¶1Something very interesting and exciting is going on in the Christian world. And what is it? It was brought about by a few people. Cameron Bertusi, Ethan Muse, and Joe Schmidt. Now, Joe Schmidt recently announced that he was coming back to Christianity and specifically to Catholicism.
¶2And some of the reasons included were the miracles at Fatima and Lords and the appearances of Mother Mary at those places, plus others such as Zetun. Well, today we're going to discuss some of the Protestant objections to these miracles and how Protestants in many cases are arguing like atheists. So, you've come to the right place. This is SJ Thomasson with Truth Matters. Here are several of some famous Protestants.
¶3Matt Slick, Shawn Luke, Kenneth Samples, William Lane Craig, and Dave Hunt, who all have made some claims about the Fatima apparitions and other apparitions. In fact, here is what a few of them said. In my opinion, according to Matt Slick, Fatima was a deni demonic manifestation. It was simply demonic. And Shawn Luke in his debate with Ethan Muse said it was a demonic deception.
¶4We're going to take a look at clips from some of these debates. and conversations and we are going to show some logical reasoning and logical flaws in their assumptions. They realize that something miraculous happened at these places and they're attributing attributing it to demons rather than to God. And why are they doing that? They are doing that because they're doing damage control.
¶5They realize that there are some uh pieces of evidence that Mary, Mother Mary, is pointing us to the Catholic Church and they do not like that. They do not like that. Now, I've had Kenneth samples on my channel before. He's a really nice guy, but I disagree with him, unfortunately, with this statement. He says, "The signs and wonders at Lords and Fatima, could have been done by Satan." And then, of course, William Lane Craig says, "Marry and apparitions, including Fatima, could be explained by a demonic spirit rather than the Virgin Mary." Dave Hunt said, "The satanic delusion is undeniable." I mean, these are some serious claims.
¶6And so let's listen to what they say and we're going to then point to the 72 miracles at Lords. I've got the receipts here and we're going to point to other reasons in support of the Marian apparitions. Let's take a look. Okay, here we go. Let's have a listen.
¶7it. You know, in my book, The Cult of the Virgin, the latter part of the book deals with apparitions. And I I raised the question, you know, Jesus's ministry seems to me when he performed the miraculous very different than the apparitions of Mary. You know, uh Jesus healed the leper. Jesus healed people who were blind.
¶8Um Jesus touched and restored people's limbs. When it comes to apparitions, a lot of times the miracles are, you know, uh, a dancing sun or or, you know, things turning into silver. And this is where it's really sad that I don't think Kenneth Samples has taken a look at to some of the miracles, the healing miracles that have happened at Fatima and Lords, for example. Lords has seven 70,000 thousands of people have claimed miracles at Lords, but they have to go through extremely rigorous testing to prove that there is absolutely no natural explanation for these miracles. So only 72 people have been willing to go through this very rigorous testing.
¶9And it's interesting because Lords just announced the 72nd miracle. It was an Italian pilgrim who is cured of a degenerative disease. And this person went through all of this rigorous testing and they found absolutely no other way to explain it. And so after bathing in the waters of Lords, I'm reporting to you what EWTN said in 2009, Rao began to move independently after which the effects of the infamous illness immediately and definitively disappeared. Okay.
¶10Her name is Anton Antonetta Braco. She suffered from primary lateral sclerosis and she was cured in 2009 during her pilgrimage to Lords. After a long period of accurate investigations, the International Medical Committee of Lords in turn declared the medically unexplained character of the scientific knowledge of the lady's recovery. The bishop subsequently provided for the establishment of a medical theological commission and the appointment of an Episcopal delegate in order to make the necessary ecclesial discernment about the alleged miraculous healing. Thank God who is with his divine sign has once again manifested his presence among his people.
¶11Let's continue to listen to what Kenneth Simples has to say. gold. Now, I know there are are uh claimed apparitions connected with lords that involve, you know, alleged miracles, but oftentimes these these so-called uh supernatural ideas, they seem flimsy. They don't really seem like what I would expect from the healing ministry of Jesus. I challenge Kenneth Samples to listen to to uh Joe Schmid's most recent video where he goes through some of these 72 miracles and gives all the specifics because they aren't flimsy.
