Ruslan's Bless God Podcast

Here's What Catholics Actually Believe... @VoiceOfReason_

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Bio: Ruslan KD is a Christian YouTuber of Armenian descent who was a refugee from Baku, Azerbaijan, before moving to the United States as a child. He started his YouTube channel in the mid-2010s, which has since grown into a popular platform for discussing faith, lifestyle, and music. Known for his insightful commentary on Christian living, culture, and personal development, Ruslan has built a community of followers who value his thoughtful approach to contemporary issues. In addition to his YouTube presence, Ruslan is a speaker, author, and advocate for godly ambition, often addressing topics related to leadership, mental health, and the integration of faith in everyday life.

Our mission is to encourage, empower, and inspire people to live a life that Blesses God, in accordance with His word. As the Psalmist proclaims, "Bless God in the great congregation, the Lord, O you who are of Israel's fountain" (Psalm 68:26 ESV), and "Every day will I bless Thee; and I will praise Thy name forever and ever" (Psalm 145:2 KJV). Just as Simeon, after encountering Jesus, "took him up in his arms and blessed God" (Luke 2:28 ESV), we seek to lead others in a life of stewardship, relevant engagement, and practical living that honors and blesses the Lord.

Duration:: 2h 41m
Broadcast on:: 01 Jan 2025
Audio Format:: other

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Gambling problem, call 1-800-Gambling. - And in five years, nine million people came Catholic and the entire, all of Mexico and all of South America became Catholic. Martin Luther was not trying to just change, you know, ecclesial traditions that he thought were not necessary. He wasn't just trying to change human apostolic traditions 'cause there were none left to change. He was trying to change. - Sometimes Protestants don't give Mary enough props. - Right, fair. - However, it seems like some Catholics. Remember, purgatory is only for those that are saved. - Okay. - Purgatory is not for the damned. So purgatory is, again, what do you call their way from? - Can we explore the idea of not going to church? - Sure, yeah, yeah. - So if you meet, what is it, two weeks in a row? You're in grave sin? - So we have the obligation. - Bruce, line. - All right, ladies and gentlemen, I am here with the world's best voiced debater. This is a gentleman that just had an amazing debate with Dr. James White. He is a YouTuber, he's a creator. He is a scholar, he is a conda sewer, a fine wine. Exotic walks on the beach, fine bread horses. Oh, without any further ado, the world's most interesting man, voice the reason. - Wow. - What an introduction, huh? - What is, I'm going to wait. Only about 20% of that was true. Only about 20% - Only about 20% - You know what? If Ruslan says it, man, I'm gonna go with it. I'm gonna, you know, we should clip this and we should, you know. - You should absolutely clip it. - Wow, I never thought about most of those things, but now that you said it, I'm like, I should, I should be a conda sewer wine and I should like, walks on the beach. So I think I'm gonna try. - You're New Mexico, so you guys don't got a beach thing. - We have what's called tingly beach, which is like a pond, you know? - Man, thank you for being here, bro. - My friend, thank you for having me here. This is very surreal for me. Very exciting to be here with you. I appreciate your charity and bringing me you all, man. I'm so happy to be here, brother. - Yeah, so. - You're doing great work, man. I'm happy to be here with you. - Folks who don't know you, I have never watched a lot of podcasts with you in terms of like long-form conversations to really know much of your story. Folks who don't know you, you're a Catholic apologist. Is that a fair way to describe a part of the Byzantine stream of Catholicism? You were explaining that to me earlier. - Yeah, yeah, the Byzantine, right. Byzantine Catholic. - Okay, and you do some debating and some video content defending the Catholic tradition. - Right, yes. - And what else am I missing? How did you get that voice? That's what people really want to know. How did you get that voice? - I ordered it on eBay, that's, you know. Yeah, I don't know, it's funny because, you know, you bring that up and a lot of people, when they see my videos, they think that it's like a filter, like an AI, like that's not my little voice. But I think that I'm like faking it or they're like, oh, that's not his little voice. He's like, yeah, that's just how I talk. I don't know. - Okay, did your dad have a deep voice? - No, not like this, not like this. - Grandfather have a deep voice? - No, I don't know where it came from, man. It's weird, it's really weird. I don't know, yeah, but I've just, I've always, like, it's weird. I've always been kind of like self-conscious of like my voice. - Oh, really? - I've always kind of weird, like-- - Why are you so conscious about it? - I don't know, because I feel like I sound funny. Like, and I know I sound funny, but like-- - What? - You know, 'cause ever since I was like, I think like 16, I think it was the first time someone was like, why do you sound like Rocky? - Yeah, yeah. - And ever since then, I was kind of like self-conscious about it, but I mean, Rocky's cool. So I'm like, oh, whatever, I'll just, you know, but I was kind of like, yeah, it sounded a little different, like, people, you know, but it's become like a trademark for me, I suppose. That's from the voice of reason. So yeah, I'll just go with it, you know? And people like it, so if people like it, then who am I to-- - If you like it, I love it. - Oh, man. Okay, so do you in debate club growing up? Like, give me a little bit of your background. Like, Albuquerque, New Mexico. - Albuquerque, New Mexico. - I'm assuming you're Hispanic. - Yes, Mexican. - Okay, Mexican. - Mexican. - Give me a little background, like you growing up, a little bit of your story. - Yeah, I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, man. I'm 29 years old, and I, when I was around 14, you know, 14 going in the 15 is when I started just studying the faith, you know, falling in love with the faith, falling in love with the Lord Jesus Christ. And, you know, when you fall in love, you want to learn everything that there is to learn about the object of your affection, the person that you love. So I wanted to learn everything that there was to know about God, about our Lord Jesus Christ, about His Word. I wanted to just everything about His church. And I became obsessed, you know, kind of like, you know, when you're 14, 15 and you fall in love, you know, 14 and 15 years old and fall in love, they become obsessed, you know. That's kind of how it was with me, but with the Christian faith, you know. - And did you grow up Catholic, family Catholic? - Always been Catholic. - Like, multi-generational Catholic? - Yes, we're Mexican mess. We're like, we are Catholic to the courts and our court. It's interesting 'cause today is actually a very important day for the, in the Mexican culture. December 12th is the feast day of Arleidio Guadalupe. And that's what we're celebrating today at St. Michael's Abbey. That's where I just came from. We had the morning celebration and we're gonna have an evening celebration. And again, like I mentioned earlier, Father Ambrose, man, he's a huge fan of yours. And he was like, he wants you to like, come in and check it out so you can see it. - Yeah, I told him we got to come do a tour of it. We just, we're going a series on different churches. - Right, right. - And kind of like tours with the pastors of the churches. - Right, yeah. - So we definitely got to hit a Catholic church. - Yeah. - There's also a Catholic church down here. I had Father Simon on, who pastors a-- - Caledian Catholic church? - Caledian Catholic church. And he was super great. - That's what we're doing. - Because there's a different stare between those two extremes as well. - Yeah, yeah, that's one of those Eastern churches that came back in the community with Rome. So St. Michael's Abbey, today is the feast day of Arleidio Guadalupe, it's a big day, especially for us Mexicans. I don't know if you're familiar with the story of Arleidio Guadalupe. - Gimme, give me the, the club notes version. - Yeah, so in 1531 Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mary, appeared in Mexico to the, to the pagans, to the Aztecs. And she gave them the gospel. And that's why all of Mexico and all of South America is Catholic today. - Wow. - Because she appeared to them and she said, my son Jesus Christ is the true God. Not this false, these false demons that you're worshiping. And-- - 1531. - 1531. - And there was, there was no Christian presence there at all. - There was a very small Christian presence. They were missionaries, so this was, you know, when the new world was being built basically. And there was a very small Christian presence. The church was there, but the church, you know, all the Christians were getting killed by the indigenous people, they were, you know, killing them and it would have died out. Like it would have died out. It would have been an unsuccessful mission. And she appeared, you know, Mary appeared looking like them, looking like, you know, like the Aztecs. And she brought them the gospel. She said, Jesus Christ is your God. And, you know, you are the sons of the true living God. You're my sons, you know, your children, you know, Mary is the mother of the church, you know, according to scripture. And when that happened, that happened in 1531. And in five years, nine million people were back, you know, became Catholic, you know, became Christian. And the entire, all of Mexico and all of South America became Catholic because of that event. - Interesting. - And that's what we call the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Guadalupe. And that's what we're celebrating today. - The best writers, so many Mexicans and Catholics. - Because the mother of God, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ loved us so much, man. That she personally. - Pulled out. - Personally said, you know what, I gotta handle this. - Sometimes you gotta pop out and show people. - Sometimes you gotta pop out and show, you know what I mean? And that's what she did, man. So for us, it's really, it's a sense of honor. It's a sense of pride that the mother of our Lord would do that and appear and speaking the Aztec language. And you know, that was one of the big problems is that, you know, the Christian missionaries couldn't communicate with the people because the language, she came speaking their language and they, you know, and they abandoned their false, you know, pagan idolatry. And they turned to the true God, Jesus Christ. And I am a descendant of those people, man. - I never knew that, that was crazy. Thank you for sharing that. - 1531, man, a remarkable story. - So 14 years old, you get really into your faith. - Right, right. - You get obsessed with it. - Yeah. - Did you then, like, were you ever in the debate club? Were you ever into those sorts of things? It was more like a personal obsession. - It was a personal thing. - Okay. - It was a personal thing. And actually, when I first started, you know, my obsession in doing my research, I had a lot of Protestant influence. So when I was around 15 years old, I was this close to going Protestant, okay? Because my friends were Protestants, the people that I was going to for questions, you know, they were Protestants, so I had a lot of Protestant influence. I was going to the Protestant churches, and I was worshiping with them, and I was going around. - Probably more of like apologetics, like trying to understand the defense of the faith, and Protestants kind of had the resources at the time? - Trying to understand the faith. - Sure, sure. - Trying to understand makes sense of the word of God, understand it correctly. So just because I had all these Protestant influences around me, I was very close, man. Very close to going to the Protestant route. And then I just kept digging, kept digging, kept digging. You know, kept asking more questions, more and more and more questions, that the influences that had around me, they either weren't able to answer the questions, or if they were, I would ask the same set of questions to all of these different people, then they would all give me different answers. - Yeah, different groups of Protestant people. - Different groups of, and different groups of Protestants, Protestant people, and even within specific communions, you know, like one Protestant church I would go in, I would talk to the pastor, then I would talk to the junior pastor, then I would talk to some of the members of the church, and I'd be like, what do you think about this? And they would all give me different answers. - Yeah. - And I said, you know, me, you know, being 15 year old kid, like, you know, this bothers me, like why can't I get a straight answer? So I had to just keep digging, keep digging, keep digging. And eventually I realized that I was actually exactly where I needed to be. I was in the Catholic church in the church of Jesus Christ, because, you know, I was looking elsewhere, and I realized, hey, I've been where I need to be all along. You know, I was looking at all these other traditions, thinking that I knew my tradition, thinking, oh, you know, I grew up Catholic, you know, all through the server, I know it, you know, but I knew nothing. - 'Cause you're probably too close to it, too familiar with it. - Yes, when you're too close to it, you kind of need to separate yourself to kind of get like a bird's eye view, to like really get the big picture. When you're part of it, you don't see it that way, you know, that's what I had to do. - That's interesting. So at what point does your kind of public stuff start to take it off with YouTube? And now again, I was most impressed with you, and I've said it publicly multiple times in your debate with James White. I've watched a few of your other debates, I can't remember which ones they are, but that was probably like, oh man, I mean, James White is a great, great, great orator, and I've seen him in Trent Horn go at it, I've seen him go at it with Bart Ehrman, and I feel like you did a great job. I think, you know, he almost seemed like he was under the weather in that debate. So how did you, like, okay, so just, how did you get from high school studying apologetics, talking to Protestants, talking to Catholics, to then like on the debate stage with James White? - I'm just trying to figure that out myself, man. I don't know how it happened so fast. It was, so March of 2023, March of last year, was when we started Voice of Reason, when I said me and my man Jonathan. - Shout to Jonathan. - Jonathan right here, he's the brains of the operation. - He's the mystery man. Although a lot of people, it was a man here in California, they've gotten to meet the mystery man. People are like more fascinated with him than with me, 'cause I talk, like almost every video I do, I talk about Jonathan. 'Cause he's really like the heart and soul of this, you know what I mean? He was the one that convinced me to do this, so from like 2021 onward, he had been trying to get me to do. - What were you doing up to that point? - So I always thought, as a catechist, at the parochial level, in my local arts diocese, I was like a teenage, like, what are they called? A prodigy? - I see, okay. - 16 years old, they put a 16 year old in charge of like the catechuses of teaching the adults. So I was 16 years old, and I was teaching people in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s that were coming into the church. I was giving them catechuses. I was in the seminary to become a Catholic priest for a while. I was discerned the priesthood, discerned out of it, but I spent, you know, 11 years, I think, teaching just to the parochial level, you know, known as a teenage parochial, whatever, had a lot of responsibility, and Jonathan is actually one of my students. When Jonathan was fully initiated into the church, 2021 was the year that he was fully initiated into the church, I was his teacher for the formation that he had to receive in order to be fully initiated, and I'm his godfather. I'm his godfather for confirmation. So-- - It's a big deal in Catholic circles, godfathers, and stuff like that, I remember when I was-- - Right, yeah. - Yeah, that was a thing. - Yeah, yeah, it's a very big deal. You know, he was fully initiated into the church in 2021, and that was when he was like, "Hey, you know what, man?" And actually, our story, me and Jonathan's story about how he came to faith is actually really fascinating, too, maybe we'll have time to talk about that, but he, because of what he does professionally, he's a professional like videographer, social media guy, social media manager, content creator, you know, he has a lot of like really famous clients, and a lot of people don't know, like Jonathan is like connected, but he, you know, us being best friends since kindergarten, he was the one that he said, "Hey, man, like, "you should let me film you, let me film you, "and I'll make videos of you doing what you do, "you know, teaching catechesis, "and I'll put it out there, man." I, he's like, "I'll know, man, like, it'll be huge." And I said, "No, I'm good." I was like, "What do you do at this time for work? "Like, how are you sustaining yourself?" - I had always worked in sales, I had a sales job, I had, you know, those kind of jobs. I was kind of like a salesman. That's what I've always done. - Yep. Well, for me, I was doing it. - That would make sense in terms of now you're a debater, 'cause it's a skill of persuasion. - Yeah, you know, yeah, you're right, it is. So I was doing my sales job, everything was cool, doing that, you know, and he, well, actually, it's kind of-- - The catechism thing is just the thing you do as a volunteer, at the time. - Yeah. - Yeah, you just volunteer, it's just a volunteer position. And actually, it's funny, I leave that like a really important part. I actually used to be a professional actor. I was a professional actor working professionally from 2018 to the pandemic. When the pandemic happened, everyone lost work. And then when they started, 'cause in New Mexico, Hadi would kind of move that to New Mexico, like Netflix has their studio there in Albuquerque, on the outskirts of Albuquerque. That's where they make a lot of movies now. So that's a really long story. Basically, when I was in the seminary to become a Catholic priest, my spiritual director in the seminary said, I think you need to try the acting thing. - Really? - He said, I don't think, he said, right now, I don't think you belong here. He told me he kicked you out of seminary. - He kicked me out, he was like, look man, he was like, look man, he said, I would hate for you to go through this whole process, get ordained as a priest, get assigned somewhere. You're working now, and you're gonna have regret, because I had all these offers given to me before I went to seminary. So he said, I would hate for you to have regrets. So he said, go try it at least, go try it. And if it doesn't work out, you could come back, but like, go try, there's something else you're supposed to do, go figure it out, yeah. - So I left seminary, came back home, and immediately, I had connections, and I started working immediately as an actor. It was crazy how fast it happened. - And any stuff we would recognize or see from-- - I'm on Netflix, I'm on a movie with Angelina Jolie, I'm on Better Call Salt, that's a really big show. - Yeah, I'm a better one. - I'm in Better Call Salt. - Do you have lines? - So I've never seen any of my work. All of these roles are roles that I had to audition for, so yeah, so we have lines, but I've never seen my work and in the movie. - I've never seen work. - Yeah, I've never seen, I don't watch TV, I've never seen any of the movies that I've been in, but people, even my friends, they'd always see me and they'd take pictures of me like on TV, on Better Call Salt or whatever, and they'd be like, look, you're on TV right now. And then even my father was now a voice of reason, my father was, they see me on TV, and they like, lose their minds. Michael Lofton, who's one of my biggest influences, and he and I collaborate, we're already collaborators well into me being voice of reason. One day he and I did a stream, we did the stream, it was great, and then we said our goodbyes, and then like two hours later he calls me, and he's like, hey man, I just saw the weirdest thing, we did our stream, I went to go have lunch, and I put the TV on it, I saw you on TV. He's like, are you in Better Call Salt? I'm like, oh yeah, it's me. And he's like, we need to do another stream right away, so we could talk about this, 'cause it's like my favorite show ever. - Yeah. - So anyway. - What's your role in Better Call Salt? - Raul, I'm like a criminal, I'm like part of the cartel. Criminal, Better Call Salt, the character's name is Raul. The character's name is Raul, and I had to audition for it. I did, we did film lines, and I don't know if my lines ever made it into, 'cause you know what's interesting, 'cause you're bringing my voice, right? My voice actually hindered me more than it helped me in Hollywood. - Wow, okay, I see. - Because we would do, you know, we would record lines, and directors would tell me, and say, you know what, your voice is too distinct, and we think it's distracting. Like, your voice is distracting, you know? So a lot of my stuff would get cut. - Got it. - So yeah, so Better Call Salt, stuff on Netflix, you know, TV shows, films, all that stuff. - What's the thing of like, you never wanna watch your work back? What is that about? - Because I'm just so busy, I don't have time to like watch, I just don't have time. And I've never... - Like, what is busy for you? Like, just you're always reading. - Reading books, and doing, making videos, and you know, family stuff, and I just, I never have time to sit down and like watch TV. - Interesting. - I wish I did, but I'm just like super busy. - Have you ever been curious? Like, how did this come out? - I was there, I know what happened. (laughing) I've seen some like short clips from, that people find they'll send them to me, and I'm like, oh look, me, I'm, you know, I'm all right. You know, I'm like my biggest critic, even though I'm like, voice of reason. So I'm kind of like, oh, you know. - Got it, got it. Okay, now that would make sense, 'cause I'm like, oh, okay. So then everything just sounds 2020, Jonathan gets confirmed into the faith, and then you start making videos in 2023. - Yes. - And then that's when everything starts popping off. - Right, so for almost two years, he was trying to convince me to do voice of reason, and I always said, no, I'm cool, man. And then finally one day, he just kind of like forced himself into my house, and he's gonna sit down and shut up, and let me do what I got to do. - Let's go, Jonathan. - And he was, I was like, all right, man. And that's how it is to this day. Today's day, I just follow his orders, whatever he tells me to do, I do, you know? - Yeah. - And it just blew up, man. It was just, it was huge, a year later, a little over a year later, in July of this year, I had a debate with Dr. James White, who I've been watching for well over 10 years, man. When I was, you know, a 14, 15 year old, and I was trying to get my questions answered, I went to James White, and I would read a lot of James White, watch a lot of his videos, his content. So a young 15 year old, voice of reason, you know? - Yeah. - Ended up debating a guy that he was watching when he was, you know? - Yeah. - Okay, so what was your impression of that debate? - When I was there, when I was doing it, I felt great. Like, I felt like I was like, I think this is going well for me. And then I went to watch it back, and the same thing was acting. I've never watched that debate back. I was unable to, I watched my opening statement, I watched all of James White's, his opening statement, his first, you know, rebuttal. And then when I got, you know, I watched my second rebuttal, and by the end of my second rebuttal, I had to turn it off, and I'm like, I have, it's weird for me, like, watching myself. It's really weird. - Sure. - I don't even like watching like my shorts. It's kind of, it's weird for me. Like, I don't like watching myself, I don't know. It's really weird. That's why I never watched like my work in acting. And I felt really good as I was doing it. And then when I watched it back, I'm like, oh, I made all these mistakes. And I was just, you could tell that I was very nervous. And I was nervous as James White. And I'm like, oh, so I just kind of put it down, and I never watched it again, I never watched it back. But the response though, the response was incredible. The response to it was amazing. I've, every time that people, you know, when I run the people out in public, and they know me, they come out, like, your boys, they always bring up that debate. They say your debate with James White, like, you know, the background of that is really crazy too, 'cause I had three weeks to prepare for that debate. Three weeks, I said, yes, I'll do it. I don't know what got into me. I did it. We showed up, did it. And then... - Preparation for a debate like that, are you writing every single statement out word for word? - Or yes, you have two points. - You have two because it's timed. - Because it's timed. - For me, maybe you're able to tell, you know, in this conversation, is that I'm very long winded, and I'll just talk, and talk, and talk, and talk. In the debate, that doesn't work because you're timed. You know, in a timed debate, you have to really be, you know, conserve your time. You have to make every second count. So I had to write everything out. And like I said, I run the people in public, and they're like, that debate with James White, like, changed my life. And I'm Catholic, you know, I'm gonna become Catholic 'cause of that debate. I'm like, that's crazy. - Was the topic settled ahead of time? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. The topic was, we agreed on the topic, you know, when they reached out to me to see if I wanted to do it, I said yes. I think, I said yes, I'll do it. And then the thesis, I think it was the following week that we figured, so I had two weeks to prepare for the thesis. But I knew that it was gonna be like a solo script tour-type debate. So I was just prepping for that, you know? - Why do you think there's no, I haven't seen any debates on like the Mary dogmas, or like some of this, that's kind of more on the, I don't know, I would say more on the fringes, right? Like I think the debate, I've heard the solo script tour debate, like multiple times. Why do we not see other debates? And would you be open to having debates on something that's like other than just like solo script tour- - Yeah, I will debate any topic. Any topic that anyone wants to debate, I will do it. Trent Horne has been talking about this recently. He says that there are certain debates, you know, he actually recently made a video on his YouTube talking about the debates that he won't have. And he said that the Mary in debates about the Mary in dogmas, he says that those debates aren't very, they don't really push the conversation forward because we're just too far apart on the basics. - Sure. - He said what you need is we needed to debate things that we are close to agreement on. You know, we needed to debate those things first and then the other things will follow. - I think we know where we are on social-- - I think we know. - I think we know. - I think that's a, that's a, you know, we beat that horse to death. - For example, Trent Horne says that he will debate the papers he with an Orthodox, but he says that he's not gonna debate, you know, Vatican One, papal and papal and papal and papal. He's gonna see an availability with the Protestant because that's too far apart, huh? You know, so-- - I would love to see that debate. - Yes. - I told you offline, I said, I love it when the Catholics and Orthodox go at it. - Oh, we know how to fight. - Michael Jackson, popcorn emoji. I love that, I think that's the best. - The Catholics and Orthodox know how to fight like, you know, but I love, I love, you know, I'm busy seeing Catholic. I love you Orthodox, man. I've been hanging out with a lot of Orthodoxists, you know, since I got here in California, man. And like, I just want us to come back together and be one big happy family again, because the world needs it, you know. - That's not happening. - I see, I see both sides become Protestant before it comes to the other side. - Oh man, oh man, that's crazy, that's funny, man. - Have you seen this, like, a Bishop Barrimar manual and him not being a part of the, I want to say it's the same church that Easton might be speaking and basically planting his own independent church? - He's kind of a Protestant. - He's kind of a Protestant, right? - He's a Protestant. - I'm not crazy for thinking that. Okay, yeah, because he said that and I was like, it sounds like straight Protestantism. - He's a Protestant with apostolic succession. - Yeah. - It's what it is, just like the Anglicans. The Anglicans are, you know, the Old Catholics. - Yeah. - So you would see Anglicans as having apostolic succession? - Some of them do, there's a lot of Anglican ministers that got their ordination from the Old Catholics, which is another schismatic group. If a valid Bishop ordains you to the priesthood, you're a priest, whether you're united to Rome or not, because it's an ontological reality. So yeah, there are Anglicans that do have valid apostolic succession. - And but can they pass it down if they're bishops? - If they're bishops, if they were consecrated as Bishop, by a valid Bishop, then yes, they'd drive the authority from Jesus Christ to ordain men to the priesthood and to make them bishops. - So in your view, there are, there is some form of apostolic succession in Protestant circles, if I'm trying to correct it. - Usually the Anglicans do have-- - What about the Lutherans? Like the Lutheran service is almost indistinguishable from a Catholic service. - Right, but they do not have that. There's actually a small one group, tiny group, within Lutheranism, that would have valid that apostolic succession, but the vast majority of Lutherism-- - 'Cause Luther was a monk and not a bishop. - Right, he was a priest, but he wasn't a bishop, but there are some Lutheran ministers that were ordained by valid bishops that had valid holy orders. But the vast majority of Protestantism would not have an apostolic succession, mostly it's just the Anglicans that haven't-- - What if all those guys from the Anglican side went around and laid hands on all the other pastors that are Protestants, and it was like, would you then be like, oh yeah, you guys have apostolic succession in a valid communion then? - If they did it validly, yeah, they would be valid, they would be valid ordained ministers, the only problem is that, so with the Anglicans, because hold your orders as a sacrament, and what makes a sacrament valid is that you have to have valid form and valid matter. - Right, right, right, right. I think I talked to a point to an acquaintance about this. - Yes, you did, yeah. So the Anglicans had valid apostolic succession until I wanna say the late 19th century, because what they were doing is that they were messing with the form and matter of the sacraments, and they mess with it so much that they ended up invalidating it. So the Anglicans had valid apostolic succession. - But you're saying they don't have it anymore? - Not anymore, only the ones that were ordained by like old Catholic bishops or any bishops that would be valid bishops, they would have it, but not all Anglicans have it anymore, because they mess with the form of the matter of the sacrament, the form and the matter, so they ended up invalidating their succession. So Anglican ministers, the Anglican ministers, you can trace them back to the apostles. You can trace them back. The only problem is that somewhere down the line, in the late 19th century, it was no longer valid. So you have a chain, one long chain, 2,000 year long chain, but in the late 1800s, they invalidated it. - Interesting. - So only this part of the chain is valid, for the last couple hundred years, it's no longer valid, so that's the problem. - Got it, okay. You can't mess with the form and matter of the sacraments, 'cause then they invalidated it. - Has there been, it seems like, 'cause when I came to faith, like I saw virtually no Catholic apologists, right? - Yeah. - Is this like a, it seems like Catholic answers and these other organizations have really been intentional to create great apologetic resources for Catholics. How calculated has that been? How connected to Rome has that been, versus how organic is that? - I think it's, especially here in America, I think America is kind of like the forerunners for Catholic apologetics. We've always had Catholic catechases, but Catholic apologetics is something that really has taken off, really out of necessity because we have so many great Protestant apologists, so many great Protestant catechists that they created a need for on the Catholic side say, "Hey, we need to make sure that our people know their stuff "and know it well." And that led to a group like Carl Keating starting Catholic answers in the 1980s. - Just here in San Diego. - Right, in San Diego, absolutely, yeah. And it was really because of you guys, you guys were the ones that inspired lay Catholics to learn how to answer the objections made by Protestants. And here's why we were so eager to do it. And at the risk of sounding, I don't want to sound like triumphalistic or arrogant. When you know the facts and you know what the facts are and you know you have the truth, when you know what the cold, hard facts are, it's like, you know what? Yeah, we should be the ones doing this because look at these facts. Like, yeah, we kind of, we are on the side of the facts. So now let's go just show the facts and demonstrate the facts to people. And I think that's why we became so eager and why we've had so much success. It's not because we're smarter than Protestants, it's not because we argue better than Protestants, it's not because of any of that. It's simply because we, literally all we do is just present the facts and say, look, these are the facts of history. This is what the church father said, boom. And we just put it on the table and that's really all you have to do. And when you do that and you, you know. So feel free to push back and just for the record. The last thing I want to do is debate you. No, I'm not here to debate, not here to debate. But I do think there's value to clarity, right? So when you say like the facts, right? I think it's a great value proposition 'cause that's a very stern like that. We have the answers, right? So I'm curious in that, like when you say, you said the church fathers, right? The, what I appreciate about Catholics is that there's an acknowledgement that there's been innovations, and I'm not trying to say that word in a dryer term, can I say the word, innovations? Yeah, please, yeah, in the book. So the church has this apostolic connection going back and things have evolved. Whereas like the Orthodox are like, no, like we're the one true church. Right, right, right. And this is how it's been for thousands of years, right? And the Catholics have evolved, but we've stayed true to the actual faith that the apostles left behind, right? My question to you, and so the Protestant proposition is that we are trying to go back and reform the church. When I started starting new church, we're trying to go back to like what did the apostles and the apostolic fathers actually established? And what was church like for that first 150 years before they could meet in buildings, right? Before there was hierarchy. And so like when I look at that, and I've gone back, and I'm, and again, not an expert, I don't wanna, I'm not gonna pull out, you know, poly carp and climate quotes on you, 'cause I'm not, I'm not that wrong. But when I go back and just look at a very basic, look at that stuff, it seems like the church expressed early on was much closer to less hierarchy, less overt structure. And yes, you had bishops and obviously you had pastors and apostles and all that kind of stuff. But less disparity between clergy and laity, less, and more organic. I don't know how else to say it, but more organic. I mean, you have the letter, you probably noticed better between two Roman emperors writing back and forth and they're writing about a church ran by women slaves who were pastoring each other. And this is in the thousands, you know, the early, the early, early, early, like once again, 90 AD, right? Do you know what I'm referencing? - No. - The letter, it's the, it is the letter of, I had it written down somewhere. It's the letter between two Roman emperors and they're writing, oh, the, the Trajan letter to plenty, Trajan letter to plenty. And they're writing and they're saying-- - One emperor. - Yeah, one emperor and he's writing and he's saying, yeah, like these Christians are kind of goofy, like I'm paraphrasing. There's a bunch of like slave women leading Bible studies in churches and they call them churches and these women are called deacons, you know? - Oh yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. - And so you see this thing sprouting up and it, what the Protestants are trying to do is trying to come back to that, right? We're trying to come back to a simplistic version of like, what was the early church? - Right, right. - I appreciate Catholics in saying, hey, there's innovation, but it's because of apostolic succession. Or the docs are saying, there's no innovation, we've held to the same views. But would you concede that some of the formation of these innovations came much later? Like we're talking 280, 300 AD, 400 AD in terms of the practice of the church. Like is that a fair statement? - Yes, it is. - This episode is brought to you by Amazon. Sometimes the most painful part of getting sick is the getting better part. Waiting on hold for an appointment, sitting in crowded waiting rooms, standing in line with the pharmacy, that's painful. Amazon One Medical and Amazon Pharmacy remove those painful parts of getting better with things like 24/7 virtual visits and prescriptions delivered to your door. Thanks to Amazon Pharmacy and Amazon One Medical, healthcare just got less painful. - 'Cause absolutely it is. - Okay. - And let me, so we need to make the appropriate distinctions here. 'Cause when we talk about tradition, most people don't know what tradition is or what it means. There are different kinds of tradition. We have divine apostolic tradition. Divine apostolic tradition is what God revealed to mankind, what Jesus Christ gave to the apostles. Divine apostolic tradition cannot change. It cannot change. It's impossible for divine apostolic tradition to change because it is the deposit of faith that was given by Jesus Christ once and for all to all the saints. That cannot change. So all of the dogmas, right? All of the beliefs that were revealed by Jesus to the apostles, that has to be maintained that cannot change one letter, right? There is human apostolic traditions and those are traditions that originated with the apostles themselves but not from Jesus. And human apostolic traditions have indeed changed for traditions of the apostles that have either changed or been abandoned completely. For example, in the early church, it was a human apostolic tradition to go to the temple on the Sabbath and have the liturgy of the word in the temple. And then the next morning, you would go to the house of the bishop and you would have the liturgy of the Eucharist. That was a human apostolic tradition by the year 70. 'Cause they were Jewish. And so they were going to synagogue. Right, they were going to the temple in the first day. They would gather on the first day of every day. Paul writes about gathering on the first day of the day. And they would have the liturgy of the Eucharist. In the year 70, the temple got destroyed so now there's no temple. So the apostles during the apostolic age itself, the apostles made a change. And they said, now we're going to have the liturgy of the word and the Eucharist together back to back. At the same time, on the same day, Sunday mornings, Saturday evenings or Sunday mornings. And to this day, in the Catholic and Orthodox churches, you can go and worship God and fulfill your obligation on Saturday evening because for the Jews, Saturday evening is now Sunday. - They're Saturday, yeah. - It was Sunday, right? It was Saturday evening when it went against dark on Saturday, it's along with the Sabbath, now it's Sunday. Sunday has started. And the church has maintained that tradition. So that was a change even in the time of the apostles. The apostles, the liturgies of the apostles don't exist anymore. They used to have what's called agape feasts or love feasts. When they would come together to worship God and they would have the liturgy of the Eucharist, they would celebrate the Eucharist. They would do it in their liturgies. They would do it in the context of what's called an agape feast, a love feast, no Christian today. Catholic, Orthodox Protestant has agape feasts. Those do not exist anymore. As a matter of fact-- - Why do those not exist anymore though? - Because they were being abused and the abuses happened during the time of the apostles. - Are you saying the apostles abused? - No, not the apostles. Other people were abusing. So St. Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 7 when he says, "You come together for your love feasts and you get drunk off the wine." - Yeah, yeah. - Right, so they were abusing the love feasts because it was in the context of a meal, of a larger meal. So they would get together, they would celebrate the Eucharist, they would do the consecration. - They would get tipsy. - They would have the body blood soil in the beginning of Jesus Christ and then they would continue eating and they were having the non-consecrated wine, the non-consecrated bed and they were getting drunk off of it. So it was being abused. It was abused so bad that by the late third century they completely did away with the agape feast. And that's when they started forming liturgies and the liturgies formed organically just based on the region, based on the culture, based on the customs. - What year was that? - That was in the late third century is when we started seeing the development of the liturgy. And if you actually read, for example, just St. Justin Martyr, in the second century, he talks about, he writes about what the liturgies look like and when you go and you read what St. Justin Martyr said about worship, it's exactly the same as what you see like in Catholic and Orthodox searches. - So these liturgies, you're saying they've been preserved since the year 300? - Not entirely. So liturgies, they develop and they're able to, the changes can be made to the liturgies based on certain, like if there is a need. - Sure. - Sure. - So for example, we have different liturgies. We have the Latin liturgy, the Roman liturgy, we have the Byzantine liturgy, the Armenia liturgy, the Coptic liturgy, the Syriac liturgies and those liturgies naturally developed over time according to how the people of that region were worshiping. - How many liturgies are there total? Not languages but-- - Six, six, so there's the Roman/Latin, the Byzantine. There is the Armenian, there is the-- - Shout out to my people. - The Armenian, shout out to the, I went to my first Armenian liturgy just a few days ago by the way. We'll talk about that a little bit. We have the Armenian, we have the Alexandrian and then we have the East and West Syriac liturgies, right? So all of these liturgies developed over time and they develop because it's a natural organic development based on the needs of the people, based on culture, based on how people worship. So all of those liturgies, they are indeed ancient. The Byzantine liturgy goes back to, it's based off the liturgy of St. John Crit system from the fourth century, but the Byzantine liturgy today and how it looks, it was finalized in the 14th century. - So I'm telling you with you, I think this is exactly like, it seems like the traditions from the church go back to the year 300, 400-ish. - And what's important is-- - Is that fair? - Yes, and you said the magic word, the magic word is practice. The practices, practice can change because we have divine apostolic tradition when can't change, human apostolic tradition, which can change and has changed and nobody can deny that. If an Orthodox wants to deny that human apostolic tradition has changed, I would tell them, why is it that the Council of Trullo in the year 692 said that love feasts were forbidden? You can't have love feasts anymore and that's what the apostles were doing. Human apostolic tradition changes another example of that at the date of Easter, right? Of the 12 apostles, right? If you don't count Paul, we know that two of the 13 apostles, if you do count Paul, John and Philip, they commemorated Easter using a different calendar than the other apostles. That's why the churches of Asia Minor, they were celebrating Easter on the 14th of Nissan because that's what they learned from the apostles John and Philip. - How did they get that mixed up though? - It wasn't a mix up, it was just that they were using different calendars, again, based on