inherit the stain of original sin

passed down from Adam, she would not have died and therefore no need to rescue her from death before her earthly life ended. This also contradicts the Biblical purpose of an assumption. According to Robert Tsunjenes, president of Catholic Apologetics International, unlike Jesus' ascension, assumptions in the Bible are under the power of God, not the individual being assumed. Hebrews 11.5 states, by faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death, and he was not found because God took him up. In 2 Kings 2.11, Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven,

meaning he did not see death either before being assumed to heaven. Since this dogma allows for her to have died before being taken up to heaven, it contradicts the purpose of a biblical assumption, that the one being assumed would not see death and so their corpse would not be found, as the case for both Enoch and Elijah demonstrates. But since it allows for Mary to have died, then it is much of a partial contradiction to scripture as the dogma of Jehovah's Witnesses of Jesus being the Son of God and Michael. But this dogma would still be a contradiction if

Mary remained alive before assumption, since the biblical purpose of an assumption is so the individual would not see death, because this dogma affirms the immaculate conception of Mary did not inherit original sin passed down to Adam to all of mankind. Therefore, Mary would not need to be assumed to heaven to keep her from seeing death if she were conceived sinless. Regarding proof from scripture for this dogma, founder and senior fellow of Catholic answers, Carl Keating wrote, quote, there is none in his book Catholicism and Fundamentalism. Understanding that these three Catholic Marian dogmas contradict Scripture has twofold importance. One, the sole non falsifiable and fallible authority of the

Roman Catholic Church, sola ecclesia, which teaches these Marian dogmas versus the sole infallible authority of Scripture, sola scriptura, which contradicts them. And two, they are binding to the faithful Catholic who is threatened with an anathema if they reject any of them, despite them all contradicting Godbury's scripture. Regarding her bodily assumption, that Pope declared infallibly,

if anyone should dare willfully to deny that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic faith. It is forbidden to any man to change this, to oppose and counter it. If any man should presume to make such an attempt, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God

and the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul. Regarding the Immaculate Conception, the other Pope declared, but not infallibly, the most blessed Virgin Mary in the first instance of her conception was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to believe firmly and constantly by all the faithful. Hence, if anyone shall dare to think otherwise, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment,

that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith, and that he has been separated from the unity of the church." So these Marian dogmas are not optional or fitting for the faithful Catholic to believe, but are required and binding to the Catholic to remain in good standing and communion with the Roman Catholic Church, despite them all contradicting God-breathed scripture. When early followers of Jesus began to focus

their adoration on Mary rather than on Christ alone, Jesus responded, rather, blessed are those who hear the Word of God and observe it. Thank you. Steve, thank you very much. That was a really well articulated opening statement and I appreciate it. Well, there we go and right on time. Well done. If I could just, yeah, yeah, yeah, just want to offer an encouragement for those who are watching in the live chat or who will watch this later.

Give the person you disagree with a listen. Really try to understand where they're coming from. Because if after hearing their position, you still disagree with it, at least you'll be better informed about what Protestants or Catholics believe so you can better engage them and resist the temptation to attack straw men.

So I think that was an excellent opening statement. We're gonna move to Trent now for his 15 minute opening. Trent, whenever you begin, I'll click the timer. All right. Well, Matt, thank you so much for hosting this debate. Steve, thank you very much for agreeing to debate me again. The resolution for this debate is the Marian dogmas contradict

scripture. So Steve's defending the affirmative, he has the burden of proving that the dogmas contradict scripture. I only have to prove there is no contradiction. So before I do that, let me explain what this debate is not about. First, this debate is not about whether the Bible teaches the Marian dogmas, or even if the evidence shows that they're true. Since I don't believe in the unbiblical doctrine of Sola Scriptura, I don't have to prove these dogmas from Scripture alone. And more importantly, that's not what we're debating.

In fact, Protestants believe in many doctrines that are not found in Scripture, like their 66-book Canon of Scripture, where that public revelation ended in the first century. Second, this debate is not about the Church Fathers or Christian history. Some Protestants cast doubt on the Marian dogmas by claiming they don't appear early enough in Church history to count as being apostolic. Of course, this objection becomes a problem for Protestants since by this standard many of their doctrines, like Sola Scriptura, Eternal Security, Sola Fide, would also arrive too late in church history to count as being apostolic. But we're not debating whether the Marian dogmas have a historical foundation in the writings of the Church Fathers,

so let's just stick to Scripture. Finally, this debate is not about Marian doctrines or theological opinions about Mary, things like whether she's mediatrics or co-redemptrix. We're going to talk about the dogmas of the faith, those that have been infallibly defined to be part of divine revelation. So I'm going to cover four of them. Mary being the mother of God, ever virgin, immaculately conceived, and bodily assumed in the heaven. All right, so let's take a look at them. First, there's the dogma of Theotokos, Mary being the mother of God. Anyone who denies this dogma automatically contradicts scripture because if Jesus is God and Mary is the mother of Jesus,

it follows that Mary is the mother of God. Well, what about the other Marian dogmas? In order to show these dogmas contradict scripture, Steve must do one of two things. On the one hand, he could show the Bible teaches the opposite of these dogmas regarding Mary as an individual. For example, if the Bible taught that Mary gave birth to other children, that she committed a sin, or that she was not assumed into heaven, the dogmas would be falsified. Or Steve could show the Bible teaches the opposite of these dogmas in regard to every single human being without exception, which would include Mary.

So if the Bible taught that every woman gave birth to children, or that every person without exception commits personal sins, or that no one has ever been assumed into heaven, then the dogmas would be falsified. So let's apply these standards to the remaining dogmas. We'll start with an easy one, the bodily assumption of Mary. Does the Bible teach that no human being has ever been assumed into heaven? Well, of course not. Enoch and Elijah were assumed into heaven. Now, Steve has said, well, they were assumed into heaven alive, and if Mary died, she would not be assumed into heaven. But that's not the case. Jude 9

talks about the Archangel Michael contending with the devil, disputing about the body of Moses, and taking the body of Moses, the dead body of Moses, that being assumed into heaven, and we can safely assume that Jesus saw the body of Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration. Also, death is not a sign of being a sinner, as Steve alluded to earlier. The fact that Mary died doesn't prove that she committed a sin, any more than the fact that Jesus died does not prove that he inherited sin or committed a sin. So, the fact is, does the Bible teach that Mary was not assumed into heaven? No, of course not. If anything, Revelation chapter 12, verses 1 through 6 describes Mary being in heaven. The Protestant scholar Ben Witherington says, This figure is both the literal mother of the male child Jesus, and also the female image of the people of God.

All right, what about the Immaculate Conception? Contra with Steve said this has been infallibly defined, though before the ex cathedra statements of the First Vatican Council. But in his encyclical Mysticii Corporis Christi, Pope Pius XII said Mary is the new Eve, who is free from all sin, original or personal. Does the Bible say that Mary herself committed a personal sin or that she inherited original

sin? No, it doesn't. When Mary says, My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, this doesn't prove that Mary committed a sin. First, Mary may be speaking of salvation from dangers in this life rather than dangers in the next life. She goes on to say, My spirit rejoices in God my Savior for, or because, he has regarded the lowest state of his handmaiden. Mary then describes how God saves people from threats in this life by exalting the lowly or feeding the hungry. God is

Mary's Savior because he regarded her lowly state and she's been lifted out of it by being called to bring the Messiah into the world. In that respect, Mary's Magnificat parallels Hannah's song in 1 Samuel. According to one commentary, Mary's song, like Hannah's, declares that security and significance are found in a God who would care about the broken and poor enough to give himself to them. So here, Mary can be talking about salvation from threats in this life, not sin, and she doesn't mention sin in this part of Luke 1. Even if Mary were speaking of salvation from sin, she may be speaking about God preventing her from sinning and saving her in that way, like we might say how a doctor saved someone from a disease by vaccinating

them rather than by giving them a pill to cure them after the infection. Now does the Bible teach that everyone has sinned? Well, actually one other point I will bring up is that some people say the Bible teaches that Mary sinned because it describes her going and offering a purification in accord with the Mosaic law. But the problem with this argument is that it says in Luke 2 22 through 24 that it's offered for their purification. So if you're going to say Mary sinned because an offering was made, then you'd also have to say that Jesus sinned as well. Rather, this is Mary simply being obedient to the law just as Jesus submitted himself to baptism for the sake of all righteousness. Alright, so the Bible does

not say that Mary committed a sin. Does it say that every single human being, without exception, has committed a sin? No, it talks about the universality of sin, like in Romans 3 23, all of sin and fall short of the glory of God. But Paul is talking about the universality of personal sin between Jews and non-Jews. That's why he says there's no distinction among people in verse 22. Or in Romans 3, 9, Paul says all men, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin. Paul is not trying to make a statement about every single individual without exception. He's saying that every ethnic group is guilty of sin, whether you're a Jew or a non-Jew. However, Paul can't be saying that every single person commits personal sins because the Bible itself contradicts this. In Isaiah 7 16 it

talks about a time before a child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. That children at a young age do not commit personal sins. Paul himself reaffirms this in Romans 9 11. He says of Jacob and Esau and Rebecca's womb, they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad. This means children who die in early childhood represent millions of examples of people who never committed a personal sin in their entire lives. But while infants may not have committed a personal sin, they still need salvation in Christ because they inherited original sin. Does the Bible say that every human person without exception has been

conceived in original sin? No. In fact, the term original sin, like immaculate conception, is not found in the Bible or in the Church Fathers until the time of St. Augustine. Yet many Protestants believe in this doctrine. Now the doctrine of original sin is true, but the Bible does not explicitly say that it applies to every single individual without exception. In fact, the Bible often speaks about things like human sinfulness or human mortality as a universal truth, and those things really are universal, but it doesn't always mention the exceptions that do occur to these universal rules. For example, in Hebrews 9.27, it says that it is appointed for men to die once and then

face judgment. And this is true for basically every single human being who ever lived, except for some exceptions like Lazarus and people that Jesus raised from the dead who died twice, or Enoch and Elijah who never died because they were assumed alive into heaven. Yet, the presence of those exceptions doesn't disprove the nearly universal truth the sacred author was affirming. So, to summarize, the Bible does not teach that Mary sinned, nor does it teach that every single human being has committed a sin or inherited original sin without exception.

