Vlad Savchuk's Anti-Catholic Polemics Answered

But first, a shorter video, with fewer responses from me.

An Eye Opening Reason Why Christians Leave Their Faith
Vlad Savchuk, 3 July 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-YbBD2BxbI

5:56 Kristi Burke is pretty much that.

1) She was taught certain Bible verses implied Calvinism (or not told how they don't imply Calvinism)
2) she also had a shoddy introduction to the Tower of Babel (I made responses on her video which came out a few days ago).

For my own part I deconstructed Protestantism
1) because I came to see how the Reformation happened, historically
2) because it was inadequate to deal with effors people made to push me to deconstruct Christianity.

So, I became Catholic (with some ambiguity on whether I should have become Orthodox instead, resolved later on). To stay a Christian.

7:25 I was on a fairly progressive boarding school 1983 to 1987. 9th to 12th grade.

I stayed Christian and rejected freemasonry, which is why I became Catholic.

I know internet since 2001, and was from 2002 to 2012 or longer in various times on a very progressive Swedish site. I was thrown out twice, and quit myself the third time in order to not make myself complicit with a hex someone was trying to throw on me.

Meanwhile, I made it my speciality to answer progressives on the internet.

And now, for his Anti-Catholic Polemics, and my answers:

Catholicism VS Christianity
Vlad Savchuk, 14 July 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JmFTAFXt9w

0:55 While it is true that the Popes had not been in the diptychs the last 40 years before the excommunications, it is probably less about the papal office, than about who was the real pope 40 years before. 1012 there were parallel papal elections.

The reason why the Pope wanted Caerularius either to repent or get excommunicated was, Caerularius did not recognise unleavened bread as valid matter for the Eucharist. A mob in Constantinople had trod down hosts from the tabernacle of a Latin Rite Church, and Caerularius refused to call this sacrilege and make the mob do penance.

1:36 "While Greek Orthodox do not believe that"

Any more, except for Old Believers.

Avvakum was burned rather than accept, partly some minor differences in the liturgy, but partly also denying the Immaculate Conception. Yes, I know that Old Believers have sometimes gone down a sink since then (some burn themselves, some regard icons only through a hole ...), but that mainly concerns the priestless ones.

It seems that Palamas actually believed the Immaculate Conception.

If you consider the greetings of the angel and of Elisabeth in Luke 1, you see Mary and Jesus identified with the woman and her seed in Genesis 3:15, and if you consider the form, it is like when Jael killed Sisera. In other words, at the very first greeting, before she was with child, Mary was compared to Jael - and in fact it was Satan who was compared to Sisera. But if Satan rules by sin, and Mary is victorious against him, that means she is sinless. Catholics maximise this : from the first moment of her conception.

1:41 Latin Rite Roman Catholic priests, prior to the election of Pope Michael and some changes he made, could not be married when ordained.

Both agree that a man who was not married when he was ordained cannot marry afterwards. The man who walks up to the bishop to become a priest either is a monk or a married man in Greek Orthodoxy.

1:54 Pope Michael has approved of saying "the Latin Mass" in English, and presumably also Spanish and French.

2:09 RC and GO agree that a doctrine already defined as dogma cannot change.

Both agree in principle that a doctrine found to be consistent over previous Church history and consistent with the Bible can be elevated to dogma. In GO, this has not happened since ... II Council of Nicaea / Council of Vlakhernes, depending on whom you ask ("no orthodox Pope" and no Emperor = no way to call a council).

They accuse each other of being the ones doing the changes. So, what you said was basically GO polemics against RC.

2:18 Purgatory or stations of the cross - two very different things.

Purgatory is one explanation of why one prays for the dead, unless they are saints, like martyrs or starting to work miracles from the grave. GO have other explanations, the one of "airy tollhouses" looks a bit like purgatory.

Stations of the Cross is simply a type of prayer, especially used during Fridays in Lent, especially Good Friday. It's a discipline, not a doctrine.

3:08 "he outlined abuses of the Catholic Church"
= what he thought of as abuses.

Again, you are buying totally into what the non-Catholic party has to say about the conflict, as at time signature 2:09.

3:43 We believe revelation involves the Bible and a few items known as "traditions not written" - like worshipping on Sunday, it's our tradition which says Apoc. 1:10 refers to the weekday Sunday. Or doing the sign of the cross. Or what books are in the Bible.

We also believe, revelation by the Bible involved a known meaning, not guesswork from the first hearers, and in important issues at least, the known meaning is available by exegetic tradition. Because the meaning never ceased to be known in the Catholic Church.

