Truth Unites - Response to George Farmer and Allie Beth Stuckey on Catholicism Vs. Protestantism

Episode Date: May 16, 2023

In this video I respond to the recent debate between George Farmer and Allie Beth Stuckey on Protestant and Roman Catholic differences. I offer three clarifications about misunderstandings of Protestantism. See the original debate here: https://youtu.be/EopEAQkAhJA See Tony's Lane Treatment of Sola Scriptura here: https://www.amazon.com/Pathway-into-Holy-Scripture/dp/0802840787/truthunites-20 See my interview with John Meade about the Old Testament canon here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCwZNr1Q64w   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/

Recently there was a debate about Catholic versus Protestant differences between George Farmer and Ali Beth Stuckey hosted by Candice Owens. I'll link in this video description to that video. Check out the whole thing. God bless all three of them. There won't be attacks of them in this video. But what I want to do is address some of the common misunderstandings about Protestantism that are so prevalent that I think came up in that debate a little bit. The three things I want to address are a Protestant view of church history, the first 15, hundred years of church history, the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura, and then the Protestant view of the canon of scripture. People who watch my videos regularly, well, maybe have heard me say some of these things before, but they are so needed in the broader conversation, broader

awareness of Protestantism. So help me share this video as you're able to help it extend into new audiences, because people oftentimes simply don't hear a fair representation of what Protestantism is. Let me give three examples. The first one is about church history, and this is as Candice was sort of framing the video and sharing about a question that her husband has put to her. And the discussions have gotten interesting because my husband planted a seed in my head that won't go away, and I would not yet describe me as being in a place where that seed has fully bloomed, but it is a question that I am struggling with as somebody with Protestant

beliefs. And what he essentially said to me, he was also formerly Protestant, and now he was. is a Catholic, was, do I believe that in the 1,500 years following Jesus Christ, leading up to Martin Luther stapling his thesis, that nobody went to heaven? So essentially, Jesus saved us, and then for about 1,500 years, nobody went to heaven until Martin Luther stapled his thesis and corrected things. I don't believe that. I struggle with that question, and it has been something that I have been sitting with for a very long time, of course, because that would almost imply in my mind that Martin Luther is the Savior and not Jesus. Now, I appreciate Candace sharing

sincerely her thought process, and I never blame one individual for the, because these caricatures are so common, she's reflecting a common view there. But I need to say that this idea of no one being saved for the first 1,500 years of church history is really, really far off of historic Protestant views or just thoughtful Protestant views today. That that would even come up in the context of a discussion of Protestantism is sad because it shows how poorly Protestantism is understood in the public discourse, including by many Protestants, because this is a real caricature. And it's just grievous to me because I want to address this because people are sometimes

leaving Protestantism thinking, oh, well, if people are saved, and if God is at work and the church is alive and well in those first 1,500 years of church history, then somehow that's a strike against Protestantism. Absolutely not. Basically, the Protestants, first of all, claimed that the true church had never died. The regenerate community of saved people has always been there for every nanosecond of church history. The lights never went out. You can find that more radical view among some of the Anabaptists. Sometimes contemporary evangelicals have gotten this idea. That is not any, you know, all of the mainstream magistral reformers affirmed this doctrine so commonly that it has a technical term, namely the preservation of the church. John Calvin was

responding to that specific issue. You know, does your position require that the church died when he said, the Church of Christ has lived and will live so long as Christ reigns at the right hand of the father? It is sustained by his hand, defended by his protection, and is kept safe. through his power. He's talking about the late medieval church and how God preserved the church. Right up to the dawn of the Reformation, you find the same idea everywhere. Luther, later Protestants like Francis Turriton built a whole theology out of this idea of the preservation of the church, and they very carefully worked through how you understand that. In fact, the whole appeal of Protestantism was a return to and retrieval of the practices of the early church. And I often recommend

some of these classical treatments of Protestantism like John Jewel in the Anglican tradition, Martin Kempnitz in the Lutheran tradition, Francis Turriton I mentioned in the reformed tradition. All of them are arguing from the church fathers. Here's how Calvin again put it in a 1539 dispute he had with a Catholic theologian. Quote, our agreement with antiquity is far greater than yours. But all that we have attempted has been to renew the ancient form of the church that existed in the age of Chrysostom and Basel among the Greeks, and of Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustin among the Latins. Pause the video and read that quote ten times.

