This content analyzes and refutes 14 alleged contradictions in Catholic Church doctrine presented by "Redeem Zoomer," arguing that these instances are either not actual contradictions, do not involve infallibly defined teachings, or represent authentic doctrinal development, ultimately asserting Catholicism's greater reliability in safeguarding doctrine compared to Protestantism.
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Recently, Redeem Zoomer made a video
about 14 alleged contradictions in the
historical teachings of the Catholic
Church. So, in today's episode, we're
going to go through them and view them
in light of what I consider to be Redeem
Zoomer's two main arguments against
Catholicism. But before I do that, I
want to say two things. First, I want to
give a big thanks to Redeem Zoomer or RZ
from here on out, who reviewed this
script to make sure that I understood
his arguments before offering my reply.
And second, I want to address a gut
feeling some Protestants have when they
see rebuttals like this one put out
online. I feel like some of them have
this train of thought. Wow, it took 10
Catholic apologists to respond to some
guy who likes Minecraft. They're in
total panic damage control mode. If
that's what Catholics have to do, then
this really shows how flimsy their
position is. The fact that many Catholic
apologists might respond to a Redeem
Zoomer video or a Gavin Ortland video
does not mean those videos are a silver
bullet against Catholicism. A dozen
Christian apologists might respond to an
Alex Okconor video. But Protestants
agree it's annoying when atheists say
that the mere number of Christian
apologists responding to an atheist
means that Christian apologists are in
some kind of panicked damage control
mode. I've created videos that multiple
Protestant apologists have responded to,
but I would never want Catholics to
triumphily say this fact alone proves
I've refuted Protestantism. These kinds
of videos only show that someone created
content that has gotten a lot of views.
And so, it will be prudent to respond to
the errors or alleged errors in that
content. That's all. On the other hand,
I've noticed some Catholics say that RZ
is acting in bad faith because he
recently said that Catholic arguments
are bad or super weak or that Catholic
apologists engage in sophisticated cope.
But many Catholics think the same way
about Protestantism without thinking
that they are acting in bad faith. So
why can't RZ do the same thing? RZ is
wrong about stuff, but if you're a
Catholic, just point out where he's
wrong and no need to get emotional about
it. When someone criticizes our faith,
we should offer a competent defense, not
an emotionally defensive reaction. The
latter isn't helpful reassurance to
Catholics, and it's not impressive to
non-atholics who are still on the fence
about whether Catholicism is the church
Jesus Christ established. All right, now
let's get into the heart of RZ's
argument. Essentially, he makes two
different arguments in his video. One
argument is that the Catholic Church has
made contradictory, infallibly defined
statements of doctrine. If this ever
happened, it would falsify Catholicism's
claim to having infallible teaching
authority and make the church's claim to
having a divine origin extremely
suspect. This is similar to atheistic
and Muslim arguments against scripture
which say that the Bible contains
contradictions and so the text is not
inherent or it's not divinely protected
from error. Therefore, we should be
skeptical of the Bible's divine origin.
So, you could call this the logical
argument against Catholicism. The
Catholic Church has infallibly decreed
doctrine X at one time and infallibly
decreed doctrine not X at another time.
Therefore, the Catholic Church is not
infallible because it contradicted
itself. However, in order to make the
logical argument against Catholicism,
you'd have to show that the two
statements were indeed both infallibly
defined to be true because a
non-infallible teaching could be in
error. And that fact alone would not
falsify Catholicism. The second argument
is that the Catholic Church has made
contradictory noninfallibly defined
statements of doctrine or practice. It's
ordinary teaching. In other words, the
church has changed these ordinary
teachings or practices over time. If
these changes do not involve infallibly
defined doctrine, then any single
instance of such a change would not
falsify Catholicism because there's no
divine promise that these changes or
teachings would be without error.
However, frequent examples of such
changes might make us skeptical of
Catholicism's trustworthiness or its
ability to preserve doctrine. This
collection of evidence would provide a
more probabilistic argument against
Catholicism than a strictly logical
argument. So call this second argument
of RZ's the evidential argument against
Catholicism. These two arguments
parallel when atheists make logical and
evidential arguments from evil against
the existence of God. The logical
argument from evil says that only one
instance of evil is necessary to falsify
theism because God and evil cannot
logically coexist. Likewise, the logical
argument against Catholicism says that
only one instance of infallible
contradictory teachings is needed to
falsify Catholicism because
contradictory infallible teachings and
the Catholic Church cannot coexist. In
contrast, the evidential argument from
evil says that while God and some evil
can coexist, the sheer amount of evil in
the world should make us skeptical God
exists. Likewise, RZ's evidential
argument against Catholicism says that
while changing non-infallible doctrines
can coexist with Catholicism, the sheer
number of these changes should make us
skeptical of the Catholic Church's
divine authority. And as I'll show
later, however, this evidential argument
opens the door for critiquing
Protestantism on this issue because
Protestants have also changed their
teachings. For example, in our previous
discussion, I pointed out that the
Westminster confession that
Presbyterians rely on has changed its
teaching on the Pope being the
antichrist, which is why Redeem Zoomer
only considers the later version of the
Westminster Confession to be inherent.
which means that earlier Westminster
confessions contained errors. So you're
saying that the revision that happened
in 1789 in the American church, that's
the one you consider to be inarent
because it improved upon the earlier one.
one.
