Truth Unites - My Case Against the Papacy: Response to Criticism

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

Several weeks ago I offered a case against the papacy on Cameron Bertuzzi's Capturing Christianity. There have 8 or 9 different response videos to it from Roman Catholics. In this video I articulate 7 concerns about arguments for the papacy in these responses videos. Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

What is up, everybody? Turn off the music here. I was just laughing because I was making pictures for the thumbnail, and each was more preposterous than that one. So you'll see whatever. I don't know which one I'll choose, but you'll see. So a couple of weeks ago, I did a video on the papacy at Cameron Bertuzzi's channel, Capturing Christianity.

He is an awesome apologetics channel. Does a lot of different things, too. And I was just giving like a 20-minute overview, kind of a brief kind of snapshot of why I don't accept the papacy. were like eight or nine different response videos that have come out. Many of them were several hours long. So I obviously can't respond comprehensively to all of them, but I thought it'd be helpful to reflect on a few of the standout points that were made. And then going forward, I'm happy to keep talking and have other dialogues or respond to other arguments in other videos and so forth.

But hopefully this will be valuable in the meantime. I find that Catholics on YouTube are sometimes was very passionate about their beliefs to the point of very quick to offer lengthy rebuttals. And, you know, that's fine. Some people find that kind of aggressive, like ready to pounce. But I really don't take offense at any of the rebuttals. In fact, I was appreciative. Several of them were very, obviously, being very careful. Like Eric Ybarra had written out portions of his trying to be accurate and fair.

And I really appreciated that. None of them were in bad form. So, I mean, I think dialogue and debate is a good thing. and I respect the fact that people believe in their convictions enough to argue for them. But I also believe in my convictions, and I'm very burdened because I believe that a lot of people out there are being, they're really not aware of historic Protestant or even the other traditions, the Eastern traditions, such as Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East, etc. Or I've mentioned the Old Catholic Church.

basically all of those who reject the papacy, a lot of times people aren't aware of that side and they're not hearing those arguments. And so they're being swayed by what they're hearing. And I'm persuaded that the case for the papacy is a weak one. I don't think, I think there's kind of a vacuum there, as I'll talk about. I don't think there's really any evidence for it in its founding. And so I'm burdened for those people who are being swayed because they're only hearing one side of the story. So I want to offer a few thoughts here. I hope this won't be unduly annoying for Catholic viewers. I admire Catholic Christians.

I learn from them. But I also think it's okay to point out some of the problems in the argumentation out there. So I'd like to articulate seven concerns about arguments for the papacy that I'm seeing in these response videos. The first one is isegesis. Now, this word simply means reading into texts as opposed to exegesis, which means reading out of a text. And I think there's a lot of isogesis going on with the New Testament passages when it comes to the papacy. So, for example, just go through some examples here. People will speak of a Petrine structure or a kind of top-down triangular hierarchy in the New Testament

and how this has always been God's plan and it's always been there and things like this, referencing passages like Matthew 16, for example. And that is just reading into the text. There is nothing about a structure or a triangular structure or hierarchies. or anything like that in Matthew 16. I could argue for a triadic structure from Galatians 2-9 by the same criterion. I'll put up this verse on the screen here. This is one of many passages that references the inner three. A lot of people think there's something special about Peter, James, and John. They are uniquely the witnesses of certain events like the Transfiguration and

various other things. And there's lots of reasons why people think, you know, I'm not trying to settle this right now, but just there's something special about these inner three where they are are a part of things that the other nine are not. And here they're called pillars, and so you could make this argument. If the church needed a triatic structure when she was just a few hundred people, how much more does she need a triadic structure when she is a billion? Do you see the problem with that argument? I'm reading the word structure into Galatians 2-9.

Galatians 2-9 says nothing about a structure. It says nothing about an ongoing office. It says nothing. It's not picturing the church as a big entity. It's talking about three guys, Peter, James, and John. So it's isogesis for me to speak of a structure in Galatians 2.9, and I submit that the same thing is going on with Matthew 16. There's nothing about a Petrine structure. It's just about Peter. And I'll say more about Matthew 16 in a moment. Another example is Luke 22 and John 21. People read so much into these passages. What I pointed out in my video is that the language of feed my sheep and strengthen your brothers

has no reference to or implication for supremacy. That's just, you know, these are apostolic functions and Peter's being restored as an apostle. And if you want to get something like, well, that means he has greater authority than the other apostles, or he's being commissioned with this unique charism and, you know, it's this officiour. new status or something like this, you have to read all of that into the text. The text doesn't say that. And yet you'll still hear language about, you know, in these passages how Peter is being entrusted with the church or something like this. And that's isogesis. It's, you know, again, use the same criterion for other texts. I could use that same criterion to argue for Pauline

supremacy in 2nd Corinthians 1128, which I'll put up on the screen where he talks about having a care for all the churches. But if I were to say, say, therefore, Paul had greater authority than the other apostles or had a unique, in being, you know, he was uniquely entrusted with a care over the church such that he, you know, he has some official role that the other apostles don't or something like this, or he's on, anything like that. All of that is I said Jesus. I'm reading it into the text. Now, just to be clear, I'm not saying that these passages are inconsistent with the papacy. I'm not saying that, like, if you believed in the papacy on other grounds,

