Lots of Debates and Dialogues to Debrief!

In this episode Trent sits down David Bates from Pints with Jack to debrief his recent interactions with Nathan Nobis on abortion as well as several dialogues and debates with Protestant apologists on subjects like Mary and baptism.

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Welcome to the Council of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.

Trent Horn:

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Council of Trent podcast. I’m your host Catholic Answer’s apologist and speaker Trent Horn, and I’ve been busy. I’ve been doing a lot of debates, a lot of dialogues. There’s a lot to talk about. People ask me, “Are you going to debrief your debate with Nathan Nobis? Are you going to talk about this debate?” And I figured, why not just save them all for one big mega debrief session, a nice casual chat with someone who’s always fun to chat with, Mr. David Bates from Pints with Jack. David, welcome back to the podcast.

David Bates:

Thank you, Trent. It’s good to be back.

Trent Horn:

Absolutely, and actually, I just finished an interview with your partner in crime at Pints with Jack, with Matt, talking about the moral argument for C.S. Lewis, so that’ll be airing on Pints with Jack and I’ll also be sharing it here on the Council of Trent podcast. You guys have been doing a lot of good stuff over there recently.

David Bates:

Yeah, we’ve been cranking it out. Each season we do a new book, and so we finished the Four Loves and then we did what we called Ecumenism Month, where I spoke to religious people from very diverse backgrounds, so Eastern Orthodox, Mormon, Reformed Baptist, and even an Orthodox Jew, so all people from very different backgrounds who still love Lewis. As you mentioned, you recorded an episode with Matt and that’s because after this, we’re now doing an Apologetics Month where we’re looking at all of the apologetics arguments that Lewis used throughout his career.

Trent Horn:

Yeah, so definitely stay tuned for that. But today, and that’s great that you’ve actually been having these ecumenical dialogues with people because that’s what I’ve been doing recently, dialogues, debates. I’ll let you guide it and just bring up the different ones that I’ve had. Well, you know what, I’ll throw out the first one, that I want to talk about, which is interesting, and that was my debate with Nathan Nobis at Emory University. Nathan and I debated the question, well, is abortion human right or inhumane wrong? I will say this, there was a lot of wrangling to try to get this event together. We were trying to figure out the prompt, whether it was going to be at the university.

Trent Horn:

We had a meeting with people from the Free Speech Organization at Emory, that is created in order to protect speech on campus. It was a really nice guy. He was the one who moderated the debate. We were really anxious and nervous like, “Oh, what’s going to happen? Are there going to be protests?” And there was nothing like that. There were probably like 40 people there. I would say 38 of them were from outside of the school. There were some Emory students, but no pro-choice students, they just ignored it.

Trent Horn:

But I was really looking forward to this debate because Nathan is a very adept pro-choice philosopher. He’s written rebuttals to Francis Beckwith’s pro-life book. He has a blog, Abortion Arguments. He covers a lot of this in great detail, and then I don’t know, the debate turned out to be… It just felt a little different than what I thought it would be.

David Bates:

Yeah, I was texting you as I was watching it. It was very calm, it was very philosophical, which is nice-

Trent Horn:

Oh, I love that part of it.

David Bates:

… A little bit more light than heat. I really liked your opening. I thought you really got ahead of a lot of the common pro-choice arguments, which was a shame because Nathan didn’t really address any of them in his rebuttal, and honestly he wasted his cross examine. He said that there was so many things to talk about, he was going to talk about nothing.

Trent Horn:

He threw it away. It’s hard for me, when you choose to do public debates and public dialogues, you should select someone who… You don’t want someone far beyond your own level, because you’re going to get knocked around and it’s going to be unpleasant, and I wouldn’t say Nathan is below anything, he’s a very smart guy. He’s written a lot on this subject and I’ve listened to him in dialogues with other people on this issue, and he puts forward a strong case.

Trent Horn:

I was just really surprised. Now, in the lead up to this engagement, Nathan was very clear, he did not want to do a debate. He said, “I don’t like debates. I don’t want to do a debate.” and I perfectly respected that. I totally understood. I think he was worried, we’ll get to this here soon. I think he was worried that if we focused on this, like a debate, I would approach it, like how Steve Christie approached our debate on Mary, and we’ll talk about that soon, that I would just-

David Bates:

Enthusiastically.

Trent Horn:

Right, yeah. That I would just get up and just hammer away at him, and it’s just about winning and hammering arguments and scoring debate points, and I didn’t want, that I wanted to have an engagement. But I also, sometimes I get concerned about dialogues that they get off track, so that’s why I made it clear. I said, “Look, why don’t we both,” I said, “go into a debate, but let’s both make our case, then we each get a chance to reply to the other person’s case, and then we do a discussion back and forth?” And so that is, it’s a little bit of a hybrid. It’s got debate features because it has the rebuttal, but I didn’t even call it rebuttal, I said, “Let’s just reply to each other’s case,” and then you open the door and we talked to each other, so I felt like it was set up to be very dialogue friendly, I’m sure you would agree.

David Bates:

I definitely agree. I just felt like, “Did he make notes? Did he flow the debate? Did he look at the arguments that you put forward?” It seemed like he just presented his suggestion as to one of his thoughts that he thinks might be important for the pro-choice side, and I didn’t really feel like he engaged with anything that you said, it was mostly talking about his idea of consciousness.

Trent Horn:

Right, and here’s what was really… I don’t know, it was puzzling to me because now I was prepared for Nathan to bring his A game, that’s why I made a very philosophical pro-life argument. In fact, I gave five separate, several of which most people have not really heard of before.

David Bates:

Yeah. I hadn’t either.

Trent Horn:

And these are arguments that are discussed in the philosophical literature, so they’re quite interesting. But I walked a fine line. I tried very hard not to do what is called a Gish gallop. That’s a fine line to walk. I think that Steve Christie does that in his debates. A Gish gallop is named after the young earth creationist Dwayne Gish. He would debate people on evolution and he would say, “Here’s 30 problems with evolution.” As my colleague, Jimmy Akin says, “It’s way easier to make a mess than to clean it up.” You’re not going to be able to get through all the arguments.

Trent Horn:

But at the same time, I want to put forward a good case. So I picked five, but I felt like I didn’t cram them, I didn’t rush them, and also I felt like this was not being unfair to Nathan because he had addressed all of these arguments in his own books and blog articles. Every single one of them he had addressed before, previously. I was just wondering, “Where’s the Nathan from the online blogs and everything to throw out the objections you have to these arguments?” And I get, maybe he was just overwhelmed in a live setting, that it can be a lot to deal with, but I still felt like he could have added a little bit more or asked me about some of the different arguments.

David Bates:

Yeah. There were times during the cross examination or discussion, whatever you want to call it, quite a repeated phrase was, he always wanted to rephrase the question or take a different example, rather than… It’s fine to do that, but I think at some point you do actually have to come back and answer the questions being asked.

Trent Horn:

Right, and I was trying very hard in the cross examination. Once again, I didn’t want this to be like WWE debate, because that’s not what Nathan wanted, and I didn’t want that either. I wanted to just sit down with an intelligent pro-choice advocate and really hash out where we disagree. But I felt like it was difficult in some parts, because I was just trying to understand his position, because on the one hand he would say, “Well, consciousness is what makes you have the right to life.”

Trent Horn:

Okay, does that mean every being that is conscious at any level has a right to life? Yes, but it can be overridden. Like does a rat have a right to life? Yes it does, and sometimes you would act like killing rats is on par with killing human beings, and other times you would act like it’s not, so I felt it was very difficult to pin the position down, but I think people could see that when you peg the right to life, to these functional requirements, you end up having to bite a lot of bullets, basically. You have some tough conclusions.

David Bates:

I wasn’t sure at one point, you pressed him on say, Peter Singer’s view of infanticide and he seemed to back away from that, but then there was another time when he did seem to suggest by his comment that the door to infanticide was actually open, I wasn’t sure if I was misunderstanding him on that.

Trent Horn:

That was confusing to me as well because he tried to say, “Well, no, infants have a conscious experience over time, so that they’re also persons as much as a rat, as a person, but then maybe they aren’t.” So that was a big concern.

David Bates:

And rats can be overwritten, so can children?

