Hey friends, welcome back to the channel. I’m so glad to have you here with me. Today’s episode is a bonus episode where I sit down to chat with Catholic apologist William Albert. We talk about a variety of issues, the canon, the problem that solo scripture creates for a Protestant to know the complete canon of scripture, baptism, and a host of other things. So I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Karlo:

There we are and we are live. Everybody, good afternoon, good evening, good morning. Depending on where you all are tuning in the world, we are very happy to be with you all. I’m joined by my near and dear brother, Dr. Carlo Persard, my friend Carlo. How have you been, brother? How’s it been going for you?

William:

We got the two baldising goatees going on tonight, bro. We do. I’m just missing the black shirt, man. I’m missing the black shirt to match you. We’re like black and white, ying and yang kind of thing tonight.

Karlo:

Oh yeah, man. We’re rocking it, man. And I got the glasses on tonight because I’m resting my eyes from the contents, but people are not used to seeing me with the glasses on.

William:

I almost asked you about that when we first got on. I noticed it was different. Yeah.

Karlo:

Right, right. Yeah.

William:

But I’ve been well, William. Great. I’ve been doing great, working hard, trying to keep my head afloat, right? Keep the head above water. And just rocking it, man. Especially with my new Dr. Karlo YouTube channel, been focused on that. We’ve about three weeks in now. We got episode five coming out this upcoming Monday, episode four drop this past Wednesday, which would have been a couple of days ago on what John really taught about the assurance of heaven in one John 5:13. Wow. We’ve been getting a … They tell me it’s a good start with what we got in the three weeks where over a thousand subscribers, they tell me that’s good. That’s good. I have no idea what to compare that to. As far as the views goes on the episodes, they’re all right. They’re not quite as many of views as I think we would hope for, but we’re working on it.

We’re going to be consistent and constant in providing good, beautiful material for the Catholic faith in order to help people grow in their walk with the Lord and then in their knowledge of the faith. So anybody listening right now, be sure to head on over to my new YouTube channel, Dr. Karlo. Just type it in Dr. Karlo YouTube. It should pop up as the first link, but the handle is @dior-carlo. So @dr-carlo. And then just working with my Patreon page and my patrons, we got some patrons who are signing up as well, four different levels of membership. There you go. From $5 a month to $100 a month with all sorts of different perks, including access to some of my online short six hour courses. One on more relativism, another critiquing the Doctrine of Soul Scripturer that I host on my website. And with those courses, William, folks can get lecture notes each totaling to write over 20,000 words.

So it’s almost a booklet that goes with each of the courses. Folks can also get access to my Catholic answers courses through the Catholic Answers School of Apologetics. We’re going to be doing once a month online webinars, signal group chatting for level four membership, sharing research, geeking out, nerding out and apologetics and all that fun stuff. So yeah, man, just trying to create a good workflow with these two new projects of the YouTube channel and the Patreon page and communicating with folks, trying to stay engaged. And we’ll see what Providence holds.

Karlo:

Praise the Lord. It really does sound like you’re geeking out there in a good way. In a really good way. And I know we have some phenomenal moderators in the chat. You guys, thank you for sharing the link to the incredible channel of Dr. Carly. Appreciate that. Yeah, greatly appreciate it. You guys are great. And if you all have questions on your mind, remember, the link is posted. We’re going to be talking about baptism. You want to talk about infant baptism, baptism regeneration, solo scriptura. Carlo is your guy and we’re here for you all. Happy to be with you all, Jimmy. Jimmy, we’re humbled by your kind comments. It says, two studs, Jimmy. We love you, my friend. We love you, Jimmy. You’re great, my friend. And don’t forget, if you have not yet, head over to Dr. Carlos channel and subscribe. But don’t only do that.

Go over there, subscribe and put the notification bell on

William:

So you

Karlo:

Can get notifications every time there is new material. You said you’ve got a new video dropping on Monday, you said. Is that right?

William:

Yeah. So every Wednesday we’ll have our regular full produced episodes that will drop. However, every once in a while, I’ll have some bonus episodes that I’ll share with my audience interspersed between the weekly episodes that aren’t as fully produced as the weekly episodes, but nevertheless is good enough content to share. So this Monday, I’ll be dropping the interview I did with Adrian Lawson at Sips with Sarah. And we talked about where Catholics go wrong when debating solo scriptura. And it was a great conversation. Unfortunately, the video quality didn’t quite come out like I was hoping due to the wifi here at the Chancery and the studio at the Diocese, but it’s good enough to be able to put online and to share because the conversation was great, some great back and forth between Adrian and I. So I was pretty excited about it, looking forward to sharing that this Monday.