>> Yes, I think the church has the
authority to revise its statements
because the church is fallible. So even
if RZ were correct about Catholicism
changing its non- infallibly defined
teachings, that would not justify
abandoning Catholicism because
Protestants do the same thing. But as
I'll show, they do it to a much larger
and much more severe degree that truly
compromises important doctrines. But as
I said, I'll save that for later. What I
want to do right now is go through these
alleged contradictions from RZ's video
and show that they do not involve two
infallible teachings and contradiction
and so they do not support the logical
argument against Catholicism. I'll also
show that we can understand these to be
authentic developments of doctrine and
so they don't support the evidential
argument against Catholicism. And when
it comes to the logical argument, keep
in mind that not everything a pope or an
ecumenical council says is an infallibly
defined teaching, but only what they say
under certain specific conditions, like
the pope speaking ex cathedral or an
ecumenical council solemnly defining
doctrine. And in the case of the second
Vatican council, theologians agree it
did not make any infallible
declarations. So it cannot be used in
any logical argument from contradiction
against Catholicism. RZ said in his
video that Cardinal Dolan and Francis
Sullivan say Vatican 2 is infallible,
but I haven't found any record of these
men saying this. In addition, I'm going
to present evidence, as I said before,
that these cases of alleged doctrinal
change can be explained as being
authentic development of doctrine, and
so they do not support RZ's evidential
argument against Catholicism. But I am
going to offer this disclaimer before
going forward. Many of these issues
would require an entire video of their
own to address. So, I won't be able to
comprehensively or exhaustively address
each of these topics. But if you'd like
to help us create more videos to be able
to do that, hit the subscribe button and
support us at trenhornpodcast.com.
My goal instead is to point you in the
right direction when it comes to
resolving these difficulties. So, let's
take a look at them. Number one, no
salvation outside the church. I'm also
going to subsume point number four on
the saving nature of Protestant baptism
into this point because they have a fair
amount of overlap. When it comes to no
salvation outside the church, RZ's first
source, Unum Sanctum, probably contains
an infallible declaration that those who
do not submit to the Roman pontiff
cannot be saved. The papable bull cane
domino given at the council of Florence
may also be an exercise in infallibility
when it says that pagans, Jews,
heretics, and schismatics cannot become
participants in eternal life. However,
the modern documents RZ cites are not
infallible in nature. Those documents
include the Second Vatican Council,
which as I said did not teach anything
infallibly, and the Roman martyology,
which records 21 non-atholic Coptic
martyrs who were beheaded by Muslim
terrorists in 2015. Papal canonizations
are generally considered acts of
infallibility. But Pope Francis did not
formally canonize the Coptic martyrs.
The Roman martyology contains martyed
saints, but it also lists martyed
blesseds and martyed individuals. It is
not an infallible declaration that
someone is in heaven like a papal
canonization. And so it cannot be used
in a strictly logical argument against
Catholicism. The Council of Florence
says that martyrdom does not undo the
sin of schism if one chooses to remain
outside the church. However, if someone
is only incidentally a non-atholic and
dies a martyr because they did not
resist the Catholic Church in bad faith,
it's possible they may be saved. Pope
Francis included the Coptic martyrs in
the Roman martyology as a show of unity
with the Coptic Church, which is why he
did this with the consent of the head of
the Coptic Church and not as an official
teaching about the salvation of
non-atholics. But through acts like
these and statements in the second
Vatican Council, did the Catholic Church
change its teaching or fail to uphold
older infallible teachings on salvation?
No. Because what has developed since
then is recognizing there is a
difference between defining the
objective means of salvation and
acknowledging that God can save a person
through extraordinary means as long as
that person does not sinfully reject the
objective means of salvation, such as if
they acted out of a kind of ignorance.
This has been noted throughout church
history. And in 1863, Pope Pius the 9th
said the following. Because God knows,
searches, and clearly understands the
minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of
all, his supreme kindness and clemency
do not permit anyone at all who is not
guilty of deliberate sin to suffer
eternal punishments. Also well known is
the Catholic teaching that no one can be
saved outside the Catholic Church.
Eternal salvation cannot be obtained by
those who oppose the authority and
statements of the same church and are
stubbornly separated from the unity of
the church. End quote. This is a huge
topic. I've already addressed my
previous reply to Redeem Zoomer, which
I'll link below. I'd also recommend this
video from Christian Wagner on the
subject and this article from Eric Ibara
on Canante Dominu, both of which I'll
link in the description. RZ also takes
issue with the idea that the only people
condemned for non-belief are those who
know Catholicism is true and still
reject it. He says this stretches
invincible ignorance because as he says
>> who in their right mind would know
something is true and necessary for
salvation and still reject it.
>> Well, we can ask the same question of
those who know certain actions are
necessary for salvation and still commit
grave sins. People apparently in their
right mind do that every day. That means
the group of people who know Catholicism
is true and still reject it should not
be ridiculed as an absurd hypothetical.
However, RZ does make a good point about
invincible ignorance. Traditionally,
this referred to people who are ignorant
of correct doctrine and could not
overcome their ignorance on their own.
