Why Joe Schmid is Wrong About Catholic Miracles

¶1Do miracles vindicate Catholic theology? Popular Catholic apologist Ethan Muse and recent Catholic convert Joe Schmidt seem to think the answer is yes. Consider this clip by Joe Schmid. >> The mother of God appearing to Catholic shepherd children, granting requests to convert people to Catholicism, saying basically vindicating, authenticating, confirming the immaculate conception, the rosary, the papacy, etc. God has disproven Protestantism.

¶2Those are strong words that I think need to be cautioned. In this video, I'm going to address some of the major arguments of Joe and Ethan that bother me, and I'm going to critique their methodology along with some of their attempted responses to Protestant objections to the Catholic miracle argument. Let's get started by setting the stage. There are a lot of disputes between Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians when it comes to various theological points. This includes topics about the Eucharist, purgatory, veneration of Mary, so on and so forth.

¶3Usually debates about these topics center around biblical and historical arguments. That is, each side usually seeks to show that their opponent contradicts the teaching of scripture or church history or something like that. But Ethan and Joe have a different tactic. Their methodology is largely to sidestep these biblical historical debates and to use Catholic miracles as a battering ram. This isn't to say that they completely ignore the biblical historical stuff, but they don't do the majority of the heavy lifting in these areas.

¶4Essentially the argument kind of goes like this. They say, "Hey, look, this event is undeniably a miracle. The event in question may be like a marrian apparition like Foda or a saint like Padre Peio who seems to miraculously have the wounds of Christ." They mount scientific and testimonial evidence that this is truly miraculous. Then they point to aspects of the miracle, you know, scenario which seem to vindicate Catholicism or specific aspects of Catholic dogma. For instance, with Foda, they may point to the fact that the Marian apparition talks about the need for ongoing penis for sinners to be saved from hell or that Mary, you know, declares herself as having a saving role or wanting people to consecrate themselves to her.

¶5With Padre Peio, they might say, "Hey, look, this guy has, you know, these undeniable miracles and he said that he personally spoke to souls who were in purgatory who said, you know, they needed a mass done for them or something like that." uh maybe at Lords where Mary is you know reported as explicitly referring to herself as the immaculate conception which is a dogma of the Catholic Church and so the argument is that God is consistently vindicating a specific branch of Christendom and their doctrines and if you try to object to the doctrine of the supposed miracle and say hey listen some of this message is bad or if you point out that the you know Catholic church has some eronist doctrine even you know false history or something like that their strategy is to use the miracle as a battering ram against your theological objection. They might say something like, "Hey, what's more obvious? That this is a bonafide miracle and God is vindicating this church or that you're wrong about some theological interpretation you have. I mean, come on. Theology is difficult.

¶6People disagree about so much. So, if you have the option of thinking your theology or your ex Jesus is correct versus that this is a bonafide miracle vindicating God's church, you should just accept that your, you know, your theology is wrong. your intuitions are wrong, maybe your ex Jesus is wrong, and you should submit to Rome. That's the general idea here, right? The general idea is that you should let the validity of the miracle override any existing theological convictions you have.

¶7Um, and that is just a very brief general sketch by me. I'm sure you know they would probably object and nuance it some, but here are some clips which I think indicate that I am representing at least an accurate somewhat sketch of the strategy that they are employing. Shawn's approach to spiritual discernment in this debate is exactly the same as that of the faithless Jews that rejected our Lord in his day. If an apparent miracle vindicates doctrinal content that's inconsistent with Shawn's understanding of prior revelation, then Shawn reflexively dismisses it as demonic. That's exactly the same logic that our Lord's opponents used against him.

¶8Since our Lord's doctrine was inconsistent with his opponents's understanding of prior revelation, his opponents inferred that his miracles must have been demonic. Our Lord made it abundantly clear that his opponent's reasoning was backwards. Since our Lord's miracles satisfied criteria that only true miracles could, our Lord expected his opponents to recognize that they proved that their understanding of prior revelation was mistaken without any further argumentation or demonstration. Humans were not the greatest at these abstract speculative theoretical philosophizing. And so it wouldn't be surprising at all if I just am making some mistake in my assessment of the hell arguments because those were just like it's theoretical speculative philosophy and I don't know maybe there's something I'm missing and still I wanted to dent its evidential force in my mind and there were various things that did that but fundamentally >> how I got over it was I am a finite limited fallible creature.

¶9Um, God has manifestly vindicated his church and maybe I don't know exactly how to respond to it, but I submit my intellect and will to what is being manifestly promag promagated to me as truth with divine stamp of approval. Now, they actually have another rhetorical move where they say, "Hey, look, look at the Pharisees. They had all these theological views that they thought were right and because Jesus conflicted with their theology, they rejected his vindicatory miracles or accused him of being demonic." And if you reject our miracles because they conflict with your preconceived theology, well, you're just like the Pharisees. Humble yourself. Admit you're wrong.

¶10Don't be like the Pharisees. Submit to Rome. And I think these arguments are deeply, deeply problematic and unsuccessful. I think they're actually dangerous. I think this methodology fundamentally must be rejected.

¶11So this is the first area that I want to spend some time. Let's suppose you have a Catholic miracle in front of you and you don't know what to do with it. Generally speaking, you have I think like four options. One, deny anything miraculous happened. This is what skeptics will do.

¶12Say it's a fraud or people were mistaken, something like that. Two, say something miraculous did happen, but the origin is demonic. Three, admit that the miraculous thing happened, but contest the interpretation of its implications. And four, submit to Rome, bro. Now, this is just a general sketch.

¶13There might be more options in some scenarios, but this is, I think, a good generality to kind of, you know, have as when we're looking at different miracles. And when looking at different miracles, different explanations might be more attractive than others. Some miracles might have sketchy support and so you remain a skeptic. Others might seem actually highly evident. You think might think, "Oh, something is really going on here." But maybe they don't seem to like strongly support Catholic doctrine in the way that the apologist thinks they do.

¶14Or maybe there's some instance where it's like, "Oh, like this would support Catholic doctrine, but this seems like there could really be something, you know, spiritually nefarious going on." So maybe you lean towards different views on different things. For most of this video, I'm going to be looking at the demonic hypothesis. However, I want to be clear. I'm not saying that all these miracles are demonic. We should be very, very careful so as not to accidentally blasphem the Holy Spirit by attributing his works to, you know, demons or something like that.

¶15I'm also in this video not directly arguing that Catholicism is false or that it's demonic or anything like that. I want to be very clear on that. However, by using the demonic hypothesis as kind of a primary lens, I think it's easier to illustrate some of my main issues with Ethan and Joe's strategy. So, my central contention is that when discussing doctrine, we must begin first with scripture and then proceed to miracles. We cannot use miracles as the means through which to retroactively justify an interpretation of scripture.

¶16I want to start by pointing out um kind of a glaring issue in Ethan and Joe's arguments which will be um become more apparent as my argument progresses. Now I want to make clear also that I think Joe and Ethan will probably want to say oh yeah you know of course it has to be you know in accord with previous doctrine and of course I think they might want to pay lip service um to this kind of idea that I'm talking about. But in practice I don't think it comes out I I don't think they end up actually doing that. So I want to be clear you know they may object and say I'm misrepresenting them. I'm aware of times where they've, you know, would say something that appears to agree with me on this, but I think in practice they are actually um not um doing what they need to do.

¶17So remember that earlier I mentioned the rhetorical strategy of Ethan and Joe is to demand that you submit your less obvious theological interpretation to the more obvious miracle or something in that ballpark, right? Um but this is an I think an inaccurate representation of what's going on on their part. When Joe and Ethan try to defeat something like the de demonic hypothesis or the accommodation hypothesis, the strength of their argument does not lie with how obvious the miracle is. Rather, the strength of their argument relies on a specific theological intuition or belief that they have. Their entire case rides upon the belief that, you know, Satan wouldn't want to perform miracles of the sort that they reference or that God wouldn't accommodate in this way or something like that.

¶18You know, God wouldn't want to allow Satan to make these type of mistakes. Similarly, they have theological beliefs of what constitutes good and bad fruit. These two theological beliefs about, you know, what Satan would or wouldn't want to do and what, you know, does constitute good spiritual fruit. They're the central tenants in their defense against the demonic hypothesis. It actually isn't about how obvious the miracle is.

¶19It's about how obvious is it that this is producing good fruit. How obvious is it that Satan actually wouldn't like this outcome. However, I think that a Protestant might be able to reasonably respond that their beliefs or intuitions about these these areas, they are less obviously true than our beliefs that the Catholic Church has errored in certain areas. To put it simply, one might respond by saying that my theological beliefs which lead me to reject Catholic doctrine are based in scripture and they seem quite obvious. Whereas the intuitions used to defeat the demon hypothesis or the accommodation hypothesis, they aren't spelled out in scripture.

¶20You know, you may think those intuitions are strong, but they're actually not something that you can get from scripture. Therefore, I am justified in going with my strong theological intuitions which are rooted in scripture and trusting that over your maybe weaker theological intuitions which are not rooted in scripture. So, anyh who, that's kind of the argument. Let's let's work our, you know, way up to that. Here's my argument for this, right?

¶21So, first, it's recognized by virtually everybody that evil spiritual beings have the ability to perform signs and wonders. Um, this is attested directly in scripture. So, we'll look at a couple of examples that pretty much all of you guys are probably going to be familiar with. So, Deuteronomy 13 1-4, right? This is a classic.

