Truth Unites - The Papacy Is Not From God

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

Gavin Ortlund offers his summative argument against the papacy, arguing that it is a human development, not a divine institution.Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/X: https://x.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

This video will be my summative case against the papacy. I've done lots of debates on this topic, lots of videos on it, written a chapter about it in my book. I'm drawing from all of that. I've never compiled it altogether. So this won't be a ton of new information, although actually it will probably for most people, because very few people have probably sort of looked at all the different things.

So this is my one-stop shop, putting all my work in on this topic into squeezing it down, not everything, short, trying to make it short. But just basically explaining a Protestant perspective, why don't we accept the papacy? The goal is not to attack Roman Catholic. at a personal level. I know it's hard to hear your views criticized. I really appreciate having Roman Catholic viewers, and I strive to maintain positive interpersonal relationships with

individual Roman Catholics. I have lots of Catholic friends. But at the same time, Protestants are allowed to explain their beliefs. We're allowed to critically evaluate the claims of alternative views and traditions and just explain. You know, I sometimes get the sense people are surprised when Protestants argue for Protestantism and they're getting offended and angry and so forth. And, you know, of course, we're allowed to do the exact same thing that they're doing against us. We're just, you know, argue for what we believe is true, especially when there's so much at stake. The papacy is too important to not talk about because this is a very bold claim. And the bolder, a claim of authority is, the more important it is to evaluate and say, well, should I submit to that or not?

And it's a very bold claim to say that the current Roman bishop is the modern-day successor of Peter, who has an immediate, universal, and supreme power of jurisdiction over the entire church and is capable of speaking infallibly with respect to the definition of Christianity. That's a bold claim. So it's like it's either true or it isn't true, and we've got to figure it out. You know, we can't just not talk about this. To a metaphor, if your neighbor said, hey, your next door neighbor says, I'm putting together a party for everyone in the neighborhood, are you willing to contribute? It's going to cost a lot of money. And I would appreciate the help. You might say, okay, you know, you could say yes or no if you're able. You know, you can, so it's a pretty modest request, you know. But if your next door neighbor says,

hey, I'm the king of this neighborhood and you owe me $1,000 per month to live here, you have no choice. But to either figure out, it's either true or it's not true, but you're not stepping on his toes by protesting that claim because it's such a gargantuan claim of authority. And this is how we Protestants experience claims about the papacy. We're trying to follow Jesus. And someone comes along and says, basically, I'm in charge. And you don't have a valid Eucharist unless you believe all these additional things and so forth. And it's like, you know, of course we're allowed to explain why we don't accept that and don't think this has a historical basis.

That's the claim of this video, that the papacy is a human development within the church, not a divine institution over at the church. In other words, this institution is not from God, it's from men. That's the claim. And to establish that claim, what I'll do is lay out my position here, summing up from what I've done, and we'll look first at the New Testament and then the early historical evidence, and then stick to the end where I'll address a practical concern that comes up as well. What I think is going on in hearts sometimes with the desire for this infallible voice

that can settle things and so forth. First, the papacy in the New Testament. Let's look at the biblical evidence first, and the first thing I would observe is that the notion of papal succession is absent from the New Testament. From Matthew to Revelation, looking very carefully, you don't get any notion of a Petrine office, of any kind, let alone one that is associated with the city of Rome, specifically, or Roman bishops. That whole idea comes about well after the New Testament. And so, you know, this is so simple, but it's difficult to even argue about this point because there's just no subject matter on the table. It's like if someone gave you a New Testament and said, tell me from this, whether Pluto is a planet, you would say, it has nothing to do with that.

It doesn't talk about Pluto at all. Or tell me from the New Testament, who shot JFK, you would say, that's just a completely later separate thing. Well, same with the idea of a Petrine ministry or a Petrine office. There's Peter, but there's no Petrine office in the New Testament. And so when people argue for the papacy from the New Testament, an ongoing office in Peter's name and authority, then what is happening is people basically just talk about Peter and then assume succession from Peter rather than establish it. But that's a problematic move because Peter is an apostle. And the office of apostle is a redemptive historically unique office. The idea of a successive office stemming out from Peter imbued with his authority in some sense

can't simply be asserted that needs to be demonstrated, the New Testament gives us a lot of information. It's reasonable to expect that if there was this supreme office over the church, it'd probably come up somewhere, if not in the New Testament, at least in the surrounding literature, outside of the New Testament in the first century and then going into the second century, somewhere, you're going to get an echo of this, you're going to get some consequence from this, if it's actually true historically, that there is a Petrine office over the church. we learn a lot about the offices of the church in the New Testament. You just consider in the pastoral epistles, for example, all that you learn about presbyters and deacons and these qualifications lists, multiple qualifications lists, lots of other information about the need to pay them and how many witnesses are needed to bring a charge before them and on and on.