It's an astonishing claim. What he's saying is, all Protestantism is a return to the third, fourth, fifth centuries. Now, to clarify that, the Protestants didn't say that that is the case for every Protestant doctrine. And they also acknowledge that the patristic era, so let's use these terms and define them. Petristic means roughly the first 500 years of church history, medieval the next 1,000. Those are very, very, very rough timeframes. You can extend it a lot. But the point is what the Protestants were saying, they didn't think that the patristic era was totally coherent.

The church fathers disagreed with themselves a lot. So they weren't saying there's one view and we're right on that in every case. It is messy. It is complicated. There are some issues that the church fathers. don't agree with the Protestants on. And Protestants just try to be honest about the messiness of history, but they said, and this is the common claim, that on the main issues of dispute, certainly on a greater number of issues, the church fathers supported the Protestant position.

Amazing, right? Most contemporary Protestants don't think like that. And to be fair, most contemporary Protestants that's no longer true of at all. Most contemporary Protestants have drifted from historic Protestantism. In my book Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals, I document this claim at greater length, but let me just give a few examples of issues on which the reformers were saying, hey, you guys are more medieval, were more patristic. Indulgences in the Treasury of Merit and the whole financially abusive system that had developed in the medieval but not patristic era with regard to how salvation is understood. Legalism, in demonelism, in the monasteries, all kinds of fasting regulations that have developed, the requirement of priestly

celibacy. They're saying that's medieval, that's not patristic. Cultic practices like venerating icons, I've done a lot of work on that. Medieval, not patristic. Understanding the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist or in the Lord's Supper as transubstantiation. That's the philosophical category for understanding it. That's medieval, not patristic. withholding the Lord's

supper from the laity in both the bread and the wine. And you could add on to that regular participation for the laity. That's a medieval development, not patristic. That there are seven sacraments, the role of Mary mushrooming up, papal infallibility, that the Pope

in his person can pronounce an infallible dogma. All of that, they were saying, that's medieval, not patristic. So not only does Protestantism not reject the first 1500 hundred years of church history, the whole appeal is to go back and retrieve the patristic era. Not only that, even in their own day, Luther and Calvin and the other early Protestants did not deny that there were true Christians who were saved outside of Protestantism.

People are often surprised to discover this. Luther said, in the papacy, there is true Christianity, even the right kind of Christianity, and many great and devoted saints. The Christendom that is now under the papacy is truly the body of Christ and a member of it. Calvin said, when we categorically deny to the papists the title of the church, we do not, for this reason, impugn the existence of churches among them. On my document here, the word the is not italicized, but it's italicized in the original of the church. I should have read that. So this is what they're saying is the Roman Catholic Church is not the church, but there are true

Christians and true churches within her. Now, some people, Protestants are uncomfortable with me saying that. Those are real quotes, and that was their view. It's also the case that they taught that the Roman Catholic hierarchy was corrupt. They used the word antichrist, ravenous wolves, worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. So they did not hold back in their enraged critiques for the Catholic hierarchy, which was abusing the laity from their vantage point, spiritual abuse. But they didn't say it's no longer a church and there's not true Christians over there. Meanwhile, they weren't trying to start a new church. That wasn't the thinking, like, well, no one was saved before, so now people get saved. That wasn't the thinking at all. It was just as simple as we need to reform errors like indulgences. They also defended over and against the Roman Catholic Church the fact that the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Church were real churches. Calvin said they make, that's the Roman Catholics, the Greeks, that's the Eastern Orthodox, schismatics. With what right? Because,

cousin withdrawing from the apostolic see, they lost their privilege? What? Would not they who fall away from Christ deserve to lose it much more? Same view in Luther. See, today we often forget how much the contemporary Roman Catholic Church after Vatican II has changed throughout the medieval era. If you don't believe me on this, look into it. It's the truth, I promise you. Pretty much. There's a few tiny exceptions later on. Not even medieval, though. I don't know of any exceptions in the medieval era. It's early modern exceptions in the Catholic tradition. First ones I found in the Eastern Orthodox are in the 19th century. All the Catholics thought the non-Catholics are damned to hell.