¶22If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, "Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us serve them." You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. 2 Thessalonians uh 2:9-12, "The coming of the lawless one is the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." Three, we're told in Matthew uh 24:24, Jesus says, "For false Christ and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect." In 2 Corinthians 11:13-15, Paul tells us, "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

¶23So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. And then finally, this comes from Revelation uh 13 11-14. Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast whose mortal wound was healed.

¶24It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people. and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast, it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. So, we know that hostile spiritual forces have the power to deceive and to do so with, you know, um, miracles or things that we would consider supernatural. In fact, in scripture, the magicians in Exodus, they were able to perform miracles, you know, in their kind of battle with Moses. We're going to come back to that in a bit.

¶25But here's the thing. We don't actually know precisely what evil spirits are allowed to do and what they aren't. Like, we just don't know that. That information has not been revealed to us. For all we know, there may be an evil spirit that is allowed the ability to heal or at least, you know, it appears that it has the ability to heal or, you know, who knows, maybe even has the power to like raise the dead or appear to raise the dead.

¶26I'm kind of doubtful about the raising the dead thing. But here's the thing, like if we're going by scripture, we can't rule that out. like we don't have a firm basis to say these are the guidelines of what you know the the the evil powers can and can't do. And it's also worth noting that after the coming of Jesus, there will be evil spiritual forces which have the ability to do things that prior to Jesus they weren't allowed to do. When Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal, the prophets of Baal were unable to call fire down from heaven.

¶27Yet when we look in Revelation 13, we're told that the beasts will perform signs and wonders, including calling down fire from heavens to the earth. Right? This means that there is some things which demons were not able to do previously which they will be allowed to do going forward in this attempt to you know um lead away even the elect. So given that we don't know what powers will be granted to the baddies and given that we know they will be trying to lead us astray, we cannot let miracles be the battering ram for theology. If we give miracles the power to override our theological convictions, which we believe to be rooted in scripture, we are potentially giving Satan a road map to deceive us.

¶28Let me illustrate this with an example. Let's take a theological conviction that pretty much nobody watching this is going to give up, which is the idea that Jesus is uncreated. Suppose a figure appears tomorrow floating above Time Square. He's shining with brilliant bright light. This guy, he starts cooking, right?

¶29He makes tornadoes appear, but they don't destroy anything. He makes lightning flash across the sky. He goes to a hospital and he starts healing people left and right. He says that he is Jesus. Okay, this is going to have our attention, right?

¶30But suppose he also starts saying a bunch of stuff that is just like theologically wild. He maybe gets up and says that he and his father Yahweh are actually beings that were created and worship the Canaanite god Baal. And he starts encouraging the people of the earth to worship Baal. He still tells people to repent of their sins. He tells them to forgive others, love, be charitable, so on and so forth.

¶31But he also encourages people to worship, you know, his creator, a Baal. How many of you, especially you Catholics watching, are going to abandon all of your theological convictions and build, you know, a Baal altar in your house? Going forward, I'm going to refer to this figure and this thought experiment as pseudo Jesus. I suspect none of you are going to be tempted by this, or if you're tempted, that temptation is not going to last long because, you know, a lot of you guys are good Christians. Now, suppose all of this happened and our friends Ethan and Joe popped up and they're wearing I love bailed shirts, right?

¶32And they say, "Hey, listen. What's more obvious? That this guy is doing miracles, which you know, vindicate his teaching or that your specific interpretation of some passage in the Bible is right. I mean, theology and ex Jesus is hard. You know what isn't hard?

¶33Seeing that this guy is healing people in the hospital and he's like making tornadoes appear like this is clearly supernatural. So, you know, come on, help us build our altar." If that happened, how many of you would abandon your faith? How many of you would be convinced by that, you know, argument by Joe and Ethan? Seriously, pause the video and think about it for a second. I suspect most of you watching, you're probably going to say you wouldn't even in this scenario, even with that argument presented to you.

¶34But why not? You might say because it contradicts the teachings of Jesus in the Bible. But Ethan and Joe have a response for that. They might say, "Hey, champ, the reason that you believe in Jesus in the Bible in the first place is because you believe he did these miracles, right? like you think that his miracles vindicate his teachings, right?

¶35So why wouldn't you believe pseudo Jesus since miracles also vindicate his new teaching? You have a circularity problem. And I'm not making this up, by the way. This is legit how um kind of how they've argued. I'm going to read you a quote from Ethan Substack.

¶36So Ethan says, quote, "If you reflexively dismiss any miracle that conflicts with your interpretation of prior revelation as a demonic counterfeit, then it is irrational for you to appeal to miracles to prove the authenticity of the revelation that you accept. Why not believe that the miracles that accompanied the prior revelation were counterfeits? To preserve the epistemic possibility of objective revelation, you need a nonarbitrary, non-ircular principle that distinguishes genuine miracles from counterfeit miracles. The alternative is blind faith that is impervious to evidence and impotent to persuade. End quote.

¶37Now, Ethan has touched on, I think, several problems here. First, the Catholic Church itself uses prior revelation as a criterion when evaluating miracles, which we might come back to that in a bit. But more importantly, if Ethan is right here, then we no longer have grounds for rejecting pseudo Jesus. Right? Now, Ethan likely has a response to this suggestion.

¶38Right? He's going to say, "No, we do have grounds to reject He's going to say we have a criteria namely that Jesus gives us the criteria to test them by their fruit. And he says, you know, that uh Jesus says Satan cannot drive out Satan. The problem is that in doing this, Ethan is himself appealing to prior revelation to justify his rejection of pseudo Jesus. But then his own criticism will come back to cut against him.

¶39If he appeals to Deuteronomy 13 and the statement about following false gods and he uses that to reject pseudo Jesus, he is again appealing to prior revelation and he has the same issue which you know like he was supposedly lobbying against us. We can then shoot back to Ethan. We can kind of play put on the Ethan hat. We can shoot back to him and say we can say hey you know Ethan the only reason you think we can judge things by their fruit and the only reason you think we shouldn't go after other gods is because that's what prior revelation says. But the reason you believe what prior revelation says about judging by food and not following other gods, the only reason you believe that stuff is due to the miracles of Jesus.

¶40But pseudo Jesus also performs miracles. So, so why don't you just swap this? Why don't you believe the revelation about them, you know, knowing them by their food? Why isn't that the counterfeit? And why don't you trust pseudo Jesus?

¶41Why is it, you know, the other way around? Not only that, we can say, "Hey, Ethan, what you believe to be good fruits is determined by prior revelation." But the very topic at hand is whether we should trust prior revelation. You think submission to Jesus is good fruit because of the Bible which you think is vindicated by Jesus. But pseudo Jesus says submission to Baal is good fruit and he has vindicated that by his miracles. So you are still in the epistemic situation you accuse us of being in.

¶42But there is another problem here. Even if we grant the validity of the Bible, how do we distinguish when good fruit seems to be meshed with bad fruit? In this thought experiment, pseudo Jesus, he's telling people to love each other. He's telling them to repent of sins, to forgive. I mean, he's healing people.

¶43That that kind of seems like good fruit, right, everybody? But I doubt we want to say that that good fruit overrides the much worse fruit of leading people to, you know, like worship Baal. It seems pretty pretty bad. So, here's a question. How do we get out of this epistemic circle that me, Ethan, and Joe, we all find ourselves in?

¶44Well, hopefully, to nobody's surprise, Christians have already thought about this question. The rich Christian tradition has already provided pretty decent answers and some of those answers actually come from Catholic theologians. So for instance, John Duncotus says it can be said that if anyone after being summoned as a witness should permit some customary sign of bearing witness to the aduced and although present should not contradict it, such silence does not cohhere with perfect truthfulness. But a miracle is such a sign of God as witness. Therefore, if he should permit miracles to be performed by demons and not contradict them, namely by declaring that they are not his testimonies, he does not seem to be perfectly truthful, which is impossible.

¶45And hereby is the response to what is said of Antichrist. Because God predicted that the miracles to be done were not testimonies of the truth, as is clear in Matthew 24:24 and 2 Thessalonians 2 8-9. Again, against the same point is the difference in the miracles performed by God and those performed by the devil. which difference Augustine treats on in his book of you know so on so forth right now bla1 Pascal is another Catholic theologian who makes a similar argument he says if there is a god faith in god must exist on earth now the miracles of Jesus Christ are not foretold by antichrist but the miracles of antichrist are foretold by Jesus Christ and so if Jesus Christ were not the messiah he would have indeed led into error when Jesus Christ foretold the miracles of antichrist did he think of destroying faith in his own miracles So, let me unpack this a little bit, right? So, when Moses is having his showdown with the magicians of Egypt, the magicians, they perform miracles like similar to what Moses does.

¶46But Moses's miracles, they're bigger and better than theirs. Like when Moses turns his staff into a snake, it eats the snakes that, you know, the magicians have concocted. When Elijah and so in doing that, Moses's miracle kind of contradicts theirs, right? When Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal, God vindicates himself by bringing down fire while the prophets of Baal can't. In this instance, they are um God contradicts them by kind of in a sense silencing them, not letting them, you know, do this thing or doing it himself.

¶47So the idea found in Scotas and Pascal is that for any future miracle that contradicts Jesus, God has already contradicted it. God has already said this is this is false, right? There's going to be stuff coming not to listen to. Now, in saying this, I want to draw your attention to something very very important. As I mentioned earlier, what the prophets of Baal were not able to do, the beasts in Revelation will be able to do.

¶48So when talking about, you know, what miracles vindicate theology, the timeline matters. When Jesus showed up on the scene, he was in a category all of his own. The ancient world has nothing comparable to him. So when we look at history and we see Jesus, you know, show up with unprecedented power and authority that nobody else has at that time, that's significant, especially when we consider that God foretold of Jesus's coming, foretold of his miracles. God testified to Jesus not just by his miracles but by announcing him and his miracles beforehand.

