Protestant FORCED Sola Scriptura on A Catholic and Jew! | Pastor Reacts

I think it is odd that you are putting sola scriptura on two groups who don't believe in that sola scriptura does not exist for jews or catholics. Nate, you want two non-sola scriptura people to have this convo like a sola scriptura protestant so bad.

So here's the deal. Guys am i a protestant that affirms sola scriptura?

Yes.

Does that explain my reaction to the prager vs frad video as well as my suggestions for going to the bible and letting it define the concept of lust? Well i couldn't just let this one go. I had to get back on the merry-go-round one last time.

Welcome if you are brand new to the channel. My name is nate sala. Thank you so much for watching this is wise disciple. And here at wise disciple we're helping you become the effective christian that you are meant to be.

Well the last video i did on this was not received well by my catholic audience. So am i just a glutton for punishment? Let's find out. Matt frad recently joined ben shapiro for some more discussion on the issue of pornography and lust and all the things that he went round and round on with dennis prager.

But will he finally persuade someone from the jewish perspective to change their minds? Will this be a productive conversation? Let's jump right into it.

I wanted to have you on to sort of discuss you know what sort of the jewish and catholic takes and sort of what the general moral take should be on pornography because i have a feeling that you and i actually don't disagree i think pretty much on anything.

I think that the the question here is one of terminology. It seems like one of the sort of terminological debate is over the word lust and and what the definition of the word lust is is what it comes down to.

So so right off the bat i see a different discussion here right. Uh which by the way this is not going to work unless you probably have seen the the reaction that i did to the matt frad versus dennis prager uh conversation that was about uh several weeks ago.

This conversation is not frad versus prager. This is frad versus shapiro and shapiro is already framing this discussion differently. Watch how it gets very narrow in scope. Okay we agree that. That's basically what shapiro is asserting at this point.

You know we agree uh but we're probably just using different terms to describe the same thing. It is about lust right. What does lust mean? This is what i was getting at in the previous video. This is why i kept going back to the way that the word is being used in the bible which by the way i'm going to say more on that in a moment.

So in the realm of action i would assume that there's pretty much no argument. We are both in favor of monogamous heterosexual marriage. All sexual activity outside of monogamous heterosexual marriage is sinful and wrong according to both of us.

And so do you think there's any distinction there?

No i'm pleased to hear you say that it sounds like your view is closer to mine than dennis's may have been. I i i i'm glad.

And by the way my view is way closer to frad's than uh shapiro's right. So if i'm gonna i don't know provide um my own opinions about you know what should happen you know what what is not happening that i wish would happen that doesn't mean that i'm not on frad's side.

Like i'm on frad's side. Okay guys. So point of clarification.

We're putting emphasis on action. Um i agree that there is a distinction let's say between uh adultery in the heart as our blessed lord put it and adultery with the body. But that and i'm sure you would agree doesn't make adultery in the heart unimportant.

When a man on his wedding day says he'll be faithful to his wife surely he means more than what he won't do with his genitals. He means he wants to be faithful with his entire self which includes his imagination and his eyes and his ears and his speech.

I think this is what we should be striving for and i think this is what our blessed lord calls us to in seeking to elevate our desires to be in conformity with the good act. So it's not enough in christianity.

And you can tell me about judaism. It's not enough in christianity that i do the good. For what would you say moral maturity would be to desire the good as well.

Amen.

So totally agree with that. In fact the the idea in judaism is that that's what the commandments are there to do it's to cultivate in you a desire to do the things you're actually you're called upon to do the things so that eventually you will actually want to do the things.

You don't understand the purpose of the things and so it really isn't even about understanding the things you do them before you understand them which is why it says in the bible nasa venishma that you're supposed to do and then you're supposed to understand.

The apostle paul also tracks along this way of thinking in romans chapter 7. So in chapter 7 verse 14 he says. For we know that the law is spiritual but i am fleshly having been sold into bondage under sin.

For what i am working out i do not understand. For i am not practicing what i would like to do but i'm doing the very thing that i hate. This is what shapiro is talking about. The law very often challenges folks to do what they do not fully understand or even appreciate deep down in their heart but with the hope that one day they will.

