← Worldview Legacy | The Think Institute
Worldview Legacy | The Think Institute
#209 The Question Reformed Christians Can't Let Roman Catholics Dodge, PLUS Apologetics Q&A
01:10:10
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:04]
A
Well, it has certainly been a good chunk of time since I have joined you here for a live stream, but here we are. And I could not be more thrilled to be here with you. Why? One, because I love to teach. And two, because the topic that we're going to be talking about tonight is definitely deserves our attention. I mean, this is a subject which quite frankly has come up quite a lot in my conversations with non Christians, in my conversations with Roman Catholics, which you might say that that's the same thing. I would say it depends on which Roman Catholic you're speaking with. But this is a topic which really cuts to the heart of the, of our faith. And look, it's been so long since I've done a live stream, I forgot how to open it. So why don't we start this one more time? I always, I always like to start with a key question, but I, I didn't do that this time. So let me try that again. Here we go. You ready? There's only five of you watching right now. But you know what? You five arguably are the most important because you're actually here. So you deserve a better opening. Here's my opening. Is there one question that simply by asking it, you can undermine the entire edifice and superstructure of Roman Catholicism? I propose that there is. And that's what I want to talk with you about today. My name is Joel Said A Case. I am the president and executive director of the Think Institute. We're a Christian teaching organization aimed at helping you, the Christian man, to become the worldview leader your family and church needs you to be. And in order to do that, you have to know about the Bible, you have to believe the Bible, you have to trust the Bible, you have to lead your family in the Bible. And the question that faces us tonight is why? And this is a question that we have defended countless times from a Protestant, Evangelical, Reformed perspective. But tonight we're going to turn the tables and we're going to ask it of the Roman Catholic, because what Catholics will tell you is that it's their church that gave us the Bible. They'll say, hey, if you like the Bible, you should thank a Catholic. So, you know, they'll, they'll, they'll point to it and they'll say, you know, it was the Roman Catholic Church who determined which books were going to be in the Bible. It's the Roman Catholic Church that Jesus Christ started, allegedly, that gives the. It doesn't make the book inspired, but it's how we know it's inspired. And it's because of the Roman Catholic Church that we have this Bible. Now I am holding in my hands a very nice, beautiful rsv, Revised Standard Version. And this bad boy was created in 1952, the year my dad was born, actually. But this wasn't my dad's. This. I don't know if you can see that, but that is the ex libris sticker of my grandfather, Vinton Bradshaw. And it says on here, 9, 24, 1965. So apparently he had this in 1965. So that's when my mom was a child. And. And this was his Bible. It's got a few notes in the front cover. Beautiful Bible. I. I enjoy reading it. I don't love the rsv. It's not my favorite version, but it's, you know, it's a good one. It's pretty good. But the question is, do I owe the Roman Catholic Church a thank you for the fact that I'm able to hold this beautiful Bible in my hands? That's over. You know, that's over. Really? 70 years old. Or should I think someone else, like perhaps Almighty God, now, Catholic, is going to say, well, yeah, sure, but it's God who gave you the Catholic Church. We're not talking about that tonight, although we could and we have. But what I want to talk about is I want to ask a question of the Roman Catholic. How do you know that this Bible is from God? How do you know that the Bible is God's word? How do you know? Do you know that? Because the church told you? Because supposedly the church, the. The Roman Catholic will say is the. Is one of the three highest authorities in the life of the Christian. They'll say. I recently was listening to a podcast. Unbelievable. It was an old episode, at least 10 years old, when Justin Brierly was still on the show. And it was a podcast debate between James White and a Roman Catholic whose name escapes me. And they were talking about authority. And of course, James White, if you don't know who that is, one of the foremost apologists and debaters of our time. He oversees Alpha and Omega Ministries, and he was, of course, defending scripture alone. Sola scriptura, which is one of which is the formal principle of the Protestant Reformation. The. The Catholic interlocutor, though, was describing authority as a trifecta, as a triad. What he said was that there are three table legs to the stool, if you will. Three. Three legs to the stool. Scripture. Of course, they would say scripture, but then also church tradition and the Roman Magisterium, the head of which is the Pope on the Roman scheme. So the what James White then pointed out was, though, is that if the Magisterium gets to define Scripture and authoritatively interpret Scripture, and if the Roman Magisterium gets to define what counts as tradition, then who's really in charge? You. Is it Scripture or is it the Pope? And ultimately, if you have one of the authorities that trumps the other two, it has a check and balance on the other two, and that is not reciprocated, then you have a really, it's a monopoly of power vested in the Magisterium. And that is really what you have in the Roman Catholic Church. And yet at the same time, the Roman Church does want to maintain and uphold Scripture as an authority. So we need to address that and we need to ask the Roman Catholic, how do you know that the Bible is actually from God? If the Bible is one of your pillars, if the Bible is one of your sources of authority, how do you actually know that it is from God? And recently I'm smiling because it's just so, so perfect. Recently, an outfit named Catholic Answers, Trent Horn is affiliated with them, I think. Jimmy Akin, I believe, is affiliated with them. No. Is that right? You can fact check me on that. But they actually tweeted a response to a someone that I greatly admire. I almost did a debate with him on Twitter on X. The account is just simply at 5 SOLAS 2. He goes by 5 SOLAS. I don't know who he is. He's anonymous. And I'll show you what 5Soul has tweeted out and then I'll show you how Catholic Answers responded. And it was really something to behold. So we're going to get into that because Catholic Answers gives their version of an answer to this question. How do we know the Bible is inspired? How do we know the Bible is breathed out by God? And I have to tell you, I was. I was shocked. I shouldn't have been. I should not have been shocked because I know that Roman Catholicism is not a. This is going to ruffle some feathers. But Roman Catholicism is not a biblically derived system. So the way that they come to a conclusion like the inspiration of Scripture is going to be very different from how an evangelical or a reformed Christian