Vincible ignorance on the other hand is
quite common. And there are many people
who hear the voice of conscience telling
them to learn more about Jesus Christ or
learn more about his church and then
they don't listen to that voice because
they know deep down it would be too too
hard or too risky to follow and they'd
rather not do anything and just remain
in ignorance. Vatican 2 even says that
salvation is a mere possibility for
non-atholics, not a probability, and
says the following. But often men
deceived by the evil one have become
vain in their reasonings and have
exchanged the truth of God for a lie,
serving the creature rather than the
creator. Or some there are who living
and dying in this world without God are
exposed to final despair. Wherefore to
promote the glory of God and procure the
salvation of all of these and mindful of
the command of the Lord preach the
gospel to every creature, the church
fosters the missions with care and
attention. Contradiction number two
refers to the alleged contradiction
between the authority of the pope and
the authority of ecumenical councils,
especially in regard to things like the
Western schism where there was a dispute
about the identity of the true pope.
I'll refer you to Cathodox's video on
this subject for a complete breakdown of
the issue, but I just want to address
one part of RZ's reply. In his original
video, he claimed that the Vatican took
an insanely high view of papal authority
through the pope basically acting like a
Star Wars villain. The main issue
debated at the council was the
infallibility of the pope. Most members
of the council supported it, but to
varying degrees. In frustration, Pope
Pius the 9th in a Darth Cidious manner
declared, "I am the church," and
pressured all the bishops who didn't
support his infallibility to leave. With
the more moderate bishops gone, the
council took a radical ultramontinist
position. This makes it sound like Pope
Pius the 9inth took out his lightsaber
and cut down the bishop standing in his
way of declaring him being infallible.
But that's not what happened. Even if
such a scenario would be pretty awesome
if it did happen. In this article
summarizing John Omali's history of
Vatican 1, it says that because of the
encroaching war between France and
Germany, quote, bishops had begun
drifting home. So that Ali tells us
before the final vote in July, nearly a
quarter of them were gone. Some left out
of frustration, some to escape the war,
but most did so to avoid a divisive
non-placet vote on the final document.
These bishops were called inopportune
because most of them did not disagree
with the dogma of papal infallibility.
They just considered such an infallible
declaration to be inopportune and more
harmful to the cause of Christian
accuminism. The majority of the council
always favored the proposal. So it would
have passed regardless. Finally, the
claim that Pope Pius the 9th said, "I am
the tradition or I am the church is
incredibly suspect as it only comes from
second and third-hand accounts which
contradict each other." As early as
1872, the Roman periodical lascivica
called out this propaganda, saying the
following. Yet the imprudence of this
singular narrator grows to the utmost
when without citing writings or
witnesses, he attributes heretical
concepts and insulate propositions to
some bishops. To Cardinal Guedi, who was
challenging papal infallibility with
tradition, he angrily replied, "I am
tradition. I will make you profess your
faith again. a slander full of
foolishness for it attributes incredible
ignorance to a most learned cardinal and
places on the lips of a wa most wise and
humble pope words intoxicated with
falsehood and arrogance. The most
prominent account describing this
alleged exchange is from Ignes
Vandalinger a German theologian who was
a fierce critic of Pope Pius who later
went on to be a formative influence of
the schismatic old Catholic church.
Number three, second Nika and veneration
of icons. I have a long discussion of
this issue in my response to Gavin
Ortland, so I'm not going to rehash all
of those points here, but I will refer
our viewers also to a book published
last year by Michael Garton that
questions assumptions about the lack of
veneration of sacred images prior to the
Council of Nika, especially because of
overlooked archaeological evidence. RZ
even admits this isn't his strongest
argument because it does not involve two
contradictory magisterial statements. At
best, second Nika is wrong about the
apostolic origins of icon veneration.
But even if you believe sacred images
came about later in church history, that
can be a legitimate doctrinal
development. RZ says believing icon
veneration developed centuries after the
apostles constitutes denying second
Nika. But not everything said in
ecumenical council becomes enduring
doctrine or dogma. RZ says however
Catholics cannot do this because second
Nika relies on icon veneration coming
from the apostles to justify the
practice. But the specific anathema RZ
quotes in his video only says it
condemns the claim that making of images
is a diabolical invention and not a
tradition of our holy fathers which
doesn't say anything about icons going
all the way back to the apostles and
images were a tradition going back to
the petristic age as can be seen in St.
Basel the Great's homaly on St. Baram
where he tells painters adorned by your
art the mutilated figure of this officer
of our army. As I show in my previous
episode on the matter, the early church
fathers did not oppose icons by citing
the second commandment. They opposed it
through different philosophical
arguments that other fathers disputed.
By the time we get to the second council
of Nika, the church saw the need of
intervening and restricting those
Christians who would tell other
Christians paying respect to a sacred
person through a sacred image is sinful.