where they were, because John and Philip, they established churches all over the Roman Empire but when they established the churches in Asia Minor in present day Turkey, the people there, they lived there with the convicts, the first Christians, they were using a different calendar. So they said, let's go based off your calendar because if we change your calendar, that's gonna cause more confusion for you guys and they might reject Christianity. - I mean, yeah, we, I remember Christmas was on a different day than like Western Christmas, growing up Armenian, Palestine. - Right, right, right. So I'm familiar with that. Okay, so these things are developing three to 400 AD, that's kind of when these traditions start to form. And so when Luther comes in the scene, this is, and again, my understanding is that he's looking at it and he's like, hey, there's been drift into some very hairy territory where the accusation, and I know you guys have a response to this, but the indulgences, the selling of these things, let me get this out. And so he's going, hey, we need to stop this. And he wasn't trying to start another church. He was trying to reform the Catholic church. So what's your view of Luther in terms of like, there's some sketchy stuff going on, of some sketchy, you call him Nadi, Nadi. - The Nadi Pope's? - The Nadi Pope's, yeah. And we don't got to go into the Nadi Pope's, but what is your impression of someone coming on the scene and going, hey, I love God. I love the word. We want to get the word into people's hands, right? And when I go to the word, I see a pretty big discrepancy between what Jesus and the apostles taught in the Bible, which you view as inspired in God's word, right? Versus the practice that I'm seeing today and how people are being treated today with these indulgences and the stuff that's happening. We need to reform the Catholic church and go back to what the apostles started. Like, what do you make of that? - Sure, so here's what Luther did. Luther, he was inspired by abuses that were happening. And abuses happened all the time, like I said, in the Bible, in the time of the apostles, they were abusing the God-be-peas, which he went to in seven. Abuses happened all the time. Luther, though, didn't stop at the abuses. Because here's what a lot of people don't know. Luther wrote out the 95 thesis, and he put him on the door of the cathedral there in Germany. A lot of people don't know that the Catholic church actually granted Luther more than half of those 95 thesis. - So they were like, you're right. - Like, 45 of them, he said, oh, Luther, you're right. You're right about these 45, but the other ones, the other 40, you're wrong. - And you know what those other 40 ones, so for example, 71, if you don't have-- - We don't have to go over all the 95. - You know what Luther said in thesis number 71 of 95 thesis? - Something naughty about the Jews. - No. In number 71, look it up, number 71. And this is the only one of Martin Luther's 95 thesis that has an anathema attached to it. It's the only one where he says, you're anathema-tized if you reject this. Do you know what that was? - What was it? - Indulgences. He said, if anyone rejects the papal indulgences, you're anathema, so it explains me. - So Luther is saying-- - Luther is affirming indulgences. - Affirming indulgences. - Number 71 of the 95 thesis. - But they present the whole fight against the indulgences. - The abuse of the indulgences. - Okay. - 71, he said, if anyone rejects the papal indulgences, you are anathema. - Okay. - You are a curse, right? That's how Protestants use that word. - Yeah. - If you reject the word-- - How does the word really get you? Is that the wrong use of it? - So anathema refers to a ceremony that the apostolic churches would do. Anathema, you can say it means a curse, but anathema has been used in different ways throughout history. - So when you say anathema from these councils, are you saying someone's out and kicked out? - Anathema means you're excommunicated and we're gonna have a formal ceremony so that the community knows that you're excommunicated and that you do not have a place teaching or influencing people within the church. - Are they still saved? - They can be. It's possible that they can be. - It could be anathema. - Yeah. - So Saint Paul talks about this in scripture when he says you cut off the people that are not being or being into the church so that they may be saved in the end. - Can we tell him how? - First Corinthians chapter five, sexually moral people. - Yes, so Saint Paul says you cut them off so that they may be saved in the end. So anathema's are actually used as its mercy. It's mercy to protect the rest of the church and it's actually to inspire those people that are being anathema-tized to repent that they may be saved in the end. But anyway, number 71. - I'm looking this up right now, I'm listening to you. - He says if anyone rejects their papal indulgences, you are anathema. I mean, he's still a Catholic at that point. - So Martin Luther, when he wrote the 95 thesis, he's still accepted indulgences. So what was his problem? His problem was with an abuse that was happening in Germany, which is, and the bishop was in on it, right? We've had naughty popes, we have naughty bishops too. What they were doing is that they were attaching a monetary transaction to receiving an indulgence. But the Catholic church has always said, no, no, no, you do not sell indulgences, you can't sell indulgences. Well, the church in Germany, and hey, to this day, the church in Germany is wild and out, bro. The church in Germany is crazy. - Which church? - The Catholic church in Germany to this day is nuts, is insane. - Are they schismed? - No, they're not, not yet. But they're like pushing the envelope. Oh yeah, Germany has always had problems. That's what it's talking about. - Germany is on the verge of being schism. - Well, actually, recently Pope Francis has kind of like rehabilitated them. Like they were like pushing some like really radical things and Pope Francis has kind of got on them to calm down because Pope Francis doesn't want another schism, right? But anyway, so Martin Luther, his problem was with the abuses of indulgences. - They were charging money for them. - And the Catholic church said, Luther, you're right. Why is the bishop here? Why are they charging for indulgences? And they went and they stopped it. And they said, Luther, you're right about that. And you're right about 45 other things, 44 other points on your list here. But these things here, you're wrong about these things. So let me, let's explain this to you. Martin Luther used the scandal of the abuse of indulgences. He used that as a pretext, right? To really radically change. And really, whether you want to say he wanted to or not, he wasn't intending to, he started something new. At first, he said, the abuse of indulgences is that bad. And then the church fixed it. And he said, well, you know what? Indulgences themselves, they're bad. And now the church is mine. - And now the church is saying, no, Luther. Now you're not talking about abuse. And you're not even talking about ecclesial traditions. And that was the third category of traditions that we didn't even touch on. Ecclesial traditions is like the cannons, the laws, that the church has the authority given to it by Jesus Christ to bind its subjects to fasting rules and observing, you know, feast days. Those are ecclesial traditions. And those can change as well, right? Martin Luther was not trying to just change ecclesial traditions that he thought were not necessary. He wasn't just trying to change human apostolic traditions 'cause there was, there were none left to change. He was trying to change the divine apostolic traditions. Martin Luther was trying to change the deposit of faith in Jesus Christ gave to the apostles. So for example, he was trying to change, like the sacraments, he was trying to say that we didn't need the priesthood. He was trying to say that you didn't need a ministerial priesthood. No, the ministerial priesthood is part of the divine apostolic deposit of faith. That cannot change. - Are you saying 'cause that's the view is that the priesthood in the Old Testament followed into the New Testament priesthood? - No, I'm new priesthood, the priesthood of Jesus Christ. So Jesus Christ. - But don't you guys believe that you're like the continuation of the temple in the end? - The fulfillment. - The fulfillment, but also the continuation. - Yeah, so all Christians would agree that Christianity is the fulfillment of the law of Moses. And in a sense, you could say it's the continuation. - The Levites being continued, got it. - But it's new. Hebrews makes it clear that it's something new. It is a fulfillment and a new continuation, so to speak. Jesus Christ ordained his apostles priests. And you can prove that in Scripture. So when Marluthar is saying we don't need indulgences, right? Guess what indulgences are part of the divine apostolic deposit of faith. You can prove indulgences from Scripture. If you believe in penance, if you believe that God is going to repay you for what you did in the body, for the good and the bad that you've done, like the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, 10. For example, Romans 2 and Revelation. Then you believe in indulgences. If you believe in doing penance, then you believe in indulgences. If you believe what Hebrews says that God chastises those who he calls children, right? Then you believe in a temporal punishment for sin. And if you believe that that temporal punishment can be remitted, that's what an indulgences is. - So what does that temporal punishment for sin? Like what does that practically look like? - So for example, if you commit a sin, right? So when you commit, and we're getting into a lot of things, but I like this, when you commit sins, there are two consequences for your sins. There's the eternal consequence for your sin, which is held. And there is the temporal consequence for your sin. Temporal means in time, like the bad effects that you have. If my sin is alcohol, if my sin is alcohol, then I drink the excess and I'm a drunkard and it ruins my liver, that's a temporal punishment for sin. But the eternal punishment for sin is held. If I die in that sin, I'm going to hell, right? So what it is, is Jesus Christ paid for the eternal punishment for our sin, and what indulgences do is that they remit any temporal guilt that is due only for the sins that you have already confessed, whose eternal punishment has already been taken care of by Jesus Christ, death on the cross. So you have to be in grace. - Okay, hold on. - Let me explain it better, because I know I talked too fast. So you have the two consequences, right? - Yeah, yeah, eternal. - The eternal punishment can only be taken care by Jesus Christ on the cross, and you receive it ordinarily through the sacraments, but then there is temporal punishment that can be due to you. - A drunk drinking his liver to death. - Right. - That would be like a temporal consequence, right? There are temporal consequences that can be remitted, right? For the sins that you have already confessed and you have received the grace of God, you are in grace, you're under grace. If you are under grace, indulgences would remit the temporal punishment for the sins that you committed that you have already confessed. - So the drunk that's drinking his liver to death. - Right. - He gives his life to Jesus. - Right. - He's obviously forgiven in the eternal sin. - He's forgiven, right? But his liver is so gone, right? - He's still to deal with the consequences of his liver. And so, if I go do a bunch of Hail Mary's, those consequences are remitted for me. - Not the consequences that you've already received, any future consequences that you would receive, right? The temporal damage that your sins cause, that guilt cause you're due guilt, right? You're due guilt. - You do consequences for drinking alcohol and abusing alcohol. - The guilt is what's remitted. It's the guilt. - But I thought that was already dealt with on Jesus. - The eternal consequence for your sins is remitted by Jesus Christ death on the cross. The temporal consequence, because again, if Jesus Christ death on the cross takes away both temporal and eternal and temporal guilt. - Right, I don't agree with that. - Like I think it's eternal, but I think you still deal with consequences. - Exactly, right. - If you are a murderer, you go to heaven 'cause you confess to a professional, Jesus Lord, which you still get to go to jail for being a murderer. - Exactly. - But how do indulges just fix that? - So what it is is that let's say that you die, like let's say that you die and there is still justice that is due to you after you die. That God is going, 'cause you know, the Bible says that God is going to repay you for everything you did in the body good and bad. Saint Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 3, right? Anything that is due, that bad for you, that God is going to punish you for the temporal, the temporal justice that has, because God is a God of justice, right? And again, Hebrew says that he chastises those who we call sons. So if you die, but you die in grace, so you die in the friendship of God, you're saved, but there's still all of these sins that you committed in the body, God is going to repay you for those. So you're going to have to pay for that, you know, in the next life before you receive to get to the big vision. That's what we call purgatory, right? - So from your paradigm, you're saying-- - Indulgences would remove what is due to you in purgatory, in purgatory, in purgatory bros. So what is it, give me an example of an indulgence today? - So for example, if you read scripture, I think the church says if you read scripture 15 minutes, 15 minutes a day, grants you a plenary, not a plenary, an indulgence, not a full indulgence, a partial indulgence. So every time that you read scripture, right, and you pray, and you know that the church says that you do this and that is going to make reparation for your sins, what that means is that now there is less temporal punishment that is due to you and when you die, you're not going to receive that punishment in the next life, you don't have to experience that justice being given to you in purgatory. And not in purgatory, purgatory isn't a place, purgatory is a process. Purgatory is God's justice. Purgatory is God balancing out, you know, all of the debts, but the temporal punishment is what is taken care of in purgatory only for those that are saved. If you're damned, you don't have to worry about purgatory 'cause hell is where you go. If you're saved, if you die in grace, you die in friendship of God, but God is still going to repay you for the bad things you did in the body, right? The good things that you did in the body that you can receive an indulgence for that removes all of the temporal punishment that is due to you. - And you're saying, you believe all of this is taught in scripture. - Yes, scripture actually teaches that because-- - Okay. - Yes. And I know that I might, you know, your part of it, you're like, how does that-- - Well, 'cause I mean, if I look at any passage around, I mean, I guess like, what is the gospel to you? Like when someone says, hey, Alex, tell me about the gospel of Jesus. - The gospel is that God loved us so much that he became man so that he could take the punishment for our sins, pay for our sins, die for our sins, and rise from the dead to conquer dead sin and the grave so that all of us who are united to him can be with him for all the eternity. - Okay. - That's what the gospel is. - Okay. - The gospel is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The gospel is the love of God for his creation. - Yeah, okay. - God loves us and God wants to save us. - How does someone get saved? - Someone get saved by being in union with Jesus Christ, right? So you believe in Jesus Christ and belief means obeying Jesus Christ as well. God gives you the free gift of salvation that we get through grace. You receive that gift and then you work your salvation out through fear and troubling, like Philippians 2.12 says, and you remain in the grace that God has given you freely. You can remain in the grace. Grace is a free gift, salvation is a free gift, and God gives it to you, and it's always on offer. God says, "My grace for you is always there." Salvation is always there, so you can receive it, choose to receive it or not. And because we are again, temporal, you know, we're temporal, meaning we're in time, we change our minds. So there are times when I want to follow God and I want to cooperate with his grace, and then there are times when I'm going to, you know, there are times when I can forsake his grace altogether and remove myself in grace, which the Bible teaches as well, that you can do that. - I think what we're reading, you would probably disagree is that when I'm looking at the Scriptures and I'm looking at all the verses around salvation, it just seems way less complicated than that. Like everything you described, - And maybe I'm just like short bus kid, remedial, and I'm just not tracking with you. - I understand because of the language we use. Everything that I've said, I know it sounds like it. It's not complicated. - Okay, so let's look at like the passages around salvation. - Right, right, right. - You know these. - Right, yeah, of course, yeah. - For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works, right? So that no one can boast, right? And then it says, we are created, God's Handy. We are God's Handy. We're created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared and advanced for us to do. So in the Protestant view, and I would say what we're trying to come back to is this view of Scripture that we're saved by grace through faith. - Amen. - Two good works. - Amen, that's what the Council of Christ teaches. - And it sounds, but it sounds like what you're saying is like we're saved by grace through faith, and then we have to work to make indulgence for ourselves and read the Bible, to make up for temporal consequences of sins, but yet if you're a drunk and you mess up your liver, you still got to deal with the consequences of that, but yet God won't punish you, God, yes, we totally agree on that, this consequences, but God won't punish you for being a drunk if you read the Bible 15 minutes a day. - God will punish you for being a drunk? - God will not punish you in purgatory for being a drunk if you make penance through reading the Bible 15. That was the example you gave me. - Because God is a God of justice, right? - He still has to punish you. - God is a God of justice, the eternal punishment that we're supposed to receive for our sins is taken care of by Jesus on the cross, right? The temporal punishment is within time, God is still a God of justice, and that also has to be satisfied. And Saint Paul talks about that, again, in 1 Corinthians 3, in 2 Corinthians 5, 10, there's many scriptures where Paul talks about how God is, God punishes you for what you do in the body, but he is clear that it is for those who are his children, so it's for those that are in grace and those that are saved. So if you are in grace, you don't have to doubt your salvation. This isn't about salvation, this is about God's justice and God chastising you and God purifying you and God making you perfect. - Okay. - Becoming perfect hurts. - Yeah. - It's difficult. It's a difficult process, but because God is a God of love, he is going to love us into becoming perfect, and sometimes that love can hurt, because sometimes we are so-- - So your views, you have to become perfect to go to heaven? - Well, revelation says that nothing unclean can enter heaven, right? So let's say that you die and you're in grace, so you're saved, but let's say that you still have these attachments to sin, right? - Which most people do. - Which most people do, and you have a habitual sin. God is going to remove those attachments from you before you enter heavenly kingdom. That removal of those sinful attachments, of your disordered desires, of your disordered passions, that is what we call purgatory, God making us purgatory. - Yeah, I understand that. I'm saying how do you then reconcile two things? Surely this day you will be with me in paradise. That sounds like a very this day, paradise, right? And then how do you reconcile second Corinthians 15? He made him who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. - Exactly, yeah. - What I think perfects me is not my ability to not sin. What I think perfects me is the blood of Jesus on the cross. So then when Jesus, when God is looking at me, Jesus is what he sees in the work on the cross, and the debt paid is by Jesus, and then I get the blessing of cooperating with the spirit of God. That's what we would call sanctification. I don't know what you guys would call it, right? - That's exactly what the conversation teaches. - I'm justified by grace through faith, right? So this is like Romans, I'm sure you're familiar with this one, for all of sin, for sure the glory of God, and all justified freely by his grace through redemption that came by Jesus Christ, right? And so God presented Christ as an atonement, as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness. So it's about his righteousness, it's not my perfection. In his forbearance, he'd left behind the sins, committed beforehand, unpunished. He did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. So that's why I'm not tracking like all the purgatory and all the other stuff just seems so complicated when I'm looking at the Scriptures, I'm with you in that like over the span of my life, I should be sinning less and less, right? I shouldn't be-- - Because you're being sanctified. - 'Cause I'm being sanctified. I shouldn't be dealing with the same things. I should be right, I think the more you walk with Jesus, the more you work out your salvation with fear and trembling, I am being consecrated and transformed. But ultimately for me, like again, I'm just looking at the Scriptures, right? This is Philippians, it says, work out your heart to show the results of your salvation if you're in trembling or being God with deep reverence. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. So as God is working in me, giving me the desire to power. So it's not that I become sinless on this side of eternity, but I do eventually sin less and less and less. - Yeah, I like how you feel that. You don't become sinless, you sin less. - So help me understand like what is the distinction? Like bring clarity to how do we then go from, like it sounds like we're yes and amen on that. We're saved by grace through faith. Two good works, I'm not one of those Protestants, easy, believerism, it doesn't matter what you do on this side of the journey. I think we should work to prove our salvation, right? Not to be saved, but to show that we're saved and that we get to do all these things. I get to read my Bible, I get to go to church, I get to take communion, I get to do these things. Where's the distinction? Where is theologically, where are we off? Where are we disagreeing? Because I'm not tracking the purgatory aspect of it. - Right, right. So you would agree that every time that you do read your Bible, every time that you are a good husband, a good father, when you practice what it is that Jesus Christ calls us to do, right? Every time that you do those things, every single time you get holier, right? You become holier. - Yes, yes. I'm becoming more consecrated. - Yes, reading the word makes you holy. You know, working out your salvation and fear and trembling, it makes you holy. So every time that you do that, right? You're becoming holier and holier and holier and holier and the sin in you is becoming less. You can be very holy, if you die and there is still anything in you that is still, that is still, you know, not yet perfect, Jesus himself, the love of Jesus and the merits of Jesus Christ on the cross, it's just gonna take that away from you before you enter heaven. - Amen. - That's all that is. - Great. - So what it is is that- - But then why purgatory? - That's what it is, that's what purgatory is. But it says like, I still gotta go to purgatory and like get punished, but Jesus took on the punishment. - For the eternal consequences, you're saved. Remember, purgatory is only for those that are saved. - Okay. - Purgatory is not for the damned. So purgatory is again, so can Corinthians five, maybe you wanna pull up second Corinthians five, 10. Purgatory is the justice that God administers to us for what we did in the body. If you're saved, you're saved, you're going to heaven, you can have assurance of your salvation. - Wait, five, 10, I'm sorry. - Second Corinthians five, 10 is one example. There's second Corinthians five, 10, Romans two, I think Revelation three. So when you're in grace, you have assurance of salvation. If you are in grace, you know that you're saved. - Amen. - Right? If you are in grace- - Wait, wait, wait. So this is different though, 'cause the East Northadox, I don't know if they, I don't wanna project their position on you, but they don't believe, I can know I'm saved. They say, we don't know anyone, let's say. - There are some Orthodox that will say that you don't have assurance, but the Bible is clear. - Okay. - And I think an Orthodox, if you phrase it this way, an Orthodox will agree, if you tell an Orthodox, if you know, if you are in grace, objectively speaking, if you are in grace, will you be saved? And the answer is yes, 'cause that's the clear teaching of the Bible. If you are in grace, you are saved. Now, I think an Orthodox will say yes, but we can have full, like infallible assurance that we are in grace, maybe we're not in grace. And instead of like, okay, you can fool yourself. Okay, we can grant that, but objectively speaking, if you are in grace, then you can even say, ultimately only God knows if you're in grace or not. But if you are, you are saved, right? - 'Cause that's the part that's kinda discouraging, is like, man, I can't know if I'm saved, even though there's a fruit and a spirit on my life and a heart change, you're not giving me power to live different. - And you can know, you can know that you are in grace. That's why God gave us the sacrament. So that's why the sacraments are physical means that communicate grace to the believer. So feelings come and feelings go. One morning you might wake up and you feel great and you feel like you're really close to Jesus. The next morning you might wake up and you maybe you don't feel so great and maybe you feel far away from Jesus. And you can start doubting like your place in the family of God. Jesus gave us the sacraments so that we can know objectively speaking that we have grace. Because grace isn't a feeling. It isn't about what we feel. It isn't about what we think. It's about what we know. It's about the promise of God. And the promise of God is that he will give grace to those that he loves. And if you have that grace, you're good. - Okay, I want you. So help me understand. So the use you said for pull up this passage. So this is. - So for we almost appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. So all this means is that if you're saved but you still did bad things in the body, right? And here's the thing, there's a lot of Protestants that believe in like eternal security. You can be a Protestant that believes in eternal security and you could still affirm purgatory because 2nd Corinthians 5, 10 says, you're saved. But when you die and you meet God, you're still going to be judged for what you did in the body. Not your soul, right? Your soul is judged as being righteous. But you did good in the body, you did bad in the body. Anything that you did that's bad in the body, God is going to repay you. When if you did something bad and God it repays you for the bad, you know, you're gonna get a bad reward or what we call the punishment. - Sure. - A bad reward is a punishment, sure. You're gonna get that temporal punishment but you're still saved and you're going to receive that. And that's actually for your good 'cause it's going to fully sanctify you and make you perfect. Like St. Paul talks about in 1st Corinthians 3, 11 through 15. So maybe, metaphor is that's why Jesus spoke in parables. Maybe if you go to 1st Corinthians 3, 11 to 15. St. Paul explains this so beautifully. - Give me a second. - And this is something that I've been meditating on recently is just like how simple, you know, scripture is and it explains things in such simple terms. Sometimes our theology gets- - Which verse sets, 1st Corinthians 3? - 11 through 15, right? - They're 15. - So it says, right there. So by the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder and someone else is building on it. Each one should build with care. No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid which is Jesus Christ, so Jesus Christ is the foundation, right? But then he says, if anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, or wood, hair, straw, their work will be shown for what it is because the day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire and the fire will test the quality of each person's work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss, yet will be saved even though only as one escaping through the flames. - Yeah, you can get into heaven with a limp, or you can get into heaven walking in. So help me reconcile that with the thief on the cross. - Yeah, so when Jesus said to the thief on the cross that you will be me in paradise, this is important, paradise is not heaven because remember, Jesus wasn't in heaven, right? The gates of heaven had not opened until after the resurrection, because Jesus said to the thief today, today, which is Friday, good Friday, you will be me in paradise. Paradise is in heaven. Paradise is also known as the bosom of Abraham, or the Lamb's of the brothers. That's where all of the righteous people were there in that holding place. It was the waiting place, waiting for the Messiah to come and save them from that waiting place and take them to God's kingdom. - Abraham's bosom is different than perchaturary? - Abraham's bosom would be different. - Different structure. - Yeah, so the word pergatory just means pergation or purifying you. Pergatory is just God's love purifying you. God's love is going to purify you so that you can be perfect and go into this heavenly kingdom 'cause again, Revelation 21, 27 says that nothing unclean can enter heaven. - Sure. - So you can die in grace, but that doesn't mean that you're perfectly clean, right? 'Cause I'm sure you would say, you're not perfect, I'm not perfect. If you're not perfectly clean, God is gonna make sure you're perfectly clean when you enter heaven. But with Jesus and the thief on the cross, he said today, which would have been Friday, you're gonna be with me in paradise. Paradise is Abraham's bosom, so he was saved. The thief was saved and he went to the place where all of the holy people from the old covenant were awaiting for Jesus to go and preach with them in the harrowing of hell on Holy Saturday, which St. Peter talks about in his epistles, where he preached to the souls that were in this holding place and he freed them from there and took them up to heaven. - So did he then have to go to purgatory? - So because God is a God of justice, whatever that, so when he was on the cross dying next to Jesus, he was saved, the eternal punishment was literally being paid right next to him. The eternal punishment is paid, so because the eternal punishment is paid, I have salvation, and if there's any temporal punishment that is due to him for his sins, God is gonna take care of that before he gets led into heaven. So either way, you were saying-- - So he was still going to purgatory though. - So if he had any temporal punishment that had to be remitted from him, theologians speculate on this, theologians, there are some theologians that said that the thief on the cross got a plenary indulgence next to Jesus, and do you know why they say that? A lot of the early church fathers say that it's actually very, very beautiful. A lot of the early church fathers say that when Jesus Christ was stabbed on his side, the water and the blood that gushed out from his side, that it got onto the thief on the cross and that that was God giving him an extraordinary baptism. Baptism, when you're baptized, that remits all eternal and all temporal punishment. So if you're baptized, let's say that you live the life of sin and you were a terrible sinner and you came to faith in Jesus Christ and because we have an incarnational faith, God uses material to save us, when you receive baptism, that remits not just the temporal, the eternal punishment for your sin, but all temporal punishment as well. So if you were to die, let's say you get baptized and you don't sin. - On your death bed. - You got straight to heaven. - Or even if you're not on your dead but let's say you get baptized and then you don't commit a single sin after that and then you get hit by a buzz or something, straight to heaven. - No problem. - No predation needed because you're already made perfect. - Interesting. - By the sacrament and a lot of church fathers said that the thief on the cross actually did receive a baptism and that-- - Through the literal blood of Jesus. - Through the literal blood of Jesus and the water that came from his side got on from the cross. - Interesting. - So his eternal and temporal punishments would have been remitted. - Yeah. - But that's speculation from theologians. - Sure. - But what we do know for sure, what scripture teaches that God is a God of justice. So if there is any justice that is due to us like 2 Corinthians 5, 10 says or 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 15. If there's anything that any justice that is due to us, God is gonna make sure that we get justice or temporarily because we're saved because we're his children, 'cause Hebrew says those that are his children, he's going to chastise, right? God chastises his children and those who he loves, right? And the imagery in Hebrews is even like God like spanks you. God's gonna spank you because he loves you. - But you don't think that's in this life though? You think that all that's a purgatory? - Yes, yes, that's in this life as well. - Yeah, you're saying it's involved. So I would say the position that one, I would say there's natural consequences to our sin. - So when you drink and you mess up your liver? - Yes, that's a natural consequence. - You now have paid a temporal-- - Okay. - You have now received a temporal justice. - Yeah, totally with you. - So I would say this is the second consequences. I would say that on this side of eternity, like say someone is following Jesus, claiming to be a Christian, but they still are practicing this habitual sin, right? Like I'm with you in that I think on here and now, I think God will discipline them. Here and now there will be not just consequences, but actual discipline here and now. - Punishment isn't just for the afterlife. Punishment happens here today, right? So purgatory, purgatory is what we refer to the remission of temporal punishment in the afterlife, but purgatory happens here as well. Purgatory happens here as well, and that an indulgence is why you're in this life. An indulgence is when you out of love and out of charity for God, when you do things that make you holy, you are actually removing those temporal punishments that are due to you for your sins, because you're not winning your salvation. You've already received the free gift of salvation. So let's say that you remove yourself from grace and you forsake the grace of God. You can't get an indulgence because you need to be saved first. You need to be in grace first. And if you remove yourself from God's grace, no amount of praying, no amount of reading scripture, no amount of praying the rosary or doing good works, that's not going to help you at all because you need to be in grace first. Grace always comes first. If you're not in grace, there's no amount of works that you can do that. - Would you say your definition of grace is different though? - No, this is the same. Grace is just the unmerited favor and love that God freely gives us. That's what grace is. God freely gives us grace according to his goodness, according to his will, because he loves us. - So someone comes to you and they say, "Hey, what must I do to be saved?" You're telling them, place your faith in Jesus. Receive God's grace. - Receive God's grace. - You need grace to be saved because the Bible is clear that Jesus Christ saves us by his grace, by grace through faith. We receive grace and we are saved. So you need to be in grace. Put yourself in grace. Let Jesus give you grace. And that's how you're saved, right? You have to do these other things. - And then you can remain in grace. Remaining in grace just means not removing yourself from God's grace. And the only way that you can remove yourself from God's grace is because when you are born again, you have now started your relationship with Jesus Christ. Well, Jesus Christ is a real person and we actually have a true authentic relationship with Jesus Christ. Just like in your relationship with a spouse or with a parent or with a child or with a best friend, you can do something that violates that relationship. You can do something to hurt your spouse or your best friend. When you hurt your spouse or you hurt your best friend, you cannot continue going forward like as if nothing happened. You have to ask forgiveness for this person that you have a relationship with. If you do not ask forgiveness, especially when you do something deliberately with full consent of the will and you have full knowledge that this thing that you want to do is going to hurt your relationship with your loved one and you do it anyway and you have full consent of the will. And you say, I know that this is gonna hurt my wife. I know this is gonna hurt my best friend. I know this is gonna hurt God, but I don't care. Yeah, I'm gonna do it anyway. I don't care that I'm hurting God. I don't care that I'm forsaking my relationship with Jesus. I'm gonna do it anyway. Now, you have damaged your relationship with Jesus and you have removed yourself from his good graces. No, I get that part. I guess I view our relationship with God similar to how I view my relationship with my children. I don't view it the way I view my relationship with my wife because me and my wife are equal and we're both adults and we're both, right? So I view it more like my son who's going to disobey me, who's going to sometimes need discipline. However, my son can't do anything to stop being my son. Exactly. Yeah, ontologically, he's always my son. So I view salvation, though I think there should be evidence of salvation, I view it in that it's a covenantal aspect that's dealt with on the cross. And so my son, because I'm a good father, wants to love me and wants to obey me. But if he doesn't, he's not getting kicked out of the house. He's still my son. So yeah, so when you sin, right? Let's say that you have received grace. You've been born again, you've been regenerated and you sin deliberately or you commit, you know, what first John calls a mortal sin, a sin that is unto death, right? You commit mortal sin, you're still a child of God. You're still the child of God. You still receive grace. You know, you don't-- Are you still going to heaven, though? So if you die in the state of hating God, even after you-- I'm not talking about hating God. No, no, no, no. I'm not talking about somebody who misses church three weeks in a row with no good excuse. That's a grave sin in your tradition. But did you do it with full knowledge and the will because you don't love God? If you don't-- Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of-- That's what makes sin. That's what exactly. So that's what makes sin. And this is official teaching? Yes. Give me those two things again. What makes sin mortal is that it has to be a grave sin. It has to actually be something that breaks God's commandments. You have to do it with full consent of the will, right? Meaning you couldn't have been coerced in it. Like, you had a full consent and you did it, and you had to have full knowledge that this thing that you wanted to do, that you did, was something that was going to break God's laws, break God's commandments, and hurt your relationship with Jesus Christ. Put your further away from Jesus Christ. So can we explore the idea of not going to church? Sure, yeah, yeah. So if you met-- what is it? Two weeks in a row, you and grave sin? So we have the obligation, according to Jesus Christ's church, we have the obligation to worship God. God is God, we are not. So we are obliged-- I'm honored with you. --obligated to worship Him. Amen. It actually fulfills the moral law. Amen. It's part of the moral law to worship God. Yes. If you say, I know that God is God, and I am not, but I don't want to worship Him anyway, and you deliberately say, I know that I need to worship God because it's a matter of justice. I need to fulfill justice. But I don't want to do it. I don't want to-- and I don't care. I'm just-- I don't want to go to church. And I deliberately decide to not fulfill-- to not fulfill what's the word that I just used-- Go in a mess. --to not fulfill justice. To not fulfill justice. I have removed myself from God's grace because I did it deliberately with full knowledge and full consent of the will. I have removed myself from God's grace. And if I don't repent, and if I don't repent, and I don't say, God, I am sorry that I failed to give you what you deserve because God deserves our worship. If you do not repent and you die in that state of not caring about your relationship with God, if you die in that state and you are in the state of mortal sin, you have cut yourself off from God's grace, God's love, and God's mercy because you have deliberately decided because God is a gentleman. God doesn't force Himself on you. God wants every-- the scripture says that God is a desires for everyone to be saved in it to come to Him, but God doesn't force you to stay. So if you forsake Him, and you walk away, which the Bible teaches can't happen, Hebrews, Hebrews two, three, four, like all of the episodes of Hebrews says that you can walk away and that you can forsake grace because you still have your free will. If you decide to do that and your life ends in that state, you've made your choice, you have decided to forsake the free gift that God has given you. You can forsake it, but here's the thing, when you do that, when you sit in mortal, you're still ontologically, you are still born again, you are still the child of God, but from within the household, you have decided that I don't want to be, you know, like you said, your son was always gonna be your son ontologically, no matter what, but your son could run away from home, can say, I'm never gonna speak to my dad again, I'm never going to answer his calls, I'm gonna go and completely cut myself off from him, that's what mortal sin is. - Yeah, no, I get it. I'm just saying, it sounds like the dissected disparity doesn't make sense. I'm with you, I rail on Christians all the time, that's how Baptist isn't good enough, Pastor Pillow ain't cutting it, like you need to get your button to check. So I'm with you there, I'm just saying that the parallel seems drastic in the sense of, if my son were to run away, renounce him, self as my kid and not talk to me. - I would still love him, right? - I would still love him, but-- - And God still loves us. - Right, but what I'm saying is somebody, a kid running away from home, and someone not going to church, is it one week or two weeks, what's the grave sin? - And it's the first time that you know that you have an obligation to worship God on this particular day according to Jesus Christ church. - And you don't go. - And you have to, yeah, if you know you have an obligation to worship God and you don't do it, you have disobeyed Jesus Christ church, therefore you are disobeying Jesus Christ. - You're now in grave sin though, that's a sense man. - And you are in grave sin, if you know, let's say that you don't know that you have a moral obligation to worship God and you sincerely just don't know, that's not a mortal sin, because you don't have full consent of the will. - Interesting, you have full, I'm sorry, you don't have full knowledge. You have full knowledge. - No, I guess. - You have full consent of the will. For example, let's say-- - But you don't think that's a pretty extreme parallel for someone's salvation to be on the line though? - Well, I would say that scripture teaches that you can walk away from it. - But after missing church for one Sunday and then you're not saved anymore? - If you do it because you're doing it because you lack God, right? Let's say that you only ever hear the gospel one time. For whatever reason you're in a country where Christianity is legal and you only have one chance to hear the gospel. You hear the gospel. It's the only time that you'll ever hear it. And it's presented to you. And you know that this Christian ministry, you probably never see another Christian missionary in your life again because you're 30 years old and you never, so I'll probably never hear this message again. And you decide to walk away from it, right? Does God have an obligation to give you his grace? Does God have an obligation to save you? - Hearing the gospel? - Just because you heard the gospel, right? - Well, as it happens, you hear the gospel and accepting the gospel and placing it faith in