My Apologies Leaves Out Parts of the Argument He Pretends to Refute

My Apologies Leaves Out Parts of the Argument He Pretends to Refute · Dialogue under My Apologies' Video : was already 382 infallible? · "My Apologies" Claims to Defend Infallible Scripture As Somehow Accessible Without Infallible Church · No Deception, Your Apologies, Just a Thing You Hadn't Learned to Read : an Implication

First the original video by Reformed to Rome:

Acts 15 Disproves Sola Scriptura
Reformed To Rome | 26 June 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO5rwdJrPVA

Here is the response by My Apologies:

Sola Scriptura Still Stands Strong | Response to Reformed to Rome
My Apologies | 11 Dec. 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHYa1pkjh-U

3:34 No, you can't say the council was materially inerrant and not formally infallible.

Why?

Because the material inerrancy of a statement does not provide the authority to bind the Church, only infallible formal authority provides that.

My Apologies

@my.apologies

That’s just a baseless assertion… why can’t legitimate church authority bind the church regardless of its infallibility?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

Can it legitimately affirm to be speaking for the Holy Ghost without infallibly speaking for the Holy Ghost?

My Apologies

The councils all act with the explicit understanding that they are operating with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Yet Augustine says they are correctable & I guarantee you yourself do not believe EVERYTHING that is contained within them. So, yes you absolutely can.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1) What exactly does St. Augustine mean by them being correctable?
2) How is your argument not an appeal from the argument that your opponent is concretely making from Sola Scriptura to Church Tradition, which you hold to be non-infallible?
3) Give me an example of a doctrine taught by a council that I do not believe?

My Apologies

1. He means corrected - to put right an error or fault. Straightforward and clear from the context.
2. This point is a run-on sentence that I can’t make heads or tails what you’re trying to ask…
3. I don’t know what you believe personally tbh. You could believe that Mother God is the New Jerusalem for all I know. Would you claim to believe everything in the ecumenical councils? That would be pretty surprising!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1. "He means corrected - to put right an error or fault."

Do you have any argument for that except the usual lexical meaning in modern English?

Straightforward and clear from the context.

Not straightforward, since that would not explain why local councils cede to them.

Not clear from the context, since he provides no example of any previous council having been in error and that error was then corrected.

A very clear example of Nicaea omitting and Constantinople including explicitations on the Holy Ghost and on the Church would be an argument for my view that by "correcting" he means not correcting the faults of error, but the faults of omission.

2. St. Augustine is not Scripture, but part of Tradition, also not the sole part of it.

3. As a Catholic, I claim to believe every doctrine of the councils.

My Apologies

Do I have any other proof other than the fact that it’s the way the word is translated by everyone? Nope, not off the top of my head. But if you’re gonna take up the argument that it’s a bad translation, that’s gonna have to be with the translators. And you’ll need a good reason to retranslate the word.

Learning from tradition is not against Sola Scriptura.

That is interesting to hear! I understood that Catholics argue often over which parts of the councils are infallible and which parts aren’t. Perhaps I am mistaken on this.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

When you use the word "correct yourself" do you always mean admit you had stated sth erroneous?

I think you sometimes mean stating sth which you think you ought to have stated, but didn't.

For instance, I ought to have stated that I am making a blog post of our exchanges, and making this even more public than it already is.

You probably refer to Vatican II-accepters arguing which part of Vatican II is infallible. As far as I am concerned, none, since it contains errors. It's not a council of the Church.

"Learning from tradition is not against Sola Scriptura."

Not the least, but it is interesting that on this occasion, you cannot argue from Scripture alone without trying to back it up from Tradition. In a way that doesn't work.

4:14 I would say it infers the infallibility of the authority.

Even stating Luke in his text as hagiographer (and therefore formally infallible, as inspired by God) is only directly stating the inerrancy of the content, part of that inerrant content is that the council has infallible authority with which to bind the Church.

My Apologies

Why is that part of the infallible authority? You’re just making assertions…

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It comes off as somewhat suspect that you are regurgitating this one point without studying the detail of the content.

I am 5:41 into a video of 8:51, and you are talking of the abstract case that the council could have stated sth which was inerrant (like Jesus is Lord and God) and taken simply distance from all who did not hold it, but that is not what happened.

For it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us,

I e, the council stated it was speaking on behalf of the Holy Ghost.

to lay no further burden upon you than

I e, the council stated it had an authority to lay burdens on the faithful.

My Apologies

It’s not an abstract… I’m quoting St. Augustine

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Your quote from him does not involve the words ....

My Apologies

I lost you. Tough to have a reasonable conversation across a half dozen comments lol

Hans-Georg Lundahl

OK, your quote from St. Augustine does not explicitate that he believed a council that speaks for the Holy Ghost could be wrong, unless it were invalid.

4:57 Acts 17 says that the content of the quoted parts is inerrant materially.

However, in Acts 15, part of the materially inerrant content quoted is in fact a claim to formal infallible authority.