So the Immaculate Conception does not contradict Scripture then. Finally, let's look at the dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary. Obviously, the Bible does not teach that every woman had sexual relations, so we'd only ask does the Bible teach that Mary had sexual relations? Now Steve mentioned, and many other Protestants alluded to Matthew Matthew 1 24 through 25 which says, When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but knew her not until she had borne a son, and he called his name Jesus. But the Greek word for until, haos, does not always entail a reversal of condition. 2 Samuel 6 23 says, Meekal, the daughter of Saul, had no child to, or haos, the day

of her death, which of course she did not have children after she died. Jesus tells the Apostles in Matthew 28 20, observe all that I have commanded you and behold I am with you always to the close of the age, even though Jesus will be with the Apostles even after the present age comes to an end. Now Steve said that Matthew 1 25 and others have said this based off the doctoral work of Eric Svensson that the Greek construction, heius hu, in this verse always demands a reversal of condition. They would always demand that. But that is simply not the case. The phrase heius hu is used throughout the Septuagint or the Greek Old Testament without implying

any kind of reversal. It may be used this way in Acts 25-21 to say that Paul was held in custody until he was sent to Rome, even though he was still in Roman custody after that point. Heius hu is also used in literature that existed at roughly the same time period as the New Testament, though I will say the Septuagint was completed only within a few centuries, possibly even one century, by the time of Jesus's crucifixion. So we wouldn't be surprised that Septuagintal constructions would be used in the New Testament, including the fact that Heiusu can imply a reversal as it does in the Greek Old Testament, it wouldn't be surprising to find it in the New Testament. Now, as I said,

we do find this in other roughly contemporary literature. In 4 Maccabees would be an example, or the Jewish work Joseph and Asenov. So, while not common, it is used. So, you can't use Matthew 1.25 to prove Mary and Joseph had sexual relations. Matthew is simply not concerned with telling us what did happen after Jesus was born. His primary concern is to simply say that Jesus had no earthly father. In fact, the Protestant Reformers, John Calvin, said of Matthew 1.25, no just and well-grounded inference can be drawn from these words of the evangelist as to what took place after the birth of Christ.

Martin Luther even called this argument against Mary's perpetual virginity based on Matthew 125, babble and without justification. But maybe are there other verses that have talked about that Mary gave birth to other children and so she would not be a perpetual virgin? No, the Bible never says Mary gave birth to anyone else and no one else is called a son or daughter of Mary. The Bible does describe a group of people as the brethren of the Lord, but it doesn't say that these people were Jesus's biological siblings through Mary. We'll talk about Adelphos more in the rebuttal period, but I think Steve would agree the word Adelphos typically means a person has the same biological father and mother. And of course, Steve

doesn't believe that because he believes Jesus has no biological father. So when we're speaking of the Adelfos, the brother and the Lord, it's used in some sort of non-standard way. And I think one way that makes sense would be if Joseph had been previously married. These would be children from his previous marriage making them adoptive brothers and sisters. And as such, they would be if Joseph had been previously married. These would be children from his previous marriage, making them adoptive brothers and sisters. And as such, they would be fully Jesus's brother and sister, the full use of the word Adelphos. To say here, Richard Bauckham, for example, who rejects, a Protestant scholar who rejects the perpetual virginity of Mary, says it's strange Jesus is called the son of Mary in Mark 6 3 rather than

the Son of Joseph, but that would make sense if Jesus had been born of Joseph's second wife Mary. Also the Greek word for brother, it's not always used to represent full brothers. In Luke 3 1 it's used to describe Herod Antipas and Herod Philip who had the same father but they were born of different mothers, just as Jesus and his brethren were born of different mothers. You can also speak of adoptive children using biological language. Exodus 2.10 says Moses became the son of Pharaoh's daughter, even though she adopted him. So, to summarize then, Steve...well, actually, let's see...do I have one or anything here? One other point that

I would raise is that other arguments that Protestants use to try to show that Jesus had brothers simply don't work. One of these would be Psalm 69, where it says of the Messiah, I have become a stranger to my brethren, an alien to my mother's sons. The Messianic Psalms are applied to Jesus, but not in literal ways. For example, in Psalm 69 5, it says of the Messiah, Oh God, thou knowest my folly, the wrongs I have done are not hidden from thee. So, Steve would probably say that, well, Jesus has sins, but there are sins, not his sins. Okay, then Psalm 69 5 is applied non-literally to Jesus, and I would say Psalm 69-8 about mothers

and brethren is applied non-literally as well. This is the view that St. Augustine said when he said that in Psalm 69-5, the mother is not Mary but Israel, and the brethren are the other sons of Israel who spurn him. So, we see here that Messianic Psalms are often applied to Jesus in non-literal ways, so just because this Psalm talks about my mother's sons, it doesn't imply that Mary gave birth to other children. So ultimately, Steve has the burden here to show that the Marian dogmas contradict Scripture, and he's brought up a lot of points. I've addressed some of them, but I'll address those other points he's brought up in my next rebuttal period

Alright, thank you very much Trent I would like to demand that everybody hit that like button right now. I command that you do it Submit to my authority. I have crowned myself king and I demand it to do it do it right now do it Well, don't do it. This is fantastic fantastic I'm really enjoying this maybe a little too much. We're gonna move into seven minute rebuttals Steve whenever you want to begin I'll click the timer Okay, can you hear me Yep, we can hear you. Yes, I just want to make sure okay you can start now The purpose of the this debate as Trent had brought up,

is about the Marian dogmas. However, prior to this debate, Trent and I had agreed not to talk about Mary being referred to as the mother of God, because it's not really an issue that we disagree on as long as it is understood how it was originally meant to be a Christological title and not a specific title of Mary, such as being Queen of Heaven. So I'm not going to comment on that.

As I had mentioned, the way a dogma can contradict Scripture is if it's explicit, implicit, or partial. For example, a Mormon dogma that says that Jesus is not God contradicts Scripture explicitly, such as in John 20, 28, when Thomas sees Jesus and calls him my Lord and my God. Implicitly would be liberal Catholics and Protestants who condone abortion, which contradicts scripture, stating that life begins at conception, and scripture condemns the shedding of innocent

blood. And another is a partial contradiction, such as the dogma of Jehovah's Witnesses, on the identity of Jesus. While scripturally affirming Jesus is the Son of God, they contradict Scripture by claiming that Jesus is Michael the Archangel because Scripture affirms Michael is a created being while Jesus is the eternal deity. And this is what I did in the opening statement. When the Bible talks about all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, as I mentioned in my opening statement, it's a Greek word pos, which means everyone, which would include Mary.

There is no exception there. When Trent tries to use this argument, he's using a logical fallacy referred to as the argument by exception. And of course, he might say, well, what about Jesus? Well, as I mentioned, the Bible's explicit that says that Jesus is an exception. And of course he might say, well what about Jesus? Well, as I mentioned, the Bible's explicit that says that Jesus is an exception. It says that actually, I believe, in 1st Corinthians. Trent had mentioned about Elijah and Enoch being assumed to heaven, but again, like it says, they were assumed bodily into heaven, but they did not have, they had inherited original sin,

just as Mary did. But anyways, I'm gonna come back to that. He had mentioned about, in the book of Jude, about Moses and the devil contending for the body of, or Michael contending with the body of Moses with Michael the archangel, but it doesn't say anything about him being bodily assumed or anything. The other thing about Jesus is yes, Jesus did not sin, but the Bible says that he took on sin, which is different than actually inheriting sin, because again he is conceived by the Holy Spirit, unlike

Mary, who is actually conceived in sin. As far as Revelation chapter 1 to 6, I don't see anything that's in there that talks about Mary. This is an example of Isagesus and known as a typology that's used a lot of times by Catholic apologists. I had mentioned about the Immaculate Conception not being declared ex cathedra because this was before Vatican one in 1870 that declared that when a pope declares something ex cathedra because this was before Vatican I in 1870 that declared that when a pope declares something ex cathedra, then it's considered infallible. But the Immaculate Conception was declared 15 years or so before that. Trent had mentioned about Mary in her Magnificat saying,

God my Savior, and she was referring back to Hannah. But again, this is another argument by exception because even if she's referring back to Hannah, we have, the debate is about how these dogmas, whether or not they're, how they're used in Scripture. And in the New Testament the word specific Greek word for Savior is used about two dozen times and every time that it's used in Scripture in the New Testament it always refers to God or Jesus being a Savior of salvation and saving someone from sins, which is why I brought up Acts chapter five

and the epistle of Titus. And again, what I had argued in the opening statement, is there any example in the New Testament where Jesus is referred to as a preemptive savior as opposed to as a redemptive and redeeming savior, and he's not. So again, argument by exception. I had mentioned about the word

all pass, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Trent had mentioned about the age of accountability. Good, because you know what, if your unbaptized baby dies and they're not baptized, guess what, they go into the glory of God. So I agree with that. As far as original sin, if you look at Catholic.com, the encyclopedia, it states that the second council of orange, it states that the death of the body, which is the punishment for sin, in other words, sin results in death of the body. So if Mary died, which the dogma, the bodily assumption in 1950 strongly implies this demonstrates Mary inherited original sin from Adam. Trent mentioned about dying once. Well, again, this is the exception. This is not the rule. And

we know this because this is explicitly stated in Scripture. There's nothing in Scripture that states that Mary was an exception to this. It only states that Jesus was an exception to this because he had a divine nature, not a sinful nature, as well as a human nature, but Mary only had a human nature and a sinful nature. Trenton made a comment about the word until that's used in 2 Samuel, but it uses the word haos, not haos who. Same with Matthew 28, it uses haos, not haos who. He mentioned about the Septuagint. Well, the Septuagint was a Greek translation that was established around, finished around 134 BC, so we're not talking about translations of the Bible, we're talking about what's actually used in the New Testament, because even the New Testament writers would

deviate from the Septuagint occasionally because they would use a better translation. Luther and Calvin, I would expect that. They were both Catholic. We have to remember that. As far as Adelphos, I don't have a problem with the word Adelphos, but my question is why would you abandon its primary meaning for another translation, for another meaning when it doesn't demand it. And my focus was on the word Adelphi, which Trent really didn't focus on in his opening statement. He might bring it up in his rebuttal. And I'm curious, you used a comment about Jesus being the son of Mary, so does that mean that Mary could

have had daughters because it says the son of Mary? And as far as Psalm 69 69 if you... You can finish your thought if you want real quick Steve. Okay and basic is fault Psalm 69 if you continue reading it says that the Messiah was taking on the reproach of other people so it's not saying that he died he did exactly what Jesus did he became sin for us. I'll leave it at that. Thank you Steve. Trent, whenever you begin I'll click the timer you have seven minutes. All right, well a lot to cover here. Let's see how much we can get through. So Steve is saying that the word Adelphi, which means sister, it can only mean figurative sister or biological sister. So if Jesus

has Adelphi, he must have had sisters who were born of Mary. As I said before, these could be adoptive siblings, and Steve has not ruled that out. And also Greek scholars do not rule that out. Richard Bauckham, for example, says the word Adelphi, who is an eminent Greek New Testament scholar, need not mean full sister, can mean half sister, step sister, sister-in-law. The Greek grammarian Bill Mounts, who writes a whole textbook on ancient Greek, says that Adelphi means sister, near-kinswoman, or female relative. When it comes to Heius Hu, I already showed that in both in the Septuagint and also in contemporary literature it does

not require a reversal of condition. So it can be used here in Matthew 1.25 in this way, and I showed that when I cited Acts 21.25 and as well as other examples around the same time period. Steve said that if Mary and Joseph had remained virgins they would violate St. Paul's teaching about marriage in 1 Corinthians 7. That's not true. Paul offers, he says in 1 Corinthians 7, 5 through 7, do not refuse one another except by agreement for a season, to devote yourselves to prayer so that you're not tempted by lack of self-control.