For a complete breakdown of this issue
of icon veneration in Catholic doctrine,
see the video by Swansana that I've
linked below. Number five, has
confession always been private? RZ says
that the current catechism and the
Council of Trent contradict each other
because Trent infallibly teaches that
the following statement is false. The
manner of confessing secretly to a
priest alone, which the church hath ever
observed from the beginning, and doth
observe, is alien from the institution
and command of Christ, and is a human
invention. However, paragraph 1447 of
the catechism says in the early church
that for some sins, quote, penitence had
to do public penance for their sins,
often for years before receiving
reconciliation. It then says that since
the early middle ages, the sacrament has
been performed in secret between
penitant and priest. Now, this cannot be
used for the logical argument against
Catholicism because the catechism is not
infallible. Moreover, in these
discussions, people often confuse public
acts of penance or sorrow for sin with
public confession of the sins
themselves. In fact, I have been guilty
of spreading the common myth that
confession of sins in the early church
was done publicly before the
congregation. Mayopa mayopa meopa. I now
see that there is very little evidence
for this position. The first century
document the dedicay says in the church
you shall acknowledge your
transgressions. But that doesn't mean a
person must confess his sins out loud to
all the people in the church. Catholics
still go to church for private
confession. And the evidence shows
private confession existed long before
the 7th century. St. Augustine talks
about not wanting to publicly disclose
that a person is a grave sinner by
turning them away from communion. But
this would not be necessary if
confession of sins was already done in
public. And so everybody knew each
other's sins. That's why Hubard in his
thesis on this issue says the following.
There appears to be no evidence
whatsoever in Augustine's writings to
indicate that an individual's sins were
read out in public. The evidence from
writers like Cyprien in the 3rd century
suggests that there was a long tradition
of seeking out priests alone and not
priests with the entire congregation for
the salutary medicine of confession. The
catechism may simply be an error here.
Or it may just be a sloppy way of saying
that the assignment of penences which
was done publicly without acknowledging
the nature of the sins requiring the
penance that that became private by the
early middle ages and is not about the
confession of sins themselves. Either
way, this is just a development in how
the sacrament is celebrated, not a
change in the essential form of the
sacrament instituted by Christ who said
that the apostles had the power to
forgive and retain sins. Such an
instruction would entail that sins must
be confessed to the apostles so they
could decide if they should forgive a
truly contrite person or retain the sins
of a person who isn't truly sorry for
what they've done. Number six, is the
death penalty immoral? RZ says the main
problem here is that older sources like
the Catechism of the Council of Trent
say the death penalty is good, whereas
the current catechism says it is bad
because it is an attack on human dignity
and so it is now inadmissible. Like the
previous argument, this one cannot be
used for the logical argument against
Catholicism because it involves a
non-infallible teaching in the
catechism. It could be a case that Pope
Francis is making a prudential judgment
about the death penalty that can be
rejected after careful consideration or
he was issuing a doctrinal teaching that
falls into the rare category of
doctrinal errors committed by a pope.
Don and Veritatus says the following.
When it comes to the question of
interventions in the credential order,
it could happen that some magisterial
documents might not be free from all
deficiencies. Bishops and their advisers
have not always taken into immediate
consideration every aspect or the entire
complexity of a question. But it would
be contrary to the truth if proceeding
from some particular cases, one were to
conclude that the church's magisterium
can be habitually mistaken in its
credential judgments or that it does not
enjoy divine assistance in the integral
exercise of its mission. So the
catechism's teaching could be a mistaken
credential judgment or it could be a
rare mistaken case of doctrine just like
a pope in the middle ages who was
mistaken about the botific vision and
had to be corrected on that later.
Though these errors are rare and far
between which is why in some cases of
non infallibly defined doctrine a person
could privately struggle with this
doctrine. They just couldn't publicly
dissent from it. I'll leave a link in
the description below with an article
from Jimmy Aken describing how someone
who doesn't accept the church's teaching
on the death penalty could respond to
their feelings about the issue. But
there is another option for addressing
this difficulty. One could see this part
of the catechism as an authentic
development of the doctrine regarding
the death penalty. RZ says the catechism
teaches the death penalty is inherently
immoral. But the catechism doesn't use
that language or call the death penalty
intrinsically evil. The catechism
basically says the death penalty is bad
and so we should not use it anymore even
if different social conditions in the
past justified its use. The death
penalty was never a part of God's plan
from creation for human beings. So there
will always be something deficient about
it given that it came into the world to
help human beings respond to the effects
of sin. However, RZ says that if the
morality of an act can change because of
changing social circumstances, then that
opens the floodgates for liberals to
change Christian teaching on things like
sexuality. But sexuality was a direct
part of God's plan for humanity from the
beginning of creation. It was written
into our very being. This is why core
doctrines on sexuality like the manwoman
nature of marriage cannot change.
However, other doctrines that relate to
things that do change over time, like
the way society might be particularly
organized, these things can develop over
time. To make an analogy, debt slavery
was never part of God's plan for human
beings. Yet, the Bible contains passages
like slaves obey your masters. And some
church fathers taught that debt slavery
was part of God's plan for regulating
human inequalities brought about by sin.
And even though though this institution
was once considered good or useful
throughout a long part of church
history, it can no longer be tolerated
by Catholics in the modern world. This
same kind of thinking can also be
applied to the death penalty, which was
once meed out for all kinds of crimes,
even things like theft, which we no
longer consider to warrant capital
punishment. And because Protestants must
explain how the biblical teaching on
slavery developed so that what was once
considered admissible for Christians is
now at the very least inadmissible. They
should be able to see how Catholics can
chart a similar trajectory in the
church's views on the death penalty.