Luke 22 or John 21 or Matthew 16 would be a problem for that. I'm just saying they're not supportive. They don't actually say what they would need to say. If they said something like, strengthen your brothers as their head, or feed my sheep as my vicar, or something like that, where the idea of supremacy or some of the other ideas of the papacy

were actually present in the verse, then you could use them. But they don't say that. You have to read that into the text. And with Luke 22, the one thing that is a little, I would say these passages really don't tell you one way, they just don't give you enough information to tell you, you know, is Peter the top guy in a hierarchy like is envisioned at Vatican 1,

where you find language of obedience and hierarchical subordination and so forth? There's a very particular triangular structure there. Is that the case? I don't think these passages tell you either way. They certainly don't get you to that, and yet people act like they do. If they tip the scales in either direction at all, I do think it actually is surprising that the disciples are, arguing in Luke 22 about who is the greatest. You just would wonder, gosh, well, if it was so clear in

Matthew 16 what that Peter was being put on top, then I don't really see why they'd be arguing about that here, but I don't put a lot of stock on that. That's just a minor point. Another example of Issa Jesus would be with Acts 15. Now, I think Acts 15 is a very important text in this discussion because this is the great doctrinal controversy of the early church. This is the kind of scenario for which we supposedly need a pope to offer a ruling, you know? Also, the book of Acts is going to give you more concrete, narratival information of how the church is actually functioning on the ground. How are things, you know, Matthew 16 is more abstract because it's a principle. There's this image of a rock, and that needs to be interpreted. I think all of us could admit that that doesn't

immediately tell you everything about how that's going to be fleshed out. Okay, let's suppose Peter is the rock, okay, how exactly will that fall out in terms of how things will play out? Well, Acts 15 tells us how is the church functioning, you know? And I pointed out in my initial video that it really does look like more of a group effort. I'll put up the verses where James speaks in verse 19 and the words there, therefore it is my judgment and the specific proposal he makes. And, you know, the basic flow of the passage is Peter speaks, Paul and Barnabas speak, James speaks, and then the whole church acts upon James' proposal. And I think in the various responses to this text, there's a lot of

eiseachesis. People will try to inflate Peter's role up a lot, so people will say that, you know, because everyone gets quiet after he talks. And I just think that's a pretty weak argument. It's kind of like, okay, big deal. Even if you take that as referring to Peter, specifically, as opposed to Paul and Barnabas, who are referenced in verse 12 there with that as then they are speaking, it's like, you know what? big whoop, so they get quiet. Again, you have to read the ideas of the papacy, like supremacy or something like that, into the text. Another thing people will do is try to get mileage out of the fact that Peter speaks first. But again, I mean, that doesn't tell you that much information. That could go either

way. You could interpret that as if you already believed in the papacy on other grounds that you could maybe see that as a mild supportive point or something like that, but it just doesn't tell you much information. So what if he goes first? You know? Well, if you could, you could start to argue for anything by that, because you could say, well, if he goes last, well, then that's the significant thing. I mean, you have to kind of read what you want to get into the text if you want to derive too much from little details like that. And with regard to James appearing to give the more specific decision, one of the things people try to say is that, well, he's just confirming what Peter said. But again, the text doesn't say that. It never says, you know, James doesn't say,

Peter gave the ruling and I agree with Peter. He references what God has done in Peter's ministry, but then he goes on to quote Amos 9. He offers his own interpretation of that passage, and then he says, therefore, it is my judgment, and he gives this more specific proposal of what we should actually do. So James is actually not just repeating what Paul and Barnabas and Peter have said. He's arriving upon the outcome, the proposal of what to do, not just the principle. And the bottom line is it just looks like more of a group effort. And I would say, look, again, to be clear, if you had really strong reasons to believe in the papacy on other grounds based upon other passages and other considerations, I think you could reconcile Acts 15 to that. I'm not saying, you know, with all of these passages, we're trying to make plausibility judgments and it's not always obvious exactly how to take all.

You know, you don't want to put too much on one passage either. On the other hand, this is certainly not an impressive piece of evidence for the papacy. It's just not at all what you'd expect. Recall the language of Vatican I. The other bishops relate to the Pope by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience because he has a full and supreme power of jurisdiction. If Peter possessed such a power, you can say, it's like, you know, because people will say, oh well maybe he just wasn't exercising that authority and that power in this particular case for

various reasons okay fine yeah that's possible but then then you say okay so where does he exercise that why why would we accept that where else in the book of acts do we see that and at the end of the day it's just again it's like a vacuum you just don't see this another example so a few two other examples of is Jesus one is throughout the book of acts people will just you know notice anything that Peter does or elsewhere in the New Testament and try to sort of inflate that up or laser focus on that. But again, if you're consistent with the same criterion for other passages, you run into problems. So people will try to get, it's almost like people are arguing for Petrine supremacy from Petrine significance. But Petrine significance doesn't entail Petrine supremacy per se.

So people will look at the Peter's shadow healing people. But if you try to get supremacy or something like that out of that, then you'd have to do the same thing with Paul's handkerchiefs healing people later on in Acts. Or you could just as plausibly do so. It doesn't entail the consequent. It doesn't get you to supremacy. Similarly with the lists of apostles, people will try to get mileage out of the fact that Peter is listed first.

But you have to read into the text, the idea that that means he has greater authority or something like that. Judas is listed last, but Judas does not have less authority. Judas is not a junior apostle. So again, it's something where you have to read what you want into the passage. Another example is with Matthias in Acts 1, and the people will try to get apostolic succession from this passage. But apostolic replacement is not the same as apostolic succession. We know from Luke 12 that the 12th,

that the 12 apostles will sit on thrones to judge the 12 tribes of Israel. Okay? So if you go down to 11 apostles because Judas has gone, it's not shocking that you'd want to replace Judas and go back up to 12. And Peter in verse 22 of Acts 1 specifically says, we need someone who is a witness of the resurrection because that's what apostles were, among other things. So that's very different from apostolic succession.

