¶1All right, let's move on to the next objection which is as I understand it magisterial objections and I'll tell a little bit about my background with that one as a convert as well is that they never really function well so what was different for me was that I was already in the apologetic space when I converted and so I was already really familiar with the harmonizations that people like Lydia Tim Mcgru offer in defense of inherency and stuff in the Bible and I know that Lydia is not an inherent but she offers a lot of harmonizations for these, you know, apparent contradictions in the Bible and uh has done a lot of work on this. And so I was I was already familiar with like the harmonizations that can be offered to harmonize these apparent contradictions in the gospels and in the Bible. And then I heard Trent Horn basically give a very similar type of response for the magisterial objections that it's like this is is sort of similar to how atheists argue against the Bible is that they point to these contradictions and that's what Protestants do with the magisterial documents is they they find one contradiction in this papable bull and then you know some other magisterial document later on they'll say well this contradicts this and and what you do is the same thing that you do with the Bible is you just look for some sort of harmonization. And if it's like somewhat plausible, you're like, "Okay, that's good enough for me." It's like, you know, it shouldn't bother you to let it. But then there are, as you say, I I love this term, higher order considerations.
¶2You just have so much evidence for the truth of your view that you don't have to like resolve all of these minute details all at the same time or all at once. Um, so that was that was kind of my like that that's why I never really took them seriously. I never took like objections to biblical inherency super seriously. I was just like, well, Jesus rose from the dead, so like what are you going to do with that, you know? So, yeah.
¶3But how did how did this objection function for you? Was it was it more serious? >> No. So, I mean, it was somewhat serious. Uh, but it wasn't among like the three I don't know.
¶4There was like category one very serious like blinking red lights, objections. And that was like moral problems, hell, and biblical problems. The ones that we just covered. These next ones are like, I don't know, category 2, category three, where it's like, yeah, you know, there's some yellow lights and they're a little worrying, but I don't know, like if if I solve the first three and I've got all the the positive evidence, like I don't know, they don't really bother me all that much. Um, >> but as I understand it, you had been watching people like Gavin Orland.
¶5No, I watched them very very significantly. Yeah. So I I watched like Aan Ortland, Redeem Zoomer, uh Sean Luke and I was just like taking notes on their stuff and like I even compiled like this big document with all my objections to Catholicism. It's like 200 pages long and whatnot. And there was like a big section on magisterial punitive magisterial contradictions and whatnot.
¶6But yeah, no, so I I definitely watched these guys. I paid careful attention what they said and I also watched very diligently um responses to these videos from people like um Scholastic Answers Christian Wagner um especially on like you know the no salvation outside the church he was super helpful with that one and he has some like blog posts on this was pointing out that like no actually there's like a continuous harmonious development here and totally consistent um people like since 33 AD so Kevin Fernandez I watched him there's this uh YouTube channel which is really good called like the cathodox which talked about some of these and you know also just like Joe Heshmire he's one of my favorite uh Catholic apologists Um, and you know, like Tren Horn, they had some responsibilities to these sorts of things. And I was basically like following the dialectic, doing some research on my own as well, um, on some of these, you know, puditive, sometimes historical difficulties, but also just like magisterial, um, problems. Um, and I think what what really helped me here was just picking like two of like the biggest, baddest, puditive objections and then just like delving into them and seeing uh, could I resolve them? Uh, and I could.
¶7So, the two biggest ones for me were just like religious liberty, uh, and no salvation outside the church. >> So, like with the religious liberty one, we even have like um there's this amazing Protestant fellow uh who is so gentle and kind and loving. Uh, I think his name is Austin. He's from like Gospel Simplicity or something. Is that what it's called?
¶8>> Austin Suggs. >> Yeah, Suggs. Um, that uh he had this video where it's like the I forget exactly the title, but it's like the clearest magisterial contradiction. And it's like on religious liberty and I was like so like these are the sorts that like everyone's like oh this is like the all the Protestants are like oh this is the clearest contradiction and another one they think it's the biggest where it's like the no salvation aside the church you know like Wes Huff has this video where he in my estimation kind of sort of butchers that um puditive contradiction. Um, so I sort of worked through those two and I just found that like there were very actually quite plausible harmonizations and I was like, "Whoa, okay." And that gave me like I was like, "Okay, I picked the two biggest baddest ones that you guys threw out and they could they were solvable with like pretty diligent effort." And so I was like, "Okay, >> let's go through one of them." >> I kind of want to go through both.