I say this by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am. Since Mary and Joseph would have been the most chaste holy family, this would not apply to them. They can live out the gospel teaching in their unique holy family. This is something Paul gave as concession, not as command to others. Luke 2-7, Steve said, well look, it says here that Jesus is the firstborn, prototikos, of Mary. So that means if you're the firstborn, Prototacos, of Mary. So that means if you're the firstborn, that you're going to have other children.

Well, there's Pokemon, the first movie, and it was so bad there were no other movies, but it's still the first movie. The Protestant biblical scholar, Victor Hamilton, says, to say that Jesus is Mary's Prototacos is simply to say Mary had no child before she gave birth to Jesus. This is a term that refers had no child before she gave birth to Jesus. This is a term that refers to the child who opens the womb, and it makes sense that Luke would use Prototicus because the term firstborn is later used in Luke 2, 22 through 23 to talk about the purification rite and the rite of presenting those who are the firstborn. So he's just talking about this birth rright that he mentions about 10 verses later.

Now, Steve says, well, Luke would have used monogamnes, only begotten. No, that's not the case. Luke does use monogamnes to talk about the death of one's only child, for example, in different parts of his gospel. But in the infancy narrative, we're just talking about the birth of the firstborn in accord with the Mosaic law. And in fact, in the Old Testament, only begotten and firstborn are used interchangeably. We see this in Zechariah 12.10, where it talks about, they look on him who they've pierced, they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him as one weeps over a firstborn. So the terms can both be used interchangeably in that respect. I already addressed Psalm 65, but Steve said, well,

the sins are applied to Jesus in a non-literal way. Right, but notice what it says in Psalm 69, 5 of the Messiah, oh God, thou knowest my folly. The wrongs I have done are not hidden from thee, but Jesus did not do any wrong. So my point here is clear. If this verse in Psalm 69 is applied non-literally to Jesus, the verse that talks about my mother's sons can also be applied in a non-literal way. We see this in Psalm 69 25. It says in the plural, may there camp be a desolation, let no one dwell in their tents. This is later applied in Acts 1 20, but not to a group of people, let no one dwell in their tents." This is later applied in Acts 1.20, but not to a group of people, to an individual, namely Judas. Going forward then, Steve tries

to say that Mary committed a sin in Mark 3 when she and the brothers of the Lord go to see him, but the text doesn't say anything about Mary doing anything sinful. Jesus does not rebuke her. There's no divine judgment on Mary in any form described here in Mark chapter 3. That's just being read into the text. Now when it comes to Savior, I would just challenge Steve, where does Luke 1 46 through 48 talk about sin? It doesn't mention sin there. And most commentaries agree that this passage parallels what Hannah says in 1 Samuel 2, 1, and she likewise doesn't mention sin. Also, this does not—he might say that it's unlikely, he doesn't accept it, but there's no contradiction also if she is thankful to God for being preemptively saved from sin. Steve may not believe that's what the text says,

but if it does say that, there's no contradiction in it saying that. We talked a little about an Adam all die, but notice here there are exceptions. Enoch and Elisha would be an example. And notice that Steve kept saying, you know, yeah, it says all have sinned. Jesus, of course, is the exception. So then it isn't literally saying every single human has sinned or every man has sinned. And Steve has said, well, we know there's an exception because the Bible says that Jesus is the exception. So clearly then that means the Bible

can make universal statements, but sources of divine revelation can give us those exceptions. Steve will point to Jesus in sacred scripture, I'll point to Mary in sacred tradition. And there we would just debate about whether sacred tradition is a plausible source of divine revelation. Of course, that is not what we are debating today. Finally,

the point about Mary dying, I think Steve is really missing this here. The fact that Mary died does not show that she had original sin or that she inherited original sin or that she committed a personal sin. It does not show that. All it shows is that she, even though she was free from sin, she still had human nature, and human nature is corrupted and mortal. So, much the same way Jesus was free from original sin and personal sin, yet when he was on the cross, it's not like the nails couldn't go through his hands because he's free from sin, so he's immortal. No, he was free from sin, but he still had a mortal human nature that could be subject to death.

And the same is true for Mary. So, Mary being assumed into heaven, dying, which is the majority view among theologians, does not show that she had sin. So, the assumption and the immaculate conception are not contradicted in that respect. And then hopefully in my next turn, I'll be able to address some of the other arguments that Steve has raised. So I think so far this has shown that Steve has not been able to apply scripture in an unambiguous way to show the Marian dogma is contradicted. Okay, thank you very much, Trent.

We now are going to have four minute rebuttals. Then there's gonna be a time of cross-examination, and then we're gonna do 30 minutes of Q&A. So to everybody who's watching, please stick around. I think it says a lot about y'all that you would take your time, all 735 of you to be here. I think that's really terrific.

So yeah, this is awesome. This is really great, really enjoying this. All right, Steve, whenever you begin, I, yeah, actually, just give me one second. I will click the four-minute mark. Okay, as I had mentioned about the Greek word Adelphi, let me remind everyone that this is about what Scripture actually teaches. And to remind that the Septuagint is a translation. It is not considered inspired. If it was, the New Testament writers would not deviate from it occasionally and use their own Greek translation. It's a good Greek translation. The New Testament writers used it, but they did not use it universally

for that reason. And again, what I argued is how a Delphi is used consistently in the New Testament Greek, not how it's used in a Greek translation of the Old Testament. You would expect there to be deviations from it. But even at that, the Greek word for Adelphi in the Old Testament, when it's used, it's used even in a translation not to mean anything other than a biological sister or a believing sister like the sister nations of Israel and Judah. Trent had mentioned about what could mean sister in law. Well, the apostle John actually quoted from the Old Testament from the Septuagint frequently and if he had meant sister in law such as Mary's sister in

John chapter 19, he would have utilized the Greek word synnymphos that's used in the book of Ruth to describe Orpah's relationship with Ruth. And again, just to give an example in the Septuagint, in the book of Sirach, which is inspired for Trent but it's not inspired for me, it uses the Greek word kekertomeno, which is a masculine form of kakertomene when it says hail Mary full of grace and it's used to describe a man who is full of grace I'm sure Trent doesn't think that that man is immaculately conceived because there are those that Catholic answers and elsewhere who thinks kakertomeno or manate means that that they were always in a state of

grace meaning that Mary was sinless. First Corinthians chapter seven, again, it says for a season in order to separate, but then it says so that you go back, married couples to go back so you do not get tempted by Satan because of your lack of self-control. And the fact that Trent is saying that the Holy Family would not need to apply to that, he's imputing his Catholic theology into the text. So let's stick with what Scripture actually supports. Pro tatecas, I don't have a problem with the term meaning first out of the womb,

but in Luke chapter 2 verses 22 to 23, this is a different event. This is a separate event than from what Luke is talking about earlier in Luke chapter two, verse seven. He's simply talking about Jesus being the firstborn, and again, if he meant only child, he would have used it like he used, he would have used monogamnes like he used it elsewhere in Luke's Gospel. Mark chapter 3, even though it doesn't explicitly state that these are Jesus' siblings, the

Greek word literally means to be like of that individual. Again, that's the view of John Chrysostom. The word savior is used consistently in the New Testament to refer to a savior of sins. And again, scripture states because Jesus is God is why he would not inherit sin like Mary did because Mary is not God unless Trent is going in that direction, which I don't think it is. First Corinthians 15 in my opening statement, it says that there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, and people who have earthly bodies are sown perishable,

meaning corruptible, and dishonor, meaning contempt, reproach. Mary had this early body, and so before she could go into heaven and have a heavenly body, she had to be rid of them. And that's why the apostle Paul says that we were of, like Adam, and we also, which includes Mary, we also are heavenly. All right, thank you very much, Steve. Okay, Trent, whenever you begin, I will click your time for.

All righty. Oh, wow. This sure is fun, isn't it? So it's, it's nice to be able to go through all of these, um, even scripture passages, though I will say as we're going through them, I feel like Steve's case is sort of like that, uh, uh, tree in front of my house to the bush. I'm always trying to get just right, but I end up clipping so many parts off of it. It's just a bunch of empty branches sitting there.

And so I think what I have shown is that all of these arguments that Steve has raised to try to show scripture contradicts the Marian dogmas, it does no such thing. And we've seen that time and time again. And so I'm going to address the other examples that he's just raised. First, when it comes to Adelphos and Adelphi, I think Steve would agree with me that in general, what that word means in Scripture is that you have the same biological mother and father.

We don't believe that that is the case. Both of us agree that's not the case for Jesus, so it must be used in some other way. In fact, when it is used in the Septuagint to talk about people who have different fathers or mothers, it is only ever used to describe people, in the case of half-siblings, of having different fathers, not different mothers. Sorry, let me go back a little bit here with this. The point I want to raise there is that Adelphi has the same semantic range as Adelphos. It can mean sister of having the same mother and father or of having just the same father or just the same mother. We see this in Luke 3.1. And if these siblings are Jesus's adoptive siblings from Joseph's previous marriage, there's absolutely no contradiction here

whatsoever. And I already cited Greek scholars like Bill Mounts and New Testament scholars like Richard Baucam who agree with me that Adelphi has a broader semantic range than what Steve has brought up here. I didn't talk about sister-in-law. I was citing Baucam on that point. And synemphos is just not used in the New Testament, so it's just not a common word. We wouldn't expect it. I didn't bring up Kakarotomeni. If you want to go more into that, my book, The Case for Catholicism, has a chapter on the Immaculate Conception, and I do talk about how much evidence that Greek word has for the Immaculate Conception. And I also note in my book its use in the book of Sirach. So I'm well aware of that. Go to Case for

Catholicism if you want more. But we're not debating whether the Bible teaches the Immaculate Conception. We're debating whether Scripture contradicts it, and that has not been demonstrated here. When it comes to Savior, the word is used in a lot of different ways in the whole of Scripture, not just in the New Testament. Othniel in the Old Testament is described as a Savior, but not as a Savior from sin. I agree that it is used predominantly of Jesus, we are talking about salvation from sin, but I would say read the context. What is Mary talking about in Luke 1? She is not mentioning sin in any case.