Again, it's not inconsistent with apostolic succession. succession. You could also believe in that on other grounds, but it doesn't support that idea. Apostolic succession is a completely different idea. It's not replacing one apostle with another apostle. It's a transmission from an apostle to a bishop in a very specific way with a very specific understanding, that there's a laying on of hands that is necessary, that apart from this, there are not efficacious sacraments and so forth that results in a very exclusivistic doctrine of the church. You could believe in that also. But, Acts 1 is not a support for that. You're just replacing an apostle there. So the general concern I would have, this would probably be kind of the first and most basic concern is I just think people read the things that are needed with respect to the papacy into the relevant passages.

Second concern I have is about misframing. This happens a lot from Roman Catholic apologists where, you know, a particular Roman Catholic belief will be presented as the alternative to the worst of Protestant, practice. And this happens over and over, and it's the fallacy of the excluded middle, where you make people choose between two options when there's actually more than two. So it'd be like arguing that we should be fundamentalists because we shouldn't be atheists. It's like, well, you could, you know, not be a fundamentalist or an atheist. And people do this a lot with the papacy. It's presented as an alternative to something when it's not, something it's contrasted with is not the only other option. So let me just give two areas where I have a concern that there's, and some of this is lessen about the response videos, but just more about where I think people are at as they watch the

videos and as they're considering this issue. So many times people have the idea that the way to frame the differences is that Roman Catholics view Peter as the rock in Matthew 16, whereas Protestants and Eastern Orthodox and the other traditions don't view Peter as the rock. And secondarily, that Roman Catholics believe Peter had a unique leadership role, whereas these other traditions deny that Peter had a unique leadership role. Now, sometimes that won't be stated, but it'll be sort of implicit in the way the reasoning is working. And so I think it's just helpful to drill down here and be more precise and more accurate about where the difference is actually lies. Why? Because the non-Roman Catholic traditions can and generally do agree that Peter had a leadership role.

We just don't see that as such that he had authority over the apostles in some way, like the triangular structure, the top-down hierarchy, the vision of Vatican One. We can and often do agree that Peter is the rock in Matthew 16. That's a very common view in the scholarship. But then the interesting thing that you then get into is what does that mean? And, you know, for example, does this mean that Peter is the rock in his apostolic confession, or does it mean that Peter is the rock as the first holder of an ongoing ecclesiastical office that ultimately terminates in the Roman bishops, specifically and exclusively?

Now, I'm not trying to settle all that right now, but just try to frame, you know, that's where we differ. And so there's a lot of actually complexity in how, in kind of getting at where do the differences lie. And I get the impression that a lot of people kind of think of it more like this, that, well, if Matthew 16 teaches that Peter is the rock, that's a strike for the Catholic side. And that's just not true. Or a lot of times also a reading through of Matthew 16 as though it's sort of this obvious plain reading is that it leads to the Catholic position. And I just think, again, it's helpful to frame where we differ here. There's a couple of reasons why actually

understanding what it means that Peter is the rock, which I would affirm, is very complicated. One is that, I'll just mention two reasons why that is tricky. One is the rest of the New Testament, where you have this rock imagery used in such interesting and different ways, drawing from Psalm 118 in Ephesians 2, 1st Corinthians 10, 1st Peter 2, I even think Galatians 2 9 and other passages. But the other reason would be the Church Fathers. I don't think that anyone could read through the patristic testimony about Matthew 16 and then come away thinking, oh, this is easy and this is obvious.

Because the thought of the church fathers is very diverse, and very frequently they're saying that the meaning of the rock is polyvalent. So it's not just Peter. It's Peter, but it's Peter in what he's doing in his apostolic confession, or it's Peter in his representative status on behalf of the church, or it's Peter because he's confessing Christ who is the rock, so by Peter is the rock, so Origen will say, be a rock like Peter, you know. Let me just give two examples of this. There's many others to give as well.

Here's Augustine's final view that he favors, though he does not require. He says, Peter, called after this rock, that's Christ, represented the person of the church, which is built upon this rock and has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven. For thou art Peter and not thou art the rock was said to him, but the rock was Christ, in confessing whom, as also the whole Christian church confesses, Simon was called Peter. So, again, Peter's in this representative capacity, and the logic of the passage for Augustine is like, Christ is the rock. Peter's confessing Christ, therefore Peter is the rock. Another example is a Chrysostom who says, thou art Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my church,

that is on the faith of his confession. Now, I am not saying that you have to agree with these church fathers. I'm just trying to help us frame where the differences are by seeing the complexity of what does it mean that Peter is the rock? And that's where the discussion starts. That's not where it ends. If we agree that Peter's the rock, that doesn't yet tell us whether we should agree with the Roman Catholic interpretation

of Matthew 16 or one of the other interpretations. That depends upon how we understand that. The other issue of mis-framing is about Peter being a leader, and it's just helpful to see, I think, all of us can agree that Peter has a leadership role among the apostles. Most of the non-Catholic traditions do generally agree with that. The question is whether that leadership role is consistent with what is envisioned of Vatican 1. Does Peter have an immediate jurisdiction and a universal jurisdiction over the whole church?