There's lots of information about the offices of the church in the New Testament. almost, you know, presbyters are mentioned or referenced or alluded to in almost every book, starting with Acts, all over Acts, you get elders and churches, and then moving forward, almost every other book of the New Testament says something about the leadership or offices of the church, even in relation to the unity of the church. Offices are laid out, you know, Ephesians 4, 11, and following, for example, flesh out, what are the offices of the church in relation to the unity and maturity of the church? the church. Paul is saying, God gave these offices so that the church would attain unity and maturity.

And same with 1st Corinthians 12. Another passage like this, the offices of the church unto the unity of the church. And boy, is it suspicious here that we don't ever get a single verse anywhere that ever says, oh, by the way, there's a supreme and infallible office. So over all these other offices, that would be the most important thing the New Testament could tell us if it were in fact true. If Jesus and the apostles envisioned an ongoing office of supremacy and infallibility in the church, it's reasonable to expect that it'd show up. There'd be some kind of reference. Again, think about what's at stake with the papacy.

If the Bishop of Rome can speak infallibly, such that the boundaries of obligatory Christian belief are in part determined by his, If you're going to locate a supreme power of jurisdiction over the church and the capacity of infallible pronouncement in one man, that has implications for every single aspect of how Christianity works. There could be nothing more important to know. And yet, you don't even have, not only do you not have information about a supreme and infallible Petrian ministry or office in the New Testament, you don't have any information about a Petrian office at all. So this is the first problem. In the New Testament, you don't have a Petrie in office. Now, we'll see the same thing, by the way, with the historical evidence outside of the New Testament. So if someone's going to say, oh, you're assuming Soliscriptura or you're making an argument from silence, I don't think those are really compelling responses. I mean, first of all, it's not Soliscriptura because I'm just starting with the New Testament, but I'm also going to go to the historical evidence. It's not really a good response to say argument from silence because I'm suggesting you'd expect it not to be silent if this were true. I mean, for example, if I said, I, Gavin Ortland, I'm the living successor of the apostle Bartholomew, you would be allowed to ask, why should I accept the idea of a Bartholomew in office?

And if I just said, well, that's an argument from silence. you'd say, okay, fine, but give me some reason for this. And so I'm just starting by observing, you know, in the founding documents of our religion, which we regard as Holy Scripture, the New Testament, we just don't have this. It's just not there. There's no, it's like Pluto, being a planet. There's no petrine office mentioned. And so it's hard to even sort of get traction in arguing one way or the other because

there's just no material to even work with on that. The second problem is even just looking at Peter himself, the man, Peter. there's no, he's not functioning in the way a modern Pope will. So he's not functioning in the way that Vatican One defines the papacy. Peter certainly had a leadership role among the apostles. So the apostolic structure is Peter, the leader, and spokesperson. Then you have Peter, James, and John as a kind of inner three. Then you have the 12. Then you have various other groups. James and John, members of that inner three, also have their names changed to, the Sons of Thunder, and these three, Peter, James, and John are frequently singled out by Jesus in the

Gospels, and then later they are identified as pillars, though that is probably a different James there in Galatians 2-9. So you have Peter, the three, the 12, and then various other groups. But the nature of Peter's leadership role falls significantly short of the kind of supremacy and unique infallibility characteristic of the papacy. So, for example, Vatican 1 stipulated, that both clergy and faithful of whatever right and dignity, both singly and collectively, are bound to submit to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience. So you see there the word obedience and the words hierarchical subordination. Okay. This is, the claim here is this guy is the head honcho. He is the boss. Even if it's cast as a

servant leadership, okay, Gregory the Great calls the papacy. The Pope is, the servant of the servants of God. Nonetheless, there's still a real authority invested in this one person over the rest of the church. This is the idea of papal supremacy, and the concern and the nature of this authority is not just matters of faith and morals, but the discipline and government of the church as well. And that is not what we see about Peter in the New Testament. The other apostles don't relate to Peter by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience. And I think this point is widely recognized in the early church, even after the Roman

