Presuppositionalism Applied to Roman Catholicism

All right. Well, I don't feel very loved. Everyone's so far away.

So those who are watching via camera online, it looks really close and intimate, but everyone is so far away.

I'm from North Carolina. This is New York. Maybe it's kind of like they don't want me to sneeze on them or something. I'm healthy, but whatever.

It's OK. I know Jesus loves me. So it is a pleasure to be here. And as Anthony said, my name is

Eli Ayala. I'm from North Carolina. Originally, I was born and raised in Patchogue, New York, Long Island, right here.

And I do not miss the cold weather. So for a short while, I'll have to weather the storm, so to speak, and then go back to a wonderful 65, 70 degree back at home.

So that aside, I want to jump right in. So basically what I do is

I am a teacher at a Christian private school. So I teach middle school Old Testament and, well, seventh grade

Old Testament and eighth grade logic and debate. And so we try to incorporate kind of like biblical worldview stuff with debate and logic and rational reasoning.

And when I'm not teaching, I am a YouTuber and a Christian apologist, where most of the things that I do are online through my

YouTube channel. And when I'm not doing that, I am a traveling speaker. So I will travel the country and do talks like this, trying to equip believers to better fulfill

First Peter chapter three, verse 15. Okay, that's kind of the standard apologetics defending the faith scripture passage.

But as often as we hear it, it is important to sometimes repeat certain biblical truths so that we're reminded to put them into practice.

So to that end, what I want to talk about is a little bit about the kind of apologetics I do and how we are to apply what

I see is a biblical way of defending the faith. How do we apply this to Roman Catholicism?

And as First Peter chapter three, verse 15 says that we are to always be ready to give a reason to anyone who asks.

So that includes your family members, that includes your neighbors, that includes the Jehovah's Witness that knocks on your door, that includes professors if you're in college, that includes anyone.

So we need to be ready to give an answer. And so I think that the Bible provides for us not just the command to defend the faith, but I think it also gives us the method of defending the faith.

And that method, I think, is very much rooted in a proper understanding of the authority of God, the authority of scriptures, and the fact that the scriptures themselves are to be the foundation upon which we share the faith and defend the faith.

That we want to have our apologetic, our defense, be something that is consistent with the biblical teaching that we're standing on.

And you see this oftentimes in the world of apologetics, this great inconsistency. That on the one hand, on Sunday morning, we will worship the certain

God we know exists because he is within us. We have fellowship surrounding the truth that Christ is in us and that we are unified by the spirit of God.

And there is a certainty, a confidence that we have when we're here at church. But then when many people go out into the world and defend the faith, what are they defending?

They're defending the high probability or the high likelihood that the God of the Bible may or may not exist, right?

We give various arguments to show that the Bible is probably true or it's most rational if you objectively consider the evidence, right?

And so we have this weird inconsistency between the certainty of the God we worship on Sunday and the probabilistic

God we defend when we're talking to our unbelieving neighbors and friends. And so what

I want to do when I teach apologetics is to bring people back to consistency. That the certain

God that we are sure exist in our lives as we worship him on Sunday is the same kind of God that we are defending to the world out there that denies him, okay?

So to that end, what I do, and I don't like to say the word because it's so complicated and intimidating,

I do what's called presuppositional apologetics. But if you see the title of my ministry there,

I've called it revealed apologetics because the command and method of defending the faith is given to us in scripture, which is a revelation.

So God has revealed to us not only that we should defend the faith, but it also reveals to us how we ought to do it, okay?

And the way we ought to do it is not argue for a God who most likely exists, but to argue for a

God that most certainly exists and will judge every man who has sinned before his sight and has suppressed the truth about him in their own unrighteousness, as the book of Romans tells us.

And so one of the key differences between the apologetic that I present versus what you'll see in a lot of traditional apologetics is

I like to call this method of apologetics, revealed apologetics, or more technically presuppositional apologetics,

I call it a top -down approach to defending the faith, a top -down approach. So the traditional ways of defending the faith are bottom -up approaches.

We argue and work our way up to the conclusion that God most likely exists or it's the most rational position to believe that God exists and that God raised

Jesus from the dead. The presuppositional approach or the revealed approach, I think, is top -down.

We don't argue up to God, we argue from God. We argue from his authority.

We argue that unless you acknowledge the existence of God and that he's revealed himself, you couldn't make sense out of anything.

And that's very biblical, right? As the book of Psalms teaches us, in his light we see light. I cannot understand any fact truly unless I understand it within the context of how

God has revealed it. And so my basic assumption, if I can throw away the technical jargon of presuppositional apologetics or covenantal apologetics or even revealed apologetics, basically my position is

God exists, the Bible's true, and we argue from there, not to there, okay?

God exists, the Bible's true, and we argue from there, not to there.

I argue from that foundation, not to that foundation. God is not a hypothesis that is out there somewhere that may or may not be true.

I stand on the firm rock of the existence of God and as he's revealed himself both in natural and special revelation.