¶12Flimsy really really the cognitive dissonance in his mind must be doing acrobats. Okay, [laughter] he's seriously if you read these and you're a Protestant, you're trying to hold to the dissimilarities between these miracles and what occurred uh in Jesus's ministry, you will have to do acrobats, cognitive acrobats, something like I've mentioned before, the atheists do in some cases where they're going to have to do Olympian style mental gymnastics. But I digress. Here we go. Let's keep listening where he says these come from.
¶13>> Jesus, they seem showy. They seem uh exotic. Uh frankly, they seem counterfeit. >> Yes. Uh well, even um the devil has >> Yeah.
¶14>> masqueraded as an angel of light. Uh still does masquerade >> as an angel of light. And >> did you hear that? Did you hear that? The devil has masqueraded as an angel of light.
¶15Okay, let's take a look at some additional of these, some additional ones, and we will see what else we have. So, let me show you. Here's what happened at Fatima. This is reported in the O secular newspaper of the time by a person who was at the scene. Okay?
¶16The reporter who came to Fatima who witnessed what he saw was he said it was around 40,000 people witnessed the miracles at Fatima. the miracle of the sun. The sun was dancing in the sky and as Ethan Muse has pointed out in great detail, apparently around 150 kilometer circumference around this area, people witnessed the miracles in the sky. The sun turned a variety of different colors and people were healed of their diseases on the spot. Okay?
¶17On the spot, they were healed of their diseases. That's pretty significant stuff. Pretty significant stuff. And then if we go back to 1531, we have the miracle of our lady of Guadalupe. She appeared to Juan Diego in Mexico.
¶18And it was during a time when many Aztecs were sacrificing their children to the gods that they believed. Mother Mary appeared dressed in a way that the Aztecs could recognize as basically someone worthy of reverence. And she dressed and she appeared as she was pregnant. And you probably know that story, but that tilma still survives today. It's a miracle that the tilma survives.
¶19And many people converted. In fact, within about 10 years, something like 9 million Aztecs converted to Christianity to Catholicism. And interestingly, this came right at the height of the Protestant Revolution. Okay? So, right after Martin Luther had created his 95 thesis around 1517, we have our lady of Guadalupe.
¶20our lady appearing to this hemisphere of the world to affirm her son and to draw our attention to Jesus Christ. And many many millions of people became Catholics and to this day many millions of people are still becoming Catholics when they go to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico and they see what happened there. And so that's pretty interesting stuff. Now let's listen to the next one that we're going to see is William Lane Craig responding about these apparitions. And it's pretty interesting stuff.
¶21So, let's take a look and let's see. We're going to stop that screen and we are going to present the next screen. Okay, let's have a look here at William Lane Craig. Make sure I've got this maxed out on the volume. Here we go.
¶22>> Respond to group visions of the Virgin Mary. I think here Alex is drawing our attention to a very important point namely the antecedent beliefs of persons which would dispose those persons towards certain experiences. Number one, William Lane Craig should actually read the article in O Seculo. This kind of stuff infuriates me. Read the article.
¶23There were many people who were skeptics who were there trying to discount what was happening. It wasn't just Catholics trying to affirm their Catholic beliefs. It was people of all different kinds of beliefs and a lot of very hostile people towards Christianity appeared and they also affirmed the miracles that appeared. The dancing in the sun and the people who were healed on the spot. They were able to walk.
¶24They all kinds of things. The blind were healed. It clearly is Jesus. And let's keep listening. Where does he say this comes from?
¶25Like Alex, I am skeptical of the Maran mass appearances. Um, the person who experiences Marian visions are typically Roman Catholics predisposed toward belief in the Virgin Mary. Um, and so for exactly the same reason, I wouldn't lay too much emphasis on the appearance to the 500 brethren who were probably all Christians. It's interesting that Paul refers to them as brethren, 500 brethren. So, these people were probably already Christian believers um and therefore predisposed to believe in in Jesus resurrection.
¶26Uh and so I wouldn't lay too much emphasis on this. As you said, Sean, it's it's a piece in the puzzle. It's part of the cumulative case. I think the really important appearances are the appearances to Peter and to the 12. These early appearances were completely contrary to antecedent Jewish beliefs which predisposed them not to believe that Jesus was risen from the dead.
¶27One of the most remarkable things about the belief in the resurrection of Jesus is that the uh earliest disciples who suddenly and sincerely came to this belief were predisposed by their first century typical Jewish thought forms uh completely against it. And so this is one of the major uh >> and they weren't completely against a resurrection because of course they had witnessed during Jesus's ministry that he was able to raise a few people from the dead like Lazarus and others and of course during the early apostles they also were able to raise people from the dead. So we have this kind of thing. They they knew of the resurrection in that time. They knew that you know Jesus had been giving him signs that he was going to be raised after three days.
