Chatting with an Ex-Catholic About Catholicism

In this episode Trent sits down with Michael Pagano of  ⁨@TrueChristianMinistry⁩  to discuss his views on Catholicism.

Michael’s website: True Christian Ministry

Michael’s book: https://amzn.to/4a32DuS

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Transcript:

Michael Pagano (00:00:00):

I’ve read the church fathers, but the difference is I think that there are some that go to the church father’s writings to know what to believe and I read them in the sense of let me see what those who came before me believe. If Clement saw both Protestants and Catholics today, I think he’d say you both are in the wrong in some areas.

Trent Horn (00:00:15):

Because I don’t want to be disparaging of Protestants, but it seems like that’s like a common attitude.

Michael Pagano (00:00:19):

Trent, you’re absolutely correct.

Trent Horn (00:00:25):

Welcome everyone to the Council of Trent. My guest today is Michael Pagano. He is the host of True Christian Ministry. He is a Protestant, does a lot of great evangelism, a former Catholic. We’ll be talking about that. But he does a lot of great work just evangelizing people, even travel to other continents to share the good news about Jesus Christ. So Michael, welcome to Council of Trent.

Michael Pagano (00:00:46):

Thank you for having me, Trent. Super excited to be here.

Trent Horn (00:00:48):

Oh yeah, absolutely. We chatted. Did we originally touch base at the debate? Truth Alliance. Yeah, the Gospel Truth debate where I debated Anthony Rogers. Yes. Because you were there because that was the big whole debate weekend.

Michael Pagano (00:01:06):

Yeah. I got a random phone call like, “You know this debate’s happening down the street from your house?” And I saw the whole lineup and I was like, “I’m going. “

Trent Horn (00:01:12):

And then

Michael Pagano (00:01:12):

I saw you and had an opportunity to talk with you.

Trent Horn (00:01:14):

Yeah, no, that was great. And then saw the work that you were doing. So I thought we would chat a little bit, especially about agreements, but probably more differences where you’re at in your faith journey. But first, I thought it would be good to start off that I think both of us, before the show we were talking about this, that we both sense that sometimes in the YouTube, in the online sphere, the people that we want to build up in the faith, it seems like a lot of them want to treat it like a sporting event or entertainment. They’re not really interested in evangelism because I get accused. If I bring on someone like you, it’s like, well, why are you talking to someone who’s a grifter or a snake or they’re just trying to lead people away from the church and then you tell me, people say the same thing about you when you’re trying to talk to me.

(00:01:57):

Absolutely. It’s like each side doesn’t want us talking to each other, but that’s hapened to you.

Michael Pagano (00:02:01):

Yeah. I’m sorry for cutting you

Trent Horn (00:02:03):

Off. No, you’re

Michael Pagano (00:02:03):

Fine. I have to work with that. I’m usually talking to a camera and not a person. So no, I completely agree. It’s disgusting, but it’s that me versus you mentality we see online. Everything is me versus you, team Christian versus team atheist, team Protestant versus team Catholic. And it’s how many Ws can we chalk up for our team

Trent Horn (00:02:21):

Rather

Michael Pagano (00:02:21):

Than dialogue?

Trent Horn (00:02:22):

So they were giving you a hard time for wanting to come and just sit down and talk to me.

Michael Pagano (00:02:26):

Yes. I actually have had people come to me since I announced that I’m going to have this conversation, that basically I’m a grifter. I’m just trying to sell my book, which not at all. I don’t even think I brought up … I gave you a copy, but I didn’t bring it up or anything

Trent Horn (00:02:39):

Like

Michael Pagano (00:02:39):

That.

Trent Horn (00:02:40):

Well, we’ll link to it in the scripture below. I’m happy to do that. But I mean, who cares? People are just trying to sell something. It’s like, if I have the truth, I want to share that with people, but clearly you have good stuff you want to talk about.

Michael Pagano (00:02:52):

Yeah. Actually, this is more so I wanted to have a conversation with you. You could have been like, “Mike, I don’t have time to have you on the show. We’re super busy, but I’ll have a sit down with you. ” I would’ve been excited to do that. We were just talking beforehand. I completely forgot we were doing this, and just have a conversation with you.

Trent Horn (00:03:06):

Yeah, because I think we have been another thing that you and I have common ground on is that we want to, in the world of Christian YouTubers, Christian TikTok, whatever you want to call it, I think we want to raise the level of the dialogue because we’ve both engaged people or fellow Christians who, they just get really mad and then fly off the handle and will just say things online that Christians should not say. And I’m always just boggled people to say to me, “Oh, why are you overreacting?” But to meet other people who say, “I think Christians should act like Christians and that should be identifiable.” It’s just always refreshing to run into.

Michael Pagano (00:03:41):

I wish more Christians acted like Christ and that shouldn’t be a controversial statement. Even in our disagreements, can we act like Christ in our disagreements or does it have to be you stupid idiot, you’re dumb, you don’t know what you’re talking about, get away heretic. And that’s what the language becomes. You got Protestants who will misrepresent Catholics and be like, “You pagan worshiping Babylon, that’s what you guys are. ” And then you get the Catholics on the other side, shut up heretics, submit to Rome.

Trent Horn (00:04:08):

And

Michael Pagano (00:04:08):

There’s no dialogue.

Trent Horn (00:04:09):

Or they’ll say that if you’re a Protestant, then you think it doesn’t matter what you do, you’re going to go to heaven, your works don’t matter at all. You can live whatever life you want, which might apply. The problem with Protestantism is it’s a huge wide range. There are a very small minority people who do think that, but most don’t hold that view.

Michael Pagano (00:04:28):

I remember saying to a buddy that’s Catholic in a private conversation, if we took ourselves out of the theological debate and someone just watched our lives, we look very similar.

Trent Horn (00:04:36):

That’s what I’ve been saying. This might transition more into what we want to talk about the differences, but in trying to have dialogues to Catholics and Protestants about, okay, well, what must I do to be saved? We disagree about justification by faith alone, theological concepts, but if you just watched a faithful conservative Protestant or evangelical with a security camera and then you watched a Catholic, they would do a lot of the same things. They would just describe it differently. They would get baptized. They would go to church. They would reject temptation to do evil. They would do good works. They would pray. They would do all these different things. I feel a lot of times we’re not that far apart in our action. I don’t know what you think of this. We’re not that far apart in our actions. It seems like we’re more far apart in how we theologically describe those things.

Michael Pagano (00:05:25):

Yeah. Not the what, but the why.

Trent Horn (00:05:27):

The

Michael Pagano (00:05:28):

Why becomes the …

Trent Horn (00:05:29):

Especially on salvation.

Michael Pagano (00:05:31):

Yes. Well, yes, I think we could pay part

Trent Horn (00:05:34):

Of that out a lit bit. There’s other things where the whats are going to be further apart, but I think about getting to heaven, it’s a lot closer.

Michael Pagano (00:05:41):

Yeah, I think so too. So I’ll say it straight up that Catholics don’t believe in a workspace gospel to the degree that most Protestants say they do. And I’ve learned, and I think this is why I have so many Catholics that are willing to listen to my content is because the only way you’re going to listen to me is if I try my best to actually understand what you believe. And so you get some Protestants that’s just like, “Oh, it’s works-based. They think they’re earning heaven.” I’ve never met a Catholic who thinks they’re earning heaven. Now, can I agree that there’s works invested into the merit of grace and things like that? Then yes, we would disagree there. But yeah, the why is the biggest thing.

Trent Horn (00:06:18):

Well, why don’t you just explain a litle bit more to our audience that you have an inside look and an outside look because you’re raised Catholic and you’re not Catholic anymore. So why don’t you tell us just about that journey and then where you’re at now.

Michael Pagano (00:06:30):

Yeah. So I was raised Catholic all the way through confirmation at St. Agnes Parish in New Jersey. And so I’m from the Northeast and I don’t know if you’ve ever … I mean, obviously you’ve probably traveled there, but when I was growing up there, it was like, it is Catholic. Oh

Trent Horn (00:06:41):

Yeah. Even

Michael Pagano (00:06:42):

If you’re not a Catholic, you still get your child Christian. That is just Catholicism to the core. So I didn’t know Protestantism growing up,

Trent Horn (00:06:49):

Which

Michael Pagano (00:06:50):

It plays into my story later. So fully raised in a church and devout Catholic family. I know there’s cultural Catholics, but my mother is a catechist and actually, she brings the Eucharist to people still today. What is that? The special-

Trent Horn (00:07:05):

Oh, the extraordinary minister of Holy Communion. Yeah.

Michael Pagano (00:07:08):

She goes to people that are gravely ill and still does that. My father, he would go and feed the homeless with the church and things like that. And so actively participating in the church. Let me say right now, the greatest Catholic man, I mean, greatest Christian man I’ve ever met is my father. And so I would never dare say Catholics can’t be Christians because man, there’s not many people like my father who passed away a couple years ago. So I was raised in that and I had the normal running into sin, life struggles, falling into hard places. And then so I spent several years as a Catholic by name, but I was of the world and eventually I hit rock bottom and this wasn’t about Catholicism or Protestantism. I hit rock bottom and called out to God. I didn’t want to be alive anymore. I hated my life.

(00:07:55):

I was really at a broken place and I called out and begged God to either take my life from me or have my life because I was raised Catholic. And so doing it yourself is a big no-no. And I’m not saying it is now, but just that was my mentality. Even though I was at that point, I can’t do it.

(00:08:12):

I’m not trying to go to hell. And so I called God and said, God, you do it, please. You can have my life. I’m done. And two days later, I get a random phone call invited me to come visit someone in Texas. I was like, Lord, is that you offering me a way out of where I’m at right now?

Trent Horn (00:08:29):

Yeah.

Michael Pagano (00:08:30):

And so I followed that. I grabbed a one-way ticket in a backpack and obviously I’m still here in Texas. But from that moment I said, Lord, I want to get to know you closer than I ever was. It was like a change in my heart. I wasn’t just trying to be Christian by title. I called out to him. I begged him to save me from my sin and I said, “I want to get to know you. ” And so I dove into scripture, but I didn’t go back to church right away. I said, God, before I go back to church, I want to get to know your word to the point where I’m not going to church and letting people tell me what to know or what to believe.

Trent Horn (00:08:59):

I

Michael Pagano (00:09:00):

Want to really get into this.

Trent Horn (00:09:02):

So growing up, Catholic, you went to Mass Weekly, you’re involved in the sacramental life of the church, but you weren’t really as steeped in scripture?

Michael Pagano (00:09:10):

In the beginning I was more so because I was being taught it, but I personally wasn’t diving in

Trent Horn (00:09:16):

With the deciding- It wasn’t part of your mission.

Michael Pagano (00:09:18):

Yes. I mean, scripture is a part of our entire household. I was raising the kind of house that there’s no Harry Potter in this house. There’s no witchcraft in this house. You know what I mean? And why? Here’s why scripture. Oh, wow. But for me, I didn’t have a desire for the scripture the way that I do today. I was like I said, I consider it more culturally Christian, which I think a lot of people, Protestant and Catholic, you have that cultural Christianity. It’s a Christian nation. I go to church on Sundays. So I dove in headfirst and just started studying and I had no intention to leave the Catholic church. I just wanted to know his word better. But then I started asking questions and I find this hilarious today looking back, but I remember the first time I went to a family member, a Catholic family member and I said, “Here’s where I’m at.

(00:10:06):

I’m struggling connecting what I’ve been taught and what this says.” And their response was, “You sound sola scriptura.” And my response was, “What’s that?

Trent Horn (00:10:15):

” What’s that?

Michael Pagano (00:10:16):

And they said, “You believe that … ” And the way they worded it, I think was that scripture is the ultimate authority. And I responded, “Don’t we all believe that? ” And then as I kept speaking, they said, “You sound like Martin Luther.” And I said, and I still, like I said, it’s hilarious today, what does MLK have to do with this? Because I

Trent Horn (00:10:33):

Was raised- Yes, I do have a dream.

Michael Pagano (00:10:35):

Yeah.

Trent Horn (00:10:35):

I was

Michael Pagano (00:10:36):

Raised in such a Catholic community. I didn’t know about the reformers. And it is an insult in my opinion when some Catholics will say that the reason I left

Trent Horn (00:10:46):

Catholicism- I was a Catholic in the Northeast, not a Baptist in the South.

Michael Pagano (00:10:49):

I didn’t run away because I studied Luther and I was convinced by Luther. I didn’t know who

Trent Horn (00:10:54):

Luther was. You’re just looking, and scripture made more sense to you in a different context.

Michael Pagano (00:10:57):

Yes. In some areas, now that I have studied the reformers, I do relate to the fact that they still held onto a lot of Catholic things when they left because so did I. When I first left the Catholic church, I still believed in baptismal regeneration, to which I don’t believe in that.

Trent Horn (00:11:12):

That’s interesting.

Michael Pagano (00:11:12):

And we can dive into that if you want.

Trent Horn (00:11:14):

That’s fine because I always find it interesting when I meet people who are not Catholic who are Protestant. There’s not a one size fits all. I need to see where they’re at. I do find it interesting. I don’t know the pattern behind this, but I guess, well, would you just describe yourself? What is your current theater? So you don’t believe in Baptist regeneration. I think you’re more of an evangelical would be …

Michael Pagano (00:11:38):

I think evangelical has become a catchall kind of term. And I think Gavin has actually made that a little bit more popular,

Trent Horn (00:11:44):

Gavin Portland. Would you consider yourself like a baptist or? I

Michael Pagano (00:11:47):

Jokingly tell people that I’m a reformed Protestant Catholic. And if you take those words and their semantic meaning, I think I told you when we met, I’m too Protestant for Catholics, but too Catholic for Protestants.

Trent Horn (00:12:00):

Let me give you one. What do you think about infant baptism?

Michael Pagano (00:12:03):

I do not believe that infant baptism is the biblical stance or the early churches.

Trent Horn (00:12:09):

So it sounds like you’re a little bit closer more to, I guess, a classic Baptist view or what Gavin might hold or- Well,

Michael Pagano (00:12:15):

If you had to put me somewhere, and this would be the first time I’ve said this publicly, because people ask me all the time and I say, “I just want to preach the scriptures.” I’m closest to reformed baptists, closest to, because I align to them, not because I go to them to learn from … Does that make sense? I don’t go and say, “I want to believe what you believe, what’s your confession.”

Trent Horn (00:12:31):

Well, you see, here’s what I believe, where does it map onto?

Michael Pagano (00:12:34):

Yes.

Trent Horn (00:12:35):

And then do you get involved in the Calvinism stuff or are you just kind of like, it’s not a big part of my-

Michael Pagano (00:12:41):

I get accused of being a Calvinist all the time

Trent Horn (00:12:43):

Because I

Michael Pagano (00:12:44):

Do hold to what the scripture proclaims about predestination and God’s sovereignty. But I find it funny that a lot of people that say that are ignorant to the fact that even Catholics believe in predestination.

Trent Horn (00:12:53):

Well, sure.

Michael Pagano (00:12:54):

I don’t believe in Calvinist doctrine though. I’m not a Calvinist.

Trent Horn (00:12:57):

So there’d be things like the limited atonement or you got to think in more a little

Michael Pagano (00:13:02):

I think that I’m a weird person with my mind because

Trent Horn (00:13:04):

I- It’s okay because there’s on star, four star and five star Calvinist.That’s a range too. Well,

Michael Pagano (00:13:10):

The reason I say this is because I care so much about specific words. And so for limited atonement, for example, what do we mean? The atonement’s clearly limited. The

Trent Horn (00:13:17):

Question is

Michael Pagano (00:13:18):

Who’s limiting

Trent Horn (00:13:18):

It? Limited or particular is sometimes how I was described. But no,

Michael Pagano (00:13:21):

I don’t hold to the Calvinist doctrine of the way that they would view limited attonement. No. I don’t hold a tulip, no.