C has come to be associated with Peter's authority. So in the mid-third century, for example, you have Stephen, the Bishop of Rome making this claim. This is around the time you're getting this idea of a unique Petrine office. Earlier with Ironaeus, he's thinking of both Peter and Paul together as founding the Church of Rome. In the third century, you're getting this idea of a specifically petrine authority associated with Rome. But even from here going forward, you don't have this idea that this bishop has authority over all the others. That is not characteristic of even once that idea does come in. So in other words, once you get the idea of a petrine office is not functioning with this kind of supremacy. Siprian of Carthage, whom I'll

talk about later, very clear on this point, he articulates this specifically in response to Stephen that the rest of the apostles were also the same as was Peter endowed with a like partnership, both of honor and power. And Cyprian's articulation there very clear, very explicit, equal power. Okay. I regard that as a consensus, or close to a consensus among the church fathers, that the apostles did not relate to Peter as possessing greater authority over them. and that persists late into the patristic era, as you can see in the seventh century from Isidore

Seville here. The other apostles also became equal sharers with Peter in honor and authority. For a fuller case on that, you can see this video. But basically what we're saying is this, now, now why do we talk about the church fathers? I'm going to get to the history as its own. Right now we're looking to the patristic data to help us interpret the New Testament. And we're saying the church fathers didn't read Peter as like the top guy in a pyramid structure, the head honcho, the boss, he's got authority over others, obedience, hierarchical subordination, anything like that, if someone's going to nitpick my words, fine, anything in the ballpark of that. That's not the general patristic view. You could maybe find an outlier here or there. That's not how the early church is

functioning. So then we ask, why did the early church think that? And the answer is, you just look at the New Testament and you don't find that idea. Peter never claims supremacy. or unique infallibility over the church. No one else ever ascribes that to him, and the events of the New Testament nowhere depict him as if he possessed such qualities. It's just not present. The one time you'd expect it the most would be Acts 15.

This is the first great doctrinal controversy of the early church. The apostles and elders in Jerusalem come together to resolve it. This is exactly the kind of scenario for which we supposedly need a pope, and yet it's a group decision among the apostles. Peter is only one among several apostles who speaks, and he does not appear to speak in a definitive matter. If anyone is in a sort of a higher role there, it would be James, who with the words, therefore my judgment is, speaks more conclusively

toward the latter part of the discussion. But I don't even think you have to have a real tight view of James being in some, you know, it's a group decision. To the extent that you do find patristic discussion on this, more commonly James is seen as having the greater authority. This is John Chrysostom in a sermon on this passage, how he puts it, quote, James was invested with the chief rule. Peter indeed spoke more strongly, but James here more mildly for thus it behooves one in high authority to leave what is unpleasant for others to say while he himself appears in the milder part. So I'm familiar with how these discussions go and all the evasive maneuvers people will have, you know, they'll say argument from silence, they'll say, I'm assuming soloscriptura, all these things that, if you just think about it,

it's like, no, I'm just looking at the data and saying, is this true? Did Jesus institute this office, or did the apostles envision this? Is this historically plausible? Just looking at the data working through it saying, it doesn't look like it. And on this point with Acts 15, people will typically say, well, Peter had such an authority. He simply didn't exercise it here, to which I would respond by saying, okay, fine. Where does he? Where in the New Testament do we find this office? To the extent that Peter exhorts others in the church, he doesn't appeal to a unique authority, but a common one. I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder, First Peter 5.1. You can say, okay, yeah, but he's still not appealing to his authority there. Fine. Sure. Where does he? See, this is the problem is there's a vacuum here at the very

foundation. There's no foundation for this idea. The most commonly appeal to passage of court is Matthew 16. And I have a fuller video, several where I cover this passage, like this one on Augustine's view of this, for example, would be a good, but just to hit the main points here. First thing to observe is that the responsibilities of binding and loosing given to Peter here are reiterated to all the disciples two chapters later, just as generally throughout the New Testament, authority to govern the church is given to all the apostles conjointly. And in the context of Matthew 16, Peter is speaking on behalf of all the other apostles in response to Jesus' question to them all. Who do you, plural in the Greek, say that I am? So that makes it legitimate to at least ask the question,