¶49Now Jesus who was set apart he says and he testifies there are others who will come with great power and don't believe them. The fact that Jesus said it first that contradicts the miracles performed by evil spirits. So after the time of Jesus if we see any miracle accompanied with a message that contradicts Jesus and his apostles. Even if the miracle is is healing someone of cancer, even if the miracle is, you know, something grand like the, you know, even if somebody's is walking on water, we can say, I think we're justified in saying, well, you know, Jesus warned us. Jesus has already contradicted this in advance.

¶50This, I think, gives us actually good ground for rejecting pseudo. It's not just that Jesus performed miracles. It's when Jesus performed his miracles. is that Jesus showed up, performed miracles while being in a league of his own and predicted and told us in advance what was going to come. And in doing this, I'm not assuming the validity of, you know, um the testimony of Jesus or prior revelation.

¶51I'm just making a historical argument. I'm looking historically what's gone on through history up to the time of Jesus. Does anybody compare with him? No. Um so I don't think this quite gets me into the epistemic circle problem that Ethan's attempted solution still got him into.

¶52Just as Yahweh in the Old Testament was a league was in a league of his own as is clear from you know the prophets uh from his showdown with the prophets of Baal or with you know his defeat of the gods of Egypt with you know the Exodus story. Um so Jesus is you know in a a league of his own and is vindicated by you know prophecies and miracles and stuff like that. Now suppose Ethan and Joe pop up right let's go back to the pseudo Jesus um you know thought experiment. Now suppose Ethan and Joe pop up and they say hey you're just like the Pharisee man. they rejected Jesus because of their preconceived ideas.

¶53That's the same thing you're doing. Would anybody be convinced of that argument and start following pseudo Jesus? Probably not, right? Just being, you know, this kind of analogy of the Pharisees, that's probably not going to push you over the edge and be like, "Oh, great. I don't want to be like the Pharisees.

¶54Let me go, you know, build an altar to to bail." Well, why wouldn't that why wouldn't that convince you? Because for one thing, the Pharisees didn't have much legitimate complaint with Jesus. Like mostly it was that Jesus contradicted their tradition, not that he contradicted the law in and of itself. Like if you go through and look at it, like they were like, "Oh Jesus, you healed on the Sabbath. That's bad.

¶55Someone find me in the Torah where you can't heal on the Sabbath." Um that was more of, you know, like an oral tradition thing. Or like, "Oh, you know, he said he could forgive sins, but you know, um the Messiah isn't going to be able to forgive sins." Like there's nothing in scripture to say that the Messiah isn't going to be able to forgive sins. Like the stuff that they were objecting to a lot of the time, most of the time, is their oral tradition or their preconceptions. At the time when Jesus allowed his followers to glean the wheat on Sabbath, which would be potentially contradicted by scripture, he doesn't just say, "Look at my miracles," and ignore that argument. He used scripture to refute the Pharisees by showing there was already biblical precedent for allowing in a time of desperation for people to perform that on the Sabbath.

¶56So with the case of pseudo Jesus, we could respond to Joe and Ethan by noting that unlike the Pharisees, we have legitimate scriptural grounds for objecting to pseudo Jesus. Now, it's worth noting that Jesus reasoned from scripture. He defended himself from scripture. He didn't just use his miracles as a batter. There's a reason that Paul went to the synagogues in Acts and reasoned with the Jews from scripture.

¶57There's a reason the barriers doublech checked what they were taught with scripture. You can't just use miracles as a battering ram. Jesus does not set that precedent. Remember he says he he goes to Psalms and says, "Hey everybody, why does why does David refer to, you know, him as my Lord?" Why does he say my Lord said to my Lord? He he does that type of stuff.

¶58He's he drawing people to the implications of scripture. Now, this is all pretty clear and obvious with the thought experiment that I provided because my thought experiment with pseudo Jesus is like absolutely obviously outrageous. It's easy to see how pseudo Jesus contradicts the God of scripture and how he would be leading us to sin. It's easy to see how this produces bad food. But I what I now wish to argue is if that we are if we're justified in rejecting pseudo Jesus based on his proposed theology then if Protestants are correct I think we are also justified in rejecting the theology of these Catholic miracles.

¶59This is not to say Protestants are correct. We might be wrong you know like I I really leave open that possibility and I want to be you know careful about that. But if we are correct, we are justified in rejecting Catholic teaching despite the miracles for the same reason you can reject the teachings of pseudo Jesus despite his miracles. It's all going to come down to are the Protestant complaints about, you know, this theology justified. And although I am a Protestant, I recognize my complaints might be wrong.

¶60But if you want to convince me, you will have to show me that my objections to the theology is wrong prior to trying to hit me with your miracle battering ram. Now earlier I noted that Joe and Ethan's argument rested on an assumption about what signs and wonders Satan would or would not want to affirm. Ethan and Joe have the intuition that hey listen, Satan wouldn't want to perform the types of miracles we see with Fodimma or you know Padre Peio or stuff like that because doing so leads a lot of people to Jesus. I mean people are converting, they're confessing their sins, you know they're going to confession like all this all this stuff. Maybe they're taking the Eucharist.

¶61Like this seems pretty, you know, counterintuitive and unlikely. However, if Protestantism is true, which is a big if, are these miracles really that surprising? Is it highly unlikely under the conditional of, you know, Protestantism that Satan would be upset about the result of these miracles? I don't have the confidence in Ethan and Jod do. And here's why.

¶62So, here's how a Protestant might argue. They might say, "Hey, all throughout the Old Testament, it's made clear we are to bow down to, kneel, serve, and give our hearts to Yahweh, the God of Israel, and him alone. We are not supposed to perform these actions to any other spiritual being. We're not supposed to prostrate ourselves before physical objects which are seen to somehow embody, represent, or presence non Yahweh spiritual beings." In the New Testament, we are told to give our loyalty and our allegiance to Jesus, and that's what saves us. When people fall down and prostrate themselves before the apostles or before angels, they're told by those people, "Hey, don't do that.

¶63Cut it out." Yet, some of the Catholic miracles that are claimed to be from God encourage giving oneself over to a spiritual being that is not Yahweh. With the Fatima miracle, the person who claims to be Mary says some of the following things. This is all Mary speaking. Quote, "Jesus wants to use you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish devotion to my immaculate heart in the world.

¶64To those who accept it, I promise salvation and those souls will be loved by God as flowers I have placed to embellish his throne. Okay, so in quote. Elsewhere, she says, I will never leave you. My immaculate heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God. End quote.

¶65Now, Mary tells the girls to do something with the purpose of making reparations to her. And she promises to assist them in the hour of their death. Mary shows the girls a vision of hell and then says, quote, "To save them, God wishes to establish in the walled devotion to my immaculate heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace." End quote. She then goes on to say, quote, "When you see a night illuminated by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crime by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the church and the Holy Father.

¶66To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my immaculate heart and the communion of reparation on the first Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace. If not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the church. The good will be martyed. The Holy Father will have much to suffer.

¶67Various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my immaculate heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the Walt." End quote. So here we have a spiritual being who is asking people to devote themselves to her heart. She says Jesus wants the world to be devoted to her heart and that she promises salvation.

¶68Her heart will triumph. When I started looking into Fatima, this stuff caused me to recoil. I remember sitting and reading the stuff and I thought something along the lines of I'm not giving my heart to anybody besides Jesus. I'm not devoting and consecrating myself to anybody other than Jesus. So I as a Protestant, I have this moral conviction which I think is backed by scripture.

¶69And I might be wrong about that, right? Like I'm open to being refuted. You know, bring forth your case. We can talk about it. I I think I'm a reasonable guy.

¶70But hypothetically, let's suppose my intuitions and my beliefs here are correct. If I'm correct, let's say my heart is right to recall. Let's look at the fruits of Foda and see how good they are. It sure does seem like this spiritual being claiming to be Mary is trying to get us to do what the entire Bible seems to encourage us not to do, which is to give our allegiance or our heart to another spiritual being. To turn our focus from Jesus, the creator, to something else, the creation.

¶71So if the fruits of the Fatima miracle are that more and more people are engaged in the grave error of turning their devotion away from the creator, if they are kneing and bowing before physical objects that represent or are supposed to be windows to spiritual beings other than Yahweh, well then if I'm right, this seems like really really bad fruit, y'all. And I don't think anyone can deny that miracles like Fodimma have resulted in more of this type of, you know, Marian devotion. And you might object and say, "Hey, James, but people confess their sins. You know, they confess Jesus. You know, they come to Jesus because of these miracles.

¶72You know, surely Satan wouldn't want that." And yeah, he probably doesn't like it. But is it really that improbable that Satan would lose a little to gain a lot? Like, if this is a game of chess, yeah, Satan might lose a major piece here. But don't you think he might deem it worth it if in doing so he gets access to your king? Like, Satan's been around for thousands of years.

¶73And we all know and for all we know he could have thousands more to work with. He is described as being a clever being, right? He he is deceptive. You know, he's crafty. We should really not underestimate him as a spiritual force.

¶74And I want you to all think back to pseudo Jesus, that thought experiment I provided you not long ago. In that scenario, don't you think Satan would rejoice if he could get you to bow your knee to bail? Even if it meant he was making you kinder, more loving, even if it meant that you were confessing your sins, even if you were praying to Jesus, all that, even if you, you know, you were confessing, repenting, even if you were giving arms to the poor, if he could get you to turn your heart away from Yahweh, doesn't it seem like maybe possibly he might deem that as worth it? I mean, I might be wrong, but that at least doesn't seem implausible to me. But if I'm right, I mean, it it makes sense why Satan would allow people to momentarily become more pious for momentarily, you know, um, confessions of Jesus to increase if in doing so, he's building he's playing a long game where he could build a religious framework where more and more people focus on Mary instead of Jesus.