Trent Horn (00:13:29):

Okay. Yeah. So you’re near that camp because you’re not fully into that camp. Okay. Because what I’ve found, and I’m trying to wrap my head around the people in the past 30 years who are the most prominent voices that are critical of Catholicism, some of them are really jerks about it. Some are really nice like Gavin. But what I’ve noticed a lot of them have in common with a few exceptions is they tend to be reformed Baptist. There’s very few like I am, except for Jordan Cooper, I am the Lutheran who’s a critic of Catholicism or Redeem Zoomer or Presbyterian. But I have found when I go back even reading other people who are critical writing before like, oh gosh, Norm Geisler, Ron Rhodes. So people who are writing in the ’90s, because there was a surge of Catholic apologetics in the ’80s, then there were some Protestant writers in the ’90s.

(00:14:23):

Zinz would be another example. But then I think of the ones who are out there today. Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t mean to unspool too much, but I don’t know if there’s something within that camp that brings Catholics and reform baptists together to always have the theological because we’re the furthest apart. Whereas us and Anglicans, we’re pretty tight for the most part.

Michael Pagano (00:14:42):

Yeah, you are right. Even Lutherans are much closer to Catholics than Protestant reform kind of belief is.

Trent Horn (00:14:51):

Yeah. So maybe that’s what it is because if I’m trying to help someone to say, okay, you’re a Protestant and I’m Catholic, where our agreements and differences lie, it’s always going to be more difficult when someone’s further away theologically than when it’s just a few things here or there. So what would you say was the biggest things you’re reading scripture and it’s pointing you away from Catholicism? What were some of the big things you’re like, oh, this is not how I can square it with Catholicism?

Michael Pagano (00:15:19):

The biggest things aren’t my biggest things today, but

Trent Horn (00:15:21):

They were

Michael Pagano (00:15:22):

What triggered the though process.

Trent Horn (00:15:24):

And

Michael Pagano (00:15:24):

So I don’t like saying, because again, to me, this isn’t the biggest issue today. The Marian devotion really was questionable to me in the very, very beginning because I was raised, my mom loves Mary. All throughout our house, you’ve got Our Lady of Fantama, our Lady of Lords and my mother had the heart of a mother connected to Mary, as you know, many Catholic mothers have that heart connected in that sense. And I started asking that question, I think if I try to go back, because this is 10, 13 years ago where I’m trying to go back and I remember asking the Lord like, “Lord, I don’t know what’s right. What do I do here?” And I’m praying about it because I prayed the Rosary growing up, I prayed to Mary, which always bothers me when Catholics today tell me we don’t pray to Mary.

(00:16:09):

Yes, you do. I’m not saying it in the sense the Protestants like you worship Mary, but you pray to her. You can’t avoid that statement.

Trent Horn (00:16:16):

I think the

Michael Pagano (00:16:16):

Catechism even says that.

Trent Horn (00:16:17):

Yeah. Well, I think in the sense of if prayer just means to make a request, then yeah, of course. Well,

Michael Pagano (00:16:24):

I would say in the supernatural sense in that I’m trying to communicate to a being outside of the physical right now because prayer, I know that the response to that prayer means ask in the old English

Trent Horn (00:16:37):

Language. Well, the problem is we need to define what the word means. And so if it becomes like prayer is when you ask someone with just … No, it’s interesting here. It’s like, well, you ask someone and you think something and they’re able to capture that thought, if you will, and be able to make a request from that. I normally can’t think of something and then you would do that. But then again, we’ve got neural links and AI and stuff. We might get to the point where you could make requests of things just by thinking of that. That’s

Michael Pagano (00:17:08):

Kind of creepy.

Trent Horn (00:17:08):

But I mean, so I don’t think that’s essential to it. And plus also there are people, many times people pray they will speak the words out loud for a saint in heaven to intercede on their behalf. And so what we would believe is that it’s not like the saint is just able to do that under their own path. Everything saints in heaven does because of united Christ.

Michael Pagano (00:17:27):

I absolutely, I understood that, but the question became to me, really why do I do it? Because I

Trent Horn (00:17:34):

Have

Michael Pagano (00:17:35):

To have a why behind everything I do because we do things based on faith. I believe, therefore I do. And so I just started approaching that question and I came to the conclusion of if I don’t know which one is right, which wrong would I rather have. And like I said, this isn’t where I stand today, but in the beginning I would rather be wrong in devoting all my prayer to God than be wrong in devoting my prayer anywhere else. It doesn’t even have to be Mary. It could be St. Francis, just any prayer.

Trent Horn (00:18:03):

And

Michael Pagano (00:18:03):

So in the very beginning, that’s where the questions began. So like I said, it was more like starting to ask questions, then asking the question of the petrine office and why do I believe this? Because I’ve been told, and so I just dug into that.

Trent Horn (00:18:16):

I see. Yeah. And I guess my thoughts on a lot of that is interesting if I’m talking with Protestants about their disagreements with Catholicism. And I do think you’re right, it is going to come back a lot to solo scriptura. And my concern would be there’s two ways you could look at solo scriptura. Something’s okay. One way to look at it is this. Something’s okay as long as the Bible doesn’t say that it’s wrong. So that’s one way to look at it. The other would be something’s only okay if the Bible says it’s okay. And I think that’s a super restrictive view for anybody to have.

Michael Pagano (00:18:47):

I agree.

Trent Horn (00:18:47):

Because then you wouldn’t be able to … Then you end up like Jehovah’s witnesses, you can’t celebrate Christmas, you can’t … Or there’s some Protestants who will say, when you pray, pray to the Father in Jesus’s name, don’t pray directly to Jesus because the Bible never tells us to do that. It’s always, Jesus says pray to the Father. I’m like, I will never says I can’t pray to Jesus or the Holy Spirit. Why shouldn’t I? So I guess for me it’s like, well, if the Bible doesn’t say that I can’t … In the Bible, I can ask living Christians to help me. It never says I can’t ask Christians in heaven to help me. I guess there’s nothing really bad about that. So I guess that’s kind of how I look. That’s one way that I look at it.

Michael Pagano (00:19:27):

And so to the point of the different views of soul scripture, I actually absolutely agree. When you go to that other extreme, you end up stepping into the grounds that the atheist might argue with you of, show me the verse where exactly this is said. And so to that, I agree that it’s more of a guideline of biblical principles and you can … The Bible doesn’t tell me to shower every day either, but I’m going to clean myself and take care of myself. And so I agree with that. And if it was just that if you want to do something, that’s why I said today, if I meet someone who wants to venerate, Mary, and pray to Mary, that’s between you and God. I’ll tell you why I don’t. And I think I told you this in my email, a lot of times people will come across saying I’m anti-Catholic, but really I’m just telling people my story

Trent Horn (00:20:08):

And

Michael Pagano (00:20:08):

Why I can’t be. But where I do have a problem with is when I read, for example, the dogma announcement of the assumption of Mary and this was an ex- cathedral statement and I’m reading it and it says, anyone who does not accept this has fallen away from the faith. And if anyone dares speak against it or try to teach contrary to it, the wrath of God, Peter, and Paul abides on him. And so now I have to not only say, “Well, the Bible doesn’t say it so it doesn’t hurt, but no, I must submit my mind to a thing that I don’t see evidence for or else the wrath of God abides on me.

Trent Horn (00:20:43):

“

Michael Pagano (00:20:43):

And that’s a bigger difference than if you were to saying, “Look, I’m like, you don’t got to pray to Mary. I do. You don’t have to. “

Trent Horn (00:20:49):

That’s

Michael Pagano (00:20:50):

One thing submit to this or the wrath of God abides on you. That’s a bigger thing in my opinion.

Trent Horn (00:20:56):

And my position isn’t that, oh, you don’t have to do that. I mean, technically it’s like you don’t have to talk to certain family members, but if we are one body in Christ, then it’s healthy to be united with all of its members and its members are unequal. There are members of the body of Christ who are very close to God whose intercession for us is more powerful. James 5:16 is very clear about that, that the prayers of righteous people are very powerful. So I think that it’s important to say, okay, there’s nothing wrong with … If I can ask people who are alive to pray for me, the saints in heaven, why couldn’t I ask them? And I think that your concern here, and this is something similar, I think what Gavin Orland has brought up also about the dogma of the assumption. It’s not so much the fact of whether it’s true or false per se, because if you met someone and they said, “Yeah, I believe Mary’s in heaven bodily,” you wouldn’t say, “Oh, what’s wrong with you?

(00:21:47):

You’re damned for believing that. ” You’d just be like, “Okay, fine, you believe that.

Michael Pagano (00:21:51):

“

Trent Horn (00:21:51):

I’ve

Michael Pagano (00:21:51):

Been to Mary’s where she died at and where they believe she was assumed at. And if they want to believe that, yeah, I agree.

Trent Horn (00:21:55):

Yeah. The problem for you becomes that there is an authority telling you have to believe this in order to be saved. And you’re like, well, wait a minute, that doesn’t sound right to me that this is a part of the package of beliefs I need to be saved. There’s a problem there. I’m understanding it correctly.

Michael Pagano (00:22:17):

To a degree, because I want to say to me, I would say that as Paul even said, if there’s a gospel different than what you’ve heard preached, well, they didn’t hear the preaching of the assumption of Mary. And so this can’t be a part of saving faith biblically in the sense that we believe, you and I believe that Jesus Christ is the one true God, triune God, the son, eternally begotten of the father that he came into the flesh, born of the vigin, died on the cross, rose on the third day. That’s the gospel message, right? We would agree to that. Sure. And we would agree that one must believe that to be saved. But then if I must also believe, and that’s my problem, the must also believe the assumption of Mary. And I’m using that because it was excature. Sure.

Trent Horn (00:22:54):

But I don’t think that just because a dogma is defined at a later date and saying, oh, well, they didn’t have to believe that to be saved. It doesn’t follow that it isn’t binding for people later. For example, when the apostles first preached in AD 34, it was not a settled fact that you must believe that circumcision is not required to be saved. That wasn’t clarified till decades later when that was put down authoritatively at the council of Jerusalem and then in Paul’s letters. But so people after that point, they do have to believe that. But before that, if you thought that in the early 30s and you’re the first converts, that wouldn’t affect your salvation and hadn’t been settled yet. So that’s maybe an analogy I might make that you could have a theological determination. It doesn’t affect people before, but now we’ve received clarity in the faith.

(00:23:44):

No, this is required or it isn’t required. I don’t know if that makes sense. No,

Michael Pagano (00:23:48):

I think that’s actually a really good point that you bring. However, I would push back just on the point of the connection of circumcision being a work of the law versus a work of salvation being in a same category versus believing that Mary was assumed.

Trent Horn (00:24:03):

Sure.

Michael Pagano (00:24:03):

And so I would say that that’d be a better analogy for believing, I don’t know, transsubstantiation, which I don’t want to go down that route at this moment, but my point is that’s more connected to the body and blood of Christ versus Mary being asumed in the heaven. I don’t

Trent Horn (00:24:17):

Think that’s category. Why does this fact about Mary have a determination on my salvation?

Michael Pagano (00:24:24):

Yes.

Trent Horn (00:24:25):

Fair point. So I guess my other analogy or comparison I might bring up is this. Well, I guess when you bring this up, my response then is I see your concern, but now we have a bigger question that arises, which is what are the things we need to believe in order to be saved? Or not even just to believe, but what are the things you can’t openly reject which the problem is when I’ll dialogue with Protestants is that sometimes you gave a very quick summary to be saved to believe that Jesus Christ is God, died, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, the basic formulation of the gosh. Yeah, sure. Yeah. But then there’s other things that start to creep in there. It’s like, okay, I believe Jesus is God, but can I be a oneness Pentecostal who thinks, yeah, there’s one God who’s one person.

(00:25:19):

Jesus is God and he’s the father sometimes, he’s the son other times. We’d say, well, no, you also have to believe the doctrine of the Trinity and has very particular elements to it. So we’d add that one thing on. Then pretty quickly there’d be other things. So when it comes to Mary, what do you think about someone being a Christian who denies that Jesus was born of a virgin, for example, denies that Mary was a vigin when she gave birth to Jesus?

Michael Pagano (00:25:45):

I think they would be rejecting biblical scripture and biblical revelation. So I think that when it comes to rejecting, and I get that question often about oneness, like, can I be a oneness? And my response is always, if you’re rejecting biblical revelation, it’s different than ignorance. But if you reject clear biblical revelation, then you’re rejecting God’s word. And so to me, if someone rejects the virgin birth and the virgin birth is clearly prophesied of in Isaiah and then declared by Luke and Matthew,

Trent Horn (00:26:13):

Well,

Michael Pagano (00:26:13):

Then you’re rejecting biblical revelation and that’s a hardness of heart kind of issue. And so to me, that’s a person that doesn’t believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and his word.

Trent Horn (00:26:21):

Oh, that’s interesting. So in order to be saved, you can’t just believe in Jesus. You can’t reject because I think we have common ground here a little bit because I think your view of salvation is that to be saved, you cannot reject what God has revealed

Michael Pagano (00:26:39):

Yeah, because even before the deathbound resurrection of Jesus, I would hold to the fact that the people prior, Abraham, for example, he trusted in the good news. He didn’t have the full revelation of the good news. He knew someone was coming and Romans four says that he trusted that God was fully capable to do what he had promised. And so trusting in the good news to come versus trusting in that which has come, but that’s all God’s revelation. And so yeah, I think that we have to trust, that’s the word trust, trust his revelation.

Trent Horn (00:27:07):

Right. You cannot reject what God has revealed. So I think actually we both basically agree with that. Where we disagree is about underneath that, what did God reveal? But we have common ground there. It’s not just believing in Jesus, it’s you cannot reject what God has revealed to us, openly reject it.

Michael Pagano (00:27:27):

That’s what I was saying earlier is that it started there. And so I know where you’re going with that is can the magisterium reveal God’s word? At least that’s where I then ended up at. If I have to trust God’s word, is this God’s word? And so it went from the questioning of the Marian dogma to the revelation of the magisterium, the petrine office. And so that’s really-

Trent Horn (00:27:49):

Well, it gets to a bigger question and that would be how do we know what God has revealed? That’s a very big question and to me. And one of the things that moved me to Catholicism was knowing, okay, for me, I started with, all right, I believe in God. If I look at the historical documents, whatever ancient documents there are, I’m pretty confident that Jesus rose from the dead and he is God incarnate. He’s the creator who has walked among us in the form of a creature. And so I believe that, but then what else now where do I go from that? Because I think some people will just immediately jump from that, “Oh, I believe in Jesus so I’m going to believe him in his word.” But then it’s like, how do I know which of these written things is his word and which isn’t?

(00:28:35):

Because if somebody says, “Look, I’m a Christian, but I don’t think the letter of the Hebrews is scripture because we don’t even know who wrote it. ” If someone said that, say, “I’m a Christian, I just don’t believe in Hebrews,” it sounds like they’d be a kind of person who is rejecting God’s revelation and that would seem like, “Oh, maybe they’re not really saved.” Well, I mean, what would you think of someone who had that kind of attitude?

Michael Pagano (00:28:58):

Specifically about the letter of Hebrews?