okay, is this a unique Vatican One supremacy here that Peter is being given, placing him in a position of authority above the others, or are the responsibilities being given to Peter here, ultimately to be shared with the other apostles? And in the early church, Augustine argued that Peter functioned in a representative role in this passage. Did Peter receive the keys and Paul not received them? Did Peter receive them and John and James and the other apostles not received them? What was given to Peter was given to the whole church. And again, Augustine's thought on this passage is not eccentric, it's not an outlier view anymore than Cyprian's is. There's lots of different views. I like taking the rock, for example. Let's suppose that Peter is functioning representatively here,

as Augustine supposes. That helps us understand the rock imagery here. Historically, and you see all three of these in the church fathers, there are three proposals for what is the meaning of the rock here. Christ, Peter, or Peter's confession. But the meaning of this can be polyvalent. These options are not necessarily mutually exclusive. So in the early church, you see all three of them, and a lot of the church fathers combine them. This is how Augustine seems to think, and I think this is a good way to approach the passage. The rock is Peter in his confession of Christ. Okay, here's how Augustine puts it, his final view from his retractions. 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 are Peter, and not thou art the rock was said to him, but the rock was Christ, in confessing whom, as also the whole church confesses, Simon was called Peter. So you can see the logic here. It's Peter, Christ is the rock, so Peter confesses Christ, and therefore in that confession, Peter is the rock. But Peter is not the rock as the first holder of an ongoing ecclesiastical office, but as representing the apostolic confession of Christ. And this interpretation fits well with the rest of the New Testament where Christ is repeatedly called the rock on which the church is built. I'll put up three examples of passages where you see that kind of imagery, and this is drawing from Psalm 118 and the rock imagery there. Other times

people try to get Petrine supremacy from Jesus' restoration of Peter in Luke 22 and John 21, where Jesus gives this charge to feed my sheep, and then in Luke 22 to strengthen your brothers. But again, you just think about, if you just critically evaluate that, so wait a second, does that follow from Feed My Sheep? Peter is just being restored as an apostle to normal apostolic functions after his denials of Christ,

to read in Vatican One supremacy to feed my sheep or strengthen your brothers is a post hoc maneuver where you're taking this later idea that's not logically required by the words and you're bringing it back in. It'd be like if I said there, if I affirmed Pauline supremacy, I said Paul had authority over Peter. Paul had authority over John and Andrew. Okay. They related to Paul by the duty of hierarchical subordination. And you said, where do you get that? I don't see that in the Testament. And I said, well, for 2 Corinthians 1128, Paul says he has a care for all the churches. Well, you would rightly object to that and you'd protest and you'd say, wait a second, that's not what

the verse says. Care for all the churches or anxiety for all the churches is not the same thing as a jurisdictional authority. And that's the exact same thing with feeding sheep or strengthening brothers. It's not the same thing as a jurisdictional authority. Again, the patristic exe Jesus can confirm this. I point out the church fathers, by the way, we're going to get to them in themselves, but I just point them out to help us work through the texts. Because the point is, even once you get the idea of a petrine office in Rome, which is a development that we'll cover in a second, but even once it's there, they still don't see this in the way Vatican One defines the papacy. You can read the Eastern Orthodox scholars on this. David Bradshaw has a really good survey of the

church fathers exegesis of Peter's restoration in John 21. His conclusion, he considers many different church fathers, and his conclusion is that these do not find here the bestowal of any office or responsibility different from that of the other apostles, or regarding even Matthew 16. Ed Sachinsky notes that with few exceptions, patristic exegesis of Matthew 16 had nothing to do with the existence of an ongoing Petrine ministry in the church. All right, so that's the New Testament. major problems here. There's no idea of papal succession whatsoever, and Peter himself doesn't have the particular kinds of infallibility and supremacy that Vatican One stipulates his characteristic of the papacy. What about the historical data outside of and after the New Testament? What do you see coming into

the mix along the way? Well, you can probably tell a little bit of where this is going to go based upon what I've already said about the patristic views of the New Testament and some of these passages. But essentially, the papacy gives every appearance of what I often call an accretion, a slow, historical, gradualistic development, a sort of gradual accumulation of power and centralization of power in the Western Church. So the first point here is that in the earliest times, it doesn't look like you have a single bishop of Rome at all. So not only do you not have a single bishop who's supreme and in certain conditions infallible, you just don't have any single bishop in Rome. And then, and I'll document that in a second. As you go forward then, it's just building.