And that's basically my basic fundamental presupposition or assumption, okay?

Now, when we're doing apologetics, it is very easy to see how powerful this approach comes across when we're arguing with atheists, okay?

The person who believes that. Maybe they're a materialist. They think that all nature is is matter in motion, okay?

And we attack the presuppositions of that position and show that that's an incoherent position.

And people often say, hey, this approach that we call presuppositional apologetics is very useful in exposing the folly of an atheistic perspective.

But what about other religious perspectives like Islam or Jehovah's Witness or Mormonism or Roman Catholicism, right?

How do we apply this idea that God exists, the Bible's true, and we argue from that position, not to that position.

How do we use that methodology when talking to Roman Catholics who believe the

Bible? Now, we can, you know, you're gonna, well, do they believe the, yes. If you're a Roman Catholic, they believe the

Bible. The issue is not do they believe the Bible or not. The issue is who is interpreting the scriptures correctly or who has the authority to interpret the scriptures correctly, right?

So those sorts of questions are going to be key in interacting with a Roman Catholic. So to that end, the title of my talk here is

Presupp, which is short for presuppositional. Keep things simple, right? Presupp applied to Roman Catholicism, all right?

Now, when we speak of Roman Catholicism, the average person, maybe not people here, since you have pretty solid instruction in this church, from my experience, the average person on the street is typically not aware of what the difference is between, say,

Protestant Christianity and Roman Catholicism. It's like, aren't they basically the same, but they pray to Mary?

It's like, well, nah, it's not that simple, okay? All right, there are similarities, of course, right?

We agree with the Roman Catholics on a wide variety of issues, but the differences that we have are of a fundamental nature, and that's why it's important that we talk about Roman Catholicism, and we don't simply treat it as, say, another denomination down the road that we just happen to disagree with them on minor issues.

There is great similarity, but the nature of the difference, I think, strikes at the very heart of the gospel, and so this makes this topic very, very important.

Now, I think the easiest way to summarize the difference between Protestant Christianity and Roman Catholicism is not so much, you know, they pray to Mary, we don't, or they go to a priest, we don't go to a priest, or whatever the case may be.

Any superficial difference that first comes to our mind when we try to think of the differences, that's not really the key difference between Protestants like ourselves and Roman Catholics.

If you really get down to the fundamental difference, it's really our sources of authority. We have different sources of authority, and so it's very easy as a

Protestant to observe or listen to a Roman Catholic express certain things that they believe, and you say, well, what's the first question we ask ourselves, or we will blurt out when a

Roman Catholic says something we disagree with, right? We'll often sometimes say it with like a smug, you know, kind of like, well, who's this guy?

I think he is. Where's that in the Bible? You ever ask that question when you hear someone, a

Roman Catholic, express some view that you disagree with? Where's that in the Bible? You see, that is a good

Protestant question, but the Catholic is not obligated to hold to that line of reasoning, because for the

Catholic, the Bible is not the only infallible source, so that when we demand that the

Catholic give us biblical reasons for their position, what we run the risk of doing is what we call an external critique of Roman Catholicism.

When we critique a perspective, you can critique something from an external way. In other words, I'm standing on my worldview over here, and I'm throwing rocks, criticizing their worldview over there, or we can do what's called an internal critique, in which we hypothetically grant the truth of our opposing position, and then show on its own basis that it crumbles, that it's incoherent, that it, you know, that the conclusions they draw are undermined, okay?

So we wanna be careful that the key difference we wanna remember is our sources of authority, okay?

And that's gonna play a very important role when we're trying to, say, apply a presuppositional apologetic approach to a

Roman Catholic perspective, okay? So ultimately, I think it's important to know why we're talking about Roman Catholicism in general.

Now, according to the census of 2023, Annuaria Pontifica, which is the Pontifical Yearbook, the number of baptized

Catholics in the world was about 1 .376 billion at the end of 2021.

That's a lot of Catholics, right? That's a lot of people getting baptized into the Catholic Church, okay? And so this is one of the reasons why it's so important is that Roman Catholicism is not some minuscule cult that nobody knows about.

Not only do they have many followers, Roman Catholicism is actually growing.

It's actually experiencing an uptick in various quarters of our culture today, especially in the online community.

Now, globally, I'm not sure how that's going, but at least in the online community, there is a resurgence of both

Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, which is not the topic we're discussing, but the issues are gonna be similar in that the difference between a

Protestant Christian and an Eastern Orthodox person is our sources of authority. It's gonna always go back down to that foundational issue.

But with respect to Roman Catholicism, there are lots of Roman Catholics, as you would imagine, family members that you may have, you know,

Thanksgiving dinner conversations are, you know, very, very interesting, I'm sure, right?

Who would like to pray for the food? I would. Okay, there's Uncle Tony. His Catholic ways are coming out at the dinner table, right?