That’s when that episode will drop. And then of course, the weekly episode will drop on Wednesday of next week.

Karlo:

Very nice. Freddy de Jesus says that he watched that. He liked it. There you

William:

Go. Awesome.

Karlo:

Fantastic.

William:

Very, very cool. We love that. I appreciate those kind words. Yeah.

Karlo:

Yeah. We want to hear feedback, everybody. That is what we want here so we can know what do you all like? What do you all want? So we can know what to produce for you all. And we are here as you’re a humble servants in the Lord. We want to be able to provide material for you all. So we remind you all, we’ve pinned the link. If you have anything on your mind, you want to pick Dr. Carlos’ brain, pick my brain. You want to challenge us in a friendly manner? Yeah, we’d love to hear from you. We really, really want. Yes, do not forget to hit the like button. And Joanna says, God bless you, Joanna. Joanna Sandoval, God bless you. Don’t forget everyone to head over to … Oh, very cool. He says, “I took notes on your New Testament priesthood video.” There you go.

Very cool.

William:

And he- Yo did a priesthood, New Testament priesthood video?

Karlo:

He might be confusing me then. I thought he was telling you.

William:

Oh, he’s telling me. Okay, cool. Because I don’t know which one it was.

Karlo:

Yeah. I don’t have a New Testament priesthood video. It’s

William:

Got to be

Karlo:

You.

William:

You got one, right? Well, I’m trying to think of one that I’ve formally done. Maybe he could … Maybe it was a Catholic Cancers Live video. It could have been. I’m not sure exactly which one he’s talking about. Yeah,

Karlo:

He’s talking to you. He’s referring to you. Okay.

William:

It could

Karlo:

Have been Catholic answers

William:

Life. I have done some work on the New Testament ministerial priesthood. I have some articles at catholic.com and maybe I’ve done some radio shows on it as well. So that might be what he’s referring to. But I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

Karlo:

Awesome. Awesome. Very likely. I mean, audience, you have to remember we do so many shows and then sometimes Catholic answers, a bunch of calls come in. And at times we tend to forget. And Abe says he’s a big fan of your content. AB, we are very grateful for your support, guys. You guys

William:

Are

Karlo:

Reading. Abe does ask. Thank you for your support. You guys are incredible. AB is asking, how can Protestants claim the Mazoretic texts are more accurate canonically speaking? If they were not complete until the 10th century. What are your thoughts on that? Do you have any thoughts to that of you?

William:

Well, William, I’m going to appeal to you on that one since you’re the canon guy. I love that. Yep. Yeah. So you start us off and then I’ll chime in if I got any thoughts that pop.

Karlo:

Yeah. And I’ll tell you this, AB. Canonically speaking, it isn’t a good argument. It really isn’t good. You’re right. They weren’t complete until quite late in history. And we know merely by looking at the New Testament, the New Testament authors are heavily relying on the Greek subtuagent, but not only the New Testament, authors are relying heavily in the Greek Septuagint. You can look in the early church. The early church fathers are heavily relying on that as well. And then even before we get to the early fathers in the second century and beyond, early on, early Jewish scholar and historian Josephus is heavily relying upon the Greek Septuagint as well. In fact, he’s quoting from second Maccabees, excuse me, utilizing the longer version of Esther. So you’re going to hear Protestants hearkening to the Masoretic test, but yeah, canonically speaking, it isn’t a good argument. And I tend to think that … I’ll put it in the bin of arguments that well, they believe as well, they’ll also try to argue that the Jews are the ones who we need to look to for early evidence of the early Canon as well.

So they’ll combine both of those arguments. But as you know very well, as we’ve shown, and we’ve even had Carlo on this show over in the apocalyp apocalypse, we’ve shown very clearly the idea that early Jews would have held to a shorter canon that is exact to that in terms of the Old Testament of modern day Protestantism is fanciful. You don’t find

William:

Anywhere. And even among the Pharisees who had a canonical tradition that would have been somewhat similar to the 39 book canon of the Old Testament and the Protestant Bibles, even that canonical tradition wasn’t refined in a way such that it was identical to the Protestant cannon. So you know William and you’ve written on this and debated this concerning the late mid-second century rabbi.