is going to do it. Those are biblically derived systems. So we're going to get into that and then we're going to do a Q A. And I want you to know I'm going to take any and all questions that you may have is until we run out of time, I'm going to go till 11 o' clock standard time. Right now it's 10:04 Central Standard Time or central. I guess we're on daylight savings now. But once, once we run out of time, then we are. Then we're out of time. But I'll go. I'll go as long as I can and I will answer as many questions as I can up to 11 o' clock central. All right? Now, if you like this episode and you want to take your learning further, you need to know about what we're doing to help revolutionize the way that Christian men and interact with their faith. We want to help you get more equipped to lead your family to answer any objection to share and defend your faith. And I'll tell you more about what we're doing to help you do exactly that after the episode. Stay tuned. All right, before I dive into this topic and show you the tweet, I want to give a few shout outs here. We've got vain. The iconoclast is watching. What's happening, Ray? 1454 is watching. Hey, Ray. Big tournament golf is here. What's up? Quattro Smart says yes, there is. Not sure what that was in reference to, but I'm glad you're here. 6 Laro says nice. Crazor888 is here. Quattro Smart says it's this is grace not only a necessary condition for salvation, but a sufficient condition too. Ah, yes, I see you're answering. And is there a question which can dismantle Roman Catholicism? Yes. All right. Justin Harris says that he loves. Unbelievable. Yeah, I used to listen to it all the time. Peter, WP Dub, what's happening, man? God bless you too. Glad you're here. Let's see. Krazor is giving the pledge of allegiance to the Christian flag. Big tournament golf says, where did the church come from? Listen, we are going to get to your questions, so keep those questions coming. Here's how we're going to do this. For your questions, I am going to prioritize super chats. Maybe I'll make a banner to say that. Okay, so ask a question type question. Then your question. We will prioritize ties super chats. If somebody gives a super chat, then I will try to really make sure that we make sure to get your question answered. Now, you certainly don't have to give a super chat, okay? It's fine if you don't, but let's put that up there, okay? Oh, no, that's not what I wanted to do. If you don't give a super chat Then, you know, I'll get to your question if I can. But for those who want to help support the Think Institute and the work that we're doing here in the Hammer and Anvil Society and all of our live teaching and everything else, we want to make sure that we prioritize your questions. Now, I just want to give a quick update. Where have I been the last almost two months? Well, I've been around. I've done a couple of debates. I did a debate stream two Mondays ago with Alex Triple X Madeiros. Go subscribe to his channel. And that was a lot of fun, man. That was a really good debate stream. A lot of, I would say, good faith interlocutors, people who are asking true, sincere, genuine questions. Prior to that about maybe, I don't know. A week prior, I had a debate with a Roman Catholic, actually, which is one of the reasons I've got Roman Catholicism on the brain. His name is Andrew and Dragon Fist TV is his channel. He was real respectful to me in the. The lead up to the debate. And I would say we had a great debate. I really, really enjoyed it. I think that it went a long way to highlight some of the differences that reformed evangelicals have from Roman Catholics. And if you want to go watch that, you certainly can. That's in the live section of our YouTube channel. It'll come out on the podcast at some point in the near future. But I've been very, very busy with teaching, which is why I haven't done more YouTube videos. Just recently, I was actually up in Wisconsin. I was teaching a men's apologetics breakout session at a men's conference up there. They do a. At Silver Birch Ranch, they do a spring men's retreat. Dave Wager was teaching up there, and I got to do a apologetics breakout session. It went incredibly well. We talked about, has the Bible been corrupted over time? So I got the Bible on the brain. I've got Roman Catholicism on the brain. This Sunday, I'm going to be preaching at Village Bible Church. And then in about a month, a little bit less than a month, like three weeks, I'm going to be the plenary speaker at the family camp back up again at Silver Birch Ranch. So Village Bible Church and Silver Birch Ranch are really becoming two major centers of teaching for the Think Institute. And I could not be more thrilled. I love. I mean, one's my local church and the other one's the camp that I used to go to as a kid and still enjoy being up there. And. And actually it's also on the campus of the Bible school where I'm going to be teaching next year. I'm going to be teaching apologetics at Nicolay Bible Institute. Just recently signed the contract and also designed my, my syllabus and I have to say designing that syllabus was a lot of it was, I spent a lot of time and once I get started on a project like that I gotta just finish it. So I stayed up super late, knocked it out. It was while I was up there at the camp that I, I knocked it out and sent it in and I'm really pleased with how the syllabus turned out. I think it's going to be an amazing class and cannot wait to get up there. The students of Nicola Bible Institute are phenomenal. It's a one year Bible program for young people who are possibly going to be going into ministry and possibly not. Some of them will go on to other colleges, Moody Bible Institute, other schools, others will go off and become full time married homemakers or electricians or work in the trades or go into some other form of employment. But they come to Nicolay Bible Institute to get the biblical worldview inculcated into them to serve. They serve at the camp. It's really an amazing program. So I've been incredibly busy and I have not been doing a lot of live streams but I've had Roman Catholicism and the Bible on the brain which is why when Catholic Answers tweeted this the other day, I thought, you know this, I have to address this. It's really perfect. So let me show this to you. This is a tweet that 5 SOLAS put out. He says Rome and the east are viciously circular on the question of authority. And what it shows in this graphic is, it's a circle. In the middle of the circle it says the vicious circularity of Rome and the East. And then around the circle are four cue cards, four rectangles that says this on the top it says where does the church get its authority? And then you go clockwise around the circle and it says from Scripture. And then you continue on down. At the bottom it says where does Scripture get its authority? Keep going. It says from the church. And then it says where does the church get its authority? And it goes around and around and around. Now you look at this and you go oh wow, that's viciously circular. Yeah, that's not good. But a representative from Catholic Answers, whoever runs their media, their social media, decided