Trent Horn (00:29:00):

Yeah. They say, “I just believe what the apostles wrote and we don’t know who wrote this. It’s technically anonymous.”

Michael Pagano (00:29:05):

That is a true stemming that is anonymous in the sense that there’s no name on it,

Trent Horn (00:29:09):

But

Michael Pagano (00:29:09):

I would then ask them, see, again, I told you I’m very big on words, what criteria do you use for any scripture? Because it sounds like a pick and choose thing there and I know I see the smile on your face there.

Trent Horn (00:29:19):

No, no, I’m just saying, but that’s the problem that then presents itself.

Michael Pagano (00:29:22):

Yeah. And so I believe because the canon conversation, and so how do we know what is God’s word? And I do believe, and I think I’ve heard some other people that you’ve spoken to on the Protestant side hold to God’s word being self-revealing in the sense that I do understand the argument that the Catholics make that Protestants reject the church that gave them the Bible, but I don’t know how you feel about the whole visible verse invisible church kind of language in that sense. I don’t deny that true Christian men were present in the church, the Catholic church. I’m not a Protestant that says the church began in 1922, basically, right? Like Pastor Bob is the beginning and the end of all things. I believe that throughout time-

Trent Horn (00:30:04):

There are Catholics who think it stopped around in the 1950s. We haven’t had a Pope since then, but yeah, no.

Michael Pagano (00:30:09):

I never pronounced that

Trent Horn (00:30:10):

Word. The Set of Contests.

Michael Pagano (00:30:11):

That word.

Trent Horn (00:30:12):

Well, there’s some in the 1950s. There’s a few that go back to the year 1000. But yeah, no, there are some who will say it started. I love, I’ll hear the Catholic Church started in 1054. Orthodox might say that. There’s others will pick the 15th century and some will pick the fourth century.

Michael Pagano (00:30:30):

I just recently came across the Palmerian church. That blew my mind that they have. I think he’s Pope Peter right now. I don’t know if you’ve seen videos, he gets carried on golden chairs.

Trent Horn (00:30:40):

I love the other anti-Popes. My favorite is Pope Michael. He lives in his mom’s basement in Kansas.

Michael Pagano (00:30:47):

Good name

Trent Horn (00:30:48):

Though, at least. Yeah, Pope Michael. I love the stories about him. I love how they even try to start their own church. They want to say they run ours. Main character energy.

Michael Pagano (00:30:59):

But even back to the Protestant Catholic

Trent Horn (00:31:01):

Thing,

Michael Pagano (00:31:01):

I’ve often said the Catholics-

Trent Horn (00:31:03):

There’s true Christians even back when the canon was being sorted out.

Michael Pagano (00:31:07):

I think what can sometimes offend Protestants is when people act like the Reformation was the beginning of a new thing. But if me and my wife were to get a divorce, God forbid, but if we got a divorce, the history is still shared between us. And to me, the reformation is a divorce. There were men that didn’t want to, I think you would agree that they didn’t want to leave the

Trent Horn (00:31:26):

Church at first. Hey, we weren’t always up to our best behavior, but you guys walked out on us.That’s how I look at it.

Michael Pagano (00:31:32):

Reformers did some crazy … I mean, I’ve even said … I forget whose quote this is so someone could find it, but they would say that at least the Pope had the decency to kill you before he burned you because Calvin didn’t. And so I mean, there was

Trent Horn (00:31:45):

Disgusting things on both sides. I asked Michael Servedis about that in Geneva. It was funny, this was a disagreement I had with Wes Huff on his reply to Catholicism. He talked about Calvin and he had some kind of quote from a secondary source, not Calvin himself, saying that Calvin didn’t see your church ecclesiology being tied to your salvation. But Calvin know very much so if you got excommunicated in Calvin’s church, your soul was probably damned. There was a guy who had to crawl on his hands and knees back to the bishop’s house in Geneva to be restored in communion. One of the things in Calvin’s Geneva for excommunication was contradicting the ministers. If you tried to interpret things on your own and tell the ministers they were wrong. So you can take the man out of Catholicism. Can’t always take the Catholicism out of the man.

Michael Pagano (00:32:32):

That’s what always also blows my mind is that it feels like sometimes people point to the medieval age as what the church looks like. And to me, that always is weird because that I think is some of the worst times of the church. I’ve run into some Catholics that, I don’t know how you feel about this, that believe the Latin mass is the one true mass and that heaven will be in Latin basically. And it’s like that kind of rejects human history a litle bit. If anything, if I had to guess, heaven’s going to look more like Aramaic kind of thing. Not that I think that’s actually what heaven looks like, but it’s weird sometimes how some people’s mindset is heaven matches Victorian era or Renaissance era

Trent Horn (00:33:06):

Meal

Michael Pagano (00:33:06):

Church.

Trent Horn (00:33:07):

Yeah. I think that what I love about the Catholic faith or the Catholic church, because you could even call it Catholic churches because we have a set number of churches that are all united to the Pope who keeps them all in communion with each other. So the Latin right, the Western right is what most people are familiar with, but you also have the Catholic church all throughout the world. So you have a lot of Eastern rights. I used to go to a Byzantine Catholic church, for example. Looks a lot like Eastern Orthodoxy. Maronites in the Middle East, you have the Sierra Malabar Church in India. Tradition says that was started by the Apostle Thomas when he went there on his missionary journey. You see the Catholic church in Africa, for example. There’s still the same essential element of celebrating the mass. The Eucharist is Christ’s body and blood.

(00:33:54):

But I love especially seeing even in South America where you have been, how there’s different ways of incorporating culture that doesn’t override authentic faith. That’s always the challenge. You don’t want to be synchristic. You don’t want to mix voodoo and black magic with Christianity, but God allows different cultures to exist. In African masses, there’ll be a lot more chanting and cheer. I love how there’s this authentic chanting and cheering going through that’s just different. It’s cultural and that’s fine. So being able to have all of that in different kinds of cultures, people to see, I think that that could be very important. But I do want to go back about, I appreciate when saying like, look, there were true Christians even back when the canon was being resolved. So the church can lead a, maybe, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, you can correct me if I’m wrong, that the church can lead us to scripture even if the church is not an authority on par with scripture.

Michael Pagano (00:34:51):

Yes.

Trent Horn (00:34:52):

Okay.

Michael Pagano (00:34:53):

I hold to the fact that solo scriptura is not that … I’m not so low scriptura. I do believe in authority by men given. I mean, Ephesians four, God gave us prophets, apostles, teachers, evangelists. That means they’re put in the same category as apostles. Now granted, we would both agree that the apostles clearly a higher stature than a teacher.

Trent Horn (00:35:13):

Yes. Yeah. Well, the apostles were capable of proclaiming God’s word, of the inspired word, orally and written. And then there is a problem though when you read in the New Testament, it seems like it never explicitly says … I know people try to infer. It never explicitly says the office of apostle won’t exist anymore. There’s a time where you won’t have it.

Michael Pagano (00:35:35):

Yeah. It doesn’t explicitly, but I would hold to, and I don’t know if you agree, but in Acts, what is it, two, when they’re choosing Mathias, Peter kind of lays out this- The criteria. … necessary thing. And one of them is a witness of the resurrection or the risen Christ, which I think that that plays a major role in it, sent by Christ, witness of the risen Christ.

Trent Horn (00:35:54):

Yeah. But I guess my problem with that is that in Acts 14, Barnabas is referred to as an apostle along with Paul and there’s no record of Barnabas being a witness of Jesus.

Michael Pagano (00:36:04):

Would you agree that it is a possibility that the term apostle is being used there in the same sense that it used for Jesus just in its semantics

Trent Horn (00:36:11):

One? Possibly, but it also … I do think the term apostle, it does have different meanings. It has a metaphorical meaning, but I don’t think there’s just metaphorical and strict synonymous with kind of the 12 or being related to that, that I think there were authoritative apostles in the church who were not witnesses to Christ’s ministry.

Michael Pagano (00:36:35):

I would say, and maybe you agree that being an apostle, its authority isn’t on the term apostle, but who is the one sending? Because apostle means sent one. And so if they’re an apostle of Jesus, unique authority versus if I sent you somewhere and you’re in my apostle, because you are, if I were to send you on a mission trip for some reason, you’d be my apostle. You’re sent by me. But I mean, that’s not any authority.

Trent Horn (00:36:57):

But I think that’s also where we get in the New Testament about people having authority in the church. It always comes from someone connected to the apostles laying hands on them for them to be able to have that legitimate authority in the church. So I think if we run that route of, well, the canon is not as big a problem for Protestants because the church could be fallible, but there are still true Christians in it so it leads us to the canon. And so we should know that the church accepted Hebrews, for example. And so we should not reject it because the church, even though it’s fallible, we still have good reason to believe it’s protected God’s revelation, including Hebrews, these other letters, things like that. I mean, I guess that seems like where you’re sort of going.

Michael Pagano (00:37:40):

Yeah. I think that, well, not just that the criteria obviously of men inspired by the Holy Spirit, defending of it, the canon, but also you have the very revealing … How do I word this? The self-revealing aspect of Hebrews. Hebrews is heavily linking to the Old Testament in God’s word and fulfilling with Christ. I probably worded that incorrectly, but my point is it does not contradict the Old Testament, does not contradict the message of salvation, but rather it is so clear. And I know that that can be a bit of a fallacy to just be so clear, subjective. But God’s word, again, I lean back on Jesus would point to scripture and he never expected them to have anyone that told them what scripture was, but he would ask them, “Have you not read and have you not

Trent Horn (00:38:22):

Heard?”

Michael Pagano (00:38:23):

And so God’s word to me is self-revealing in that aspect as well on top of the fact that I can look to two or three witnesses, many witnesses prior that have affirmed it.

Trent Horn (00:38:32):

So I guess they’re my two thoughts on that and then maybe we could shift into a few other things, differences, things like that. Where I have a concern is that, so there’s two ways to go about for Protestants to help because we have to solve that problem of, because we both agree, do not reject what God has revealed and we got to figure out what that is. Actually, I’ll put another pin in before I get to those two things. When it comes to the virgin birth, for example, the problem that I have though is if the criteria is what God has revealed is just what we can clearly find in scripture. Well, there’s many Calvinists who would say Calvinism is very clear in scripture, but we wouldn’t say someone’s rejecting God’s revelation for rejecting that. So I think that even if something, or even if something is clearly taught in scripture, like that Andrew is the brother of Peter or something like that, some kind of fact that’s clear in scripture, the fact that someone rejects some historical fact doesn’t mean they’re not going to go to heaven or something like that.

(00:39:37):

So I get concerned that if we just say, “Well, what God has revealed and you can’t reject it is what’s in the Bible.” We don’t have a lot of agreement on that and that could get pretty dicey if someone’s salvation depends on that. Does that make sense?

Michael Pagano (00:39:51):

Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense to a degree that I would actually say you’re right that it does get a little dicey if you’re using that as this catchall kind of thing, because there might be things in scripture we don’t agree upon that has been clearly revealed, but I think it comes down to versus not agreeing upon straight up rejecting or going against.

Trent Horn (00:40:10):

Yeah. Well, like somebody who says this, they say, “You know what? I believe in Jesus. I believe in the Bible, but I don’t think the Bible is 100% without error. It was written by men. So I think the story about the slaughter of the children at Bethlehem, the Herod’s massacre, I think that was a later edition. I don’t think that actually happened. So there’s people who might reject biblical inerrancy, but then it becomes like, well, does their salvation depend on that or not? If it does, suddenly it sounds like the criteria for going to heaven gets to be a really long list of believing things. But if you can reject an errancy and still be saved, then it seems like the virgin birth and a lot of other stuff could go out the window. So that’s where I’m like-

Michael Pagano (00:40:58):

I actually think this is a great example of how we make things more complicated as humans because we’re trying to understand this, but God knows the heart and so God knows whether someone is actually rejecting his revelation or truly not sure. And that’s for God to know and not for us. And what we do is we come in saying,” Well, it’s got to be this and it’s got to be that. “And so this is where I do affirm that one must believe God’s revelation, but I can’t know the heart on whether someone is really confused about

Trent Horn (00:41:25):

Something. And same for me if someone chooses to not be Catholic. For me, that could be a stubborn sinful rejection or it could be just a genuine intellectual mistake they’ve made or some other kind of coercion and things like that. But even with the individual, if I’m not sure about the individual, I’d like to have more surety about what is the system that one must believe. So when it comes to the canon, to go back to what I was going to say earlier, there’s two ways to go about it. You could have external validation, like here were two or three witnesses, genuine Christians, even in the third or fourth century and they believed this, that provides evidence and then the text authenticating itself, two different ways to go about it. On the external witness, my concern would be if we trust the canon because Christians in the fourth century were in agreement about this and we could say there was a church there, even if it’s not infallible, it still gets a lot right.

(00:42:21):

Well, then shouldn’t we also agree with the other things they universally believed in, like baptism regeneration, the office of Bishop, the nature of the mass? To me, it seems like if we only say,” Well, hey, I’m grateful the fourth century church got us the cannon, but we reject nearly all the other stuff they believed in. It seems like picking and choosing a little.

Michael Pagano (00:42:42):

“To a degree, I would agree with you when it comes to some of these Protestant churches that, like I said, they go off with the rectu scale. I’m not even going to defend that. But if we’re really going to get into the first four centuries, I don’t see baptism regeneration as clear as maybe the Catholic says they see. For example, in the Didique, it talks about those that are going to be baptized should fast prior. And I’m like, ” Well, babies don’t fast. “Well, I know

Trent Horn (00:43:04):

That doesn’t- Well, that’s infant baptism versus regeneration.

Michael Pagano (00:43:07):

But why would they … So here’s a question I have to ask myself if I’m approaching it. Why would they lay that out but not lay out anything for the infant at all? It’s not like it’s both in there and I can see both. There’s nothing for the infant in the decay. And I know the dedicate is not scripture, but shouldn’t I see that present?

Trent Horn (00:43:26):

Well, I guess I might look at it this way. Just because something is not described doesn’t mean that it’s not important. So for example, you might read an evangelism track from someone that you agree with and it’s like, ” How do I get saved? “And it’s like, ” Well, Romans 10: nine, if you confess with your mouth, believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is Lord, you’ll be saved. “It’s like, okay. And it’s like you read that track, it’s very clear. And then someone might say,” Oh, I guess this person didn’t think that two year olds go to heaven because they can’t do that. “It’s like, ” Well, no, this guy probably has different understandings of how two year olds are saved or how they aren’t. He’s focusing more on saving people who are capable of doing this. So even if the Didique talks about during this period in church history, the most common baptisms are going to be adult baptisms or it could have been if it’s understood as a household, if a child is baptized, it’s just someone does this and when they are baptized, then it transfers to everyone under their authority and understanding how households were led in the first century.

(00:44:30):

So I do think there’s a little bit of a development in things like infant baptism, but when I read even Protestant historians, they’re really clear just about the idea that baptism is what watches away sin. I would commend to you Everett Ferguson’s book on baptism is probably the best. So he’s Church of Christ. He’s interesting. He doesn’t believe in infant baptism, but he does believe in regeneration. So he’s not convinced of historical evidence for infant baptism, but he finds historical evidence for regeneration overwhelming. So I guess that’s one way I look at it.

Michael Pagano (00:45:02):

I do think that we see people that believe in baptism or regeneration in these discussions, but I also think that this is just our mindset as humans though. We do this even outside of Christianity where we take things very, how do I want to word this? Be careful with being charitable.

Trent Horn (00:45:19):

I’ve heard far worse from my own people.