Karlo:

Oh yeah.

William:

Help me out. Ben Akiva, was it?

Karlo:

Rabbi Akiba. Yep.

William:

Right. Yes. Where he settles, for the first time, sees that there’s a necessity to settle the issue on making judgments on the Jewish writings of Sirach, right? And then you have Song of Songs and Esther and Ecclesiastes. Even those Jewish writings were not settled on as being inspired scripture among the Phariseical school of the first century and was not settled on until later in the second century. So even if we just focus our minds on those three texts themselves, then our Protestant friends who have them within their 39 book cannon are ascenting to these books to be inspired by God, not on the account of legitimate authority, divine authority, but an account of Jewish testimony or the testimony of a rabbi who did not have divine authority at the time whenever he settled those issues.

Karlo:

And that is a great point that you bring up there, Carlo, because Rabbi Akiba, number one, you’re right, he has no authority at all. But in that condemnation, and we can find it in the work called 2:13, in that condemnation where he is attacking the gospels and he also attacks the Deuter Canonical books, what does it show you? It shows you very clearly that if right there in attacking the gospels and you’re also attacking the Deuter Canon, shows you that the early followers of the Christ were reading from the Deuterocanon as well.

William:

Absolutely. There would be no need for him to draw a distinction between his Jewish community and the Christians by rejecting the Deuter Canonical books if the Christians were not using the Deuterocanonical books, right? There you go. So the very act of making the distinction itself is a strong indication that the Deutero canonicals were being believed by Christians to be a part of the canon and a part of sacred scripture.

Karlo:

Yeah, no doubt. And that is a big issue for Protestants, an enormous issue because today the massive majority of Protestants reject the Deutero Canon, and they do so, of course, based upon a tradition that they’ve inherited. And even if they try to claim that they reject the Deuter Canon based on solo scriptura, well then how about we dive into the Bible alone? Let us see how you are able to determine your Canon and we can stick to the New Testament alone. How are you able to determine your canon from the Bible alone? I’d love to see that you’re unable to. And that is a big issue for the Protestant world and an issue that I call a massive dilemma for them over and over. I point out to my evangelical and Teolocators, to our evangelical friends, that we start with the 27 books in the New Testament alone without even dealing with the issue they’re in with the Deuterocanon lacking from their Bibles, how do you determine that those and those alone are the New Testament?

As you know very well, Carlo, because you’ve written on this, you’ve done great books on this topic and you’ve dealt with them, the topic that in the early church, there are all kinds of books that are floating around.

There are all kinds of them.

William:

Yeah, because if you follow the principle of solo scripture and assert that these apostolic writings are sole infallible testimony for knowing what is God’s revelation, well, then in order to know which Jewish and/or Christian writings are divinely inspired or God breathed, you’re going to have to rely on that infallible testimony. And so you raise a very good question, which Jewish and Christian writings can we ascent to be inspired based on the infallible testimony of Jesus and or the apostles? And to be fair to our Protestant friends, I’m sympathetic and willing to grant them to come to the conclusion that much of the New Testament, the New Testament documents are inspired based upon that infallible testimony. Now being very generous in some of them, like for example, when St. Peter tells us in two Peter 3:15 and calls Paul’s epistles to be scripture, now one could push back and say, “Well, which writings of Paul?

Which epistles are inspired by God?” And I think that’s a fair counter argument, but I’m willing to be sympathetic and grant our Protestant friends and say, “Okay, we can rest our knowledge that Paul’s writings are inspired by God based upon the infallible testimony of St. Peter.” And that’s fair. That seems logically coherent to me. And also too, that it is true, you do not have to be infallible to recognize an infallible testimony, right? You do have to be infallible to recognize what is inspired by God and is God breathed. But as fallible human beings, we can recognize through historical investigation and reasonable certainty that these preachers constituted and appointed by Jesus, namely the apostles, are an infallible testimony. They have Jesus’ authority behind them. Now, even with, for example, the gospel of Luke, when St. Paul, if my memory serves me correctly, is it one Timothy 5:18?

I believe

Karlo:

It is, yeah.