I'm sure there are a lot of opportunities to have those sorts of discussions, but it's important because, number one,

Roman Catholicism has many adherents. It's growing in various quarters in our society today, and the

Roman Catholic Church claims to be the only true church. So it's not only does it have a large following, but, and it has a long history, right, but it claims to be the only true church, and so it is making certain claims that we as Protestant Christians who believe that, we believe that our position is grounded in scripture, this is something that we need to be able to speak into and respond to in a meaningful fashion, okay?

Now, according to the Catholic Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 870, it says, quote, the sole

Church of Christ, which in the creed we profess to be one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic, subsists in the

Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter, the successor of Peter, and by the bishops in communion with him.

So it claims to have an unbroken history of apostolic succession dating back to the Apostle Peter.

So who is the Pope from the Roman Catholic position? He's the successor of Peter, and if you trace him all the way back, you get right back to the time where Jesus gives

Peter this illustrious role, and hence what comes with that role is authority, okay?

The authority to teach and proclaim truth, Christian truth, as they see it, okay?

Now, of course, this talk is not about undermining papal authority, but you would imagine that that's an entire topic that we could cover because it is an issue and there is definitely points of contention to press there from our perspective, all right?

Now, again, because the Roman Catholic Church has a specific view of authority, there are a couple of things that follow from this.

Consider the Council of Trent, session four on the decrees concerning the addition and use of sacred books. It says, quote, "'No one, relying on his own skill, "'shall in matters of faith and of morals "'presume to interpret the sacred scriptures "'contrary to that sense which

Holy Mother Church "'hath held and doth hold.'" So not only do they claim to have authority, that they're the one true church, but they also have the authority to interpret scripture.

So if you're interacting with a Catholic and you quote scripture, the Catholic might say, and maybe you've heard this, well, by what authority do you interpret those scriptures, right?

Look at you Protestants. You guys are so divided. There's, what's the number now? A quintillion, billion, trillion denominations today.

It keeps growing, but that's another issue, right? There's so many different denominations. You guys can't even agree amongst yourselves.

So who are you to tell me what scripture means, right? I have Mother Church. I have an infallible authority that tells me what scripture means.

What do you have? And of course, because most Protestants are not aware of the historical developments of the

Christian faith, and they're not aware of the various teachings of the early church fathers and church fathers that came after that in the first few centuries of the early church, and Roman Catholics tend to be more in touch with their history.

When they start quoting councils and church fathers, the average Protestant's just like,

Jerome? That's the dude that lives near the bodega down the street, right? No, that's not, that's the wrong

Jerome, man. I'm talking about Jerome. When you quote an early church father, even

Ignatius, who are these people from the Protestant perspective? We're not really familiar with them, okay?

Because we have, in many cases, cut ourselves off from the historical lineage from which we've come.

And so it's very important that we need to be historically self -conscious. We need to be aware, not only of what we believe now, but the historical development that leads up to why our church looks the way that it does, okay?

And of course, we need to ground those things in Scripture, all right? So the key issue is going to be

Roman Catholic authority. So what is the Roman Catholic authority, okay? This is super important. When you're doing presuppositional apologetics, what

I'm not doing is simply giving counterclaims to the Roman Catholic. What you want to do is identify their fundamental assumptions.

A lot of their questions that they will pose to the Protestant, a lot of the arguments that they come at us with is gonna come from the perspective of an assumed authoritative foundation, okay?

And their authority is really simple to identify. I mean, it's often been described as the three -legged stool of Roman Catholic authority.

They have the Scripture, they believe the Scripture. Don't quote 2 Timothy 3 .16 to a

Catholic as though they don't believe it. They do believe that all Scripture is theanoustos, it's breathed out by God, okay?

They're just gonna have a different understanding as to the nature and role of Scripture, okay? They have sacred tradition, which is tradition passed down throughout the ages, that they will claim, many of which goes back to apostolic teaching, okay?

And when you ask them for sources, things get fuzzy, but that's another issue, right?

And that's gonna require you to know a little bit about what we call historical theology, how theology has developed, and whether or not some of the theological perspectives and doctrinal perspectives that are being touted by Roman Catholicism, whether they are in fact connected to the early church and the apostolic deposit in the way that they suggest.

And then you have the magisterium, which is the teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church. And this is the aspect of their authority in which they will assert that they alone have the teaching authority to interpret

Scripture and provide infallible interpretations of Scripture and various doctrines, okay?

Those are the three main authority structures within Roman Catholicism, okay? And of course, this is going to be very, very different from our authority, all right?

So the role of sacred tradition, for example, is very important. So not only identifying these authorities, but knowing what these authorities entail, okay?

In the Catholic Catechism, paragraph 82, it says this, and in this paragraph that I'm about to read, you will see an explicit denial of literally what we hold to be foundational, and that is the principle of sola scriptura, okay?

So it says here in paragraph 82 of the Catholic Catechism, quote, the church to whom the transmission and interpretation of revelation is trusted does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the

Holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence, okay?

So there you see a denial of sola scriptura, okay? Now, it does nothing to cry about it, right?