Trent Horn:

Right, exactly. The only thing that I would clarify was interesting is rebuttal, and I don’t fault him for this. It’s easy to misunderstand what somebody says. I was making an argument, my third argument was the personal identity argument. I am an organism, so I am the same organism that was alive in my mother’s womb and it’s wrong to kill me now, it’s wrong to kill me then. Now, I was prepared for Nathan to the biggest objection to that view is to say, “I am not an animal or an organism. I am a collection of mental states,” which I think is the view that he wrote an article critiquing Frank Beckwith’s book, Defending Life. In that article, he defends what he calls the mentalist view of personhood, that he would say, “Well, no, we’re collections of mental states, that, that is what you are.”

Trent Horn:

I believe though that this is not correct. I think that we are organisms, we are bodies. We’re not only bodies, we have an immortal soul, but essentially, so when we die for example, we don’t go to heaven or hell or purgatory, our soul goes there, and then we don’t really exist until our souls are reunited with our bodies. I said, “Look, if we are only a mind, then nobody’s ever been attacked, no one has ever been raped for example.” You could say the person’s body was raped, but that’s not how most people describe it. We don’t say, “I moved my body to kiss you or someone raped her body.” We say, they raped her, they attacked him. He misunderstood, like he said, “I think Trent was trying to say, under my view, rape wouldn’t be wrong.”

Trent Horn:

And I was like, “No, no, no, no, no.” Obviously, you would still be wrong. Even under the mentalist view, it causes tremendous harm to people. But my claim was that, the mentalist view does not correspond to our intuitions about what the harm precisely is, that our bodies are not shells that we pilot. They’re not like cars that we drive. We have an identical relationship to them, and so that plays a lot into abortion. It was funny, I was thinking in my head throughout it, “When can I bring this up again in the debate?” And it just never raised its head enough for me to do that. That happens sometimes. Is there anything else you noticed in that debate you thought was interesting or the dialogue-

David Bates:

I would say that was the main thing. Just trying to get him to focus or at least present his case. I didn’t feel like it was a case, it was a number of ideas that had slang scales on either side and I couldn’t very clearly articulate in my own head what his position actually was.

Trent Horn:

Hopefully, maybe we’ll engage each other again at some point, I’d be happy to do that or maybe what might be best with someone like Nathan is, maybe we could do like a debate book. Like he could sit down, write out all of his ideas, have time with that, and then things could go back forward because he’s a smart guy and I was not concerned, but I was prepared and had read through his material, and that’s the thing, I’ve been so busy lately. There’s so many things I want to get to. I take public debates and public dialogues very seriously. I have seen Catholic apologists that will just waltz out there unprepared and embarrass themselves, frankly.

Trent Horn:

Now, I could prepare and still get trounced by somebody, it happens, I’m only human, but I take them very seriously. I believe in really preparing for it, so that’s why I always hope that the person I engage will also do the same. I read his stuff and he’s got great stuff. It’s wrong, but it’s well thought out, maybe a debate book or something like that might be another forum. Let’s go to the other extreme then, when it comes to not extreme. But another look at debates. We could talk about my debate with Steve Christie on the Marian Dogmas. What did you think of that one?

David Bates:

Well, you and my co-host spoke about this briefly on the episode that he did with you, and he was live texting me as he was listening to it and he said, “Oh man, he’s making some really good arguments.” And that was when I quoted him Proverbs 18:17, that basically, the person that gets to go first, they seem right until the other person gets a chance to respond. I like the way that you frame the debate and made it very clear what this debate was not trying to prove.

David Bates:

I’m not trying to prove these things. It’s all about, does it contradict, does scripture actually contradict the Marian Dogmas or not? I’m not quite sure where to begin. There were lots of little things in your back and forth that I found surprising. One of them was when he said that, Mary had nothing to do with the book of Revelation, that it was just typology. I don’t know quite how you reached that conclusion because in that vision of the woman, of the arc, of the son, of the dragon-

Trent Horn:

In Revelation 12.

David Bates:

Yeah. The other two images represent people, why not the woman, the mother of the Messiah?

Trent Horn:

And this woman gives birth to the Messiah. Now, most critical scholars will say that the symbols and revelation are multivalent, they can mean multiple things, and I think that’s right. That this woman can represent the people of God from whom the Messiah comes, but can also represent the literal mother of the Messiah, just like the figure itself represents a person, the Messiah, and then the dragon represents a person, the devil. I think that was just hand waving away. Now there, I was not trying to make a case for it, I was just saying that, here is a detail that far from the bodily assumption of Mary contradicting scripture, there seems to be hints of it at least within scripture. But I did this very intentionally, David, for the resolution.

Trent Horn:

That’s another thing, when you do debates and dialogues, you must make sure to not be sandbagged by a bad resolution. You don’t want to be defending something that’s tough or indefensible. How should I phrase this? There’s a lot of different prompts that I wouldn’t take. Like a prompt like, the problem of evil is not a problem for theism. Well, it is a problem. It’s not an insurmountable problem. It’s not one that can’t be answered, but it is something Aquinas recognized that as much or for example, that’s why I did not take and I don’t ever see myself taking a debate like, was Mary bodily assumed into heaven? Or does even worse, does the Bible teach Mary was assumed into heaven? I think there is. There are texts like Revelation 12 that, at least implicitly point in this direction, but they’re not proofs, like the same way I could prove baptismal regeneration or the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Trent Horn:

Some Catholic doctrines are very explicit in the Bible, others are implicit. Even if it was a little bit broader, when you’re too far apart from somebody in a debate or a dialogue, it’s not going to be productive. Jimmy Akin uses this example. He says that, “It would be like trying to debate a Jehovah’s witness on dyothelitism or whether Christ had two wills or one will.” Now, we believe he had two, human and a divine will, but you’re so far away from them theologically, it’s not a productive conversation. Much like I find, and I’ve seen these debates where a Catholic debates a Protestant. Especially if it’s a Protestant on the Immaculate Conception, and it really boils down to solo scriptura, eventually.

Trent Horn:

It just ends up being, “Well, we’re actually really debating solo scriptura in a debate about Mary, and so I just don’t think that it’s helpful. Let’s just debate solo scriptura instead. That’s where we’re really disagreeing here.” That’s why I don’t ever see myself doing just a debate on the Immaculate Conception or the bodily assumption of Mary. If a doctrine is too secondary, if it’s too far away… Now, maybe the Immaculate Conception or even the Papacy, I find that we’re too far from Protestants, but with like an Eastern Orthodox person, maybe, because it’s a lot closer, we’re a lot closer in these respects. But debating, and I think it is very clear that at the very least the Dogmas don’t contradict scripture, so it doesn’t get you all the way to them, but it’s a necessary hurdle people have to get over. If we can get through that, Hey, there you go.

David Bates:

It’s a very good stage for Protestant to try and get to because if they can disprove them from scripture, if they say, “This clearly contradicts scripture,” well then the Catholic case is shut down. It can’t go anywhere. No, I do like that and I found the same thing with myself when I’m having theological conversations. The further we are apart, the more time we end up having to spend going back to foundational issues, to realize that we don’t view scripture the same way, that we don’t view the church fathers the same way, that the framework that we’re assessing the data is utterly different, so actually talking about what Bazil or Augustine said, is immaterial, if it can easily just be overridden by somebody’s own personal creed or their own interpretation scripture.

David Bates:

One thing that he kept coming back to was, is our example of a preemptive savior, because this is the common thing with the Immaculate Conception that Mary is saved, but she is saved in anticipation, and he really kept pushing you on that. The question I wanted to ask is, how far in advance does this salvation need to be? Because there are lots of examples in scripture of God saving his people. If He had done nothing, things would been worse, further down the line. I’m thinking things like the enslavement in Egypt, the situation with Esther, if a savior hadn’t been sent-

Trent Horn:

He prevents that.

David Bates:

… It would be far worse. Yeah. If Esther hadn’t stepped in, things would’ve been terrible. If Moses hadn’t gone to Pharaoh things would’ve been far worse years down the line, so does that count as a preemptive saving?

Trent Horn:

Yeah. Well, it’s hard. They might say in the Exodus example, they were taken out of slavery, so they’re out of a bad condition. Esther though, is an interesting one. That’s just this genocide of the Jews is coming, but we have been saved because it was averted, so it never ended up happening. I think the example from Esther is a good one, and my point there is to say, now, once again, we’re going back to, does it contradict scripture?

Trent Horn:

Just because something is unique, if you notice this as the debate was going on, that’s why I prefaced this very hard and I could have prefaced it more here as well, and I did in other parts, because he would bring up something in what was always in cross examination, he said, “Is Luke 1:34 referring to a vow of perpetual virginity of Mary?” I think it is, or it’s explained well by that. But then I said to him, “But that’s not what we’re debating.” This here is to say, well the Immaculate Conception contradict scripture because you can’t point to another place where God is a preemptive savior. Well, that doesn’t contradict scripture.