William:

Where he quotes a passage from Luke’s gospel calling it scripture.

Karlo:

Yeah.

William:

Now, one could push back and say, “Well, how do you know he believes all of Luke’s gospel in scripture rather than just that passage?” Now, I will say that to be fair to our Protestant, we appeal to New Testament authors who will appeal to a Deuterocanonical book, right? And even more than illusions, there are some instances, and you know this better than I do, where we can infer that they’re referring to it as scripture, even though they don’t use the language explicitly, but let’s just say the early church fathers. When an early church father refers to a Deuterocanonical book and quoting a particular passage and calling it scripture, we infer from that that he believed the whole book was inspired as well. So if we can do that, then I would grant our Protestant friend fair game to be able to conclude Luke’s gospel is inspired based upon the infallible testimony of Paul.

Now, that’s quite a bit of the New Testament when you look at it like that. And then assuming that we can establish a principle that whatever an apostle rights is inspired, and so there you have Matthew’s gospel to be inspired. I think even that principle is difficult to come by, but let’s grant that where our Protestant friends will have a problem in assessing or determining the inspiration of, say, Mark’s gospel, not in content. I do think that you can get the inspiration of the content of Mark’s gospel on account of the preaching of Peter, because we have historical testimony that Mark is recording what he remembered to be the preaching of Peter. Sure. And that means it’s inspired in content, but not inspiration in words or what we call verbal inspiration. That’s

Karlo:

A great point.

William:

Because Mark is only recording what he remembered Paul teaching. He’s not transcribing Peter’s … I said Paul. I meant Peter. He’s not transcribing Peter’s very words. So you cannot get verbal inspiration of Mark’s gospel on account of the infallible testimony of Peter. And then of course, the book of Hebrews, we don’t really know who authored it. So you can’t appeal to the principle that whatever an apostle writes or an apostolic man whom an apostle confirms to be inspired, we can’t appeal to those criteria in order to assess the inspiration of Hebrews. And then if you take the position that James is not one of the 12, James of Alphas, but James, the brother of the Lord, some other James, well, then how are you going to assess, how are you going to determine its inspiration based upon the infallible testimony of Jesus and or apostles because there’s no data that would allow for you to make that conclusion.

And then of course, you can throw in the mix two Peter, right? And some scholarship- Revelation. The book of Revelation is that John the Apostle. And so although I think our Protestant frands can get some of the New Testament, some scriptura based upon the infallible testimony of the apostles alone, and then even some O Testament books from the testimony of Jesus, but sticking to the New Testament, you’re not going to get the 27 books based upon the infallible testimony of the apostles alone. And then you have the problem of the belief that the dedicate is not inspired or Clement’s letter to the Corinthian church is not inspired. The majority of Protestants will profess that those make positive claims that those early documents do not have the objective quality of inspiration, but yet you cannot account for that belief based upon the infallible testimony of the apostles alone in the New Testament.

So yet you have further beliefs that are based upon something other than scripture and solo scritpura would block a Protestant from having infallible knowledge that those books do not possess the objective quality of inspiration. So again, I do think this is a problem for our Protestant friends being able to determine some books of the New Testament to be inspired based upon the infallible testimony of the apostles alone, but not all the 27 books of the New Testament based upon the infallible testimony of the apostles. And now a Protestant, I’ve talked to a church of Christ, evangelist who converted to Catholicism where he said, “I came to a point where I was just not sure, for the book of Hebrews.” He followed the logic and came to the conclusion like, “Well, I guess I just have to be agnostic with regard to the book of Hebrews as to whether it is inspired because he couldn’t account for it by a scripture alone, by the New

Karlo:

Testament.” Wow. And that really is the crux of the issue. You need a church to authoritatively decide these issues. A church, the church from the Bible under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that church is the Catholic church and that church is the church that discerned the canon. It isn’t as easy as well. Okay. The other day I was dialoguing by the way, Carlo with, by the way, for the audience may be wondering, we have pinned the link. If you want to come back and ask us something, the link is pinned, but you’ve got to let us know what is your faith, what is their question? I was talking with a Protestant and it was a Protestant pastor and he made a shocking statement. He made it on the air, one that I’d never heard before that, well, the canon that modern day Protestants that they have was discerned at the era of the Reformation and they discerned that and they determined that the Old Te... Read more on Catholic.com