Obviously, a lot more can be said on
this subject, and I can hear several
objections already being raised to me
comparing the death penalty to death
slavery. That's why I'm going to address
this in a longer episode dedicated just
to the issue of the death penalty. And
I'm going to continue on with RZ's
contradictions. And I'll note later in
this episode why even if you think the
change in the teaching on the death
penalty is an error on the Catholic
Church's part. That does not open the
door for Protestantism to become a
viable alternative. Number seven,
worship with non-atholics. In Mortalia
Manimos, Pope Pius the 11th criticized
people who call themselves pan-hs and
wanted all believers to be united into
one invisible church rather than be
united within the visible Catholic
Church that Christ established. RZ calls
Mortalia Animos quote a clear and
uncompromising rejection of the
ecumenical movement. But that's not
true. In his book, Ecumenical
Associations, James Oliver says, "Pope
Pius the 11th, quote, both welcome the
separated brethren and clearly stated
what was and was not possible for
Catholics regarding dialogue with
non-atholic Christians concerning
theological differences and unity.
Catholics cannot pray with non-atholics
in an active sense that affirms their
deficient worship. But we can pray with
non-atholics in another sense, namely in
the sense of praying in their presence
or passively worshiping alongside them.
St. Alfonsus Lori said the following. It
is not permitted to be present at the
sacred rights of infidels and heretics
in such a way that you would be judged
to be in communion with them. Pisc 11's
encyclical contains various disciplinary
judgments about accuminism. But these
disciplinary judgments can change and be
abregated by later popes just as popes
have changed how long one must fast
before receiving the eucharist over the
course of church history. In 1949 with
permission from Pope Pius I 12th the
congregation of the doctrine of the
faith released a document on accuminism
that outlined when it was and was not
appropriate. So this is not some radical
postvatican 2 development. Here's a part
of the 1949 instruction. The previous
permission of the holy sea special for
each case is always required. And in the
petition asking for it, it must also be
stated what are the questions to be
treated and who the speakers are to be.
Although in all these meetings and
conferences, any communication
whatsoever in worship must be avoided.
Yet the recitation in common of the
Lord's prayer or of some prayer approved
by the Catholic Church is not forbidden
for opening or closing the said
meetings. So we see accuminism was not
universally condemned. It was instead
regulated. and how it is regulated can
change over time as long as one does not
directly sanction taking part in false
acts of worship like offering sacrifice
to a false god. Number eight, the issue
of usery. Usuzery or charging interest
on loans involves the teachings of the
second lateran council which RZ says is
infallible. However, second lateran
never made an infallible declaration on
usery. John Nunan, who's written the
most famous study in the history of
usery and church teaching, admits that
there have never been any infallible
declarations saying that charging
interest on loans is always immoral,
only long-standing teachings and
practice in the early church. The only
related infallible teaching would be the
fifth lattering council's infallible
decree that the mounts of piety, a kind
of charitable medieval pawn shop where
one could borrow money, did not
constitute the sin of usery. The Bible
and church history never treat lending
money at interest as being intrinsically
evil or something that can never be done
under any circumstance. For example, the
Bible does not allow Christians to
commit adultery with unbelievers rather
than believers. It universally outlaws
adultery. However, it did allow
believers to engage in practices that
caused harm and it limited the harm that
was caused over time. This can be seen
in the Old Testament saying an Israelite
could not buy other Israelites as slaves
or make other Israelites de facto slaves
by lending money to them. However, an
Israelite could buy slaves from
foreigners and he could lend money to
foreigners. In the writings of the
church fathers, usery was primarily
condemned because it harmed the poor.
St. Basil and St. Ambrose described
usery leading to children being sold
into slavery or people unaliviving
themselves in despair over debts they
could not pay. The second lateran
council condemned usery because of the
ferocious greed of user but it did not
do so because it was a principle of
justice or say that it was intrinsically
wrong. Nunan who used the change in the
teaching on usery to try and argue the
church should change his teaching on
contraception admits that the church
since the middle ages has had the same
teaching on lending money. It's just
been applied in different ways. He
writes the following usery. The act of
taking profit on a loan without a just
title is sinful. What is a just title?
What is technically to be treated as a
loan are matters of debate, positive
law, and changing evolution. The
development of these points is great,
but the pure and narrow dogma is the
same today as in 1200. In other words,
through most of modern church history,
it was assumed money lending harmed the
poor. And so, loans were presumed evil
unless they could be proven to have a
justifiable reason or a just title.
However, as modern economies changed,
this presumption also changed until we
get to the modern era where money
lending is presumed to be good unless
there's evidence to show in a particular
case that it's bad, like high interest
rates. Catholic philosopher Christopher
Quesor says this would be on par with
the church teaching that surgery is evil
in the Middle Ages because it was so
dangerous. However, the church would
then allow surgery in the modern age
because now it's become relatively safe.
I'd recommend the article linked below
by Dr. Quazor for more complete
discussion of this issue. Number nine,
communion under both kinds. This alleged
contradiction deals with the practice of
offering either the body of Christ under
the form of bread or the blood of Christ
under the form of wine to communicates
and not both of them at the same time.
RZ admits this is not an infallible
contradiction. So it can't be used in a
logical argument against Catholicism.
The church does infallibly teach that it
is not necessary to receive Christ under
the form of bread and the form of wine
in order to receive the sacrament of the
Eucharist. And this teaching has not
been contradicted. Instead, this
objection would be part of RZ's
evidential argument because he claims
this shows the Catholic Church has not
retained important apostolic traditions.