So we have to read the context. Even if it is talking about sin, if it's talking about being saved from sin before one came into existence, preemptively saved, then it still fits the context. There's no contradiction there at all. 1 Corinthians 15 talks about heavenly bodies and that Mary is given, I think what Steve is saying here is that, okay, well, Mary had an earthly body, she would have to have a heavenly body. That's right, that just like Jesus and Mary did not have glorified bodies during—Jesus did not have a glorified body during His earthly ministry, He briefly revealed it on the Mount of Transfiguration, but Jesus was not going about in His glory during His earthly ministry. He put that on His glorified resurrection body

after the resurrection. And the same is true for us, that Mary was free from sin, but she still had an earthy body. Then after being assumed into heaven, she would have a glorified body. And so it would fulfill the promise in Philippians 3.21 that says, our bodies, lowly bodies, will be transformed like His heavenly body, Christ. So once again, we've gone through a lot of scripture here, but none of them stick and show that the Marian dogmas are contradicted by the Bible in any way. All right. Thank you very much, Trent.

We are going to be moving into a time of cross-examination where each debater will get 10 minutes each. But before we do that, I want to say thank you to our sponsor, Hello. Click the link in the description below to go through to the greatest Catholic prayer and meditation app on the planet. My wife and I literally were listening to Scott Hahn reading the book of Romans as we were going to sleep last night. The night before that,

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before deciding whether it's worth your time and money. I think it will be. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. Now someone pointed out in the chat that only, what is it? 65% of people have submitted to my regality. We still, look, we got 737 people watching and only 492 likes. What am I to do with

this? After all I've done for you and you just sit there, you watch this, you don't click that thumbs up button. I'm trying to appeal to Catholic guilt, but it's not working. Okay, so now we are going to move into 10 minute rebuttals. We'll start with you, Steve. You've got 10 minutes to cross examine Trent, and just so everybody knows, you're welcome to interrupt him or move the conversation along as you see fit.

And you, just so people are aware, aren't being mean or anything by doing that. That's just how debates work. So whenever you wanna begin, I will click the 10 minute button. Okay, Trent, in your recent podcast, Rebutting Ray Comfort, you said Jesus is the only person referred to as the Son of Mary. So, in Mark chapter 1 verse 19, it says James is the son of Zebedee, and he uses the Greek definite article. So, does this mean that James was Zebedee and uses the Greek definite article. So does this mean that James was

Zebedee's only son? No, I'm not saying that the use of the definite article means that Mary had only one child. My point in that it's not the definite article that is interesting, the son of Mary, even a son of Mary would be interesting. Rather, it's the fact that Jesus was referred through a metronym rather than a patronym. That normally in the ancient Near East, you would refer to someone as the son of their father, the son of Joseph. Okay, in West End, in West End... ...the son of Mary is God. Okay, I get that. So then, Jesus was referred to as the carpenter's son, and it's a patronym.

Would this eliminate his brothers being older stepbrothers according to the proto-evangelium of James? No, Bakhm talks about this in his article that in some contexts, Jesus would be referred to as the son of Joseph, especially among those who were not familiar with his family life in Nazareth. He's referred to the son of Joseph in John's Gospel, but it's the term. So he would be referred to the son of Joseph sometimes, but those who knew the family, why he is called the son of Mary is interesting, and a good explanation is that he was born of Mary and that Mary was Joseph's second wife.

I'm not saying that's the required view, but it's a quite plausible one. So since Jacob is referred to as the son of Isaac and Reuben as the son of Jacob, then were they only children? The only son? No, I don't think you're following my point. I'm not saying that Jesus is the son of Mary means that she's the only person he bore. I'm just saying that that shows that Joseph had other, um, had other, why, that Joseph had other children who were from other women, just like when we see in the beginning of Matthew's Gospel talking about Adelphos is used of Jacob's siblings, the children of Jacob, who were born from different women, Leah and Rachel. from different women, Leah and Rachel. Okay. Let's see.

In Catholic Answers to the Cyclopedia, it says that Andrew is the brother of Peter, Andrew the brother of Peter is also called the son of Jonah. How do we know this from the New Testament? You mean the son of John? Son of Jonah? Yeah. Jonah, Jonah, John, yeah. Okay. Yeah, Jonah, Jonah, John, yeah. Okay, I'm not sure what your question is. Like, how do we know Andrew and Peter are brothers?

Yeah, how do we know that they're brothers? How do we know they're brothers? Well, it uses the Greek word for brother. How do we know that Andrew is also the son of Jonah? Because that's what the Catholic answers encyclopedia states. Because the word Adelphi would imply that, you know, it's normal used to be that you have the same parents, at least one of the same parents. It is, I mean, it's quite possible they're born of different mothers, but there's no evidence for us to pursue that route. So we could assume that they have the same biological mother and father.

But once again, we wouldn't assume...go ahead. So if Andrew is Jonah's son too, because Andrew is the brother of Peter, then why can't James, the brother of Jesus, also be the son of Mary? Well, in your example, it's talking about fathers. So I would say that James and Joseph are also the sons of Joseph. They would be sons from another marriage. So it still fits semantically. Okay. Let's see. When Mary said, I know not man, in Luke 1.34, does this indicate a vow of perpetual virginity? Yeah, I think there is good reason to believe that, but that's not what we're debating today. Well, it is an argument that actually I hear

from a lot of contemporary Catholic apologists. So in the Septuagint Genesis 19, 9, Lot's daughters use the same Greek word, I know not man, so where they engage in a vow of perpetual virginity. I'm not sure that that is the, in Genesis, are you talking, 19, 9, are you talking about 19, probably later after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, when they, or I know not, oh the ones that have not known a man. I know not oh the ones that have not known a man I not know I know not man. It's the same Greek words that Mary says when she says I know not man I don't know I wouldn't assume that that involves a vow of virginity But I think there's a different context in relation to the fact that we have

Betrothal between Mary and Joseph that it's odd construction. Mary and Joseph are perfectly free to have children. I'm not sure why she would be surprised when told that she's going to have a son, given that under Jewish law she and Joseph were free to engage in conjugal relations even at, you know, even right at that moment after the angel had left. So there are different aspects to examine, but that's not what we're debating, whether Scripture teaches it. Okay, so a multi-part question here. If Mary was immaculately conceived, why would Joseph and her kinsfolk who knew her think that her pregnancy was a result of adultery? Well, the kinsfolk, you can have relatives that don't know very much about you or misunderstand you. Jesus' kin in Nazareth did not fully understand his status as the Messiah. Many of them did not

believe in him. No question for Joseph? Okay, how about Mary's parents and Joseph, who was from the same tribe who she was betrothed to? That she was conceived without original sin? Well why would I believe that Mary's parents… BG Yeah, wouldn't they have noticed that their child up to the age of 12 or 13, however she was, that she had not committed a single sin? BG The Proto-evangelium of James does talk about Mary being very mature for her age, walking at an early age, for example, and being precocious. And then she was placed to be serving within the temple. So at an early age, I think about around age three. So they probably were aware of something very special about her at that

time. So there's nothing in Scripture that contradicts that. So a child that age, you think it's realistic that in the condition that they are brought up that they could, that Mary could have never committed a sin, especially as a child? I believe all things are possible with God, yeah. Okay. Why was she shocked about the Annunciation if she was immaculately conceived? Wouldn't she have known that she was the virgin from Isaiah 7 14? Well, not necessarily. Even if God had given you special graces so that you could follow His law, it wouldn't follow that God was also calling you to do something unprecedented in salvation history,

like to give birth to the Messiah. No one else ever before in the history of salvation had been asked to do something like that. So it is quite shocking. Can you give one example in the New Testament where it describes God or Jesus being a preemptive Savior instead of a redemptive redeeming Savior? You're talking about saving someone, giving someone salvation prior to their sins? Yeah, can you name one verse in the where either God or Jesus is described that way in the New Testament? No, I don't, I think I can think of anything like that, but I would say that Mary's status as

being the God-bearer would mean there'd be many truths that are quite unique to her that we don't find in either Old or New Testament. Would you agree with Jerry Madatix that the assumption of Mary was an eyewitness account just as Jesus' ascension was? I don't know if it was an eyewitness account. I suppose someone would have had to have been informed about that. Perhaps John witnessed this event and then told others,

or this may have been given to John through some other kind of revelation. I don't know if I could answer the question definitively. Okay, that's fair. So if so, if it was an eyewitness account, why hasn't the Catholic Church dogmatically declared whether or not she died first? Because the details about whether she died or not have not been given to us in the deposit of faith. That particular fact has not been given to us. That's why there are diverging traditions on whether Mary died or not. But you don't find the first denial of Mary's assumption until in the late early Middle Ages. That seems to be something that went without contention. Since the Catholic Church is certain

that the brothers of Jesus are anything other than biological siblings, meaning uterine siblings, why are they not able to be just as certain specifically who they are? Why is there disagreement between relatives, older stepbrothers, cousins, etc.? Because once again, not every truth of the faith, not every truth about first century life, for example, has been handed down to us. As I mentioned in my book, The Case for Catholicism, Paul's Letter to the Thessalonians, he talks about

the force restraining the man of lawlessness. And he told the Thessalonians who that was, but we don't know who that was. The biblical scholars have had many different answers and we don't know. Much the same, this particular truth about whether Mary died or not, that has not been handed down to us, but that she was assumed in heaven was, even though it didn't go on. All right, that sums it up. Trent, you have 10 minutes to cross-examine Steve whenever you begin. Okay, let's take a look here.

So Steve, we agree, and I didn't mean to bring up the dogma of Theotokos, Mother of God, in any kind of underhanded way or way to go against our previous agreement because when people hear Marian dogmas, they think of the four of them. So I think it's important that each of us, we don't have a problem with, we might have a problem with how to apply it, but the basic level mother of God isn't contradicted by Scripture. Agreed. As long as the difference is, the difference between Mariological title versus Christological title, that's probably where we would disagree, but go ahead. Sure. Does the Bible ever say Mary was not assumed into heaven?