Well, what I pointed out is that this really isn't the view that I see in the church fathers. And I'll just give a few examples of this because in a 20-minute video, I can't go into all these claims too much. but, you know, it's, I have not read all the church fathers. There's so much. I mean, even Augustine. I went to, I moved to Chicago with my family for a year to do a postdoc, and I wrote a book on Augustine. That was basically my job for that year. And I spent a lot of time working through Augustine, a lot of sermons and a lot of letters

in addition to his other major works. But I didn't even finish all of Augustine's writing. So there, you know, there's a lot out there that, so I'm open. to further information, but what I've seen pretty consistently, maybe not universally, but pretty consistently, is that Peter was viewed by the Church Fathers as more of a first among equals. Let me give some examples. Cyprian is obviously the great one, everyone points to in his, on the unity of the church. He says the remaining apostles were necessarily also that which Peter was endowed with an equal partnership, both in honor and of power. I don't think that Cyprianic

view was really eccentric. And everyone after him, is kind of saying, how could Cyprian say that or something like that? I think that's pretty common. Here's Isidore Seville in the 7th century. He says, The other apostles also became equal sharers with Peter in honor and authority. That's a pretty common view throughout the patristic era. And I would say the Vatican one idea, top guy in a hierarchy, I don't really think that's well represented. But that's the thing we need to decide, not whether Peter is a leader. So I'm trying to clarify where we should frame the differences.

All right. A third concern is about shifting the burden of proof. So there's a lot of talk I'm hearing about how, you know, Gavin doesn't think that the papacy is clear or explicit in the New Testament. Or, you know, we shouldn't expect to have exhaustive details about the offices of the church in the New Testament and things like that. And all of that is not interacting with what I've actually said, which is that I don't think we have any evidence of the papacy. I'm not just saying it's not clear or explicit or detailed or exhaustive. I'm just saying it's completely absent. And I think the reference to language like exhaustive or detailed is a way of implying that my expectations are too high.

And so some have suggested I'm assuming formal sufficiency or I'm reading with a Protestant lens or that I believe something has to be explicit in the New Testament to be affirmed and things like this. So far as I can tell, all of that is completely false, but to my convictions and to anything I recall saying, all my argument assumes is this much. It's very modest. Just to this extent, if you have a supreme infallible head of the church, you would expect to see that either in the New Testament or in church history. Okay? Let me say that again, so it's really clear, because I know, sometimes I'll say things in videos

and people still don't get it, and I'm realizing, I have to be, I have to kind of really hammer it home. If you have a supreme and infallible head of the church, you'd expect to see that either in the New Testament or in the early historical literature. You'd expect that that would kind of come up, like in the book of Acts or in the pastoral epistles or in Ephesians 4, where Paul's documenting. the offices of the church in relation to the unity of the church, or in the first epistle of Clement, or somewhere. I think that's a reasonable expectation for two reasons. Number one is the importance

of the office of the papacy for the church as a whole for us today. Nothing could be more important. If this is true, nothing could be more important for the New Testament to make clear to us. If it's not Sola Scriptura at the top, if it's not just the scripture that is the kind of north-star, in terms of what you're looking to as an infallible rule as you go throughout church history. But if there's actually a different schema, if you've got scripture and tradition as equal with the magisterium in the role of interpretation, that's pretty important. That's like the rudder on the ship. That's going to steer wherever you go because it's this kind of primal methodological difference.

So I think it's reasonable to expect that if that is true, it would be made clear in its founding. and in its early presence, that the sort of infant church would evidence that it's there. The second reason, so in other words, I think it's reasonable to expect you'd find some trace of this based upon its importance for us and then also its significant role for the church at that time. If you have a supreme and infallible head of the church, I think it's reasonable that you'd see it have some kind of consequence. You'd see that it have some kind of discernible influence. that it would make a difference in how the church is actually functioning. Now, none of that assumes formal sufficiency.

None of that assumes a high burden of proof. None of that even assumes biblical inspiration. You could be an atheist and accept that argument. All you're assuming is if there's this office and that's understood, then you'd expect to see it. You'd think it would come up. Now, let me address the comparison with the Constitution. This was a fair point that Joe Heschmire brought up,

that the New Testament is not like a constitution. And I think that's fair, and I wouldn't intend to say they're the exact same thing. On the other hand, the New Testament does represent a series of documents that give us a testimony to the origins and early history of the Christian Church, both in narrative and epistle and other forms of literature like apocalypse. So I've been thinking in the realm of testimony, like historical witness. Joe had the sentence, the New Testament doesn't create the church.

Am I getting there right? Yeah, the New Testament doesn't create the church, the church creates the papacy. Now, I have all kinds of concerns about that sentence. I think that it's ambiguous because it equivocates both on the word church and on the word creates. But just leave that aside. We don't need to get it.

All that is important, this question of, you know, the questions that come up with the word create. all that's really important to work through, but we don't need to resolve all of that for the sake of my argument, because I'm making a much more modest point. I'm just talking about the New Testament as a testimony to the origins of the Christian church and also early church history. So let's interrogate my assumption a little bit. Is it reasonable for me to expect that if the papacy is legit, you would see it somewhere

in the first century and the early second century, you'd see it in the origins of the Christian church. Although the New Testament is not a literal constitution, so it's not as systematic as a constitution, it gives us a considerable amount of information about the origins and founding and early history of the church, her government, her offices, etc. The constitution of the United States is about four and a half thousand words. That's about the size of a very short academic article, maybe two-thirds of an academic article. The New Testament is about 185,000 words. That's about the size of two lengthy books, maybe three books. So, in other words, the Constitution is about 2.5% of the New Testament. The New Testament is about 42 times longer than the Constitution.

There are portions of the New Testament that do give us an enormous amount of information about the church. You've got the book of the Acts of the Apostles, 28 lengthy chapters that are a history book about the church. Then you've got like the pastoral epistles. I mean, think of the dozens and dozens of verses you have about what presbyters do throughout Acts and all the epistles, and then especially throughout the pastoral epistles. Think of 1st Timothy 5 and how much information you have about the office of presbyter. Same with the office of deacon. Then you look at the extra-biblical first century literature, the didache and the first epistle of Clement. And they also teach both of them, two offices. The diducky 15.1 says, appoint bishops and deacons.