But even early Protestants recognized
that one could fully receive Christ
through communion in one kind. The
reformed theologian Francis Turitan
said, "Although both signs are not
received, they do not cease to be made
partakers of the whole thing signified,
which is indivisible." 1 Corinthians
11:27 refers to people who eat the bread
or drink the blood unworthily, which
implies some may do one or the other and
still receive the full blessings when
this is done reverently or a full
punishment when it's done without
reverence. For more complete treatment
of this issue, see the YouTube channel
Sense 33 AD and their video on this
subject linked below. And be sure to
check out the rest of his channel
because he has really solid apologetic
content that goes beyond the typical
surface level answers and objections.
Numbers 10 and 11 deal with the Pope's
temporal authority and papal supremacy
in the first millennium. First,
Protestants and Catholics would agree
that no earthly power can be an ultimate
authority. Romans 13 says the state only
has power because of God's design. That
means the civil state must be
subordinate to God. It follows from this
that the state must be subordinate to
the church of the living God. And if the
church has a supreme pastor, the state
must be subordinate to that pastor, i.e.
the pope. But that does not mean the
church should dictate everything the
state does or on the other extreme that
the church should have no involvement in
the running of the state whatsoever.
Throughout the history of Christryendom,
the pope acquired and lost power as the
ruler of particular lands and peoples.
Even today, the pope is a particular
ruler and head of state, albeit the
smallest country on earth. Over time,
the understanding of the pope's temporal
authority or the authority over powers
in this world in contrast to his
spiritual authority, this has changed as
can be seen in the work of the Catholic
theologian Francisco Suarez in the 16th
century. Just because temporal power
often coincided with papal authority
does not mean temporal power is an
essential part of the papal office. Don
and Veritatus says the following. The
theologian knows that some judgments of
the magisterium could be justified of
the time in which they were made because
while the pronouncements contain true
assertions and others which were not
sure, both types were inextricably
connected. only time has permitted
discernment and after deeper study the
attainment of true doctrinal progress.
Contradiction number 11 details more
with the pope's supreme spiritual
authority which is an essential part of
the papal office. The contradiction
claims to be between Vatican 1's
assertion about the antiquity of this
authority and a recent Vatican document
on the papacy and accuminism. But this
does not form a logical argument against
Catholicism because neither of these
statements was infallibly defined. The
recent Vatican document outright says in
it that quote, "It is a study document
that does not claim to exhaust the
subject nor to summarize the Catholic
magisterium on it." The Vatican 1
statement on the Pope's authority being
known in every age isn't an infallible
teaching either. In fact, this passage
which RZ cited in his video was not a
bombastic declaration from 1870, the
year when the council was held. Instead,
it was a quote from the papal legot
Philip at the council of Ephesus in the
year 431, which provides evidence that
Vatican 1 is indeed correct and that the
pope's primacy was known in the early
church. If you want the complete
treatment of evidence for the papacy in
the first millennium, I recommend Eric
Ibara's book, The Papacy, Revisiting the
Debate between Catholics and Orthodox.
Number 12, giving communion to the
divorced and remarried. This, like the
others, does not involve any logical
contradictions because at most one
chapter or even just one footnote of
Pope Francis's exhortation of Morris
latitia is an error. Specifically, it is
the material dealing with couples in
invalid marriages being able to receive
communion under some circumstances. The
document does not contradict the
infallible teaching that remarage after
divorce involves a sin of adultery. It
simply raises the issue of whether some
couples in these kinds of unions are not
fully culpable for their sinful sexual
relations and so they could still
receive communion. The idea that someone
is not fully culpable for his or her
sins has been known all throughout
church history, which means that not all
grave acts are mortal sins. To be in
mortal sin, a person must also have full
knowledge and fully consent to a grave
act. And an understanding of grave sin
and moral acts can develop over time. To
give you an example, the church once
refused funerals for people who died by
being unalived because they were
considered manifest grave sinners. But
we now know that unaliving while still
being a grave act is not automatically a
mortal sin because a person might not be
culpable for the sin due to something
like a mental illness. In those cases, a
person does not have full knowledge or
they don't have full consent. But that
would not eliminate the category of
mortally sinful unaliving as someone
might commit this act out of a malicious
desire for others to imitate him or to
escape rightful punishment in this life.
Likewise, there could be cases where a
spouse in an invalid marriage feels
compelled to have sexual relations and
she cannot leave the situation. So, her
culpability for this act or his
culpability for this act would be
diminished because the person lacks full
consent. If you want more on the
subject, I recommend Pedro Gabriel's
book, The Orthodoxy of Amoris Latitzia.
Now, it's fair one could argue that
Amoris Latitzia, even if it's true in
principle for a tiny minority of cases,
gives ammunition to people who would
excuse sin for a large number of cases
rather than accompany the truly
repentant who are in difficult
situations. And that would be a
prudential judgment, not a dogmatic fact
against the truth of Catholicism. But
keep in mind that Amoris Latitzia warns
against views that would generalize a
willful neglect of the moral law just
because of a few exceptional cases where
a person lacks culpability. It says the
following. A lukewarm attitude, any kind
of relativism or an undue reticence in
proposing that ideal would be a lack of
fidelity to the gospel and also of love
on the part of the church for young
people themselves. To show understanding
in the face of exceptional situations
never implies dimming the light of the
fuller ideal or proposing less than what
Jesus offers to the human being. Number
13, religious liberty. This alleged
contradiction involves the syllabus of
errors, the encyclical libertas and
Vatican 2 on the question religious
liberty, none of which are infallible
documents. So once again, the logical
argument can't move forward. Past
condemnations of religious liberty were
focused on the idea that error has no
rights and religion should not be viewed
through an indifference lens which sees
all faith as containing the same paths
to reach God. But that does not preclude
the church from defending a concept of
religious liberty that recognizes people
have rights and so the state should not
infringe on their right to worship God
in a way that coerces them to belong to
the true religion. The 2 Vatican Council
even said, "The truth cannot impose
itself except by virtue of its own
truth, as it makes its entrance into the
mind at once, quietly, and with power."