It's like, well, how can they deny Scripture alone? Well, that's the debate, right? Why should they believe in Scripture alone?

Why should they hold to this Protestant dictum? We're gonna have to know how to define and defend the principle of sola scriptura and interact with the

Roman Catholic to show why this principle is something that should be followed, that ought to be followed, okay?

Now, in light of the denial of Scripture, we also have to recognize that in light of this, the Roman Catholic Church claims the authority to interpret then, to teach and proclaim true

Christian faith. That is authentic Christianity from the perspective of the

Roman Catholic, okay? And it flows out of a consistent application of their authority structure, okay?

So it does no use to attack surface -level issues when we're engaging with Roman Catholics.

You need to be able to get, in the course of your discussion, to the foundational reason why they hold to the position that they hold, okay?

So what's the problem? Why is this important? Why should we be wasting our time? We're not wasting our time, but why should we be wasting our time on talking about Roman Catholicism?

I mean, basically, they're good people. You can point me to a Roman Catholic who says they're a

Roman Catholic, but they kind of live their lives the way that they do, and you see an inconsistency with it.

But there are some devout Roman Catholics. What about those people? They just go to Mass, and they really love Jesus, and they love the church.

What's really the big deal? And the big deal, I think, is that the differences, the teachings that flow out of a

Roman Catholic perspective strike at the very heart of the Gospel message. And so every time

I think of this, when someone says, why Roman Catholicism? Why are we talking about this? The first scripture or series of scripture that comes to my mind is

Galatians 1, verses six through nine. Galatians 1, verses six through nine, where the

Apostle Paul, I call this the angry, Paul's angry letter, right? You know, usually he introduces himself, and it's, you know,

I'm so happy to be talking to you, brethren, you know, whatever translation you hear, the King James or something, you know.

But in Galatians, you obviously see that there is a very ticked -off Apostle Paul.

And so he's ticked off for a good reason as well. And so after he gives his kind of light pleasantries in his introduction, the

Apostle Paul cuts right to the issue. He says, I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different Gospel.

Not that there's another one, but that there are some who trouble you and want to distort the Gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a

Gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said it before, so we say it again.

If anyone is preaching to you a Gospel contrary to the one that you received, let him be accursed.

This is such an important issue that Paul is like a broken record. If someone brings you another

Gospel, you're accursed. Oh yeah, and just in case, if you didn't hear me, if someone brings another Gospel, that person is accursed, whether it's a man or even an angel, okay?

I remember when I was teaching Bible to sixth graders a long time ago when I was teaching in Long Island, I told my students, and if they were here, they're all grown up now,

I mean, my goodness, I actually officiated the wedding of one of my students. That makes me feel old.

I might look young, but I'm 41 going on 74.

At least that's how it feels, and I apologize if there's anyone here that's 74. But perhaps you can resonate with the back pains and everything, okay?

Anyway, I would tell my students, suppose you are in your room and you are praying, and all of a sudden, a brilliant light manifested itself in your bedroom, and this glorious presence and angelic being manifests in this wingspan, spans the whole room, and you hear the harp and the trumpets, and oh my goodness,

I'm about to have an angelic and divine experience. And I say, what is the first thing that you're gonna say to this magnificent being that has manifested himself before you?

And all my students will tell you, let me see some ID. And that's really it, because men and angels can bring false doctrine, because we as Christians believe that angels come in two flavors.

Either they are godly agents, they're agents of the Lord, or they are fallen, right?

There are demonic presence, the Bible says, that even the devil himself makes himself appear as an angel of light, but he deceives, okay?

So we need to test all things, and if the Bible says we are to test all things, that means all things are testable, so that when someone comes along and says, well, you just need to accept our authority, you are going to put the brakes on that and say, not so fast, bro, or ma 'am, or whoever you're talking to, okay?

So, in light of the fact that the difference between biblical Christianity as we see it and Roman Catholicism is, because it's a gospel issue, we now have to see, well, how do we apply an adequate defense of the faith to this situation?

You have two opposing authority structures. One teaches what we see to be a different gospel. So how do we interact with people like this, okay?

Well, first, I think it's very important to remember that latter part of 1 Peter 3, verse 15, where it says to set apart

Christ as Lord in your heart, always being ready to give a reason to anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that's in you, yet doing so with gentleness and respect.

This is very key, all right? People think I say this because, like, well, I'm supposed to say that, right? We gotta be respectful.

It's like, no, no, no. You have no idea how much you get in your own way when you come across in an arrogant fashion, right?

That this person that you're speaking to, right, is someone you want to share the biblical gospel with.

So we need to be very careful how we interact with people. The apologetic method that is grounded in scripture is both with respect to content, and what we're saying and how we're defending, and the manner in which we convey that information.

And so demonstrating love, gentleness, and respect does not mean you're just really soft and you let someone walk all over you, but it doesn't mean that you're going to be arrogant and talk down your nose.

You need to master the art of strong, humble confidence. Humble confidence.

