Sola Scriptura Debate | Isaiah W. Long vs Patrick Hogan

welcome to the Isaiah W Long YouTube channel today Isaiah will be debating Patrick Hogan a Catholic apologist now I'd first like to introduce your well-known host Isaiah W long if you'd enter the stage hello hello it's nice to have you nice to be on here and Isa will be debating the Catholic Layman Patrick Hogan Patrick Hogan has his own YouTube channel that will be linked in the description if you'd like to introduce him to the stage all right good evening Brothers good evening now I expect that today be civilized mildly ecumenical respectful and intellectual may we have class sophistication and respect truly to find truth we must enter this with a desire to be honest open caring compassionate and to show the Light of Christ because in the end we are here to worship our Lord and to gather in his name if you'd like to have we're going to begin with an opening statement we'll move on to rebuttals a cross-examination and closing statements we will begin with Isaiah W long with his five minute opening statement Isaiah if you'd like to begin uh let me yes thank you very much I'm so so very pleased to be here uh and I want to first of all thank brother Patrick Hogan for being a part of this this evening's debate and I want to thank uh brother dexon TR for um moderating today's debate today we we delve into the doctrine of solar scriptura is solar scriptor it is a foundational principle of the Protestant Reformation which asserts that scripture alone is the supreme authority in all matters of faith and practice this Doctrine holds uh a common Evangelical understanding of a wrong understanding of solar scrip Torah is that the doctrine means that scripture is our only Authority this is not true this Doctrine holds that while tradition and reason have their place they are always subordinate to and must be measured by the teachings of the Bible always soliscript Torah is not a rejection of tradition or the role of the church but rather a claim about the ultimate authority of scripture it maintains that the Bible as the inspired and in irant word of God provides the definitive standard by which all other teachings and practices must be evaluated this principle is rooted in the belief that scripture alone contains the complete and unalterable revelation of God's will for Humanity which is the POS historic position of the Christian Church the Catholic position emphasizes the authority of both scripture and however the problem or puts them on equal footing whereas the Protestant view of scripture and tradition both being authoritative um has scripture a bit above tradition however the problem with the Catholic view is that it can lead to ambiguity and confusion about which teachings are genuinely authoritative when tradition is placed on par with scripture it can create a situation where the interpretive authority of the church is not clearly delineated potentially leading to conflicting teachings and practices which we have seen so uh so much um in Catholic history so much of it in contrast solar script Torah provides a clear and singular source of divine Authority it allows Believers to access God's truth directly Through the Bible ensuring that all teachings can be tested against the unchanging word of God this principle upholds the purity of the Gospel message and guards against the introduction of erroneous or contradictory doctrines during the Middle Ages the Catholic Church's emphasis on tradition and its own interpretive interpretative Authority led to the introduction and normalization of various practices that were not grounded in scripture for instance the veneration of relics the extensive use of indulgences and the elevation of saints to a level of intercessor intercessory Authority often overshadowed uh often overshadowed the centrality of Christ and the sufficiency of his sacrifice the Reliance on tradition and ecclesiastical or decrees uh sometimes without adequate scriptural backing a lot of times without adequate scriptural backing allowed for practices that scripture explicitly warns against the church's Authority while intended to guide the faithful uh became entangled with and sometimes perpetuated practices that scripture does not endorse leading to what many would argue were idolatrous elements solos scriptor asserts that the Bible is the ultimate standard by which all teachings and practices must be measured by returning to the authority of scripture alone we can afo um we can avoid the pit WS of unexamined traditions and ensure that our faith practices are in alignment with the teachings of Christ remember the Reformation did not want to abolish all tradition only that which could not be backed up by sacred scripture the Reformation emphasis on solos scrip Torah sought to correct these deviations in the Catholic Church by reaffirming the Bible's Authority and encouraging reform based on its clear teachings the lessons from the Middle Ages illustrate why it is essential to have a singular unchanging source of authority to safeguard against practices that can drift away from the gospel and to maintain the purity of Christian worship and Doctrine as we explore this Doctrine today I invite you to consider the clarity and consistency that solar scripture offers in understanding and applying God's revelation and how it serves as a safeguard for the Integrity of the Christian faith thank you thank you very much Isaiah and we will be moving on to Patrick's opening statement all right five minutes thank you brother so uh I would first like to thank brother uh uh dexon for green moderate this and Isaiah W long for agreeing to have this debate with me you know I think it's great that we can have like a debate about this you know like a friendly dialogue no burning people hopefully um so Isaiah briefly addressed this I'm gonna briefly address this also solos script turet does not necessarily equal solo scriptura which in memes you know a lot of people put this as like Jim Bob alone so you know it's just the Bible and everyone's own interpretations so no that's not what solo scriptura means um however it would mean essentially that scripture is formally sufficient for all Doctrine I believe that is fair to say and uh the scriptures alone are infallible essentially so it is the only infallible rule of Faith um so my first problem with this is going to be the fact that the church does not have objective Authority in this system so according to solos scriptura essentially the Bible alone is the only infallible rule of Faith right um and the church is still a rule of Faith however the church is only a rule of faith in so much as it aligns with scripture and obviously we would agree that I mean obviously what we're saying has to align with scripture right but the problem is is whose interpretation of scripture is it my interpretation of scripture the church needs to align with or is it