All the Eastern Orthodox thought the non-Eastern Orthodox are damned to hell. Same with the Oriental Orthodox. Same with the Assyrian Church of the East. To my awareness, that's universal throughout the medieval era. I'll put up this statement, which is from an ex-cathedra statement from Pope Eugene at the Council of Florence. I won't take the time to read it. You can pause the screen and read it if you want. This first point's already dragging on.

The point is it says as clearly as you can possibly imagine that all the non-Catholics are damned doesn't matter if you have sacraments, almsgiving, and even martyrdom unless you're Catholic you're damned. Same with you and Monskedom here, which I've talked about all this more in other videos. This is another ex-cathedral statement. Most people would agree with that.

A few people question that. Most people agree that it's ex-cathedral, meaning an infallible teaching from the Pope. And it says, you have to submit to the Pope to be saved. Now, people will try to find ways to interpret that, but none of the contemporary interpretations that try to reconcile it with Vatican II were ever present at the time of these. Nobody at the time understood them like now. So my point is that the Protestants weren't saying no one was saved for the first 1,500

years. So far to the contrary, they were the ones saying, no, a broader range of people can be saved, the church is not restricted to one institution. I get the feeling that a lot of contemporary Protestants don't understand Protestantism well. Let me just summarize it and it's wonderfully simple and elegant in two ways. Number one, Protestantism just thinks the church is fallible. She can err. She's never infallible in herself, so she needs to measure herself by the Word of God, which is infallible. And number two, the church is not restricted to one institution. You get those two ideas, the church is fallible, and the church is in multiple institutions. You're on the road.

to historic Protestantism. All right, let me go to the second issue. This is Sola Scriptura. I want to show three different segments of each of them talking about this matter. One of the causes of the Reformation was the Sola Scripura idea, that the final authority is scripture, that church itself cannot come up with doctrines. It can't come up with the practice of indulgences and say that this has divine authority. That everything a church leader says, whether it's a pastor, whether it's a priest, whether it's a pope, has to conform to what the Holy Spirit has already said through Scripture. So I don't believe that a Pope or a priest or whatever can say something or a council can come together and declare something as doctrine

that is not explicitly supported by Scripture. Yeah, well, I mean, just to come back on the question, because I just want to be clear, scripture itself does not say Scripture alone, right? That's the point. It does not say at any point in Scripture. that scripture alone is to be utilized as the sole basis for faith. You could argue that papal infallibility is not explicitly defined in scripture in the same way that scripture itself is not defined in scripture in the same way that Trinity is not defined in scripture. And as a result, you could say, okay, but you're using an argument selectively because you're

saying it in this circumstance it applies where scripture alone must be the only argument. But on the flip side where you're talking about papal infallibility, this, however, does not apply, even though I could argue, which I will do, that you could deduce from scripture that papal infallibility is actually defined in scripture. We both believe and we both are going to scripture to say this is our ultimate authority. But ultimate is different from only, right? So I think we need to figure out with a Latin term would be for ultimate, like ultimate, like ultimum scripture. Now they all had more to say. All three of them are intelligent people making good arguments. So go see the video for the full context and to give

their full case there to be fair to them. But I'm just trying to give you a little sand. of kind of how this came up in the discussion. Because I wanted to offer one clarification about Sola Scriptura, which is something that if you've watched other videos of mine, this will feel repetitive, but I wanted to get out there more. The phrase, Sola Scriptura, I mean, is a Latin phrase for by the scripture alone. You say, by the scripture, because it's in the ablative case, if you know Latin. So that's how you translate that, by the scripture alone.

But that's not self-explaining. It's a little slogan in the context of four other solas. And the word only has a context of the context of, And the thing that is just really important to understand is that it doesn't mean the Bible is the only authority or the only source for Christian doctrine or for the Christian Church. It means it's the only infallible rule for the Christian Church. A rule is a standard that governs our faith and practice. And the word infallible means incapable of error. This is a little bit what Ali was pushing on there with getting into the word ultimate.