Century after century, building, building, building. And it takes a long time to get to the picture painted at Vatican One. Now, let me address something right up front here before I start to give evidence for that. And that's the idea of doctrinal development. Because what people will often say is you get into this and you realize, okay, yeah, what Ironaeus is saying over here, what Ignatius says, the church presides in love, the church of Rome presides in love, what Cyprian says here, this is kind of different from what you're going to get later. People will appeal to doctrinal development, and they'll say, well, the basic idea is there, but it's just the details and the circumstances develop. Now, one of the problems with this is we're going to say the basic idea

is not there. But another one is, there are limits to how much development can be reasoned ascribed to this office. So Pastor Iternus, which is the document of Vatican One, defining papal authority and infallibility, stipulates that scriptures teaching concerning the institution of the papacy has always been understood by the Catholic Church. It also claimed that it was known in every age that Peter received the keys of the kingdom and that he lives in his successors in the Roman Sea. It also says that it's demonstrated by the constant custom of the church that the pope's supremacy extends to his teachings. So while we can leave room for circumstantial variation in what the papacy looks like, you know, what clothes does the

Pope wear, does he go into hiding during persecution, leave room for reasonable changes like this, nonetheless, Vatican 1 regards the papacy as a perennial institution generally characteristic of the entirety of church history. In other words, I'm just trying to rule out of bounds right up front. You can't say, well, the papacy is a divinely established office. It just doesn't really exist for the first millennium. It just doesn't really function at all. You know, it's going to be completely different from the first millennium to the second or something like that. You can't do that because Vatican 1 is saying this is generally characteristic of church history.

So the problem is that doesn't seem to be true. And just from the historical data, boy, something like papal infallibility, you know, you just don't see ex-cathlete. statements in the first in the early church. It's just, you know, this office just doesn't, it's like the New Testament. It's almost hard to argue against because there's just not even, it's not even, it's not even, there's not even a lot of data to draw from. Like, where's the ex-cathedra statement in the early church? Well, again, people are going to say, well, it develops, okay, if this office was given

to the church for the purported reasons that it is needed, then when you have these raging controversies like Aryanism and so forth, don't you think this would kind of come up somewhere? I mean, it sort of strains plausibility that it's just going to sort of go into hiding for the first 700 years of its existence and not be exercised, right? So I'm trying to push against the overworking of doctrinal development in an implausible way. One of the ways you can see the historical development of the papacy and the concerns about something like papal infallibility, but also people supremacy. I'll cover both of those here. It's just by the looking at the pushback within the Roman Catholic Church around the time of Vatican 1, leading up to

Vatican 1 and even after. Johann Dahlinger, for example, he's a 19th century Catholic theologian. I'll put his full name up on the screen and his dates. He was excommunicated because he rejected papal infallibility, and this was very scandalous because prior to Vatican 1, he had been a leading Catholic historian, and his basis for opposition to papal infallibility was mainly historical. He said in a letter, we are still waiting the explanation of how it is that until 1830 years, 1830 years had passed, the church did not formulate into an article of faith, a doctrine which the Pope calls the very foundation principle of Catholic faith and doctrine. He also basically said this is just plainly opposed to the practice of the early church. The idea that you're going to locate infallibility in one person.

in the terms of Vatican one. He's saying that's just not what we see in the early church, if not what the historical data supports. Late in his life, he's responding to an appeal to save his soul from the everlasting consequences of exclusion from the church, and he's explaining why he can't sort of sacrifice his intellect on such a question. Quote, if I did so in a question which is for the historical eye, perfectly clear and unambiguous,

there would then be no longer for me any such thing. as historical truth and certainty. I should then have to suppose that my whole life long I had been in a world of dizzy illusion, and that in historical matters I am altogether incapable of distinguishing truth from fable and falsehood. So you see that language perfectly clear and unambiguous. He's basically saying, if I were to just stick my head in the sand and ignore the first 700 years of church history and the clearly contrary way that the early church is functioning, then I just can't figure out any truth at all. He was not the only bishop, or not the only Roman Catholic, excuse me, who had concerns about Vatican one. There were a minority of bishops at the council