It almost sounds like opposites. Well, if you're humble, it doesn't seem like, no, there's a humble confidence that you can have, right?

Because you are grounded in the truth, but there's no reason to speak arrogantly to someone. But at the same time, there's nothing wrong with pressing weaknesses in an opponent's position.

The Bible speaks of a humble boldness, but it also speaks of destroying arguments and every lofty thing that raises itself up against the knowledge of God.

So in your manner, your manner must be smooth and respectful, genuine, not for the purpose of deception.

We genuinely want to hear where a person's coming from, but what's going on in here, you have the blades sharpened, that you are, in as much as you're able to, you are going to destroy, right, whatever thing that has raised itself up against the knowledge of God.

And of course, a Roman Catholic gospel does that, okay, for reasons that I'm sure we're all familiar with coming from our perspective.

So how do we apply a presuppositional approach to all of this then? Okay, we've identified the authority structure.

I kind of, there's a book called In Defense of the Eschaton, In Defense of the Eschaton, and there's a really cool example where it talks about how we are to presuppositionally apply this method to unbelief, or any form of unbelief in whatever flavor it comes, and he uses the analogy of drilling a tooth, okay.

So, you know, I hate the dentist, by the way, you know, and they start drilling and they say they've numbed it.

If there's a dentist watching this, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. You call,

I feel like one of those televangelists, if you call the number on the bottom of the screen, we're gonna, I'm just kidding. All right, so, you guys know when you stay up late, there's always like three in the morning, you got the infomercials, and then you got that guy who's telling you if you call now,

I'll give you your free prophecy. How many of you, are you familiar with those? It's people who gave prophecies, you can like, it's kind of like fortune telling, but you can call and he gives you a prophecy, yeah.

Prophe -lie, more like it, he's not prophesying. Anyway, don't get me started. Okay, so, so, to apply a presuppositional approach to Roman Catholicism, I think of Roman Catholicism in any worldview as a two, okay?

What you want to do in the course of your discussion with people, is you want to begin to softly drill. You ask questions to expose, eventually, the nerve, right?

It's when you ask those lines of question where you're like, ooh, okay, this is where I need to focus my energy.

How do you drill and expose the nerve of a worldview? That comes through asking intentional, thoughtful questions that allows the person to slowly expose their underlying commitments, okay?

And this is where you're going to have to have tact. You need to know how to talk to people, okay?

And we all have different personalities and that's different for everyone, but you need to be mindful of how you ask questions so as to get to foundational issues.

It's no use to say, for example, talk to the Jehovah's Witness and say, oh, those are those weird people who, they don't celebrate birthdays and they don't salute the flag, or they don't celebrate

Christmas or anything. You can talk about those things, but is that drilling to the nerve? No, right?

Who cares? Okay, you don't celebrate Christmas. It's not the end of the world. Why would I focus on some of the teachings that I find weird and not go to the central issues, right?

Who is God, who is Jesus, right? What do you think of Jesus? That's it. You didn't even drill. You just open up and the nerve's right there.

That's what I do. When I talk to Jehovah's Witness, they'll be like, oh, we just wanna share the good news, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't do this mentally. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, who's Jesus, right? Oh, Jesus is so important.

No, no, no, who is he? I know he's important. Who is he? And then you ask enough questions, and then you'll see that they have a distorted view of Jesus and hence a distorted view of the gospel, okay?

So we need to know how to navigate discussion so as to expose the nerve, the foundation, okay?

So how do we do that? First, you wanna remember at the outset that apologetics, whether it's with an atheist, a

Jehovah's Witness, a Muslim, or a Roman Catholic, regardless of who you're talking to, you are engaging in the issue of worldviews.

The Roman Catholic has his worldview or her worldview, and you as a Christian have a very specific worldview that we believe is grounded in Scripture itself.

This is so important because this comes out, I think, very clearly. The Christian philosopher Cornelius Van Til in his first page of his book,

Christian Apologetics, he defines apologetics in a very interesting way. He doesn't define apologetics as the defense of the faith.

He says apologetics is the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life over against the non -Christian philosophy of life.

That Christian apologetics is the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life over against the non -Christian philosophy of life.

And, of course, philosophy of life is just a phrase which means the Christian worldview. Now, we're not just defending some point of contention between myself and the

Catholic. I'm defending a whole system of thought that is connected to each other. All the things that we believe doctrinally are connected to other doctrinal beliefs.

And so there's a consistency, there's a whole system that we're operating from when we're defending the faith. Now, that's not only true of us, that's true of the person we're speaking with.

We're speaking with a Roman Catholic. A Roman Catholic does not see the world in exactly the same way that you do. There's similarities, to be sure.

But in terms of that authority structure we mentioned, there is a huge difference. And so you need to understand that what they believe about doctrine over here is going to be connected to their authority structure.

In like fashion, what you believe about doctrine over here is going to be connected to your authority structure. And so you want to be aware of the fact that when you're talking to a person, you're not just talking to a person, you're talking to a worldview.