to respond. And the way that they responded, as I said, was really shocking. Now what they Say here in this tweet is in line with how they actually teach on their website, on the Catholic Answers website. And I mean, I went there, I verified it, I looked at the article that they reference here, here's what they say. I'm just, I'm going to read it and I want you to listen and see if you can think like a good presuppositionalist, okay? Like a good Bible based Christian and ask yourself, what's wrong with this picture? Is this how I, if someone were to ask me, how do I know that the Bible is really the word of God, is this how I would answer? I hope the answer is no, but we'll see. Here's what they say. Catholicism does not argue anything like this. The Catholic method of proving the Bible to be inspired is this. So they're using the word proof. They're going to prove that the Bible is inspired. This needs to be really good. They're going to prove that the Bible is from God. Okay, let's see. The, the, here's, here's what it says. The Bible is initially approached as any other ancient work. It is not at first presumed to be inspired. From textual criticism, we are able to conclude that we have a text the accuracy of which is more certain than the accuracy of any other work. Hmm. Couple of questions should be coming to your mind here. First of all, you approach the Bible as any other work. What? What now somebody pointed this out in the replies to this tweet, but how dare you? How dare you. You're supposed to be Catholic. Answers. The word Catholic means universal. I know it's Roman Catholic, but you're supposed to represent the true church. And you're going to approach, you're going to start by approaching God's word as if it's any other book. You're going to start from a position of supposed neutrality. Why? And is that really honest? Does the Catholic who wants to prove scripture actually do that? Do they actually start from a position of nobody knows yet, A position of neutrality, what Greg Bonson calls neutralism that is either misguided or that's just a lie because they're Catholic? Answers. They believe the Bible is the word of God. They are not starting from this position. Maybe you could say, well, they're just doing it hypothetically. They're doing it for the sake of argument. Okay, if you're doing it for the sake of, if you're saying the Bible is just like every other book for the sake of argument, then you have to flesh that out all the way and at the end of your argument, it's still going to be just any other book. Now they're going to try to get from the Bible is just like any other book to the Bible is the word of God. The Bible is inspired. But can they actually get there by ruling out the Bible as being the word of God from the beginning? Let's find out. From textual criticism, we're able to conclude that we have a text the accuracy of which is more certain than the accuracy of any ancient work. Who's the authority here? Who or what is the authority? Now, as a Christian, for me, God is the authority. And I'm sure the Catholic would say the same thing. I want to really steel man this position. I don't want to misrepresent Roman Catholics. I'm sure that whoever wrote this wrote it with the intention of wanting to please God. But they're doing it in a man centered way. And those two things don't work. Pleasing God, honoring God, and starting from a man centered presupposition, those don't work together. And I want to. If you're watching this from Catholic Answers, I want you to see this. And I hope that this will help. I really genuinely hope that this will help. In this scheme, it's the textual critic who has the authority. Think about it. From textual criticism, we are able to conclude that we have a text the accuracy of which is more certain than the accuracy of any ancient work. Okay, it's the textual critic and the one analyzing the textual evidence who now has the authority. But wait a minute. Why do you think, let's go all the way down to the, the floorboards here. Let's peel up the linoleum, peel up the hardwood, let's go down to the joists beneath the floor. What's holding this up? What's holding this argument up? Okay, textual criticism. What are the conditions that make textual criticism and analysis of ancient texts a thing? What makes that possible? Well, for one, there has to be objective truth. If there's no objective truth, what are we even talking about? Okay, so truth is the quality of a proposition when it is coherent with respect to the laws of logic, when it corresponds to the, the state of affairs and when it is, when it agrees. When of course, what's the other word? There's the other c. When it agrees with the principles of language, syntax, grammar, mechanics, etc. There must be absolute truth in order for textual criticism to mean anything, because we're going to try to come to a true conclusion. So we're already presupposing truth and absolute truth and objective truth at that. Why, if the Bible is just like any other book, where are you standing right now? What's underneath your feet? You're presupposing that there's absolute truth and that we can access it. But what world view are you standing in? Do you see what I'm saying? The Roman Catholic apologist here wants to assume neutrality, but he still is importing this idea of absolute truth from where? From atheism? No, atheism doesn't have absolute objective truth. From paganism? I hope not. From pluralism. Pluralism can't get you absolute truth. In fact, it undermines it. So where are we getting absolute truth from? From the biblical worldview. Do you see what's going on? They are sneaking biblical presuppositions in the back door in order to pretend or feign neutrality. It doesn't. You're going to teach us the truth. You know, you're going to be the. The guide for us. But they're smuggling in. Into the back door. They're smuggling in Christian presuppositions. Let's. So we're going to do. We're going to change. My WI fi has been absolutely horrid lately. I don't know why. Got to call the company. In the meantime, I'm actually going to change my WI fi. Let's do that. To history. And now we're giving authority to the historian. And here's what it says, considered merely as a history tells us, focusing particularly on the New Testament. Why? And more specifically the Gospels. Why. Why would you give more priority to the New Testament and specifically the Gospels? Well, I would say. And you would probably say that those are the books that the whole Bible leads up to. Those are the books that the whole Bible are they. They revolve around. But how do we know that it's because in Luke 24, 44, 48, Jesus points to portions in all the scriptures that point to him, that point to the Messiah. In other words, all the scriptures leading up to Christ are actually about Christ. Well, that's a Christian presupposition. But we can go even further. Why do you think that history is a meaningful endeavor in the first place? Why do you think that the past can be known? Why do you believe that eyewitness testimony, which is assumed here is more valid or more important than hearsay or than someone writing four to five hundred years after the events? Well, obviously we all agree with these principles, but those principles are biblical principles. Luke actually lays out the principle of eyewitness testimony. Being important in his. In the prologue of his Gospel, John does the same thing. In first John, Jesus himself says, let two or more bear witness. That's an Old Testament principle and it is reflected in the New Testament. But why do you believe that these principles of history, these guiding principles of history, which every historian assumes, why would you believe that they are valid? On whose authority do you assert and assume that? Why are you presupposing that? Again, the Roman Catholic is trying to be neutral, but they're not. They're smuggling in Christian presuppositions. Okay, next we. We take a look at what the Bible considered merely as a history tells us, focusing particularly on the New Testament and more specifically the Gospels. We examine the account contained therein of Jesus's life, death and resurrection. Look, I agree that those are the most important things. Why do you. On whose authority? That's a biblical assumption. That's a biblical conclusion. Why? Why do you believe it? Remember, we've ruled out the Bible as being our authority. The Bible according to the Roman Catholic here, is not the fundamental necess necessary presupposition for all truth. Assuming the truth of the Bible, presupposing the truth of the Bible according to them is not necessary before engaging in historical research and textual criticism. So where are we getting these principles from? Did the Pope give them to you? They don't say that. Where does this come from? Let's continue using what is in the Gospels themselves and what we find in every extra biblical writings from the early centuries, together with what we know of human nature and what we can otherwise from natural reason alone know of divine nature. We conclude that Jesus was who he claimed to be God. I mean, we, we should probably just stop right here. The absolute naivete would be a good word. Audacity might be an even better word to say that we can. From the light of natural reason and from extra biblical writings. We're going to cobble together this argument based on what we know about human nature and what we can determine about divine nature. Wait a minute. Divine nature? On what basis do you even believe that there is a divinity or that he has a nature that is. That is unchanging from one moment to the next. On what basis? Where did you read that? Who told this to you? Where are you getting this from? These are all biblical teachings and they make sense if you presuppose the truth of God's word from the beginning. But if you're starting from a neutralist perspective, as Greg Bonson would say, what. Where are you getting these things from? So they just want to really quickly shove these things in the door, Just, just hurry them in the door. And, and they don't want the bouncer to stop and look at, and go, wait, wait, wait a minute, wait a minute. Well, you can't come in here. You've ruled out the Bible as your authority. Why do you trust extra biblical writings? What about the extra biblical writings that deny the truth of Scripture? You know, what about, what about the Gospel of Thomas? You know, what about other extra. What about extra biblical writings that were, that are from Confucius or that are from Buddha? Are you considering those as part of your body of evidence? Now that might seem absurd, but it's absurd to you and me because we're building our defense on a biblical worldview which they are not doing. The, the Roman Catholic here is not doing so together with what we know of human nature and what we can from natural reason alone. Why do you think that there's such a thing as natural reason? Why would you assume that your truth seeking faculties like reason are aimed at objective truth? Why would you assume that there are laws of logic which are unchanging and objective and absolute and universal and universally normative and immaterial? Like, why do you assume that these things are the case if you're not starting from the presupposition of God's word? Okay, so now we go to, they say further, Christ said he would found a church. Well, where do we get that from? Where's that? Is that perhaps in the Gospel of Matthew? How do you know that that's authoritative? Okay, both the Bible, still taken as merely a historical book, not yet an inspired one, and other ancient works attest to the fact that, that Christ established a church with the rudiments of what we see in the Catholic Church today. Papacy? Not at all. Hierarchy, priesthood. Nope. Sacraments and teaching authority. Okay, now wait a minute, wait a minute. Where are they getting this from? They've. Have they really proved their point? I mean, look and analyze what they're saying. Think critically about this. Have they actually proven that the Bible is a reliable historical text? Have they even proven that simple bare fact? You know, they've said we get this from textual criticism, but all textual criticism can tell you is what we can approximate. And I, and we can actually do this with a degree of certainty. And I would say, as a Christian, I love textual criticism because it corroborates what I know to be true, which is that the Bible is God's word and that the Bible we have today is faithful because God has preserved It. But they're treating the Bible as any other book. The best they could get to would be a high degree of probability that this is what the original author said. That's as far back as they can go. So you're still left if it's, if there's some probability, even if it's a high probability. And how would you even calculate that? That Jesus said these things like Matthew 16:18, I will build my church then? Or is that right, Matthew 16:18? If that's the case. Yeah, yeah. You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. Okay, so. But that's what the text says. But we still haven't gotten to the idea that the text is authoritative or even that it's 100 truth. Is it certainly true? There's still a degree of uncertainty. If it's probably true, then to a certain degree it's probably false. And you could say, well, it's less than 50%. Again, how would you calculate that? But even if it's less than 50%, that's still, what, 15%? We've got a 15 chance that Jesus never even said that. I mean, are you kidding me? This is how you're going to base this? The authority of God's word is out of probability. And it's not just Roman Catholics who do this. Okay? It's, it's, it's evangelicals, it's Protestants. But I hope you can see the problem with this. This is why we need a robust, presuppositional scripture first approach to defending our faith. All right, now they continue, but I'm not even going to waste my time. It's not that it's a waste. I mean, it would be valuable to dissect this in greater detail. But I, I think that we've seen enough because, well, quite frankly, I want to get to your questions. But also, I mean, this is just really sad and it doesn't get any better as you go on. The idea that we're going to base the authority of God's word in a probability after surreptitiously sneaking in biblical principles anyway, is really bad to me. And I, it should be bad to you too. This is not how you defend your faith. This is not how you show that this book is from God. That the 66 books, or they, they have 73, they have to, they have, they have an additional seven books. They have to prove can't do it. This is not how you show that. This is the divine inspired word of God. As it turns out, the Bible is the necessary Precondition. The truth of the Bible is the necessary presupposition for truth. Objective reality. Being able to study history reliably. Being able to engage in scientific inquiry, uniformity in nature, induction, laws of logic, reliable truth seeking faculties. If you start with this book, you get all of those. We call them the preconditions of intelligibility. Those are the factors that must be in place in order to make sense of the world, make sense of human experience. Now how do we know, how do I personally know that this book is from God? I know because the Holy Spirit has enlightened me. He's given me faith. It's a gift from God. Second Timothy 2, 24 and 25. Talk about that. Where it says God may perhaps, they may perhaps be given repentance and a knowledge of the truth. Ephesians 2, 8, 10. Talk about that. Salvation by grace through faith is a gift. The faith is included in the gift. That's how I know that God's Word is from God. But what happens when you. We aren't just left with mere fideism, okay? It's not like we have to take this sort of evidentialist, rationalist approach that the Roman Catholics are taking here or we're just left with bare fideism. Fidaism is, I believe, because I believe my faith is its own proof. You can use fideism with any religion. It's. It doesn't work. There's no teeth to it. There's. It's not resting on anything. It's very man centered. It's not like those are our only two options. Instead, we can take a scripture first approach. See, everybody starts from some particular worldview. Everybody does. Even the Roman Catholic apologist from Catholic Answers is standing on some ground even while he's pretending to be neutral. And as it turns out, the assumptions upon which he is standing are the same assumptions, even though he doesn't acknowledge them, that you or I or even the avowed atheist are standing on. There is absolute truth. The laws of logic are real, are true, are normative and descriptive. We do have reliable truth seeking faculties. Our reason, our intuition, our five senses, all of these things are in place matter of fact. We also presuppose the morality of the whole endeavor. We shouldn't be lying to one another. As we talk about Scripture and as we talk about God's word, atheists accuse us of lying and being dishonest all the time. That's projection in a lot of cases. Not always. But all of the, all of the attempts to try to prove or disprove scripture ultimately come back to the very teachings we find in Scripture. And that's how we know that the Bible is the word of God. That's how we know that the Bible is, is absolutely true. The Bible claims to be the word of God. And if you try to take away the Bible, you can't prove anything. It's written into the fabric of reality that the worldview of the Bible is, is the only worldview that makes sense of reality. And you could say that sounds circular. Now you sound like what 5 SOLAS is a. You know the Bible is true because it says it's true. Because it says it's true. Well, let me pause and let me just reflect on that and say all reasoning about ultimate foundations is going to be ultimately circular. The question is, can the circle justify itself? Is it a vicious circle that says something like I know my reasoning is true because it seems reasonable. That's the kind of circle that gets smaller and tighter and turns into a single vanishing point. Or is it the kind of circle that goes like this? When I presuppose the truth of Scripture, then I know that God is there. I believe God is there. I believe God created me and God created the whole world. God created the world to be an intelligible place. The laws of logic are alluded to if not expressly taught in Scripture. Reliable truth seeking faculties taught in Scripture. An intelligible environment for me to interact in and come to true conclusions. Taught in Scripture. A reality that conveys truth to me about God, the world and the human self taught in Scripture. So now my circle is all encompassing. Do you see it? It encompasses the whole world. And by the time I get back around to the Bible, I look at what does the Bible say about the Bible and it says Scripture cannot be broke. It says all scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work, including the good work of being able to defend my faith, including the good work of being able to make sense of reality. So ultimately you're going to run into a circle. The question is, can the circle justify itself or not? The Roman Catholic circle cannot justify itself. It wants to so badly get to the point where, okay, we know that the Bible is accurate in what it said. The Bible talks about Jesus. Jesus started a church. Now the church can authoritatively tell you that the Bible is true. But in order to get there you have to smuggle in biblical presuppositions anyway. So what is the real foundation? Who's the real authority? As much as the Roman magisterium might claim to be this grand authority in the life of believers, in the life of the Church, they wouldn't have whatever authority they do have, whatever truth they do have, they wouldn't have it if the Bible weren't already true, authoritative and normative for our lives. God does not need the imprimeter of any organization. He doesn't need me to defend it. He doesn't need the Pope to defend it. He doesn't need Catholic Answers to prove that the Bible is true and it's authoritative and it's from God, divine and theopneustas breathed out by God. The Bible stands alone. It is unlike any other book. That's why we must not treat it like any other book. No matter what Catholic Answers says, no matter what your atheist friend says, no matter what your Eastern Orthodox friend says, no matter what your confused Christian friend says. We don't treat the Bible like any other book because it stands alone. And when we stand upon its foundation, we can make sense of all of reality and we can get to the most important matter, the most important message, which is this. That same Bible that makes sense of reality also tells us that our greatest problem is not lack of evidence or textual criticism or lack of understanding of historical research. The greatest problem that we have is sin. That's why we need the Holy Spirit. That's why we need to be born again. Sin is rebellion against God. Sin is lawlessness. It's disobeying God. And it's a condition of the heart, a condition of the life that permeates the entire being. Unless the Lord takes out your heart of stone and gives you a heart of flesh, so to speak, you will be lost. The wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. Our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for sinners like you and me. He was buried and he was raised to life on the third day. The Bible teaches this. It's true. We don't need extra biblical sources, although they're there, we don't need them. And if you put your trust in Jesus Christ, if you repent and trust in Jesus Christ as Lord, and say something like lord, I'm sorry. I've been living for myself. I've been putting you on the, on the shelf. I know you want me to get serious about you. I know you want me to trust in Jesus and I, quite frankly, I've been avoiding it. Forgive me for my unbelief, I trust in Jesus. According to the Bible, if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. So thank God we don't have to defend our faith the way that Catholic Answers does. And I don't mean this to be disrespectful to Roman Catholics or Catholic Answers even, but I absolutely want to point out the flaw, the terrible and tremendous blunder of trying to defend the Bible in that way. It's just. It's awful. You shouldn't do it. Quite frankly. It's. It's atrocious. The Bible stands alone. Start with the Bible. You. You really can't go wrong. All right, do we have any questions? Let's see, let's see. No super chats. No super chats. So it's not too late. If you want a super, send in a super chat. I will prioritize your question, But let me get to your questions here. Okay. Big tournament. Golf says, the church, from where did it come? From heaven or from man? Is the Church divine or of not? Well, yeah, the church came from Jesus Christ, for sure. It was started at Pentecost. It was built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles, New Testament prophets and apostles. Jesus Christ being the cornerstone. It is absolutely from God. The Roman Catholic Church as it stands today, is a sect that veered off from the true church. The Roman Catholic Church today no longer teaches the biblical gospel. And as laid out in 1st Corinthians 15, as laid out in Luke 24, 44, 48, as laid out in Romans 8, Romans 1 through 3, the whole book of Romans. So the Roman Catholic Church today is not of God. Are there Christians in the Roman Catholic Church? I know at least one. I do. I think he needs to come out of the Roman Catholic Church. I've told him as much. But the Roman Catholic Church as an institution teaches a false gospel. And if you're part of an organization that teaches a false gospel, you should come out of it. Okay, let's see. Do we have any other questions? Vain, the Iconoclast says Jimmy Akin is with Catholic Answers. Yes. Okay. Yes. Good. Thank you. Ah, layman apologist is here. He says, what's up, bro? How you doing? Glad you're here. Let's see. Someone says, is this AI? Nope. You talking about me? I am not AI. Dylan96 says, how long ago did Homo sapiens diverge from Homo heidelbergensius? Well, that is a question with. It's a loaded question with A false premise. Homo sapiens was created out of the clay roughly 6,000 years ago. So there we go. All right. Dylan says, quote, God is the name of the blanket we throw over mystery to give its shape. What an interesting idea. I like. I like to think of God as the sovereign, perfect, almighty, all knowing, perfectly loving, triune deity who created us and is holy thrice over, and to whom you and I owe our complete and total allegiance. The one who sent his only begotten son to die for sinners like you and me, despite our unbelief, despite our sin, despite our many frailties, faults, failures, and to whom, if we will pledge our allegiance to him, repenting of our sins, believing that Jesus Christ his Son died for us and rose again, he will save us from our sins. That's how I see. That's how I view God, but, you know, we all have our own opinions. Okay, let's see. Do we have any questions? Yeah, this is pretty good. Daniel Adams says a Catholic still has to interpret scripture, traditions, councils, catechisms and the magisterial documents for himself. Oh, he says, no, we don't. That's the beauty of it. Protestant is a Burger King theology. Okay, so I thought this was a Protestant tweeting this, but it turns out it's a Roman Catholic, it's a Papist Romanist. So you don't have to interpret. You don't have to interpret the, the Papal Bulls, the cannons of the councils. You don't have to interpret those. Really, you don't. Okay, why not? How do you understand them all? Understanding is interpretation. So how do you understand them? And by the way, how do I know what you even mean by this? How do I know what you mean? How can I possibly know what you mean unless the Roman Catholic Church authoritatively tells me what you mean? And they're the ones, right? They're the ones who give the ex cathedral d day fide belief and interpretation that I have to believe. So I guess I'm up. I guess. See, here's how I interpret you, Daniel Adams. Let me put my tongue firmly in my cheek here. I interpret you to mean that John Calvin is the man. Martin Luther got a lot of things right, most things right. Jonathan Edwards is correct when he says we contribute nothing to our salvation except the sin that made it necessary. And Romans 8 is correct when it says there's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That's how I interpret you. Is that. Should I interpret you that way? Obviously no, because that's not what you mean. And obviously it is possible, unless you think that you are a better communicator than the Apostle Paul inspired by the Holy Spirit. If I can interpret you, I can certainly interpret the Apostle Paul, even though some of his, some of his teachings are hard to understand. But don't twist them. All right, let's see. Testify Jesus podcast says, in what era did the Catholic Church fall away? That's a good, that's a good question. The Roman Catholic Church started getting into errors early, early on. Okay. But so many churches have errors and still teach the truth. I'm sure that my church has errors. I'm not really sure what those are. Okay. But I'm sure that there are errors. The question is, when did they fall away? That is really hard to nail down. But what I like to look at is this. When did the church officially curse the biblical doctrine of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone? And that happened at the Council of Trent in the 1500s as part of the Counter Reformation in response to Martin Luther and Zwingli and the other Reformers. So certainly by the time of the Counter Reformation, the Catholic Church had veered off. Christ had reformed his church. And today the continuing church is the Reformed church. And I don't mean like capital R, you know, United or Reformed Church of America or something like that. You know, the different denominations that have reformed. I mean the church that Christ reformed that teaches the biblical gospel. So I belong to a Bible church. My church is part of that continuing church. I hope that makes sense for us Cool kids says, can we know God exists through natural knowledge? Philosophical arguments, for example. Yes, 100, absolutely. But understand the very idea of having knowledge in the first place assumes that you have some platform of certainty upon which you can stand in order to build your knowledge base. So I, I have to assume that I exist. I have to assume that the laws of logic obtain are real. I have to assume that my truth seeking faculties are reliable. I have to assume that the world around me is not an illusion