Michael Pagano (00:45:22):

Unrelated to that, but just for a moment to draw a parallel. I visited the catacombs in Italy and I was in there and I saw on the walls, you could see the development of how the dead were looked at.

(00:45:35):

You see the old images of having the images of the apostles or the evangelists that would be called and Jesus and then you slowly see these more purgatory related images and you see the transition because humanity as a whole has an obsession with the dead and where they’re at and are they watching you and can you pray for them? That’s not just the Christian thing, that’s beyond that. And so I think humans also just have that natural instinct to do, just like we talked about a moment ago, we’re asking the questions of, how does a man get saved? Must he believe this? Must he believe that? Well, God knows the heart. And so to bring that back, I do believe that there are Christians at point saying the water, that’s what it is. But when I mix the scriptures with what we see in the early church and there’s a contradiction, I do end up going with the scriptures.

Trent Horn (00:46:18):

Are you talking about on baptism?

Michael Pagano (00:46:19):

On baptism. And so I don’t deny that baptism’s a part of Christianity, right? I’ve said

Trent Horn (00:46:23):

This jokingly. Well, I think basically all Christians believe you should do it.

Michael Pagano (00:46:28):

Well, sadly, no.That’s an offensive thing for me on Protestant side. I see the Protestants

Trent Horn (00:46:33):

Today. Oh, there’s some who … Because what I’ll hear is I’ll hear different things. I’ll hear it’s an ordinance and you should do it because Jesus told you to, but I guess as they go even farther, they think, oh, you don’t even really have to.

Michael Pagano (00:46:43):

Yeah.

Trent Horn (00:46:44):

Have you

Michael Pagano (00:46:45):

Come across the dispensational groups? The

Trent Horn (00:46:47):

Hyper, hyper

Michael Pagano (00:46:48):

Dispensationalists.

Trent Horn (00:46:49):

Yeah. Oh, because they would say that-

Michael Pagano (00:46:51):

That’s for Israel.

Trent Horn (00:46:53):

Yeah, this is for Israel’s not for us. Would they say we’re under Paul, not Jesus?

Michael Pagano (00:46:58):

Not Paul, not Jesus. They’ll say Peter and Paul had two different gospels.

Trent Horn (00:47:01):

Peter’s the

Michael Pagano (00:47:01):

Gospel to the Jews, Paul gospel to the Gentiles.

Trent Horn (00:47:03):

Yes.

Michael Pagano (00:47:04):

And they’ll quote Paul saying, “I did not baptize.”

Trent Horn (00:47:06):

In first Corinthians.

Michael Pagano (00:47:07):

Yeah. They’ll

Trent Horn (00:47:08):

Try to

Michael Pagano (00:47:08):

Somehow apply that, that Paul didn’t preach repentance

Trent Horn (00:47:11):

Or the

Michael Pagano (00:47:11):

Gospel of the kingdom because that’s for the Jews and not the-

Trent Horn (00:47:13):

Yeah. And that verse I always feel is not a very strong one against baptism or baptism regeneration because Paul was just saying there were people who would become, they turned the person who baptized them into just like their all encompassing guide and he’s saying like, “I don’t remember who I baptized or I’m really glad I didn’t baptize some of you so you don’t turn me into that. “

Michael Pagano (00:47:32):

I agree 100% with you that Paul’s context there is clearly saying you’re already idolizing us.

Trent Horn (00:47:38):

So he’s saying, “I’m glad I’m not in the middle of this. ” There’s nothing about what baptism talks about. I truly

Michael Pagano (00:47:42):

Think that’s why Jesus doesn’t actually do baptisms because we remember in John four it says-

Trent Horn (00:47:46):

It says the apostles did that.

Michael Pagano (00:47:47):

Because

Trent Horn (00:47:47):

Imagine the

Michael Pagano (00:47:48):

Pride if you could be like, “Yeah, I got baptized by Jesus.” I think that Jesus is actually protecting people from a dangerous pride in that moment and that’s why he doesn’t baptize there.

Trent Horn (00:47:56):

Well, that’s why I find it interesting in Paul’s letters, especially I think it’s in one Corinthians three when he’s talking about dissension in the church and he’s saying there are those who say, “I follow Paul, I follow Apollos.” And essentially, then he even says, “There are those who say I follow Christ.”

Michael Pagano (00:48:12):

I think that’s a connection to what we see today when people reject the authority that is in teachers and leaders and do that whole like, “It’s just me and Jesus.” I do draw a connection there because they probably had that there too. I don’t care what you apostles say. I follow what I heard from Jesus.

Trent Horn (00:48:27):

And that will get, I think, to one of the other big disagreements that we’ll have is just kind of just the nature of the church. There’s going to be some people who think the church basically has no authority whatsoever, but I mean Hebrews 13:17 is very clear, obey your elders and submit to them for they’ve been charged in authority over you, or at least as obey your elders to submit to them. But then I think the biggest between Catholics and Protestants is going to be, it’s going to be a bit … Although I think there’s two things we miss here sometimes. I think sometimes we boil it down to Catholics think the church can be infallible and Protestants don’t. The church is not infallible in the same way scripture is. But for me, I would not say the church is infallible like scripture. Watch, someone’s going to clip that and take it off from me.

(00:49:15):

It’s okay. Because that’s the nature of these conversations. Because what I mean by that is I would say that the church is capable of teaching infallibly. Not everything like the Pope says is infallible.

Michael Pagano (00:49:30):

Can I say that I would agree if you mean that if I was to go out and preach the scriptures and teach from the scriptures that therefore that if the teaching was aligned with the scriptures, I am preaching God’s word and therefore what I’m saying is infallible, not because I’m infallible, but because … If I went to people when I go to Brazil and I say that Jesus Christ died for your sins and rose on the third day, that’s infallible. Not because it’s my words, I’m just repeating the words.

Trent Horn (00:49:52):

Right, but that would not be the same thing. It’s not you that possesses infallibility. It is an accidental fact that you happen to be perfectly reproducing what another infallible source said, which would be scripture. Whereas what I would hold is that the church’s ability to teach infallibly is not because of its ability to perfectly quote something from scripture or teach what is there, but that God has given the church the pillar and foundation of truth, the gates of hell won’t prevail against it. The church authority to be able to end theological disputes by teaching in a way to know there is no possibility of error here like at the third Constantinople where the church infallibly said that Christ has two wills. He has a human will and a divine will, for example, to make sure that he is fully man. He’s fully God and fully man.

(00:50:46):

So he has to have a human will and a divine will, which I would say is not crystal clear. You can argue for it, but it’s not as clear in scripture as Jesus being the Messiah or something like that. So when I say that it’s infallible, not that, and this is disagreeing. People think, oh, anything the Pope says is without error. No, not even anything that the church teaches in the catechism. It’s just capable of acting infallibly. Whereas we would say scripture is inerrant in everything that it asserts. But the other difference I think though, so we disagree on the church saying, “Oh, when the church teaches X, it’s infallible in nature of the church’s authority.” I think the other thing we disagree on though is the ability of the Christian church, whatever that is, to just teach universally, even if not infallibly. The church says this, you got to believe this.

(00:51:35):

So for example, the Catholic church teaches that gestational surrogacy is wrong. You shouldn’t donate sperm and eggs, rent out a woman’s uterus to have a baby and then the baby’s it’s all a commodified process and the baby’s ripped from their mother and motherhood’s totally distorted. So the Catholic church doesn’t infallibly teach that. It’s a very new thing. Maybe at a future ecumenical council, it will, but probably not, but it does teach it universally and to say, “Hey, if you’re a Christian, you’re Catholic, this is what the church teaches. You got to believe this. ” Where I have a hard time science and Protestantism is the absence of that some kind of mechanism to teach universally in a similar way. Say like, “Hey guys, we all got to be against this. ” And a lot of times it … Yeah, sorry, I don’t want to go on and on.

(00:52:22):

No,

Michael Pagano (00:52:23):

So this brings up a point that I don’t think enough Protestants are willing to admit. And I jokingly said this to a buddy when we were talking prior to this conversation a couple weeks ago, we were talking about it and he said, “You ready to go talk with Trent?” And a joke came up of convert him to Protestantism, obviously. But the truth that came out in that is the funny thing is, and I’ll probably admit this to Trent, even if that was a possibility or even my goal, which it’s not, I’m going to be honest. If you said, “All right, Mike, what church do I go to? ” That’s our weakness. We don’t have unity on the Protestant side because even the term Protestant itself, it’s a word that was coined for protesting the Roman Catholic church. It’s not a word that should describe everyone who’s not Catholic.

Trent Horn (00:53:06):

And

Michael Pagano (00:53:06):

Sadly today it seems like Protestant means anyone who’s not Catholic.

Trent Horn (00:53:10):

Yeah. If I had to charitably, I’ve tried because when talking with other Protestants, I remember I had this conversation, I think with Austin Suggs from gospel simplicity a while ago and I used the idea of infallible rules of faith as a way of dividing up four kinds of Christians. So if you have three infallible rules, scripture, tradition, magisterium, that’s Catholic.

Michael Pagano (00:53:34):

Yeah, the three legs of the stool?

Trent Horn (00:53:35):

Yes. Below that would be scripture and sacred tradition, but not a universal magisterium. And that would be Eastern Orthodoxy because there’s really not a way for the Orthodox to have just on universal teaching authority because you had different patriarchs and disagreements there. Below that would be one infallible rule of faith. Scripture is the inherent infallible rule of faith and I would call that classical Protestantism to hold to that. And so sometimes Protestants will say, “Well, look, I don’t see a good reason to cease tradition or magisterium or infallible, so I’m staying at level one. I’m just not going up to two or three. I like level one.” But for me though, it’s like, well, here’s the thing, you can’t start there because there’s a level below level one. It’s level zero. That’d be a Christian who has no infallible rules of faith. They’re like, “Hey, I love scripture, but I don’t think it’s human words and God’s words.” So it’s a mix there.

(00:54:23):

And so they’re more like the liberal Christians and I’m willing to give you guys credit. I’m not even going to call them Protestants. They can have their looniness, but they might say to you, “Okay, fine. You want me to believe the Bible’s inerrant? What about this contradiction? What about that contradiction? How do I know it’s an errant? How do I this or that? ” And I hope when you’re in those conversations, you’ll have a sense of deja vu because that’s what people say to me and they say, “Well, how do I know the Catholic churches this? What about these contradictions? What about this? ” I like to notice that deja vu sometimes.

Michael Pagano (00:54:51):

And that’s where we need to be more honest about these discussions. It’s not as black and white, but I mean, we could also go back in the Old Testament and see them battling with these same things. Elijah’s like, “I’m the only true believer.” And God’s like, “Shut up. No, you aren’t. I’ve got a couple thousand.” But that existence of fighting over what we’re supposed to believe isn’t new to Christianity, it existed amongst the Jews.

Trent Horn (00:55:12):

But I would say that to deal with the misunderstanding, the fighting and the quarreling, what God did is that he gave his people a living voice to settle disputes and to meet out consequence when needed. And so that’s why I see that-

Michael Pagano (00:55:29):

Do you mean

Trent Horn (00:55:29):

The

Michael Pagano (00:55:30):

Church?

Trent Horn (00:55:30):

No, even the mediators of covenants, like Moses, for example, David, that you have living authorities for Israel starting very much that once they leave Egypt, you have Moses, you have the Lvitical priesthood, then that becoming the Devitic Kingdom that God gave, knowing that there would be these disagreements, he gave his people an enduring living voice and I see that same pattern in the Apostolic Church in the New Testament. So for me, one reason that I’m really, and I might do a whole video on this, then when I look at the very first church fathers, what they look to for authority is not a collection of scripture. It’s who are the successors of those apostles? That’s what kind of keeps me, oh, I see this continuity of a living voice.

Michael Pagano (00:56:17):

I agree with you there because the scriptures are still being disseminated and written as far as New Testament. They have the Old Testament. However, my issue with Catholicism, or at least, and when I say that it’s really the online Catholics because it’s such a different conversation.

Trent Horn (00:56:32):

Isn’t it though, isn’t it?

Michael Pagano (00:56:33):

There’s this rejection of a reality that can be present as well that it’s been a long time since then. I

Trent Horn (00:56:39):

Recently- Since when?

Michael Pagano (00:56:40):

The founding of the church. And so what I mean is if you think about the United States of America, we’re 250 years old. If we were the church, we ain’t even hit the council of Nicia yet. How far am I from George Washington? And so I think about, yes, can I trust these early men in the 300s or 400s, but do we realize how far … Iranius, what? 50 years old is what he thought Jesus was. And now granted, against heresies has great stuff in it, but clearly very close to Jesus and he still didn’t have everything right.

Trent Horn (00:57:11):

Yeah, but I’d be cautious about that if we say, oh, well, because we also rely on these people. So for example, having evidence that Mark, for example, we can trust Mark because he was an associate of Peter. One of the key sources for that fact is Papias, who is writing in the year 125.

Michael Pagano (00:57:33):

But we also see John Mark in the acts of the apostles. And so Luke is affirming John Mark’s relation to the disciples too. And for the

Trent Horn (00:57:39):

Protestant- I’m not saying that he’s a traveling companion of Peter.

Michael Pagano (00:57:42):

No, you’re right about that, but at least associated with the disciples.

Trent Horn (00:57:46):

But what I’m saying is I get concerned if it’s like, oh, the concern would be this, in doing our Christian apologetic to show things, for example, like that the apostles were willing to be martyred and some of them were martyred for the faith. There’s no description of there’s a foreshadowing of Peter’s martyrdom in John 21, but we don’t get the descriptions of the martyrdom in the New Testament itself. Those are things that the early church tells us or other facts related to authorship, things like that. I am concerned about appealing to the early church for historical facts to support the gospel and Christianity, but then if they start to support Catholicism, it’s like, “Yeah, but this guy also got this wrong, so we probably can’t trust him. It looks a little double standardy to me. “

Michael Pagano (00:58:36):

Well, I wouldn’t say can’t trust them. This is one of the questions when I get about like, “You should read this. ” And I’m like, “I’ve read the church fathers, but the difference is I think that there are some that go to the church father’s writings to know what to believe and I read them in the sense of, let me se what those who came before me believed.”

(00:58:53):

And so it’s not in that degree, and don’t get me wrong, I would argue that Clement, if Clement saw both Protestants and Catholics today, I think he’d say you both are in the wrong in some areas. I don’t think the Clement I read into the letter of the Corinthians would agree with Catholic positions on justification when he talks about justification, but I also think he would rebuke the crap by us and Protestants. And so I don’t sit here saying, “Oh, the church fathers are Protestant. They look just like me. ” No, they don’t, but I don’t think they look like you either and by you, the Catholic church.

Trent Horn (00:59:24):

Yeah, I think though that when one looks at them, I don’t think one can have it agnostic. I don’t like the position of, and I guess I would encourage Protestant listeners to this, what I would encourage them, pick up a copy of apostolic fathers. If it’s like, I’m going to read the church fathers, good luck. It’s like the 24 volumes said, the Shaft said, it’s millions of words, but I do think it’s doable to read the apostolic fathers. Those are the people who wrote before the Council of Niceia. You can get a one volume of it and just go through Didique, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, And then even going into the third century or Apolitics, then you’ve got Cyprien. That’ll be a fun one to read.

Michael Pagano (01:00:05):

I actually tell my followers all the time, we’re currently in my Wednesday show going through line by line all the Apostai fathers.