¶75And again I I mean when you look at when you look at the history of the church from you know the the time of the apostles to now I don't think that there's much you can argue to say that over time there has been a gradual development escalating uh maybe as years go on maybe it's not logarithmic maybe it's exponential at a certain point where devotion to Mary and and praying to her and and saying things which are inappropriate directed to her that is increasing and increasing and so we may think like okay yeah like it's it's still not a big deal because you know all this other stuff. Like if if it keeps going at this rate, what will it look like a thousand years from now, y'all? Like what will it look like 2,000 years from now? We don't know. We don't know the time scale.

¶76Like God does. And maybe maybe Satan has like an idea of how much time he has to work with. But like we can't make these type of assumptions. Like we have to look and see like based on scripture right now, are all these fruits good? And at least to me as a Protestant, some of them seem really, really bad.

¶77Now, one might say, "Hey, James, like she doesn't discourage fidelity to Jesus. Like we're doing it to both, right? Cool. Like do you think Yahweh would have been okay with Israelites worshiping Baal and him like and giving their hearts and trusting in him and also bowing down to Baal? Like do you think he would have been fine with that?

¶78No, probably not. Right? So like how how is this oh well it's Mary and Jesus like how is that therefore a good argument? And you might say but James you might say we give our hearts to Mary and through that we give it to Jesus like she gives it to Jesus or something like that. Let me ask you something.

¶79If a spirit showed up to you and said, "Hey, um it's Baal here. I've I've been reformed. I'm like, I saw the light. I serve Jesus now." And he wants you to know that you guys should give your hearts to me and go ahead and bow down to me so that I can give your hearts and I can give that devotion to him. He wants to establish devotion to me throughout the world and that's how he's going to get your devotion, right?

¶80How many of you guys, especially you Catholics, how many of you be like, "Okay, Bale, here you go. Here's my heart and devotion. Like, let me go kiss an image of you." How many of you would do that? Like, if you wouldn't do it to a spirit claiming to be Baal, why would you do it to a spirit claiming to be Mary? Like, if the only difference is who the spirit claims to be, then what you're saying is all Satan has to do to get you is just lie and claim to be Mary and he's good to go and we know he he's fine as appearing as, you know, angels of light.

¶81And this is going to be something I come back to in a bit. I've read some stories where there are instances where it's clearly not a Christian, not even a Catholic message where the people who are appearing are saints. We we'll get to that in a bit. So, um we'll we'll put a maybe a pin in that. Now, pretend that you're Satan.

¶82Your goal is to draw devotion away from the God of Israel. Your goal, if you can swing it, is to draw away even some Christians who are like really devout. How are you going to do that, y'all? Seriously, take a second and think about it. Put Put yourself in Satan's shoes.

¶83You could just come out with a bodacious new religion that directly contradicts everything in the Bible and you could do some maybe fancy miracles, but come on, how likely is that going to be to draw away from Christian, you know, draw away Christians? Jesus already told everybody you were coming instead. If you were being really crafty, wouldn't you maybe try something a bit more subtle? Now, somebody might object that, you know, bowing to Mary or giving devotion to her in doing that, we aren't going after another god. like I think I can I think I can visualize and maybe predict Ethan saying but listen you know and and he has used to this argument I think when talking about Foda he's saying well you know um it's not someone you know coming and and encouraging them to go after another god another god and the god of Israel but I think there's a very plausible argument that actually you are in that instance you know like I said I've seen Ethan respond to Deuteronomy 13 by you know by saying hey um this isn't going after a god other than Yahweh so like this little section doesn't apply um I simply think this is mistaken so in the Old Testament when you see the word God in your English translation, that word is Elohim.

¶84And an Elohim in the ancient world did not have the meaning that God does in our modern analytic theology. In the ancient world, what we refer to as angels or demons would have been classified as Elohim. A dead human is even called an Elohim in the Old Testament. Michael Heiser remarks that Elohim is a kind of like a place of residence terms. It refers to where the being resides, namely in the spiritual realm.

¶85And even if you maybe want to offer a more narrow definition of what a god is in the ancient world. So um I think I've before I've referenced the work of David Litwa and you say things where it's like okay they have a lot of power. Um maybe they have immortality. Uh maybe we you know you know factor in there stuff like they're bright and they're shining. They have authority over certain areas of humanity stuff like that.

¶86Even if we do this like kind of more restricted definition, Mary would as she's conceived in Catholic theology and probably even Protestant theology, Mary would still meet that description and would constitute a god. And so I think technically if you bowed to a Marian apparition, you would be bowing to another god under the definitions of the ancient Walt. And I think to to bolster this, I'd point out that in the New Testament, actual angels don't let people bow down to them. Like when people fall down, they're like, "Ah, it's an angel fall down." Like they say, "Nope, get back up. We don't do that.

¶87Like that's what the apostles did, right? Like so um let's look at another miracle referenced by Ethan and Joe, which is Apadre Peio. Long story short, Padre Peio was a man who allegedly had the wounds of Christ on him for decades. Associated with him are other miracles like potential healings by location, um knowing people's thoughts, um stuff like that. Um you know, seeing souls from purgatory, things along those lines.

¶88And he was reportedly was a devout man who encouraged repentance, confession, and the like. Sounds like really great fruit, right? You know, good stuff. maybe but not so fast. So in 2006 there was a poll done in Italy that found that more Catholics prayed to Padre Peio than they did to Jesus.

¶89The poll found that 31% of Catholics had addressed their prayers to Padre Pio while 2% address Jesus for intercession. Um that was either um uh Catholics um that were surveyed or or the general population as a whole. But either way it's Padropio got more. I'll put the article for that on the screen. Now guys, I mean again, put yourself in a Protestant shoes here.

¶90I mean, or or really any Christian shoes. Like, doesn't this seem like at least potentially bad fruit? Like, doesn't more people praying to a dead saint than praying to Jesus? Doesn't that seem like it's potentially bad fruit? And if this is the if this is a trend that continues to grow 500 a thousand years from now, like if this trend continues, doesn't this seem at least maybe potentially that could be a dub for Satan?

¶91I mean, you know, and to be clear, I think there are many in the Catholic Church who would not be okay with these results. And I'll confess something that nourishes me to some degree as I've done research for this video is that Catholic clergy, theologian, and authorities, I think, are more careful and nuanced and and and wise when it comes to some of the stuff than maybe internet apologists are. Um, so in the article containing these statistics, they quote a priest who says, quote, it shows that Italy is still rooted in a popular faith. And then he goes on, "But the fact that the Madonna and Jesus are very little invoked, that the preference goes to the saints and that it's not understood that we're talking about different levels is a sign that our Christians are very ignorant despite years of catechesus and religious instruction in schools." End quote. So, I mean, me and that guy probably disagree, but at least he seems like he isn't stoked about the results of this poll, you know, this fruit either.

¶92Now, from a product perspective, I I don't know that it seems terribly unlikely that Satan would be upset by these results. like if if he can get people to stop praying to Jesus and start praying to others that seems it seems very plausible that he that could be considered a win from him. I mean I'm not sure but um so for Joe and Ethan to just declare just assert I mean it's just obvious that the fruit is good from these miracles and that Satan wouldn't ever want to do these it seems like an overstated objection that assumes that Protestant theology and Protestant objections to Catholicism are false. Now I want to draw our attention to a few other instances where according to the Catholic Church, good food has come through seemingly demonic or fraudulent means. Let's starting by looking at uh Magdalina de la Cruz.

¶93I'm going to be pronouncing some names here that I hope I get right. If I'm wrong, just I don't know, point and laugh. Now, I'm going to offer a brief overview and then I will read some info from um Inquisition records about her. Right. So, put succinctly, she was widely recognized as a holy woman for years.

¶94Um Charles the uh I think Charles V I think sent something to her to be blessed. Um one of the cardinals who was the Inquisition general and one of the um like ambassadors of the Vatican. They made pilgrimages to her. The pope asked for her prayers for the Christian Republic. She entered a convent at 17 and she was the prius for like roughly 9 years.

¶95She had multiple miracles attributed to her and then near death she admitted to being in cahoots with demons. Uh, I'm going to read to you some of the testimony about her in the Inquisition Files. I'll put um the the book that I'm getting this from um up on the screen. And I'm just going to warn you guys in advance. This stuff's about to get wild, okay?

¶96Like if you think James' videos are like boring nuance theologies, this is about to be some some wild stuff, right? Like even if this even if you disagree with me, this should at least be entertaining how like bizarre this is. Um, okay. So, I'm just going to go through and and just read the stuff I have highlighted. Um, so this all comes from document 16 in the book that I put on there.

¶97I'm not going to do like in quotes quote in quote. I'm just going to jump around and read some of the highlights from this section of the book. So um starting we know well and it's notorious to the whole world that there is nothing in this life whether good or evil that shall not be discovered even if it exists for a long time. In the end secrets cannot endure long. Your worship may know as the whole world knows that Magdalina de la Cruz has been a nun for 40 years with tremendous fame and exaltation.

¶98Among the nuns and monks of her order, there have always been great differences of opinion concerning her manner of living. And for this reason, she has been tested frequently and made to suffer great torments. But she has always emerged free and with much honor. For this reason, and since she was approved and confirmed by everyone, she was elected abbis of her monastery for nine years. When those nine years were up, as they now are, she worked as hard as she could with the nuns for two years so they would again elect her abbis.