I don't know like is it Vladimir Putin's interpretation of scripture now one argument one uh Trope I see people falling into is they accidentally essentially deny the percu of scripture which and the percu of scripture is basically the scripture is not I mean you know like incomprehensible it is capable to be understood that is not the argument I am making here obviously the scriptures can be understood but there still needs to be an objective Authority which can help us to interpret the scripture um and I also would like to argue that I don't believe that the scriptures teach solos scriptura obviously I don't believe that I'm arguing against solos scriptura uh now I'm aware of different verses which uh have been used to argue for solos scriptura from the Bible and I'm sure that those will be brought up later in the debate however we are in a situation where you know I'm trying not to Yap for the whole debate so I'm I'm only going to be making positive uh citations for my view so I will uh start with Colossians 4:16 uh when St Paul States and when this epistle shall have been read with you cause that it be read also in the Church of the lisans and that you read that which is of the lisans so in here an Apostolic Authority is being given to something which is outside of the Sacred Scriptures um now you might notice that you open the Bible there is no epistle to the lisans so ultimately no matter what Apostolic Authority is being given to something outside of the scriptures and my second appeal is going to be to first Thessalonians 2:15 once it states therefore Brethren Stand Fast and hold to the Traditions which ye have been taught whether by word or our epistle now I'm not sure whether or not Isaiah W long my brother and Christ I'm I'm going to call my brother not my opponent for the remainder of this debate I'm not sure if you would argue that all these Traditions ended up in the Sacred Scriptures however I don't think that it's good faith to make this argument because uh when it says the things which have been taught by word this is referring to oral Traditions which we are being ordered to Stand Fast to and everything that's in the Sacred Scriptures is either the gospels the book of Acts or an epistle uh unless you don't consider Revelation to be a pistle format but ultimately oral Traditions are not in uh the apostolic Traditions which are being mentioned here and it's not referring to the Old Testament here either uh because that was already written down so those could not be the oral Traditions which have been uh which are being referenced here so ultimately Apostolic Authority is being given here to something outside of the scriptures um and I think I might actually be almost out of time so I'm going to skip through some of this uh the last thing I'm just going to mention is that there are some people which will make an argument from the church fathers for solos scriptura and I understand this argument and I think it's actually good to argue from the fathers in this I'm not berading people for arguing this way your time is almost up it's it's almost up okay I'm I'm just going to make this quick then so basically people they they're failing to distinguish between material sufficiency and formal sufficiency when they make this argument because we all believe that the Bible contains all truths um however these people would not have agreed that the Bible is self-interpreting for example so yeah that's about it I yield my time all right thank you very much Patrick and uh we will be turning to Isaiah's rebuttal which will last five minutes Isaiah if you'd like to introduce yourself to stage you're muted brother you uh yeah you're muted thank you I thank you very much um I appreciate that I being called brother in this debate and I I I much appreciate that um I would like to address I was over here taking a few notes um from my uh brother's uh opening statement um and a few points he makes he makes the argument that um that it uh that The Church Must interpret what scripture means he he a uh I see a hole in my opponent's argument or my brother's argument my fault uh my brother's argument um he says that scripture is clear but then goes on to say that still the church has to have authority to interpret it and I would argue that if scripture is clear then we do not need an infallible magisterium to interpret that uh my brother has made comments uh elsewhere saying that um the church interpreting scripture is like the Supreme Court interpreting the Constitution and I bring this in because I would like to say to him I think it's relevant and I would like to say um no one the Supreme Court's a lot of thing but no one no one has ever accused the Supreme Court of being infallable um I I I don't I I I think that's a a weak uh AR arent uh he points to uh 1 Thessalonians 2:155 and talks about Apostolic Traditions uh although I would I would say that yes there are Traditions that are outside of the Bible there are Traditions that are inferred such as infant baptism uh that are so outside of the Bible but I would say that there are I would draw a parallel from the Catholic Church to the phis Pharisees Traditions uh I'm not calling the Catholics the modern day Pharisees but I uh it's similar to when in scripture Jesus refutes the Pharisees and says that their Traditions that they so supposedly got from Moses were in fact wrong uh they had made it up uh so in first Thessalonians he talks about Apostolic traditions and some of these traditions of the Catholic Church similar to the Pharisees their Traditions not going back to Moses these traditions of the Catholic church so clearly do not go back to the apostles there are Apostolic Traditions that go back to the apostles but this is not but there the there are a few that the Catholic Church teaches that are not part of them such as icon veneration uh which only goes back to about um the time of St John of Damascus the Council of hyas where we really start to see this take hold there are icons that are are made but the uh Church fathers the early church fathers so clearly have a disdain for icons U iconography of Jesus Christ mariology this uh elevation of Mary as mediat tricks of all R and um as the Queen of Heaven and all that the Catholic Church teaches concerning her uh so so clearly doesn't go back and these are not just a Protestant uh telling you this this is uh his historians reputable historian secular historians some of them too will tell you this uh you think of uh prayers to the Saints although you see them sort of earlier I guess in around the 500s and when you start seeing them really start to come in uh they're nowhere near as um they're nowhere near what they would become uh so they still don't go back to the apostles that's icon veneration mariology and um prayers to Saints or asking a saint to pray for you the papacy so clearly does not go back to the apostles uh we see no record of