It's the only ultimate authority. And this is so important to understand. You know, by the way, some people question me about this. I am just giving kind of standard fair Protestant stuff. If you want to get it from someone other than me, read what I think is the best contemporary academic treatment of the definition of Sola Scriptura in this older book, which I'll put in the video description. The last essay in here is by Anthony Lane.

Anthony Lane is a fantastically clear writer, and you could even just read the last three pages, starting on page 322 in this book, if you want to get, don't, I'll just take it from me. Okay. This, you know, at one point he says, puts it like this, stated differently, Soliscriptura is the statement that the church can air. That's really all Soliscriptura means. It's not saying that you're going to, first of all, let's just be clear about the misunderstandings here.

Soliscriptura does not mean that the church has no authority or that the church cannot make doctrinal pronouncements that are authoritative and binding. All it's saying is they're foul. And so they're reformable in light of Scripture, but the church can do that. In fact, it must do that. Here's Article 20 of the Anglican 39 articles, the church hath power to decree rights or ceremonies and authority and controversies of faith. In the reform tradition, here's how Francis Turrottin put it, he distinguished between Scripture as the supreme and autocratic judge versus the church as the subordinate and ministerial judge. Quote, the question does not concern whether any

belongs to the church and its officers in controversies of faith. Rather, the question concerns only the supreme and infallible judgment by which everything must necessarily stand or fall. So think of a pyramid with the Bible at the top. Underneath it are real authorities, but they're just fallible. Now people really struggle to understand this idea of a fallible authority, as though we're like, well, how can it be authoritative if it's fallible? But I don't understand that because every other authority we have in this world is fallible. In my debate with Trent Horn on Sola Scripura recently, I gave the example of the umpire at a baseball game. Simple example.

He's authoritative. He can call it a ball or a strike, and his word goes. The batter can't contravene him. The coach can't contravene him. He has authority. But he's not infallible. He can be wrong. Another interesting example is the U.S. Supreme Court, which has authority to interpret the Constitution, but it's not infallible.

It can overturn itself later. It's not irreformable. It's not incapable of error in. its pronouncements. If you just think about it, fallible authorities are the vast majority of them. Government, parents, local churches, etc. And, you know, I brought up in the debate talking about how there's real authority. Excommunication is a real act of authority, but it's a fallible one. So the basic point is just to try to be clear that the scriptures are only infallible authority, not our only authority. There's other issues involved with Soliscriptura as well, but I've gone into

this so much in other places. You can watch my debate with Trent Horn to see my full. my first opening 15-minute speech is where I give my case. All right, the last thing I want to address is the canon of Scripture. So by the end of the 4th century is when you have the modern canon of Scripture defined, right? And then the Council of Carthages, which were in the 3rd, 4th and 5th century, which then went on to define what we now term the canon of Scripture. Well, actually, it was not even what we now termed to define the canon of Scripture, because, of course, the Protestant Bible is without what is going to... The Apocrypha. Well, the Judeo...

Yeah. Jews were canonical books, the apocrypha, as the Protestant Church would call it, which the reformers themselves removed. So you're then arguing to say that for 1,500 years, you have a canon of scripture, which has books in it, which themselves are no longer considered canonical. And not even for 1,500 years, because as I said, the canon of scripture wasn't actually defined until the end of the 4th century. So you've actually got 1,200 years in which a selection of books that were then reformed. by the reformers in the 16th century was used by the church. But the fourth century councils being referenced here are local councils. They were fallible.