No, it doesn't say that, but it doesn't say Joseph was bodily assumed into heaven? No, it doesn't say that, but it doesn't say Joseph was bodily assumed into heaven and the same three dogmas could apply to Joseph as well. But we don't make it, but why is there not a dogma? Those dogmas apply to Joseph. So you're just gonna agree it does not deny Mary was assumed into heaven? Well, I would say that it contradicts it because if she was indeed sinless, Mary would not have been a bodily assumed into heaven for the reasons I stated in my opening statement. If she were sinless, what would happen to her? Because there would be no reason to rescue her from death because the purpose of a bodily

assumption into heaven is so an individual would not see death if she was immaculately conceived she would not have bodily assumed needed to be rescued from death because that's the purpose of assumption which we see from Enoch and Elijah that's the purpose of their assumptions but let me get to that point about death though Can a person with a human nature die even if they are free from sin? Can a person die? Well, according to Genesis chapter, in Genesis it says, in that day you will surely die. And my contention is that if Adam had not that if Adam had not fallen and inherited original sin, he would not have died. Okay, so was Jesus free from sin and he also died?

Jesus became sin, that's why he died. He was put on the cross. So there was something sinful about Jesus. No, he became sin. The second Corinthians is clear, God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us. Then I could talk about what that verse means in a lot of different contexts.

What is the difference between having being sinful and becoming sin? Being sinful is saying that you have inherited original sin. And becoming sin means that sin was imputed to you. This is known as a sin. All right, let me ask you this. Was Jesus Christ free from sin? Jesus Christ did not inherit original

sin, but he became sin, which is why the Father had to turn away from him. Okay, and so that's why he died? Yes. All right, you said something about... Mary was able to do something that Jesus didn't. She didn't become sin either according to Roman Catholicism. Okay. Let's see here. I think that what we're quibbling a little bit here on the assumption, I think we actually have more things we agree on than less. Let's talk about the perpetual virginity of Mary. So, does the Bible say Mary gave birth to anyone besides Jesus? There's a lot of people in Scripture, including Joseph, that doesn't say anything that she gave birth to anybody, but you know, that others say he didn't give birth to older steps siblings of Jesus. So that's an argument from silence.

That's fine. Are you gonna to answer the question, does it describe her giving birth to anyone else or say she gave birth to anyone else? Well, the answer to the question needs to be in relation to applying it elsewhere in Scripture because there's a lot of people that are mentioned in Scripture that doesn't say that they had any children. And we can actually discern from others passages in Scripture that Jesus' brothers are his biological younger half-siblings. Okay.

So, is this your view? Jesus and his siblings have the same mother, but they have different fathers? Yes, because Jesus' younger half-sibling was Joseph, while Jesus' father was God. Okay, where in the Bible is the Greek word Adelphos used to describe siblings having the same mother but different fathers? The word for Adelphos is used numerous times in both the Old and the New Testament to describe people who have had the same parents. I mean, focusing on it saying that they had the same mothers is a little bit of a straw man because that's an argument that you're using, which I feel is really irrelevant, because you could use the argument that Jesus had younger half-sisters because

there's nothing in that passage to eliminate that possibility. Okay, so I'm going to ask the question again and see if you'll answer it. Your view is that the word Adelphos, what it means in the Brethren is that it's talking about Jesus and his siblings. They have the same mother, but they have different fathers. Now in the Septuagint, as well as in the New Testament, Adelphos is used to talk about people who have the same father but different mothers. I'm just asking is there an example where you're you where is there

an example of anywhere in Scripture where it's used to describe siblings they have the same mother but they have different fathers? It sounds like you're using it for your view of Jesus in a very unique way. I would have to look through the whole Old Testament because the word brothers is used quite a bit of time. So as far as I know, I don't know offhand, but that doesn't mean that it's not being used. And even if it wasn't, I don't see the relevance to it. The relevance would be that you're using it. Well, the relevance is the fact that the word

Adelfos for brother, the primary meaning means a biological sibling. So unless there's a reason in the context of the package. Adelfos, is the primary meaning of Adelfos that you have the same biological mother and father? Two individuals share the same biological mother and father. Two individuals share the same biological mother and father. Primary meaning of the word, Adelvos could either refer to having

the same biological mother or father. It can also refer to a half sibling as well. Such as in the Old Testament, the word for brother is used to refer to Ruben as being the brother of his half brothers. Because they have the same father but different mothers. But it doesn't demand for that though. It doesn't explicitly state that is the reason why they're so different. So then the word

Adelphos could also apply in this case to describe people that they have the same adoptive father, Joseph, but different mothers, Joseph's first wife and his second wife. Can it be used in the case without contradicting Scripture? Adelphos is not my issue. I mean, actually, you and I would agree on this. My argument is how the word Adelphi specifically is used in the New Testament Greek. I don't have a problem with the word Adelphos. That was never my argument. It's Adelphi. So, for an ancient Greek-speaking person with the word Adelphos, that was never my argument. It's Adelpho. So for an ancient Greek-speaking person, why would Adelphi have a narrower semantic range than Adelphos when the only difference here is the gender?

Why would that be the case? Because if you look in Strong's Greek exhaustive concordance and how it is used in the New Testament, which is what this debate is about, not extra biblical and how it is used in the New Testament, which is what this debate is about, not extra biblical work. It is used consistently and only to describe biological siblings. This is the focus of our debate, how it's used in Scripture. Well, right, but when we look at something like Strong's, for example, are you aware that Strong's defines Adelphos and Adelphi the same way? For

example, Strong's 80, are you aware that it describes Adelphos? It says a brother, a member of the same religious community, a fellow Christian. But here Strong says brother, but that could also mean half brother, right? Oh, absolutely. And then it says when you refer to Adelphi, when you look that up, it only has two meanings. It refers to a natural sister as well, or a biological. I'm running out of time, so I've got two more questions here.

So the Protestant reformers like Luther and Zwingli, did they believe Mary was a perpetual virgin, and were they committed to sola scriptura? They were committed to sola scriptura but we also have to remember that even though they were reformers they were also Roman Catholics and their issue with Rome was not about Marian dogmas, it was about the authority of Scripture over the authority of of the church and they did not want people following them, they wanted people following Scripture even if they were wrong.

Okay, did they think that there was anything unbiblical about Mary being ever virgin? As Roman Catholics, because Mary was not an issue, they didn't have a problem with her being a perpetual virgin, and I believe Calvin was kind of on the fence about it. So it's irrelevant, because they're Catholic. Did they believe every Catholic truth?

Did the Reformers believe every Catholic church truth? No, because their issue with Rome was about the sole authority of Scripture over the sole authority of the church. Their issue was not about Mary. Did they believe that Mary's... Did they believe Mary's... Well, we're out of time. No, no, go ahead. Please finish. Go ahead. Let's do one final question. Yeah, did they believe that the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity violated the authority of Scripture? Yes, and again, as a Roman Catholic, I would expect them

to because their issue is not about Mary. their issue is about the authority of the church. So it's relevant. All right, we're gonna move into a time, 30 minutes of Q&A. Massive thanks to those who support us at Locals and on Patreon, we're gonna be taking those questions. I think it might be best if I just go back and forth. So like one question for Steve and he answers,

then I'll do a question for Trent. If you guys could try to keep your answers to about two minutes each. Some of these questions are for both of you, but it might be better if I ask a question, just one of you respond since we have so many. Okay, so this first question is for both of you. We'll start with Trent and then Steve.

This comes from Esteban. He says, for Trent, which Marion dogma was or is the hardest for you to accept You answer that and I'll ask Steve the next question well in my own Personal journey of faith. I think I had some difficulties with the immaculate conception of Mary and

Mary's bodily assumption, but I think I was able to move through those difficulties by broadening my understanding of what is the ultimate source of authority for Christians, that it's not sola scriptura because the Bible itself doesn't even teach that. And so, moving from that, that if Jesus Christ did establish the church, if I am confident of that and in its teaching authority, then I can be confident in what the Pope teaches about Mary in regards to those two dogmas. But I can especially have confidence knowing that what is taught does not contradict Scripture. And so, if it doesn't contradict Scripture, then it

should be an issue between Catholics and Protestants of secondary importance, much like how people disagree about infant baptism. Even though they'll say that I don't believe it, but Steve might say it doesn't contradict scripture necessarily. Okay, so this next question is for you, Steve. I think you've already said to some degree you're okay kind of referring to Mary as the mother of God, so maybe you could focus on the other three. which obviously you disagree with all the, these three Marian dogmas, but which do you think would be the easiest for you to get on board with?

Wow. Um, that's kind of hard. I, I, I'd have to respond, uh, individually. I mean, because honestly, I believe that all three do contradicts, um, um, all of them. Probably, believe it or not, the bodily assumption only because there's nothing in Scripture that even alludes to her death. It doesn't allude to what happened at the end of her life, which even Epiphanius Islamus stated that nobody knows what happened to Mary at the end of her life, which demonstrates there was no eye witness. So probably honestly that one.

As far as Jesus's brothers and sisters, I probably have studied that more than anything else and I just, that would probably be the hardest for me to accept. And Mary being, or maybe Mary being sinless because I just, I mean Trent, you got a seven year old, it's like as good as a kid as he is based on who his parents are, I'm throwing you a bone here and I truly believe that because you're a nice guy, I like you Trent. You too, Steve. If anything like the parents, he's a good kid, but I can't imagine by the age of seven that his oldest child hasn't sinned one time.

And I can honestly say the same thing about Mary, especially with the oppression of Rome and the Jews especially, especially after Jesus was born. So I don't know if that answers the question, but probably the bodily exception. Okay, thank you. Alright so this question is for Steve and this comes from Kevin who's a local supporter he says this is a question for Steve how do you understand Luke 1 28 title for Mary as full of grace in the Greek literally meaning something like having been made completely full in regards to the Immaculate Conception thanks. Sure I addressed this a little bit during the debate, the specific Greek word, kakarotomene, which

is translated full of grace or highly favored. Even Jimmy Aiken from Catholic Answers, and even Trent, has argued that the word does not mean to be immaculately conceived. It doesn't even imply that. Again, in Syrac, chapter 18, I think it's verse 17, and the Septuagint uses this same Greek word, but in the masculine to refer to a man being full of grace as k-k-r-t-o-m-a-n-o. So, and obviously, Trent and I would agree that it doesn't mean that way. And as Jimmy Akin has pointed out, if Mary needed to be sinless in order to give birth to the Messiah, then her mother would

have to be sinless and her mother would have to be sinless all the way back to Eve. And so it just, it doesn't work. I mean, it doesn't prove, it's not a good proof text to use. This next question is- Well, can I have a- Sure. Do you- That's fine.