the Pope until at least the 300s and even then there are several popes um and they are just the most important Bishops in the um in Christendom indulgences indulgences are uh one of the most late in inventions of the Catholic Church uh only going back to about the 1400s this was one of Martin Luther's major things uh that made him want to reform the Catholic church and the Episcopal Church system um you you you see that uh it doesn't go back to the apostles in fact St Jerome a great defender of the papacy and of what Rome would become as a church uh he himself says that the Episcopal structure of the church was not the practice of the Apostles that it in fact developed over time from a presbyterian form of government but after the apostles died slowly we see um certain people gaining too much power and we see people becoming Bishops so I would agree that there are Traditions that are found outside of the text of sacred scripture but they so clearly uh but those um so clearly go back to the apostles and and are inferred from scripture these ones that I've just mentioned here that the Catholic Church teaches infallibly quote unquote uh do not go back to the apostles also I would say about the church fathers the church fathers the earliest ones uh did believe in solar scriptura including the likes of St athanasius who I'm sure I will quote later uh so did clearly believe in solos scriptura to deny that they did is in my opinion uh uh silly but uh at that I have said about all I want to say um in response to his opening statement and I will yield back the rest of the time I have remaining thank you very much Isaiah and we will be moving on to um Patrick's rebuttal that will be five minutes Patrick if you'd like to enter the center stage all right thank you brother so uh all right let me get over here I took some notes on what you said earlier so earlier you made and I think this is an important thing to distinguish by the way is that solo scriptura is essentially it's not equal to solo scriptura so as you described it a modern Evangelical understanding which would just be like oh well you know it's just me and my Bible and like in my mom's basement on like a Discord call with some chuds like no that's it's important that we understand that's not what solos scripture or classically has meant however Trent horn talks about this actually ultimately yeah it's the principles are similar because the church is still um obviously The Church Must agree with the Sacred Scriptures the church cannot like teach heresy obviously that's not acceptable but the church doesn't have objective Authority in solos scriptura uh actually I've seen some people say it does and I I do plan on asking you about that later but the church does require objective Authority um I think because otherwise for example the Aryan crisis I'm sure you would would uh agree that uh the heretic Aries hereticus was not a like he was not interpreting the scriptures correctly right and so we needed to correct him and the way we did that was with ecumenical council actually and I understand Protestants do still accept The ecumenical councils but that's that's the example I'm giving for now and the second uh thing I'm going to address is you said the Catholic view can lead to ambiguity regarding uh Church teachings and which Traditions are actually from the apostles so what we have to believe essentially now I'm going to respond with this by saying that if you want to make the argument from uh like if you want to make the argument from the fruits of the Catholic teachings you can make that argument that's fine like that that's a fair that's a fair question that should be addressed don't get me wrong but uh you you say that the Catholic view can lead to ambiguity well the Protestant view is solos scriptura and obviously there isn't like 50 gajillion denominations but really the churches do split a lot trying to uphold to solos scriptura trying to hold to scripture alone that has caused way more way more Schism than the Catholic view has I think we can agree um so uh if you want to talk about ambiguity like for example redeem Zoomer has admitted that the church cannot bind your conscience is essentially like okay you have to believe this the church can't say that so uh what we can say how ever is like for example if I were to wake up tomorrow and I were to say like oh yeah Joe Biden is the fourth member of the Trinity okay so the church could not bind my conscience to believe that is heretical but they could still just say oh yeah believe that at your own risk but I think we can agree that a system which would cause less ambiguity is if we were just say okay well we have a magisterium which can help us to explain uh the part of scriptures which lead to theological debates such as infant baptism you know there's people who believe in solos scripture who deny infant baptism I don't believe that is very strongly made in scripture so the third point you seem to make is that solos scriptura is simplistic not in a bad way like it's it makes everything simpler okay and it's not needlessly complicated so again now we just enter the issue so if the Bible is interpreted the Bible ultimately you still are going to need some way of interpreting like for example um like you know we were dealing with a guy who uh recently said that God was going to take authority back from Jesus at the last day and I would like to debate that guy formally sometime like that is like a radical like a Sol scriptura if if we're just saying like it GNA be simplistic ultimately again we still need some form of interpretation objective interpretation to tell us like okay no God isn't going to like Thanos snap away Jesus's power on the day of judgment and the fourth view uh the fourth point I wrote down was that the Catholic view can lead to theological error um and uh the way you said this is basically because we're adding on Traditions so please be some of the Traditions you cited what's up please be wrapping up quickly yeah okay I'm sorry yeah I'll quit yapping yeah uh you you said that my problem is is just that like um we can all we can argue from scripture and we can argue from uh older Traditions that things like icon veneration I I know you really like talking about icon veneration like there are icons of Jesus which uh date like to the latest uh the like mid 4th Century so ultimately uh the origins of our teachings can be found in the very early church so yeah I yield my three seconds of time left thank you very much Patrick now we'll be moving on to the cross-examination phase we'll be beginning with Isaiah and of course we will do Patrick's Isaiah if you'd like to go ahead and present your argument and you are muted yeah bro you got to you got to take care of this mic man I keep muting my I keep muting myself out of respect sir all right Patrick this is where one of us is gonna burn our burn the other right okay so