So i won't get into which view i hold to. But there is a view of romans 7 that says that paul is not talking about the struggle of the christian. You know so a lot of us are taught in church that when paul says for example in verse 19.

For the good that i want i do not do but i practice the very evil that i do not want. Paul is describing the struggle of the christian here. That's what a lot of us are taught which paints a bleak picture of the sanctification process.

Now some christians say that the passage is not about christians. I think douglas mu is one of them. Some of the early church fathers as well said this. Rather the passage is referring to the unregenerate person who perhaps is aware of the law but becomes conflicted in following it.

They do not possess the inner working of the holy spirit in order to be set free from the body of death which is what paul later says in verse 24. Wretched man that i am who will deliver me from the body of this death right.

Not to divert too much. But this does track with what shapiro is talking about right now what's interesting is that last part there where there is this hope that one day a person will change on the inside based on you know that their desires will comport to the external expressions of obedience to the law right.

The new testament clearly teaches us that this is impossible that the only thing that the law can do is bring division. It can bring conflict it brings death. There must be another way to be right in the sight of god.

And that's the work in person of jesus christ.

And the the idea is that you know it's really not about you liking to do the things in the beginning but these are the things that you are called upon to do. And you're absolutely right of course that what we are called upon when it comes to monogamous marriage when it comes to being faithful to one's spouse is not to engage in pornography not to lust after other women and and all the rest of this sort of thing.

And god understands that you know we all fall short of the grace of god and that they're they're. You know that people look at things and commit sins but none of that is to say that those those sins are right.

So let's get to the part of the debate that i think was sort of more interesting because in action i think you and i have 100 overlap when it comes to the the actual definition of sort of lust in the heart i think that there there seemed to be um a failure of clarity of definition on this.

So i think that dennis from my impression was.

Okay this is why i wanted to do the video because i got quite a bit of pushback from my catholic viewers on my previous reaction. They told me that i was trying to force sola scriptura into the conversation and make somebody like prager and somebody like frad adhere to sola scriptura unjustifiably.

That's not at all what i was doing and as a matter of fact had frad done what i proposed there would have been no critique from ben shapiro and there would have been no need for this new exchange at all.

And i'll explain all of that in just a moment.

Speaking about lust as i think about my wife in the bedroom and i want to have sex with her and i'm not thinking about the idea that she's a higher spiritual being at the time i'm treating her as a person with their own sense of autonomy as a person who is a higher spiritual being in the sense that i'm not engaging in any sort of immoral forcing but at the same time i'm i'm you know i i see her she's beautiful i want to have sex with her and so that is lust.

I think you were treating lust as an absence of those provisos meaning that you were seeing a woman fully as just a sex object and so her lack of consent would mean very little or you would attempt a grating act upon her even if she would consent to them because you lost.

Like where is the distinction when you define lust. How do you define lust. Let's start with that.

That's right. That's right. Okay if frad once again goes to a philosophical definition of lust or he stands on the teachings of the catholic church with regard to lust then he will not answer the question to the satisfaction of shapiro.

Shapiro just gave a characterization of lust from a biblical hebrew like from the from the actual word itself in the hebrew. That's where he's coming from. And so when he asks frad for a definition and if frad then you know uh sort of goes off on a tangent philosophically or again from like uh catholic tradition or something he will not have the kind of effective conversation that he could have.

Why do i say that. Because when you disagree with another person especially i mean think of this in terms of debate. Okay. If you if any of you have seen any of the debate videos that i've done one of the first things debaters need to do on the debate stage is define terms.

Right. This is part of what's traditionally called the narratio portion of your opening statement. Why. Because without some basis of commonality or common ground there usually is no productive discussion.

Because at the end of it all without some type of common ground to appeal to all folks are left with are the different stories they are telling each other. Shapiro might as well be reading from maimonides and frad might as well be reciting a grocery list.

Right. Unless there is common ground for this discussion. That's why you need to go to the bible's definition on lust ladies and gentlemen especially in places like exodus chapter 20 verse 17 deuteronomy 5 21 even proverbs 6 25.

I brought all of these things up and i spent time on those passages in the previous video again. If you haven't seen it you should go back and watch it. And when you look at the the bible's definition in the original language you realize that what's being referred to here is with lust is desiring in order to take for yourself.