Just keep it shorter than his response yeah sure and what I would say here is that I agree that use of Kakar to many and Luke 128 does not prove the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception I think it provides strong evidence for it I do talk about this in my book and there I note that it's used differently than in Sirach 1817 where the word is also used in the Septuagint. In Luke 1, 28, the angel uses it as a descriptor of Mary within a personal address, similar to how John the Baptist used the lamb of God to speak about Jesus, and that talks about the significance there. The fact that this is used of Mary is very unusual. A Protestant scholar, Craig Keener, says, neither the title, favored, or graced one, nor the promise the Lord is with you, was traditional in greetings, even if

a person had been of status. So I think that that is highly significant. There's something very, very special about Mary in the way that it's used, along with the word's definition. Can I quickly make a response? Yeah, but sure. But let's have this be the last response to a response, because then I'm going to ask Trent a question and you're going to get to respond to that. Yeah, well, the thing is in both cases in the Septuagint and in Luke's gospel,

they're both in the perfect passive participle. So they're being used the same way. And I would also address that Luke actually specifically states that it is a salutation. That's all it is. That's all I wanted to say. This is hard, isn't it? Because I know every one of these points,

you can go back and forth on a lot, but let's try to keep it just the main response and then a response to the response. So this question is for Trent. This comes from supporter Matt. He says, it's a good question. I think a lot of people have this question, both Catholics and Protestants. At what point does Marian devotion or veneration turn into idolatry? Like, for example, how does one reconcile the following statements? I am the way, the truth and the life from our blessed Lord in

John 14 six and hail Holy Queen, mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, now hope emphasis on both claiming to be our life. So when does Marian devotion turn into idolatry? Sure. So idolatry, according to the Catechism in paragraph 2113, it says, idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry when he honors and reveres a creature in place of God. But that doesn't mean that we can't show veneration and respect towards the things that God has made and those people who have cooperated with God in salvation history. So when it comes to Mary, idolatry would occur if

we were to give Mary worship that is due to God alone. A concrete example of this would be sacrifice. Offering a sacrifice to Mary would be inappropriate. In fact, in the early church, it would go to the idolatry. In the early church, there was a heretical sect called the Choloridians, and Epiphanius condemns them, and they talks about how they offered cakes on altars to Mary. But the only thing we should offer on an altar is the body and Blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God that He has given to us at Calvary. We should only offer that to the Father in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. So, offering sacrifices to Mary would be idolatry, worshiping Mary as if, you know, she takes the place of God and is the one who, you know, secures our salvation as if she died on the cross or something

like that. We must be careful, of course, that in Marian devotion, sometimes people use very flowery language that shouldn't necessarily be taken literally because they love Mary as the mother of God who leads us to her son. I would stress that we look at what the church teaches and its magisterial teachings about Mary and her important role in salvation. But even St. Louis de Montfort, who uses very lofty language of Mary, says of her that she is but one Adam in comparison to the infinite and majestic glory that is God. So I think Catholics have a way to honor Mary as the mother of God without divinizing her.

Your response, Steve? Yeah, I think I want to comment on...hold on...okay, I want to comment on his use of the word veneration. In the Derby translation of the New Testament, in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2, when it talks about worshiping images and worshiping idols, it actually uses the word veneration, and it literally means, it literally can be translated worship. And so I'm not saying that Catholics are actively worshipping Mary or statues of Mary, but we have to be careful with the word veneration.

It's a word that really should be used strictly for God. And of course we can get into the whole Latria and Julia argument, but that's not what this debate is actually about. And the other issue is the fact is that even though a pope would not be allowed to declare something that goes against what the Magisterium teaches, and the Magisterium I doubt would ever teach about worshipping Mary, what's interesting is that according to Lumen Gentium it says that even when the pope is not speaking ex cathedra you must actually listen to what the pope says and this was a dogmatic constitution of the church by Pope Paul VI and he went on to say that Muslims and Christians worship

the same god when in fact they don't because the Christian God is Jesus and the Muslim God is is Allah and is not Jesus And I'd like my I'd like my little mini rebuttal very quick points Matt That is a topic for another debate. We've also addressed that frequently at Catholic comm so our listeners can go there to read that and Number two when it comes to veneration Worship honor give someone the respect that they're due. I would give this analogy to my Protestant brothers and sisters. Suppose we discovered the actual cross Jesus had been crucified on. We discovered it, carbon dated it. That's the cross Jesus died on. How would you treat that thing? Probably not like

any other piece of wood. I bet you would, maybe you would kneel before it in prayer, you would weep to see that through this means our salvation was procured. Some people might even accuse you of idolatry. But so my point would be that if we would show that devotion to the means through which Jesus died, why wouldn't we show that similar devotion to the means by which Jesus was born? Fair enough. Steve's shaking his head no, but we'll leave it at that for now. This next question comes from Mcat1977. Thanks for being a supporter mate. He says this is for, oh, hey,

now I have to give one to, yeah, to Steve. Given that the church, both East and West, had access to the same scriptures as us and were closer to the time of the apostles, how do you justify the church being in error for so long on a number of the Marian doctrines? Well, first of all, I would say that I disagree with Trent as a Catholic, is how you define the word church. In Roman Catholicism, church is defined specifically as the pope of the magisterium,

and then when you get baptized in the church, you become part of that. Rather biblically, the church is every individual sinner who God has redeemed out of the world to be a slave to our master and Lord Jesus Christ, every individual sinner. So I don't believe that the church in the biblical sense has been an heir all that time.

And if you look into church history, sense has been in error all that time. And if you look into church history, these dogmas were not all agreed upon. The last one to be accepted was the bodily assumption of Mary. And if you take a look at the origin of all three of these dogmas, they all come from either Gnostic-like text or apocryphal literature or pseudepigraphal literature like the Proto-evangelium of James and elsewhere. So I would actually disagree with Cardinal Newman to be deep into history as deceased to be Protestant. I actually had the opposite situation and as I began to study scripture more in depth,

I found to be deep into the Bible's deceased to become Catholic. Trent. I would say that Steve's comment, well, I don't think that the church is just a collection of believers and I don't think that the church ceased to exist. Those are both problematic. Matthew 18 17 says, Jesus says, if a person who sins against you refuses to listen to you or two or three witnesses, tell it to the church. And it seems to envision the church as having some kind of authoritative structure and not simply

as the invisible bond between all believers. I would say the church subsists in the Catholic Church, though other non-Catholic Christians have an imperfect communion with the church. That would be one. Number two is when Steve said, well, you know, I don't think the church died off, you know, there's more to it than that. I would challenge him. Who would I would ask him this question. You can answer it now or some other venue. Who was the first Christian, like author, father,

a theologian who held to the same theology that Steve does? Who was the first person you could say, yep, that was essential. That's my theology. I agree with what that person teaches. That's what I believe. Even if you have to have some things in essential form, I think you would have to pick someone pretty late in church history, at least over a thousand or 1,500 years or 1,800 years. And if that's the case, I think he'd have to say there really wasn't a church before that if he can't find someone prior to that to say, yeah, that person believed essentially what I believe. I don't think he could do that. Sounds like you're posing the question to you, Steve.

So feel free to answer that briefly. And it'll be really quick. I mean, to quote Jimmy Akin, when he was asked, did all the early church fathers agree, he says, boy, did they not all agree. So there was a lot that the early church disagreed on. And there were things that they agreed on, things that Trent would agree on, and there's things that they agreed on that I would actually believe in.

And this may, and so to say, who believed the exact same way that I believed, but when you look into church history, it's kind of hard to answer that question because even Trent cannot say about somebody that agreed exactly the way that he does. I mean, today there are Roman Catholics at about 70% of American Catholics that do not believe in transubstantiation. Let me finish. And so this may not satisfy Trent's answer, and he might kind of smirk a little bit about that,

but I'd say probably the first theologian to agree with me is the Apostle Paul. I guess after the New Testament, I guess here's a fun question Which of the church fathers would you be okay with preaching at your church? I would be I would love to have Augustine or Aquinas come down to my parish and and give a talk or be a pastor There I don't know. I don't know how you would feel which church father would you want to preach at your church? I'm surprised that you would pick Aquinas since he did not believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary Unlike Mary nobody's perfect Jesus is

But it's among human persons. I mean I mean to be to be fun He was human to be fun to be I mean just for fun. I mean, I would probably enjoy to Ignatius. I'd probably enjoy Polycarp. I would probably enjoy Clement of Rome even though 1st Clement wasn't written by an individual but rather there was a poly group of bishops, you know in in 1st Clement, but I mean I was some at some of the early ones I'd probably definitely not Judas Iscariot Okay, this question is for Steve from super chat me gentle V. Olp

He says Steve Psalm 132 8 says arise Lord and come to your resting place you and the ark of your might Can you describe the ark? Yes, it's referring back to second Samuel when it's talking about the Ark be moved to Jerusalem. This is an example of Isis called Isis Jesus of Scripture. It has nothing to do with Mary being the Ark. As a matter of fact, if you want to, immediately after this debate I made two videos. One of them is about the false typologies that are used by contemporary

Catholic apologists in order to justify Mary being the new arch and I'm going to explain, don't go into it now, wait till after the debate, but if you want to go there now, it's about that. And I also have a video about the seven popes that, and possibly eight popes that did not believe in the immaculate conception of Mary, it's on my youtube channel born again our end shameless plug Yeah, no Steve if you want to give me the links to those over email I'll be sure to put them in the description below so people can easily find them trying to join Yes, and I also have a video about

Protestant inconsistent use of typology where Protestants have no problem even seeing very rough connections where Protestants have no problem even seeing very rough connections typologically to Jesus in the Old Testament, but then apply a much harsher standard when those same typological connections or better ones show Mary in the Old Testament. So I'll send you a link. You could put that up as well. Sounds good. Okay. This question comes from Agoy for Jesus.