I I want to start by asking how do you determine which Traditions are author authoritative and which or not given that notal Traditions have the same level of acceptance or prominence uh normatively we would say through an ecumenical council um that would so for example like uh like with infant baptism we've had multiple councils which have clarified that that is a tradition which uh needs to be affirmed okay what would you say to the fact that there are ecumenical councils who have um uh they there are ecumenical counil councils who have so clearly denied some of your Church's teachings such as the Council of H which declared itself to be ecumenical so here's the thing I'm aware of the argument you're trying to make here you're trying to say the Council of hrea was ecumenical however I'll respond to that by saying can we really consider H Raa to be ecumenical when uh there were zero Patriarchs that were attending the council at the time um the it was really called for because the Byzantine Empire was in an iconic clasm phase you know you might be surprised to learn that the byzantines uh were very iconic clastic you know that's not the way it is nowadays but so ultimately um uh yeah you say that's ecumenical I would just respond by saying those aren't ecumenical councils um especially because the Council of hrea for example like I know I know you're probably going to say later that NAA 2 was really sketch but hrea literally had zero Patriarchs there it's it's not the equivalent of like if you and I were to declare an ecumenical council but like at the time they viewed it very similarly okay I'm not going to argue that hyria was ecumenical in fact I think all of the councils tyia second Nia I think they were all sus suspicious I think they were all reacting to each other in a political way I don't think any of them are ecumenical particularly iirm the six ecumenical councils um how do you reconcile the Catholic practice of venerating saints uh with the Bible's uh instruction to worship God alone when veneration of icons so clearly can tip over into uh worship of the Saints as we see in a lot of um as we see in a lot of um Latin American countries um we see that they almost worship the Saints okay and um so how do you reconcile that with the Bible's uh uh instruction that veneration and adoration and worship belong to God alone okay so you're you're kind of condensing different arguments in there together so veneration of saints for example I would I would argue that you can find that in scripture and I understand we're not arguing about the veneration of saints today if you want to have like an argument just dedicated to that we can definitely do that sometime you know maybe this will be like a recurring theme I don't know but you say for example that like Saint veneration can tip over into Saint worship so I would respond to that by saying that solos scriptura we could also just argue that could tip over into Bible worship and I know you're going to say like oh that's ridiculous I'm not worshiping the Bible I know I'm going to give you an example in the early church there was actually I forget what they called the Heretics you know I I learned the name and then I forget it for whatever reason they were putting because the Romans it was a tradition you know they would wear these amulets and they would use them as items they would literally commit idolatry with them right and you know they would put like scripture passages in them and basically commit idolatry with the scripture passages so you as a presbyterian would know more than anyone else that um you know we can make Idols out of anything if we want to like I I could make an idol out of arguing with you right now hypothetically so I uh I I see what you're saying but ultimately I don't believe that it is a reputation of these Traditions themselves that they could be abused and we could like you know become egregious Heretics because of them okay um I don't I don't I've made a slight change I don't think I want to go down that rabbit hole today uh you said in your um rebuttal no because there's another string I'm wanting to pull um you said in your rebuttal that uh you can find Icons of Christ himself in the mid fourth Century this is true but in response to these um icons you can see the um the church fathers condemning this you can see Church cids condemning this the creation of such uh you see um origin one of the church fathers who you know we can argue whether he was sus or not uh condemning this uh you can but you see Church fathers and you see sence condemning this icons none of which uh uh some of which do not have a question mark by their names um how do you reconcile the um uh uh Catholic Church's teaching of the necessity of icons with the early Church's condemnation when anyone seems to even make an image of Christ Jesus how do you reconcile that so the first thing I'm going to address is you cded origin and you briefly mentioned that there's a question mark next to that guy I just want to mention if iconic class want to use him or tulan for example okay origin was a Universalist okay so he thought everyone was going to be saved so like I I I would generally avoid citing him like I I don't ever site him unless I absolutely have to usually and the the truth is is there were issues which people debated about in the early church and obviously icons were one of those issues um I'm so unanimous consensus of the fathers is rare and a very high bar obviously you would agree it's not like the church father didn't agree on anything but there was a lot that they didn't agree on um and icons were were a more contested subject in the early church however it's disagreeing with a Church Father is some it's it's okay you know for example with uh I'm sure you know that uh St Thomas aquinus you know uh Blessed John dun scotus view on the Immaculate Conception was eventually favored over St Thomas's so it's okay for us to disagree with St Thomas on that issue that that doesn't create a theological issue for us it would create a theological issue if like okay everyone got together and they all agreed that icons were heretical and then we all de said like actually you have to worship icon that was the consensus of the of the early church up until about St John of Damascus and the Council of hyria and that sort of uh period right there the of the church was that we should have no icons nor pictures of Christ Jesus and the question is how do you reconcile the Catholic church and the later Church Catholic Church's uh teaching on icons considering that the universal uh consent of the early church does seem to be does appear to be from historical um historical uh digging and researching that is done by not just Protestants but by Catholics as well and by people who have no dog in this fight uh is that the early church uh did not allow for the use of icons or icons in worship there's one story