ALMOST Becoming Catholic and a Phenomenological Critique (w/ Dr. Steven Nemes)
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
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If you watch my channel, you're probably familiar with the phenomenon of historically interested Protestants becoming Catholic or Easter Orthodox. Dr. Steven Nemes almost joined their ranks as a PhD student, but then, something stopped him from becoming Catholic. Ultimately, he found the arguments lacking, but for a different reason than most. In this video, Dr. Steven Nemes shares his story of almost becoming Catholic but choosing to stay Protestant and how phenomenology played such a large role in the process.
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Your theology will simply lead many to throw their hands up in despair and turn to atheism. If there are no absolute truths then Christianity is lie.
Reason and logic will only take you to a point where faith is required. I didn’t hear much faith reflected in your comments.
Agree. This video wasn't even so much anti-Catholic, but the nature of his argument was "god" is whatever you feel in your gut- or don't. That's the only thing I walked away with.
As someone who has been in the Tiber for 10+ years, I agree there are times I would rather throw my hands up and walk away from all this.
@@Will-wu1gb glad my crossing barely took a year
Catholicism, the fullness of faith.
Amen bro
Holy Orthodoxy; the fullness of faith :)
@@xpictos777 That's why you're are in schism within yourselves? How can you have the fullness when you cant even get along with what is the truth?
@@nerigarcia776 schisms existed always in the Church... And were solved after some time apart from the abominable Pope who himself departed from the rest of the four Patriarchs because of arrogance and his heretic teachings..this current conflict has nothing to do with the truth and faith. It's a jurisdictional conflict not a faith matter.. And it will be solved soon God willing.Orthodoxy is the ark of faith...
@@nerigarcia776 Sedevacantism? Is this a case of plank in your own eye? Any disagreements Orthodox have are always to do with juridiction and control, not belief. Put a Russian and a Greek in the same room and Theologically they will agree with everything. But how can you blame all the schism in Catholicism? Water down the creed, water down fasting, water down monasticism, water down mass no wonder you have Theological divide.
So his proposal is to abandon the concept of orthodoxy and heresy? I'm afraid you'll end up in postmodernism and rationalism. Nothing new.. It already happened in the reformation. Now 30,000 protestant denominations and counting. This is just another Modernized Martin Luther. Is this what Christ wanted for us Christians? (1 Tim 3:15) The church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.
It seems as though his problem with Catholic theology may simply be a problem with Christianity altogether. Why not apply his same skepticism to all of it? This deconstructs all traditions (secular/religious) altogether… I think it’s a bit unfair to conclude that all Catholics and Orthodox have only been pointing to traditions blindly and have not had an experience of Truth which bares out certain consistencies. Maybe I have misunderstood but this seems a bit too individualistic to me. For sure, you need a personal experience of God but how do you test your experience if not with the experience of others?
This comment
I think he also 'admits' that his line of thought undermines all doctrinalism (I made a word there!). It seems like his thoughts inevitable leads to not commit to any particular Protestant church either - you will have to be in no-man's-land. I think this boils down to an exceptionalism for Dr Nemes, since he seems to be grounded in Christ through family/upbringing and therefore can allow himself a huge freedom in what to accept or deny about various side-issues. I can see how this rejection of *any* sort of infallibility in any church for many others will lead to despair. In short, Dr. Nemes makes a bold move, not only rejecting Catholicism, but essentially all Protestant doctrines as well, and therefore how most Christians have thought about theology (since most have believed doctrines were necessary). I don't claim infallibility, but this will not go well....
proteswtants will convert people with a 'sinners' prauer', but then they think nobody can research deep enough to become catholic
You test your experience with Scripture. Why not read 2 Timothy 3:16??
How do you know if your experience with God is true? Confirm it with scripture!! Read 2 Timothy 3:16
Sound interesting. I wonder how long it will take until Trent Horn makes a rebuttal video :-)
True, but his rebuttal videos are not all equally convincing.
Let's alert Michael Lofton too. He may put up a rebuttal as well.
@@vaderetro264 You mean NONE are convincing!
Lol.
@@Disciple-ofChrist don't know how you came to that jaded conclusion.