Okay? Super important. All right? Also, we want to acknowledge and expose fundamental presuppositions.

When I hear someone talk to me, one of the first things that I ask, I'm like, what is this person assuming when they say such and such?

I don't just examine the words they're saying. I'm trying my best to understand what foundation are these words coming from?

You see what I'm saying? So what are they standing on when they say point

A, point B, point C? Now, sometimes it's obvious, especially if you're aware of what another person believes, and sometimes you're not really sure.

Well, Eli, how do I find, if I'm not sure what they're assuming, how do I find out? That's where you use questions.

You ask questions. All right? What do you mean by that? What led you to that conclusion? Those sorts of questions are super simple, but they help peel off the layers of the onion so to speak.

Now, sometimes we peel the onion. We really cry. We're like, that's his foundation. Oh my goodness.

So people are worldview onions, and that's both metaphorically true as well as it's literally true. How many people, when you find out what they believe, you're like, oh my goodness.

You try to put the layers back on. Okay. All right. Okay. We'll talk later. Anyway. Okay. Also, we want to learn to expose the authority structure.

We're going straight to the foundation. That's what we're doing basically. Okay? Super important.

So how do we presuppositionally respond to the Roman Catholic? Number one, there are two ways that we could respond, and I think both of them are super important.

Number one, we could offer in response to the Roman Catholic, when we provide our apologetic, we can provide what's called the positive response.

Now notice that it says here, defend sola scriptura. We're like, well, wait, are we talking about presuppositional apologetics or are we talking about basic Reformation theology?

Well, they are one in the same because the authority structure from our perspective is the scripture, which is the only infallible rule of faith for the church.

Okay? So defending sola scriptura is actually a presuppositional way of undermining the authority structure of the

Roman Catholic. Okay? So there's no secret here. Knowing what you believe as a Reformed Christian and knowing how to defend those fundamental principles, that includes the foundation of your world, which is scripture itself.

Okay? And number two, we can provide what's called the negative defense, and that is what we do when we do the internal critique.

Let's hypothetically grant what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. I'll grant you. Let's suppose what you say is true, and then we will critique the perspective on its own terms.

Okay? And this is why it's important to allow the Roman Catholic to share their perspective, so that when you critique their perspective, you're not critiquing it from your position, your point of view.

You are granting their point of view. As one apologist said, that you allow the unbeliever to talk, so that they give you just the right amount of rope to hang them with.

Now that sounds mean. And we're not literally trying to... Someone's like, am I doing it right? And you're like, no! Put them down!

You know, we're not actually... Right? It's argumentatively. Right? Logically. Rationally. You don't want to...

That got dark very quickly. All right. Let's move along here. Okay? So two ways to defend the faith.

We have a defense of sola scriptura, which is our foundational principle, and offer the internal critique.

So let's take a look at defending sola scriptura. Defending our authority structure, this is important, will undermine their authority structure.

Defending our authority structure will undermine their authority structure. In other words, I'm not just criticizing their view.

I'm offering a positive defense of my own. Okay? I'm not simply criticizing their view.

I'm offering a positive defense of my own perspective. All right? And that's so important because it's very easy to throw rocks at a position but not actually offer anything.

It's very easy to knock down a building but not build anything in its replacement. Okay? And I think one key way that we need to understand in defending sola scriptura is defining it correctly.

Because not only do Protestants misunderstand the principle of sola scriptura, but Roman Catholics often misunderstand the principle of sola scriptura.

They will often confuse sola scriptura with solo scriptura. There's a difference between solo and sola.

We do not hold to solo scriptura. That's a difference of one letter and it makes all the difference in the world, right?

Solo scriptura is Bible alone, me by myself under a tree. I use no other sources to help me.

It's just the Bible. Sola scriptura is that the scriptures are the only infallible rule of faith and what's implicit in that is not a denial of other authorities.

Protestants affirm other authorities but there's only one infallible authority and that is the Word of God.

So that's a key difference. So if we can't define sola scriptura, then it's going to be hard defending it because we're not defining it appropriately or the other side of the coin, they're not understanding it correctly and when they argue against us, what are they doing?

They are critiquing a position that we actually don't hold. So it's very important that we get our definitions right.

So what is sola scriptura? Sola scriptura is the view that scripture is the only infallible rule of faith and practice for the church.

It is not the only rule of faith and practice for the church. It is the only infallible rule of faith and practice for the church.

Creeds, catechisms, confessions, councils, they all hold legitimate authority.

I'm not denying that they hold authority. They hold authority. I'm down with the

London Baptist Confession. I'm down with a lot of what the Westminster Confession of Faith says. I'm down with certain creeds.

They're totally important. We're not undermining that at all. But the scripture alone is the only infallible authority.

Now to hold to a fallible authority is not necessarily a bad thing.

We do this in a wide range of things in human experience. For example, fallible entities or fallible standards can still hold authority.

For example, an umpire at a baseball game, he's a legitimate authority in the game of baseball.