¶99Yet, she never could have achieved this goal because they were on the verge of discovering her evil conduct. So, jump forward a bit. And one night, all the nuns saw her bed completely encircled by large goats as black as pitch. When they asked who those hideous goats were, she replied, "They were souls in purgatory who came to beg alms from her." Another time when she was in her cell and only one other nun was with her, the nun the nun saw at midnight that Magdalina de la Cruz was with a very ugly and very dreadful black man. The nun was filled with dread and fear.

¶100But Magdalina de la Cruz replied, "Don't be afraid, sister. He will not harm us. Look, he's a serif." And the other nun ran out screaming and told all the other nuns what she had seen. Then when Magdalina was in prison, she suffered she suffered a wound in her hip from which she was in danger of dying. And one night when the nuns came to sing Mattens at midnight, they found her on her knees in the choir.

¶101Frightened, the convent jailers went to the prison to look for her and they found her sprawled on her bed. When they asked how she had managed to get up, she replied that she had done no such thing and that she had not gotten out of bed. So, I'm going to pause here and say they saw her doing like her prayers in the choir or like they saw her in one place when really she was still in the bed. So, this is by location. This is one of the miracles that's um you know um cited by some of these other um you know, Catholic saints.

¶102So, jumping um forward a bit. So, um they start to they start to get suspicious and seeing that she was discovered and could not deny it. She confessed the whole truth verbally that she had these demonic companions since she was a little girl and had known them to be evil since she was 13. But since she already was viewed as holy, she did not want to part from them. And she said she always had these two in her company.

¶103One to be with her and the other to go throughout the whole world proclaiming her as holy. The latter was the one who took on her shape and he was the one who went to the choir of the night. They found her kneeling there. So apparently it was it was it was a demonic being who was actually making it appear as if um uh Magdalina was um in two places at once. So continuing from the records in the confession of Magdalina de la Cruz she states that since she was five a demon regularly appeared to her in the figure of an angel of light and consoled her in different ways.

¶104The be the demon appeared to her as Christ crucified and moved her to devotion and sanctity. He told her to crucify herself as well and she and she crucified herself by putting some nails in the wall and being thus crucified. He told her to follow him and in attempting to do so she fell and broke two ribs. The demon constricted her two little fingers as his sign and they never grew. She said that when she was 12 and living in that village, she pursued her holiness and was considered holy by all the lords and principal peoples of the land.

¶105And as a sign of this, she I guess her two little fingers didn't grow. I guess that was used as a sign of this which is really like had to do with the pack that you know the demon scenario. Uh she said once when the most holy sacrament passed through the streets in Aguilar, she was sheltered where she couldn't see it. By chance the wall had a small in it. She scrapped at it a great deal in order to see the holy sacrament.

¶106And when the people passed by, she made some lumps of the wall fall down and then said it was a miracle as if the wall had opened up so she could see the most holy sacrament as it passed by. She said that when she was 12, many demons appeared to her in the shape of gallant men and one was more gallant than the rest, and he was her familiar. Her familiar appeared to her in the shapes of St. Francis and St. Jerome and St.

¶107Anthony and other saints and angels of light to whom she was devoted. Seeing these shapes many times, she became spiritually enraptured. And being thus enraptured, it seemed as if she saw the most holy trinity and other great visions. Many times her familiar appeared to her in the shape of a man and told her to do everything he said, and he would make everyone view her as holy and would carry her wherever she wished. Once she took a host and secretly put it in her mouth, then screamed and told the nuns that the host had come to her when the priest consumed the Eucharist.

¶108The nuns prostrated themselves and adored her. after she had received the Eucharist, she was spiritually enraptured for some time and she remained in that state until the nuns carried her to her cell and she was, you know, powerless to stop um from painting. I want to pause here and say, oh, so like even though she had like was like possessed by demons or whatnot, like she apparently was still able to take the Eucharist, like I don't know, like do with that as you wish. Okay, so continuing next, she said that many times she was crucified in her cell. She had chapped hands and a fissure in her side and she pointed to them as a miracle.

¶109She wore an opening in her tunic in order to point out the wound in her side, and she showed it off in order to be viewed as holy. Next, she said that a certain pre-late enclo in enclosed her in a certain part of the convent to see if she truly did not eat. He put two monks there as guards. When she felt very weak, she commended herself to her her demonic familiar. At that night, she saw a light enter through the bars of a little window, and she does not know if they gave her a hand through the window.

¶110She found herself on the street with two monks, one of whom held her hand and the other accomp accompanied her. She asked who the monk was who held her hand and he said he was St. Francis and the other St. Anthony and they put her next to the pond of her convent. Next, once when certain people were receiving the Eucharist, it seemed to her as if some were black and some white.

¶111She said that the black people were in a state of sin because she knew certain secret things about them. Okay, so apparently she knew the secret things that, you know, they weren't supposed to know. Okay. Next, one day she was carrying a basket of cherries in her hand. Some of the cherries were rotten, but when she washed them in the convent pool, they seemed fresh.

¶112And she said it was a miracle, and it was held as such among the nuns. Next one night, the nuns heard a great noise in the convent. And she said it was a soul of a man who had just died, who was in danger of not attaining salvation. His soul had come to beg mercy from someone who could give it. In the same way, she said that other souls were in heaven, others in purgatory, and others in hell.

¶113Next, she says she tricked the people by saying that she had gone to purgatory and had seen many souls during penance and that she carried the fire of purgatory on her feet. And she told the people that she did penance for the souls on purgatory. When she put her feet into water, a very thick smoke came out of them. She stripped the skin off her feet and worn the pieces that she removed and handed them and wrote on the pieces that she removed and handed them out as relics. Um, she once said she had seen 30,000 souls condemned and 10,000 saved.

¶114Next, speaking with certain people, she said many times that all the abbotts and monks had lovers and this was not a sin, nor was God offended by it. She said it was commonly done and she knew very well that this was true. As she said, all of this was seen and examined by us. They was referring to the inquisitors um and by just people of upright conscience. So, I mean, I want to pause here, right?

¶115So, if you had examined this woman from the outside, everybody thought she was holy. They thought she was a saint. I mean, she was seemingly bearing good fruit and then she like confessed to being in cahoots with a demon for decades. Like the miracles that are associated with her that I just described to you. Some of the things that she claims and are attributed to her are pretty similar to stuff said about Padropia.

¶116Uh stigmata billocation, saving souls from purgatory, knowing people's sins, um you know, having I mean she said, you know, it appeared as if she saw the Holy Trinity and Christ appeared to her. I don't know if there's something about that referring to Padre Peio. Now, that's not to say that Padro is evil just because of these similarities. Evil can mimic good. That's not what I'm saying.

¶117That doesn't, you know, mean good ceases to be good. I want to be very careful here. I don't want to smear this man because I don't really know that much about him. But the mere presence of these seemingly good fruits cannot vindicate a person's theology. Imagine if you were a nun in, you know, like, you know, in this convent, right?

¶118This woman obviously is bearing good fruit. She's all these miracles going on. She's telling you, "Oh, I' I've seen these souls from purgatory." Maybe um you've you know you've seen uh I mean at least one of these miracles seems to be pretty attested like the way she kind of seems like was found out or part of what contributed to her being found out was the fact that they saw her in one place when they knew she was supposed to be somewhere else like that. Like so this seems like I think if you're going to say that she made all this up, I think that's like a far stretch. Like I mean listen, I'm fine to like throw shade on like you know the Inquisition, but this is a woman who like she was viewed as a sane for like decades.

¶119she was the head of that abbus and like what one day she decided you know what I want to be tried by the Inquisition for having a demon like I don't know that seems kind of unlikely you know like doesn't it okay so let's look forward to um another example of something like this which is Catalina Munos I hope I pronounced that right probably didn't so she's somewhat similar so what I say about her comes from the same source that I just read from again I'm going to jump around so she gained some fame and reputation in her community for prophecy visions and miracles she later admitted to making a pack with the devil or or a diabolical pack and I think in in the source I don't remember sometimes it's like something like pack with the devil Or maybe sometimes it's just like a demonic pack. So it doesn't necessarily have to be onetoone with like them and Satan. Maybe it's just like affiliation with something demonic. She admitted to being in cahoots with a nefarious spiritual beings. Let's go with that.

¶120Um want to be careful here. Here are some interesting bits from um her life. So here's a quote from that. So establishing what happened through demonic art and what was feigned. She said that as for the vessel of ointment, what really happened was that the demon told her that he wanted to put a bit of fragrance in the palm of her hand so that for a few days the odor would seem supernatural to those who entered and she would be considered a saint.

¶121Thus, the demon put a bit of black ointment into her hand and to all who entered. The ointment and its odor seemed a heavenly thing, but to her it smelled like something dead. So, I'm going to pause here. One of this one of the miracles that is pointed to by guys like Padre Piro Padre Pio is like a like there was this like this heavenly scent that was there and again like maybe like it's legit like I'm not saying it's not legit like this is it very could well be that very saintly people have like you know a heavenly smell but at least I don't know according to this woman like in this inquisition trial she's admitting like yeah a demon caused her to smell like this so people would like you know think that she was holy you know I don't know it seems like something to be like cautious about. Um, so continuing about her next she affirmed that as for her claim that our Lord had communicated the agonies and afflictions he had suffered to the garden of Gethsemane, the truth was that the demon occasionally caused her to be taken with fainting spells and afflictions.