David Bates:

Also, it seems really funny because if you said you can’t point to another place, well, there’s lots of… I can’t point to in scripture, another place where God becomes man.

Trent Horn:

Right, or to give you another example-

David Bates:

Jesus is an exceptional case. Mary is an exceptional case. Very few people have born the God man, very few people were called by the church father’s Theotokos.

Trent Horn:

Exactly, and so I think that if Jesus is allowed to be an exception, Mary can be one as well, and that’s what we see in a lot of these cases. It’s not special pleading, for example, you have oneness Pentecostals, people who baptize in the name of Jesus and they’ll say, “All right, where else in scripture, besides Matthew 28, does it say to baptize in the name of the father, son, and the holy spirit?” And we’d have to say, “Well, it doesn’t say anywhere else, but it doesn’t matter because Jesus told us that here. That’s the only place where it says it, but it says it.” That came up and there were a lot of cases where it strayed from the main topic, which was, does it contradict scripture?

Trent Horn:

So trying to say, “Well, where else in scripture do we find this?” Doesn’t matter, if it’s possible that it’s here, then it’s there or at least there is nowhere in scripture that says, “God does not preemptively save people.” That would be a contradiction of scripture, but he couldn’t produce anything like that. You know what was funny is, I was looking in the YouTube comments and there was a commenter who flowed the debate. Now, he was very pro Christie and said that Christie won, but I appreciated the flow he did. He wrote out all the arguments. It was funny, he said, “Never seen Trent Horn debate so badly. He either dropped out of,” he said there were seven arguments that I dropped, which means I didn’t respond to them or I ended them with an appeal to something outside of the Bible, in violation of the debate rules.

Trent Horn:

I responded to him online and I said, “Well, first the debate rules were not, you can only cite the Bible. The question is, do the Marian dogmas contradict the Bible? So in order to do that, you have to know what the Bible says and to know what the Bible says, you have to consult non-biblical things like Bible scholars, Bible dictionaries, which I did.” For example, I thought this was an interesting argument that he would try to make, he seemed to be saying the Greek word Adelfa, which means sister-

David Bates:

I was going to ask you about this.

Trent Horn:

Yeah. He’s saying, “Well, Adelfos can mean cousin or kin or adoptive sibling.” But he says, “In the new Testament Adelfa, is only ever used for a biological sister or for like a sister in Christ.” He tried to say, Strongs concordance defines it that way, it says sister or a sister in Christ. I pointed out first, Strongs makes the same definition of Adelfos, but we know it just says brother, but we know that can be all kinds of brothers. Then number two, my reply to that was just, “You’re wrong.”

Trent Horn:

Christie, he’s just wrong about the semantic range of Adelfa, and so I quoted two scholars, Richard Baucum and Bill Mounts. It was funny, the critic on YouTube is saying, “You’re using extra biblical authority.” Well, I’m using a Bible scholar to say you don’t understand what this Greek word means, that there’s no reason to think that Adelfos can have this wide range of male relatives, but Adelfas can’t, just because it’s only used a certain way, there’s just not a lot of sister relationships in scripture.

Trent Horn:

It was funny, I went through all these little things and of the seven, four of them where I appealed to something non-biblical, which I’m perfectly allowed to do to show there’s no contradiction because it could be explained by a non-biblical factor scenario, like Joseph having been married before, and these are adopted siblings. Then he says, so there were three arguments I dropped, I didn’t reply to, well four or three or four, and that was out of 16. So he said that Steve essentially made 16 different arguments, that’s a Gish gallop. I felt like, and maybe you could feel this way. Steve, he is a great guy, but he has a funny way of doing his opening statements, he just dives into it. He didn’t even say what he was trying to argue. He just dove right into it, assuming everyone would know what’s going on, and I saw in the comments, certain people saying they were getting lost, not following where he was going.

David Bates:

That was particularly unfortunate since he went first. I thought of the debate teacher that you went and did a video with after he reviewed one of your debates, one of the things he keeps saying is, the person that wins is the person that frames the debate, that gives the audience the ability to assess the arguments that are being made and makes that really, really clear, and his opening was not good in that regard. It wasn’t clear what was being debated, what the terms were. I felt like he was trying to get ahead of standard Catholic apologetics that he’d heard before. The standard arguments for the Immaculate Conception, for the assumption for the perpetual virginity. But it needed a little bit more padding around it, so everything was framed before he started his arguments.

Trent Horn:

Now, I appreciated debating Steve, because he does research things, he knows a lot about it and so he brought forward a lot of arguments and so people could listen to say, “Wow, that’s a lot of arguments, maybe the Bible does contradict Marian dogmas.” But it provides a great opportunity to be able to go through them methodically, and so I felt like, and I even messaged the guy on YouTube saying, “I still feel like getting 12 or 13 arguments out of 16 is pretty good, in a live debate.” But I felt very good about being able to show and those arguments just all fell by the wayside. Like the argument from Psalm 69, because it talks about the Messiah having brothers, who are sons of his mother and I show, well that doesn’t work because that same text says, the Messiah sins and what Christie’s reply to that is “Well yeah, Jesus takes on our sins.”

Trent Horn:

Okay. Well, that’s not what it says here at Psalm 69. That’s a non-literal interpretation and then going through all the others. I think it was a good back and forth. I think I was able to show the dogmas don’t contradict, I think just a few parts we maybe got hung up on, where I could have added a little bit more. On the assumption, I think one of his arguments was that, assumptions are only for rescuing people from death.

David Bates:

Yeah. That’s one of my notes that I put down, he was talking about the purpose of an assumption. It’s like, how does he know what the purpose is?

Trent Horn:

Right, and I would ask him, so if… Once again, obviously, I feel something went very well, but I would’ve asked him, “Where does the Bible say the purpose of every assumption is to rescue from death?” That may have been how some assumptions are described, but not others. Now, of course the church leaves open whether Mary died or not, I hold to the view, it’s more the traditional view that she did die and I could have said this more that look, his argument about Mary dying and that’s problematic, just assume that the church leaves that an open-

David Bates:

Assume that she didn’t.

Trent Horn:

Right. You’re free to do that.

David Bates:

He got really hung up on that, and I wasn’t sure why.

Trent Horn:

Yeah. I think he was hung about Mary dying, that relates more to the Immaculate Conception saying that her death proves that she was sinful. There were some Catholics who disagreed with me about this in the comment section saying that, “No, no, no, no.” Well, maybe there’re some Catholics who believe Mary never died. She was assumed live because she’s sinless, and my point was, “Well, no. Even if you’re free from sin, you can still be mortal, if you have a human nature because human nature has become broken and has fallen.”

Trent Horn:

Jesus had a human nature. He was free from sin, but he still had to deal with the effects of original sin, like sweat, the toil of one’s brow, Jesus had to work. He had to work to provide for himself and things like that, and then also he died. It was funny, David, I was looking at some comments on this and some people, because I made the argument, “Well, no, Steve’s wrong that, you can be free from sin and still die. Jesus died.” The reply was, “Jesus didn’t die. He was killed.” That was one reply I’ve seen, and I’m like, “What’s the difference there?”

David Bates:

I think they were thinking that it was like the elves in Lord of the rings, so they are naturally immortal but they can be killed if you stick an Orcs sword through them.

Trent Horn:

Yeah. What I would say here is that, we’re really… And I could see maybe where someone might be going with that. But at the same time, what is the difference between the body being susceptible to decay from microbes and other things that attack body cells like ultraviolet rays, that ultraviolet rays penetrate our cells and cause them to degrade and break down, and that’s what contributes to aging? You wouldn’t be sepal to that, but a spear can go through you.

Trent Horn:

I don’t find that to be very compelling and especially his argument as to why Jesus, that he’s free from sin, but he takes 2 Corinthians 5:21, where it says that Jesus, he became sin. It was hard because I didn’t want to go down that road because there’s multiple ways to interpret it beyond the imputation view that Jesus… And it’s hard, you can’t say he literally became sin because he is free from sin.

Trent Horn:

Now, if you say he took on our sins, but then they’re not his sins, why is he immortal, if they don’t become a part of him in some way? Because there’s other ways to interpret that verse. One way is, it means he came in the likeness of sinful flesh, i,e he just became mortal or man, that phrase, the likeness of sinful flesh, I think is used in Romans, or he became a sin offering.

David Bates:

Offering. Yeah, that’s my preferred understanding of that passage.