Thanks for the super chat. He says, Trent, the proclamation on Mary's immaculate conception says that the fathers unanimously believed that which is false. Can a conclusion be infallible if the underlying logic is false? Don't have the context of this question. That's all I got. I think, and by the way, hi Jeff. Good to hear from you again. If you guys want, I just had a dialogue with Steve and Jeff on their channel, it's also been mirrored on my channel, you can go and check that out. I believe he's referring to part of a declaration in in Ephoblus, the

declaration about the Immaculate Conception made by the Pope in 1854, saying that the fathers had always believed this about Mary being immaculately conceived. What the Church teaches is that infallibility does not cover preambles or evidences that are used to formulate a doctrine. There might be historical errors, for example, in some magisterial documents talking about the history of a doctrine, whether a certain saint or father believed X, Y, or Z. Infallibility has a narrow sense and only covers what is specifically defined, and in this case infallibility would only cover the

definition that Mary was conceived free from original sin and free from sin her entire life. Otherwise, things leading up to it, we could interpret them either in a broader sense. It's not necessarily saying every single father affirms something, since as Steve said, you won't necessarily get them all affirming, because they don't write on everything. It has to be interpreted charitably. Or it's possible there might be an error in a magisterial statement recounting history, but that doesn't apply the charism to the doctrine itself. Just like that scripture includes things within it that are not necessarily scientifically accurate. Scripture is without error, but

when the Bible talks about affirmament, that talks about an ancient, incorrect view of the heavens, but that doesn't take away from what inerrancy is about, which is Scripture's specific affirmations related to what it affirms. Steve? Yeah, I'm a little disturbed by the comment about anything in Scripture being in error, because if we cannot trust that when it says about Jesus being our Savior and rising from the dead Can you repeat the question real quick? You still have it? Sure. Yeah, it comes from a Goy for Jesus Who I'm now beginning to assume is your code laborer. I'm not sure. Do you know him? Do you?

The proclamation on Mary's immaculate conception says that the fathers Unanimously believed that which is false. Can a conclusion be infallible if the underlying logic is false? Yeah, and see, here's the thing, there's in the declaration on the specific dogma, the immaculate conception of Mary, there's absolutely nothing in the dogma itself that says anything that this part is infallible and something else that the Pope says in the declaration is not infallible. The other concern again that I have is from Lumen Gentium, which is a dogmatic constitution

of the Church, that it is binding to Catholics that even if the Roman pontiff does not speak ex cathedra, it is binding. And the issue too is it talks about, it discusses the word ipsum as opposed to ipsa when it says from Genesis 15 if she will bruise the heel or his heel will be bruised, however it's actually worded. This is actually based on Jerome's incorrect translation where he used the word ipsa for she rather than the corrected translation which is ipsum for he which is actually supported in Romans chapter 16 when it says Jesus is the prince whose heel would be bruised.

Yeah, well, I'd like my quick mini-rebuttal. In Ineffable Deus, where immaculate conception is defined, the word unanimity appears once. And it's talking about the opinion of the fathers of the most glorious Virgin being an unstable miracle of God and being the mother of God. And I think that's something that we do find. Mary's special, unique status and her being mother of God

is something throughout the fathers, definitely. And what you end up finding also from this, as well as other dogmas, when you go back to it, you find a lot of these dogmas originating in apocalyptic literature. So this question comes from Mitchell Godfrey, and I'm gonna kind of just change his question a little, because he said he's not gonna be watching live,

so some of this has been answered. But he seems like he's not going to be watching live. So some of this has been answered, but he seems like he's asking, like could a Protestant accept some of these Marian dogmas and remain a Protestant and someone that you would fellowship with? So for example, if a Protestant listens to today's debate and agrees with Trent and Calvin and Luther that Mary didn't have children,

could he still in your view be a good Protestant Christian? Trent, do you want to start or do you want me to answer that first? That's for you, Steve. What's for me? Okay. Alright. Okay. And Trent and I actually talked a little bit about this, about you know, essentials versus non-essentials of the faith, and it all goes down to the authority of Scripture. Now, because there because I would argue that the dogmas are not explicitly mentioned in Scripture and they do not affect salvation, a person could be a Protestant, because we have to understand what a Protestant is. And we have to go back to the Reformation for that. And in the Reformation, the two doctrines that came out of it were Sola Scriptura and

Sola Fide. And if that is your authority, that's what makes you a Protestant. And we have to ask ourselves, is there anything in the Bible that states that in order to be saved, you have to believe in these dogmas? No, it doesn't. It just means somebody is wrong, whether it be me or another person who calls themselves Protestant that accepts these things. But if their authority is the Roman Catholic Church and is the

Magisterium, then it becomes an authority issue because then you're submitting to an authority that is also teaching something different about salvation that has nothing to do with these dogmas. Yeah, I would say that this is a really important question and one for us to look at that for Protestants and Catholics to have dialogue with one another and to get closer to the truth, I think it's huge to be able to move from, and what this debate is about is about, do these beliefs contradict Scripture? Now I think Steve would probably say that there can be Protestants who believe things that Scripture is kind of silent about, like infant baptism. Should we baptize babies or not? Protestants disagree. I think that is kind of a salvation issue, actually,

but they disagree about that because Scripture doesn't, at least infant baptism for many Protestants, at least it doesn't contradict Scripture, even if Scripture is silent on the matter. And so I would say if you're Protestant, for Protestants and Catholics, if the Marian dogmas can occupy at least that kind of place, well, you know, scripture seems silent on the matter, not resolved, but at least it doesn't contradict Scripture, then I would say we should treat the Marian dogmas like if you're Protestant, anything else you might disagree with, like infant baptism, the cessation of charismatic gifts, for example. And one little historical note so that people, there's a bit of a myth here. Calvin did not

believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary. He rejected that dogma, though he did not believe Matthew 1.25 proved it. They also didn't believe in the dogma either. Luther and Zwingli though probably did, they did believe that Mary was ever virgin. So just a historical note for everybody watching. Yeah, that's good for me, too. Thanks for correcting me on that, Trent. I was, I was wrong there. Okay, here's a question that I have that I'd be interested in both of you answering, and maybe we can go to Trent and then Steve. So, Trent, what are some arguments that you hear Catholics put forth for any of the dogmas we're discussing today that you wish they would stop putting forth because they're bad arguments?

And then Steve, you know, because Steve, I can tell that you've really wrestled with what Catholicism teaches, and I really appreciate that you're arguing against Catholicism based on what she teaches, right? So my question for you then would be, what are some objections you hear from Protestants that when you hear them, you think, oh goodness, like you don't even understand the Catholic position. So starting with Trent. Yeah, well, what's interesting is that Steve actually

had very good objections to some of these arguments. He offered them in the debate. They weren't arguments that I made, but they're arguments that other people have made. So for example, I think Steve is right that the use of the word kikaratamene in Luke 1.28 does not in and of itself prove the Immaculate Conception. It would be an evidence chip, if you will, for it, that we have to balance with other evidences. Other arguments I think are bad. The claim that Mary had to be immaculately conceived because Jesus could not be conceived within a

woman who is sinful. By that argument, St. Anne would also have to be immaculately conceived because Jesus could not be conceived within a woman who is sinful. By that argument, St. Anne would also have to be immaculately conceived. The claim that Mary did not give birth to other children because Jesus is called the son of Mary. I do believe that that's good evidence that Jesus, that Mary was Joseph's second wife, at least that's my personal view, but that doesn't prove that Jesus didn't Jesus that Mary didn't give birth to others because you could say, well, Solomon is the son of David, but David had many other children besides Solomon. So that's also a bad argument. Yeah, so there's there's lots of bad arguments. I thought about writing a book about that. Here's one trend I don't like and I wonder what you think about it. When I've seen people in the chat say things like,

wouldn't you make your mother perfect? I don't like that argument. I just think well yeah I'd also want to make my foster father perfect and I'd probably want to make the Peter the rock of the church. Yes, here's my thought on that. So this would be an argument saying that it is fitting therefore it is true and I think that in general those arguments aren't very strong but in some cases saying that something is fitting can point us in that direction. For example, we could ask the question, were the Apostles baptized? Because I believe that I think Steve would agree baptism is at least an ordinance we ought to carry out, we ought to do it. The Bible doesn't say that Apostles are baptized, but it certainly seems quite fitting that they would be given everything else.

So the idea that it's fitting that Mary be immaculately conceived, it pushes the dial a little, but it's by no means a proof. There is an article, I might share this soon, by a Catholic philosopher, Jack Mulder, who where he talks about it would be fitting, Mary being immaculately conceived, it's fitting and may be required because that way Mary is perfectly able to consent to become pregnant with our Savior. I can't go into that in detail here in the answer, but I might talk about it in a future podcast episode. So that's another one. It is fitting, therefore it's true. Might give you a slight nudge in the direction, but by no means a foolproof. Okay, and then Steve, what are some objections you hear from Protestants to Catholics that you don't think are good? Or are they all good?

Yeah, no, no, no. I mean, it kind of got me on the spot. I mean, I have to really think about that. I mean, aside from the dogmas, I think one of the ones that kind of make me cringe is that that that that Catholics worship Mary where every time I hear that I'm like You know and I brought it up, but I explained the I came about it through a through a different way I Have to say maybe be and Trent kind of brought this up in the debate when it says that that talks about the the brothers and sisters of Jesus and using Adelphoi to mean

that it always means biological brother and Trent and I would agree that doesn't mean it. In fact, that wasn't even an argument. And that's why when Adelphoi wrote and why I argued how is it used specifically in the New Testament, you know, so I would actually tell people to focus more on that. Honestly, I'd have to think about it. It's like, because I try not to use those arguments. Yeah, no, fair enough.

I kind of put you on the spot with that. So there's no worries. Okay, we're gonna move into a time of closing statements. Steve, you're gonna go first with five minutes and then Trent to take your time there, Steve getting yourself ready. And then whenever you're whenever you start speaking, I'll click the time. Okay, give me a second here. Okay, we got five minutes, right? Yes, correct. Five minutes. All right. No rush.

No rush. We're good. Okay. It is often said in order to detect a counterfeit bill, you don't study other counterfeit bills, but instead you first study the genuine thing. Then you'll be able to detect a counterfeit easily. As Christian evangelist and author Mike Gentron wrote, quote, the most deceptive counterfeit is the one that most resembles the genuine article.

The same is true with detecting a counterfeit Mary by first studying the genuine Mary of Godbury's scripture, which does not teach these much later Roman Catholic dogmas, but just the opposite, that she was past tense, the Virgin Mother of our Lord, who redeemed and delivered her from her sins and who died and will be, future tense, bodily resurrected when Jesus comes to catch up as Church.