Chapter 42 of the Epistle of Clement is entitled, the order of ministers in the church, and it says the same thing. There's bishops and deacons. Now, this would be, so what I'm trying to say is the testimony offered by the New Testament, inconsistency with the extra-biblical early literature, is such that it'd be pretty shocking if you had a supreme infallible head of the church and it just never comes up because we're given a lot of information about what the church is, what the offices of the church are. Now, Joe brought up the analogy of governors not being mentioned in the Constitution. And I would say for three reasons, I don't think that's a good comparison to the papacy. Number one is I think governors are implied in Article 4 and some of the amendments

of the Constitution, Amendment 10, for example, because it talks about state. government. So you're already wondering, what's the state government? You have to answer that question. I also think the office of governor is not really comparable to the papacy. The office of president would be more comparable, the guy at the top. And then I also think the Constitution is not as focused on state government. But leave all that aside. The main thing is this. No historian has ever questioned the historicity of governors in early American history. Because all you have to do look outside the Constitution and you see there are abundant historical testimony that there were governors. In contrast to that, if you look outside the New Testament, just look at all the

historical evidence as it converges together, you don't see anything about a single bishop in Rome. And this is why a lot of Catholic scholars will admit they'll argue for the papacy as a kind of spirit-inspired development. And I think that, you know, I understand why they do that. So in other words, if you just widen your vision away from the Constitution or the New Testament and look at all the information, it's very clear that there's governors. It's not very clear that there's a single bishop in Rome, let alone, a single bishop in Rome who's the head of the whole church, universal jurisdiction. Some people say that the first epistle of Clement gives testimony to this, but the first epistle of Clement is counter-evidence. In Chapter 42, it specifies two offices within the church. In Chapter 44, it appears to use the terms Presbyter and Bishop interchangeably.

The whole occasion of the letter is about the leaders in Corinth being deposed. They're called Presbyters in Chapter 57. Here's how the Roman Catholic scholar Eamonduffy puts it. Quote, Clemage made no claim to write as bishop. His letter was sent in the name of the whole Roman community. He never identifies himself or writes in his own person. the letter itself makes no distinction between presbyters and bishops about which it always speaks in the plural, suggesting that at Corinth, as at Rome, the church at this time was organized under a group of bishops or presbyters rather than a single ruling bishop.

Now, people love to try to discredit Catholic scholars when I bring them up, even though they're really good scholars. But people need to know, it's not just individual scholars who will come to conclusions like this. The evidence is strong enough that it, you know, here's how put the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia puts it, for example. To some extent, in this early period, the words bishop and priest are synonymous. In each community, the authority may have originally belonged to a college of presbyter bishops. So all that is to say, I think my burden of proof is reasonable. If the papacy is legit, why don't we see it in the origins and early history of the church? A fourth concern I have is about arguments from silence.

And this is one of the stranger features of some Catholic apologetics ministries claims, where they'll impute an argument from silence upon us. And it's very odd. So the first thing is, and I think it's a form of begging the question for two reasons. The first is they are advancing a claim, and then we're responding by saying there's no evidence for that claim. So it'd be like if I, the analogy I've used is if I claim that there's a Johannine office in the church, imagine that I claimed there's a specific office in the church.

claimed, there's a specific office in the church that carries John's ministry particularly, not just apostolic ministry generally. And you said, okay, you know, where are you getting that from? Like, why should I accept that? I don't see that anywhere. And I responded by saying, oh, argument from silence. You're just appealing to silence. You see how what I'm doing there is actually begging the question. And the second point here and the reason for that is that actually it's not an argument from silence. It's an argument from contrary, positive, alternative data. So with Peter, when we try to interpret Matthew 16 in relation to the rest of the New Testament, what we learn about Peter, we're not appealing to silence. We're appealing to what is positively portrayed about Peter.

An analogy would be if somebody said to you, John Smith is the CEO of that company. And you work with John and you said, well, John has never claimed to be the CEO. No one else has ever called in the CEO. The words CEO are not written on his job title on his door. He's never functioned as the CEO during a meeting, et cetera, et cetera. You're not giving an argument from silence at that point. you're appealing to positive and specific data that is a contrary option to him being the CEO. And I do find these charges of argument from silence odd, as well as when we are charged with arguing like atheists,

you know, the way atheists will reject the virgin birth. That's how we reject the papacy. I don't think those arguments work at all. Well, I affirm the virgin birth because it is taught in the New Testament in Matthew 1 and in Luke 1, and I don't affirm the papacy because I don't believe in my sincere conviction before God that it is taught in the New Testament. So I'm being consistent. I don't really see how that's arguing like an atheist. All right. A fifth concern I want to bring up concerns the arguments from typology and Old Testament precedent. I'll put up on the screen the Isaiah 22 verse and the Matthew 16 verse. I'm sure people are familiar with these arguments if they've been involved in these discussions at all.

and my concern here is that because there's nothing really clear or compelling within the New Testament about an ongoing office of infallibility in the church, people will often try to derive that from Old Testament typology, and I've made the same point about the Marian dogmas. I don't think that the New Testament has any conception of the immaculate conception or bodily assumption of Mary, and people will try to derive that from typology. Mary's the new arc of the covenant, and therefore that kind of appeal. And this is what people do with Isaiah 22 in this office of steward or prime minister. I think steward is the best translation of Hashokane.

Now, one of the things that is unfortunate is if you reject this particular typological argument, sometimes people will accuse you of not liking typology. And I love typology. I think typology is fascinating. The whole question of how you interpret the Bible as one unified piece of literature, I think is absolutely fascinating. So here what I want to do is articulate three positive ways. We should use typology as a way of responding to these arguments. How should we use typology?