Religious freedom, in turn, which men
demand is necessary to fulfill their
duty to worship God, has to do with
immunity from coercion in civil society.
Therefore, it leaves untouched
traditional Catholic doctrine on the
moral duty of men and societies toward
the true religion and toward the one
church of Christ. For more on this
subject, check out this article at
catholic.com. Finally, RZ says that
changes in the mass being in the
vernacular rather than Latin are not a
dogmatic contradiction. So, that was his
14th contradiction. I'm not going to
ignore it because obviously the church
has the authority to decide what are the
non-essential elements of the liturgy
that can change, which includes the
language the liturgy is celebrated in.
Now, as I said before, there's no way I
could comprehensively address all the
issues RZ raised while keeping this
episode to a manageable length, even
though it's already much longer than my
normal episodes. It's just a lot easier
to make an objection than to answer an
objection. But hopefully in the future,
I'll address some of these topics in
their own episodes. I do hope you've
seen that the examples RZ chose do not
furnish a solid logical argument against
Catholicism because there's no case of
two infallible teachings directly
contradicting each other. We aren't even
talking about explaining away alleged
contradictions as Christians must often
do when defending scripture. We're just
saying that in basically all of these
cases and the sources that are cited,
they aren't infallibly defined teachings
at all. So any errors in them would not
refute Catholicism. And we've also seen
there's good reason to believe that
these are not even errors. They are
byproducts of authentic doctrinal
development. Now RZ might object that
this is all very convenient. Whenever a
teaching gives the Catholic Church
trouble, just say it isn't infallible.
But notice that RZ never gave a criteria
for determining when a consiliar or
papal decree is infallible. And he
admits throughout his video, it's
possible some of these statements are
not infallible in nature. So he doesn't
have any grounds to say a Catholic who
denies these statements are infallible
is being arbitrary. Instead, a Catholic
can say the church has various
well-agreed upon methods to determine
the presence of infallible teachings and
magisterial documents like the presence
of language saying something is being
defined. The code of canon law is also
clear that quote, "No doctrine is
understood as defined infallibly unless
this is manifestly evident." For more on
that issue, see my colleague Jimmy
Aken's book, Teaching with Authority.
So, there is not a strong logical
argument against Catholicism. and the
evidential argument is undermined by
explanations that show these changes are
the result of authentic doctrinal
development. This would be similar to a
theist who says that there is no good
logical argument from evil and seemingly
gratuitous evils are not actually
gratuitous because their purpose in
promoting the good can be explained. But
to continue the analogy a bit further, a
theist could also say, "Look, even if
you don't accept my explanations for why
God allows certain evils, that wouldn't
show atheism is true, because theism is
still better at explaining evil in the
world around us than atheism." Likewise,
even if you don't accept my previous
explanations for these apparent
doctrinal changes, that would not show
Protestantism were true. That's because
Catholicism is still better at
safeguarding doctrine than
Protestantism. I can make this argument
because once RZ criticized Catholicism
for changing noninfallible teachings, he
opened the door to comparing it to
Protestantism on this same question and
seeing which one is at least better at
safeguarding revelation. Protestants
believe the church is an authoritative
fallible institution whereas Catholics
believe the church can act infallibly
but it does not always act infallibly.
Catholics cannot falsify Protestantism
through any single instance of doctrinal
change because Protestants could just
say their church and their confessions
are not infallible. However, RZ's
argument about the total number of
changes in noninfallible teaching,
making Catholicism less likely to be
true also applies to Protestantism
because Protestantism also gives
non-infallible teachings that, as we saw
earlier in this episode, RZ admits can
change over time or could be an error.
And this shows that these ecclesial
communities are not reliable sources of
sound doctrine. Or at least they are
much less reliable than Catholicism. And
that's all the Catholic needs to prove.
For example, RZ says that Catholic
distinctions about infallible doctrine
are not foolproof. As Catholic
theologians disagree about which
doctrines have been infallibly defined,
while Protestants agree there are at
least 66 infallible books in the Bible.
Protestants may not have an infallible
canon list for scripture, but Catholics
don't have an infallible infallible
doctrine list either. So, it doesn't
matter. But I think the best way to
answer critiques like these is through a
best rather than an only paradigm.
Saying that only the Catholic Church is
free from doctrinal confusion is not
true. It's a bad apologetic. Instead,
one can make the more modest and
defensible claim that Catholicism is the
best or it has the least doctrinal
confusion. This can be seen in its
representatives of the Catholic
magisterium being more in agreement
about which doctrines are essential to
the faith than the members of what you
might call the Protestant magisterium,
pastors and theologians being in
agreement on what constitute essential
doctrine. We also must remember that
classical Protestants like RZ reject
what they call solo scriptor or the
claim that the church has no authority
and the Bible is the only authority.