¶122These afflictions were not feigned and many times she thought she would die. People would come to uh would come to bleed her and for many days she did not return to her senses. The truth was the demon persuaded her to report that false vision. Sometimes in this there are like things in brackets where I guess they're maybe they're filling in something that was unclear in the document. I'm just going to read it as it's um is in my um as it is in the book.

¶123So the truth was the demon persuaded her to report that false vision to the patriarch archbishop uh Rivera and told her then she would see how she would make them all quake. Afterward when she was in the presence of Frier Rola the demon came to her and said look how you have frightened them all. So it seems like the demon told her to say something that was false. I don't just like to mess with people. So these were instances where demonic influences were cited.

¶124So there were other cases where people had a reputation for piety and miracles and then it turned out they were a fraud. So one of these is Maria Lobo de Minis again you know pronunciation. So I'm going to read here from a quote. So I have a quote uh I'll put a um something on screen to show where this quote is coming from. I'm going to mostly read this as it is and I'm just going to edit out some stuff here or there like just essentially words I can't pronounce um or I'm not confident I'll pronounce.

¶125So reading them at the age of 11 she entered enter entered she entered the monastery of the enunciation in Lisbon took the novice's habit and prepared for religious profession which she made at the age of 16 in 1575 she had her first great mystical experience in the manner of Katherine of Sienna and appeared stigmatized by the crown of thorns. Uh I think jumping forward then in 1578 God granted her another more spatial favor the lance wound in her side understood in medieval tradition as a gateway to the body of Christ. Given her reputation for holiness she was elected priorus in mid 1583. On March 7th 1584 the stigmata of the crucifixion appeared on her hands and feet and from then on every Friday five drops of blood in the shape of a cross flowed from the wound in her side. Soon countless miracles began to be attributed to her.

¶126The nuns supplicant prayers and the application of the cloths with the five drops of blood had the power to cure many sick people, calm storms, convert infidels, and produce many other wonders. Sister Maria's miracles were examined by imminent theologians and by the Dominican General Frier Sixto Fabri, who certified the authenticity of the stigmata. Frier Lewis D. Granada wrote a hagiography of the nun. uh ecclesiastical and civil authorities headed by Cardinal Abbert.

¶127Someone someone else someone believed in Sister Maria's miracles. The Inquisition gathered information and nearly ratified her supernatural abilities in a solemn ceremony. Philip II and Pope Gregory, I think that's the 13th, joined the chorus of Sister Mary's u sister Maria's followers. In 1586, at the height of her fame, nuns who opposed Maria in her aspirations for the priorus for the priaryy accused her of being a fraud. In 1587, Cardinal Albert commissioned the theologians so and so and so and so to examine the stigmata.

¶128The three investigations she went underwent all concluded with entirely favorable fightings. But the accusations from her fellow nuns who claimed she was faking stigmata and visions rigging her re-election, disrupting the convent and allowing herself to be worshiped intensified. So one, two, skip a few. She admitted it was a deception to appear holy. Like she she like straight up came up and admitted that.

¶129And I mean like even the pope like bought into it and like apparently she had multiple investigations that like she passed like so to summarize this section the whole like oh it can't be demons like look at the good fruit argument like that just doesn't work like like you can't just do that when like when theology is on the line especially if like Protestants are right and something like prostrating before an icon is like really bad right so there are other things I could site here but I think you guys get the point I'm going to put some sources on screen um with one of the books um one of the books that um I used for this that's freely available. I'll put that on screen. Um you can find that on Google books. If you jump to around I think it's page 83 and just start reading. You'll see the stuff about Magdalina de la Cruz and I think it I think it lists out some other examples of like pious frauds or you know fake sanctity or stuff like that.

¶130So anyways let's move forward discuss one of the other options I presented originally which is you could grant the miracle happened but dispute its interpretation. So put simply a miracle may be vindicated but that doesn't mean the message which accompanies the miracle is vindicated. It also doesn't mean the interpretation of the message like doesn't mean that necessarily says hey everything in the Catholic church is true. Um and this is something that um the Catholic Church itself has like recognized. So in the Vatican's norms for um assessing you know supernatural phenomena they note quote however in some cases alongside this recognition of the signs of the Holy Spirit's action there is also a need for certain clarifications or purifications.

¶131It may happen that the Holy Spirit's actions in a specific situation, which can be rightly appreciated, might appear to be mixed with purely human elements such as personal desires, memories, and sometimes obsessive thoughts or with some error of a natural order, not due to bad intentions, but to the subjective perception of the phenomena. After all, an experience alleged to be a vision simply cannot compel one either to accept it as accurate in every detail or to reject it altogether as a human or diabolical illusion or fraud. Now, that work continues, quote, "At the same time, it should also be acknowledged that some phenomena which could have a supernatural origin at times appear connected to confused human experiences, theologically inaccurate expressions, or interests that are not entirely legitimate." End quote. So, here's an example. Let's go back to the message of Fodma.

¶132The aspects of Fodma that supposedly vindicate Cath Catholicism, they don't appear until several decades later after the miracle. So the miracle supposedly happens in 1917. And there is a collection of what was reported around that time like there's you know people started gathering up testimony and whatnot. And then in the 1940s Lucia like the main child Sierra she publishes her memoirs or at least writes her memoirs which contain this supposedly vindicory um information. And even some Catholics uh have opted to accept the initial miracle reports and you know like you say it's legit but reject the later testimony from Lucia.

¶133So an example of this is father Edward Danis I believe it's pronounced who was a proponent of separating the miracle into Fodma 1 which is the early account in you know um miracle and then Fodma 2 which is like this later stuff that comes about later. Now in the Vatican's theological commentary on the secrets of Fatima, Joseph Ratzinger refers to um Donny's as a scholar imminent in his field like I think he's one of the only um like scholars who's actually cited in the Vatican's theological commentary on this. Now that doesn't mean oh just because you know the Vatican like cited him and called him an imminent scholar that therefore like his view is right. It's like like this is apparently a really prominent like Catholic theologian who like another very prominent like you know Catalid official is like citing his work and like he's recognizing like okay like at least he's arguing that hey listen not everything that's come out about this Fatima thing is like legit some of this should be accepted some of this should be rejected. So it may be that one could accept something like Fatima as authentic the miracle itself but doubt that the later possibly um embellished testimony of of a child is an inaccurate representation.

¶134This is something worth considering. Now, it's also worth noting that a Protestant can agree with a lot of the supposed doctrine of these miracles. So, for example, at Lords, the Marian apparition identifies herself as the immaculate conception, and our Catholic friends might appeal to this as vindicating Catholic doctrine, but you can be a Protestant and still affirm the immaculate conception. In fact, Martin Luther himself affirmed the immaculate conception. So, you could just shrug and be like, "All right, cool.

¶135I guess I got to update that belief." Um, now our Catholic friends might object and say that, "Well, the Catholic Church makes it a dogma. We're the only ones who make it a dogma." But like, so what? Like just because something is true doesn't mean it necessarily needs to be a dogma of the church. Like I have certain views that I've argued for in my work. I think they're true.

¶136Um but just because I think those things are true doesn't mean I think they should be a dogma. Like I don't think there's any specific model of the atonement that should be dogma because I think that's like a really dicey difficult like you know theological exegetical like subject. So like I don't I'm not going to put that on someone as something they have to affirm or like their excommunicated. Like that seems ridiculous. like I might be wrong on my my views that I've argued for and even if I'm not like I don't want to be putting burdens on people that the Bible like doesn't demand they bear.

¶137So like the the the pipeline from this like this proposition is true to this should be a dogma like that isn't clear. Um so yeah like I if if I'm convinced of you know something like Lords which you know like it's interesting I haven't looked into Lords as much as I I looked into something like Fodma um or um Eucharistic miracles but if it turns out that that's right um I I wouldn't I wouldn't really affect me much as a Protestant. I'd be like, "Okay, I guess I need to update one of my beliefs about Mary." Like, okay, now what? Now, another argument that um Joe and Ethan make is that the language which seems vindicatory of Catholicism cannot be dismissed as mere accommodation. So, let's look at an example.

¶138So, Mary when she's appearing in the Lord's uh miracle that I was just talking about, she is reported as saying, "I am the immaculate conception." So here's maybe a Protestant is tempted to say something like hey guys look um that was a way of referring to Marian that the people knew like that was maybe a title that she could introduce herself as and they would you know track and you know they would mean something to her. So maybe Mary was just accommodating their beliefs and language by introducing herself as you know this title they already applied to her and if I remember correctly when she uses this title like children had repeatedly asked her like who are you who are you or like the I think it's like a teenager who's like um seeing her and like she keeps on like not introducing herself. to know it's like kind of like the big reveal. Um, and that's when she says, "I am the immaculate um conception." So, one might say that this doesn't necessarily prove the doctrine of immaculate conception. Because maybe she's just accommodating them by like using the title that they she knows they have for her.

¶139So, how are Ethan and Joe going to respond to like the accommodation approach? They're going to say, "Hey, if you try to dismiss stuff as accommodation, you're essentially making God a liar." So, here's here's an example of some of their rhetoric about this. First, it absurdly makes God out to be an active deceiver. The hypothesis literally grants that God is going out of his way to authenticate and promulgate false revelations through manifold miraculous signs. He's also willing to put people like St.

¶140Peio and Mir Nazour and St. Fina in The Truman Show. But it's disastrous, especially for Protestants who accept the biblical data about God's truthfulness to make God out to be a deceiver. Now, I find this argument pretty ironic coming from Catholics. Um, so here's why.