of a bishop I'm forgetting his name at the moment walks into a church and sees a tapestry which is an icon of Christ and immediately tears it down and says it should have no place within the church and says go use it as a blanket for a poor man but don't bring that into the church and don't make icons how do you reconcile the early Church's teaching with the modern Catholic position and the position that would develop into the position of Saint I won't even call him Saint I think he was heretical John of Damascus and uh the later coun second second Council of NAA so I would first like to mention is that you are aware that we believe in development of Doctrine right okay so the old cop out the old cop out no I'm just telling you right now when you say that like oh well there were a lot of people in the early church that weren't okay with icons being used in the church now I want to say that most of them were okay with icons being used in other contexts but it is true that for example in the early church you would not walk into a church and it would be like you know an like a Byzantine Cathedral where there's icons plastered all over the walls for example that did develop over time but that is okay with us because we didn't just invent icons for example I'm I'm sure you would agree that we didn't just like wake up and decide like oh icons we're doing that now like you see it develop over time what you see it develop over time yeah okay but you would agree that like we didn't just wake up and like oh you know I guess we're kissing icons now like that that that that develop over yes but if it if it's a development and you're seeding the fact that it's a development here if it's a develop and it doesn't go back to the apostles then why should we do it it go ahead okay thank no if if you wanted to say something you can continue no you go you go ahead okay so a development um and redeem Zumer actually makes this point is that a development isn't a bad thing so for example the like the hypostatic procession of the Holy Spirit you know that is a development um the even many of the doctrines which it's not a but but the difference between the difference between that because I just want to point this out uh the difference between that and uh the development into icons is that the early church did not just was not antithetic was not antithetical or against uh rather the hypothetic possession of the Holy Spirit the early church did not go against that the early church did not go against the Trinity which tulian formulated the language of the early church did not fight against that the way it fought against icon so the question is why do you accept something and just say oh well dotion develop when it's something that the earliest church so severely fought against so clearly fought against I mean the only uh images that you'll see close anything close to images is the ichus so why is something that the church was against so clearly now allowed how does that happen was the were the apostles wrong and was the early church fathers wrong and suddenly the Catholic church now has new information that this is in in fact a good thing that we should do when it's so clearly not Apostolic why so the first thing I'll say is that it's for the same reason that you guys nowadays would say that baptism does not regenerate at the moment it's administered so you would still agree that you can find the origins of this theology in the early church right I sure you would believe that I mean yes okay yes you can clearly see it in some of the earliest earliest sources so you so you would agree that like you know and that's the thing but however if you went up to St aan ASAS and said like oh and by the way and I this is something that when I'm cross-examining I will mention also like you know you if you went up to him and said like oh yeah no like there's a group of Christians which like doesn't think baptism regenerates or thinks that baptism regenerates at some completely different moment than when it's administered he's going to be like what are you yapping about like and so in that's variations that those are variations in a specific belief we're talking about a belief that was said that the early church said no don't do it and that's antithetical to scripture and the gospel don't do that and then suddenly the suddenly the Catholic church now says and John of damasus says yes you can do it we're not the variations on baptis M's efficacy and regenerating power and of course I would say baptism saved but those are variations of a belief that is orthodox um this what we're talking about with icon venerations is completely deviating from the historical view of the church which was against icons and flipping and saying actually no we love them that's what we're talking about uh so I think it's an intellectually dishonest to compare the two things uh well I don't because again in much the same way that I don't think that uh you know St Athan Asia would understand how you arrived at the conclusion that baptism K literally become efficacious at a completely different moment than when it's administered uh like in a similar sense many in the early church would not understand icon veneration however you say the early church was against icon veneration and I don't want to sound rude and say disingenuous but I think that's not Fair let's use that to say that because I say the early church affirmed the Trinity the early church was against aryanism right but the early church like that's a long list of non-h heretical like Saints you know agreeing like even Heretics agreeing in the Trinity and then you know we all have an ecumenical council and we all agree that like um you know we all agree essentially that uh the Trinity is true I I don't why I'm stumbling on my words here um so we would say the early church rejected aryanism it is not as clear with icon veneration part of it was because most of the Saints I think you would agree didn't write on icons you know they would have said they had bigger fish to fry you know dealing with like the gnostics and stuff yes but the ones who did said don't do it that's the problem that's the problem time we're running out we're running low on time my point is that uh the earliest ones who do write on it say don't do it and the question has still been why is that suddenly okay because this is a change in uh teaching and doctrine of the church is why is it suddenly okay and you have skirted around that but um so I don't think that this is a fair a a fair thing because the church so clearly always believed in the Trinity the way and not the same way that it believed uh in not it's not in the same way that it switches into believing icon veneration when it uh previously didn't the earliest writers who write on it are so clearly condemning it so again why why can the church condemn something for so long and yet be wrong an infallible Church an infallible