Jesus. - Right, so you're so right. But let's say that you hear the gospel, but let's say that this guy, he wasn't convinced. He just wasn't convinced, right? He heard the gospel one time and not one time that he got to hear it. He just wasn't fully convinced. So he walks away and he says, I'm not interested in that. I don't think that's true. And he has, objectively speaking, he has rejected the gospel, right? Right, whether he had full knowledge of it or not, he rejected the gospel. The question is, does God have an obligation to save this person who will never heard the gospel once and he walked away from it, maybe even out of ignorance? Or can we tell God, be like, hey God, come on. He only heard it one time and he walked away. Can we say that to God? Does God owe us salvation? God does owe us salvation. - I'm struggling with you. I'm not disagreeing with that point. I'm just saying both of your examples seem like a really radical conclusion to jump to if someone hears the gospel, once rejects it, versus someone hears the gospel, loves Jesus, goes to church, and then misses a Sunday and now they're in grapes in. That's all I'm saying. I think that's a big disparity is what I'm saying. - Well, I would say that the Bible says that once you only break one of God's laws, one of God's commandments, you've broken all of them, right? So it only takes one sin, it only takes one sin to send you to hell. It only takes one sin for you to be damned for all the certainty, right? Only one, right? It only took Adam and Eve, you know, eating from the fruit of the tree. Just the first time was all it took for all of humanity to be cut off from God, from his supernaturally. - But that's not the new covenant. Like the new covenant to me is, we're incapable of keeping God's law. Like we're incapable on our own to be godly and be holy. - And that's why it's worse. That's why it's more grave in the new covenant to do that, because in the new covenant, we have this Holy Spirit. And his Holy Spirit is what allowed, so for example, you know, Romans 10, 13 says that any temptation that you have, that God always will always provide a way out of it, right? So you don't have to fall into sin. If you fall into sin in the new covenant, it's actually worse now in the, and Hebrew says this. Hebrew says, how much worse is it now when you have tasted the fullness of salvation, received the Spirit of God, and you've tasted the heavenly gift, how much worse is it now under the new covenant to walk away and reject it than it was even back then, because the old covenant was just the shadow of the new covenant. So it's actually more severe now under the new covenant. - To sin? - It's actually, yes, especially if you've been regenerated, if you've been born again and you are in relationship with Jesus Christ, right? You are in relationship with the God who died for us and rose from the dead for us sins, right? Again, it's not me saying that it's Hebrews that says that it's worse now to forsake the gift of God than it would have even been for those people that were in the desert in the time of Moses that fell into our dullness. - Yeah, I think the disconnect that we're gonna have is you guys have a different view of the propreciation of the cross, right? Like we feel like the blood of Jesus is what covers it all, meaning past, present, future sin. - And we agree with that, yeah. - But then there's this like, but if you sin once, it's worse than everything. And I would say, man, if we're talking about sinning, there's levels of sin, sins of commission is breaking the law, right? Like you were flat out breaking the law, sins of commission is, excuse me, sins of commission is breaking the law, sins of omission is not doing what you should do, right? Then there's your language and your mouth, then there's your thoughts, then there's the motives for the good things you do. And so when we stack all those up, that's where I would go yesterday meant to Romans three, like there's none righteous, no, not one, that all have sinned, and that it is freely justified. And after we're born again, in Philippians, it talks about God giving us a new heart and desires and a power to obey him, not that we're never gonna sin again. And if we do sin, I believe it's future sins as well. - Yeah, yeah, so once you're born again, the blood of Jesus Christ pays for, so the blood of, at the moment that Jesus Christ died on the cross, all of the sins of humanity were paid for. At that moment, when he died on the cross, every sin that I've ever committed, that I ever will commit, that you've ever committed, that ever was completely paid for 100%, every single one for all of time, until Jesus Christ returns until the second coming, right? It was all paid for, your sins are already paid for. The question is, are you going to receive the free gift, and are you going to keep the free gift that was paid for you by the blood of the Son of God? Are you going to keep it, right? 'Cause you can walk away from it, if you want, walk away from it. But that free gift, that offer, is still there on the table. Because God says, you can come back, you can come back, but just know. - Listen, I'm with you on that. And I'm not someone that, like, I don't care to die on the hill of like, the term security or whatever, I got it. What I'm saying is, if someone is on an island by themselves, get a Bible, read it. I think it's very difficult to come to the conclusion that you get this amazing gift. Jesus dies for all of my sins, it's so amazing. And then, like, but dang, if I miss church on a Sunday, I'm going to go to hell, or I'm going to be in standing of grave sin to potentially go to hell. Like, that's where I'm saying the disconnect is. - So this is where Catholic theology is actually what we need, 'cause that's actually what brings clarity. 'Cause the example you gave is if you're on an island, and you find a Bible, then you read the Bible. - Let's take out the island. If you're in Iran right now, and there's no, as far as I know, there's no Catholic churches in Iran, right? There's no Catholic churches in North Korea. There's no, I don't know if this Catholic church is in China, you probably know that about that. And so, someone comes to faith, and they can't get into a Catholic church. They're doing these underground Bible studies, which oddly enough sounds a lot like the early church. You know, the first hundred, 150 years of the early church. And they're reading this stuff in a Bible study. They're praying, they're loving Jesus. They're taking communion. You may think it's an invalid communion, but they're doing all the things that a Christian is doing. I just don't see how someone reads that and goes, man, if I miss Sunday, 'cause my kid is sick, or something comes up, or I'm tired, or I can't go, or I don't wanna go, or whatever, I have a bad Saturday. - So now you've lumped a bunch of things in together. So the church actually explicitly says, if your kid is sick, you can miss. Don't go, because you have that example. Let's remove that example. All I'm saying is the person in Iran, or in North Korea, that has a part of underground church. I just, I don't see them. - That's the same thing as the kid being sick. If you're in Iran, or you're in North Korea, there's no church to go to. You are not held liable for missing church, 'cause there is no church. - Well, they do have a church. They have an underground church, like the people met, when we see this letter being written between these Romans, they're saying there is a church, it's led by women, which is like super controversial, even Protestant circles, these Deacon women's were slaves, and they're caring for each other, and they see themselves in the church. - And there were deaconesses in the early church, and the Armenian church has deaconesses today. So the word deacon just means servant, but anyway, that's just the site. - Sure, sure, sure. - Yeah, yeah, so all I'm saying is when I see that, and it looks oddly enough like the early church, and it is happening right now. I mean, there's 10,000 mosques that were closed down in Iran. There's just millions of people getting baptized in Iran. I don't know if I were to say it, well, one, they don't have a right church, 'cause they're not connected to Rome, because they have to have all this other stuff that they're doing. It just seems like an over-complication of the gospel to me. - Uh-huh, so it's not an over-complication when you just get down to this. So the question is, do we have a moral obligation to worship God? - Yes. - It's a moral obligation. - Yeah, I would say, listen, I would say-- - Are we morally obliged to worship God? - At the very least, at the very least, he is a good God, and because he's done so much for me, the least I could do is to get aligned with his will, and I have the Holy Spirit, which means my heart has changed, my desires have changed, and I want to worship him. - So is it an obligation? - Is it an obligation? - Can you be a Christian and say, "Hey, worship God, take it or leave it." If you wanna worship God, go ahead. - No, no, no, no, I think we all should worship God. - So we're obliged, right? - I think the distinction we're having is how do we worship God? And I'm saying if someone misses church on a Sunday, is a wild conclusion to come to the state that they might go to hell. - So this is the next part, because the church that Jesus Christ founded and established, and Jesus Christ himself tells us how to worship God, and tells us exactly what to do and where to go to be able to worship him according to how he wants us to worship him, right? So we don't even have to get into how to worship. Just let's start with just the principle of worship, right? We are obligated to worship God. Do you agree with that? It's an obligation, okay? Not worrying about how do we worship God or where do we worship God? We have an obligation to worship God, so if we don't fulfill the obligation, have we fulfilled justice? Have we been unjust to God? Have we failed to give God something that is due to him? - Absolutely, but what the unjustness has been fixed is the work on the cross, the unjustness of my sin is dealt with by Jesus' work on the cross. It's not of me having to keep going to church, and again, I love church. I'm all for the church, right? That's the distinction I think we're disagreeing on. - All right, so now it's a circle, so now it comes back, okay, Jesus Christ died for your sins, you receive that, but the question still remains, can you choose to worship God or not? Do you have to worship God or can you take it or leave it? Can you decide if you feel like we should be God or not? - It's an obligation and an invitation. So it's and both, so it's something that I'm not legally commanded to give a 10% of my income, but that's worshiped to God. I'm not legally commanded to to Sabbath any longer, but that's worshiped to God. Me taking care of my body is worshiped to God. - And again, we're not talking about the forms of worship, but how to worship just this worship itself. - So what I'm saying is, are we obliged to give God what is due to him? We're obliged to give Jesus worship, but what I'm saying is it's an invitation as much as an obligation. - Yes, it is an invitation. - Right, so I get to worship God. - Yes, it's a privilege to worship God. - Yes, absolutely. - It's a privilege. - Right, and that's from a new covenant of grace. - We're not punching the clock. We are, you know, worshiping God is what we do for all eternity in heaven. - Amen. - It is what, it's actually what we're meant to do as human beings, our end is to worship God. That's what we're meant to do ontologically. That's the goal is to worship God. So you're right, it's an invitation because God didn't have to create us to begin with. God creating us and saying, hey, I invite you to worship me, that's the greatest honor of our lives, is to worship God. So I'll put it to you this way. If God gives you an invitation, God himself has invited you to something and you have the invitation, it came in the mail and you see the invitation and you say, the God that created me has invited me to something, I'll pass, I'm not gonna go. If that's what you've done, you know God is not just an invitation, it's actually a form of justice. And you say, I'm good. What do we go from here? - Yeah, and what I would say is we would go to a God that's merciful and loving and forgiving. - So there you go. - And I would say the missing of church on a Sunday seems like a, hell seems like a disproportionate response to missing church on a Sunday. That's all I'm saying. - Are you tracking with my actual argument? - I completely understand. - You're saying missing church one time, that's gonna jeopardize my salvation? - And I say, I don't see it in scripture. I'm saying, if I'm looking at scripture and I see this consistent, justified by grace, justified by grace, justified by grace to be justified, justified by gift, gift, gift, free gift, free gift. And then you're like, and if you mid-stars on Sunday, you're going to hell. And I'm like, whoa. That doesn't seem like scripture. - Hebrew says it. - Well, see Hebrew says do not neglect to meet each other like the heathens do. So Hebrews tells us that we're obligated to actually as a community, as a community come together and worship God. - So, again, I wanna make sure you understand what I'm saying. I am not saying that we should be flippantly not going to church. - Right, I totally did. - I'm saying the grave sin aspect, sounds like an addition to something that don't neglect of the beating together for the saints if some have done to one Sunday and you're out. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying that seems like a massive disparity from what's fairly plain in scripture. And we would say, just intrinsic practice as a Christian, be a part of the church. - Right, to the presentation of that as a mortal sin. I'm saying there seems like a disparity there. - I completely get it and this is what that argument, which I totally understand, it reminds me of when an atheist says, God is going to condemn you for all eternity. You're gonna be suffering and be tortured in hell for all the eternity because you lived maybe 60 years and you committed sins for 60 years. So because of 60 years of sin, you're gonna be tortured for all of eternity and tormented in hell for that. That seems like a disparity there. So it's actually the exact same argument that non-Christians and atheists would make. They would say, it's not fair. It's not fair that a 30-year-old can die in sin and now he has to go for the rest of time for all eternity separated from God. Some 30-year-old who hated God, it was only 30 years, bro. Why does he have to go for all of eternity? Suffering in hell, right? So it's the same thing, we think it's a disparity, but let me give you the symmetry breaker. The symmetry breaker is this. The reason that it's not a disparity is because God is infinite. God is infinite and he's infinite in his glory, in his majesty, infinite in justice. So because God is infinite and he deserves all of our love, he deserves all of our devotion, he deserves all of our worship, right? If we go a whole life, a whole lifetime, a whole lifetime of going to church and worshiping God every single Sunday, we worship God for a whole lives. That's still nothing and that's still an infinite God, right? So the disparity isn't because of something temporal, because when we worship God, that is eternal. The worship of God is eternal, you know? - Yeah, I get it. - It just starts sounding like we owe God a debt. Like that's what that sounds like to me, man, and I just don't see that in the scripture. - It's not a debt, we are not-- - Like Jesus paid a debt, it sounds like oh this thing, it got verses like I get to, but I get to worship God and I'm excited to worship God. And I do everything in my power to never miss church, so I think me and you would agree on that. I'm saying that's the disconnect. - What would you say to someone that said, oh Jesus paid for my sins, he died for my sins, his blood covers me, I'm saved because I believe him, and I have faith in him, so my sins are taken care of, I never have to step into a church again. - That's the other extreme, right? - That's the other extreme. - That's the other extreme. So I'm saying both extremes are wrong. To me, never go into church and missing church once a week, they're both opposite ends of the spectrum. To me, I should want to go to church and I do go to church and I love church and I don't miss church. However, if something happens and I do miss church, and it is, I have a terrible Saturday and I totally fumble and I oversleep and it's my fault, I don't think God's licking at me going like, you're going to hell, kid. And that's what the Catholic Church teaches. - You just said that's not what it's eating, though. - No, because it's not your fault, because you didn't. - No, what if it is my fault? What if I was irresponsible Saturday night, I stayed out too late, I couldn't get up in the morning and I totally blow it, and it is my, it is 100% my fault that I'm in. - Did you have full consent of the will and full knowledge that you were going to miss church? - I think there's a time where Christians will have full consent of the will and I think so. - Full consent of the will and full consent of the will to fail to give something that is more to God. - If someone oversleeps, if someone oversleeps, 'cause they stayed up late, 'cause they were irresponsible, is that a consent of the will? They knew they were going to have church in the morning and they oversleeped. - Did they intend it? So did they actually intend? - Well, they get into intent and you don't really hear. - So that's what you need intent for mortal sin. - Sure, okay. - If your intent is not there, if you did not have the intention of committing the mortal sin. - What about a flippin? - Flippin', this is also a-- - I don't care, I know I got to be up early in the morning. - So this is where we get into the gravity. This is where we get into the gravity, right? Let's say that we miss church, because I intend to miss church. I know I'm not going to go to church, but then let's say we miss church because I was flippin' about it and because I was flippin', I didn't make it to church. Now, one is a grave sin. The other, if it's not a grave sin, then guess what, it's not a mortal sin, it does not remove you from grace. - Okay, so I'm saying the person. - You need all three. - Let me paint it very quickly, simply for you. The person that stays up until three o'clock in the morning knowing they got to be a church at nine, to me is no different than the person that goes and says, "I don't want to go to church today." It's the same thing. You just, you came to the conclusion of it. You were irresponsible either way. You chose not to do something. You still fell short and I'm saying, I think Jesus covers both of those sins. Now, if you go on practicing and flippin' the living like that, I would question, do you love Jesus at all, right? So that's where me and you would probably disagree. - So here's the symmetry breaker, as we call this, where here's, let's say that we do it just once, right? It was just the one time, but then you never, you go the next four or five years without ever missing, if you missed it that one time, but then the next week you were back in church and all of those other, you were back in church, then that one time that you missed it over here on the timeline, that was most likely not a mortal sin. It most likely was not your intention to miss it. So if you missed it because you were being flippant, now your sin is being flippant, but that's not grave as opposed to, I'm gonna miss because I refuse to go, right? So that's the difference. You have to have all three. - Sure. - Even if you don't say flippant, that's where we disagree. I would say flippant is, in falling short, still has the same consequences as it is. - It has the same consequences. - And I would say it's the same reflection of your heart, of you did not care enough to prioritize doing the thing you were committed to do. And to me, it's the same end result. - It's the same end result. - And I would say it's the same heart. I would say whether you're falling short or intentionally waking up and going, "No, I'm not gonna go to church." 'Cause you haven't met God or whatever. It's the same thing to me. - You get the same result, but the person is-- - I think to me, it's the same result to me. - But what about to God? Is God going to judge both of those people in the same way? - I think it's very simple, similar, man. I don't wanna speak for God, 'cause I don't wanna do that. But I'm saying like, if my son wakes up and intentionally disobeys me, versus if he does a bunch of stupid things, to then disobey me. - Right, yeah. - You still disobey me, kid. - Right. - You know, there's still consequences. - Yeah, ultimately your son fulfilled to fulfill the justice of obeying his father. But then the question is how culpability, how culpability-- - In the example I'm saying, in my paradigm, I think he's just as culpable, and a consequence would probably be the same. Whether you were irresponsible and neglected something you should've done, and that's why you didn't get it done, or whether you got up and from a heart and heart, or a frustrated heart deciding not to do it, in my home, you failed in this consequence. - So now notice this, we've just flipped the tables, because this whole conversation, what you've told me is, oh man, that seems like a disparity. But now we've flipped the tables, and I can say to you, hey man, that seems like a disparity. These are two different situations, and how are you going to believe in terms of the kid? - Like you had this kid that he's young, his brain isn't fully developed, staying up on that plane video, what do you expect he's a kid? But here, this other kid, he's saying, I don't want to go to church, I hate church, I hate God. And you're saying that it's the same thing to me. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no. - I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. Because-- - So now we can flip the table. - Because the consequence isn't, he's getting kicked out of the house. The consequence is not, he's not my no more. The consequence is not any of that stuff. The consequence is, there's probably gonna be a natural consequence that he has to deal with, right? And again, it's a metaphor, it's flawed. And then the consequence, so you're saying though, well the kid that wanted to be angry at his father, kick him out of the house. But the kid that stayed up all night playing video games being responsible, not listening, ah, it wasn't, he was inculpable. And I was saying they were both culpable, and they were both bad kids. - I know how we can get to the bottom of this. I don't know how to get to the bottom of this. - All right, let's get it. - Being your sin is when you mess up, - What is it that? - Being your sin, sin that is not mortal. When you mess up, for whatever reason that it is, you mess up or you're not kicked out of the house, mortal sin is, I don't want to be in this house. That's what mortal sin is. Mortal sin is, I don't like this house, I hate this house, I don't want to be in this house, I am removing myself from this house. That's what mortal sin is. So when you think about it, it's actually kind of difficult to commit a mortal sin, because a mortal sin is actually, you are completely, with all of your will, with all of your knowledge, with everything that you are, and every fiber of your being, I don't want to be with God. And I know what God wants and I don't care what God wants. - Okay, so don't you guys have other pretty gnarly mortal sins? Like if you have sex and you're not willing to have a baby, is that a mortal sin or am I a trippin'? - If you have sex and you're not willing to have a baby? - Well, I understanding. - Oh, contraception? - Not contraception, pulling out. - And I don't mean to be graphic. - Yeah, so somebody in the Old Testament got struck dead by God for pulling out. - So that would be a mortal sin. - So it's a grave sin. It's a grave sin. So remember, we have to see, is it grave? Did you do it with full consent of the will and did you do it with full knowledge? Let's say that you're fornicating, and you're fornicating, you're using condoms and you pull out, so you do the trifecta, right? That's a grave sin. - That's not a mortal sin. - That's a grave, well, let's see. It's a grave sin objectively speaking, but now the question is, did you know it was a grave sin? Did you do it deliberately? And meaning, I know that this is offensive to God, I'm gonna do it anyway because I care more about my pleasure than I care about God, and I'm gonna do it because I really deep down don't care what God has to say about this. Then it would be a mortal sin, but if you're a kid and you're fornicating, you're using condoms, you're pulling out, you're doing all that, but you're not thinking about, you're not thinking about what does God want from me? Is it a mortal sin? It's grave, objectively it's grave, but the more I'm asking you in the context of a marriage, if someone's in a marriage. - Or in the marriage, okay. - So someone's in a marriage, and again, I'm asking, I don't know, someone's in a marriage, they have three kids, they can't afford any more kids, they're still gonna have naughty time. I like to use their word naughty, so I'm gonna use their word naughty, they're gonna have naughty time. I would say that the marital act, it's not naughty. - I'm just, I'm messing with you, I don't know what you mean. - I know what you mean, I know what you mean. - They're gonna be into it, they're gonna consecrate their marriage, and they go, I got three kids. - Yeah. - We homeschool the kids 'cause we don't like the education system, right? My wife's a stay at home mom. - Right. - I'm a blue collar guy, can't afford any more kids. - So far you're perfect, I'm over on your perfect. - And so we're smashing. - And it's the four or five days in the cycle where she's fertile. - Right, right, right. - If we have more kids right now. - It's gonna, it's gonna be hard, or if we have more kids right now, the last two sheets, she had a really bad birth and she can potentially. - Yeah, right, right. - And so in that, we are going to not, I'm not going, I'm going, I'm trying not to be as gravity. - I'm gonna pull out. - I know what you mean, yeah, right. - Is that a mortal sin? - So, pulling out is a grave sin. - It's objectively grave, but now here's the issue. So your intentions, because the Catholic Church teaches, like yeah, if you want to space your kids out for financial reasons, you have, not only do you have the right, you have the obligation to do that. You shouldn't be bringing kids into the world. You shouldn't be bringing-- - That you can't take care of. - That you can't take care of. You have an obligation to cater to your kids. So you're totally perfect up to that point. If you tell your wife, hey, let's hold off on having another baby, let's wait, maybe a year or two before we have another baby. You have your right to do that. Now the question is, how, how are you gonna do it? Because I'm sure-- - So is there a way to do it that's not in sin? - Yeah, there's plenty of ways to space out your, we have what's called natural family planning. - We do natural family planning. I'm perfect, perfect, perfect. So for example, because we do have a spectrum of extremes. So let's say that, you know, a married a couple, they're married and they're like, you know, we can't have a baby right now, so I'll tell you what, baby. If we have naughty time and we make a kid, we'll just go down to Planned Parenthood and we'll-- - That's terrible. - That's terrible, right? - That's terrible. - But it's the same result. If you pull out, you know, she's, you know, but if you go and you're just aborted, the point is we don't have a kid, we're not gonna have a kid. So now what it is, is how are you doing it? What is the means? - Okay. - If you're not comparing those to us as the same, right? - No, they're not the same. - Okay, I just wanna make sure I'm tracking. - They're both objectively immoral and grave, but the, you know, pulling out is one thing, but killing another human being, that's murder. Now you're guilty of murder. - And that would be a mortal sin. - That's objective, yeah, that's objective. So this is when we get into law, right? If you kill somebody, murder is a legal term. If you kill somebody on accident, they can't charge you with murder. You can get manslaughter. If it wasn't your intention, if it wasn't your intention, they can't charge you with murder. If you did it with intent, now you're a murderer, right? So pulling out and getting an abortion are two very different things. - Okay. - One is the objective evil of murder because you are actively saying, the goal is to kill this baby that we just made. One is murder and the other is abuse. When you pull out, you are committing a disordered act and you are abusing not only yourself but your spouse. So which is worse, murder is way worse than like, you know, pulling out, they're both objective sins and they're both, they're both grave sins. But again, this one is here, this one is here and then the question is for both of these, did you have full knowledge and you have full consent? It's more likely that the person that kills their baby, they're doing it with full knowledge and consent of the will, the person that pulls out. First of all, I mean, like if you're having naughty time or whatever, you're probably not thinking clearly. So maybe you don't have full consent of the will or you don't have full, you know what I mean? So ultimately, only God can judge your intentions, your level of knowledge and the state of your will. For example, let's say someone is addicted to pornography and someone is seriously addicted to pornography and they can't help it, they watch porn all the time, they abuse themselves all the time because they have an addiction. Is that a mortal sin? - Is that a mortal sin? I would say we'll go back to the intent in the end. - Was that a mortal sin? If someone is addicted and they can help it, what do you think the answer is? - I would say that if someone is addicted to something, I don't think it's the same as-- - You're right, you're correct, okay. If you're an addict, you no longer have full consent of the will. Your will has been compromised and because your will has been compromised and you're addicted to whether it's sex, pornography, drugs, alcohol, you're an addict and you couldn't stop even if you wanted to. It's not mortal because you don't have full consent of the will. - Yeah, I guess the, I think parents trying to do family planning and knowing that just fertile in those days, I don't know if you would say that that's not consenting and knowing exactly what you're doing. I don't want to have a kid right now, therefore, I'm going to not make sure that the sperm is near the egg. That sounds like a pretty consenting. - So there's a way that you can abuse natural family planning, but what the church teaches is that you, as a married person, you have the right to the marital act at any time, at any time, you have the right to enact, because think about it. If it was a, you could say that, okay, whenever I have relations with my wife, when she's not fertile, the Catholic church doesn't say, you can only have relations when you're both fertile. If you're not fertile, don't even, no, the Catholic church says you can have relations whenever you want. When she's fertile, when she's infertile, the Catholic church doesn't say that once a woman reaches menopause, she can no longer have relations because it's impossible to, because the marital act is, there's more to it, the ultimate goal is for procreation, but there's more to it than just that. So if you are going to only engage in the marital act with your wife, when she's infertile, there's no sin in that, because it's natural to have relations with your spouse, whether you're fertile or infertile, there's nothing objectively immoral about that. So that wouldn't be sinful. - You still didn't answer my question, though. - What's the question? - Is pulling out while she's fertile, knowing you don't want to have kids, because you can't afford anymore, just because you don't want to have more kids, because the birth was hard, because the pregnancy was hard. - That's a grave, that's a grave. - That's a grave sin. - Not a mortal sin. - That's a grave sin. - Is there any way that can be a mortal sin? - If you do it with full knowledge and full consent of the will, and when I say full knowledge, it means you know that this is sinful, and you know that God disapproves of this, and you do it anyway, now you have approached that mortal sin territory. So we always have to ask two questions. Is this objectively grave? That's the first, you know? And if the answer is no, then it's not a mortal sin. - Sure. - You need to have all three, you need to have all three present in order for it to be mortal. If it's objectively grave, and the answer is yes, then you move on to the next two questions, and if the answer is yes to those two, right? And you're intent, you know, what is your intent? Because that also has to do, when we talk about full consent of the will, and we talk about full knowledge, right? Intent has to do with that full knowledge part. Is your intention to disregard God? Let's say that somebody is, you know, whether you're married or not married, and you're literally in the act, and in your mind, you're thinking, God, I'm so sorry. I don't want to do this. I know I shouldn't be doing this, and I'm doing it a way, I'm so sorry. And you pull out, but you're actually like, you feel terrible about it. - You're dependent for it. - And you're like, I'm so, and you know. Yeah, I know it sounds funny, but like-- - It's funny because everybody knows, bro. - Everybody knows, so what I'm asking you, and I'm not trying to be down, you're saying-- - So the answer, the answer-- - It can do mortal sin, and that for someone to pull out, and they can go to hell for it. - And that situation, if you pull out, and you're like, I'm God, I know, I should-- - I'm saying say they're not saying that. - It's not mortal. - Okay, say they're-- - It's not mortal. - But again. - Because you're not doing it with hatred for God. You're not doing it disregarding God. - I know that, but what I'm saying is, if someone is a Christian going to church, say they've never missed church. - Right, yeah. - And they're being intimate, and they're like, I don't want no more kids, my wife doesn't want no more kids. We're not going to have any more kids. We are going to-- - Get her tubes tied, or whatever. - Well, I, or vasectomy, is that a mortal sin? - That's a grave sin, because it is, remember, don't jump to the, is it mortal? First, is it grave? - Okay, so it's a grave sin? - It's a grave sin because it's mutilation. You are mutilating yourself. - Okay, so, but what I'm saying is, it sounds like you're saying yes, someone can be a mortal sin with the potential of damnation, eternal damnation, if they pull out because they don't want any more kids. Is that, am I just trying to get clarity on that? - So, no, so, no, watch. If you're doing it because you hate God, or you're doing it because you know what God wants, and you're going to do, you know what God disproves up, and you're going to do it anyway, you're doing it fully knowing that God said, don't do this, right? If you're doing it just because you don't want kids, and you're in tension, right? That has to do with full knowledge, then you're in tension, that full knowledge part, that part probably is not present. That part is probably not present, because knowledge and consent of the will, when you put those together, what makes a sin grave is that you're doing it, because you don't love God. That's what it is. You don't want to be in his house. You would rather pull out and not get a girl pregnant, and be outside of God's house, right? Then to, you know, stay in his house and then you know-- - Are you saying that the consent or the knowledge because financially they can't-- Is that what you're saying changes the consent aspect? - So if you're doing it, because you really have the strain on you like financially, guess what that has done? That has now diminished your will. You don't have full consent of the will. - That's a better answer. Now I got to answer that. - I'm sorry, it took me so long to get-- - It took you a long time. I'm glad I got to answer. So what you're saying is, let me get this straight. - Yes. - Let's just place me in a picture. - Yes, yes, yes. - If you're well off financially. - Right, yeah, yeah. - And there's not any serious health complications, meaning you're not 45, 50 years old, trying to have another kid. - If you're not thinking about the health complications or your money when you're having relations-- - Yeah, let's move those students. - And two consensing adults, they got four kids. They just don't want any more kids. And they're going at it. And they're going to church. They're delivering generous, they're reading the Bible. - Yeah, and they pull out whatever-- - They pull out. - It's objectively grave because it's abuse. - Yes. - It's a marital act. - But then, is it mortal? - If there are reasons for it, right? - There's no other reasons for it. There's no other reasons. They just don't want no more kids. - It would be mortal sin. It would be-- - And you can go to hell for that. - It would be more mortal sin. And it can cost you your salvation because you have full consent of the will. You have no other mitigating factors that would influence your will. You are perfectly free to do it and you decide the wrong thing. That is what puts you in mortal sin. - All right. - We got an answer out of it. - Okay, thank you for answering it. 'Cause I've always understood that to be the regular teaching of the churches. Like, hey, if you can have more kids, keep having more kids. - Right, but no, but the church always says you can space your kids out as well. - Sure. - The Catholic church says that you're not obligated to have a whole bunch of kids. All the Catholic church says is be open to life. That's all it says. - Got it. - Be open to it. If you engage in the marital act with your spouse, and God gives you a baby, then thank God for it and you'll be your parent. That's all there is is. But the Catholic church is saying every time that you engage in the marital act, you have to make a baby. The church doesn't say that. - Got it. - So again, just to be clear, if you're in that situation and you're like, man, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to pay my bills at the end of the month, or my wife has these health complications so you pulled out. Now, the question, now, what that means is that your will, the consent of your will, was now-- - It's damage. - It's now damage. So that's what-- - But there is a scenario in which someone-- - Where they would be mortal. - Yeah, and so-- - There's a scenario where any sin, anyone sinned if it's grave, could be mortal and could remove you from grace. - Yeah, so that's interesting. Yeah, so again, this is where I just, I look at the scriptures and I go, I understand, I just disagree. - Well, we can go to the scriptures and I can show you in the scriptures where these principles are taught. - Now, I even understand how you make the principles are taught. I'm speaking of the salvation aspect of it, of going to eternal separation from God. - Yeah, salvation in the scriptures. - For pulling out, for, well, for any sin, for any sin, because pulling out is objectively grave, here's how we can figure out from the scriptures of any grave sin is mortal or not mortal. So for example, when Jesus Christ was being crucified and what did Jesus say when he cried out to God? He said, "Forgive them God, for they know not what they do. "They do not have full knowledge "because they don't have full knowledge. "God can still forgive them because it's not, "because they, Saint Paul, in Romans seven, "and Romans seven, when he says, "I sin and I do the thing that I don't want to do "and then, you know, Romans seven, the famous passage?" He goes, "Oh, cursed man that I am, "someone rid me of this flesh." Saint Paul is demonstrating that whenever it was that he was referring to, he didn't have full consent of the will. He's saying that his will is not in alignment with his behavior of his flesh. - Yes, it sounds like an addict. He almost sounds like an addict in that passage. - So these principles are... - Yes, so I guess... - The tricky part for me is that Romans seven, it goes into Romans eight one, which it says, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation "for those who are in Christ Jesus." - So now the question is, are you in Christ Jesus? And how do you know objectively that you're in Christ Jesus? If you know you're in Christ Jesus and you're good, you're in grace. But then the question is, how do you know that you are? Because you can fool yourself. You can trigger them. - People can be self-self-disey. - There are people that say, "Oh, Jesus died for my sins. "He paid for all of it. "I'm good. "I don't have to..." So the question is, is he really in Christ Jesus? What is the objective weight of knowing that you are in Christ Jesus? - Yeah, and I would say, have you placed your faith in Jesus? Has the Holy Spirit transformed you? And are you... How do I say this? Are you mourning... Do you hate the sin that you used to love and do you love the sin that you used to hate? - Right. - Excuse me. Do you hate the things that you used to love, right? Which is your sin? - Right. - And do you love the things that you used to hate? - Right. - Right. Which is right, since I used to... Like, before I came to faith, I had a lot of hostility towards church, towards the Armenian Apostolic Church, as church and general church, Christian general. All of a sudden, I started loving church, I started loving the Bible. The light bulb goes off, and I love the things that I used to hate. So I would say, how would someone know, as they're saved, is by those three measures? Do you have you placed faith in Jesus, and is your life's trajectory moving in the direction of, I love the things of God. I hate the things of sin. - Now, would you say that even with those three categories, would you say that people can still deceive themselves? - I don't think, I don't know. I mean, yes, anything's possible, right? I don't think it's probable to say someone who, all of a sudden, goes from mocking, or scoffing at Christians, and all of a sudden, wants to be around them, and wants to read the Bible, and wants to get baptized, and wants to go to church. I don't think it's probable that that person couldn't deceive themselves. But yes, I think it's false-comforts. - But it could be a part of possibility. I think it's false-comforts, yeah. - Okay, so, listen, listen, that's a super fun conversation, the whole idea of, you know, 'cause you guys do a lot of good pro-life work, but it's the downstream effects of, and a pretty intense sex ethic, right? The theology of the body, you know, that kind of stuff, they're like Protestants. And I don't, by the way, I don't believe in birth control, I don't believe in... - Contraception. - Yeah, oh, I want contraception. Again, this feels so graphic. It just doesn't feel good, you know what I mean? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - But I haven't been able to bring myself to a getting of a sect to me. I know other Christians that have it. And when you're like, you know what I'm like, "Yeah, like, I, ugh, just feels," you know? And I wouldn't ask my wife to ever tie her tubes either, you know what I mean? So anyway, I don't mean to get too gravity, it's too personal. - If it violates your conscience, don't do it, because you would be sitting against your conscience, and sitting against your conscience is still sitting against God. - Right, so I think a lot of it, I intrinsically understand, like I understand the downstream effects. That's why I wanted to explore that with you. Okay, help me understand some of the... I got a couple more things. Some of the Marion dogmas? - Sure, sure, yeah, yeah. - It seems like those have developed over time, and were kind of solidified at the second Vatican council, like in terms of the modern. I understand Mary's the mother of God, I understand Mary's the mother of the church. - I don't have any issues with that. But when we're singing songs to Mary, when we're, what is it? Dulia, what's the word, co-dullia? - Hyper-dullia. - Hyper-dullia. Co-worship, is it fair to say co-worship, or no, we don't worship her? - We don't worship her in the way that we worship God. So I think that the reason that there's been confusion about this, and let me just say something, a Vatican II actually didn't say anything about any Marion dogma, it wasn't Vatican II. - What was it, 1950s, right? - In 1950, that was in Vatican II. Vatican II was in the '60s. 1950s was the pope when he defined the bodily assumption of Mary. - The bodily assumption of Mary. - The bodily assumption of Mary, which is. - Which is that at the end of Mary's natural life, her body was taken up into heaven with her soul, and that she is in heaven bodily. - So I think for me, like isn't that, we're talking that, that's a dogma, right? - That's a dogma, and a dogma, if it's a dogma, that means that it's part of the divine, apostolic tradition, it's part of the positive faith, it is a revealed truth. Only revealed truths can be dogma. - So how does something take 1,900 years to become a dogma if it was divinely revealed at the time of the writer in the scripture? - So this is a good question, we need to be very clear with our language. The bodily assumption of Mary didn't become a dogma in the year 1950, it was defined in the year 1950. Why did it take 1,900 years to be defined? - For the same reason that it took 300 years for the divinity of Jesus to be defined. A lot of like non-Christians and Muslims, they'll say, the Christians didn't start believing that Jesus was God until the year 325 at the Council of Nicaea. That's not true, we know from before the year 325, the early church fathers clearly believed in the divinity of Jesus, right, yeah. - They just found you saw the archeological evidence they found, and they said, "God, Jesus is God." So I'll go, well, my answer to that would be, well, there's archeology and there's apostolic fathers who refer to Jesus as God, co-eternal, co-equal. That's been believed. - So what we can establish, what we can come to an agreement on is just that just because something is defined at a council, that doesn't mean that it wasn't believed beforehand, and again, the Catholic teaching on this is very clear, only objects of divine apostolic tradition which is the deposit of faith, only those things are dogmas. Only those things can be defined dogmatically by the church. If it's not in the apostolic deposit of faith, you cannot give a dogmatic definition to it that binds everyone in the church to believe it. So what that means is that the Marian dogmas are part of the deposit of faith that was revealed by God to mankind, that was revealed by Jesus Christ to his apostles, and we can show that through scripture and also through the witness of the early church that Mary indeed, for example, with the bodily absorption, that Mary indeed was bodily assumed in the heaven. A lot of objections. - In scripture? - Yes, you can prove it from scripture as well. - What passage? - So when you go to scripture, you see, and actually the bodily assumption of Mary is actually, you can see it explicitly in scripture, but it's also, I like to start by saying that it is a theological, what's the word that I'm looking for? It is a necessary theological conclusion to something else that is taught in scripture, which is the sinlessness of Mary, because we know that scripture teaches that death comes because of sin, and it's only because of sin because of the sin of Adam and Eve that we die, right? Well, in Genesis 3.15, when you read Genesis 3.15, which is the Port of Angelium, the Port of Angelium, the first time that the gospel is ever mentioned in the Bible, and Genesis 3.15, God, actually, He's speaking to the devil, He's speaking to the snake. He says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, right? The word enmity, it's like, well, we get the word enemy from, He says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and what that means is that the snake cannot touch the woman, and we actually see that in Revelation 12, that was actually the reading for today's mass for the feast of Alirea Walalupet. In Revelation 12, and I don't know if maybe you wanna put it up, it'd be Revelation 12 starting in verse 13. We see something very peculiar that ties into what we read in Genesis 3.15, in Revelation 12, we see the woman who is the mother of Jesus, the mother of the Messiah, right? Well, Revelation 12 starting in verse 13, I believe. Starting in verse 13, where it says, so when the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in wilderness, or she would be taken care of for a time, times, and half a time, out of the serpent's reach. Then from his mouth, the serpent spewed water like a river to overtake the woman and sweep her away with a torrent, but the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. Then the dragon enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God's commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus. So here in Revelation 12, we see an example of the devil, the dragon, and Revelation 12 says that that dragon was the serpent of old, the serpent that led Adam and even his sin. The dragon is trying to cause the woman to fall, but God protects the woman from being touched by the dragon, and that's first mentioned in Genesis 3.15, saying that it's not just the seed of the woman who has enmity between the seed and the serpent, it's also the mother of the seed that is called the woman, and there is enmity between her and the serpent as well. And that's why Jesus in the Gospel of John refers to his mom as woman. The reason he calls her a woman is because he is identifying his mom, he's identifying Mary, this is something fascinating that a lot of people don't realize. If you go to Genesis, you go to Genesis 2, Eve didn't get her name until after the fall, when they fell into sin, it was her name was woman. After they fell into sin, that's when she got her name of Eve, which means mother of mankind, right? So woman is what she was called before she fell into sin, and Jesus in the Gospel of John refers to his mom as woman, and then the book of Revelation refers to the mother of the Messiah as the woman that the devil cannot touch. Parking him back to Genesis 3.15, Jesus is identifying his own mother with the woman of Genesis 3, the woman that was later written about in Revelation 12, and that woman cannot be touched by the devil. And in Luke 128, when the angel appeared to Mary, he caused her by a very specific title in Greek, it's Keketi Tomine, which is translated into English as full of grace, right? And when we read it, we kind of just read over it, like full of grace, but what's interesting is that in the Greek, that term Keketi Tomine is a past perfect participle, meaning that it was already a reality, even before the devil, but the devil, Lord forgive me, even before the angel called her Keketi Tomine, it was already a reality, meaning that Mary was already in possession of this fullness of grace, even before the incarnation happened. Now the question is, okay, if Mary's already in possession of this fullness of grace, even before the incarnation happened, how could that be? Well, when we read the rest of the gospel, we see Mary, Jesus identifying her with Eve before the fall, with the woman of Revelation 12, the woman referred to in Genesis 3, we come to the necessary theological conclusion that the woman who is the mother of the Messiah, who cannot be touched by the devil, who is full of grace even before the incarnation, right? The woman who was full of grace, even before the incarnation that got kept her from falling into sin. Now when we go back to 1 Corinthians 15, and we read about how Saint Paul, he explains, he says, the reason that we die, there was not the rest part of the death in this world, is because of sin, and we know that the woman, the mother of the Messiah, was kept from sin. The necessary theological conclusion of this is that the woman does not have to die, not that she didn't die, that she doesn't have to die. This is why we have to be really clear because Jesus didn't have to die, Jesus didn't even have to become incarnate. He didn't have to die, but he freely chose to die. Well, in the fifth century, around the year 430, is the earliest surviving works that we have of the explicit mention of Mary's bodily assumption in heaven comes from around the mid-fifth century. I don't know that a lot of Protestants-- - Who's supposed to eat on that? - It's for the real 430, is what we start to get. The earliest that we have as of right now would be 430. And I know that a lot of problems, a lot of Protestants say, oh, that's really late, that's really late. And you say, well, guys, remember that in the year 431, the Council of Ephesus was still discussing Christology, and we actually took almost 700 years to get our Christology straight. So in the year 430, that's still the early church. The early church is from-- - What did that manuscript say from 430? It's specifically about Mary. - It's about the narratives of Mary being bodily, assumed in the heaven. So in those writings that we have-- - And who is the writings from? - St. Epiphanius. St. Epiphanius was a Syriac father writing in Syriac. He talked about Mary being bodily taken up in the heaven, but here's what he says. This is fascinating. St. Epiphanius says that Mary actually did die. She had a natural death, right? And you can read this in his Panerion. I think it's Panerion, I wanna say it's Panerion 80, either 79 or 80. Panerion just means bread box, right? That was his writings when he's talking about the Christian faith. - And so when he's writing, what years he writing? - Like around the year 430. - In the early early writings. - When he discovered those manuscripts. - When they were discovered, it would have been in the St. Epiphanius. We've known about him for quite a long time. We've known about his manuscripts for a few hundred years, at least like in the Middle Ages, I know that in the Middle Ages, people knew about St. Epiphanius. His writings have really survived. The vast majority of Christian writings we do not have from the early, we only have a few surviving ones, but we have St. Epiphanius. And actually I'm sorry, St. Epiphanius was at the end of the fourth century. So at the end of the fourth century is when he's writing in his, so like in the 300s and early 300s, is where he talks about the mother of God, Mary, being taken up bodily into heaven. But the tradition around this is that Mary actually did die that she did have a natural death. That Jesus appeared to his mom and said, "Your time here on earth is done. "I'm going to have you come to heaven "to fulfill your role as queen of heaven." And I know that when Protestants hear queen of heaven, I know that that scandalizes a lot of Protestants, so we can talk about that too if you like, but I'm just telling you what the narrative say. Then you have to fulfill your role in heaven. So you get to decide how you want me to take you into heaven. And Mary said, I tell talking to her son to all the word Jesus Christ. She said, I want to be like you in all things. I want to be conformed to you in all things. So if you died, I'm going to die, let me die. So the tradition is that Mary died, right? - What year do you guys believe she died? - It would have happened sometime in the '60s when it's believed, sometime in the '60s, that Mary died, it would have been like in the early '60s. - What is the tradition about what she was doing for after Jesus' sins? - So she was, so actually we read about it in the book of Acts, like in Acts chapter one, we see that she was with the disciples. - So she was kind of like a part of that early church. - She was part of the early church. She was praying, I see her praying. She was there at Pentecost. But what these writings tell us is that she died. And then three days later, after her death, her body was taken up into heaven and reunited with her soul. Now, this is where we have to be really, really careful about the dogmatic teachings of the church. Because the dogmatic definition of the Catholic church says that at the end of Mary's natural life, she was bodily assumed into heaven. The dogmatic definition doesn't say whether she died or not. So what that means is that you can be a faithful Catholic and you can believe, you can say, you know what, that story about Jesus coming to Mary and saying that you get to choose how I'm gonna take you into heaven, I don't know if that's credible, so I'm not gonna believe that. I'm just going to believe that she never died and she was just taken up bodily into heaven. You can be a good faithful Catholic and believe that. Or you can believe, no, I think Mary did die. And I believe she did die and on the third day, her body was taken up into heaven, reunite with her soul. You can hold the either position and you're still in line with the dogmatic definition of the assumption, which is at the end of her natural life. However, if she died or she didn't die, the important thing is that at the end of her natural life, she was taken bodily into heaven and the reason that there's controversy, the reason that there's controversy over the end of Mary's natural life, because in the early church, there are some people that said that Mary did die and there's others that say that she didn't die. And St. Epiphanius even talks this in the Panerian as he's writing it, he's saying, you know what, there's a lot of controversy about if Mary died or not, let me try and figure it out. And as he does his research and he continues to write, is when he basically says that he's coming to the conclusion that she did die. - And when does the hyperdualia start? - When does hyperdualia start as action? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So we have evidence from as early as the third century, so the early 200s, we have a prayer that was found that was inscribed in a cave and the prayer was too Mary and the prayer was asking Mary to pray for whoever wrote the prayer. So we have archeological evidence for it as early as the early third century. So in the same way that when like non-Christians, like Muslims or atheists say Christians didn't believe that Jesus was God until the year 325. And we say, no, we have the writings of the church fathers that have survived and we have all of this archeological evidence like what just came out that says that Jesus was God. Wait, like if a non, you know, if a Protestant or a non-Christian wants to say, you know, you Christians, you know, there's no evidence that this hyperdualia thing was ever a thing. You can say, no, we have prayers that go all the way back to the early third century. And there's actually some archeologists that actually thinks that it could actually go to the middle of the 100s of the second century. There's like issues, like they think that it's around that range. We can say, oh, we also have evidence of hyperdualia of Mary as well. - Yeah, no, I think that's all fascinating. I think the tricky part is then like the questions still remains of like, okay, so. - And I didn't even, yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't even get to the positive evidence. The first writings of it is in the late 300s. You have this archeological evidence of the 100s. - From around the third century. - Right, possibly the 100s, but I still think that the majority is that that prayer is from like probably the early third century. - Okay, so third century. - But you don't have it being defined as a dogma until 1950. - Right. - So that's the part where, and now. - Why did it take so late to define it? - Well, respectfully, like when we see Mary, I think sometimes Protestants don't give Mary enough props. - Right. - Okay, punchline there. - Right, right, right, yeah. - However, it seems like some Catholics, and again, I don't want to assume this is the official teaching or this is nominal Catholics, where Mary's almost like the second Jesus. Like she's almost like the fourth person of the Trinity. - No, yeah. - There's a hyper obsession with Mary in all things. And I'm not talking about just like venerating her and respecting her. - Right. - Like a lot of the imagery, she's like in everything. - Right. - You know, and so that seems like an innovation that took thousands of years to develop to this place of like, she's up there with Jesus or just right below Jesus, you know. And again, like why does that take a, you know, almost 2000 years for it to be fully, you know, a dogma in the church. - Sure, so the Catholic Church actually told us why it defined the bodily assumption of Mary when it did in 1950. - So here's, you know, we also have to understand how the church works because the church only gives dog, usually for the most part in 95% of cases. The church only gives dogmatic definitions to things when there is a such a big controversy that the church is on the verge of schism over it. So for in the fourth century, we had the Aryan crisis. Aryanism spread all throughout the East, 80% of the Christians in the East were Aryan heretics. So that's why they had to have, you know, the Council of Nicaea and they had to define it that the divinity of Jesus Christ. It doesn't mean that it wasn't a believer beforehand. It just means that the church in an extraordinary act of the Magisterium had to come together to make sure that everybody universally, the universe of church knew this is orthodoxy here. You cannot deviate from this. In the case of the bodily assumption of Mary, the church told us that the reason that it was defined in the year 1950 is because, you know, 1950 was right after two World Wars. We had two World Wars, you know, the first half of the 20th century was the bloodiest century in recorded history. There was so much death, there was so much evil, so much, you know, disregard for human life that the Catholic church in Herprudence said, let us give a dogmatic definition to the bodily assumption of Mary so that the world can know that the body is also sacred and the body is also holy. And to remind us that when we die, we do not, you know, our bodies do not stay in the grave forever at the second coming when Christ returns, we are gonna get our bodies back. So we have a resurrection, we're gonna get our bodies back, so we have to respect our bodies, we have to stop killing each other, and we have to remember that our bodies are also sacred because, you know, in the 40 after World War II, you know, the morality, obviously, the, you know, the morale of the world after two World Wars was devastation, right? Here in America, we didn't feel it that much, but the rest of the world was devastated from the war, so the Pope in Italy in Rome said, we're gonna define this because, you know, this part of the world needs to be reminded of the sanctity and the holiness of the body and that we're going to be like Mary when Christ returns, we're all gonna be in heaven, bodily as well. And to respond to your point where you said about how sometimes Catholics treat Mary like, she's like the second Jesus or the fourth person of the Trinity, the answer is no, absolutely not. Mary is not the second Jesus, he's the second Eve. She's woman, she's Eve before the fall. The Catholic Church teaches that Mary is just a creature and that Jesus is of infinitely more value than her because he's God. God is infinitely of more value than his greatest creation. So Mary is not a divine person, she is a human person that was given a special grace from God because she participated according to God's will, God willed for this woman that he chose to participate in salvation history. So she's not God, she's not a second Jesus, she's not part of the Holy Trinity. She is the most unique Christian that has ever lived because she is the only Christian in history, the only Christian that can say that she actually had Jesus as an embryo in her womb that developed and that she gave birth to him and that she raised him and that she changed his diapers and that she took him to the temple. She had a unique relationship with Jesus that none of us could ever have. So she's unique in that respect, but also like when you talk about like how the reverence for Mary and like the teachings and the beliefs about Mary that they came maybe a few hundred years later on, I would say actually just go back to scripture, read how the woman in Genesis three, the woman in Revelation 12, how the angels speak stir, sing hail full of grace in Luke one. You know, Jesus calling her a woman, Jesus giving her to the Apostle John, Mary being the one that actually influences Jesus to perform his first public miracle in John chapter two at the wedding at Cana, which by the way, when you read John chapter two, it says that Jesus' disciples started to believe that Jesus was God, started to believe in him because of this miracle that he performed, which he only performed because his mom, Mary, asked him to. So you can stick to just the Bible alone. Just for the Bible alone, you can see that Mary has a prominent role. - Yeah, I would say the Bible, you describing which you describe and I don't mean this in a pejorative way. I've never heard that before, super fascinating, but to me, when you describe it that way, it's from one standpoint, I'm like, that's cool that you guys have a systematic theology for it. But one other standpoint, I've heard Calvinist define why double predestination is a thing. - Double predestination is right, right, right. - Peasing together a bunch of verses the same way. So I'm like, man, we have great minds from every single stream that could piece together these teachings and that like when you piece it together and you go, oh, that's fine, that's a good argument. I guess my question is like, is there any concern or is there any possibility from your perspective that like Mary was popular, therefore the dogmas came versus the dogmas came because this is what the church always believed in. You're saying this has been passed down. - What's the church always? - You know what I mean? I think it sounds like, man, Mary was popular and there was a time in the crisis in the world and all this sort of stuff. And so they defined this dogma instead of the other way around where like, you're saying this is believed by Jesus and the apostles. - These beliefs were always present in the church and we can actually show it because all you gotta do is read the writings that we do have from the early church. And we see that the earliest Christians, they referred to Mary as the new Eve or the second Eve. A lot of the early Christians in the East. - I'm with you on that. - In Syria, yeah. - I'm with you on the second Eve. I'm talking about the assumption. I'm just connecting to this. - Now it was in the early church as well. So the people that are the church. - Like Polycarp and Clement and Ignatius are writing that Mary ascended to heaven? - There's a lot of things that they didn't mention. They don't mention that about this. Like I said, remember, the earliest that we have is like the late fourth century, right? And then it becomes like we get an explosion of it like in the year 430. The earliest that we have is in the late fourth century. But remember that there's a lot of other writings, like the writings of St. Papius, right? We don't have any of his writings and we know that he wrote a lot according to other church fathers. But none of his writings survived. We have a lot of writings from other church fathers that didn't survive. And by the way, we're actually discovering more and more, you know, archeologists are discovering more and more writings from the early church period from the first 700 years that actually confirmed things. - So you're saying you think there'll be writings possibly discovered that that could confirm-- - It's possible, regardless. - That's speculation. But the important thing is that these beliefs, when they entered, you know, as far