My Apologies

Why are they different? Other than it affirms your own belief for them to be different.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The in-Bible quotes from the pagan poet include no part in which the poet says "I am infallible" or "I am inspired by the Holy Ghost" ...

My Apologies

Which part of Acts 15 says “I am infallible…”?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The ones you consistently left out:

it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us
(claim to speak for the Holy Ghost)
to lay no further burden upon you
(claim to be able to lay burdens on the Church)

My Apologies

That’s not “I am infallible” nor do they necessitate infallibility

Hans-Georg Lundahl

If they neither are nor necessitate it, I don't know what "infallible" is otherwise supposed to mean.

The men are claiming to be Theopneust.

My Apologies

Whoaaaaaa that’s wild man… they literally do not claim that. The claim to have reasonable certainly of how the Holy Spirit is guiding them.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It has pleased the Holy Ghost and us.

That's literally a claim to speak for the Holy Ghost.

5:34 No, that would in fact be self-contradictory, since part of what it stated inerrantly was precisely its own infallible authority to bind the Church.

My Apologies

Thats 0% true. Authority does not require infallibility.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Authority in the abstract doesn't. Authority to actually bind the Church requires the negative infallibility of not leading astray.

My Apologies

That would be true if they were binding the faithful to anything outside of scripture. But they are not.. they are reaffirming what was already taught and applying the gospel.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

They are definitely binding the faithful to sth outside the plain text of already accepted Scripture, i e the Old Testament.

As for the Gospel, it was accessible as Tradition (I hand on to you what I have also received, 1 Cor 15), but not yet at that moment as Scripture.

My Apologies

No, it’s all things already laid on the people of god by scripture.

And as for tradition, yes you’re right that the gospel at this time is in the process of enscripturation but only exists at this point in the Regula Fidei - this is not an issue for Tradition 1 Sola Scriptura which is the classical reformation view.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"it’s all things already laid on the people of god by scripture."

What (previous) Scripture?

"this is not an issue for Tradition 1 Sola Scriptura"

How isn't it?

My Apologies

Because we affirm the Regula Fidei as authoritative and informative.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

We hold the Regula Fidei to be authoritative and informative, and accessible to each generation of faithful.

This means there is some significance to Tradition being a very clearly evidenced means of access in 1 Cor 15, and a Church Council in Acts 15 also being a very clearly evidenced means of access.

That previously accessible Scripture was not immediately clear on the issues is obvious from the fact that there were people who believed the OT required and Jesus had not lifted the requirement of circumcision.

6:33 So, when St. Augustine uses the word "corrected" he means "completed" or "corrected for completion", not corrected from error into truth.

So, a probably very go to quote mining from St. Augustine is not in fact a denial that general councils, and for that matter even papally approved local councils, are infallible.

At least the councils of Orange, Toledo, and a few more are treated as infallible, as long as no infallible statement contradicts them, which to my best knowledge has not yet happened.

My Apologies

Can you give additional context that shows your re-interpretation of the word “corrected” because that’s not the simple reading of the text.

If you can’t provide context that proves your view, then it is YOU who is attempting to deceive and you should re-evaluate your position.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Additional context:
1) he nowhere gives an example of an earlier council being wrong and the correction implying rectification of an earlier wrong
2) the natural reading of sth new being brought forth is, there is a new error to be condemned, in addition to the previously condemned ones

My Apologies

1. This is an argument from silence 🤫
2. This sentence doesn’t make sense

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1. A very strong one. A silence where a statement would be needed to support your point.
2. I am not at fault for your lack of comprehension.

My Apologies

I am reliably informed by the Catholic apologists that arguments from silence are not strong.

I agree insofar as there is no additional evidence to the contrary.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Arguments from silence are not strong if there is no particular reason why sth should be mentioned if true or believed to be so in the given context remaining to us.

They are strong, if the opposite argument is exactly one quote, and that one quote in the sense supposed by Gavin Ortlund and yourself is not supported by the historic events leading up to it.

My Apologies

It is supported by the historical claims leading up to it. The early fathers did not teach that the councils were infallible.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

That's an argument from silence, apart from this quotemine.

Hippolytus of Rome had no Ecumenical Councils to look back to, and I doubt he would have agreed that the Council of Jerusalem wasn't infallible.

But it is not supported by historical facts, what the Ecumenic councils claimed about each other. Constantinople didn't claim Nicea was wrong, but had left things unstated.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I could actually give an example with your sense of correcting, but only from after St. Augustine died.

Chalcedon repudiated Ephesus II.

So, a wholesale repudiation is possible, a completion of sth left out is possible (Nicea to Constantinople), and what's not examplified is any council admitting a previous council was legitimate but finding fault with any positive detail.

6:55 "if it's determined that they were wrong"

Sorry, but St. Augustine doesn't explicitly support your understanding of how he used the word "corrected" ...

My Apologies

^see my reply on your other attempt at making this point.