Church once condemning something now saying it's okay how can we do that how can we do that be answered at another time this enters the closing of Isaiah's cross examination period we will now be beginning Patrick's cross-examination period if you'd like to begin with your questions for Isaiah please do thank you brother okay so the first thing I'm going to point out is something you said to me during my cross-examination period so you pointed out the argument I make with the Supreme Court now okay obviously there is going to be some issue when we're comparing the church to something secular like the Supreme Court but you say okay well no one accuses the Supreme Court of being infallible um and again this is more dealing with political philosophy but would you agree that we need the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution no because the uh Constitution so clearly interprets itself and so clearly teaches um what it means I think the Supreme Court itself uh has proven how institutions um meant to the Supreme Court was meant to uph hold the Constitution not necessarily interpret it it was supposed to uphold it and when States or the federal government made laws contrary to the Constitution it was meant to say no we don't interpret the Constitution but they hold uphold similarly to what the church did actually the church is meant to not interpret the scripture but or not give an infallible interpretation of the scripture but the church is meant to uphold the scripture the same way that the Jews were meant to uphold the Old Testament uh so I would say that we don't need the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution because the Constitution interprets itself uh now on matters uh that are are more tricky we have theologians who do help us understand that uh those uh tricky matters however I think the Bible like the Constitution is very clear and it interprets itself and um I don't I think the job of the Supreme Court is to uphold the Constitution same way that the church his job is to fight heresy and uphold the teaching of scripture okay that's a fairly good response I I understand what you're saying the and again because we are comparing the Constitution to the Bible like that's there's going to be some every evangelicals wet dream brother oh geez yeah you know you know the Trump Bible with the Constitution and the Declaration at the back of it like I understand that no matter what it's not it's never a perfect comparison but still there were cases where the Supreme like um like uh like for example okay that's actually a really bad example I was gonna cite The Dread Scott case which is a really bad example um molok V Marilyn for example so molok V Marilyn was dealing with uh whether or not I believe okay there were multiple cases dealing with this whether or not um the state had the right to tax the federal bank so the Constitution it doesn't talk about a National Bank in it so the Supreme Court was needed to be called up and essentially to explain how the principles of the Constitution decide okay well the states cannot be taxing the feds you know like that's a you know federal courts remain uh Supreme in that instance and whether not you believe that should be the case I don't know I've got a few videos on this but still regardless that is um that is an example of what I'm saying is that the Supreme Court would be needed to interpret dang I'm turning this into opening statement part two I got I would I would say that in response to that I would say the Supreme Court there is not interpreting the constitution in any way because like you said the National Bank is not found in the Constitution I would say what um the Supreme Court is doing is taking the the principles and upholding those principles of the Constitution and applying it to this situation in which they uh made a decision and uh a similar example of this would be something like the uh Evolution debate uh where the church takes uh because you no I wouldn't say the evolution debate I would say something something that's not found in the Bible monkey man uh no I would say abortion I would say abortion abortion something that's not explicitly condemned in the Bible uh because I mean there was no abortion as we would know it today in the early in the church in the early church or in the Bible times but the church condemns abortion because it takes the principles that's found in the Bible and room of the church jobs to uphold scripture takes the principles found in Scripture that it upholds and applies it to abortion what scripture say thou shalt not murder what does Scripture well that's interesting what else is scriptures say life begins at conception from my mother's womb I was conceived in sin um so it says that uh life begins at conception and it says that uh The Taking of a human life is murder therefore a the abortion or taking of an infant life is murder that's how the church arrives at that conclusion it's upholding scripture and it's taking the principles found in scripture and applying it to this situation and saying Hey listen uh abortions is not right and so and that that's a case where I would I would say that the the that the the church is not interpreting scripture to mean that but it's taking the uh principles found in its upholding of scripture and applying it to a modern situation okay that's that's fair enough now I'm gonna move on from this because I don't really want to argue about the constitution for the whole debate you know but uh so you know we're not we're not a Jim Bob Bros but so do you believe that um Presbyterian doctrines are uh clearly in line with Apostolic tradition I think they are yes uh very much so I would not be Presbyterian if I didn't think they were I think that they are found in scripture and I think they're they they fall in line with Apostolic Traditions based on what I can see as you can say the universal as you said before the universal consern of the fathers is not something that's really found much but uh where it you do find our theology all throughout the apostolic fathers you'll see our view of scripture in say of solar scriptor in St aanus when he says vainly do then do they run uh about with the pretext that uh they had demanded counsels for the Faith's sake for divine scripture is sufficient above all things he says that scripture is sufficient above everything uh you see our view of baptism in a universal consent of the fathers that baptism does in fact save uh Checkmate James G um did does he wait does James not believe that sign and seal buddy sign and seal okay now moving on uh you find our iconic clasm in the early church uh you find our view of the Lord's Supper in the early church uh um Apostolic follows talking about the spiritual presence of Christ um so you find a lot of things and especially in our our former of government the Pres presos that that system the Presbyterian system