as we have them, right? The survival writings that we have, you know, we have them only as early as the late fourth century. The important thing is that in the late fourth century, we had them and then by the year 430, these ideas, these beliefs exploded. And there was never, ever, ever, ever, ever a single person that ever disputed those beliefs. Because even earlier in the church, we had heretics that were also writing that were saying, oh, Jesus and the apostles taught this and all of the Orthodox Christians would say, no, Jesus and the apostles did not teach this. - Sure, you had the heresy of narcissism come up. - Right, exactly. - There was also, but correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there also councils that got overturned around the time of the iconoclast, iconoclast? - Yeah, there was a there massive council that happened and then it got overturned, they got overturned, they got overturned. - No, not a church council. - Okay, a gathering of people together to decide on, and again, I don't have a huge issue with the veneration of saints. Like I think if you guys have object symbol, give me an example. - You can be overturned there. - I have an issue with the anathema part, right? But I don't have an issue with-- - The practice. - The practice. If you guys have art and you want to bow to the art or kiss to art, I don't have a problem with that. I'm not going to do it. I don't think I should be anathema's eyes for not wanting to do it, but I don't have a problem if you do it, but wasn't there a council that then had a council that then flipped the council and then someone else came and the council got reinstated? - So the answer is no, because all of those councils that taught the iconoclast heresy, those were never councils that were received by the universal church. Those councils were councils that were called by the emperor and the emperor's mom. And because back then, there was no separation of church and state and there was a distinction about that separation. These councils, which we call robber councils, were councils where the bishops were forced to participate and the Roman emperor was calling all the shots and he basically was forcing the results of the council, but those councils were never ever received by the church, East and West. They were never received. So basically, the Orthodox Christians can say, yeah, let the emperor have his little councils. We're not going to receive it because it's false. They're spreading heresy. So just because something is called the council, doesn't mean that it's authoritative. The question is, was this council authoritative or not? Was this council ecumenical, meaning was it received by the universal church? And those robber councils were never, ever, ever received by the universal church. - Did the second Nicene council get overturned at some point and then got put back a place? - So the second Nicene council was accepted by the universal church and then there were heretics that held their own heretical councils against it, but those heretical councils were never accepted by the universal church. So the question is, what did the universal church accept and believe? - But those councils had tons of bishops and all kinds of other folks at these things. - At the heretical councils? Yes, because remember that when you study Christian history, church history, you see that in the East because the Roman emperor was in the East, he was in Constantinople. If there were, whenever there's a Roman emperor who had false ideas about Christianity, he would force those ideas on the church and it was always the Western church. And I know that the Orthodox are gonna get upset but it's just the facts. It was the Bishop of Rome, it was the Pope, it was the Western church that would always have to go in and would have to basically clean house and pull the Eastern churches out of the mess that they found themselves in, not by their own doing but because they were forced to by the emperor, by the Byzantine emperor. So whenever there was a heretical Byzantine emperor that he would have his councils or his, you know, the church, the Orthodox church never accepted those. So yeah, even after Nicaea II, there were other councils that were held by Iconoclasts but Nicaea II had already anathematized the Iconoclasts and Nicaea II was received by the universal church. So what that means is that all of those other councils, they can be ignored because those councils are held by anathematized heretics and they don't have any authority in Christchurch, yeah. - Interesting, yeah, I mean, it's interesting how two and what define, you know, what is excommunicated, I guess. Is it true that the Bishop of Rome was not at the first Nicaea encounter? - The Bishop of Rome wasn't at any of the first councils because all of those councils happened in the East, right? Nicaea was in the East, Constantinople, Ephesus, Calcedon, you know, Constantinople II and III and Nicaea II. - Yeah. - I think only Nicaea II might have been, no, not even Nicaea II. All of those, and here's the interesting thing. The Pope wasn't present at those councils, right? But the Pope doesn't have to be present at those councils. The Pope only has to ratify the councils. We have examples of councils. - So the Pope was a bishop of Rome, just chilling. He's not pulling up to the councils. - Not because he doesn't want to be there, but because he's in the West and traveling to the councils having an East, that's difficult. So the council-- - So he doesn't want to travel. And then they have this whole thing. They decide to define the infinity of Jesus. - The divinity of Jesus. - Right. - And then you're saying he could have ratified that? - He had to ratify it. And as a matter of fact, when you read the council of Nicaea in 325, the guy who was leading it, the guy who was in charge of the council, his name, he was the bishop of Cordoba. His name is escaping me right now. I don't know if you remember the name, the bishop of Cordoba, and he actually tells us, the council tells us that it was the Pope, the bishop of Rome, Pope Sylvester, that told him that he was going to be in charge of the council. So when the pope doesn't show up-- - You're saying he sent someone? - He sends delegates, and the delegate is in charge, and the delegate is in charge. - So even though the pope wasn't at the first council in Nicaea, he sent someone? - The pope always, and every single council has representation, and those representatives go back to the pope and tell them what the council did, what the acts of the councils were, and what the bishops in union with him, what they said, and the conclusions they arrived at, and then the pope is the one who has to ratify it, and he has to say, yes, this is received by the universal church because the pope is the head of the universal church, and if the pope receives it, then the universal church receives it, and everybody that's in the universal church, they are bound by conscience to receive whatever the pope ratifies. So the pope doesn't have to be there, his representatives were always there, and the pope has to ratify it, even if he wasn't there, the pope has to ratify it. And you know what's something really interesting? Those early church councils that the pope didn't attend, they explicitly teach the papacy. The council of Ephesus, the council of Constantinople III, and the council of Nicaea II, the same council that said that iconodulism is the Orthodox faith, that same council also teaches that the bishop of Rome, who wasn't even there at the council, that he is the head of the Christian church, of all Christian churches, and Ephesus in Constantinople III also teaches the same thing. - So then, how do you, I mean, when the Orthodox are like, yeah, nah. - What is your response to that? - They're wrong, the Orthodox are wrong. Because I tell them, I always thought that I said, go and read your own councils, read Ephesus, Constantinople III, and Nicaea II. Those councils teach the papacy. This is what those councils teach. Those three councils, three of the seven, teach that the papacy is a divine institution that was instituted by Jesus Christ, that was given by Jesus Christ to the church, that it will always persist into Christ's returns, and that the church of Rome can never lose the faith, can never defect, and will always be supreme, and that the church of Rome will always be the head of all Christian churches. And they say that it's part of the divine promise that it can never change. That's what those councils teach. - But to be fair, you did also say in your debate with James White, that if the Catholic church were to ever become affirming of homosexuality-- - Then it's false, yup, it's false. - Yup, yup, absolutely. - Interesting. - What that means is that Catholicism is easy to prove wrong. All they have to do is mess up one time, and if they ever mess up one time, we can ignore Catholicism, and we should. If Catholicism is false, let's ignore it. If it's false, let's ignore it. So that's the cool thing is that we have a way, we have a, we put all of our cards on the table. We've told you exactly how to prove us wrong, how to falsify us. If we are wrong, show us that we're wrong so that we can repent of our errors and do it. But it hasn't been done, and these ecumenical councils that are authoritative, teach that it's impossible for that to happen, and that the church of Rome when that was the faith, and we even early Saints, in the early church, they taught the same thing. Saint Clement of Rome, he was the Bishop of Rome, and he was writing as an authority to the church in Corinth. Corinth is in the east, and he wrote, and he wrote, and he was actually giving them commands, and he doesn't even mention their bishop. And we knew who the bishop, depending on when the letter was written, we have all of the names of the bishops, even in the church in Corinth, we know who the bishop would have been. He doesn't name the bishop, and he's giving them commands, and he's telling them what to do. Saint Ignatius of Antioch says that you don't have a Christian church if you don't have a bishop, and then in his letter to the church of Rome, he says that the church of Rome presides over all of the other churches in love, that the church of Rome is the church that teaches all of their churches. Saint Ignatius of Lyon, in the year 180, and against Pharisees, Saint Ignatius of Lyon, who is a saint, you know, and all of these saints are also saints in the Orthodox churches. Saint Ignatius of Lyon, and against Pharisees, he says that all of the Christian churches in the world need to be in agreement with the teachings of the church of Rome, because the church of Rome has always and will always maintain the Orthodox faith. - Interesting. - Yeah, I would love to see you explore that conversation. Help me understand the idea. When people going back to Mary or the saints, and they're praying, would you say praying two or praying, asking for prayer? - The Catholic church has never said in any of her official documents that we pray to saints. A lot of people are surprised when they hear that. There isn't any document in the Catholic church that says that we pray to saints. That's colloquial way of speaking. When the Catholic church teaches officially, you know, in her capacity as an authentic authority, whenever the intercession of the saints is brought up, it's always asking the saints to intercede for us. - Okay. - Colloquially, you're praying to someone to ask them to pray for you. - Only in English, because of the word pray in English. - What's the point of that, though, when you have Jesus as the only mediator that we need between man and God in Hebrews? - Right, right. So if you, and also in Second Timothy 2.5, but if you go to, if you go to, so Hebrews is clear that Jesus is the high priest who is the mediator of our salvation, right? We don't go to the saints for salvation. We know that our salvation is found in Jesus Christ alone. Second Timothy 2.5 is the famous verse that says that there's only one mediator between man and God, the man Christ uses. But whenever Protestants bring that up, they always cut off the rest of the, like this, they literally cut the sentence and have. The sentence keeps going on to the next verse. And it literally says, Jesus Christ, there's only one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ who gave himself up as a sacrifice for us since, right? If you go to Second Timothy 2.5. But if you backtrack to the first verse of Second Timothy, it's literally saying that we all need to pray for each other. And the reason that we would ask the saints in heaven to pray for us for their prayers is for the exact same reason that I would ask you to pray for me because we all need to pray for each other according to Second Timothy 2.1. But here's why specifically we want the saints to be praying for us as well. Because James 5 says that the prayer of a righteous person avails more. - Sure, I'm right. - And there's a lot of passages in the New Testament where that literally say that sin hinders our prayers, that if we're in sin and we pray, God does not hear our prayers, the New Testament literally says that. So we go to holy people and ask them to pray for us because we know that the prayers of holy people are stronger than our prayers. And there's nobody more holy than the saints that are already with God in heaven. So we can ask them to intercede for us and we know we can do this because the Bible teaches that the saints in heaven are aware of the saints on earth. Hebrews talks about that, the Gospels talk about that. And Revelation literally shows this happening in Revelation chapter five verse eight and Revelation eight verse three, those two passages explicitly say that the saints and the angels in heaven pray for the saints on earth and that they actually present the prayers of the saints on earth before the throne of God. - Yeah, I understand that. I'm saying you say that it's about praying or asking them to pray for us, but like the Hail Mary prayer, which is oftentimes given as penance, right? Like if you send a certain way to go say 10 Hail Marys, is that like? - Yeah, sometimes we do it for the six seconds. - That sounds like a prayer directly to Mary, not a prayer asking Mary to pray for us. - Actually it is, watch. So this is the Hail Mary prayer. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou amongst women and blessed are the food of thou in Jesus. So that comes from scripture. That all comes from Luke chapter one. - Then the next part of this is- - Pray for us sinners, I see it okay. - Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. So we're just asking her to pray for us. That's all it is. - Interesting, okay. So have you ever read Ria Christianity? - Yeah, I did, yeah. - When I was 14, 15, that was one of those books that I- - Okay, so you haven't read it recently? - No, I haven't read that book in years. - I came back to it and there's a lot of really good stuff in there. - Oh yeah. - There's some callbacks to, I always say his name wrong or I always get corrected. Thomas Aquinas. - Aquinas, Aquinas, yeah. This callbacks to that with natural law. - Right, right. - It's a fire book and I'm a big C.S. Lewis guy. Like I think the apologetics aspects, right, that Lord Liar Lunatic to the creative side of Chronicles and Arnie is something I show my kids. I love C.S. Lewis. So in your paradigm, I can ask C.S. Lewis to pray for me. - If C.S. Lewis isn't heaven, you can say C.S. Lewis, pray for me, right? - We personally don't know if he's in heaven or not, but the church would actually have the competency to tell us if he's in heaven or not. So for example, here's a really good example of when the church says something and it doesn't mean that the church made it up out of thin air, like when the church canonizes a saint, canonizing a saint, all that means is that the church is recognizing and telling the world that this saint who lived a thousand years ago that he is indeed in heaven, that we know that he's in heaven. - So you guys would never canonize someone that's not Catholic? - Well, actually no. - Well, is this some Native Americans that got canonized, right? - Well, they were Catholic, though. - They were Catholic. - The Native Americans that came together, but okay, now we're getting into something else that we can get into. There are saints in the Catholic church that were canonized that were not explicitly Catholic during their lifetime. - Interesting. - Yes, so even if you're not, 'cause here's what the church teaches, right? The Council of Florence and the Council of Trent teach that there is no salvation outside the church, right? - Right, I'm glad you said that. - Yes, they teach us there's no salvation outside the church. - Okay. - Vatican II repeated that. A lot of people don't know this. Vatican II repeats what Florence and Trent said that there is no salvation outside the church, but then Vatican II goes on to say this. Vatican II, and not so many words, but Vatican II basically says that you can be a visible member of the church, but it's possible that you can be an invisible member of the church. So all of those saints that the Catholic church has canonized that were not visibly members of the church during their lifetime, the Catholic church now knows that those people were invisible members of the Catholic church. - And how do they know that? - And what makes you an invisible member. So what you just asked, it's about the canonization process. It requires miracles. You have to have miracles that are bona fide, tested miracles to know. So the way that it works is that people start like there's like a movement like at the local level of people asking saints for intercessions, right? The local bishop has to see this and approve of it. And there has to be a miracle at the local level. If there is a bona fide miracle that is like proven to be a miracle, like there's no other natural explanation for it, it is miraculous, then the bishop can send it up to Rome, right? And now Rome, the Vatican has to investigate the veneration of the saint. And now there's two more miracles that have to happen for a total of three miracles. There are two miracles that have to take place in order for the church to be able to officially canonize or recognize. Yes, we know that this person is in heaven and we can trust the church's pronouncements on such things because the church is protected by the Holy Spirit from ever teaching anything erroneous, from ever teaching anything erroneous to her members, right? And you guys, I mean, why don't you guys can protest it with multiple miracles? I know lots of Protestants that are multiple of documented miracles can protest it. - It's possible, but it's never happened. - It's never happened yet, but let's say that Catholics, that Catholics start, let's say that Catholics get together and they say, we're gonna ask C.S. Lewis to pray for us. We're gonna pray for C.S. Lewis' soul. And at the same time, we're gonna ask him if he is in heaven, because God is outside of space in time and if C.S. Lewis is in heaven or if he's in hell, then he is outside of space in time. Let's say a group of Catholics come together and they say, we're going to pray for C.S. Lewis' soul and we're going to ask for his intercession. And let's say a miracle happens and it has to be proven that it is attributed to the veneration of C.S. Lewis, right? And then it gets kicked up to the Vatican and another miracle happens, then the Vatican or two more miracles happen and they have to be, and by the way, they always get atheist, they always bring atheist into test this. The church says the atheist, let the atheist go and see if this is a bona fide miracle, right? And if it does happen, then the church concludes, says this person was an invisible member of the church of Jesus Christ and is now in heaven, a visible member of the church and cannot be venerated. And we can now, as a church universally, ask for the intercession of this person. - Do you personally think C.S. Lewis is in heaven? - I would say yes. - Okay. - I would say so. - Absolutely, I think so. - But you said he could be in hell. - It's possible until the church tells us otherwise, like we don't know, we don't have, we don't have infallible certitude, like personally, like we can just give our opinion. It's very possible that C.S. Lewis could be in heaven. And if he is in heaven, he is praying for us and we can ask him to pray for us. And the church, you know, if it gets to that point where miracles start happening, the church would be able to tell us definitively that C.S. Lewis is in heaven. It is possible that it can't happen. Because the church has done that with like Eastern saints, Orthodox saints or Oriental saints, you know, the Assyrian church of the East, there are saints from after the schism that the Catholic church has said, yes, these people are in heaven. - Okay, but there is a chance he could also be in hell. - There is a chance, there is a chance that any, you know, any of us could end up in hell, right? There is always that chance. But that's why we always pray for the souls of all the deceased, of all the faithful departed. We pray for their souls. And then at the same time, we can say, you know, if you are with the Lord in heaven, pray for me. And if miracles happen, that can get the ball rolling for canonization. - Interesting, okay. All right guys, we're gonna go over to the Patreon exclusive segment of this conversation. So if you wanna see the full extended version of this conversation, as well as all of our future conversations have access to the chat, be able to ask our guest questions. You could sign up for a free seven day trial. Patreon, the link is in the description and a pinned comment below. Here's a little preview of this conversation. All right, I'll see you over on Patreon. Peace. - There are Catholics that are protesting the Pope. And they still like the title of Catholic. And they still want the title of Catholic. But by definition, I can say you guys have money to the waters because now we have thousands and thousands of denominations. - Oh, we don't have to. - That's an exchange. - Actually, no, actually no. - There's like hundreds. - With all disrespect. - Don't say the 30,000. - The last numbers that I checked is actually now in the 40,000. - No, no, no. - I think there's a lot of additions. And like even through this conversation, like you've had to explain things to me multiple ways and help me understand the schism over the mass, the Latin mass, and like the Mel Gibson types. - Oh, yeah, the neutron Catholics. - Yeah. And you're saying, no, there has to be this other priesthood. And we have to create this disparity between clergy and laity. And I'm just saying, I just don't see that in scripture. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha...