Michael Lofton Qualifies Protestantism as Self-Contradictory - a Qualified Agreement

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One Question Protestantism Can't Answer
Reason & Theology | 16 June 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zFgiVvKqEs

1:26 I totally agree.
Since my conversion in 1988, I have been much of 3 years into Orthodoxy, but not even one half hour fully into Protestantism.

I had that doubt on St. John Chrysostom perhaps having indicated "spiritual presence" is correct, and therefore Calvinism being correct. Meaning, I was damned, and predestined to damnation.

I never caved into it and it took me half an hour of prayer to get rid of the temptation.

3:49 On this one, Testify (Erik, whatever his name is) would say "the non-canonic Gospels are all at the earliest from late 2nd C" - meaning, they are not as early.

He'd refer to expert opinions on this one.

4:14 Late first century, you do have Gnostics, and that means that all the Synoptics were already written.

St. John is sufficiently coherent with the Synoptics to be part of this clearly some decades earlier message, and he warns against Ebionites denying the divinity in his Gospel, and against Gnostics in the Epistles as well as in his personal example.

5:03 According to Catholic tradition, no Gospel appeared clearly "in the sixties or seventies" and none in the last years of the sixties or any of the seventies. You have St. Matthew appearing clearly earlier, and Mark and Luke while St. Peter was still alive in Rome - but John wrote the Apocalypse in 90 and the Gospel in 100.

7:26 It can be noted one version of Protestantism claims - spuriously - that yes, for the first century we do rely on tradition. B u t ... after the apostles and their immediate disciples died, the one remaining standard to that tradition that was reliable was NT Scripture. It can be noted Joseph Smith also claimed the NT Church, as a Church, deserves our respect, but doesn't continue reliably (or acc. to JS at all) past the death of these witnesses.

Another version is Ruckmanism, a k a Baptist continuity.

10:21 No, Gnostics do not agree apostles are reliable guides to what Jesus taught.

The "Gospel of Thomas" pretty much puts into place safeguards against appeals to apostles by having Jesus tell them they understand nothing.

That's one giveaway that they are not actually confident in having apostolic succession.

11:25 By now, the test of Irenaeus is ambiguus.

Not with Gnosticism or Protestantism, but within Churches having a realistic Apostolic claim.

Ephesus, Crete, Beraea - all of these (and therefore Timothy, Titus and the most noble synagogue that checked every claim St. Paul made scrupulously against OT scripture) are all of them in Greek Orthodox territory.

"The Metropolis of Ephesus (Greek: Μητρόπολις Εφέσου) was an ecclesiastical territory (metropolis) of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in western Asia Minor, modern Turkey. Christianity was introduced already in the city of Ephesus in the 1st century AD by Paul the Apostle. The local Christian community comprised one of the seven churches of Asia mentioned at the Book of Revelation, written by John the Apostle. The metropolis remained active until 1922-1923."

If we go to Rome, we again have the question who was Pope August 1st the last Church Year. Bergoglio? Ratzinger? Odermatt in Palmar de Troya as "Peter III"? Pope Michael, who died the next day, and whose successor has not yet been elected?

I discount the former three on account of various heterodoxy, while Pope Michael:

• was YEC (as Odermatt but unlike Bergoglio and Ratzinger)
• was Geocentric (unlike Odermatt or the other tw)
• didn't get involved in revising Bible text so Solomon is Bathseba's first son ... (unlike Odermatt but like the other two).

I identify these as desiderata of orthodoxy from previous Popes. I mean Popes where adherents of Odermatt, or of Bergoglio / Ratzinger agree they were Popes, like Pius IX or Urban VIII.

18:24 If you are even considering playing "expertise over tradition" - and by adhering to an Evolutionist like Bergoglio, you actually do that - there is Protestant expertise that will tell you "yes, we are rooted in the NT Church, in the apostolic succession up to Irenaeus, but then it got lost and hijacked by false messages, and we can document how they crept in over the first centuries after the apostles died ...."

The main go to in this case is, does the NT allow for the succession of apostolic men losing the tradition of the true message.

And the answer is a blatant no, Mt 28:16-20 was a promise spanning all centuries.

One can obviously also answer the claim to document gradual additions of RC pseudo-dogma, by stating that documenting that this dogma or practise connected to one is documented only after that one which is documented only after that one, the problem with that is that a succession of earliest mentions isn't proof of a succession of inventions. I made a fairly fun story about the "Mexican in Edinburgh" who thought he was seeing someone slowly go mad and absolutely not being true to the admired Scottish tradition, when one day he saw him don a kilt, another day drink whisky with clear peat smoke ... it never occurred to him that the first time he saw it wasn't the first time the Scotsman did it.

Great Bishop of Geneva! : The Mexican in Edinburgh and Church History
https://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-mexican-in-edinburgh-and-church.html

On that precise pericope, on that precise verse, Calvin showed some clear bad faith.

It is technically true that the promise is not valid for people who change their faith - for instance, even if George of Alexandria was consecreated in due form, he was not representing the Apostles, because he represented the Arian heresy.

But the problem for Calvin is, he forgot to mention the promise clearly precludes this being the case with all bishops at a certain time.

Great Bishop of Geneva! : Protestants - Not - Getting Around Matthew 28 Last Three Verses: John Calvin's Attempt
http://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/2014/07/protestants-not-getting-around-matthew.html

21:20 I disagree.
The idea that apostolic succession in early NT and ante-Nicene to early post-Nicene Churches gave us the NT, but that the Churches then changed, that is not "unverifiable" because you can fake verification of mariology to saying "this is an early example of what later added up to apostasy" or pretend it is later (the 2nd C Coptic Christmas hymn Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, which in both Coptic and Greek contains a reference to immaculate conception, I saw one pretend it was only 6th C).

The Protestant proposal should still not be entertained, because, saying "the apostolic succession stopped being faithful" contradicts the NT, specifically Mt 28:16-20. Not saying "it stopped being faithful in some areas" - which is obvious unless you want to say excommunications between Catholics, Orthodox, Copts, Armenians and Assyrians are invalid excommunications of people who never were schismatic - but "it stopped being faithful everywhere" ... which is what the claims of Reformers amount to.

Calvin could hope he'd find an apostolic Church that was teaching Calvinism since the apostles, because he had no means to look further than to the Orthodox and he could have thought Kyrillos Loukaris looked promising - but by now every Calvinist should already know that this is a no go.