Is he perfect? No. As you can see, the coach is like, how can they start arguing in there face to face?

You know how the games go. But they are legitimate authorities given the game of baseball. The U .S.

Supreme Court, perhaps I shouldn't have used this example, but you get it. Generally speaking, they are a legitimate authority.

Generally speaking. With a big general. No, they do hold some authority, but they're not infallible as we all know.

And then, of course, within the scriptures, the Jewish Sanhedrin. They were a legitimate authority. But were they infallible?

No. Clearly they were not. So we can hold to an infallible authority, and it's completely legitimate to hold to fallible authorities.

Sola Scriptura does not deny fallible authorities. It just asserts that scripture is the only infallible authority because what scripture is, it is the

Anustos. It is the word of God in the way that the umpire at the baseball game, the

Supreme Court, and the Jewish Sanhedrin are not, okay? Now, we believe in the sufficiency of scripture.

And I apologize, this is a reformed Baptist church, but I got a quote from the Westminster Confession of Faith. Please forgive me.

Oh, look, we crossed, okay, I'm not Catholic, I promise. Okay, so here's a quote, very important quote, and I think we'll all agree, okay?

In the spirit of an ecumenical spirit, right? With our Presbyterian brothers, okay?

And the Westminster Confession of Faith expresses this as well as the London Baptist Confession as well, that scripture is sufficient, okay?

And here's what it says in the Westminster Confession of Faith. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down in scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture.

Does scripture answer every single question that can be answered? No. Do we believe in sola scriptura and by that we mean that the

Bible has to speak to every single, no, that's not. But the scripture is sufficient. It is a sufficient source of authority that allows me as a believer and you as a believer to do everything that God requires us to do in this life, okay?

Now, sola scriptura then simply means that popes, councils, and other post or after the age of the apostles, other post apostolic organs of the church are fallible.

That's it, that's what we mean, okay? Now, in terms of exploring a little bit more about the nature of scripture and how this relates to defending the principle of sola scriptura,

I wanna go through a few points real quick on why sola scriptura is a plausible perspective. It's not something completely out of left field.

I completely disagree with Roman Catholics who say that the principle of sola scriptura was invented at the

Reformation, right? That's just not true and I think just as a concept itself, it's quite plausible given the nature of scripture.

So, the plausibility of sola scriptura, I think, can be demonstrated by considering first, the nature of scripture, and second, the role of scripture, okay?

Anthony, how much time do I have? Whew, okay, all right.

Okay, so the nature of scripture, we'll go quickly, okay? Now, I'm talking fast, but you guys following? Okay, all right, okay.

So, the nature of scripture, number one, scripture claims to be the inspired word of God. That's no small fact, by the way.

We're not saying that the scripture is the word of God because that's what we believe, we believe it because that's literally what the scripture calls itself, okay?

As the inspired word of God, scripture is ontologically unique. In other words, its nature, given the fact that it is

God's speech, okay, is unique from other forms of speech, so to speak, okay?

So, the nature of scripture is that it is equal to divine speech, as 1 Peter 1, verse 21, and other places in scripture say.

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

Holy Spirit. And, of course, we have the famous 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verse 16. All scripture is breathed out by God.

So, basically, scripture equals divine speech. And because it equals divine speech, okay, because scripture is unique in its nature, it also has, correspondingly, uniqueness in its authority.

The reason why the authority of God's word is such, is that the nature of it requires that it also comes with that authority, okay?

Now, with respect to the role of scripture, scripture functions with superior authority than other authorities in the church.

Jesus says this, in spite, by the way, of the legitimate authority of the religious leaders. You have a fine way of rejecting the commandments of God in order to establish your tradition, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.

He was critiquing, okay, a legitimate authority by appealing to a greater authority, all right?

Now, with respect to Jesus using scripture, okay, and the role of scripture, the role of scripture functioned as a standard by which to test other things.

Jesus tested oral tradition, which was around during the time of Jesus, by scripture. And, of course, we have even the

Bereans testing Paul, the great apostle, right, who wrote most of the New Testament. It says, that's really interesting,

Paul. And then they showed that they were more noble than those in Thessalonica by testing Paul's word with the scripture, which means apostolic authoritative teaching is not immune to biblical testing, which presupposes that the scripture is such a kind that a person can read it, understand it, and evaluate whether a claim is in line with it or not, okay?

When the Catholic says, what authority do you have to interpret the scriptures? Well, we have the authority because we are the sheep, right?

We belong to God. That's our presupposition. You don't have to believe that. But I believe that I am, I belong to Christ. Also, I believe, this is so important, that God has created human beings in His image and has ordained that language is a sufficient mechanism to convey truth.

In other words, language is sufficient. I can go and study context and derive correct conclusions by what

I'm reading. Now, the Catholic's going to say, yeah, but this person over here disagrees with you. So you have so many different interpretations. But this is a fallacy.

The existence of multiple interpretations does not negate the possibility of a correct interpretation.