Trent Horn:

Yeah. He became a sacrifice for sin, because it’s also used in that way in other passages. But otherwise, I still think that was more of a speculative argument against the Immaculate Conception. I still think, I sufficiently replied to the view that it’s not universal because even when the Bible speaks of things being universal, it doesn’t always mark out the exceptions. For example, the Bible’s pretty clear that people die or at least they die once. But there’s exceptions to that.

David Bates:

Yeah. One of the things related to that, he had a lot of credibility over the idea of Mary being sinless and people not noticing that Joseph could even consider that, anything other than an angel came to her was the explanation for Jesus. Again, any argument against Mary, you can always flip back to Jesus. It’s like, “Well, wasn’t Jesus sinless too?” If so, how could his family ever think that he was out of his mind, if they’ve grown up with this perfect person?

Trent Horn:

That is a great reply. I think I did mention that briefly. My mind was all over the place, but I think that did come out. I think I said something related to that because yeah, if that’s the argument and this goes back into my book, I’m working on, When Protestants Argue Like Atheists, you need to be careful because you’re right. That boomerangs back around. If the argument is, whoa, if Mary was really sinless, everyone would’ve noticed and said that Joseph would’ve definitely known, but then if that’s true, the people of Nazareth, would’ve known Jesus his whole life. It would’ve noticed, “Hey, here’s a kid who’s never done anything wrong, ever, ever.” Why would you think he’s out of his mind, if he’s claiming he’d be the Messiah or a prophet or even God, and carnet, they still didn’t wrap their heads around it.

Trent Horn:

They didn’t have the same theological framework you and I did. But otherwise though, as I said, I think it was a good debate. It’s a great place to engage the Marian Dogmas, because as I said, in a lot of other debates or dialogues, it can be not as favorable a venue or a topic, but here I think it made for a great place to talk about them and to see that you can love scripture and you can hold these Marian Dogmas and the two don’t have to conflict. Well, I think this person who flowed my debate did say it was brilliant, I mentioned Luther and Calvin in my defense of Mary’s perpetual virginity. That’s always helpful to go back to the reformers.

David Bates:

Well, they were far more primary than a lot of [inaudible 00:33:26] instance. I always point people towards a Luther’s commentary on the magnifica. It’s brilliant. I really like it.

Trent Horn:

Absolutely, though, it was important for me to point out in the debate that Calvin did deny the perpetual virginity of Mary. I want to write a book soon on Bad Catholic Apologetics. I’ve made these mistakes myself. You learn from your mistakes, but that’s one that’s all over the place. Luther and Calvin believed in Mary’s perpetual virginity, only Luther did. Now, Calvin did not think Matthew 1:25, where it says that, Joseph did not know Mary until Jesus was born. Calvin says, that verse does not disprove Mary’s perpetual virginity, and he’s right, but he also couldn’t believe Mary had a perpetual virginity, he couldn’t count and its that, so that’s important to bring up. I noticed, I think Steve said this, he might have said it in the debate. I know he said it in a few recaps.

Trent Horn:

It’s funny. He said this, he said, “Even the New American Bible, the Catholic New American Bible says, Matthew 1:25, the word until,” he said something like, “Even the Catholic Bible admits it does not preclude marital relations after Jesus’ birth, rather Matthew’s concern is just to talk about what happened before Jesus’ birth.” He reads that and then he said something like, “See, and that shows you can’t use Matthew 1:25 to prove Mary’s perpetual virginity.”

Trent Horn:

I would say you’re you’re right, that’s not a proof for it. But the point in the footnote in the NAB is that, it’s not a proof against it. That you’re right that, that verse… Now, a Catholic can’t say, “Matthew 1:25 can’t possibly mean Mary and Joseph had relations.” You can’t say that, it could mean that, but it does not have to mean that. It was hard, we got into the Greek a little bit with Haus who, and it was always hard because it was such a fast and furious debate. I worried people might have missed that, but I might address that just in my own episode later.

David Bates:

I think the thing that kept coming back throughout the debate is, and this often happens, but because of the way the debate was framed, I think it made it much easier to process that there’s often one person that’s insisting that a term or a phrase must mean this, and we found it in a dictionary that says so. That while they can be a wider semantic range in this case, we have to make it mean this. I think for your debate and to prove your point, all you really have to say is not necessarily, unless you can say that it conclusively has to mean that.

Trent Horn:

Right.

David Bates:

Fine. That is one of the possible options, but it doesn’t contradict it. The most you can suggest is that it might be a doubt.

Trent Horn:

Right. Then that happens when people are arguing about the perpetual virginity of Mary and the meaning of Adelfos or Adelfa. It’s just so funny, I sometimes think I took these very Eastern views, Mary died, or I purposely took the view. I did not even try to defend the view of St. Jerome that the brothers and sisters of the Lord are cousins. I just chose not to do that, because I don’t have to and I picked another view that I think is more defensible or at least it’s easier to defend in a debate, because if the debate is just, does it contradict scripture? Well, if Jesus’, if they’re adoptive siblings, born from Joseph’s previous marriage, they are Adelfos and Adelfa. You’re in the ancient world, and even today, your adoptive, you don’t use the word step sibling necessarily, your adoptive sibling is your brother or sister.

Trent Horn:

You don’t always say, “Oh, this is my adopted brother.” You says, “This is my brother.” That was true also in the Old Testament, and that’s why actually I asked Steve about this because a lot of Protestants apologists will say, “Catholics are taking Adelfos out of its original meaning, and they’re straining the meaning. When it’s naturally, it would mean uterine brothers and sisters.” But I think that’s a really bad argument, because the natural meaning of Adelfos is, you have the same biological mom and dad. That’s the natural meaning of the term in scripture, but we all agree Catholics and Protestants, that’s not who the brothers and sisters Lord are. They do not have Joseph and Mary. They don’t share that because Jesus is not born of Joseph. Joseph is not his biological father.

Trent Horn:

That’s why my view or saying that there, that Adelfos means adoptive sibling, that’s actually… There’s a great Eastern Orthodox priest, Father Laurent Cleenewerck, Cleenewerck, I believe is his name. He wrote a whole book defending this view of Mary’s perpetual virginity. He points out in that book that actually in the New Testament, the word Adelfos that’s most common meaning is adoptive sibling. Like when I say you’re a brother in Christ, that’s not just a metaphor because we’re both adopted by Yahweh, by God. We literally are adoptive siblings in Christ. Actually, the most common use of Adelfos in scripture is adoptive sibling. That was an insight I got from Cleenewerck’s book. I was like, “Oh yeah, you’re right.” Then he points out in the Septuagint in the Old Testament, and that’s why I asked Christie this for his view, that in the Old Testament, when we are dealing with adoptive or half siblings, the common parent is always the father.

Trent Horn:

You’ll have a case, and this happens in Luke 3:1, for example, when it says Herod Antipas and Herod Philip. When John the Baptist talks to Herod, he says, You can’t have your brother’s wife.” They were not full brothers. Herod Antipas and Herod Philip were born of two different women. They had the same father, Herod the great, but they were born of two different women, but they had the same father. Steve’s view is that Adelfos would mean that Jesus’ siblings, they have the same mother, but different father. I even stumble over this in the debate, because it can get complicated, because my view would be that, they have the same adoptive father, Joseph, and different mothers, Joseph’s first wife and second wife, and so it means it in that sense.

Trent Horn:

Steve’s view would be that, these brothers of the Lord have the same mother, but different fathers, Joseph, and then God, the father. That’s why I asked him and that’s what Adelfos would mean for him in that context, same mother, different fathers. So when I asked him in the Old Testament and the Septuagint, where is Adelfos ever used that way? And he couldn’t produce it because he can’t. In the Greek Old Testament, when you’re talking about siblings in this way with half siblings, it is always the same father and different mothers. I think Adonijah, the son of… He’s not called the son of David, he’s called the son of one of David’s other wives, to say that well, he and Absalom or someone else would have the same father David, but they have different mothers.

Trent Horn:

I’m sorry, I’m going on a long tangent here, but I think it’s just important to point out that in this dispute, over the perpetual virginity of Mary, Catholics are not like, “Oh, we’re twisting Adelfos and brother when it just naturally means this.” No, no, no. Protestants and Catholics both reject the standard definition, same biological mother and father. Rather, we look for a different definition and the Catholic view, there’s nothing problematic with it. St Jerome’s view of cousins is defensible, but in a debate where you have limited time constraints, I chose the epiphany and view that they’re adopted siblings just because it’s easier, and it’s at the same level as the view that Steve was defending, but I threw a lot out of there. You have thoughts on that or other things in the debate?