Trent Horn (01:00:12):

Yes. So I would encourage any prophet to read that and don’t take the cop out of they’re Swish Generes. They are just their own thing. They don’t resemble any Christians that are today. I do believe you’re going to find some theologies that are closer to what they believe and ones that are further. And I would just encourage Protestants, why are some of these closer than others? Could these have more antiquity and historical pedigree? That’s my tiny ecumenical bit of homework, I guess, for Protestants when it comes to the Fathers. And I think we could agree they will resemble some forms of Christianity more than others, not that they’re just totally on their own.

Michael Pagano (01:00:53):

I agree with you that … Okay, so I’ll point it this way. The Catholic church is more resembling of the church fathers in reverence, in worship,

(01:01:05):

In the aesthetic. I want to word it that way. And I think a lot of reasons that Protestants actually are running the Catholicism today, because it’s a big number, is that they’re tired of the smoke machine, the motivational speaker, the church has become about the pastor. I’ve said this on my own show. The Protestant church is about the pastor and Catholics are more appealing because it’s not about the priest. And another thing, so I told you I’m going to upset Protestants today. I actually say that I am jealous of the fact that Catholics have mass every day, seven days a week because for the Protestant, it’s one day on Sunday for an hour and you’re in a rush to get out so you can go have lunch and get to your football game. But at the Catholic church, you can go to the church every day of the week if you wanted to.

Trent Horn (01:01:50):

I think what is kind of hard in Protestantism about Protestant worship on Sunday, that on the one hand, and it’s interesting, it’s like you think you could do it every day if it’s just we’re going to get together and engage in praise and worship. But if an important … And I’ve talked about this in my episode, the Protestant worship problem, that for many Protestants, the focal point of the service is the sermon that the pastor gives. Because if it was just praise and work, you could do that every day. You get together, pray, have petitions, sing, and then there you go and you’ve had your service. But I don’t think most Protestant pastors are going to want to write a sermon for every single day of the week to go and to be able to give, especially if there’s an expectation of a 30 or 40 minute sermon.

(01:02:36):

It’s a lot just to do that every Sunday. And so I think the concern there is for a lot of Prophets, okay, why do I go to church? It’s not just praise and worship. It’s like, I want to get into the word. How do I get into the word? Well, the pastor, he’s got authority, went to seminary, he’s trained, where it may be, he kind of unlocks the word for me in his sermon. And so then it becomes like, where do I go to church? Well, I want to go with the pastor who’s best at doing that. And so then it becomes, it seems like the best pastor is this guy on YouTube. I should just watch him. Whereas for Catholics, hey, I love our priests and they give homilies, but they’re nine times out of 10, they’re not the best orators. But for us, mass is not about unlocking Christ in the word.

(01:03:26):

We will receive that when the homilies said to us, and the gospel is important. It’s more that the word is made present to us in the Eucharist. Regardless of the linguistic or preaching abilities of the priest, Christ is going to be there on the altar for us to receive him. So I do think, yeah, because I noticed you nodding your head, you could unlock that a little more because I don’t want to be disparaging of Protestants, but it seems like that’s like a common attitude.

Michael Pagano (01:03:48):

Trent, you’re absolutely correct. And that’s what hurts my … Like I said, I don’t believe in transsubstantiation and we could, if you want to, that might hope be another whole

Trent Horn (01:03:58):

Conversation. That’ll probably be another time, but yeah.

Michael Pagano (01:04:00):

But beyond that, and that’s why I want to be clear, when the Protestants hear me saying, I wish we had that same type of mindset with church. I’m not sitting here saying, I wish we did practice transsubstantiation and Eucharistic veneration. But I do wish that the focal point was on Christ, his word and the Lord’s supper. That’s important. I’ve told people too many times that if whatever the reason you’ll go to a church is, that’s the reason you’ll leave. And so the reason is a good sermon, the moment the sermon isn’t what you want, I’ll find no shot at him, Pastor Anthony Mitchell, really famous right now. His sermons are powerful. He’s

Trent Horn (01:04:35):

Like

Michael Pagano (01:04:35):

A Charles Spurgeon today I’ve been told. I don’t really listen to him, but I’ve seen the clips. And so now instead of going to my local body, I’m going there. And so that’s what kills me. The church, and I just talked about this recently, the church is for accountability, authority and fellowship and service. And so if I’m doing it online, I’m not a member of the church. I’m a fan. I’m just showing up online to watch the pastor. It’s painful. However, then I have to ask myself, do I want that or am I willing to go beyond my conscience on the belief of transubstantiation? Which I’ll share a personal story. I was at the House of Mary in Ephesus two years ago and for the sake of unity, I said, “I’m going to go to the mass here.” Because there’s no Protestant church there. And so the only service they have is a Catholic service.

(01:05:25):

And I’m like, all right, Mike, you’ve been a Protestant apologist.

Trent Horn (01:05:28):

If you want a culture shock as a Protestant, go to Turkey and Israel and the Middle East and the Holy Site’s there.

Michael Pagano (01:05:35):

There’s Protestants there though.

Trent Horn (01:05:36):

There are. They’re

Michael Pagano (01:05:37):

Not as strong. I would say that. I’ve got a couple Protestant followers online that I met over there. But

Trent Horn (01:05:42):

You go to Mass.

Michael Pagano (01:05:43):

I go into the Mass and I go in and it’s images of Mary all over and I’m like, “Okay, Mike, you got this. ” Because to me, again, and I would love to ask you a question after this about

Trent Horn (01:05:51):

Mary, but- That’s fine.

Michael Pagano (01:05:53):

That shouldn’t be the focal point. But obviously we’re at the House of Mary. He’s got the Marian Robes on, the Marion altar,

Trent Horn (01:05:58):

And

Michael Pagano (01:05:58):

Then he’s like, “Today’s liturgy will be Revelation 12.” And I was like, “I can’t.” And don’t take this the wrong way Catholics. I had to walk out and I went outside and I fell down on my knees and I prayed and then I sat on the side of the mountain and I read the gospel of John where John most likely wrote it because this is where John would lived with Mary. And my peace returned unto me, but I tried to go in, but because of the fact that the focus was on Mary at that degree and I’m like, “Man, I’m here. I know it’s the house of Mary and I might sound ridiculous to some people listening.” Even in my hopes to try to have unity, something spiritually drove me out and someone might say, “That was the devil.” Well, the devil’s not going to say, “Go read the gospel of John and fall to your knees and pray to your father in heaven.” And I’m also not using that to argue like, therefore I’m right because God drove me out, but I’m just saying I could not participate in it in conscience.

(01:06:48):

I couldn’t do it.

Trent Horn (01:06:50):

That’s so interesting though, because at worst, what is this preaching? It’s a theological error about Mary’s ultimate fate because I think would you say with complete … Well, as Catholic, obviously I say this, but I would hope most Protestants would say with complete confidence that Jesus’s mother is in heaven.

Michael Pagano (01:07:12):

Absolutely.

Trent Horn (01:07:13):

Yeah. So it’s more of like, is it just her soul or is it her body also? So I guess to have such a … Because here’s my thing. I would understand if it was, “Hey everybody, we’re going to be offering this sacrifice to our goddess Mary.” Or in the fourth century, there were the Coloridian heretics. They offered sacrificial cakes to Mary and Epiphanius included them in the list of heretics because Mary is not a goddess. You don’t offer sacrifice. The only sacrifice is Christ on the cross that we present, represent to the Father that he’s given to us so we can receive Jesus as the Passover lamb that takes away the sins of the world. But if it’s just like, “Well, I’m preaching about how Jesus is his mother, his body and soul in heaven and this is a beautiful foreshadowing of what every believer will have with Jesus.

(01:08:06):

Praise me to God.” That doesn’t seem like it requires such a visceral response.

Michael Pagano (01:08:10):

So there was a few things that bothered me as well that they were offering communion to anyone that was there for tourist reasons

Trent Horn (01:08:17):

That offended

Michael Pagano (01:08:18):

Me a litle

Trent Horn (01:08:18):

Bit. That’s bad. They should be telling people.

Michael Pagano (01:08:20):

For example, nobody asked, I could have gotten the community there if I wanted to. They don’t know I’m an apostate, but that shouldn’t be allowed. I didn’t bring that up because-

Trent Horn (01:08:27):

Yeah, I mean, it’s a general spoken thing that even for Catholics, it’s not like the Eucharist is only for Catholics. It’s only for people who are in communion with the church. I understand that. And the largest number of people, well, not the largest number, but a large number of people who are not in communion with Christ’s church are baptized Catholics. They’ve either walked away or they go to church, but they have been engaging in grave sins and they got to confess that. Yeah. So it

Michael Pagano (01:08:49):

Was a mixture of that.

Trent Horn (01:08:50):

And

Michael Pagano (01:08:50):

Then the priest also mentioned something about we have to approach scripture with mysticism. And then he went right into Revelation 12, which I believe is Israel, not Mary. And so it was like an accumulation of I didn’t appreciate the fact that this seemed very tourist gimmicky. Not to say that that’s what the church does on a normal basis, but it felt that the pre-speech beforehand, there was no gospel proclamation. And in my opinion, if you know that people coming to this are tourists, they might not be believers. The first proclamation should be the gospel because you have an opportunity

Trent Horn (01:09:22):

To- Wait, was it a mass or a surface? It was

Michael Pagano (01:09:24):

A mat.

Trent Horn (01:09:24):

Well, it should be.

Michael Pagano (01:09:25):

Oh, good question.

Trent Horn (01:09:26):

Yeah, because there’s always a reading from the gospels.

Michael Pagano (01:09:28):

Oh, I didn’t stay for the whole thing. I’m not talking about- Maybe it was something else. I’m talking about he had a welcoming the people and he was talking about approaching scripture with mysticism and how people come here and they get this water that comes out of the wall and miracles happen. It was a lot of focus on Mary. And again, I do understand we’re at the house of Mary. So I’m not going to act like that’s not expected, but it did not feel like an opportunity of Jesus at the forefront and then that in accumulation with everything else. And I just really shared that story just because I tried

Trent Horn (01:09:59):

To participate. I see what you’re saying and I think that it’s always hard if something comes off the wrong way at first because Mary was something I did have a hard time with in the last kind of hurdles of my own conversion. And what really helped was, I mean, my mom was going in to get a … I was 17 years old and my mom was going to get a surgery on a tumor in her abdomen and I go and I pray in the church and just seeing Mary and the statues of the saints, I see this is other members of my family.

(01:10:28):

Through the amazing grace of God, heaven for them, however God can bend time and space because he’s awesome and omnipotent, he allows them to care for every other member of the body of Christ and the ability to be able to pray for them. And I just said, “Please pray for me, pray for my mom.” And obviously I’m asking Jesus to help me as well, but just this feeling like I’ve got a crisis in my family, and now I’m converting. I’m kind of leaving my family behind there. My mom used to be Catholics, not a Catholic anymore, but it’s like, oh- Still

Michael Pagano (01:10:59):

Not a Catholic?

Trent Horn (01:11:00):

I think she is. Well, because I pray she is. She passed away a few months ago.

Michael Pagano (01:11:04):

Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.

Trent Horn (01:11:05):

It happens. I mean, she’s a tough lady. When the tumor came out, that’s when I was 17. That was 24 years ago. The tumor was the size of basketball.

Michael Pagano (01:11:16):

Wow.

Trent Horn (01:11:16):

And she went on until now, she’s passed away when I was 40, 41. So I pray for her. I pray for anybody who is deceased and it’s always hard. She did have a rosary in her hand when she died, but people will be like, “Oh, you’re Catholic train. You’re a Catholic apologist. Why isn’t your family Catholic?” I’m like, “A smart guy once said a prophet is not accepted in his own homeland.”

Michael Pagano (01:11:44):

Like I told you, my mother’s literally a

Trent Horn (01:11:45):

Catholic state.

Michael Pagano (01:11:46):

And you’re

Trent Horn (01:11:46):

Protestant. And

Michael Pagano (01:11:47):

We battle it out. But right before my father passed away, many Protestants probably go in there and do something weird. But I actually just asked him, “Dad, do you know that you’re saved by faith in Christ and his work on the cross?” I didn’t ask about Catholic beliefs or anything, but one of my final conversations with him was just like, “Do you trust that the Lord Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life?” And obviously my dad believed that, but the apologist in me and the evangelist in me, if I’m talking to anybody before that, I know their end is coming, I would reaffirm those

Trent Horn (01:12:16):

Questions. And I think as Catholics Protestants, because I think a lot of Protestants, especially in the ’80s when they were more trying to get Catholics out of Catholic church as fast as possible, there’s a concern, you don’t even know who Jesus is, you don’t know the gospel. I think the disagreement is like, I think many Catholic people you meet who are really on fire for being Catholic, they’re on fire for Christ. They believe in Jesus, but they’re adding things that you’re suspicious like, “Well, we probably shouldn’t necessarily add that. ” It’s more a problem of having too much than not having Christ. Well,

Michael Pagano (01:12:45):

As a Protestant, I’ll tell you, sometimes it feels like the senior in high school trying to bully the freshmen because I’ve been here longer and a lot of Protestants probably feel that way because for example, there’s going to be people in your comment section that say I’m dishonoring Mary, but I hope I didn’t say anything dishonorable to Mary.

Trent Horn (01:13:00):

No, you’re just trying to treat Mary with the reality as you understand Mary. Exactly. That her soul’s in heaven and she’s rejoicing in God and with her son, you just disagree about how she relates to us now.

Michael Pagano (01:13:12):

Exactly. And I think if we are willing to have those conversations, it won’t always be so … I don’t believe you’re a Mary worshiper and some pagan, and I pray that you don’t believe I’m dishonoring Mary.

Trent Horn (01:13:21):

No, I’ve seen people dishonor Mary. I would say you have incorrect views about Mary’s current status in heaven and that’s something that happens as people assess their evidence. But with the assumption of Mary, what I love about it, it’s like, why would this be made to be such a big deal? One, I do think there is early evidence for this. I’ll put a link in the description below, by the way, about Revelation 12 and how it gets stretched too far, but I do think there’s evidence there for Mary. I love that. So Popios 12 defined this dogma in 1950 after World War II and one reason to say this is widely celebrated. Why should we say, no, this is something one must believe. I think it’s the perfect capstone of understanding Mary as the role model disciple. Who is a disciple of Christ who is the best disciple of Christ we should all look up to?

Michael Pagano (01:14:13):

I mean, I know the argument here you’re saying, Mary, and I would agree.

Trent Horn (01:14:16):

Because I don’t think there’s no other creature that could ever fill those shoes.

Michael Pagano (01:14:21):

I mean, you could also

Trent Horn (01:14:22):

Say

Michael Pagano (01:14:22):

John

Trent Horn (01:14:23):

John the Baptist. The Baptist. No, here’s interesting because Jesus says there’s no one greater than John the Baptist, but of those born of men, but even those in the least of those in the kingdom of heaven are greater than John. So John represents that, which was old and part of the old covenant and the foreshadowing, but Mary is that inauguration of the new the second Christ was conceived in her womb. We would say she became the first disciple because when she received Jesus in her womb and just even not being a virgin her whole life, that is God because this brother, sisters of the Lord, why is that such a big deal? For Catholics, not because sex is bad. It’s just because Mary’s perpetual virginity is just a wonderful sign that Christ has no earthly father either before or after. But then finally when it reaches end, so that Mary is the protipical disciple because she has been saved from sin to the fullest by Christ and now she is looking ahead to say, wow, I will be with Jesus forever body and soul.

(01:15:29):

And she has now received that in special rights of being the mother of God.