Isn't that true? In any other context, it should be obvious, right? I'm a teacher. I give a math test. And two plus two,

Stacy says it's four. Johnny says it's 12. Stephen says it's 34. And then I say, look at all these different answers.

I guess there's no right answer. That'd be ridiculous, right? The existence of multiple interpretations does not negate the fact that we have the correct interpretation.

Now, what will convince the person of my interpretation with respect to an essential feature of the gospel?

The spirit of God, right? Don't think you haven't done your job when they don't believe what you're saying.

But that's why we have to now make a division between my ability to communicate truth and the spirit's ability to transform someone's heart to receive it.

Super important. So, what is the heart cry of Sola Scriptura? Test that which isn't the inspired word of God by that which is the inspired word of God.

God's speech has greater authority than other speech. And an important note here is that when we look at church history and we listen to the

Roman Catholic claim, there is no hint, for example, of an infallible post -apostolic entities that are in the church, even though the church gives us a wide variety of details of church governance.

Doesn't it go into details about, you know, deacons and elders? Yet, we're not told anything about this authoritative structure, which is so foundational, if anything, that should have been the first thing laid down, okay?

Now, to wrap things up, because I don't have time and there's so much to go through, I want to read something to you to offer something by way of the internal critique.

So, we give a positive defense of Sola Scriptura, and we could explore ways in which it's a plausible perspective, given the nature of Scripture and the role of Scripture.

But how can we expose internal tensions within the Roman Catholic position? And I'm just going to give you one example, and I'll wrap things up, okay?

When the Roman Catholic Church claims to have this infallible structure that can guide the church and there's a consistency, all you need to do is hypothetically grant that that's true, and then look into history and show that it does not bear out, okay?

For example, you have conflicting views of official Roman Catholic doctrine with respect to, say, salvation, that there is, on the one hand, they used to teach that there is no salvation outside the

Roman Catholic Church. Yet as we come to more modern perspective, now there are exceptions to that rule.

For example, I have a statement here from the Council of Florence, from the Bull of Union with the cops, it says, not the cops, like the police are like the cop dicks, okay?

Okay, here's what it says. The Council of Florence says, quote, the Roman Catholic Church firmly believes and professes and preaches that all, look it, firmly believes.

So this isn't like an ambiguous thing that like, well, we need to clarify this. This is clear, okay?

The Roman Catholic Church firmly believes and professes and preaches that all of those who are outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans but also

Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share an eternal life and will go into everlasting fire which was prepared for them, prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the

Catholic Church before the end of their lives. That's pretty clear, right? I mean, that's, I don't have to, you know, that seems pretty obvious, right?

If you're outside the Catholic Church, you're done, you're finito, you're kaput, kaput, as the Italians say. I don't know if Italians say that, but I'm Puerto Rican, we say different things.

Okay, anyway, all right, now, you come to the second Vatican Council and now look how the tune has changed, okay?

This is what Roman Catholics put together, check this out, okay? But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the creator in first place among them are the

Muslims. These profess to hold the faith of Abraham together with us. They adore the one merciful

God, mankind's judge on the last day. Really? So if they profess the same creator, then their

God is equal to our God. Isn't that right? It's the same. And for something to be the same, they need to share a one -to -one correspondence.

So what is true of the God of Christianity must also be true of the God of Islam. But the problem with that is that they reject the

Trinity. And so ontologically, his very nature is different. Because the

Muslims believe in a Unitarian God, whereas we profess a Trinitarian God. So by definition, there is something not true of the

Muslim God that is true of the Christian God, which makes them by definition not equal. And so when you worship the

Muslim God, surprise, you're not worshiping the Christian God, right? And so notice that the ambiguous language, they believe in the creator, right?

Now it gets ambiguous and fuzzy so that you can include other people. Well, who is that creator? Creator means squat, unless there's content to that.

The creator is the triune God who's revealed himself in both in nature and in scripture, that is the

God that we affirm. As Pastor Doug Wilson once told me, we do not defend what he called a fuzzy benevolence in the sky.

We defend a concrete triune God who's revealed himself in nature, in scripture, and ultimately in the person of Jesus Christ.

And so when we internally critique a Roman Catholic perspective, and I apologize for speaking really fast here.

What we can do is offer a positive defense of our authoritative structure from scripture, okay, and we can offer internal critiques that when the

Catholic Church claims this great consistency throughout history, you can claim that.

But can you pay the bills on that claim when people actually look more closely at what the

Roman Catholic Church has taught throughout its history? And it's my contention that they do not do that even closely.

It can be clearly manifested that they have not been consistent throughout history, and of course, when you look at Roman Catholicism today, it is very doubtful that Roman Catholicism today is anything like Roman Catholicism centuries before, okay?

So to that end, how do we presuppositionally apply an apologetic to Roman Catholics, identify fundamental assumptions, expose the authority structure, and test it for consistency while also providing a positive defense of our foundational and fundamental principle?