¶141So, part of Catholic theology is that God is impassible, meaning that nothing you can do um can make him sad or mad or like negatively affect his emotions. along with is the idea that God is absolutely unchanging. And if you confront a Catholic on the fact that the Bible explicitly, repeatedly and clearly describes God as changing uh his emotional state based on human actions, do you know what you're likely to hear? Uh they're likely tell you that this is accommodative language. They're going to tell you God was just condescending to talk to them in the framework that they knew or, you know, somehow was a bizarre metaphor or something along the lines, but they were going to essentially say, "Yeah, God says that he has these emotions that changed and like people made him mad, but God didn't actually mean it." It's actually the exact opposite.

¶142They they didn't affect God's emotional life anyway. And so here we can ask the like the Catholic to make up the mind and we can maybe even put like put them in a bind. We can say to our Catholic friends, okay, like either God accommodates to us by describing himself in a literally false way in the Bible when it comes to his different emotional states and him changing, in which case you can't say God is deceiving by accommodating through miracles. Or you can maintain that God accommodates us in the Old Testament and how he presents himself. But then you can't slap the table and say, "Oh, Protestants are making God a liar if we take an accommodative, you know, approach with miracles." Like, you must pick an argument.

¶143As a Protestant, if the only response I have to a Catholic miracle is to claim accommodation, then it seems to me that maybe the Catholic and I are at like an impass, like either I accept Catholicism and accept the Catholic model of God and then God, you know, accommodated by saying literally false things about himself in the past, or I don't accept Catholic theology and I say God is accommodating himself with the miracles. Either way, either way I go here, whether I become Catholic or not, if this was my only option, I'm still saying God presents himself in a literally false way to accommodate us. So I think there is, you know, at that point, if there's any other reason to reject Catholicism, that could break the symmetry between both of us saying that God accommodates, right? Um, so here's another problem with like the deception critique of the accommodation approach. Ethan essentially appeals to accommodation when it comes to explaining issues with the Padre Pio miracle.

¶144I don't think he uses the word accommodation. Um, but it's generally the same concept. So, one way to object to Padre Pio that people have um said is by noticing that the wounds of Christ that he supposedly has in his hands, they're in the wrong place. So, Padre Peio's wounds are in his palm, but we know that crucifixion went through the wrist. So, if Padre Peio was faking his um stigmata, his injuries, it's not surprising maybe like this is how the argument would go.

¶145It's not surprising that he'd put the wounds in the wrong place because that's what his art and his culture thinks like it would be seeing as how you know that's just the mistakes they had. Whereas, hey, listen, if if this if this was really the Holy Spirit making the wounds appear, like, wouldn't the Holy Spirit get in the right place, right? So, that's maybe how the argument would go. I'm not saying I'm arguing that way. Like, I don't know, it's not the strongest argument, but that's how you could maybe um phrase an argument.

¶146But Ethan has a response to the wounds being in the wrong place. I in a comment responding to this uh objection. Ethan said something along the lines of, "Oh, well, yeah, it might be in the wrong place, but this is where Padre Pio's community would have expected it to be." And it was, you know, this miracle is for the community and, you know, something in that neighborhood like, listen, like these signs aren't supposed to be like communicating this information. Um, so on and so forth, right? I remember seeing a comment, I think, on his substack, but I had trouble finding it later.

¶147So that's kind of the Janol consist. He's essentially like, oh yeah, but like the community would have thought it would have been here. But when Ethan says that, he's essentially saying God's accommodating like that community by doing something that is actually false, right? He's saying God put something forward, which is technically inaccurate because it meets the expectations of the of the religious community. So, if we wanted to be like really obnoxious in this debate, which like we shouldn't.

¶148We should be all be like gentlemen and gentle women, we could say, "Hey, Ethan, like doesn't that make God a deceiver?" Like, we could take his argument and like throw it back at him. And so, to be clear, the accommodation response is like not my favorite. I think there are some things it could explain decently. Other areas I think it would be a stretch. Like, I mean, like what when if if Mary's calling herself the immaculate like conception at like Lords, like accommodation seems like decently plausible.

¶149Like the the explanation I gave there, that seems like not terribly implausible. But like when it comes to PPO and he's saying like yeah like I this these souls from purgatory came and talked to me and like we had this conversation where they like affirmed like this Catholic doctrine like I'm maybe but that seems like more of a stretch to go with the accommodation at that point. So just you know if you want to go down this route I just think it's worth pointing out the Catholic is going to have to appeal to accommodation at least at some point. So they should be careful of the rhetoric they give. If you end up being convinced by Catholic miracles and you choose to convert to if you choose to convert to Catholicism, you're still going to end up saying God says things about himself.

¶150God testifies things about himself that are literally false and not just like slightly false, like really like kind of bodaciously false. So anyways, at this point I'm going to point out um something that I find just kind of suspicious about these vindicatory miracles. And in saying this, this is like a super minor critique. I would not build an argument about this. Um I kind of almost hesitant to say it, but um so so everybody agrees that God vindicates some form of Christianity like across denominations.

¶151Like Protestants affirm there are Catholic miracles. Catholics affirm there are some Protestant miracles like in their missionary work like in like Pentecostal settings and whatnot. So like pretty much everybody agrees like when God wants to convert people to Christianity like just in general like he has no problem giving the miracle like directly to the people he's trying to convert. Like he might heal the sight of a pagan or something like that to get them to come to Christ. But like, isn't it just like a teensy itsy bit weird that like a lot if not all of these miracles which are supposed to be vindicating Catholic dogma, they already come to and are reported from people who already believe the dogma in question.

¶152Like Padraio was, if I remember correctly, he was already sold on purgatory. I think he already like had thoughts about like uh stigmata and stuff like that. Like the kids at Foda were already Catholics who affirmed certain things about Mary. And at the time of Fatima, Lords was already a thing. And this idea of like, oh, Mary tells a secret to, you know, like um like a teenager, like like some of these concepts were already there.

¶153Um at at at Lords, the teen who received the vision, she was already a Catholic. And at that point, the immaculate conception was just declared a a dogma a few years ago. Like I don't know, like isn't it kind of interesting like these miracles where they they're like, "Ah, I'm the immaculate conception." Like that only seems to start coming about like later once these become like established in like Catholic culture. And like I'm saying this with just like take a take that like comment with a massive grain of salt. Like I haven't read every single you know example of of claimed apparitions or miracles.

¶154So maybe there's a counter example I'm missing there. I would not build an argument on that. But isn't it just slightly suspicious that many if not most of the messages of the visions that God is using to affirm Catholic dogma, they come from Catholics who already accept that dogma. Like if God wants to vindicate a Catholic doctrine, like I don't know, why doesn't he take a a very a prominent Protestant faith healer who he's already working miracles to and give them a a vision and the messages like to correct their theology. And maybe there's an instance of that like I haven't I haven't heard about yet.

¶155If if you know of it, leave it in the comments. Like I'll I'll eat my words. Um and and to be fair, that happens in scripture. Paul has his theology corrected by Jesus on the road to Damascus, right? Peter has his theology corrected by a vision before he's going to see Cornelius.

¶156Right? Like this isn't a knockdown argument. This isn't really an argument at all. It's just kind of like a very minor just like isn't this kind of convenient? Um isn't this just like a little bit sus?

¶157And here I think I'd maybe get support by like pointing to that section from the Vatican and their remarks where they're like, "Hey, listen like all these all these miracles like they come subjectively through the individual and they may be influenced by memories and you know desires or obsessive thoughts and and things along those lines. So that's just a very small critique. Let's keep going." So this is a very, you know, minor point. It's not, you know, it's not decisive, but it's worth asking. Now, I think there's a lot more that could be said about all this, all these miracles and this whole debate.

¶158And I think with the conversion of Joe and um with Ethan's role in that conversion along with several other people, I think these conversations are going to continue. Um but I'm not going to make a seven-hour video whether or not my arguments beat Joe. Um that's for somebody else to decide. Joe does beat me when it comes to endurance. I'm not I'm not doing it.

¶159You can't you can't make me right. I'm I'm going to start to tap out for this video. But I want to wrap this up with a few things. So, in this video, I've kind of just granted that these miracles are real and that they proceeded like regardless um and as how reported or at least to some degree. However, I think that with some of the Catholic miracles that are appealed to, there is like legitimate question about whether the miracle is legit.

¶160So, with Eucharistic miracles, I looked into these um a while back and then I just I ended up not making a video about it because I mean, for reasons I'll explain. So, I don't have the scientific knowledge to parse this data. I just don't like I'm I'm a theo I'm a theologian, y'all. Do you think I I majored in the in the humanities like three times because I'm good at math? Like no, you pretty much just when it comes to Eucharistic miracles, you pretty much just have to at some point trust like a Catholic apologist or a Catholic scientist or like a Catholic website or something at some point.

¶161And also there have been some actual peer-reviewed studies which critique the Catholic case uh for these um you know the miracle case that these are miraculous. So I actually want to read you guys a very brief um little snippet from one of the papers that I just threw on your screen. Um so this is uh this one methodology for the anal analysis of biological impurities associated with parukaristic phenomena. Um so in this if I remember correctly so they actually look at 25 cases of color or structure changing of eucharistic host. So this is um the type of you know um visual change that people might want to point at and say oh this is a miracle.

¶162Um so they looked at 25 cases of these and they got to um do some do some tests and whatnot on them. Uh what did they conclude? None of these cases revealed the actual proof of existence of human blood, human material other than single epidermal cells and I don't I'm not going to try to pronounce that probably very lowle contamination in one case insignificant amount of human male genetic material was observed probably as a result of DNA transfer so on and so forth. Now what I want to read to you is a quote down here in the discussion section because again this is you know if if you read something like Ethan Muse or you see um Joe Schmid you know um railing on I don't know capturing Christianity or something like that it can sound very persuasive. This is an actual peer-reviewed study.