that opposed Pastor Eternus on historical grounds. And I'll put up this passage from John O'Malley's book where he's summarizing this, and he's talking about their concern of basically taking the present situation and retrojecting it back into the earlier. This is the constant concern with Roman Catholic theology. Something develops, and then what it ultimately and eventually and finally results in is then read back into the earlier sources over and over. This happens. So this is the concern that Vatican One is a departure from historical precedent. It's not just that it's not in the New Testament. It's not consistent with the New Testament. It's clear. claims about the New Testament are erroneous. It's not just that. It's also that it's not representative

of the early church. And that, of course, Protestants aren't the only people who have this concern. Why is this so commonly argued? Basically, what you find as you go through the early historical data, is that the Church of Rome has this great stature. It has a kind of primacy. Rome is the capital of the empire. It's the place of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul. It's a flagship church and a doctrinally sound church. for several centuries early on, and then it comes to be eventually associated with Peter. And so you find this growing stature, so it's not hard to look back and find just generally positive statements about the Church of Rome and her bishops, about her significance, her stature, her primacy, et cetera.

The problem is those more general statements of significant stature and primacy are not the same thing as supremacy and infallibility as defined at Vatican 1 and as asserted to be characteristic of church history at Vatican One. And so people have to stretch the data to make it work. So to give an example or two of this, I won't comb, you know, I've done this in other videos. I won't be exhaustive here. You could see my video on papacy. I'll try to remember to put up the thumbnail here from the third to the seventh centuries, for example, where I go through five episodes showing how this office is developing throughout the early church. Just to give you the big picture here, you could start by looking at the first epistle of Clement.

This is perhaps the most significant extra-biblical first-century testimony, and because it's claimed to be written by the fourth pope, although these early lists don't agree. So there's ambiguity about how you order things, but nonetheless, Clement of Rome is regarded to be one of the early popes. And so people say, look, Clement wrote this epistle to the Corinthian Church, thus, papal supremacy. but you could just as easily argue for Antiochian supremacy when Ignatius is writing letters to other churches and so many other examples of this as well.

If you look at it with a critical eye, you can just see, oh yeah, you're stretching to get from the actual data to the desired outcome. There's this pivot that takes place. And if you just read Clement's letter, it strongly confirms the claim that the apostles supported two offices in the church. That is what he plainly says, and he regards bishops and deacons, two offices, as the fulfillment of prophecy. And he uses the term bishop and presbyter interchangeably. And on multiple occasions, he always refers to the leadership in the church in Corinth, and the plural, for example. So this confirms the picture we get from the New Testament and from the didache, another important

first century testimony, that you've got two offices in the church. I've often quoted this passage from Eamon Duffy, let me explain why I do. He's a Roman Catholic scholar. He literally wrote a history of all the popes, published by Yale University Press in 2006. And what he says about Clement's epistle is this. Clement 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 presbyters or bishops, of bishops or presbyters, rather than a single ruling bishop. And he says a generation later that's still so in Rome. That's where you get into the scholarly discussion is when do you get the transition to a single bishop. And in my videos on apostolic succession, I've talked about this, part of the evidence here that inclines Duffy with most scholars to think that the mono-episcopacy, a single bishop, has not yet emerged in Rome, even a little after Clement is the Shepherd of Hermes,

which was written in Rome sometime in the early second century and talks about the presbyters who preside over the church and so forth. Always speaks of the leadership of the church and the plural. This is just what the evidence looks is that early on, not only do you not have a single bishop in Rome who has supremacy over the church, but you just don't have a single bishop in Rome. it's just not there early on. And so, you know, hey, when does it exactly come in? It looks like sometime there in the early second century, but it's hard to be dogmatic about exactly when.

But people try to, my point right now is they try to stretch from clement writing this epistle to somehow that gets to papal supremacy or something like that. Or people will do the same with the language of Ignatius early on that the church in Rome presides in love. But this is very problematic. Number one, there's multiple points of ambiguity in the language that you have to work through to try to make that into sort of an authority over other churches or something like that. Plus, Ignatius makes no mention of a bishop in Rome.