¶9I I think we should go I think that might be Well, I will I'll talk about that in my my conversion video. Well, let's I'll do what I'll do. I was I was going to say the not the religious liberty, but the no salvation outside the church. >> Yeah, because people can check out my video on the religious liberty thing. For that one, I just I picked up this book by Michael Dunigan, which just did wonders for my epistemic life.
¶10Like the scales fell from my eyes after I read this book. Um it's a book called like religious liberty and the hermeneutics of continuity. But anyway, Michael Dunigan has gone on channels on podcasts like the classical theism podcast. He's gone on um other YouTube channels to talk about uh this punitive contradiction on religious religious liberty. And I was I saw the the harmonization that he gave and I read this 600 page book and I was like whoa that makes so much sense and it's super plausible uh and it like resolves things really nicely and there are even other harmonizations as well that like Thomas Pink and various other people give.
¶11Um but let's focus on the no salvation outside the church thing. So uh yes this is it is extra eccles of the Catholic Church. It is still taught. It has always been taught. Um, and uh, you know, like you go back to I think it's one of the like the uh, canate domino or something at Florence or maybe this was like a paper bull where it's like you know it's even saying like you know like schismatics, heretics, Jews, Muslims and whatnot if they're not united to the church by the end of their lives they're going to be cast into you know the eternal fires of hell or something like that.
¶12Um and there are various other uh magisterial statements that um you know like it is a matter of necessity that you be you submit to the Roman pontiff or something like that. Um >> it's like based you know true. So um how are we to oh and then you look at like Vatican 2 for instance um even things like even well before Vatican 2 but uh you look at Vatican 2 and it's saying like oh yeah like the plan of salvation includes like Muslims for instance or like Jews or um you know like our separated brethren like the Protestants can be saved um and you know goes through all this stuff about invincible ignorance and whatnot and how um how you know the Holy Spirit can actually effectuate their salvation. Um, so you're like, "Okay, hold on a second. I thought you said that there's no salvation outside the church, but these guys seem to be outside the church, so how could they be saved?
¶13Isn't there a contradiction here?" Um, turns out no, because if you actually look at the magisterial statements, right, for instance, that one where it's like, uh, unless they be united to the church before they die, they're going to be damned. Um, it all turns on that term united. And it turns out that there are just different ways to be united to the Catholic Church. And this has been recognized for a very long time. >> And this is what the Scholastic Answers points out uh in his uh articles and in his videos and whatnot.
¶14So there's one way you can be united to the church which is like you know uh >> a sort of visible >> you can be you can be a visible explicit formal member of the church right like you're within the literal physical institution. You've been like baptized Catholic. You you know participate in the sacraments and whatnot. That's one way of being united to the church. But there are other ways of being united to the church that we have recognized for like at least a millennium.
¶15Like you know like catechumans for instance if they die they're not actually united to the church in that sense. They're not actually part of like the jeritical bounds of the church. They're not actually formal members of the church yet. But nevertheless you can even go back and uh like people uh have like long recognized that like catechumans for instance can be saved. Um we even have like popes in the middle ages saying that sort of thing.
¶16This is what the Cathodox has pointed out. So okay what's going on here? They're not actually like because these same sorts of councils and whatnot who are recognizing that for instance kind of humans can be saved are also saying that like if you're not within the church, if you're not united to the church, then you can't be saved. So what's going on? Well, it just turns out that there are different, as I said, different ways of being united to the church.
¶17So you could be united um as some people put it like Father Garagrange, like you could be united to the soul of the church. You can sort of be mystically united. So you can have a kind of um like implicit faith in Catholicism because you're um basically you know you want to believe uh everything that God has revealed but just through no fault of your own. You're just unaware that uh God has revealed that you know the Catholic Church is the one true church that you need to be a part of. Uh and so if you are if you have you know uh that kind of invincible ignorance and moreover you are um you have that kind of uh implicit faith in Catholicism.
¶18So you're so favorably disposed that maybe if it were like credibly presented to you or something like that um you'd accept it or you know there are different accounts of that. >> Is it is it kind of like the baptism of desire? >> Yeah. So like there are lots of different ways that you can be united in the church. Um one is um yeah like explicitly formally.
¶19Another one is basically um in vod or like yeah through desire like an explicit desire as in cateumans or there's even like an implicit desire and that's one way you could be united to the soul of the church. you're sort of mystically united even though you're not within like the jeritical external bounds of the church. And again, like you just go back and this stuff, this sort of like other ways of being united to the church have been recognized for at least like a millennium, right? Like you go back to even the the medieval church, >> the patriarchs, the the Jewish patriarchs before Jesus. >> I know that certainly.