Also, tradition in this latter sense actually is Biblical, at least for the exegetic tradition about OT (like how Genesis 3:15 relates to Mary). Why?
a) Jesus after the resurrection went through all what Moses and Prophets (OT books) had said about Him (as about Him). This is more than just the bare text, as Jews have the texts but refuse to believe they are about Jesus.
b) The Apostles did not write down all of this course, since the NT does not involve Christological readings of each and every book of the OT.
c) But it still has to be preserved, according to Jesus' promises to His apostles.

If you deny there is an exegetic tradition, you have to say:
a) the OT is not at all about Jesus (false)
or b) only about Jesus where the NT text makes such a mention of an OT text (false)
or c) the accurate and authoritative Christological meaning of most OT texts is no longer accessible, since the Apostles who heard Jesus aren't here and didn't write it down in the NT (false, against the promises and commands of Jesus, e g Mt 28:16 - 20).

Also, it is vital for the Church to know what the exception in Matthew 19:9 means. Another instance where meaning is not immediately apparent from a text, and even so cannot be lost. Therefore it is preserved in Tradition.

@AnnetteMurphyger

Thankfully many Jewish (and Christ was Jewish) people do believe in Yeshua (Jesus) nowadays.

What exception?

@hglundahl

@AnnetteMurphyger And thankfully, many of us believe in His Church. Which He founded.

Here is the verse with an exception:

And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery.

Now, some would pretend, Christ is making an exception in favour of divorce for infidelity, but infidelity is called adultery, so, why is He calling it "fornication"?

Well, the Catholic Church says, this refers to any situation where the original marriage isn't one, but is some version of sexual sin instead (like one being a divorcee, like them being unknown to each other siblings, like one being forced or tricked into the marriage, like a consent on one or both sides to have no children while having sex ...).

3:56 Purgatory 1 Corinthians 3:15
Talking to saints Luke 16:24 - the damned rich man is not ever told he cannot speak to Abraham, his requests are denied for totally different reasons.

3:57 Praying to saints, again Luke 16:24, plus John 2:3.

4:02 Extra-Biblical ... I am happy you are precise.

Is the Bible a complete instruction book for Christianity? II Tim 3 doesn't say so, if you take into account that Timothy had received the faith from Paul as a basis and then Paul presents the then available Scriptures as a completion course. I Tim 3 says the opposite, namely that the Church is the pillar of truth, and confer 2 Thessalonians 2:14 for where the Church has truth. Scripture PLUS Tradition.

So, saying something is extra-Biblical does not mean it is not Christian. Saying it is anti-Biblical does mean that.

So many Protestants use the imprecise word "un-Biblical" to mean sometimes the one, sometimes the other.

4:06 Every Catholic doctrine about Mary you could complain about can be proven from the Scriptures, in Tradition.

It may not be immediately visible from the Scriptures to one outside the Tradition, but it can be proven from them.

4:19 The operative words in Mark 7:13 are not "tradition" but "your own tradition" ...

Since Luther's time, Protestants also have an own tradition, about for instance what to object to in Catholicism, or about what not to object to (Purgatory vs Trinity of Divine Persons).

Annette Murphy

Luther never said Jesus wasn't part of the Trinity. Sadly he was anti semitic at the end of his life

@hglundahl

@AnnetteMurphyger Yes, exactly.

There is a tradition about objecting to Purgatory and about NOT objecting to the Trinity.

Jews would instead object to the Trinity and not to Purgatory. You may have heard of Gedenktag.

Now, Luther was not just Antisemitic as a Protestant, more than any Catholic of the period, more than any Catholic in good standing (Hitler wasn't in good standing), but also, he had been very pro-Jewish while he was still a Catholic.

4:31 Jesus promised the Holy Spirit to His Apostles, if you note where the promise was.

This means, the promise is first to Catholic bishops and then also to Catholics in communion with faithful bishops.

4:38 Jesus did not speak to "us" - He spoke to men whom He had made the highest hierarchs of His Church.

4:53 "it's not the Church that interprets the Bible"

But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
I Tim 3:15

I see a contradiction between what you said and what St. Paul (a very early Churchman and bishop) said to St. Timothy (a very early Churchman and bishop).

I think I prefer St. Paul over you.

5:03 "but the Holy Scriptures alone"

1) you are doing the opposite, you are relying on Holy Scriptures and your own Protestant tradition (traceable only to way after Christ) when you say this, because
2) this idea is not found anywhere in the Scriptures. At least not approved of by the hagiographer and by God.

5:29 "and we believe there are many churches all around the world that are true believing churches"

Technically, we Catholics believe that too. We believe there is a true believing Church called Archiocese of Vienna (at least up to some time prior to Schönborn), a true believing Church called Archdiocese of Paris (at least up to some time prior to 1947, when the leaders of the Archdiocese were really rooting for Evolutionism), a true believing Church called the Diocese of Ostia, pretty close to Rome, and all of these in communion with the Holy See, with the Church of Rome.