What are valid typological arguments as opposed to irresponsible typological arguments? Because I'm not against typology. What I'm against is this weaving together and mishmashing different Old Testament offices to a consequent that none of them actually correspond to without New Testament exegetical basis and without historical precedent. And I think these arguments are really problematic. So how should we use typology? Number one, we need to know what typology is.

So the first step is to distinguish, to ask, is this typology, or is this some other form of intertextuality like textual illusion? So typology is one specific kind of textual relationship. and usually there's a specific person or office or place that sets up a category of expectation that a later biblical author will then use in relation to an antitepe. Now, so for example, Revelation 3-7 is also, I think, a textual allusion to Isaiah 22, but very few people argue that Jesus is the antitepe of Eliacim's office there, even though there's that language and it's actually a better fit.

than Matthew 16. But, and so in other words, not all textual illusion, not all usage of Old Testament language is typology. So you have to ask, well, is this typology? And I think, you know, with regard to the Isaiah 22 thing, I mean, the language of binding and loosing had come to be common language for authoritative decision-making. You can see it in Josephus, for example. And yes, that's derived from Isaiah 22.

but it's not always typology. So I don't think it's typology at all in Matthew 16 any more than in Revelation 3 or in Josephus. So that's the first thing you have to ask, is this typology per se? Let's assume that it is, for the sake of argument in Matthew 16. The second question is you have to ask, well, what kind of typology is this? What is it doing? What purpose is the typology serving? You can't simply assume that typology means a one-for-one fulfillment. Some typology is contrastive or amplifying. So the way you do this is you just look carefully at the text and see what is the New Testament author doing with this typology. So, for example, with the Adam Christ typology in 1st Corinthians 15 in Romans 5, there's a contrast being made and also an amplification. There's all different kinds of typologies. The very loose harmonetical category can function in all different

kinds of ways. You have to follow the text and see what the author is doing. There you've got that if one leads to life or if one leads to death, how much more will the other lead to life? Okay, so let's assume that you've got the first two conditions fulfilled and you're sure it is a typology and you think it's a fulfillment type relationship. Then you need to ask, well, what specifically is being fulfilled? The type and the anti-type are never just identical with one another. Never. Otherwise, you wouldn't even call them a type and anti-type.

For example, Jesus' body is the antotype of the temple curtain in Hebrews 10, but they're not the same thing, obviously. Jesus' burial is the anti-type of Jonah being swallowed by the fish in the Gospel of Matthew, but they're obviously not the same thing. The type and antitepe will have a relationship where they're similar in some ways, but they're also different than other ways. And so what you can't do is just start picking and choosing things from the type to apply it to the anti-type. Otherwise, you can use typology to prove anything you want. say that the Pope has military powers because he's the new Joshua. You can say that Mary could not be touched because she's the new Ark of the Covenant. You can say if you touch Mary, you die. Why? Well, it's in the anti-type. Or it's in the type, so it must apply to the anti-type. You see the problem?

And this is what happens with the Isaiah 22 argument. People literally just pick this one office out of the Davidic monarchy and leave off all the other offices that are mentioned in First Kings 4, 1 through 19. And then they will pick certain things out of, this office, like its executive function, and neglect other things, like the fact that it's not a teaching office, it's not priestly, it's not supreme, and it's not infallible. If you were to apply the typology consistently, it would be an argument against the papacy, because Eliakim's office in Isaiah 22 was not a supreme infallible head. There's not a single dogma that this office ever pronounces, let alone an infallible dogma.

So people are, it's arbitrary. People are picking and choosing certain things to carry over, but not other things to carry over, without an exegetical basis for those decisions. It's extremely tendentious. And, you know, there's no historical precedent for this argument. I have scoured through the fathers trying to find, the only thing I can find is in some of the Syriac fathers' references to Isaiah 22 in the Davidic kingdom, but not to Eliakim.

I don't find church father. I don't know any church father who says Peter's the new Eliacim as an argument unto the papacy. All right, a sixth concern I have is about accretions. Now, this is a really fascinating area where we just have some different methodological approaches and it has to do with basically how you look at church history and to what extent you're going to trust later witnesses about earlier developments and so forth. And I would say, so let me start by saying, I think the idea of accretions is, is very plausible in principle because it's basically what happens to every institution.

It's just the common thing that you see in institutions, a centralization of power as you go, as time goes by. Take the office of the president, for example. Another fun one is Roman emperors we could talk about, but the office of the president in our country, despite being very clearly defined and only 250 years old, has expanded enormously from the executive branch of our government today is beyond what our founding fathers could have envisioned. How much more possible is it for there to be a centralization of power,

a gradual accrual of power, over longer stretches of time where you don't have a clear definition at the front end? And this is what we mean by an accretion in terms of the papacy, this creep of slow, expanding power. And I do understand the concerns on the other side on this point. because people are wanting to trust these later testimonies like the second century, late second century voices like Ironaeus and Tritullian who are telling us about earlier bishops. So this is kind of around the time when you start to get a clearer picture of what is being

claimed about Roman bishops going back to the beginning. It's way after the fact. And I understand the desire to trust these later testimonies, but I would like to make a few comments about why I think accretions are plausible and why I think these later testimonies shouldn't really just be taken at face value, even though we respect them as great men of God. The first is that I'm looking at this passage. I've looked into this passage. People try to downplay this sometimes, but he did teach that Jesus' post-baptismal ministry lasted between 10 and 20 years so that he died as a middle-aged man. And he attributes that belief to apostolic tradition, saying those who were conversant in Asia with John, and then he speaks later of saying it wasn't just John,

it was the other apostles too. And there's lots of examples like this where supposed apostolic tradition is in conflict with another supposed apostolic tradition, such as concerning the date of Easter. So it's legitimate to wonder about the telephone game.