So that's why shapiro is coming from his starting point and frad really should go to the heart of that definition. If frad and shapiro can agree on the definition of lust they will have a fruitful discussion.

If they won't this conversation won't get very far. That's my prediction.

So i would say that lust is a disordered a desire for sexual pleasure and by disordered i mean sought in isolation from the procreative and unitive ends of the sexual act. So i think the result of lust is that we reduce a person to their sexual value.

And certainly people have sexual value and sexual desire is a good thing. But that when we treat someone like an object and we can get into what we mean by that we kind of take a utilitarian principle to them.

We say is this useful to me. And then what is sought to safeguard is pleasure at all costs. Whereas if i view my wife or anyone as a person then it's a personalistic principle namely how do i honor the person.

And then what is safeguarded at all costs isn't the pleasure but safeguarding their honor. One leads to egoism and one leads to altruism.

Okay so let's let's dig down on what you termed.

So i love frad's you know philosophical take on this. There's a lot of language that comes out of this and people tend to fall on the side of. Especially in today's culture. We should not treat people as a means to an end, right?

So that's the utilitarian slash consequentialist approach. The problem is we do treat people as means all the time and there are many cases where we treat people as means and there's nothing wrong with that morally.

This is where i think i need to reserve my thoughts just a little bit because maybe frad's going to unpack this a little bit further and we can we can go there. Somebody in the previous video commented and suggested that a lot of you know what frad is saying right now comes out of theology of the body by pope john paul ii.

I'm sure i would agree with a lot of the logic behind you know disordered loves which tracks along augustine's writings. I have no problem with that. I agree with augustine by the way where i just i have to pump the brakes though is in the suggestion that lust is somehow not something that a husband does for his wife or has for his wife even though he's attracted to her but he somehow lusts after other women even though he's attracted to them.

I don't see that demarcation that line of distinction there. And i'm talking about this line biblically which also seems to suggest. And maybe frad's going to disagree with me on this. Maybe he's going to address this actually.

But it seems like what frad is suggesting is that when done correctly when a husband is with his wife in the bedroom that act has nothing to do at all with lust that somehow you can completely separate out lust from the act of being with your spouse.

The only way that frad can say these things is by differentiating the concept of sexual desire from the concept of lust such that if a man desires to be with his wife well then that's sexual desire and therefore that's acceptable but if he desires to be with someone who is not his wife then that's lust and therefore is unacceptable.

But this is precisely the point does the bible differentiate these terms in the way that frad does because when you look at the word in the hebrew the answer appears to be no. It does not split sexual desire and lust apart.

And if i'm right then frad has completely stepped away from the very thing that should act as a common ground between him and shapiro in terms of fruitful discussion.

By the way.

This is a really good rule of thumb for you if you are a christian and you find yourself in a conversation like this with a jew and they ask you for a definition of a concept found in the bible go to the bible for that definition or go to a resource that a jew would accept because if you don't your conversation will not be as productive.

By the way are you liking the video so far? Make sure to gently punch that like button and subscribe to the channel because i need your help to get these videos out to more and more people. Thank you so much for watching and let's get back into the video.

You sort of you sort of laughed and chuckled when i suggested that in in my response to your and dennis's debate that the you know the alternative of you know thinking about equinus maimonides and the spirituality of life these are tend these tend not to be things that people bring into the bedrooms at least in any real way.

Or. Or they're lying. You laughed. And of course no no one does do that. Now to be clear there are actually religious authorities who have called on people to do that sort of thing. I mean it's actually not foreign to religious ideology to suggest that you're supposed to treat sex almost as as something that is is a part of life that you have to do.

But you're supposed to try to spiritualize that. I think that that is a real actual betrayal of what sex can be with your spouse. But i want to know what you mean by objectification because i think again there was a bit of lack of clarity.

Right. Again. Not not just on on what. What exactly you mean by objectification. Like presumably your wife is a person that you would like to have sex with and that doesn't mean that you're treating her again like she is just you know a masturbatory object.

But clearly the physical has a part here.

I think shapiro is trying to point out what i've been suggesting which is how is it possible to go through the entire act of love making and never not one time not even for one nanosecond treat your spouse as a means of sexual gratification.