And there was not one universal view. They didn't decisively settle things. The first time that you have an ecumenical council addressing the issue of canon is at the Council of Florence and then again at the Council of Trent, late medieval era, that and you get, even after Florence, as we'll see, it's not totally settled. So that's the first time you get an infallible canon list for the Roman Catholic Church, and that's why you've got a lot of different views, and it's a disputed question prior to that time. In the East, for example, well after the 4th century, you've got a Protestant canon that is the dominant view,

or sorry, you've got a canon of scripture that's a dominant view that's very similar to a Protestant canon. This comes from the Synod of Laodicea, and you see it all throughout the major Eastern theologians. Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzis, all the way to John of Damascus in the 7th century, there's this idea of a 22 book Hebrew canon based upon the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. It's a little tricky, there's little exceptions, the book of Baruch, and also the book of the letter of Jeremiah is often included as a part of Jeremiah, all as one book, and then Susanna is included as part of Daniel sometimes. Also, now and again you'll get Esther as being excluded, but the vast majority of the Deutero-canonical

books are excluded in this Eastern tradition. That's the common, you know, canon in the east. Again, people sometimes just, these are basic facts that are verifiable, and yet I'll have people accuse me of lying when I bring this up because it's tough to talk across our differences. And so Catholic or Orthodox or other Christians who watch my videos. just assume that I'm lying. These are verifiable facts. Just go look up Cyril of Jerusalem's catechetical lectures online and read chapter four and just see what he has to say about the apocrypha. It's pretty amazing. So that's the east. Again, well after the fourth century. Also,

in the west, while you have these local councils affirming the larger canon, you also have others like Jerome, who may be the greatest authority on this question in the early church. And he favors famously the shorter canon, similar to the Protestant canon. And in his letters, he makes clear that that's his view all the way to the end of his life. You also have the mainstream Jewish view. And you can see that in the writings of Josephus, which is also the smaller canon similar to the Protestant Old Testament canon. So this is why, basically, by the way, the debates rumble on. It's not settled all the way up into the Council of Trent. Into the 16th century, you can find major theologians in the Catholic tradition arguing for a shorter canon. There's this distinction

between the canonical books you base doctrine on, and then there's the ones you read for edification, and people are debating different ways to understand that, and there's plenty of people who want to exclude the apocryphal books from first-tier scripture, the books that you use to base doctrine on. Cardinal Cajeton, a major famous opponent of Martin Luther, in the 15, I think it's in the 15th, 30s. He's writing his commentary. He gets to the end of Esther. He's writing his Old Testament commentary. He gets to the end of the book of Esther. And he says, and in this place, we conclude the commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest, that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of the Maccabees are reckoned by divine Jerome as outside the canonical books.

And he places them among the apocrypha with the book of wisdom and ecclesiastikas. He goes on a little further. You can find that he's not alone. There's similar views. That's like you know, about a decade, a little more than a decade before the Council of Trent. You can find other cardinals, other major scholars in the Catholic tradition arguing for the same view. Even the Council of Florence didn't fully say, it's only at the Council of Trent that it's fully resolved. So what I'm trying to say is, not that that view must be right or something, but we just got to be clear on the historical record here, the idea that the reformers came along and simply removed books from a settled consensus of 12 centuries is way off.

This was an open dispute that the reformers were not the only ones favoring this shorter canon, and they had a really good precedent for going back to accept the testimony of Jerome. In my interview with John Mead, which you can see on my channel, I'll link to that. He gives a really good case that the traditions that Jerome was working with are most likely to be the earliest, traditions in the church. Check out that video for that case. Anyway, those are three things I would like to address. There are other fascinating things that came up in the debate. One of the things that came up was how often has papal infallibility been used? That's really interesting to me, because what you notice right away is that different Catholic theologians will disagree about that,

and so you have a fallible list of infallible ex-cathedral statements. And that really, in my mind, makes it a little awkward when they critique our view of the canon as being a fallible list of infallible books. So that's another thing we could talk about sometime that I thought was interesting, but I just wanted to keep it to those main three issues. Nothing in this video is groundbreaking, but I'm trying to extend these clarifications of historic Protestant views further out there because I'm very passionate to represent historic Protestantism accurately, because my own personal belief is that a historic, magisterial, Protestant position is the best option on the table for those of us who want to be Christians who are rooted in church history, but ultimately

accountable to the apostolic deposit as our chief authority as it comes to us in the Christian scriptures. So I do stuff on that all the time in other videos. If that's of interest to you, then make sure you subscribe to my channel and we can stay in touch. Hope this video is helpful. Let me know what you think in the comments.