¶20Um but also just even even like with within the time of the Catholic Church because um like there are certain people who I think we even venerate as saints who died following an anti- pope. So they're literally like in a formal also people who have been like form in a formal state of jeritical excommunication which we sort of later recognized was um I forget if it was later recognized as unjust or something like that. I I forget. But anyway, there are people who have um been like venerated who are following an antipote for instance. And if you do that, like you're not part of the extra external jeritical bounds of the church because you're not in like explicit formal jeritical union with the actual pope.
¶21And yet they're viterated as saints, right? So even going back into medieval times, we recognized that you can be united to the church without being in the jeritical bounds of the church. And so like uh it's totally consistent with um conte domino that for instance protestants can be saved. It's not saying that all Protestants will be saved like you know uh it is a >> it's still a very important matter to >> it's still extremely important. There is a grave objective obligation that everyone has to become Catholic like you need to become Catholic and that I think that's what um the you know is a matter of necessity that you be united to the Roman pontiff.
¶22Um Catholicism has long distinguished different kinds of necessity. There's like necessity of precept and necessity of means per accidents, necessity of means per se. So like uh I think this one is like a necessity of precept. So like uh and it is a matter of necessity that you be united to the the you submit to the Roman pontiff. Like that is it.
¶23You need to do that in the sense that it is an objective obligation. It is a grave objective obligation that you need to fulfill. But you know if there is an objective grave obligation that you're not culpable for fulfilling, then you're not going to be damned on account of not fulfilling the objective obligation. It's just like when for instance, you know, um you sleep with uh like unbeknownst to you Cameron, like you have no clue about this and you had no way of knowing, but your wife has an identical twin and she came and you know, she kidnapped Britney a little while back. Uh she just like killed Britney, got rid of her, and then started sleeping with you, put on all of her clothes and whatnot, and you had no clue, no way of knowing.
¶24Well, you have actually just like maybe we shouldn't say she killed her. She's existed, but she's on a separate island. you have now been committing adultery unbeknownst to you like objectively you're not having relations with your wife right that is objectively gravely wrong committing adultery right but you're not culpable for it and so you're not going to be damned on account of it right >> so um it's like and we have recognized this for like a very long time that uh you know basically like you can be non-culpable for violating an objective obligation um >> and so you know you're not going to be damn damn damned on account of that non-culpable violation of an objective obligation Um, so yeah, I just I do think that there are totally reasonable ways. Um, and this is why, for instance, we can say things like, yeah, adult all adulterers go to hell, even though you can be an adulterer and not be like and not go to hell in a in a strict and literal sense. Um, because like you can commit like a material act of adultery, which you're not formally culpable for, right?
¶25And when we say that all adulterers go to hell, we're saying, yeah, we're talking when we say that, we're talking about people who are formally culpable for doing that, right? And so for likewise if we're talking about like oh yeah all schismatics and heretics go to hell like we're talking about people who are formally >> it's more of a truism um a truism what do you mean >> it's more of a truism so like it's it's true most of the time like without if you make sufficient clarifications like there's >> exceptions we just need like basically scholastic answers traces through the like the history of this he goes through why like no actually this is like even recognize that these councils are like like promulgating the relevant um extra ecclesia kind of declarations and whatnot like this stuff actually does go back Um and so yeah, I just was able to resolve that in my mind and I think that there's lots of mistakes on this front. >> Well, and and so looking at this one, well, two in particular, you were able to see that just like with biblical inherency, like if you if you just take like a a paradigm example and you're like, "Oh, well, there is a way to actually resolve this." Then at that point you were like, "Well, this seems like it would be a representative sample if this was the number one or number two, you know, magisterial alleged magisterial contradiction." And then from there, you were just like, "Well, I'm sure the others can be resolved as well." >> Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely how it worked. And it was basically just like, yeah, I mean, I took the biggest and baddest ones, was able to resolve them, and it's like, okay, these other ones aren't the biggest and baddest.
¶26Like, they even have even more reasonable things to say with respect to them. So like uh they they aren't particularly serious in by my lights. Um and yeah, again I would just like I'm not explaining this as best as I could. This is not my kind of area of expertise. I'd recommend watching like Scholastic Answer and stuff.
¶27He's got one on like the medieval roots of Vatican 2. He's got like a video on that. got like like two really good like blog posts on extra ecclesia nulisalus where he's just he traces through like how even the council fathers at Florence like couldn't possibly have meant given their own commitments and given the theologians that they drew on they couldn't possibly have meant that you like it is a matter of complete and absolute and utter necessity without which you cannot be saved that you have to be an explicit formal visible member of the church in order to save find me one magisterial statement that says that I dare you you won't find it cuz we I haven't because God has protected us from error.