that's actually lying to me. These are all biblical principles. So I'm already presupposing God in order to investigate God. Can I know God through natural, natural knowledge? Of course, yes, everyone does know God. That's what Romans 1:18 22, 1825 says. But in order to even ask that question, it, it already assumes the answer. And I know that seems controversial, maybe confusing, but hopefully we sort of laid the groundwork there where you can understand it at least a little bit. Philosophical arguments. Not only can you use philosophical arguments to prove God, but Philosophical arguments presuppose God. That's why as a presuppositionalist, I want to go straight to the heart. It's in the heart that real change happens, that repentance happens. It's in the heart. So I want to go straight to the heart and show the unbeliever that he is already presupposing God in order to argue against him. So I'm what I'm not going to do is I'm not going to use philosophical arguments to show that belief in God is merely reasonable or evidential arguments to show that belief in Jesus Christ is merely probable. Probability presupposes God. Start with the Bible and you will get probability. You'll get the principles of rationality that you need in order to make these arguments. But if you start from a quote unquote neutral platform, you either have to smuggle biblical principles in any way which you do, or you're denying biblical principles, the only principles that can actually affirm your investigation in the first place. This is why I say give me God's word over man's word all day. Give me God's word over man's word any day of the week. Musical Luke says faith is a miracle given by God. 100% totally agree. Okay, do we have any questions? Here we go. I have not read this ahead of time. I hope it's okay. Henry Taylor says question how can the books of the Bible be certainly and infallibly said to belong in the Bible in the first place without using extra biblical sources or qualifications? Such a great question. I've talked about this a ton on other videos. You can, I think if you probably if you search for like books of the Bible or the canon on the Think Institute channel on YouTube or the Worldview Legacy podcast, you should be able to find my answer to this. The long and short of it is this. James White says that the canon of Scripture, the table of contents, the 66 books in a list, is not part of the inspiration, but it is a product of the inspiration. The Holy Spirit knows which books he has inspired, and he reveals that to the church. He also within Scripture gives us criteria by which we can test the the books that belong in Scripture. For example, the apostle Paul tells Timothy, no, no, no. Who does he tell? He tells one of the churches that he's writing to. Maybe, I think it is Timothy. Oh, yes. No, he tells Timothy, devote yourselves to the public reading of Scripture. And at one point he directs that his letter, his Epistle, will be read within the churches. Now, when, when did the churches read these books? They read them during corporate worship. So these. These books were what we call liturgical. The Bible contains within itself this. This category, this requirement. The books had to be liturgical. They had to be Catholic. I don't mean Roman Catholic. I mean according to the whole. Kata halas, two Greek words meaning according to the whole. They had to be read in all the churches. They had to be accepted by all the churches. They had to be Orthodox, not Eastern Orthodox, but they had to teach true doctrine that was in line with the previous revelation that had come. And by the way, we have revelation from God going all the way back to Adam. So there's never been a period of time when we didn't have revelation from God. We always had something to compare the pre. The. The new revelation to the previous revelation. So it had to be Catholic, it had to be Orthodox, had to be liturgical, and it had to be apostolic or authentic in its. In its nature. This is why the Apostle Paul is always so adamant that he's an apostle. He's writing. He has the authority of an apostle. He even writes with his own handwriting at one point saying, look, this is my handwriting. You recognize it? You recognize it? And so it had to be Catholic, Orthodox, liturgical, and apostolic or authentic. C O L A. You can remember that cola. The books of the New Testament had to be cola. C O L A had to have those requirements. All the books that we have in the New Testament fit the bill. They were all accepted by the whole Church. They're all Orthodox in their teaching. They're all. They've all been used for liturgical worship. And they are apostolic, either coming from an apostle or from one of his associates. Okay, so that's how we know we have the right books. By the way, there are no books missing from the Old Testament or New Testament. Jesus affirmed the three sections of the Old Testament. The Law, the prophets, and the writings. We know those as the Torah or the Pentateuch, the prophetic and historic writings and the wisdom or poetic literature. That's. It's one in the same. The Apocrypha, the Deuterocanonical books did not make the cut. Okay, next question coming from Henry Taylor. Question. How can you explain Matthew 27:43 without admitting that early Christians held the Book of Wisdom to be scriptural? Let's see, let's see. Okay, Okay. Matthew 27:43. Let me pull it up. Says, hold on. Matthew 27:43, says, he trusts in God, let him deliver. Let God deliver him now if he desires him. For he said, I am the Son of God. Why do I need to assume that the book of wisdom is Scriptural in order to believe Matthew 27:43? I'm not seeing it. Help me out. I don't see that at all. Okay, so I don't see how those two are correlated. The question I would ask you, Henry, if you are a Roman Catholic, is how do you know what Matthew 27:43 means? Do you have an ex cathedra interpretation that you must believe de fide from the Pope? Do you, do you know that the Pope has only given two undisputed ex cathedra statements? The Immaculate Conception of Mary and the Assumption of Mary, neither of which is in Scripture, neither of which actually happened historically. So as Jeremy Lundgren recently told me, he's the president of Nicolay Bible Institute, the Pope, he's only made two ex cathedral statements and he got it wrong both times. So. But, but Henry, for you, how do you know what Matthew 27:43 means? Has the Pope given you an ex cathedra interpretation of it? Are you going to use your reason? How do you know your reasoning is valid without presupposing the scriptures? And how do you know what the Scriptures mean until your Pope tells you, which he hasn't done. So the Roman Catholic is, is really up a creek there. Yeah. And thank you, sunshine. In the comments. I took some inspiration from, from your comment there. Okay, let's go to. We only have time for one, maybe two more questions. Bentley W. Says, how can I I articulate this to the blue collar folks slash street people without getting too philosophical here, here's how I would explain this to someone who has no desire to get trained in philosophy, which by the way, they should not philosophy, theology, like none of