uh you find that in the early church and you find St Jerome attesting to that that that's how the apostles set it up before the bishop system develops uh so yes you can find um a lot of Presbyterian Doctrine in the apostolic fathers okay so that's a fair response um okay so now I'm going to ask you do you believe that the early church fathers affirmed covenant theology you know I think I think some of them did uh I think Clement indicates that he does in um his letter uh when he speaks on Abraham and the Covenant there uh he speaks of an eternal Covenant of Grace and he uh and he uses evidence for this the Covenant of Grace was eternal with um and Abraham believed it was counted him as righteousness you see Apostolic fathers drawing ties from circumcision and um baptism as scripture does as as we both know scripture does Ties That circumcision and baptism thing which is evidence there so I think that there is covenant theology within the apostolic fathers I think it's the biblical view uh but it's not um the language isn't really developed that will until later on uh not not even uh late until John Calvin you see before Calvin people starting to refine this uh language surrounding covenant theology so I do think the earliest uh Church fathers at least Clement uh for example uh did believe in covenant theology just not as refined as we would see it today uh in its language but as we know language gets refined over time uh in a way that uh beliefs do not or well uh beliefs don't change but language gets refined I got you okay so do you believe that if you told St Clement of r I don't know if you're okay with calling him that calling him I call him St Clement do you believe that if you went up to him and said oh yeah by the way there is a massive group of Christians which does not believe that the old and new covenants are separate covenants do you think he would just wouldn't have any question oh yeah no that's what we think what do you what do you mean like can you so covenant theology states that the old and new covenants are actually the same Covenant so do you believe that if you said to him like oh yeah by the way so there is a group of Christians which believes that the old and new covenants are at the same exact C do you think that he would just oh yeah no that's that's what we think I think he would based on some of his writings I think he would understand what I'm speaking on uh and I I think I actually he would find something as silly as dispensationalism in the radical splitting of it to be heresy as I do um but yeah I think he would understand what I'm talking about uh maybe not in the exact language we might have to uh explain it a little better but yeah I think he would understand what I'm speaking on based on his own writings okay that's fair enough do you believe that in the early church if you were to explain to them um and I'm focusing on Presbyterians by the way this isn't because I have like specific beef with you guys it's because my my brother in Christ here is a presbyterian so do you believe that um in the early church there was a group of people that believed that um people who fell away from the faith were not truly regenerated so if you were to say like oh yeah these people got baptized they truly believed in all of that but they fell away from the faith so they were never truly regenerated do you think that you would have found a group of people that believe that well I no I don't think we would but we as Presbyterians don't believe that what we believe is in uh evanescent Grace and saving grace that there is people who have evanescent grace extended to them for a time but can fall away we do believe in apostasy we're not Baptist yeah we don't believe in one saved always saved so uh I don't know of any group that believed that but I don't think that I would find any Orthodox uh group that would believe that no okay wait hang on so yeah but you do believe that people who are in a state of evence EV evanescent Grace are not truly regenerated that is the historic reform position if you're departing from that then I I don't know but the historic reform position is that they are not truly regenerated so do you believe that you would find a group of people that believe that once you were truly regenerated you could never lose that state of regeneration um and tying into that that those who apostatize were never truly regenerated well I think you do find people who would hold to the Presbyterian view that um once you are truly truly regenerated and and not receiving evessa Grace although we can never really know that until we either persevere to our Death Beds or we fall away I do think you can find people who believe that uh you find Church fathers uh who say that since salvation is not ours to hold it's not ours to lose this is very our our Salvation our our regeneration is not ours to hold so it's not ours to lose so I think that you would uh clearly and that that that's a view that um once someone is truly regenerated by the Saving Grace and power of the Lord Jesus Christ that they cannot follow that they cannot fall away they will persevere to the end because that is what what God has uh what God has uh laid his hand around no man can rip it out of his hand so I think you do see that in the church fathers uh several of them indicate that in their writings um John kostum is one I don't have the exact quote uh on me but he says something very similar to that in his sermons and again like you said like I said you see Church fathers to um they'll say things along the lines of what I just said that uh our Salvation since it's not ours to gain we didn't do anything to gain it it is not ours to lose and and not ours to hold on to okay so this is my problem with this is that when you read St Augustine okay and I'm not saying we're Sol of St Augustine but that's pretty much like you know for Catholics and Presbyterians actually most Protestants that's kind of the most important of the like postn fathers you know so uh until like St Tom is ainus but you know overall generally so he very clearly does state that people can be truly regenerated and then lose that state of regeneration that's he's very clear about that um so and this is not what you would describe as evanescent Grace where they're not ultimately truly regenerated uh at the end of the day they're more um like you know i' I've seen it described by some as they're fooling themselves into thinking they're regenerated but um yeah ultimately they they are not regenerated so I would say this is not a position I think you can find in the early church now would you say I just gave you examples of where you can find it in the early church and I I think that the reason that they reformed do not accept St Augustines because First St Augustine isn't infallible but what we do is uh we see in scripture uh that so clearly it does indicate that since salvation is not ours to