It is because of my tremendous love and respect for the Mary of Godbury scripture that I felt the responsibility to point out that the Mary of Roman Catholicism is not the same as the Mary of the Word of God. Rather, this counterfeit Mary developed over several centuries based on false typologies which conflict with Scripture, no different than what Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Muslims have done with Jesus. Aaron Frederick, one of my YouTube subscribers, rightly observed, quote, In a courtroom, evidence that is thrown out or dismissed by a court cannot be used to

find a verdict. The same in any intellectual study. What is pure fiction cannot be used as factual evidences. And it is from the pure fiction of the Pro-Evangelium of James, the Ode to Solomon, the Ascension of Isaiah, the Transcendence of Pseudo-Malito, and other false gospels and apocryphal literature, some attached with anathemas by early popes for entertaining these works

without separating the Marian dogmas from them are where these much, much later Marian dogmas developed from, and later forced into the text, which would have been foreign to the biblical writers. Influenced early on by early monasticism, asceticism, and even Gnostic-like texts, early Roman Catholics were troubled by how a created sinful fallen creature went on to have other children and could give birth to the sinless Son of God in the flesh. These later Marian developments were not like orthodox dogmas and doctrines of Christ that developed, such as His divinity, His dual natures and wills, and the Trinity, whose concepts are

unmistakably spelled out in Scripture, either explicitly or implicitly. Scripture reveals Mary was a virgin, but conflicts with her being a perpetual virgin. Mary did not need to be immaculately conceived, since sin is not a trait that is passed down physically, but a spiritual condition. Mary also did not need to be bodily assumed to heaven, like Enoch and Elijah, so they, quote,

would not see death supported by the earliest church tradition, indirectly supported by scripture and strongly implied by the dogma itself. The importance of discussing these Marian dogmas is more than merely to debate them. It is a matter of which authority are you willing to submit to.

The infallible authority of scripture versus the fallible self-proclaimed authority of the Magisterium, which demands the faithful Catholic to believe these dogmas, threatening them with excommunication for denying them, despite all of them contradicting Scripture. As Trent Horn shared with Matt Fred on Sips with Aquinas, quote, the immaculate conception, should we dogmatize, should we not, it is going to go back to what you believe about the authority of the magisterium. So the Catholic's authority is not balanced on a three-legged stool of the magisterium,

sacred tradition, and holy scripture, but on a one-legged stool of the magisterium which subjectively determines what scripture and tradition are and how to interpret them. The danger of submitting to this fallible authority extends to submitting to their authority of their unbiblical view of salvation of infusion of grace through the sacraments, which also contradicts scripture, which teaches justification by imputation of grace by faith alone. As the apostle Paul wrote in his fourth chapter in his epistle to the Roman church, quote, for what does scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited or imputed to him as righteousness,

so that he might be the father of all who believe that righteousness might be credited or imputed to them. And this includes Mary, who Jesus saved her by redeeming and delivering her from her sins. So whether we are discussing the Marian dogmas, the papacy, the purpose of baptism or communion, or the biblical canon, the real authority behind these debates is whether you trust in the sufficiency of God-breeze scripture to reveal itself to you or to the magisterium which often conflicts with it, not just on the Marian dogmas but also regarding salvation. As Trent Horn stated in his debate against Dr. James White, quote, our theology should come from the Bible, not the Bible from our theology. That's Sola Scriptura folks, and I agree with him, as did the Apostle Paul and the first century

Roman Church. Thank you, and God bless everyone. Thank you very much, Steve. Trent, whenever you begin, I'll click the five minute timer. Sure. Yes, I do remember in that debate with James White five years ago saying, our theology should come from the Bible, not the Bible from our theology. And I was not arguing for sola scriptura. My point was that we should not believe in doctrines that plainly contradict

Scripture. In fact, in that debate, I never brought up the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. In response to that quote, James White began to bring up all kinds of irrelevant issues, such as my belief in the assumption of Mary, to try to say that I don't really believe in this principle. I do. As Christians, we should not believe things that contradict the Word of God. And Catholics are very clear, we do not believe anything that contradicts what we find in sacred Scripture. Not everything we believe is found explicitly in sacred Scripture. And for Protestants, that's the same as well, because the doctrines of the canon of Scripture, or even sola scriptura itself, are not found explicitly in Scripture. So let's tie all of this up a little bit. My goal today

is to show that the Marian dogmas do not contradict Scripture. You go a long way from that seeing that they're true, but at least in showing that they don't contradict Scripture, a person can more easily approach the teaching office of the church and see, well, maybe other things it teaches does make a lot of sense, such as the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the existence of an enduring magisterium, baptismal regeneration, and other things like that. And then take heart in knowing that these teachings about Mary don't contradict Scripture, and then we can further infer and try to understand what are the sources

of divine revelation. So to talk about things that came up in this debate, there are things that came up that we're not debating, things like Sola Scriptura, the history of the Marian dogmas, as I said before, that's not what we're debating today. Those would be irrelevant to the question. My point though is to show that the Marian dogmas do not contradict Scripture. I'm not alone in believing this. As I showed earlier, you have people like Martin Luther,

Ulrich Zwingli, who were firmly, I would not call them Catholic. I don't think people at the time would call them Catholic. Certainly they were baptized Catholics, but they opposed whatever they thought the church taught that contradicted sacred scripture in a wide variety of doctrines, except they didn't contradict on Mary being the mother of God or her being ever virgin, because as Steve

agreed with me in this debate, the Greek word Adelfos can mean adoptive sibling or half sibling. And I showed in my arguments that his claim that Adelphi can only mean uterine sister of the same mother or figurative are simply not held up and that Greek grammarians and New Testament scholars simply disagree with Stephen at this point. He's just wrong about the semantic range of that word. And I also showed his other arguments to try to show that Mary gave birth to other children, such as from Psalm 69, Luke chapter 2, as well as the idea that Matthew 1.25 requires that she and Joseph had sexual relations. None of that is

required by Greek grammar or what the verses say, and I showed counter examples to that in each of those cases. And eventually those ended up being dropped throughout the debate. When it came to the Immaculate Conception, Steve did not really put forward any argument to show Mary sinned herself, just kind of a weak reference to Mark chapter three, and even there he admitted it doesn't explicitly talk about Mary. When we talked about there being universal truths about sin, we both agreed on that, and Steve and I also both agreed that the universality

of things like sin or death don't preclude exceptions. Hebrews 9.27 says it's appointed for men to die once, but some people die twice, some people don't die at all. So Steve even admits that Jesus is an exception to the claims about the universality of sin, but he'll say we can believe in that exception because of what's come from divine revelation in sacred scripture.

And I would say the same applies to Mary. We're just having different views about what counts as divine revelation. But if we just read scripture and read it fairly and charitably, there's nothing that contradicts so far Mary being mother of God, ever virgin, or being immaculately conceived. I think we both agree on the assumption Steve said it does not, the Bible does not say Mary was not assumed into heaven. And in order to try to show her assumption would contradict it, he had to use a very speculative argument about that she did not need to be rescued from death,

even though that doesn't apply to every case where God would take someone into heaven. That rather it just there's nothing in there to preclude people being assumed body and soul into heaven, including Mary. So ultimately we've seen this, and I think what's important to remember all this that these dogmas do not take the place of Christ. Mary doesn't take the place of Christ. Mary always leads us to our son, to her son. They point us to Jesus Christ. And so when we look to Mary, we always follow the words that she uttered to the servants

at the wedding feast of Cana. Do whatever he tells you. And Jesus tells us to honor our father and mother, and we should honor his father and mother. We honor our father who is in heaven, and we give honor to Mary, who is the mother of God that brought our savior into the world. And so in seeing these Marian dogma, that they don't contradict scripture,

we can move forward in our understanding of authority to see what the church Christ established really has taught and given to us for salvation. All right, thank you very much, Trent and Steve. Stick around, because I've got one final question for both of you, but I wanted to say two things before I do that. The first is if you are watching right now and you are not yet subscribed to this YouTube channel, click subscribe, click the bell button.

It'll make me feel really good if nothing else. We've got lots of great content that comes out weekly more seriously and you know, you don't want to miss it. So click subscribe. Second thing I wanna point out is you should consider joining our Locals community. Locals is a free speech platform, so unlike Twitter and YouTube,

I'm not going to get banned from saying the sorts of things I say that go against secular dogma. I run morning podcasts here on Locals. It's called Morning Coffee, where we all sit down together, have a coffee and have a very casual chat. It's free to watch the podcast. You just have to join Locals in the same way you'd have to join Twitter or Facebook to get access to it.

So I'm gonna put a link in the description below, I already have. Please click that, please join our community. It's a very beautiful open community and you get free daily podcasts and I think you'd really enjoy it. Okay, so final question I have for each of you. We'll start with Steve and then Trent. Steve, where can people learn more about you and the good stuff you've done? Oh, you're on mute.

Forgot, can you hear me now? Yes sir. Okay, well first of all I want to thank you Matt for having me on, for hosting this debate and for all that and for everyone affiliated with Pints with Aquinas. I also want to thank Trent for agreeing to our second debate and we hit over 800 I saw there, which actually was our first debate, so praise Jesus for that. And I also want to thank Trent for picking the particular title and how it was actually described because I had mentioned, hey, let's just do the perpetual virginity of Mary and he's like, you know, let's do all three of them. So it was Trent's idea. It's just a shameless plug.

Like I said, I'm an author of two books. People are familiar with this one, Why Protestant Bibles Are Smaller. My first book is about that really obvious, why do children of Christian parents abandon the faith? You can get both of those on Amazon. You can also reach me on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. My screen name is bornagainrn, so you can look at me that way. I'm also going to send Matt a link to my other channel, verisage.us

backslash steve christy. A lot of mouthful, but that's what links are for. So thank you very much, both of you. God bless you and stay safe out there. Thanks, Dave. Trent? Yeah, no, I'm grateful for Steve to take part in this. It's always nice to see people who are willing to put forward rigorous argument and engage others charitably. And yeah, I would just encourage others.

I've always said this, I don't see debates as a way to bring an issue to an end toto-end an issue. It's a way to begin exploration of it. So, I would definitely encourage people who are willing to explore the Church's teachings about Mary more. There are a lot of great resources at Catholic.com. I have two chapters on it in my book, The Case for Catholicism. My colleague Tim Staples has written an entire book on Mary called Behold Your Mother. And also, I know others have done a lot of work on this. William Albrecht has done a lot of great work on Mary. You can see him and others talk about this on the Reason and Theology channel. Brant Petrie has some great work on Mary as well for people to

check out. So, yeah, I would just encourage people just to continue to read and learn, dive into the Word, dive into the teachings of the Church historically, just to come to a knowledge of the church Jesus Christ established as 1st Timothy 3.15 says, the pillar and foundation of truth. Thanks Trent and Steve. I know it takes a ton of time to put these things together and prepare for these debates, so we really appreciate the time you've put into it. Trent and Steve, if you want to email me individually whatever links you'd like me to put in the description, I'll be sure to do that. God bless you. See you later. Thanks everybody.