this is beyond the grasp of a layman. But here's, here's how you explain it. The way you defend your faith is very simple. Use three steps. Step number one, you ask a lot of questions and you expose the problem in the unbiblical position. Ask a lot of questions, find out the fatal flaw. Somebody tells you that God is evil and you go, wait a minute, evil? What would possibly be a stand. How do you know right from wrong without God? Rules require a rule giver. Laws require a lawgiver. So there's a flaw in their argument and then you, that's step number one. Ask questions, expose the problem. Step number two, show why the Bible doesn't have that same problem. You want right and wrong, God's law, God's word, God's truth, God's nature. God's character, God's commands. When you read the Bible, you see that God is the source of, of right and wrong. He is perfectly good and his commands are good and right and true. So step one was expose the problem in the non Christian worldview. Step two is expose why the Bible doesn't have that same problem. And step number three, give him the gospel, make an evangelistic appeal. What we mean by that is this. We say, look, the same Bible that makes sense of this whole conversation, the same Bible that if you get rid of it, you can't make sense of life at all, also says this. Your biggest problem is not not having enough evidence or arguments. Your problem is sin. As a matter of fact, you know it. You know you've done things that are wrong. And the question is, who's going to pay for those sins? You or Jesus? The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Jesus Christ came into the world to destroy the works of the devil. Jesus Christ loved me and gave himself for me. That's how you explain it. Start with Scripture, Stick with Scripture. All right. Do we have one more question? Okay, we. Okay, I'm not going to take any more questions at this point. But I do have a clarification from Henry Taylor. He says, sorry about the Matthew 27:43, the text which supposes that the Father would deliver the Son of God. Only Wisdom 218 contains this doctrine with the Jews which the Jews are referring to. It is not found elsewhere. He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now if he desires him. The the most that you could prove here is, is that the people who were mocking and ridiculing Jesus believed that the Book of Wisdom was Scripture. Is that really where you want to go, Henry? Jesus doesn't quote it authoritatively. Matthew doesn't quote it authoritatively. The only people alluding to it. If this is even an illusion, which I'm not convinced it is, the only people alluding to it are the people who are mocking Jesus Christ on the cross. I, quite frankly, I wouldn't go to them for my information, for my source. So no, this does not prove your point. The fact of the matter is we know which books are included in the Tanakh. The Book of Wisdom is not included there. So if these are Old Covenant Hebrews living under the Old Covenant, we know which books they accepted. Now some of them may have had other beliefs. Some of them may have believed in the Book of Wisdom or, or even in Second Maccabees or something like that, but we know which Books were officially included in the canon. Jesus alludes to it, and the Book of Wisdom just isn't in there. So if you want to say, well, the doctrine that they're citing, that these. These mockers, these scoffers are citing is cited in the Book of Wisdom, I. That, okay, great. But your bone to pick is not with me. Your bone to pick is with the total absence of anyone whose authority I would want to trust, actually teaching that Jesus and the apostles, for example. You know, I'm not going to take the scoffer's word for it, so hope that's helpful. And I say that with all respect towards you and desire for you to know the truth. All right, well, that about wraps it up. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Thank you for being here. I always love getting a chance to do these Q and A's, and I haven't done one in a long time. And listen, please, pray for me. Pray for us. Pray for the Think Institute. I've got a lot of teaching coming up. I'm not getting a lot of sleep, but some of that is just my own choosing. I like to stay up late. I don't like to get up early, but I sometimes will do so out of necessity. But I need to. Who am I kidding? It's all my own choosing. I could go to bed earlier. I could stay up, you know, I could go to bed earlier. I could. I could wake up earlier. It's my own choice. But what I need your prayer for is this. Pray that I will speak God's words after him. Pray that I will teach truth. Pray that the Lord will make it easy for me as I'm expositing and exegeting Scripture and employing good principles of hermeneutics. And pray for the people that I'll be teaching. Pray that their eyes would be open to see wonderful things in God's instruction. Pray that the meditations of their hearts would be acceptable in God's sight. Pray that they would put God's word into practice. I don't know about you, but I'm a big believer that we need more Christians living out the truths in this book, more Christians living out the principles in God's Word. Call me crazy. So, anyway, thanks for being here. And until next time, this is Joel, the evangelical Christian presuppositionalist apologist, president of the Think Institute, signing off. And as I always say, until next time, I hope it made you think you're a Christian man. You want to build a legacy, answer the world's questions and lay down a solid foundation for your family in God's Word. But everywhere you look you see decline, disorder, chaos. Your neighbors don't know the Lord and too many churches are filled with apathy. In today's world, we need men who understand theology, know scripture, and who are committed to leading their families in the biblical worldview. That is why we're building the Hammer and Anvil Society, the ultimate discipleship community for Christian men. With weeks of weekly cohort calls, a full library of resources and courses, weekly challenges and live teaching, you're going to sharpen your mind and your character. Our full library of courses is going to help you deepen your knowledge in the Christian worldview, family, discipleship and apologetics, the defense of your faith. But it's not just about building your knowledge base. As important as that is, it's also about brotherhood. That's why you'll also have access to an online community and live cohort calls, Live Teaching and real Accountability so you can have fellowship with like minded brothers who are on the same journey as you. Member Kevin says the Hammer and Anvil Society has been the most beneficial thing for my family's spiritual growth in years. This unique brotherhood has made me more bold in my witness and more sensitive to God's leading. AJ says. Today I stand stronger and more rooted in my faith. The Hammer and Anvil Society has been instrumental in transforming me into the man of God I'm striving to be. Get unlimited access as a member or try out a single course in the subject of your choice. Learn more now. Go to thethink.inst society. Get equipped. Build your legacy in community. Join today.