Plus, he uses exalted language to describe lots of these churches. You know, I'll put up some examples from the Smyrnean and Ephesian churches as well. The idea is, so you have to really stretch the data to make it sound like Ignatius thinks the church in Rome has this sort of unique authority over other churches, especially if you try to connect that to a Roman bishop, something he says nothing about. I've already mentioned Cyprian. Siprian is another example that's often misused because people will reference his language about the unity of the church being founded in the chair of Peter, but they will neglect to tell you that he thinks that every bishop shares in that charter, and that no one bishop has authority over all the

rest. And that's very clear in his conflict with Stephen, the Bishop of Rome, on the question of re-baptism, where he's very explicitly saying, Peter did not assert that he had rights of seniority and that therefore upstarts and latecomers ought to be obedient to him. Siprian's position is very clear. I kind of mentioned that earlier. But so this, I'm just trying to give you examples of the kinds of things that people will try to stretch from. If you actually set the dials as Vatican One does, Okay, infallibility and supremacy, generally characteristic about the church, leave room for circumstantial variation, but those things are there. It's very clear that the patristic data just doesn't hold up to this. PAPal infallibility, for example, I mean, the only discussion in the scholarship about papal infallibility is when in the medieval era it comes in.

And when it does come in, it's still very controversial for a long time. The Roman Catholic scholar Brian Tierney had a classic book on this subject that's referenced a lot. His conclusion is no convincing evidence for papal infallibility prior to the 13th century. And he speaks about its invention there. Now that's a controversial statement that provokes people and people want to push back. So this is debated, you know, when in the medieval era are you explicitly getting the idea of papal infallibility? This one person in his office is capable of speaking infallibility. but the debate is about the medieval era.

This is not representative of the early church. You don't have ex-cathedra statements in the early church. It's just not there. You know, I try to, I don't want to step on toes too much here, but I just, when you hear about people becoming Catholic and not really thinking this through, you want to try to put it in front of their field of vision to say it plainly, to say, you're submitting to this apparatus, but it's not present in early Christianity. It's a complete later development.

and even the honest scholars within this tradition talk about that, and something similar is true not just for papal infallibility, but for papal supremacy. As defined of Vatican 1, that is not representative of first millennium Christianity. And you can see this in many ways. I'll just go through one way you can see this, and that's how popes relate to ecumenical councils. So Lumengentium, a dogmatic constitution at Vatican 2,

stipulates the role of the pope in relation to ecumenical councils as follows. it is the prerogative of the Roman pontiff to convoke these councils, to preside over them, and to confirm them. Okay, they don't have to do that every time. Fine. You know, maybe there's exceptional circumstances, again, leave room for reasonable circumstantial variation. Fine. But none of the ecumenical councils in the early church were ever convoked or presided over by a Roman bishop. In every case, it was the emperor. in some cases the Roman bishop was not present and did not send any legates. Constantinople 1 would be an example of that. So people have to argue that the Roman bishop had this authority but simply never exercised it

for the first seven ecumenical councils. Why should we accept that? Why should we accept that as plausible? It's just such a weak claim. Forgive me, but it's just, it's not an impressive claim at all. So, you know, you could just ask, what's the point of the Pope having such a prerogative only to never use it with respect to any of the early ecumenical councils, even in times of dire need where Aryanism, for example, is taking over the church.

Furthermore, someone's still going to say, oh, but it's an argument from silence. So let's just show it's not just an argument from silence. It's you're showing what isn't there, but then you're also showing what is there. If you just look at how the ecumenicals function, there are occasions where they define their own authority in relation to the Roman bishop and make it clear they think they have authority over and apart from the Roman bishop. And this stands in contrast to the strand of teaching at Vatican 2 concerning the necessity of the Pope's consent for the bishop's authority over the universal church. The conflict between Pope Vigilius and the bishops gathered at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553,

the fifth ecumenical council illustrates this point. I talk about this in my book. I also have a video on this just to recount it briefly here. In the years leading up to this council, the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I had been seeking the condemnation of three persons and their writings, the three chapters. And he's trying to bring about reunion with the non-Chalcedonian Christians. And Pope Vigilius ends up reversing his position several times in this controversy. But also, Ultimately, he ends up opposing the verdict of the Council in a solemn declaration called the First Constitum. quote, now that this had been determined by ourselves with all and every care and caution, we enact and decree that no one with ecclesiastical dignity and rank is permitted to hold or