David Bates:

Just really one other thing, since you brought up the Septuagint. He said something that I found rather strange. He said, “It’s just a translation, otherwise the New Testament authors wouldn’t have deviated from it.” It was like he was trying to make the Greek Old Testament, a lower standard than say the Masoretic text, which I found really weird because the Septuagint is quoted more often, especially where there are variants that depart the Masoretic text. I wasn’t quite sure what standard he was applying there.

Trent Horn:

Yeah. I found that interesting as well, because the Hebrew, the Masoretic text it’s not like this is just the original Hebrew autographs that we have today. There are manuscript traditions within the Masoretic text. They are translations in themselves in a sense of being copies. I found that interesting that if that were the case, you’re right. Why is the Septuagint quoted so often? This idea that, “Oh, well, they deviated from it, so they didn’t respect it.” Well, that’s the case. The problem here with his argument is that when the New Testament uses scripture citations that deviate from the Septuagint, it’s not a complete match to the Masoretic text either, that the New Testament authors would quote things, in particular ways that weren’t necessarily exact, much the same way that what they will also do is they’ll sometimes make a quote.

Trent Horn:

This is interesting here, then the new Testament they’ll say, “And so the prophet Jeremiah said,” and they’ll have a quotation that is actually like two or three prophets woven together, and they’ll just quote one prophet because he was the major prophet, and you recognize the others along the way, who are in there. But yeah, this idea of trying to downplay the Septuagint, I’m not sure what the game is there, maybe because that’s a big argument that we use for the Deutero canonical books of scripture. I don’t know. But otherwise though, I thought it was a good debate. I definitely think it opens up. It’s always hard, David, when I do these debates, because it’s always like, you go and see… There’s always going to be people on the other side, no matter how badly the other person does.

Trent Horn:

I don’t think Steve did badly. I think he came arguments to bear, but I answered them, who will be like, “Good job. Trent was obliterated, blah, blah, blah.” It’s always hard. I’m like, “But don’t you see, I refuted that argument or that argument.” You just always have to admit that when you do these engagements, there’s only going to be a small percentage of people in the middle who are like, “Yeah, okay. This turns me one way there.” Those are the people that I’m always trying to reach. That’s where I see the importance of debates like these

David Bates:

As well as people who are engaged in dialogues already, and when you get to listen or watch a debate, you get to hear some arguments you may have never heard of before, and that if they were presented to you on the street, you might be flux, but now you get the opportunity to hear what people on both sides would say about this.

Trent Horn:

Yeah, exactly. Okay. We could take maybe briefer comments on some of these others, because they’re still interesting. What did you think of my dialogue with, once again with Steve, Steve and Jeff on the Protestant atheist. Do Protestants argue like atheist? It was nice to sit down with them and more of a dialogue format. What was funny there is to compare Steve’s approach there, which is like his approach in the debates with Jeff’s, which I think was a lot more open to dialogue.

David Bates:

I liked that you found some common ground, you conceded where you could and also that you are willing to say when you think Catholics use bad arguments, and I think that’s a fantastic book. I think that definitely needs to be written, and then you can be the most anti-Catholic Catholic out there and get-

Trent Horn:

You know it’s hard though, David, some people, it’s like when I did What The Saints Never Said, some people have emotional attachments to these arguments, and when you point out that they’re bad, they’ll reflexively, “They’re not bad.” Okay, we can have difference of opinion, but in some cases you’re just wrong and I’ve been wrong and I’ve had to learn from my mistakes, and I would prefer that others learn from my mistakes and not make them themselves. But no, I thought that was a good exchange. I know this is a controversial thesis, but it’s just so hard. Even in that conversation, it felt like I would point out where people argue like atheists and then the exact same arguments end up getting made, right in the course, like arguing some silence and then Steve brings up Tertullian and the assumption of Mary, why doesn’t he talk about it? Even though he talks about Enoch and Elijah.

Trent Horn:

I’m actually working on an article on this point, that the church fathers, many of them, when they bring up the assumption of Enoch and Elijah, we wouldn’t expect them to bring up the assumption of Mary because they’re only talking about the old Testament or they’re talking about people being rescued from death and maybe Mary didn’t die or they’re arguing against people who say that, “Man can’t be in heaven.” And they’ll say, “What about you Enoch and Elijah?” And they’re arguing against heretics who accept the Old Testament, but those people probably don’t even believe in the assumption of Mary, so why bring it up?

Trent Horn:

It’d be like, if someone could do that to me, if somebody said there’s no… Like if I argue against soul sleep, the doctrine is soul sleep, which says that you are unconscious until the final judgment. And I said, “Well, no. Enoch and Elijah are in heaven. Moses was on the Mount of transfiguration. Elijah was there, the dead or not unconscious until the final judgment.” And someone said, “Well, look, Trend Horn doesn’t believe in the assumption of Mary because he didn’t say, and Mary is alive bodily in heaven.” Well yeah, I didn’t bring up that example because the person I’m arguing with, doesn’t accept that. It’s not common ground for them, but that’s a point that comes up in these different places.

David Bates:

That section on the argument from silence was interesting, because I remember going to your debate with Richard Carrier and [inaudible 00:47:22] steroids. Paul doesn’t quote Jesus, okay, Jesus didn’t exist. That’s the most extreme version of it.

Trent Horn:

I was watching a video recently and Gavin Orland did a short reply to this thesis saying, “Oh, you’re making an argument from silence,” but he’s saying, “Look, wouldn’t we expect in 400 years somebody to mention the assumption of Mary as if the shorter time span with a New Testament documents, why don’t we see this?” And yet the problem here is we’re dealing with not just a secondary doctrine, like the assumption, but like primary things like, why doesn’t Mark or John mention the Virgin birth or Paul. I will say that, that’s a very crucial thing. I think in Orland’s book on Theological Triage, he mentions the Virgin birth as like a primary hill to die on, for your doctrines.

Trent Horn:

Now, I don’t agree with myths on this point, and I don’t think arguments from silence are always bad, they can be quite correct, but you got to make sure you got really, really good evidence for them. I’ve just noticed with Protestants, they’re more apt to use them haphazardly against Catholics, but they would point out the haphazard usage among atheists. But the thing is, if you’re going to do this with the church fathers, because yeah, Richard Carrier in his book, he points, he and George Albert Wells and other Methodists, there are weird silences in scripture. Like you can say, “Look, Paul doesn’t mention the miracles or the life in ministry of Jesus.”

Trent Horn:

I agree it’s not crazy to reach the conclusion that he’s talking about a mythical cosmic savior. I think it’s wrong, and there are references to Jesus’ life, but not [inaudible 00:49:12]. Being born of a woman, he having a brother in Galatians 1:19, and Carrier explain his way. But I’ve asked, I think in our debate when you were there, they asked Carrier Richard, “What would be caused for you to not be a mythicist?” And he said, “Well, if Paul said Jesus was crucified by the Romans or said, Jesus preached in the Decapolis, I wouldn’t be a mythicist.” I’m not sure if that’s really true. I could see Richard saying, “Oh, it’s an interpolation” or, “Oh, it’s spiritual.” But you’re right. There are no such references in Paul’s letters.

David Bates:

You pointed out something that I hadn’t realized that, Josefa doesn’t mention Paul’s from his point of view-

Trent Horn:

He doesn’t mention Paul at all.

David Bates:

That is something I would’ve really expected. This would’ve been the scandal of the day, but are we going to assume that Paul doesn’t exist?

Trent Horn:

Pharisees of Pharisees, is trained under Gamelion, and now there are letters all over the Roman empire bearing his name, defending Christian theology that, Josefa never mentions him, even though Josefa mentions other traders to the Jewish faith, like other false messiahs and other things like that, why not? Sometimes we don’t know, but… Go ahead.

David Bates:

I was just going to say, persons do the same thing often with the letters. Why didn’t Paul or Peter, Jude, why don’t they say this in their letter? And it doesn’t frame it in terms of this is an occasional letter. It’s trying to deal with something specific.

Trent Horn:

Oh, like a Catholic doctrine?

David Bates:

Yes.

Trent Horn:

In their letters?

David Bates:

Yes. Why doesn’t this thing get mentioned? It’s like, well, maybe it wasn’t for their reason. I remember one time I was talking with somebody and it was with an atheist and they brought up why the fact Paul doesn’t quote Jesus. I said, “Actually, in our entire conversation, we’ve been chatting here for about half an hour. Have I quoted Jesus once at all? No, because it wasn’t relevant and you don’t regard him as an authority or even a historic figure.”