¶28He was going to rebuild that thing. Now, it might not be in this video that I heard William Lane Craig basically say that he attributed this to the demonic, but he has said that this in in his writing, in his reasonable faith blog, that he does believe that these Marian apparitions are demonic because according to them, they lead people away from the Protestant faith and into the Catholic faith. Now, at Fatima, something that we saw was mother Mary directed the children to tell the pope to tell the pope that he needed to consecrate Russia to her immaculate heart. Now, why would she say to consecrate Russia? Well, she said otherwise Russia would spread its heirs, the heirs of communism.
¶29And Russia sadly did that. That's exactly what Russia did. The Pope didn't properly consecrate Russia. Now, that affirms the Catholic belief. The lady also called herself our lady of the rosary, affirming the Catholic belief.
¶30At Lords, the lady said she was our lady. She was the immaculate conception. She was the immaculate conception. Lords occurred in 1858, four years after the dogma of the immaculate conception, saying that mother Mary was conceived free from original sin. She was conceived in her mother's womb, free from original sin.
¶31Very unlike every single other person on the world who is conceived in original sin. And that is a Catholic dogma. It's a very important Catholic dogma. And it's one reason why Protestants reject these Marian apparitions. And it's it's actually sort of a circular reasoning because they deny Catholicism.
¶32In fact, I've heard arguments from some Protestants that have basically said have uh used circular reasoning in their denial. And here's their argument. I'm trying to I'm going to try to say it to the best of my knowledge what their say formalized premises and conclusions are. So, one premise according to Protestants. Now, I heard this actually on my friend Dale's channel.
¶33He was interviewed by a Protestant and both of them started with this first proposition, this first idea. They said Catholicism teaches serious religious error or heresy. I would like to know exactly what that is. Okay. Many of them don't think that Mary is a perpetual virgin, for example.
¶34That's one of our dogmas. We believe that when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary that Mary was claiming, Mary was saying, "How can this be since I know not man?" Now, she would know how it could be that she was going to be uh conceiving Jesus. She would know how it could be. Isaiah 7:14 pointed out that the virgin will conceive. How can that happen?
¶35A virgin can't conceive because it involves a male who is impregnating her. Okay? A virgin can't conceive, but Isaiah 14 said that a virgin will conceive. Isaiah 9 said that this will be a wonderful counselor, everlasting father, mighty God, and prince of peace. We have all forms of the Trinity in Isaiah 9:6.
¶36It's great the virgin conceived. She said how this can be because she had taken a vow of perpetual virginity. It's so clear. But that is something that Protestants, many Protestants deny. Now Martin Luther didn't deny that.
¶37My Lutheran husband doesn't deny that. In fact, my Lutheran husband is totally behind the Marian apparitions. You don't have to be not behind the Marian apparitions. It's just that they also affirm Catholic doctrines. We don't have serious religious error.
¶38But that's their proposition. Catholic teaches serious religious error or heresy. The second proposition is God would not perform genuine supernatural miracles for the purpose of confirming serious religious error or heresy. The third one is the miracles associated with Catholicism such as Fatim and Lords are genuine supernatural events that function as confirmation of Catholicism. Their proposition, the fourth one, if a genuine supernatural miracle confirms religious error and does not originate from God, its supernatural source must be deceptive or demonic.
¶39their conclusion. Therefore, the miracles at Fatiman Lords are deceptive or demonic. That is their argument. But it has a faulty premise, especially at the first proposition that Catholicism teaches serious religious error. If their proposition is justified simply by assuming Protestantism is true while Fatiman Lords are being introduced as evidence bearing on whether Catholicism is true, the argument risks begging the question.
¶40Okay, here is a better argument in support of Lords. The good fruits argument. Some have said that these these miraculous appearances do not show good fruits. Now in Jesus in the Bible Jesus said you will know them by their fruits. You will know them by their fruits.
¶41But it also says that a bad tree will bear no good fruit. Okay? So the good fruits coming out of Fatima and Lords and Guadalupe and Zaiton and some other places the good fruits that are coming out of there there cannot be the product of the demonic because the demonic would not bear good fruits. It says they cannot. Now can the angel appear as light?
¶42Yes. But he can't cure. He can't prophecy. Demons can't do the things that were done in these apparitions. So, here's a better argument.