Even if you trust the people in question as men of God, it's like there's not at all implausible that misinformation can sneak in along the way. And this doesn't mean that people like Ironaeus are lying it's not surprising that once a particular structure has developed, it will be defended by people, and people might assume that it goes back to the beginning.

Again, you're in a highly polemical context. A lot of scholars think Ironaeus is working with sources. He gets from Pope Elytheris in the 170s. So he's working with the information he has, but he's not infallible. And it's not at all difficult to fathom that he may not have all of the information. A second worry is if we take these later testimonies at face value, which ones do we privilege because they do not agree? Ironaeus says that it was not Peter as bishop, but Peter and Paul as apostles who initiated

the office of the Episcopate with Linus. Tertullian, by contrast, thinks that Peter singly appointed Clement to be the succeeding bishop for him. There's a reason why historians generally don't value, you know, testimony that's a hundred years after the fact like this, because it's very possible for there to be mistakes, because these people were not eyewitnesses of what is going on. They're working with sources, and they're not, uranus is not like living in Rome or something like that. So contrast this with, for example, the evidence we have for the resurrection. With the resurrection, you've got, it's like unbelievable. You've got incredibly good historical evidence.

You've got, for the basic details that people build an argument for the resurrection from, you know, the empty tomb, the burial by Joseph of Arimathea, et cetera, et cetera. You've got multiple independent early witnesses, like 10 to 15 years after the events in question. The papacy, it's like the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of good historical evidence. It's all way generations after the fact. Now, people sometimes will say to push against the idea of accretions or developments in the church that if there was an expansion of power or if there was a change in government, there would be a massive outcry against that. I have three things to say about that.

Number one is that I think that actually is an argument from silence. And I don't begrudge that because I think arguments from silence can have plausibility value. But it is curious how selective the concern about arguments from silence is. That's a minor point. More to the point. Number two, we have a lot of development in the church's government that doesn't merit any kind of outcry. The whole structure of, you know, the Catholic hierarchy of archbishops and cardinals and so forth, all of that takes a long time to develop. There's debate in the literature about how exactly it develops, you know? Do you get the idea of archbishops before the actual word is used? How does the archbishop, how is that different from metropolitan authority and so forth?

you're looking at fourth century, fifth, fifth century, sixth century, you're trying to get fine-tuned understanding about how exactly this is unfolding. But everybody acknowledges that's a development and there's no power struggle. That's the other thing. A lot of people assume that if there's a change in government, it can only happen by means of power struggle. There is no reason to assume that. So there's no reason to assume that there would be like one form of government and then that is raised to the ground and some outside invader comes in and instantiates a new form of government, any more than you'd expect that when you get further developments like archbishops. The third problem is that we do have testimonies about a development. It's not an outcry,

but we do have people saying remembering that it wasn't always like this. For example, Jerome writes this in his commentary on Titus 1. The presbyter is the same as the bishop. And before parties had been raised up in religion by the provocations of Satan, the churches were governed by the Senate of the Presbyters. But as each one sought to appropriate to himself, those whom he had baptized instead of leading them to Christ, it was appointed that one of the presbyters, elected by his colleagues, should be set over all the others and have chief supervision over the general well-being of the community. Without doubt it is the duty of presbyters to bear in mind that by the discipline of the church they are subordinated to him who has

been given over them as their head. But it is fitting that the bishops, on their side, do not forget that if they are set over the presbyters, it is the result of tradition, and not by the fact of a particular institution by the Lord. Why would Jerome make that up? If Jerome just has a polemical thrust, he's trying to undermine somebody or something, where would he get that specific idea from? Is it really plausible that that's what he would make up to try to undermine? It's like, I mean, at a certain point, it sort of feels sort of conspiratorial to accuse Jerome of such a, of just concocting this idea somewhere. Where would he get this from? And I think this is consistent with what Jerome says elsewhere, Jerome will talk about single bishops, but that's consistent with the particular

kind of development that he's proposed here. Jerome is not talking about a power struggle. It's this simple. You've got a group of people over church. One of them gets put on top. It's not a crazy idea that people would do that. Here's how J.B. Lightfoot puts it. He was an Anglican bishop himself. He said the episcopate was formed not out of the apostolic order by localization, but out of the presbyteral by elevation. And the title, which originally was common to all, came at length to be appropriated to the chief among them. This is not difficult at all for me to imagine happening in that early second century period. Almost every institution goes through rapid institutionalization after the founder or founders are out of the picture. So if somebody will start

a company, it blows up while he's still in charge, he's like running it out of his basement, you know, then he suddenly dies or retires and all of a sudden all this protocol comes in and all, you know, and it rapidly becomes more institutionalized. That's how things often go. It's not difficult for me to imagine that in the second century where you've got the trifecta of heresy, schism, and persecution, the apostles are gone, and now you're trying to survive in this stormy situation

that the church felt a need for a more hierarchical unity and developed in that particular way. Of course, once that then develops, people later on are going to assume the authenticity of that. And Ignatius fits with that as the first stage of that, development. And that explains a lot about Ignatius. For example, it explains the fact that he doesn't think that the bishops are the successors of the apostles. He thinks the presbyters sit in the seat of the apostles. He also doesn't have a conception of diocesan bishops yet. They're just congregational bishops.