Trent Horn:

When you’re talking to a Mythicist, they’ll say, “Why doesn’t Paul quote Jesus?” Well, isn’t relevant to what he’s saying, even though it would make sense in a lot of cases, and so there, we can apply the same argument. Why isn’t this Catholic doctrine or that Catholic doctrine in scripture? Well, you’re making an argument from silence at that similar level. But yeah, I thought so. I thought that was interesting and it was nice to discuss some of the other points. I’m working on that book now. I’m hoping to have it done in a month or two, but it’s been exciting and I’m trying really hard to write it so that a Protestant can read it and disagree, but not be offended, because I also point out where Catholics make similar bad arguments in this respect that that they should watch out for.

Trent Horn:

Though I do think in general, it’s more likely for a Protestant to argue like this, because atheists will say, “Look, we don’t need God to explain the natural world. We got the natural world. That’s enough.” And Protestants say, “We don’t need tradition or the magisterium to explain scripture. Scripture is enough.” When that’s the source of the dispute, those parallels are going to inevitably arise. I’m trying to think there’s anything else interesting with Jeff and Steve in that conversation? It was polite. I enjoyed it. I’d be happy to another one with them. I thought it was funny that Jeff thinks that Fatma must be demonic.

David Bates:

Yeah, that was the weirdest section. I wanted you to bring Jimmy into the conversation. It’s like, this is mysterious world stuff, you go deal with that.

Trent Horn:

Or his view that aliens can’t exist, that it’s all demons who are doing aliens. I’m like, “Ah, I have a hard time with that. I don’t see the improbability or impossibility of aliens, extraterrestrial beings, or extra dimensional beings, existing. God could have made a multiverse. He could have populated the world.” But also this argument, you got to be careful with this argument too saying, and that we try going down this route a little bit. Maybe the resurrection was a demonic deception, “Oh no, no, no, because it corresponds the old Testament, messianic prophecies,” like, “Well, why do all these Jews say that it doesn’t?”

Trent Horn:

But I think the route I could have also taken there is like, this is the same, Fatma is demonic. How would I reply to that? Well, what did Jesus say when people accused him of being in league with Beelzebul? He drives out demons by the prince of demons, and he says, “Well, a house divided can’t stand, so the devil’s working through me to cast out demons and bring down the devil’s kingdom.” That doesn’t make sense. So much the same way the devil’s using Fatma to bring, or our lady Guadalupe, or what have you to bring millions of people to knowledge of Christ, to knowledge of salvation. Now, the only way that could maybe work is if you have a view like Jeff or Steve’s, which is that Catholicism is satanic, not satanic necessarily, but it’s-

David Bates:

A false relation.

Trent Horn:

… It’s false, so it’s heredical. But I think most other Protestants view Catholicism is just another denomination. If you view it as just another denomination, I think you have a lot of reckoning to do with apparitions and miracles and things like that.

David Bates:

Which have happened throughout the church’s history. It’s not even that this is just new miracles, although they’re still needed for a Saint to be canonized, but throughout church history, I think the earliest Marian apparition is our age is a pillar, which it dates back right to the beginning.

Trent Horn:

Well, let me add one more thing there. In the work I’m doing on my book, Do Protestants Argue Like Atheists, I’m engaging with a reformed theologian, BB Warfield. He wrote a book in the early 20th century called Counterfeit Miracles, and there, it’s fascinating to read. He is a cessationist. There are Protestants who believe charismatic gifts and miracles ended with the apostles. There are no more miracles or charismatic gifts or anything like that. That was just the time of the apostles.

Trent Horn:

He writes this whole book, basically trying to disprove all of the miracle claims, apparitions, miracle claims that have happened since the first century, and he sounds just like an atheist, “Oh, this is suggestion at Lords, and oh, there’s not a lot of documentation of these miracles of Augustine, and this is Pius imaginations.” I’m like, “Dude.” And then suddenly the miracles of the New Testament happened. Well, you’ve really set yourself up to now undermine all of those miracle claims too, so it’s not helpful. But you were saying before I cut you off.

David Bates:

I was following from what you’ve just said, I was going to quote my man C.S. Lewis, because he makes the point that, when you’re a Christian, you can actually find more liberal when you’re looking at truth happening outside of your religion or I would say that same thing could work for miracles. If you have a God who can do these things, then that’s certainly at least possible. I think it’s really an issue. It’s really difficult if you accept the supernatural and then you have to shut down any miracle that happens in an environment that you don’t endorse the theological positions.

Trent Horn:

Yeah. That’s a big one and I’m hoping to… I’ve covered this little in some of my debates and arguments about the resurrection of Christ, but I am open to miracles occurring in non-Christian religions. It could be God doing the miracle providentially for someone, it could be demonic elements. So that’s why I’m not going to totally shut down the idea that a false miracle is demonic. I can understand where they’re coming from with Fatma and that could strengthen if you’re going to make the additional case that Catholicism is heredical.

Trent Horn:

But without that further argument, Catholicism is heredical, if you are, let’s say you’re a Protestant who says, “Well, I don’t think Catholicism is a heresy, I’m just not convinced of it. Just like I’m not convinced of being a Presbyterian or a Methodist or something like that.” Then I think the miracles and evidences you got to reckon with, but for me, I’ve got good evidence that Islam and other non-Christian religions are false. Like with Mormonism, that could be suggestion, that could also be something demonic because Paul warns in his letter to the Galatians, Joseph Smith says an angel gave him the golden plates. Paul says, “If even an angel gives you a gospel that contradicts ours, do not follow them.” I think actually at the Catholic Cathedral in Salt Lake City-

David Bates:

Salt Lake City, yeah.

Trent Horn:

It has that. It has a statue of Peter and it says, “The gates of hell shall not prevail.” And a statue of Paul that says, It’s Salt Lake City, the home of Mormonism, Mormon temple, the headquarters there, it says, “Do not follow another gospel, even if an angel preaches it to you,” which I’m like-

David Bates:

That’s some useful Catholic shade.

Trent Horn:

Oh man. I wish we had more great passive aggressive cathedrals and statues like that. That’s just amazing.

David Bates:

Like in old days when they painted pictures of the final judgment and they put all the people they don’t like on the hell side.

Trent Horn:

Totally, totally. I guess last one here. This is one that’s on Gavin Orland’s channel. I’ll share it on my channel here probably next week. But I had a dialogue with him about baptism, because he made a video about baptism, I made a rebuttal. He made a reply. I don’t like rebuttals to rebuttals, so we just sat down and talked about it, and that was enjoyable. I like Gavin. I disagree with him, obviously. But, probably of all the ones we’ve talked about here, this is the most thoughtful engagement and enjoyable one I had of all of them, and so that was nice to be able to do.

David Bates:

Yeah, it was calm. It was charitable. It was friendly. I’ve enjoyed his stuff for a while as well, and he likes writing about C.S. Lewis and so, we’ve exchanged emails and he knows that he’s got a standing invitation to come on the show. But I would say on the downside-

Trent Horn:

By the way, for our listeners, we talked about baptism, whether baptism regenerates or saves you.

David Bates:

He had done an earlier video also about what the fathers say about baptism regeneration, and sometimes I think he nuances his points so much, I just don’t see a difference. There’s a few points where I don’t know what difference you’re seeing between these two statements because they seem exactly the same to me.

Trent Horn:

Yeah. The idea of it being the cause of salvation, but it’s not what saves us. I think though he bluntly said baptism does not justify us and Catholics believe that we receive justification at baptism, so that’s a clear difference.

David Bates:

But he also said too many baptisms have a low view of baptism, and he said, it’s not just a symbol, it actually does communicate grace.

Trent Horn:

And that’s why-

David Bates:

It’s not the cause of regeneration.

Trent Horn:

That is why I asked him whether you believed it justified or sanctified, and I think his view is more, it sanctifies us, but it doesn’t give us justification, doesn’t make us right before God. It was nice dialogue. We didn’t cover obviously all the major proof texts for baptism. He had more of his own questions asked me, which I think I provided helpful answers. We can wrap up here actually that I think what we can focus on that I thought was really the most interesting question, because I’ve seen him talk about this in other venues. I think for Gavin, a lot of his arguments are phenomenological. Like he says, he can’t see how his Baptist theology is wrong because he sees the fruit of the spirit in people who accept it.