This is why classical Protestants
subscribe to creeds and confessions like
the London Baptist confession or the
Westminster confession that RZ follows
or at least the later version of it
which he says is without error but not
divinely protected from error. So a
Catholic can make this counterargument.
Catholicism is the most trustworthy
guide to doctrine because even if you
believe it has aired regarding some
non-infallible teachings in the past,
Protestantism has made more errors on
more important doctrines and so it is
less likely to be true than Catholicism.
Remember RZ's evidential argument only
deals with probabilities. So all the
Catholic must do is show that
Protestantism has a higher probability
of being false than Catholicism. Not
that Catholicism is free from any
difficulties that would lower its
probability of being true. And some of
the issues that RZ brought up also cut
against the probability Protestantism is
true. For example, if you fault
Catholicism for changing the
pre-medieval non-infallible teaching on
usery found in the early church fathers,
then you have to fault Protestants for
doing the same thing because they in
general do not think lending money at
interest is sinful. If you fault
Catholics for changing the premedieval
non-infallible teaching on the
permissibility of executing heretics,
then you have to fault Protestants for
doing the same thing. Since most modern
Protestants say that this should no
longer be done or it's inadmissible, if
you will, even though the Protestant
reformers were fine with it, as can be
seen in Philip Melenthon's desire to
execute Anabaptists and John Calvin's
execution of the heretic Michael
Cervadus. And similar to changes in the
teaching on the death penalty, the
Protestant reformers generally accepted
the morality of slavery. And many
Protestants argued that even racial
slavery was part of God's plan for
humanity as can be seen in books like a
Bible defense of slavery. The Catholic
Church's teaching on slavery also had to
develop during this period. But my point
is that by RZ's standard, Protestantism
also was not reliable regarding what
Christians ought to believe on this
moral issue. However, there are many
cases where Protestants have changed
their teaching on doctrines while
Catholics have retained the apostolic
tradition on these matters. In my
episode on pro-choice Protestantism, for
example, I showed that even many
conservative denominations and
conservative figures like Billy Graham
accepted the morality of abortion in
some respect during the 1960s and 1970s
and didn't repent of this error until
the 80s and '90s, even though the
Catholic Church always condemned
abortion. They were so outspoken and
consistent on this matter that
Protestants in the United States said
that opposition to abortion was a quote
Catholic issue. Moreover, many
Protestant denominations affirm
so-called same-sex marriage and ordain
female pastors. But the Catholic Church
does not do this. It has safeguarded
apostolic tradition. RZ's own
denomination, the Presbyterian Church
USA, where he is studying to be a
pastor, is pro- homosexuality and
so-called same-sex marriage, is pro-le
abortion and does not think that
abortion is a sin, and ordain so-called
female pastors. Now RZ says that
Christians should not abandon churches
like this but work to reform them. A
movement he calls operation reconista.
But this still shows that these
Protestant ecclesial communities are
very very fallible in nature much more
so than Catholicism. However, even the
most conservative Protestant
denominations and the Eastern Orthodox
have changed their teachings on
important issues like the permissibility
of contraception or the permissibility
of remarage after divorce. The Catholic
Church, in contrast, has retained its
condemnation of these sins and is the
only major church to do so. Protestant
denominations also demonstrate their
fallibility by failing to condemn or in
some cases embracing modern evils like
in featuralization or renting out wombs
through gestational surrogacy. Even
though the Catholic Church has
repudiated these evils, we also have no
idea if Protestants have maintained the
apostolic traditions regarding many
other important issues. For example, RZ
objects to the Catholic Church seeming
to change its teaching on who can be
saved. But Protestants don't even agree
on this teaching. RZ himself has said
that anyone without exception who never
hears the gospel, even through no fault
of his own, because the person never met
a Christian, is lost. But many many
Protestants disagree with this harsh
form of exclusivism, which would say
that a 9-year-old Native American girl
who reached the age of moral
accountability is definitely burning in
hell because she was born before
Christian missionaries arrived to her
people. Protestantism's disagreements
also concern important issues like the
mode of baptism or who can be baptized.
In contrast, the Catholic churches, both
East and West, agree on the conditions
for the validity and lysity of the
sacraments, even if they have different
liturgical practices. They do not
consider, for example, a Catholic who is
baptized as an infant with pouring to
have an invalid baptism in comparison to
an adult undergoing full immersion. Both
forms of baptism are valid. So, if
you're a Catholic and RZ's video shook
you by bringing up instances where the
Catholic Church seemed to change
non-fallible teaching, remember that the
grass is not greener on the other side.
Ask yourself which theological framework
has the fewest number of difficulties
instead of jumping ship at the first
sign of difficulties. And remember, at
the end of the day, our belief in the
faith does not rest on the ability to
answer every single argument raised
against it. Most Protestants admit they
cannot personally explain every alleged
contradiction in scripture that atheists
might present to them. But their
conviction scripture is true trumps
those arguments and shows the
contradictions are only apparent and not
real. Likewise, Catholics can rest in
their knowledge of the church being the
pillar and foundation of truth. The
authority that explains why we even have
a Bible that constitutes diverse human
writings and we can know these writings
are sacred scripture and that they have
divine authority and that all of this is
the best explanation for the Christian
faith. Even if, like many other aspects
of the faith, difficulties will remain
in our understanding of it until the
Lord comes again in glory. Thank you all
so much for watching and don't forget to
check out the links below to go deeper
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