Vienna believes Adam sinned, Christ redeemed, seven sacraments and Holy Mass offer the redemption and its redemptive graces to us. Paris believes Adam sinned, Christ redeemed, seven sacraments and Holy Mass offer the redemption and its redemptive graces to us. Ostia and Rome believe Adam sinned, Christ redeemed, seven sacraments and Holy Mass offer the redemption and its redemptive graces to us.

But you want to make it out one can agree with Canterbury saying there are only two sacraments and that Holy Mass is not a propitiatory sacrifice, and still be a true believing church. Or that one can agree with Plymouth 1831 in avoiding any liturgy that even resembles a Mass, and still be a true believing church. Or Amsterdam 1609 and reject baptism of infants, and still be a true believing church.

Two churches cannot be true believing both of them (but it could be neither of them) if they contradict each other on very important points.

So, your view adds up to "every church needs to obey the Bible, even if it means that another church accuses them of disobeying the Bible, and the two churches are still one church just because they both intended to obey the Bible, even if obviously at least one of them failed, the one accused or the one accusing. Or both.

Annette Murphy

Was Jesus baptised as an infant? No!

@hglundahl

@AnnetteMurphyger But the whole family of Cornelius was baptised.

However, you are making an argument about Baptists being right. Vlad Savchuk made an argument and I was answering the idea that Baptists and Lutherans could BOTH being obeying the Bible.

5:46 "they may differ in their methodology"

What is a valid sacrament is not a difference in methodology, it is a difference in doctrine. For instance, if a couple involves one who was divorced from another, who says he or she is sorry, can they be validly married? Yes or no?

Or an infant has two believing parents - can they get the infant baptised? Yes or no?

Those are not differences in methodology.

Between Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans, there are plenty of differences of actual methodology. If you are tempted to sin, what is the first thing you do? How important are intellectual studies? How important is it to be humble? That's differences in methodology.

5:58 "as long as the core doctrines remain the same"

Is support in the Bible sufficient for a doctrine to be core?

How about all the doctrines Catholics have plenty of support in the Bible for and Protestants reject? That's rejecting core doctrine. Then.

Or must the Biblical support be unequivocal? Even then.

Or, other possibility - did Christ give His Church a way to decide what doctrines are core? Yes, precisely. It's called Magisterium, it needs to be based on Bible and Tradition in substance, but may verbally go beyond what is already directly expressed in Bible and Tradition. But for Magisterium to work (and it's unequivocally supported in the Bible), we need a unity of doctrine, a unity about what kind of people in what kind of context are magisterium.

So, if all the bishops in the world agree on a thing, that's a sign, it is magisterially upheld. But if some agree, some disagree, can one get beyond that? Does one need a universal council, or can a Pope do? That's why Catholics and Orthodox are not the same.

6:35 We Catholics certainly believe the Church is built on the revelation of who Jesus is, and is led by pastors who draw their authority - not from Scripture as a primary, but from Christ in a way supported by the Scriptures.

We believe that precisely the papacy is well supported in both Scripture and Tradition.

Scriptures first.
1) Did Jesus give Peter more authority than the other apostles? Matthew 16:19 would tend to say so. At least Orthodox who deny this would tend to prefer stopping the citation of the passage at verse 18.
2) Did Jesus mean the Apostolic authority to be handed on to later generations? Matthew 28:16 - 20 very clearly says so. a) Is it Apostles rather than all faithful? Check beginning of the passage. b) Is it for all time? Check "all days to the consummation of all time" ...

Tradition in this case hinges on less well known facts, but even so, Michael Lofton and a few more do a good job of answering the Orthodox who claim Tradition supports episcopal equality.

7:32 Petros is perhaps debatable, whether it is the Petra.
But Verse 19 has "thou" = ty, not wy. And also not ja.

8:45 we don't see that Peter appointed another guy as his successor after he died

We do see that in tradition, he appointed Linus as second Pope. Btw, the Orthodox agree, even if they don't agree what Pope means.

We also see in the Bible that the eleven were supposed to have successors to the end of all time.

9:10 If Jesus is the only infallible Word of God, then the Bible is not infallible.

If the Bible is also the infallible word of God, then so were the hagiographers when writing.

If the hagiographers when writing, why not the Popes when preserving?

If Jesus is infallible in Himself, can He share His infallibility for His purposes?

He not only can, but did.

He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you.
[John 20:21]

Two verses later, you see this applies to forgiving sins too.