¶43We're going to say this probabilistically rather than as an absolute deductive claim. One, a supernatural phenomenon whose characteristic and enduring fruits substantially undermine Satan's purposes by producing repentance from sin, conversion to Christ, worship of God, prayer, love of Christ, and pursuit of holiness is unlikely to have Satan as the ultimate source. Preposition two, the phenomena associated with fam, Fatima and Lords and Guadalupe have produced characteristic and enduring fruits of repentance, conversion, prayer, worship of God, devotion to Christ, and pursuit of holiness. Conclusion: Therefore, the phenomena associated with Fatima, Lord's Guadalupe, are unlikely to have Satan as their ultimate source. Now this is sourced in Matthew 7:15 to20 where Jesus teaches that false prophets are recognized by their fruits.
¶44Matthew 12:2 and 26 Jesus argues that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. If Satan systematically opposes Satan, his kingdom is divided. Mark 3:22-27 is a parallel account of Jesus answering the claim that his works were demonic. Okay, people were saying that his works were demonic. Jesus refuted that saying a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.
¶45Jesus's works are not demonic. Look at the p look at the miracles at Lords for crying out loud. What are you people doing? John 1 John 4 1:3 Christians are commanded to test the spirits. Test it.
¶46Take a look at these miracles. The 72 miracles that have been affirmed by Lords. Now, here's another positive defined confirmation argument. Proposition one, God can authenticate a religious message or messenger through genuine supernatural miracles. Two, when apparently genuine supernatural miracles accompany a religious message that confesses Christ directs people towards God rather than another God, and characteristically produces good spiritual fruits.
¶47Divine action is a better explanation than demonic action, all else being equal. Proposition three. The apparently supernatural phenomena associated with Fatima and Lords accompany Catholicism and have characteristically directed people towards God and Christ and produce repentance, conversion, prayer, worship, and other Christian fruits. Conclusion. Therefore, divine action provides a better explanation of the Fatima and Lord's phenomena than demonic action all else being equal.
¶48Okay. So, a second step will connect us to Catholicism. Proposition four. If God deliberately performs miracles in a religious context in a manner that authenticates that religion's distinctive claims, those miracles constitute evidence in favor of the truth of those claims. The Fatima and Lord's miracles occurred in specifically Catholic contexts and function as confirmation of distinctively Catholic claims concerning Mary intercession and the Catholic sacramental worldview.
¶49You will remember at Fatima that prior to the appearances of Mary which started on May 13th prior to that in 1917 the angel an angel appeared to the children and actually gave them the Eucharist that was affirming the Eucharist which is the body blood soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. Therefore conclusion the Fatima and Lord's miracles constitute evidence in favor of Catholicism. So, it's something pretty important that you really can't deny. And I hope you won't deny it because it's the truth. It is the absolute truth.
¶50Now, let's continue and we're going to listen to another one of these clips and I'm going to try to bring you to the truth. The truth will set you free. As you know, the truth is going to set you free. We want to set you free um from any sort of lies and any sort of other things. Now, let's take a look at Ethan Muse.
¶51I have been binging on Ethan Muse's videos. I have been binging on his videos and uh these this is another person. I'm going to talk about his conversion a little later today. But here's another person who left his atheism and became a Catholic due to the evidence. Due to the evidence.
¶52That's what Ethan Muse did. Now, Ethan Muse, I would say, is a very intelligent person. And here he's debating Shaun Luke. And Shawn Luke unfortunately has those same terrible views about Fatima. Okay, so let's listen to what he has to say.
¶53Make sure I've got this turned all the way up. Here we go. We're going to listen to Shaun Luke's claims. >> If I'm correct, then Protestants If I'm incorrect, then Protestants risk blaspheming the spirit by attributing the work of God to Satan. If Roman Catholics are incorrect, then their church has declared a demonic apparition as worthy of belief and approved a cult of devotion by magisterial sanction to a demon in 1930, acting in accordance with the requests of a demon in 1942 and 1952.
¶54Even if one said, "Well, these were non-infallible." Nevertheless, divine assistance is promised to the magisterium so as to render her pronunciations safe enough to give religious submission of mind and will even in non-infallible pronunciations. But if the magisterium approved the call to a demon, then it is unclear how it was guarded with enough safety for the faithful to give such a submission of mind and will, how do we adjudicate what supernatural actions are and are not demonic? We must test them against the pattern of God's actions in the past and see if they do not contradict those actions. So, I want to stop here because this is exactly what he's saying. He he's saying it's demonic.