write or produce or compose or teach anything about the oft-mentioned three chapters, contrary to what we have declared and enacted in this present decree, or to raise any further inquiry subsequent to the present definition. Now, according to Richard Price, who's a great Catholic scholar himself, who has translated a lot of these councils, Vigilius, quote, could not have stated more unambiguously that his decree was final and left no room for discussion, and yet the bishops at Constantinople II not only persist in their course, but bring Vigilius under discipline, removing his name from the diphtics of the council, which would have been read aloud, and functionally excommunicating him in his person, though not in his office. Having recounted,

counted Vigilius' refusal to appear at their counsel, they declare that since therefore he has acted in this way, we have pronounced that his name is alien to Christians and is not to be read out in the sacred diphtics. So the reasoning here from the bishops is, you know, their authority, if you read through their rationale for this, they're basically saying we have authority greater than him. Here's how one Roman Catholic historian puts it. Constantinople 2 not only condemned those three chapters, but even excommunicated the Pope. This was a rather unique case of an ecumenical counsel setting itself clearly against the Pope, and yet not suffering the fate of Ephesus 2. Instead, over time, it was accepted and even recognized as valid by the Pope. The counsel got around

the papal opposition by referring to Matthew 1820. No individual, therefore, could forestall the decision of the universal church. Matthew 1820 is the two or three are better than one. well, that's another passage in ecclesiastes they referenced. They're talking about where two or three are gathered in my name. Point is, conciliar authority trumps papal authority. That's their explicit argumentation, to which Vigilius eventually yields, reversing his policy yet again in the second constitutum, which solemnly condemns the three chapters. Price's comment is, quote, it is unusual to have a debate in which two of the lengthiest contributions

arguing for diametrically opposed positions are written by the same person, it is stranger still when both contributions claim to give the final and definitive ruling, closing the debate for all time. So you can say about this episode, papal infallibility can be salvaged by saying that Vigilius was under duress during this time, because he was. He was under major duress. But it's very difficult to see how you can affirm papal supremacy when the early church is functioning like this. it seems pretty clear that the other bishops, when they're gathered in counsel, regard themselves to have authority over and apart from the Pope. That is their explicit argumentation and their explicit action at an ecumenical council.

So I'm zooming in on that particular, try to get granular on that particular episode to give you a window into the larger picture on why someone like Dollinger and many others are going to look at the historical evidence and say, Vatican One is not consistent with the early church. Final thought. I think what some people pivot to is from, I've been doing these dialogues and videos and addressing these topics enough to know that for some people, the historical evidence and the biblical evidence doesn't really matter that much. You know, you get into it and you realize it's something else driving the boat. For a lot of people, the pragmatic argument is what really moves them. There's this desire for unity and for some kind of living voice that can settle disputes, closure, okay, we need a central authority that can speak infallibly so that we have a decisive mechanism for resolving differences and so on and so forth. And I understand that appeal. I totally get that. I think many hearts desire that. But here's the problem to finish with. If this office is not of divine character, but is rather, as we've argued, a slow human accretion that is, that lacks

divine authority, it's not from God, then ultimately this will become a great barrier. to unity, to true unity. And that is how the rest of Christendom outside of Roman Catholicism looks at the papacy is, you know, it's basically a demand for unity on its own terms, which we can't yield to. Here's a metaphor. Suppose that there are several brothers who are quarreling and they're divided. They're trying to figure out, how do we have unity? How do we get back together? And the oldest of those brothers says, in order to have unity, you have to meet at my house on my terms. Now, For him, that's how unity is going to be achieved. But because of the breach of trust, several of the other brothers are unwilling to meet at his

house, on his terms, and they'd request a neutral location. Whereas the older brother is thinking, this is how we're going to get unity. His very insistence on unity on his terms is itself the barrier. And that is how the rest of Christendom feels about the papacy. It's an assertion of unity on my terms. It's an assertion of basically bow the knee to this system, and then we have unity. But this system doesn't have good evidence for being divine. And that is why, you know, what can we do with protest?

It's like the guy in your neighborhood saying, I'm the king of the neighborhood and you owe me money. It's like, what can you do? You got to live in your house and you can't pay him, so you just have to say no. And for the rest of us who don't think that this idea of the Roman bishop having supremacy and infallibility and so forth, we don't think that that is true, what can we do, but just say no. My kids are coming up the stairs, so I've got to end it there. Hopefully this video gives you a brief encapsulation of why a Protestant, but also others, would look at the papacy and regard it the way that we do. And I'll be interested in reading your comments in the comment section. Thanks for watching.