hold on to we're not the ones to lose it we do see people fall away but those people have evess of Grace we're running out of time let me finish this up right quick uh but we also see other Church fathers contradicting St Augustine and that's where we have a variation of belief which is fine uh and but I I just gave you examples where you can find this in the early church if you look at it uh again I gave you the example of St John Chosin and and I gave you the example of the one Church fathers who said that it since salvation is not ours to hold it's not ours to lose you can find it and also uh St Augustine is clearly contradicted by scripture and earlier Church fathers so that is what I would say to that okay are we out of time uh yes sir yes sir all right that's unfortunate all right well and that will conclude the cross-examination phase of the debate we will move on to our closing statements Isaiah we will begin with you if you'd like to takes in our stage yes I thank you all for I I thank you all for watching and uh listening to this debate I hope I have done you proud Protestants and I hope he has done you proud Catholics uh I thank you for listening to to listening to two theology nerds Yap and uh I'm going to go ahead and conclude uh my arguments here so in conclusion the doctrine of solos script Torah underscores the centrality of the Bible as a supreme and final Authority in all matters of faith and practice we see this exemplified in scripture when uh there's preaching done to the bereans the bereans examine the scriptures to see if the what the apostles is telling them is true in the same way we must examine the scriptures to see if what our churches are telling us is true this is how I moved from a Baptist Church to a Presbyterian church because I examined the scriptures and I found what my church to be teaching regarding baptism and the Lord's and church government to be false so we see that the Bible uh the Sol scriptura underscores the centrality of the Bible as the Supreme and final Authority in all matters of faith and practice we have examined how this principle emerged as a response to the ambiguities and potential pitfalls associated with elevating tradition on to an equal footing with scripture as the Catholic church is so uh readily done solos script Torah does not reject the value of tradition or reason but insists that all teachings and practices must be tested against the unchanging inspired word of God this I emphasized when uh my brother uh brought up uh St Augustine's um denial of um that once someone is saved by Saving Grace they always saved and will persevere uh we test that according to the word of God and we find that the word of God does in fact contradict St Augustine as well as the earliest Church fathers the historical context of the Middle Ages reveals how Reliance on tradition without sufficient scriptural grounding can lead to practices and doctrines that diverge from the core message of the Gospel such as the veneration of icons such as uh what would uh some people would call Mary worship although I don't know that I would specifically call it that which call mariology uh and uh the papacy and the Episcopal structure of uh the church uh so these diverge from the core message of the gospel and what scripture teaches the Reformation insistence on solar scriptor was a called to return to a clear singular source of divine Authority remember the call of reformation was not to start something new but was to go back to the early church and what the early church taught and believed um ensuring that Christian doctrine and practice remain aligned with the teachings of Christ this principle provides Believers with a means to evaluate all teachings against the Bible safeguarding the purity of the faith and preventing uh the introduction of erroneous or contradictory practices remember at the Council of NAA Aras the great heretic was first questioned with scripture and then after he had provi provided some erroneous uh uh um interpretation of scripture athanasius quips how many fathers can you cite for your interpretation and that's why I do say that if you cannot find your interpretation of scripture in the church fathers then you should not believe H anywhere because they thought of every interpretation a that is uh acceptable but um that is why uh aras's first questioned with scripture so uh as we move forward uh I encourage you to reflect on the clarity and consistency that solo scriptura offers in Understanding God's revelation by affirming the Bible as the ultimate Authority we uphold the Integrity of Christian worship and Doctrine protecting the gospel message from being compromised by unexamined Doctrine such as icon veneration the papacy and all the others so uh I want to uh thank you say thank you to my brother Patrick for uh engaging in this thoughtful discussion with me and I look forward to many uh more of these to come in the future hopefully and with that I will yield the rest of my time and uh bring my statements to a conclusion thank you very much Isaiah and we will have Patrick's closing statements now you have five minutes you are muted this is not a very Sigma day all right well I would like to thank all of you guys for listening to this um I I do appreciate this again I do appreciate isaia agreeing to do this discussion with me so uh yeah just basically to conclude this I do believe that ultimately um affirming an objective source of authority outside of the scripture to complement the authority of the Sacred Scriptures okay that Authority being the magisterium and the sacred Traditions I believe that this will help to provide doctrinal Clarity I believe this will help to ensure that we are indeed truly interpreting the scriptures right and not just going you know bananas I believe that this is the best way we can ensure to do this um and I believe that ultimately so scriptura I I don't believe you can find it in the scriptures I really uh think that things which kind of contradicts the scripture are in the scriptures uh I don't think that its implementation throughout history has been effective and uh ultimately I I don't really think that you can find it in the church fathers either so uh yeah I believe it is important however that we have these ecumenical discussions you know like the one me and Isaiah wrong had you know maybe we'll call it an ecumenical council you know I know you know like great things are happening over here on the Isaiah W long show so uh yeah that's about it honestly I don't mean to Yap too much longer so uh thank you all for listening God bless you all thank you very much Patrick and I believe that will conclude our debate for today I thank both of our participants for providing very good discussion and plenty of content to think about for the community um other than that God bless Isaiah do you have anything bless say that's it God bless God bless all right