Trent Horn:

Like he gave the example of a woman who was a witch. She comes to faith in Christ. Her life is dramatically changed and then she’s baptized. But it seems like there’s this big change in her before that point, and he doesn’t see how that could not be regeneration or being justified by faith. I think we talked about that a lot. I do find it to be a very interesting objection, but I worry that it’s just so problematic to try to use a phenomenon or empirical observation to determine when spiritual regeneration happens, because it’s just an unseen reality, hence the working of God. I felt like he didn’t… We at least maybe we didn’t fully really grasp the counter example, because my thing is, I’ve seen him do this.

Trent Horn:

He had a dialogue with Craig Trulia on Eastern orthodoxy, and one of his arguments there was, “Well, I’m not even Eastern Orthodox, I don’t see the fruits in Eastern Orthodoxy.” It was interesting, because a lot of his objections to this more churches based on apostolic succession, are really more like the Papacy, the assumption of Mary, that doesn’t come up in Orthodoxy. At least the assumption called door mission, wherever you want to call it. But you don’t get as defined Dogmas to really grapple with an Orthodoxy. I feel like he fell back a lot on, I don’t see the fruits there, but I just feel like this fruit argument.

Trent Horn:

I really don’t think that there’s too many counter examples, for Gavin to say, “How can I say that this X witch is not justified by faith, look at the transformation.” I would say, “Yeah, but the Mormon can say that many times, why can’t they say that?” And his reply was, “No, no, no, but she has the fruits of the spirit in response to the authentic gospel of Christ.” And I’m like, “Now, we’re just begging the question.”

Trent Horn:

If you and I see a Mormon who changes from Mormon faith and Mormon baptism, but we know they’re not justified by it. And we are like, I should have asked him, what is happening there, in that case. And I guess he would say, “Well, it’s not the fruits I’m talking about because they might have love joy, peace, patience, and kindness. But they don’t have belief in the Trinity, like what explains this witch’s belief in the Trinity.” “Well, you told her to believe in the Trinity.”

David Bates:

From an phenomenological point of view, they look the same. All you’re doing, it’s the same thing about the miracles. You’re framing it. You’re putting it in terms of what is the theological system in which this happens, and that is the thing that is validating your experience, one way or the other.

Trent Horn:

Yeah. I just feel like there’s just too many counter examples, both of non regenerate people having the fruits, so the counter examples would give, so there would be non regenerate people having spiritual fruits. Mormons who have a conversion, Christians who are super on fire when they convert and then 10 years later, it’s just so mediocre and minimal.

Trent Horn:

They’re not apostates, but it’s mediocre, but they’re still regenerate or someone who becomes apostate and retains the fruits, or someone who becomes apostate and becomes a horrible person, will rewind the tape back when they’re in Gavin’s church and he’ll say, “Well, it’s not infallible,” but it’s not just like a one off. I think most of us listening, know one person who seemed like, you would describe them as a saved regenerate person, believed in God had fruits of the spirit. Protestants to Catholics, listen to this, I bet you, they can think of one person who had the fruit of the spirit that Gavin described, who is no longer Christian. You know at least one person like that.

Trent Horn:

If those people exist and you believe in perseverance of the saints like Gavin does, I just think that this shows, this is not… Like he might say, “Well, the method I’m proposing is not infallible.” My response is, I don’t even think it’s reliable, if there are so many false positives that show up. That’s why I kept underscoring, I can’t make these judgements about whether someone’s soul has been changed. That’s why God gave us sacraments, so we can have these definitive, these judgements. I was also glad when we spoke at the end about perseverance, because I miss them, and that’s why I love dialogue by the way. Because in a rebuttal, it’s easy to misunderstand someone argue against the point, they’re not making because he brought up baptism and ritual.

Trent Horn:

I thought he meant, it would create a false presumption. I was baptized. I don’t have to worry. I can’t lose my salvation. That’s not what I see really in baptism regenerates frankly, and that’s more what I would see in perseverance of the saints. That I don’t have to worry. I can’t lose my salvation, but his concern was more, “Well, you think that all I have to do is just have to go through this ritual, I don’t need faith.”

Trent Horn:

Maybe there’s abuses there, but a point I could have brought up was, you see the same thing in denominations like Gavins. Like saying the sinners prayer and you can’t use your salvation. How many times does that get ritualized? I said the magic prayer and now I’m saved, and nothing ever changes that. Gavin would say, “Well, you need to have faith along with that.” And I agree, but that is also liable to become a ritual as well, and so it affects both sides.

David Bates:

He said basically to avoid, ritualism. Get rid of all rituals, throwing the baby out with a baptismal font. But as someone that spent a long time in Protestant churches, they are the same versions and sometimes also much harder to justify that, sin as prayer, where is that in scripture? At least you find Bible, at the baptism inscription.

Trent Horn:

Exactly. Now, I will say Gavin would not probably say we throw our rituals, he’s expressing a concern, and so that’s fair. But I would say therefore, the same concern can be found in almost any Protestant denomination. That the ritual of baptism, in many Protestant denominations, you have the ritual of the altar call. That’s a ritual, and many people can go through it in a ritualistic way without the accompanying faith, that is necessary. A true saving faith. But for me though, I do think that it is a good argument. Well, it is a argument, it is a good argument for fitting this, that God would give us something like baptism or confession because God wants us to have assurance but not presumption.

Trent Horn:

He also doesn’t want us second guessing all the time, was I saved, was I not saved? Am I Christian? Am I not Christian? He wants to know you are, when you are washed cleaned by the water, you are a Christian and you receive an indelible mark that will never, ever go away. Even if you leave the faith, the mark of baptism remains. But I would be concerned in among denominations that don’t practice baptism regeneration. I’ve seen this with Protestant friends, that they wrestle with, do I need to say the sinner’s prayer again? Do I need to do the altar call again? Why? Well, because the first time I did it, I think Gavin said he was 10 years old when he did it, but it’s not uncommon. You’re 7, 9, 10. You changed a lot from that time, and then-

David Bates:

Did I really believe before?

Trent Horn:

Right.

David Bates:

Was I still under my parents?

Trent Horn:

That also came up in our dialogue, because I brought up, if you believe you’re saved by faith, you were saved by baptism, what about these exceptions? And I think Cornelius is an exception, Dismas is an exception, and I also think Dismas is an exception to salvation by faith because now, Gavin and others, I read in the comments, they say, “Well, the good thief on the cross was saved by faith in Jesus.” Right, but when you say faith in Jesus, you really mean faith in Jesus, is the God, the risen God man, fully-

David Bates:

That he died for my sins, and rose again, and now sits to the right hand of the father.

Trent Horn:

Yeah. The God, the risen God man, whose death atoned for my sins. That’s what you’re talking about, the faith that saves. Because I asked him, that the faith Jehovah’s witnesses have, that’s not a saving faith. And he said, “Yeah, no, it’s not.” And there they believe in all that except he’s just not fully God. I see his point. It’s possible the good thief on the cross had a perfect knowledge of Jesus’ divine identity. But I don’t see evidence that he did. I see evidence that he could have just as easily believed that Jesus was the Messiah that he recognized Jesus was the Messiah. God would vindicate him and he would enter into a spiritual kingdom or something like that. But not necessarily that this thief said, “I’m talking to Yahweh right now.”

Trent Horn:

This is so funny, actually, I read in a comment, David, under it, in Orthodoxy, I think there’s a fundamentalism sometimes that really reads too much into the text. I think an Orthodox said no, an Orthodox tradition, Dismas did recognize Jesus was divine, and it’s the same thing, like Abraham knew God was a Trinity. I’m like, “Maybe, but you’re going to have a really hard time getting that from the biblical data itself.”

Trent Horn:

I do think it’s a fair thing to bring up, if Dismas was saved by faith, it’s highly probable, it’s not the same kind of faith that you believe is necessary now, for people, and so that would make it an exception. That’s why I brought it up that when people do this with Catholics and say, “Oh, Catholics, believe we’re saved by X, but look at this exception,” everybody’s got an exception.

David Bates:

I actually thought he was doing that a little bit in his video about the early church fathers. When he said that he felt, they said things that were contradictory. Reminds me when you’re talking about faith and works with Protestants, and they’ll sometimes say that certain things are contradictory or they have to harmonize them while we just do the same thing here. That was the main thing I actually wanted to ask you about, because where is the common ground here? Because in some ways Gavin seems very, very close to what we believe. I really like your distinction between actual and sanctifying grace.

Trent Horn:

That’s the other thing that I think is helpful.

David Bates:

You also brought up something, I had written it in my notes before you brought it up. I was really proud of myself, and that was baptism of desire. That we have a framework that can make sense of the salvation of an early Christian Marty who had not yet been baptized. But yet we would say that they’re almost certainly with God in heaven. Can we find something of maybe not a middle way, but a way of re-communicating what we’re saying is happening and actually, just one other thing, he is the example of a Carnation.