Michael Pagano (01:15:34):

I remember saying as a joke one time, but I actually mean this, I think Catholics have great silteriology, but they only apply it to Mary. And so the way that you guys view Mary in the sense that God kept her from sin, I would agree that all believers in dwelled by the Holy Spirit are kept from sin in the sense that sin doesn’t stay my spirit because the Holy Spirit is in me. Not that sin’s not-

Trent Horn (01:15:54):

Not in a habitual grave way.

Michael Pagano (01:15:57):

Well, I mean,

Trent Horn (01:15:58):

In the sense of- Because James three: two says we all stumble.

Michael Pagano (01:16:01):

Well, yeah, but I would also say that Mary obviously had a doubt because it’s prophesied when it says the sword will pierce her heart as well and there’s whole prophecy there. And I know that there’s some early church fathers didn’t come prepared

Trent Horn (01:16:14):

With this. Oh no, you’re right. There was disagreement about understanding what is the status of Mary, whether she sinned or didn’t sin. I found a lot of those fathers, they used bad reasoning in the sense they’ll say, “Well, look, if the apostles doubted Jesus and they were men, then Mary must have also doubted as well in being a woman.” And I would say, “I don’t want to go down that road.” Yeah, I

Michael Pagano (01:16:39):

Want to go

Trent Horn (01:16:40):

Down this- But there’s others like Ambrose, Augustine himself, he said, “I would just whatever answer we reach, I would never put sin and Mary in the same place.”

Michael Pagano (01:16:49):

Well, I would

Trent Horn (01:16:49):

Agree

Michael Pagano (01:16:50):

That if you believe that the reason why sin doesn’t touch her is because the spirit of God was already with her, obviously, from the moment of conception, then I would just say that that’s believers. I know that you’ve talked

Trent Horn (01:17:00):

About

Michael Pagano (01:17:01):

Romans four with James White many times, but blessed is the man who the Lord does not count sin against.

Trent Horn (01:17:06):

I

Michael Pagano (01:17:07):

Would say that’s attributed to all believers. And so in that aspect, I have no sin on my record. I am sin in my flesh, but there’s no sin on my record before God because he nailed that to the cross. And I believe he nailed Mary’s sin to the cross and that’s where we would disagree,

Trent Horn (01:17:22):

Obviously. And well, what I would say is that Christ did the merits of his sacrifice for the sins of the entire world were applied to Mary from the beginning of her existence. There’s an argument for this that I find very compelling that for Mary to be free to say yes to God, that God … I’ll put it this way, God would never use force or the threat of force or power to coerce a woman to become pregnant. Coercing woman to come pregnant is sort of a creepy thing to do. Mary was fully free to consent to say yes or no to God and choosing to bear the savior of the world. But in order for her to be free to do that, she would have to be full of God’s grace in a way so that she knew whether that in saying no to God, she would not be sinning.

(01:18:13):

Because throughout most of biblical history, if you say no to God, you’re in a bad spot, you best not do that. But if Mary was full of the grace of God throughout her whole life so that she always does what’s the Lord’s will, which would be the same as not sinning, then she would be truly free to say yes or no. And so that’s one of the things that has moved me to say, “Oh, I see how Mary being protected from sin, we go to the dog with immaculate conception, all that. ” It’s not as foreign of an idea. It’s not something that Catholics just cooked up. So that’s something that helps to make sense to me a little bit.

Michael Pagano (01:18:45):

Yeah. And I do understand the position behind it. I think some of the typology that Catholics pull out of to try and make the case with Mary being the arc and things like that, I think that gets a little bit … I love typology. I don’t like when people force typology, but that’s again, neither here nor there because we can end up going

Trent Horn (01:19:02):

Down that raw place. Yeah. I think the only thing with the typology, I have an episode responding to Mike Winger on that. I would just ask Protestants when they engage in typology, just have an equal standard that I find that sometimes it can be quite a stretch to say X or Y in the Old Testament is Christ. Sometimes they’ll really stretch and be like, “Oh yeah, and that symbolizes Jesus.” Does it? Or could it be something else actually? I would just say that if you’re willing to be flexible to see Jesus in the Old Testament, be flexible to see the woman who bore him and the role that she would play in that. That’s all I would say on the typology question. Just don’t be like, “I see Jesus everywhere.” And I can’t see … To me, it seems like the arc of the Lord stays with David for three months and it had the word of God within it.

(01:19:48):

Mary has a word of God. She stays with Elizabeth three months. It’s at least coincidental.

Michael Pagano (01:19:52):

Well, we could also say if Jesus is the arc because the meeting place of God with mankind, then the arc still was with them for three months in her womb and that she carries the arc, just like someone had to carry the arc as well. So I think that we could-

Trent Horn (01:20:07):

But that’s the other problem with typology. When you go back to Revelation 12, I’ll have the article listed below that the woman in Revelation 12, I agree with you, is Israel, but can be other things as well. So it could be Israel, the church, and because it’s like Israel gave us the Messiah, so to speak, and we could read it in that way, but you could also raise it as the literal person who gave us the Messiah. So I mean, I am quoting Ben Witherington, other Protestant scholars, when we do that, the symbols can have multiple meanings to it. So I agree with you, it doesn’t have to-

Michael Pagano (01:20:41):

I think typology is great for affirming what has been revealed, but it should never be the basis of what you believe.

Trent Horn (01:20:47):

Yeah. I think you got to be careful because then you get the two sticks in the Old Testament or the Bible and the book of Mormon and it’s like, all right, we’re starting or Jehovah’s Witnesses, 104,000 or you got to … I agree with you. This has been a good chat. Is there any other issue you’re really burning to be like want to throw out there? But of course we can always have you back too.

Michael Pagano (01:21:11):

Well, yeah, I would love to definitely have other conversations because I mean, it’s funny, I knew that this would go whatever way and that’s the best way of it. Of course. But coming in, one of my goals was I would love to talk on some of the Christians like to have … Catholics and Protestants like to have verse battles sometimes where they throw a verse at each other rather than keep parsing the verse

Trent Horn (01:21:29):

Out. Yeah, verse lingering. Sure.

Michael Pagano (01:21:31):

And I mean, you even

Trent Horn (01:21:31):

Quoted- Well, Protestants do that too. That’s why I said we both do it. Yeah, yeah. To each other. I mean, interprotestant debate.

Michael Pagano (01:21:38):

Well, yeah. I mean, even inter-Catholic, I mean, that’s just a human being.

Trent Horn (01:21:40):

Oh, we do that too. Yeah.

Michael Pagano (01:21:41):

Yeah. Sure, sure. I think there’s some verses that for the benefit of viewers to actually dive into. For example, you quoted that gates of hell will not prevail. I hear that so much, but I’d love to dive in on that and the church being the pillar of truth. And there’s different things I wanted to maybe talk about. I don’t know how much time we have because this has just been flowing and I haven’t looked.

Trent Horn (01:22:06):

Go for a bit. We go a litle bit more.

Michael Pagano (01:22:08):

Well, yeah. And so my process-

Trent Horn (01:22:10):

I want to make sure you got at least your biggest things out there.

Michael Pagano (01:22:13):

Well, no. So we started with that and we kind of went down the path of Marian things, but then it rolled into the petrion office was a big thing for me. And for example, the book of Revelation, Jesus rebukes several churches and not once does he rebuke the vicar of Christ or point them to the vicar of Christ. And so a big struggle for me when I was a Catholic was if this office exists. And I think during the time of Revelation, who would’ve been the Popelinus?

Trent Horn (01:22:42):

It depends when you think Revelation was written.

Michael Pagano (01:22:44):

Touche, I

Trent Horn (01:22:45):

Believe

Michael Pagano (01:22:45):

90.

Trent Horn (01:22:46):

Yeah. Do you think it was written in the year 90 or you think it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem? So yeah, there’s some people who even put it a lot earlier.

Michael Pagano (01:22:52):

Well, it definitely wasn’t Peter alive at that point.

Trent Horn (01:22:54):

Yeah. It could have been one of his immediate successors like Linus or Cletus, but it could have been someone or I mean, it could have gone so far as to be like Clement in the year 90.

Michael Pagano (01:23:06):

And so my question is, if there is this petrine office, if there is this papacy and he is the one we should lean on, because if I will say this, if the petrin office is a real thing, then we all should be in submission to it. I agree to that if it is what you declare it to be. But then I have to ask that question of if Jesus is going to warn several churches, the seven churches of Asia and rebuke the majority of them, how is there not a single reference to the one over them or pointing to, because he’s correcting them. He’s saying repent, but not once is there, you have not only disobeyed me, but you’ve also disobeyed who I left to you. Come back into communion with the one true church. Any of this language should be expected. So I’m not trying to pull an argument of silence, but an expectation is there that if Jesus wrote a letter today to the Protestant churches, would it not be included, or not letter.

(01:24:01):

If Jesus rebuked the Protestant churches, wouldn’t you expect Jesus to say, “You have departed from the church I established?”

Trent Horn (01:24:07):

Sure. So I think it is an argument from silence and some people will be like, “Argument from silence.” I’m like, “Some are valid and some are invalid. It just depends on the supporting evidence for whether the silence is suspicious or damning even because there’s all different kinds of silences. We have to be careful running in that way. So for example, let’s say most of us would say Revelation was written after, especially if you pick the year 90, it’s one of the last documents that’s written in the New Testament canon, but Jesus also we say, okay, but did Jesus tell these churches you’ve gone your separate ways, you need to cling to the word of God that’s been given to you, to the apostolic writings, to the gospels. He doesn’t point them in that direction either, but they certainly did exist. So I would be cautious that you could find other silences.

(01:24:58):

It doesn’t disprove the other things that exists there. So I guess that’s one element that I would put there. The other things though we would look at to see, all right, did the understanding of the authority of the Church of Rome, I think we have to say we should be careful about looking at, oh, well, here’s just this one piece of evidence and we don’t see claims about Peter there. I think the better thing to do in this discussion is here’s all of the evidence on the table and where does it point to? Because at least by this time you have in the letter of Clement, for example, the Church at Rome being able to correct a conflict in the church in Corinth where the elders have been deposed. And what’s interesting is so Clement’s letter, which even if Revelation was written around the same time as Clement like in the ’60s or later in the ’90s, we’re not sure, they’re around the same time.

(01:25:55):

Clement says, if you do not obey the instruction that we give, the Church of Rome, you’ll be in grave danger. But Corinth goes to Rome for this dispute, but the Apostle John may have still been alive at this time. He just wrote Revelation and he lived near Corinth. He’s an Ephesus. So I find that to be another interesting little bit of silence. So I think that there’s one thing we can bring up like, well, why doesn’t Jesus mention the Sea of Rome and the Petrine office go there? Okay, there’s not mention there, but it’s mentioned in other places. We have to look at the whole picture. I don’t know if that makes sense.

Michael Pagano (01:26:29):

No, it does. And none of these things are the smoking gun.

Trent Horn (01:26:32):

Sure. We’re a Germany. You got to weigh them all together on a scale.

Michael Pagano (01:26:35):

Yeah. And so I’m just walking you through certain things. I’m starting to ask those questions as we go back to that early start of

Trent Horn (01:26:40):

My

Michael Pagano (01:26:40):

Place of my walk. Like I said, I’m at a much different place today because now I’ve actually started to read more and more and more of church history and I’m constantly trying to understand more about what they believed. Heck, I just recently got a book by, I think his name’s Eric Ibarra-

Trent Horn (01:26:55):

Oh, papacy?

Michael Pagano (01:26:56):

No, about PSA.

Trent Horn (01:26:57):

Oh, penal substitution Otoma. Yeah, he’s really into that right now.

Michael Pagano (01:27:00):

Obviously, I believe in that and I know that a lot of Catholics reject it. And so when I saw a Catholic write a book on it, I’m like, hmm, intriguing. And so I’m not going to act like I’ve read it yet. I’ve only read the first chapter because I just got it, but I’m constantly trying to learn what these guys are believing before us.

Trent Horn (01:27:16):

Yeah, it’s one that I would like to do more of a deeper dive on because in the early church, because that’s another question, it’s like, well, why did Jesus die on the cross? If you read scripture, you can get different answers to that question. And so on might think penal substitution is obvious. When you read, especially in the early church Fathers, there is a lot of different answers that are given like that it was a literal ransom, like Jesus had to pay the devil so we could be free. Ransom theory was very popular in the early church because Jesus literally calls himself a ransom, but then later theologians would say, “Well, wait, Jesus doesn’t owe anything to the devil. Why would he have to do that? ” Then you have other views, Christ is victor. It’s the fact that he defeats death. And I think Eric is showing there may have been preliminaries to understanding penal substitution that he … What’s hard here is the language, right?

(01:28:09):

It’s like we all agree Jesus pays … I would hold to more of a sacrificial view. What Jesus does on the cross is he offers a perfect sacrifice of love that’s so good, it outweighs the debt incurred by our sins. And so it pays for not just our sins, but all of the sins anyone would ever commit.

Michael Pagano (01:28:27):

I think that topic is actually super important when it comes to even the questions of, I believe in eternal security, which means I don’t believe that someone who’s born again of the spirit can lose their salvation. And I think that the justification and the atonement actually plays a part in that. And so I think that when we don’t discuss that, because I think there’s a lot of people out there that don’t know what they believe when it comes to atonement.

Trent Horn (01:28:47):

So I could say Jesus paid for our sins in the sense that I might pay a fine for somebody so they don’t have to suffer, but that’s a little different than penal substitution being that Jesus was literally punished in our place.

Michael Pagano (01:29:02):

I do believe that.

Trent Horn (01:29:03):

Yeah. So that would be the difference there. And I’d have to look because the catechism seems very clear when it says that Jesus did not suffer reprobation on the cross as if he had sinned. And so I think sometimes that’s going to be another example of parsing words of like, what does it mean to pay for our sins because I do not think that the Father viewed the Son who is infinitely good as being a sinner or as being evil or something like that. That’s where I think it gets difficult.

Michael Pagano (01:29:33):

And that’s why I said I’m looking forward to reading what he has because he’s approaching it from a non-Protestant view.

Trent Horn (01:29:38):

Yeah. And I can’t give a verdict on it because I haven’t looked at it yet.

Michael Pagano (01:29:41):

But yeah, I definitely believe that in the sense of the penal substitution, it’s not that Jesus was looked at as a sinner, but as Paul writes, “He who knew no sin became sin for us.” And so sin was punished in him two

Trent Horn (01:29:53):

Corinthians 5:21. But the Greek word for sin there is also used to translate The Hebrew word for sin offering. It can be read either way.

Michael Pagano (01:30:04):

Well, to be the sin offering means that the-

Trent Horn (01:30:06):

That’s a sacrifice.

Michael Pagano (01:30:07):

Yes.

Trent Horn (01:30:08):

Not necessarily because I think we agree. Christodelphins are heretics who think Jesus had a sin nature.

Michael Pagano (01:30:14):

Yeah, that’s

Trent Horn (01:30:14):

Therapy. Yeah. So it’s like we know the verse can’t be literal when we say he who knew no sin became sin. There has to be some other way of understanding how Jesus becomes sin. Another way that verse is often looked at is he came in the likeness of sinful flesh, which is similar to language that Paul uses in Romans and things like that. Well,

Michael Pagano (01:30:35):

I think the Romans eight passage is really clear or at least helpful when we think about what Jesus does on the cross when it says by sending his son in the likeness of sinflesh to condemn sin in the flesh. And so he bore our condemnation. Not that he himself … If I was to try and paint this picture for a child, it would be like, in Lord of the Rings, the ring has to go into the lava. But who can actually survive jumping into the lava with the ring? And so Jesus holds my sin and jumps into the punishment, not that he himself is being punished, but that he’s holding it in the most rudimentary imagery there. So I don’t believe Jesus is looked at as the sinner, but on the cross, he bears my sin to take on the brunt of its wrath. But yeah, PSA is a huge part that leads me to believe.

Trent Horn (01:31:24):

And that’s where I’m hoping, because there’s a lot of things in Catholic theology that are not totally settled. For example, what is the relationship between God’s foreknowledge and our salvation? The difference between grace and how we’re saved. So basically what the Catholic church says is you can’t be a Calvinist or an open theist. So you can’t deny God knows the future, but you can’t think that God has predestined everything or double predestined.

Michael Pagano (01:31:51):

Clarifying question. So are you saying that according to the Catholic church, Calvinisms, the belief of Calvinism is, I don’t want to say damnable, but it’s crossing that line almost being a rejector of the Trinity?

Trent Horn (01:32:09):

I would say that it would fall under heresy. Now there’s a lot of theological harris to split there because Aquinas’s view of predestination is notoriously very similar to Calvins. So like I said, there’s a spectrum.

Michael Pagano (01:32:23):

Because Aquinas believes that God created some reprobate, right?

Trent Horn (01:32:26):

Yeah. But I think what he might say is those who are reprobate are passed over. They’re not actively condemned. And I think some Calvinists might say that too. So that’s where I said there’s a spectrum. There’s going to be definitive double predestination where God wills everything, even sin and damn nation and he positively wills it, however you want to define it. There’s that border you can’t cross. Then there’s the other side where it’s, well, we’re free because God doesn’t know the future. Open theism. Yeah,

Michael Pagano (01:32:52):

No. Yeah. Open theism. We could throw that in the trash. I agree.

Trent Horn (01:32:55):

Yeah. But in between here, there’s going to be a spectrum of theology. So you’ll have the Thomas who they sound a lot more like Calvinist, double predestination. Then you might have the Molinist who would say, well, God in choosing people to be saved, he gives grace to those that he knows will not reject that grace. So he uses his middle knowledge to do that. That’s more the Jesuit answer, which that objection is … Oh, I guess it’s between Calvinism and Plagianism. It’s like it starts to sound a little Plagian. It’s like, oh, well, he chooses people who choose him. I wouldn’t put it that way. I’ll have to break that down in a full episode. But my point is that a lot of … So for Protestants who are interested in Catholicism, I think it’s important to see, oh, there’s some secondary tertiary theological questions where the church may not have a full answer to it and your view might align in something where we don’t have a complete answer.

(01:33:48):

The church is still developing and it’s understanding of that. Whether it’s what is the nature of the atonement, for example, certain elements of how to articulate that. Maybe there’s a way of articulating penal substitution that doesn’t contradict what the church has revealed in other places, things like that. My point would just be if you are a Protestant, if you’re interested in Catholicism, it’s like it’s not checking the brain at the door. In fact, we need the brightest brains to come in. There’s a lot of theology that still needs to be explored.

Michael Pagano (01:34:15):

Yeah. And when it comes to that, the Calvinism and open theism, to me, that becomes us trying to understand the infinite as finite. And so I chalk up a lot of grace there because I never want to try and draw a line to where we’re both probably wrong about how God operates in eternity past, but you’re more wrong than me. And so I don’t consider Calvinist not Christian. Even though I said openly in the beginning, I’m not a Calvinist. I love and respect many Calvinists. In fact, I think some, like you mentioned, there’s been some bright minds. I mean, Charles Spurgeon, just I love his work.

Trent Horn (01:34:45):

But they’ve made an error in certain exegetical conclusions they’ve reached from- I would agree. Yeah.

Michael Pagano (01:34:50):

Yeah.

Trent Horn (01:34:51):

And so when it comes back then full circle for the Catholic Protestant divide, and the bigger question we all have to look at is when does an exegetical mistake in scripture become merely a mistake and when does it become heresy? And that’s a tough question I think to crack without an overarching authority, but it’s one I’m happy to keep exploring.

Michael Pagano (01:35:13):

Yeah. I think the problem is when it starts affecting the work on the cross or what it is that our hope is. And so for example, now in my more modern position, if you were to tell me what the biggest problem is with Catholicism or why I cannot submit and it really does come down to if I had to boil it down and throw away the things I don’t like, I don’t like purgatory, but that’s a whole nother thing. I don’t like Marian-

Trent Horn (01:35:39):

Nobody likes Purgatory. We don’t want to end up there.

Michael Pagano (01:35:41):

Well, no. If I’m wrong about Purgatory, then I just go to Purgatory. That’s fine. But I’d rather go to Purgatory than the hell, but I just don’t believe in purgatory. But when it comes to our justification, let me try and see if I can present what I believe you believe about this without me possibly straw manning it.

Trent Horn (01:36:02):

Sure.

Michael Pagano (01:36:02):

You believe as Catholics that the grace that Christ merited on the cross is deposited in the deposit of faith, deposit of grace. And so you come to the mass and receive that grace through the act of the representation of the Eucharist and so that it’s something you take. And if I commit mortal sin, I lose that grace or I’m separated from grace, I need more grace. Vinial sins don’t separate me from that grace. However, it does tarnish me. I need to go to confession and receive more grace. But it’s like this going to the bank to receive more grace. Would you say it’s a good way to present it in an elementary style?

Trent Horn (01:36:40):

I wouldn’t necessarily use those words. What I would say is, as two Peter says that we flee from the debaucheries of this world to become partakers of the divine nature. And so what God’s grace is, it is God’s unmerited favor for human beings that they cannot in any way strictly earn and that this favor has a radical transforming effect to fill their hearts with the love of God with the supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and charity. And so my view of salvation would be of looking with all the sacraments put together what you’ve said is that when I received baptism, my soul was flooded with God’s sanctifying grace and I went from that moment from being a child of Adam to being a child of God. And I could only do that also through faith. I have to have faith to be able to receive this.

(01:37:33):

It’s not just a magic thing. And then once I’m baptized, there’s nothing to hinder me entering heaven. There’s only one work I have to do after that point. It’s just to not die in a state of unrepentant separation from God. And so grace is something that God wants me to be full of grace continually, full of his divine life and that there’s times where I can turn away from God mildly or majorly, but when I receive Christ in the Eucharist, it does fill my soul more with his divine life, not like money from a bank, but more like, how am I being united to Christ my savior that I think even made the early reformers would say that salvation is about union with Christ. That is what salvation is about. And so when I receive Christ in the Eucharist, when I am not in a grave state of sin, I’m fully united with him.

(01:38:25):

So the Eucharist removes even the blemishes of sin. But we live in a world where this world, the devil is the God of this world as Paul says in Corinthians. And so that does have an efect on us and we’re in a spiritual battle for our very souls. God has the victory and he gives us the tools. It’s up to us to choose to remain obedient to him. I do think the difference between you and I though is I do believe, and there are other Protestants who believe this, that the grace of justification can be rejected. A person is free to be able to. They’re free. Because I guess if you’re not a Calvinist, you would agree a person is free to say yes or no at the beginning.

Michael Pagano (01:39:03):

Yes.

Trent Horn (01:39:04):

So we agree there. I just also think you’re free to say yes or no after until the moment of death.

Michael Pagano (01:39:10):

And

Trent Horn (01:39:10):

That’s the difference, sir.

Michael Pagano (01:39:11):

I would love to go there. I just want to make sure that-

Trent Horn (01:39:13):

Sure.

Michael Pagano (01:39:14):

My question wasn’t everything you said, I understand that you guys believe. I was saying in the picture of where grace goes first. And so what I mean is, from my point of view, for example, I believe that once you have put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, you’ve said yes. You’ve come to him in full submission and received that grace and received the Holy Spirit. I’m saying that the grace has been poured out on me and it seems from the Catholic position that the grace goes through the church to you. And so I wasn’t saying it in a way like you go to the bank.

Trent Horn (01:39:47):

Well, there’s different kinds of grace. So grace is God’s unmerited favor and there’s two different terms that are used to describe that. So we have, for example, what’s called sanctifying grace. Sanctifying grace makes us holy, song tooth. It’s what fills us with the love of God and unites us to Christ. And that is given to us through the sacraments that God gave us, primarily through baptism, but also through the sacrament of confession that if we have rejected God after being baptized, just as I go to a minister of the church to come into union with God in baptism, I can’t baptize myself. I got to go to somebody. In confession, I go to a minister of the church to be reunited to Christ in union with him in his church. But then the other sacraments still fill us with that sanctifying grace to strengthen us.

(01:40:34):

So confirmation gives us the grace and strength of God to be adult witnesses of our faith to be sealed with oil. And Hebrews talks about the laying on of hands and I believe there’s a reference to that there. The Eucharist, of course, fills us with God’s life because it is Jesus. It’s Christ we receive.

(01:40:54):

My flesh is true food. You cannot have eternal life without eating and drinking me. Then the others sacraments, they also communicate grace for us to live the Christian life, whether it’s to be a priest to serve the church, holy orders, or to be the domestic church, husband and wife that we believe marriage is a sacrament that God will give supernatural graces to husbands and wives because they have the most important job in the world. They can cooperate with God to make immortal souls who can go to heaven or hell. It’s not up to them whether they go to heaven or hell, but they do play a part. And then there’s the anointing of the sick, just like in James five where it says,” Is anyone sick? Bring the presbyteroy to anoint him and his sins will be forgiven. So we see sanctifying grace operating in those seven sacraments.

(01:41:38):

Actual grace is where God is able to move us through the spirit to be able to pursue his sanctifying grace. So if I sin and I do something horrible and I’m away from God and I’m ashamed, if I feel that movement of, I screwed up, I got to go back to God. I got to confess this. Lord, I have mercy on me. Forgive me for this sin. I go to confession. The reason I chose to go and do that is because God gave me what’s called actual grace. Carl Keating, the founder of Catholic Answers once called it a spiritual kick in the pants. It’s not like I’m like, as a human, I did bad. I better go back to God. As a human, I can’t do that. I’m too enslaved to sin, can keep a sense and all that. But God can give me a nudge, say, Hey, come back and I’m free to say yes or no to that.

(01:42:23):

So the actual grace. And so there’s other things that prepare us that prepare us our wills to be able to say yes to God. So we would call those sacramentals. Even the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, it’s probably the most common sacramental in the church. It’s not something that gives you grace, but it’s a way to dispose your character and will to God to receive sanctifying grace in the sacraments. So that’s a little bit more to throw in there for sacramental theology.

Michael Pagano (01:42:50):

Okay. No. And I believe this is an

Trent Horn (01:42:53):

Example of- Yeah, but we believe that God … And I think Protestants can agree with this that even after being justified, God continually sanctifies us.

Michael Pagano (01:43:00):

Yes.

Trent Horn (01:43:00):

Now the question is, what does he sanctify us with? I view it would be his grace.

Michael Pagano (01:43:05):

I would say, well, yes, his grace through his Holy Spirit

Trent Horn (01:43:08):

Who’s

Michael Pagano (01:43:08):

Present with us.

Trent Horn (01:43:09):

Right. But it’s what is the Holy Spirit giving us that is continually sanctifying us. It’s the grace of God. It’s the unmerited favor of God that transforms us to be like Christ. But I think that this is where, and I would recommend to our listeners, a good book on this, I’ll link to it below, is The Drama of Salvation by my colleague, Jimmy Aiken. It’s a nice thick book on salvation, erranic tone and talking about how I think a lot of times when it comes to salvation and grace and things like that, for Protestants, there’ll be a strict separation between the concepts of justification and sanctification. Justification is a one-time act through faith that makes me right with God. Nothing can undo that, but I always grow in holiness as a Christian and so I’m continually sanctified. We as Catholics would see justification and sanctification as two sides of the same coin that there’s that baptism makes me right with God because it perfectly sanctifies me.

(01:44:03):

And so we would see that as two different terms, two different ways of talking about the same thing.

Michael Pagano (01:44:08):

And so that’s really where it boils down to what I was trying to get at is I guess if I had to use a courtroom analogy, my rap sheet versus the Catholic rap sheet and the Catholic rap sheet is here’s your crimes and grace erases those, but then you can add crimes to that rap sheet and we’ll say that’s sin and more grace is needed for that. And that’s what I was trying to basically ask of is really more about the closed case versus the continually open case. And I think you kind of worded it with, it’s not a one-time thing, it’s a continual thing. And to me, the way I read scripture is my entire rap sheet’s kind of stamped by Christ’s blood. But I know that there are some people out there that it’s the once saved, always saved group. And I don’t want to confuse people.

(01:44:50):

When I speak of the eternal security in Christ, it doesn’t mean I’m automatically jumping on board with the once saved, always saved group of say a prayer out loud and you’re forever saved no matter what.

Trent Horn (01:44:59):

You’re saying there’s specific conditions out to be met to know it’s locked in.

Michael Pagano (01:45:03):

Well, I think Peter says it best when he says he’s talking about these good works and he says, “Be sure to do these things to affirm your election.” He is actually saying we should want to examine ourself to make sure we are of the actual faith. Like Paul says in two Corinthians, test yourself, examine yourselves to know whether you are of the faith for do you not know Christ is in you unless you fail to meet the test.

Trent Horn (01:45:24):

But the problem there is Paul also says in one Corinthians nine, he’s concerned. He says he doesn’t fight like he’s shadowboxing. He’s concerned also about himself being disqualified, that even if I is preached to others, I myself might be disqualified.

Michael Pagano (01:45:38):

I don’t think Paul’s speaking about his salvation there, but his apostleship. So in the context of one Corinthians, he talks about not using all of his rights so no one can hold anything against him. We know that there is a conflict with the super apostles, which will make their appearance in second Corinthians, but one Corinthians kind of sets the stage. And so I don’t see Paul as saying, because my mind jumps multiple places, I don’t think Paul’s concerned with his salvation because even in Romans nine, he says, “I would literally forsake my salvation to hope that some of you are saved.” I think in one Corinthians nine, we see the heart of Paul saying, “I don’t want to use any of these rights lest anybody try to disqualify me of my position as the apostle bringing you this message.”

Trent Horn (01:46:18):

The reason I’m not convinced of that is a few verses earlier when Paul, before making the shadowboxing analogy, he uses the analogy of the athletes and he says they compete for a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. So there I think he’s transitioned, he does talk about his ministry and his rights as an apostle, but there he seems to be speaking very importantly about salvation being about receiving a crown that we have persevered at the end. But isn’t the

Michael Pagano (01:46:49):

Crown imagery often related to rewards in heaven and not salvation itself?

Trent Horn (01:46:54):

It can be. But I think though, when you’re just comparing just either the perishable crown of the athlete or the imperishable crown of salvation, because that’s typically when you look at all different kinds of … Well, no, because in two Timothy, when he says, “I have run the good race and I have fought the good fight,” and this is at the end of his life under house arrest and he’s about to be martyred, he talks about now receiving the crown of righteousness as if it’s related to salvation. So that’s where I would see a little bit of the difference there.

Michael Pagano (01:47:25):

I can

Trent Horn (01:47:25):

Understand that. But with the eternal security, would you say this though, guys seems like he’s a total Christian, you’re like, “Yeah, definitely set.” But then becomes an atheist and he lives like that for several years, then he dies. Would your position be then he was just never saved in the first place?

Michael Pagano (01:47:43):

I would say that the position that I hold biblically is how John refers to him as liars.

Trent Horn (01:47:48):

They were not of us.