¶163I want to read to you something that they said. So say the present study for the first time provides a comprehensive forensic analysis of 25 actual cases including unusual miraculously looking materials found on the consecrated host. While the analyzed specimens came from a routine forensic casework of three academic institutes only the phenomena of modern-day eukaristic miracles seems to be on the rise being reflected by a growing number of forensic examinations ordered by the Catholic Church officials. Unfortunately, very few of the results of that research were analyzed in scientific papers and thus subjected to critical analysis of reviewers and other interested parties. Instead, partial results are being disseminated in the popular media, resulting in understandable public interest, but also in unnecessary oversimplification and confusion.

¶164And it seems like they in in the um those that are engaging in the oversimplification and confusion, this author right here, I'm going off memory here, pretty sure this is the same book that is um referenced and appealed to by Joe Schmid and Cameron Protusi. Um so if you if you get off the you know, if you start looking at stuff that's not just substaxs by, you know, like Catholic apologists, I'm not going to say it's like the case is completely refuted or anything like that. Like I want to be cautious, but like there are there are scientific studies that are peer-reviewed that are saying this ain't this ain't how it seems and they're citing these other pop, you know, you know, kind of pop level books that um like you know, this author is is um writing and that the Catholics appeal to. They're specifically saying this is oversimplified and you know, confusing and whatnot. So anyways, I just think that is something that is worth considering.

¶165Um let's get back. I'm really open to changing my mind, but then that would just compel me to hold a real presence in the Eucharist and like there are Protestants who hold and also Orthodox who hold a real presence in the Eucharist. So like you know like that's not going to I think bother me too much. I think you'd have to make a a better argument to get that to like accepting the whole Catholic pie so to speak. Um with stuff like Fatima.

¶166Oh and also um there's um I'll put this on screen. there's a good uh blog series by a Catholic scientist who goes through um I think it's like seven or eight posts and she's essentially like this is not good science. So anyways um with stuff like Fatima there are decent attempts at naturalistic arguments for a good portion of the data although maybe not all of it. There's stuff there that does make me question and pause. I'm going to put on screen two posts by um Mtham Bulldog like the substack.

¶167I forget I forgot the gentleman's name but that's what it's called. Uh where he discusses some issues with Fodma that I think are not trivial. I think that as these, you know, Catholic miracle arguments become more popular, other people with better scientific skills than myself will probably start talking about this stuff. So, I'm not going to try to bother blazing a path forward here. I kind of wanted to focus more on like biblical, exeetical, methodological stuff.

¶168Now, I'm going to summarize by saying that when I look when I look at these alleged Catholic miracles, often with some of them, I honestly just don't know what's going on. Like I don't know whether Padre Pio was an elaborate hoax or authentic miracles mixed with maybe with legends because he became such a huge figure or something demonic or whether he was legit a good guy and all the stories are exactly as reported which to be fair like a lot of the evidence does seem to point to him being a legit good guy. Like I don't want to spear his I don't want to smear this guy's name just because I'm stubborn. Like you know I want to be careful here. Um I don't know whether there really was a miracle at Foda or whether there was a naturalistic explanation or whether or not it was demonic with some of these other stories.

¶169a lot of the documents um like the primary sources are in languages I don't speak. Um I think some of the stuff can be hard to find kind of on like the angophone um internet. Uh maybe there isn't like an English translation or maybe there is but it's like not easily like accessible online or maybe it's like expensive and you're like I don't want to pay $30 to read, you know, like maybe that's just a me problem, right? Um so I'm not going to say for sure what's going on with all this, right? But I will say is I don't think I have to know what's going on with these stories to know they don't line up with what I see in the Bible.

¶170At the end of the day, I think it really can be that simple. Like I don't have to know what's going on at Foda to look at what the spirit is asking and to recognize I don't think that's okay. When I read a story from Padre Peio about like how a dead Christian man has been suffering in purgatory in anguish all because he apparently didn't like reverence the altar when he walked by it while cleaning and now he's like I don't I guess needs P uh needs PJ Pio to do mass for him so he can get out quicker. Like I don't know. I don't know.

¶171I don't need to know whether that's demonic or a lie, whatever to know that that seems to chafe with the picture I get of salvation and Jesus from scripture. Right? As a Christian, if I'm presented with signs and wonders, if I see fire come down from heaven, and if that wonder is attached to a message that I think strongly contradicts scripture, I don't need to know exactly what's going on to be justified and rejected. I don't have to be I don't have to plant my flag in one of these alternative explanations to be like, "Well, I guess it's not that," you know, like imagine like imagine like you go on like a hike with your wife that's like a multi-day hike. You guys are together the entire time.

¶172You get back to your town and then you you know you come back home and the police immediately like arrest your wife because they think she committed like a murder and you're like what? And they show you all types of crazy evidence. They show you like a video of her, you know, like u what appears to be a video. Maybe they show you like fingerprints and like have like eyewitness testimony, like all that type of stuff, right? Um and all of this happened during like the time you guys would like in the middle of the woods on a hike.

¶173Like you might be saying like, "Dude, listen, I I don't know where all this evidence is coming from. I don't know what the best explanation was, but you'd be pretty confident being like, "Yeah, that's not my wife. Like, I was with her when this happened." Right? Like that's kind of like a comparable analogy. Kind of like in what's that movie?

¶174Um The Shaw Shake Redemption, right? Like he's on trial. like he knows he didn't do it and there's like all this evidence against him and he'd be like, "Yeah, I don't know what to tell you. Like this I'm pretty confident this ain't it." Um, so Ethan and Joe, they are um utilizing a rhetorical strategy that I think is going to be very effective um to a lot of people and really it is very very clever. I think I don't think Catholicism has good odds when it comes to debating the Bible or debating church history.

¶175I think the evidence is too clear in those areas. Um but by using the strategy of starting with miracles often which require nuance scientific or historical knowledge and using that as a battering ram that is stronger. Um there is more force to this and I' I've felt that force when thinking about all this and and when I've you know um been you know thinking about this video I've honestly prayed and asked that God would lead me to the Catholic Church if that's where things are like I don't want to be like the Pharisee if that's what I'm I'm doing right. Um, but as I illustrated in the opening of this video, this is this methodology. This is a dangerous game.

¶176And as a Christian, we are not obligated to play by these rules. We are warned in scripture about not accepting a teaching just because of signs and wonders. So my encouragement to Protestants is don't play by these new rules that these guys are proposing. Don't let them get away from having to defend their theology with the Bible. And if they're saying something which we have good biblical precedent for thinking is immoral or inaccurate, like bowing down, you know, bowing down to something that's not God or require that people be willing to kiss an an icon in order to be saved.

¶177Don't allow them to make this rhetorical shift where they get to beat you over the head with the miracle and then they tell, you know, they get you to look the other way. Joe and Ethan are both new Christians who have backgrounds in philosophy and they both, you know, seem like smart chaps. I don't know either one of them um really at all. um had a few back and forth with Ethan in the comments, but but they both seem like smart chaps. I'm sure they probably want to do the right thing.

¶178Um but they're not they're not experts at biblical theology. Let's put it that way. And I I think they are maybe as coming into this as public figures when they're both new to the faith and new to biblical theology. Um I think in some areas they may be playing with fire. Let's put it that way.

¶179Now, so if you debate them or their followers, I I say just don't let them dictate the terms of the debate. like make make them debate theology from scripture or or if you're into church history like you know that's an avenue whatever if you keep the arguments about doctrine in the Bible where I think it should be I don't think you're going to find their ability to make a persuasive argument is actually that great now to be clear if you study scripture and theology and you come to believe that these messages don't contradict what comes from scripture that might that might be a different story at that point like if all else is equal like it might be sound to let these miracles be symmetry breakers but for people like myself and I think many others, we already have serious issues with Catholicism when it comes to um you know, biblical claims, when it comes to historical claims, you know, things along those those lines. So, the idea that we're supposed to ignore all the problems we see just because you throw some some stories at us, even if they're very persuasive stories, that's that's just not going to be sufficient. So, I'm going to say in conclusion, um I do this this probably encourages me um and motivates me some to study Catholic theology more deeply because if I'm wrong about theological objections, I do want to know. It would be unfortunate to reject true miracles based on mistaken theology.

¶180So, I think I might spend more time on this in the future. But regardless, I hope this is some help to Protestants who are maybe um experiencing unease and I hope the wiser Catholics in the audience might recognize the dangerous game they are playing with this rhetorical strategy. This miracle battering ram might seem really great, might seem really fun when you're using it now, and you might even be right in all your claims, but even so, by arguing in this way and getting people to think in this way, you could potentially be laying the path for Satan to later ride in on um when he comes to when he comes to town and he has some, you know, big wonders that can't be explained. So, anyways, and also, real quick before I go, I want to shout out this article that I stumbled upon while researching for this by Maxim Gordel. Um, this is translated, I think the website's originally in French.

¶181Can the apparitions of Fatima be demonic? I don't agree with everything he says in this, but it's really well written and I think he said he has another part that he's working on. Um, and this helped me find a couple of the quotes from Dun the quotes from Duncotus and Pascal. So, I just want to give a shout out for this and um maybe uh maybe follow him to see if his second part comes out. I'm intrigued to um see what happens here.

¶182Anyways, I just wanted to um give him a shout out. Thanks for watching everybody. Don't forget to roast me in the comments and cons uh consider checking out my books on Amazon. They're all free as ebooks. link in the description.