David Bates:

I actually think that’s a really good example because you’ve seen movies. What happens when the king dies, everybody then kneels down in front of his son and says, “The king is dead long, live the king.” He is the king, but he hasn’t gone through his coronation yet, and when he is gone through his coronation, he’s definitely king. So there is a sense of a now and not yet when we are talking about the work of the spirit and the work of grace.

Trent Horn:

You’re British, you know all this stuff with Kings and Queens and that it’s like-

David Bates:

I don’t know what you mean.

Trent Horn:

Very good, and that’s interesting. You could also make, maybe another analogy with the president. Like when you’re elected, it’s like at that moment, yep, he’s president while he’s president elect, he’s president in one sense, but he’s not really president until he is inaugurated. He does not have the powers of the presidency until he’s inaugurated. So there it’s like, there’s this big change in this person. They’re president elect or we say that they’re president, they have the votes, there’s a big change. There’s a certain more of a certainty there, but not until they’re inaugurated. I guess the other examples, like when we try to think of these examples of baptism, it’s like some people who are not baptism regenerationists will say, the ceremony of baptism is like a graduation ceremony.

Trent Horn:

You already got your degree before you went to the ceremony, but I would treat it more like a wedding ceremony. Yeah, you’re engaged, but you were not married until you exchanged the vows and it’s not just… A wedding ceremony for Christians is not just a place to celebrate being married, that’s a part of it. It’s the place where you actually get married or to give an example, like when someone is given a vaccine, that is when they are saved from something in a medical context, but in any case you’re right.

Trent Horn:

I really enjoy the conversation with Gavin. There’s a lot more we could say, but we talked about scripture a bit. We didn’t get into the church fathers that much, but I did really want to ask him and just get clear on the record that his view is skepticism towards the fathers on baptism regeneration, or at least that it’s not universal or trying to downplay it somewhat. That’s not the view of most Protestant church historians. I think it was good that he did admit that, but that maybe they didn’t understand some of the terms because when you read them, this is like the one Catholic… And it’s not distinctly Catholic, but it’s one Catholic doctrine, even many Protestants will agree. Yeah, this is universal on the fathers.

David Bates:

I went back and read folks like Justin and the other people that he mentioned, just because it had been a while since I had read those sections in their entirety and I went back and read them and I think he’s [inaudible 01:13:58] things to a degree that, the text just doesn’t make sense to me anymore.

Trent Horn:

Yeah, and I’m working on this now hopefully for a future book on the father’s and Protestant theology, because I asked him the question, who was the first person who rejected baptism regeneration? I don’t think he really answered the question because you can point out fathers, for example, who rejected the Immaculate Conception. Aquinas didn’t accept the traditional doctrine and Immaculate Conception, had to develop over time. But so there’s a difference between someone being silent on a doctrine, believing something that’s hard to square with the doctrine, or at least saying things that are contradictory to it, and a writer saying this is baptism regeneration, but it’s not true. I do not believe in this.

Trent Horn:

Justin does not say anything like that, even though he talks about other things that he does not believe or doesn’t accept, he does not deny this, that there were things that people might say, it’s not like Helvidius, denies Mary is ever Virgin. Like who is the first person to deny that? Well, even before Helvidius, Tertullian would be an example. Someone who says, “I don’t believe this is the doctrine. I don’t believe it.” But the denial of baptism regeneration, I don’t think you would find that until probably the reformation or in some of the few centuries before it. Who says, “This is the doctrine. I don’t accept that.”

Trent Horn:

I was trying to be sympathetic with him saying like, “Yeah, there are things in the fathers that are pretty widely attested that are not a part of the deposited faith.” So Catholics need to be careful just because you see it a bunch in the fathers doesn’t mean it’s automatically the deposit faith, but it’s a reckoning, and even the example he gave was a thousand years from Augustine to the reformation in the west, we’re talking about all the church fathers, east and west holding the view of baptism. It would be really surpri-

David Bates:

Over an issue of salvation?

Trent Horn:

Over a salvation issue. Now, the example I gave about usury, I do think that here, this is a little bit different issue that we still recognize the wrongness of lending an interest to harm the poor because that’s also the reason the fathers were against it. That a lot of them would say, “Well, when you lend at interest, you end up trapping the poor and poverty and you ought not do that.” And so they may have been certainly right, but then if lending an interest does not automatically become a trap for the poor, then it wouldn’t no longer be wrong. I tried to be… And some people might get on me about doctrine development after that, who knows. But once again, it’s hard David.

Trent Horn:

When I’m in these circumstances, especially with an honest person like Gavin, I want to really understand their position and even offer up like “Yeah, I can really see where you’re coming from” and offer up something that’s even a hard case on my side. But ultimately I think the evidence still points towards the teachings of the magisterium, especially on baptism being backed up by sacred tradition in this light, if that makes sense.

David Bates:

No, totally.

Trent Horn:

Well, we covered a lot. It was supposed to be a chat. I worried I went on and on and on. I treated you more like a therapist than a chatting partner, but I do appreciate it was nice. It’s always funny when I do these dialogues and debates, I’m like, “Oh they’re done.” And I’m like, “Who should I call? I want to talk to somebody, see how it went. Who could I text?” And I look at my text messages and it’s so sad. The only text messages I have like Laura, Bank of America, Verizon. It’s like, “Oh, who’s BOA?” Bank of America always texting me, but it was nice to be in a chat with you about all of this stuff. Hey, while we’re wrapping up, you want to just share a little bit more about Pints of Jack and just what you got going on there and for people to check that out.

David Bates:

Yeah, sure thing. As I said, we’ve just gone through the Four Loves and we now have a few different series that we’re going through just finished Ecumenism, I taunted my cohorts.

Trent Horn:

It’s Ecumenism.

David Bates:

Ecumenism wrong, and I just did it myself. We’ve just done Ecumenism month, which I think was really eyeopening, and you got to see something of why Lewis is so popular because he is just such a good communicator, and so winsome, which I think is something that every apologist or aspiring apologist can learn from. And then we’ve got the Apologetics Month, where we are talking about the argument from reason, the argument from morality, what to do about science and scientism and we’ve also got a month coming up where we’re going to be looking at a severe mercy, which it’s known among my friends as the crying book, because it’s gets very sad.

Trent Horn:

Laura and I were talking about a severe mercy and it’s a story… I’m not going to get away too much, but there is an intense love between a married couple that makes up the book essentially. I don’t know, maybe we’re jaded, but Laura and I were talking about it and reading through parts of them were just like, “It’s just a girl, get over it.” It was just like some of it’s just so romantic, and so… Even Laura’s like, “It’s just a girl, there’s a bunch of them out there.” But no, it is it’s a beautiful love and maybe she and I are just cynical, but maybe you should address that objection when you talk about it.

David Bates:

I’m sure we will. In the Four Loves Lewis talks about Aeros and romantic love and it’s actually going to be Matt and our co-host Andrew. They’re going to be doing that because I’m going to be hard at work on a book of my own, on the Four Loves.

Trent Horn:

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I like that. Share it with me. Bring it on the podcast. What is it? Is just going to be talking about them or you have a different way of applying them or?

David Bates:

When I was preparing for the season, I went looking to see what books have been written about the Four Loves and the pickings are very slim, and to quote Lewis in the Preface to Mere Christianity, there the line was thinnest and to it, I naturally went. As we were going through the season, I was trying to structure the episodes in such a way that I would structure book chapters.

David Bates:

I basically wanted to be an overview, an explanation of some of the tougher references because Lewis has read everything, so he assumes that everybody else has as well, and really just to be a companion or reader’s guide to the book to help people through the path that are just a little bit tougher. We often describe our podcast like an on-ramp. If you want to get into Lewis and that the first steps can be a little shaky at times, we just want to make that smoother.

Trent Horn:

I like it. Well, I’ll have to swing by Pints of Jack. Well, wait, I already was there. I’ll come back again at some point. It’s always super fun. Thank you David, for being a sounding board and helping us walk through these debates and dialogues, I’d have you back again for another great chat.

David Bates:

It was great.

Trent Horn:

All right. Thank you much, and thank you guys for listening. If you haven’t watched the debates or dialogues, I’m talking about, you can check him out here on my YouTube channel. I think the one with Gavin is on his channel, but I’ll probably air it next week here as well, but Hey yeah, thank you guys so much and I hope that you have a very blessed day.

 

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