Michael Pagano (01:47:49):

Well, not just not even chapter two. In one John one, he says, “If we say we have fellowship with him, but walk in darkness, we lie.” And later he says, “If you say you love God but hate your weather, we lie.” And so there’s this call of liars amongst us. And I think we would both agree in the Protestant and Catholic church, we have people in our pews that are liars.

Trent Horn (01:48:05):

No doubt. But I also do think there are some people who really, really thought they were saved and loved Jesus and then they fall away from the faith of some reason and I don’t think they were lying. I do think there are people like that.

Michael Pagano (01:48:19):

I don’t think when we say liar, it just means that there’s a evil lie, but maybe even lying to self. And so I’ll use this again.

Trent Horn (01:48:25):

They deceive themselves.

Michael Pagano (01:48:27):

The Israeli lights, how many followed Moses through the Red Sea? Hundreds of thousands, right?

Trent Horn (01:48:31):

Sure.

Michael Pagano (01:48:32):

Were all of them running towards Yahweh or were some just running away from slavery?

Trent Horn (01:48:36):

Well, it’s funny. Exodus says a mixed multitude went with them.

Michael Pagano (01:48:39):

Yeah. And so I think there are people in our churches, some are running to Jesus, some are running from the world. And if you’re running from the world, what happens when they get to the wilderness? This isn’t what I wanted it to be. It’s not everything it was cracked up to be. And so they fall away, but it’s because they didn’t put their trust in the one they were … Moses said, “I don’t even want to go to the promised land without you. ” And I think there’s a lot of Christians in our churches, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox that are running from the same things, running in the same direction, we’re not all running to the same thing because if we trust

Trent Horn (01:49:08):

Christ,

Michael Pagano (01:49:09):

Then you’ll-

Trent Horn (01:49:10):

But could there have been somebody who they were just so sure they trusted Christ and they loved Jesus, but now they’re not Christian anymore. I mean, I have met people who do say this. So either they are lying to me or they deceived themselves or that really did happen.

Michael Pagano (01:49:27):

Well, I would say I don’t know the heart of man and so I do chalk it up to God. But I will say in our country, would you agree that faith is easier to be false here in the sense that faith is really faith when it’s tested. So for example, it’s harder to say you’re a Christian in North Korea, you’re going to go to jail.

Trent Horn (01:49:46):

Sure.

Michael Pagano (01:49:47):

Here, there’s actual benefits to saying I’m a Christian. And so saying I trust Christ in this country, you can find out you don’t really trust him many years down the road. I go to the Parable of the Sower for an example. Some sprout up quickly, receive it with joy, but as soon as persecution happens, the truth is revealed because if Christ is the one you’re trusting in, you won’t really know if that’s true faith until you have to put that trust in him.

Trent Horn (01:50:10):

But do you think that that could lead to an anxiety of worrying about this question? Well, was I really saved or not?

Michael Pagano (01:50:18):

I don’t think the person who falls away is worried about that question.

Trent Horn (01:50:21):

No, but someone who isn’t falling away.You’re saying like, “Hey, did you really trust in Christ? Maybe it’s going to bloom later.” There are people who do really wrestle with that if they trust it in Christ and then they’re in this habitual sin and they start to ask themselves, “Well, maybe I just wasn’t saved in the first place.”

Michael Pagano (01:50:38):

Oh yeah, I think that

Trent Horn (01:50:39):

That question is fair. That’s what’s hard for me because I love the soteriological framework that I would have in Catholicism is no, when you are validly baptized, you’re a child of God. Nothing can undo that mark on your soul. The question is not about what happened then, it’s now, have you turned away from God to grave sin or have you not? It’s not about, was I really a true believer 20 years ago? It’s are you oriented to God now or not? And you have an opportunity to repent. So I guess Protestants use the imagery of a courtroom for salvation. I way prefer prodigal son that salvation is about living within the Father’s house and damn nation is stupidly going to the far off land, but the Father always draws us back to the house. We are the ones who choose whether not to return or not.

(01:51:34):

So that’s how I would frame it differently.

Michael Pagano (01:51:38):

I would agree that the prodigal son is definitely imagery in that sense, but the difference is my heavenly father’s omnipresent and can do all things. And so he can bring me home. The earthly father can.

Trent Horn (01:51:48):

Yeah. And of course, it’s an analogy. And that’s where I would say though, but however, while the father can bring us back to him, he will not force us to. He gives us a choice just like when Jesus … And that’s why I don’t believe in Calvinist because when you read Matthew 23 or no, it was later when Matthew, sorry, later with the women, he was saying, “Oh, people of Jerusalem, how I desire to gather you together, but you would not. ” Yes. So we’re still free, even though God is omnipotent and calls us, we can still reject him.

Michael Pagano (01:52:19):

But actually we really want to touch on that, but right before that we were kind of talking about that fear of yesterday, I do want to say that one of the things I often repeat is Paul’s words that today is the day of salvation. He words it a little bit different saying, “This is the day of salvation.” And so I agree, I don’t care what you did 20 years ago, today do you put your faith in trust in Jesus. And if today you trust in him, then know that tomorrow doesn’t matter. Jesus said, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, and yesterday doesn’t matter.” But

Trent Horn (01:52:45):

For someone, if they’re stuck in sin now, for them to really trust in Jesus, they’d have to repent of the grave sin.

Michael Pagano (01:52:51):

Oh, repentant heart should be present in those who truly believe. I agree. And this is why earlier we said that if

Trent Horn (01:52:57):

You throw away these

Michael Pagano (01:52:58):

Theological languages-

Trent Horn (01:52:59):

It looks similar.

Michael Pagano (01:53:00):

We’re trying to live the same life. How we describe it is going to bump heads. But back to real quick though, this is where I get accused of being a Calvinist. I believe that a man must choose to put his faith in trust in Jesus. I believe that Paul says, “Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation.” I get grieved, I choose to repent, put my faith in him, and salvation comes from that. However, there’s this constant theme promised in the Old Testament and demonstrated the New Testament that those who do this in the New Covenant will receive a new heart and a new spirit.

Trent Horn (01:53:33):

Yes.

Michael Pagano (01:53:33):

Ezekiel 36, I will cause you. Amen. And so

(01:53:37):

We then have to ask that question of if sanctification begins by God’s hand and none can turn back what God does and none can cease what he begins and Paul writes in Philippians, “He who began a good work in you will bring that to completion.” That’s where we start getting into the, now that it’s in God’s hands and he is the one doing the work, will we get to the end or am I still responsible? Can I slap the hand of the potter off of me and say, “Nevermind, I began this. I let you begin it, I’m not going to let you finish it. ” And I don’t see that in scripture. I see that we’re slave to God.

Trent Horn (01:54:11):

Oh, I see it a lot because once you reference, so he has done a good work with you, will bring it to a completion. There’s a reference to Philippians one: six, but I would say what gives Paul that confidence that the Philippians will be brought to completion is because of the Philippians unique goodwill towards Paul and that they were willing to stand beside him and he says this in the letter, they’re willing to stand beside him in charity when others would not. But later in Philippians, Paul does talk about working out your salvation, fear and trembling in Philippians 2:12. In Romans, yes, there is the imagery of the potter and the clay, but later on then in Romans 11:22, Paul talks about the salvation of Israel and the grafting of the Gentiles with Jewish believers. And he says, “Don’t get cocky if you’ve been around for a while and others are being grafted in.

(01:55:02):

” He says in Romans 11:22, “Pray that you remain in God’s kindness or you too will be cut off like those who are others who have been cut off.” So I do think that I cannot get to heaven without the grace of God, but I can get to hell quite easily on my own.

Michael Pagano (01:55:22):

I do agree with

Trent Horn (01:55:23):

That. And so that’s where I would say that yes, no human being can undo God bringing us from being a child of batten and being a child of God. Like I said, the mark that baptism leaves on the soul, no sin can undo that. But I look at scripture when I look at, for example, John 3:36 and it says that he who believes will be saved, but he who is disobedient to the So I do think that God’s grace is what allows us to do works that are pleasing to him, but living a life that is a life that is compatible with Christian virtue as opposed to being an apostate or falling away, I don’t think that is completely just an out … It’s not something that automatically proceeds from having saving faith. So I think that there is a choice, person is capable of choosing whether or not to live the Christian life or not.

(01:56:18):

So that’s where I think I would disagree.

Michael Pagano (01:56:20):

So for me, it sounds like you’re saying that that’s a decision I make, but yet I can’t even see that in my own life. What do you mean? My decision to be obedient to God was once I came to him and fell to my face and repented and begged him to save me, from there the drive to follow God, it’s almost like when Peter’s asked, “Will you walk away as well?” And he said, “To whom shall we go? ” It’s almost like this answer, Peter’s like, “How could I for I know now who you are?

Trent Horn (01:56:48):

” I think that when we are zealous for God, that is where we see the grace of God at most work in our lives. Even in paragraph 2011 of the catechism, it says, “The saints knew that all of their merits were pure grace. Anything to do to please God, it’s really God’s grace working through them.” I think we see the human freedom element in our lives when we are placed in those situations where we feel the deep sense of temptation that I could have done that, Lord, help me, Lord, I’m so grateful I didn’t do that. When it did seem to be a real possibility to have gone into temptation in that way and that’s where I think human freedom is evident and that freedom, because a person who believes internal security might say, “Yeah, I mean, you could do something bad, but you won’t stay like that forever.

(01:57:37):

The spirit will bring you to salvation.” But I would say that we can see our freedom to commit one act of evil, that freedom can also extend, and I’ve tragically seen it in people’s lives to just remain so in perpetuity because they’ve said no to God.

Michael Pagano (01:57:52):

But I mean, you’re a father and so you have a son, right?

Trent Horn (01:57:55):

I have three sons. Three sons. It keeps things lively.

Michael Pagano (01:57:57):

But you have three sons. And so as a father, my job is to get you to where I want you to be and the journey is up to you. I’m sure every father said this, we’re getting here, whether it’s painful or comfortable is up to you, obedience versus disobedience. And that’s what I read in Hebrews 12 when it says that he disciplines those he loves and disciplines sometimes painful, but it will produce the fruit of righteousness. And so that’s kind of where I see sanctification. Does the believer have the freedom to rebel against what God is doing in his life? Yes, just like

Trent Horn (01:58:26):

A child does. And then there will be consequences.

Michael Pagano (01:58:28):

Yeah,

Trent Horn (01:58:28):

Painful consequences sometimes. I think we just disagree about whether that disobedience could ever result in the ultimate consequence of permanently rejecting God. So we disagree. A person they can rebel against God, they can suffer discipline as a consequence of their sin. We just disagree about all the consequences that are possible.

Michael Pagano (01:58:50):

Would you agree that when Paul uses the term adoption in the letter of Romans, that there’s an important thing to understand with the adoption terminology that … So when I studied Roman history, adoption in Rome was irrevocable, which he uses that adoption language and the irrevocable language in Romans. And so my problem is when people say you could be a child of God and then he’ll disown you basically.

Trent Horn (01:59:12):

Yeah. What I would say is that God will never revoke the divine adoption you’ve received, but the prodigal son didn’t stop being the father’s son when he left. So are

Michael Pagano (01:59:24):

You saying you believe that a child of God can go to hell? Because I would

Trent Horn (01:59:27):

Argue nobody

Michael Pagano (01:59:28):

In hell is a child of God.

Trent Horn (01:59:30):

Not that they’re a child of God in the sense that they are united to God, but that they will have the mark of baptism upon their soul, but they will not have God sanctifying grace because they said no to God, that there will be two kinds of people in hell who said no to God. The people who said no at the beginning at the first offer of salvation and those who said yes and then said no later. I think there will be those two different kinds of people there similar to in the parable to sower you referenced earlier There will be people for whom the seed never took root at all. They’re just like, they were rocky ground. Nope. Not having any of that. And then there will be some who will spring up quick, but then they will wither because they didn’t have the content.

(02:00:11):

I agree with that for sure. So I do think there will not be a child of God in the sense of someone, because I say someone who’s a child of God, they’re in full communion with Christ. They’re united to him through his grace. But I do believe, like I said, there will be people who they said no to God. If you’re in hell, you said no to God permanently, either before salvation or permanently after you received it. And I would say there are other Protestants ahold of that, but

(02:00:35):

We’ve had a lot of fun. Yes. We could go on forever, but that’s why I will need to have you back so we can chat a lot more about this. So much more to talk about. But I would just throwing it to you.

(02:00:47):

Well, I’m going to let you just have some … I’ll let you sell your book. I’ll let you … I’m just kidding. I would love for people to know more about where they can follow the work that you’re doing so they can go and check that out and be encouraging to you about a lot of things we do because you’re big in defending the Trinity. I know that’s a big thing. Obviously we’re on the same team on that. Definitely want to be able to encourage you on that and many other topics. So where are some more things they can look at for you?

Michael Pagano (02:01:14):

And thank you for letting me do so. And honestly, we went straight into conversating that I never got to commend you for saying I appreciate that your focus is not just Catholic verse Protestant,

Trent Horn (02:01:23):

But

Michael Pagano (02:01:24):

You’ve said something before that our heart for the lost. I don’t know how you word it,

Trent Horn (02:01:27):

But- I phrase it this way. I say, I want to reach the most number of people who are the furthest from Christ. Amen. That’s who I want to reach. And I get really sad when a lot of Catholics aren’t as interested in that and it’s more Protestants like yourself or out doing … We have St. Paul Street Evangelization. I love that. But it’s like when I see Protestants, they are just out there. They see … So to me, it’s like if you’re on X or YouTube, you would think like, oh, there’s only Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants in the world. I’m like, no, the majority of people are not religious and they’re very far from Jesus. And I would like to help those people. And I’m grateful someone like you, because I firmly disagree with some apologists who shall remain nameless, who say it’s pointless to lead someone to Jesus if you don’t lead them to the Catholic or the Orthodox Church.

(02:02:17):

That’s silly to me. Yeah. Someone who is united to Jesus is still better off than someone who isn’t. Would I like them to have the fullness of the faith? 100%. But if they’re united to Jesus, I’m going to be pretty jazzed about that. And so I’m grateful you do that.

Michael Pagano (02:02:29):

Thank you. And so yeah, that is the goal. You can find me anywhere. True Christian ministry is the brand truechristianministry.com. We do a podcast and that is our goal. We have Protestants, Catholics. I don’t tell you what to believe. I tell you why I believe what I believe because the reality is the reason we’re called true Christian ministry because we get accused of this like they think they’re the true Christians. No, it’s just that the focus is we want people to be true Christians, meaning not just know Jesus verbally and throw scriptures, but can you love like Christ and act like Christ?

Trent Horn (02:03:00):

Yes.

Michael Pagano (02:03:01):

Because at the end of the day, my whole goal is whether you watch me in your Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox, you will have to go into the scripture to know what it is you believe and why you believe it.

Trent Horn (02:03:10):

And

Michael Pagano (02:03:10):

You could disagree with me and it’s fine, but can you go into it like you just did? You’re able to say, “Well, I don’t agree here because of this. ” Versus the guy that says, “I believe this because this is what we’re taught.” Well, man, when you stand before Jesus one day, your pastor won’t be there, your priest won’t be there, the Pope won’t be there, nobody will be there but you,

Trent Horn (02:03:27):

Can

Michael Pagano (02:03:28):

You confess your faith?

Trent Horn (02:03:29):

I’m A- okay with getting people deep in scripture. I think it’s always happy to help people to do that. So let’s keep it up. We got a lot of common ground, but we’ll have you back for other disagreements and chats about agreements. Awesome. Definitely. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you guys so much for listening and I hope you all have a very blessed day.