Right. So i tweaked the language there because earlier fred talked about treating people as a means. But that's what i'm trying to get at. Does it even make sense to think that it's possible to go through the entire act of what takes place in the bedroom and not treat your spouse not even for one millisecond as a means of sexual gratification.

I think the answer is no. Even conceding fred's definition for the moment which is that lust is treating your spouse like a sexual object. I just don't see how you can disentangle treating your spouse as a means for sexual gratification as well as from all the other aspects of honoring and cherishing and respecting your spouse at the same time.

I think at best you can subordinate sexual gratification to those other aspects and then at worst you make sexual gratification the top of the hierarchy of your own desires in that moment. I just don't see how anyone can get away from that entirely.

That's exactly right. Let me see if i can respond to your first point. When one asks does sex always have to be this sacred experience i would say that objectively it is a sacred experience but that doesn't mean we're called upon to have a subjective experience that aligns with the gravity of what we're engaged in.

I have a more of a sense of the sacred if i pray in a beautiful church than if i pray while i'm walking down the road. And both are okay. But i might experience a greater degree of a feeling of piety or sacredness in a church.

And yes i mean when i engage or when a man engages in sexual relations with his wife he may feel that this is a very sacred event. Or it might just be hey i'm tired let's let's kind of get this done or you're ovulating.

We're trying for a child you know and that's beautiful. But i think this is the point i made in my response to you. If one woman in marriage has ever been right when she said i felt like i was a sex object i mean maybe she's wrong.

Maybe she misinterpreted. But if one woman has ever been right in saying that then it follows that lust is possible within marriage. And what i would say is lust within marriage still objectifies in that negative sense.

And i think you agree with me because i'm glad you said this you said that pornography is a sin. And it leads us to objectify people in a negative sense. So maybe we're just trying to find out what we mean by that negative sense.

But imagine a man who's been looking at pornography every day since he was 15 and at the age of 22 gets married hasn't yet had sex. There's nothing magical about marriage that would eradicate that evil way of thinking.

Right and that is the reality for so many men young men in this society right now. It's very very sad. Again all of this is an outworking of simply not going to the bible and letting the bible define the term for us that is the quickest fastest and best way to find common ground to have a productive conversation and perhaps even change someone's mind.

To my catholic viewers this is not about solo scripture. So last video a number of my catholic viewers shout out. To my catholic viewers watching the video by the way they took me to task. Hallelujah.

Clever.

247 says. I think it is odd that you are putting solo scriptura on two groups who don't believe in that. She goes on to say your whole perception is lacking because you believe solo scriptura is fact.

Zach peterson8341 says. Solo scriptura does not exist for jews or catholics. Melissa eberhart3476 says. Nate you want two non-solo scriptura people to have this convo like a solo scriptura protestant so bad.

So here's the deal guys am i a protestant that affirms solo scriptura?

Yes.

Does that explain my reaction to the prager versus frad video as well as my suggestions for going to the bible and letting it define the concept of lust?

No.

I have no animosity towards catholics. I do have principal disagreements with roman catholicism but i certainly don't revel in the fact that catholics and protestants have split.

You know.

I wish the church could be united once again based on good sound biblical doctrine and theological tradition. This was obviously luther's heart. This was many in the protestant tradition's heart at least if you go back far enough.

So i'm much more in line with gavin ortlund than i am with those who would today probably be protestant and proud of it.

You know.

But these kinds of comments from my catholic friends are. What happens when you let the catholic protestant divide. Cloud your ability to hear what i'm actually saying. I'm not talking as a protestant in this moment.

I'm talking as a debate teacher with an eye on effective communication if you want to have a productive dialogue with someone who comes from a completely different.

Background.

For example a jew and a christian. Well then you better be able to find areas of agreement to stand on in order to have the conversation which brings us back to the definition of terms which is one of the fundamental first things any debater needs to do on the debate stage.

Okay.

So put these pieces together friends. When a christian is talking to a jew where is the common ground? Clearly it's in the old testament, right? That's why i kept going back to the old testament and letting the hebrew word for lust shape the conversation moving forward.