It's just one guy over the church. So I think this whole idea of development, it makes a whole lot of sense. All right. My seventh concern, is this number seven? I think I'm almost done. Thanks for watching this long video, especially if you're on the other side and I know it's hard to listen to a different perspective. I'm trying to just keep it focused just on the arguments here. My last final comment and concern is about problematic claims about unity. So a lot of times people will act like the early church had unity, the first millennium had unity because we had the papacy and then Protestants came along and they brought disunity. And I have a number of concerns about that. One is that I think it's using a too simple definition of the word unity. Another is I think it

exaggerates Protestant disunity. But the biggest one is I think it attributes to the papacy, something that actually had other causes. The first problem here is that there wasn't unity throughout the first millennium. Anybody who knows about church history knows there's tons of unity. I think people have this idea, kind of looking with rose-colored glasses back at the early church as though, you know, everybody knew who are the apostles, who are these successors of the apostles, and there's these clear boundary markers to the church, you know. And actually what you find is all the way back into the Apostolic Age while the New Testament is being written, you don't. There's false apostles, you know, Second Corinthians 11. There's all, there's schism,

there's division. As you go throughout the patristic era, there's a lot of division, there's a lot of competing claims of apostolic succession. And a lot of these schisms are not just groups breaking off from the church, but they're groups that I and many Catholics would want to see today as Christians. And I'm thinking especially of the 5th century schisms, with some of the non-Chalcedonian traditions. So there's always schism. It doesn't begin with 1054.

It certainly doesn't begin with the 16th century. And I think to the extent that you have kind of ecumenical decisions and ecumenical processes and kind of decisions that obtain for the whole church, that's more of a function of the Roman Empire than of the papacy. Because, you know, number one, it's really telling that you don't have any acumenical councils until you get Constantine's conversion. It'd be awfully convenient. You kind of would need an ecumenical council if you could do that.

If there was any mechanism to do that in the second century or in the third century. But instead you go from Acts 15 to the Council of Nicaa, because I don't think there was any mechanism for calling an ecumenical council in that period of time. And then going forward, all seven of the ecumenical councils are convoked and presided over by the Roman emperor, never by the bishop of Rome. Again, it's the kind of thing where you can reconcile that with the claims of the papacy if you want to, but it's like Acts 15. It's like this just isn't what we would expect.

It just doesn't look like there's one guy on top of the church. And so this whole issue of, so in other words, I think to whatever extent you had unity, it wasn't because of the papacy. And let me just make one other comment about this related to the Roman Empire, because this relates to a broader point where people will often ask me, like, how as a Protestant and especially as a Baptist and as an evangelical, can you possibly see yourself in any kind of meaningful continuity with the early church or with the medieval church? And I understand that.

Right now, one of my projects from the month of May when I go dark on social media is to read through Adam of Bremen and his account of the Christianization of Scandinavia in the 9th and 10th centuries. It's fascinating because it's kind of a neglected episode in church history. So in terms of my academic work, that's kind of where my mind is at. And it really is interesting to see how the gospel is advancing into Denmark and Norway and Sweden in like the late 900s and so forth. And it's true that like the church looks a lot different. And it's, you know, it's just amazing how different things will look then, but not only to my church, to pretty much every church today. There is a lot of changes.

But basically, if I could help not to argue for this, but to help people understand, we have to distinguish between what's essential to the church and what is accidental to the church, what you have to have versus what you might have, but it's not actually, doesn't make it the church or not. And I have a more flexible view of ecclesiological transmission, which is a big term that just means how the church gets from point A to point B, and remains the church. And the reason for that is that I just think there's a lot of the external forms of the church that can change, and yet it still be the true church. I think a lot of things can be very significant for the church while still falling into that accidental bucket. And the

Roman Empire is a great example of that. It's hugely formative for the church that she germinates in the context of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire is called the co-ruler with God. He has a massive influence. And yet, he's not essential. Roman Empire ends. Church keeps on running forward. And it's just one example of where there can be significant changes in the church, and yet the core of what the church is is rumbling forward, because I believe the core of what the church is is the presence of Christ in word and sacrament. So if you have the gospel and you have the sacraments, you can have the church. And as I look at the world today, to just kind of finish on a more personal note here, I believe there is genuine spiritual fruit being born

throughout Protestant traditions, throughout other traditions, and I cannot deny the presence of the Holy Spirit in these traditions. This is why I find so difficult and problematic the more exclusivistic claims of these older, more imperial churches. You know, some of the finest Christians I've ever known are Pentecostals,

even though I'm not Pentecostal. I just the the fruit of the spirit evident in their life is manifest I cannot deny and I know that you know it's Catholic since Vatican too have ways of accommodating that as well but it just seems to me that if we're trying to say what's the core of the church we would do well to look at the principles Jesus gave us in Matthew 7 and Matthew 12 discern the tree by its fruit and what Paul says in 1st Corinthians 12 verse three, what is bringing honor to Jesus Christ is of the Holy Spirit. And we can be confident in making those judgments.

And I could say more about all that, but that's kind of a broader point there to finish with. I hope I covered everything. I talked fast in here. A few things at the end. I know that I've stated my convictions forcefully, and I know that that can step on toes, just would say that the reason I care about this is a sincere, concern for the truth. I genuinely, and it's really important to know what is the truth about this matter, and I'm genuinely not persuaded of the claims of the papacy, even for all my admiration for

many aspects of the Catholic tradition. I'm deeply concerned about that. So I'm arguing that that's my motive in making this video, and I hope it helps people. But I also know that people on the other side are equally sincere, and their conscience leads them differently. So the only thing I know to do in that circumstance is keep talking and keep going back to the data and working. at it. And I hope this video will be helpful in that longer process as we keep talking about these things. This video might get some negative reactions. So if you're willing to like the video, share the video, comment, et cetera, that really does mean a lot to me. So thanks for that. All right. Thanks everybody for watching. May the Lord bless you.