¶55Now, has this man taken the time to examine the miracles at Lords? I think not. I think not because if he did, he would know the good fruits coming out of Lords. Has he taken the time to examine the accounts of people who were healed at Fatima? Or the person at Zaiton, the Muslim who pointed at the Virgin Mary on top of the church of St.
¶56Mary? Now, this is a Coptic church. The person who pointed his finger and his finger, which had been severely uh damaged, was healed on the spot. Has he taken the time to look at these accounts? Probably not.
¶57Instead, he claims they're demonic and it's bad fruits only because it disagrees with the dog his dogmas against Mary. It's horrible. Now, what's really interesting when you think about the Zyun miracle is mother Mary was up there for three years appearing on and off for a per over a period of three years. They actually turned the electricity off because they were trying to stop the Marian apparitions. The Egyptian government also witnessed it.
¶58Many many Muslims witnessed this. Thousands of people witnessed this. It was reported in the New York Times. Many people witnessed the apparitions at Zaiton but and it was appearing on a Coptic church. Now, does that give the claims to Catholicism?
¶59Actually, it's really interesting. The Coptic Orthodox, the Orthodox Church uh recognizes many of the same miracles in Mother Mary that we do. Point one. Point two is interestingly this appearance came after the council in 1960 in the Catholic church that basically said we should be trying to work together ecumenically. So the fact that mother Mary appeared you know to Muslims and represented and over the orthodox church gives us some affirmation.
¶60Now she didn't speak and that's where it's interesting. She spoke during the more Catholic apparitions uh over there in Portugal at Fatima. She spoke at Guadalupe. She spoke at uh she spoke and said she was the immaculate conception at Lord. So when she speaks in these Catholic places and affirms Catholic doctrines, but she didn't speak over in Zaitun.
¶61And it did give some it gave some affirmation towards the Orthodox. And the Orthodox again do believe a lot of the same things that the Catholics believe. But for him to say that they aren't the good fruits, it drives me crazy. It's so sad. It's so sad.
¶62Now, I want to make a little uh thing that I've never really talked about, but I listened to a very interesting video. And the video talked about Thomas Moore, and it was a man for all seasons. It's a really good video to watch, a really good movie to watch. And Thomas Moore lived during the time of Henry VIII in the 16th century during the Protestant Revolution or Reformation. and he was going up against some very powerful people.
¶63He was a very powerful person himself, but he refused basically to take the oath in support of King Henry VIII as the king of the church because he knew that that would go against on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. It would go against Matthew 16 and the papal succession that Jesus instituted in the Bible. He knew it would go against that. He thought it would be sinful and he decided he would not take the oath and he died for that. But it points to really what's disgusting about the the source of Anglicanism.
¶64I like Anglicans. I like Protestants. I'm married to a Protestant. These are all good people in many cases. But unfortunately, the source, you will know them by their fruits.
¶65Matthew uh you you saw that with King Henry VIII. He literally killed his wives. He killed two of his wives and he had Thomas Moore beheaded because Thomas Moore would not basically take his oath. It is it is horrible. You will know them by their fruits.
¶66Martin Luther, he was a monk who ran off with a Catholic nun, ended up marrying the nun, ended up writing a book called on the Jews and their lies. Pretty disgusting stuff coming from that Protestant monk by their fruits. Well, what where did his fruits grow later, unfortunately, that was used by Hitler during World War II. He used some of the ideas of Martin Luther to justify what he get did against the Jews in World War II. So, you will know them by their fruits.
¶67Same exact thing with Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith uh basically cheated on his wife. He secretly married other women, many other women. I mean, you will know them by their fruits. Muhammad Muhammad tells his people they can only marry four women.
¶68He was a polygamist. They could only marry four women while he himself marries something like 11. And one of the women he married was six when he was 53. And he consummated that marriage to Aisha when she was nine. You will know them by their fruits.
¶69Go to Jesus, the original source of Christianity. Please, I beg you, please go to Jesus. Okay? Please go to Jesus. And so, I hope you enjoyed this conversation.
¶70If you did, please like and subscribe and do come again. And just remember, whether you eat, drink, or whatever you do, do it all for God's glory. Amen. Have a wonderful day. And I will see you later.
¶71I'm going to talk about some people who've converted to Catholicism. Some really important people who are making a massive difference. We know them by their fruits. They're making a big difference.