This is not about forcing a jew and a catholic to adopt sola scriptura, guys it's about speaking effectively. And that's what you have to do. That's what we all have to do. We all have to think to ourselves before we even say the first word in a conversation like this.

Why am i having this conversation? What is my goal? Am i just here to talk to other catholics or other people that just agree with me? Or am i actually here to try to persuade a jew someone who is not in agreement with me to come to my way of thinking?

See when you have those questions in mind when you're talking it's going to change the way that you speak. It's going to change the arguments that you make. It's going to change the things that you appeal to in terms of resources i guarantee you.

Because now, look shapiro and frad are now doing a deep dive investigating the coherence and the consistency of frad's specific definitions. But wait if frad proves that his position is coherent and consistent shapiro can still shrug his shoulders at the end of the day the way he did at william lane craig when dr craig made arguments for jesus being the messiah.

You remember when that happened? And if shapiro shrugs his shoulders it's likely going to be because they could not establish a definition of terms and come to some kind of common ground to begin with.

I think a lot of men i've known men who have gotten into marriage and have taken all of that lust they've learned from pornography and foisted it onto their wife and the marriage is over before it begins.

So certainly my wife is an object. Um but she's an object who is a subject and so i should never subordinate her good to the good of pleasure. Certainly pleasure is a good but the person is superior to pleasure.

Okay then frad and i are in total agreement then. That's actually great. Did you hear what he just said? Certainly. My wife is an object. Husbands are too by the way in the bedroom. So then okay what are we talking about?

We're talking about subordinating our desire for our spouses as a means for sexual gratification. Subordinating that desire to other more respectful and biblical desires that honor and affirm our spouses.

That's all. Well so then this really all comes down to a semantic difference between me and frad and probably shapiro and frad.

Right.

And that makes sense because i'm a christian and so is frad so great.

It's interesting there are a bunch of sort of orthodox responses to your conversation with dennis and virtually all of them came down on the side of they disagreed with dennis's generalized perspective.

And i think that you're right to point out that the i think the conversation between you and dennis felt very often as though you were having two different conversations. What you were talking about is the aspiration that we all should have to move beyond sin and to have the best version of marriage with our wives in a sexually virtuous context.

And i totally agree with all of that. And what dennis was was trying to discuss were the gradations of sin that you're talking about. And your point is that maybe when you discuss gradations of sin what you're actually doing is tacitly okaying certain versions of sin because you're focusing in on well this isn't quite as bad as that thing so if you really do it is it really that bad and you're saying well yeah it really it really is that bad.

And so you're having you know almost two separate conversations but i think that it's very worthwhile.

Which is what frad should be doing as a proper follower of jesus christ. Because that's what jesus did. So in the previous video i explained that jesus comments about lusting after a woman and committing adultery with her was a very first century rabbinic way of what's called putting a fence around the torah.

And frad is doing that too. Why? Because the consequences of sin slope ever downward. And so to start out with the quote-unquote lesser sins is to already be off on the wrong foot. We should stay far far away from sin which means husbands and wives if you find yourself attracted to folks that are not your spouse you need to turn in the other direction and run as fast as you possibly can.

Because the moment that you entertain thoughts in your mind about this or that illicit act is the very moment that jesus was concerned to keep you far away from. So good on frad for acting and sounding like jesus in that regard.

That's great. I i just don't think his approach was as effective as it could have been if he had not simply used the bible's definition of lust and started from that point all right look i have great respect and admiration for matt frad for all my brothers and sisters in the body of christ which i have no doubt includes a lot of catholics.

I would certainly hope that those of you on the catholic side of the fence as it were would at least start by agreeing that i and a lot of protestants just like me are also in the body of christ. Because i think from that vantage point we can do some work to unite the church once again which actually i don't think is a crazy dream to have difficult?

Sure crazy? No so don't take my pushback as coming from a place of disrespect. Um on the other hand you're wrong. So i'm just kidding. So now it's your turn. What did you think? Did matt frad change shapiro's mind in this video?

Did he really have a productive conversation with ben shapiro? Let me know in the comments below. I'd love to get your thoughts and as always i will saunter off into the sunset for now. But i will return with more videos.

So stay tuned. But in the meantime say it with me.

Bye for now.