"I've been ecclesially homeless for a long time"
😥 It need not be for anyone.
I am a cradle Catholic, and for me it is because it is the church Jesus started. I didn't know the faith for years and didn't "follow it" for years - but the more I learn now, the more I am convinced. Jesus did start "a church" and what church was that?
I always heard when i was young.
'Jesus hates religion. And there is no religion.'
'I love Jesus but not his followers'
It goes to show the importance of our personal and communal relationship with him. And our due diligence that we owe to God to ourselves and to our loved ones.
The Orthodox Church. You are always welcome.
The Catholic Church. I suggest you watch Catholic answers.
The church that was greatly reformed in the 1500's, which followed the gospel of Christ, and was anathematized by the Roman church
John true. It was Reformed by the succeeding Popes.
This guy is very much in his head. God bless him. I hope he's where he needs to be, and Christ will reach him where he's at. I converted to Orthodoxy because following the life patterns of Orthodoxy helps me to become a better Christian and brings me closer to God. It's more about the doing for me. I wish to each person the path that will bring them closest to God. To know if you're on the right path, look at the fruit in your life. That's the phenomenology that matters.
This dude is a Unitarian now. He rejects the divinity of Christ. Anathema! ☦️
Yes. He is basing his faith totally on intellectuality and not on a faith of trust and of the heart and based upon Holy Scripture. But I cannot imagine how he can laud such Protestant leaders as Calvin, who preached Predestination and concepts of "Once saved, always saved". Calvinism teaches that God has preordained only a set number of people who He has called to be saved. And even if you are reasonably righteous and repentant, it will do you no good and you will still go to Hell unless God has "chosen" you. But then, oddly enough, most Calvinist churches also teach that if you are "saved", that you can sin all you like because you are only sinning with your body, but your soul remains pure. That is sheer hogwash, if you have read any of the New Testament teachings of Jesus or his apostles.
Totally agree. He's all in his head.
Many Protestants enter the Catholic Church, because they come to the conclusion that Holy Scripture never actually teaches Faith ALONE, nor Scripture ALONE!
Martin Luther added the word ALONE to faith and Martin Luther and John Calvin disagreed about the Last Supper! Peace always in Jesus Christ our Great and Kind God and Savior, He whose Flesh is true food and Blood true drink
I have to say I understand where this man is coming from however I think it is also a dangerous mindset to create your own theology we are constantly tempted by the demons and I believe that is why the church is there to guide us. I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy and have been Orthodox now for over 4 years.
Yeah this guy's now denied the Trinity
My personal frustration with these types of discussions is that there is the implicit belief that the average person can rationally and objectively compare different systems of faith and make an intellectual decision about which is most “true.” If faith were a matter of intellectual persuasion, then the smartest folks would be the saints. This seems like a very man centered evaluation of the things of God which, in their very nature, are beyond human understanding. That doesn’t excuse us from joining a Church but I don’t think this is the way to find “THE true Church”
BECOMING CATHOLIC IS HAPPIEST DECISION
What about becoming Eastern orthodox? Is that a good decision?
EAstern Orthodox is not universal.He does't meet the condition of universality.
@@Luna-ds4ww can you please explain why it's not universal? I'm learning and want to get perspective. Thanks
@@Luna-ds4ww It is the Orthodox Catholic Church. Although Catholic (katholikos) means "of the whole".
@@chrisd653 A feature of the true Church is its universality. It cannot be the church of one or only several nationalities, of one or only several countries, nations or states, because then it is the church against the Church of Christ. The Church that Christ built is to embrace all nations, countries and lands within its walls. "Go and make disciples of all nations." The Church of Christ cannot be a national Church, but must be a universal Church. The Lord Jesus did not die only for a specific nation, but He died for the whole world, and the whole world wants to save. People of all ages and times, of all lands and countries, have entry into the Church of Christ.
I have watched Steven Nemes videos before, like many Protestant’s with no authoritative grounding and no observance to the ancient Church teachings he changes his theology and views as he pleases. In his videos you’ll hear him say “I used to believe and teach x, but now I have a new teaching which is y”. All just his own personal opinions and nothing more. I’ll take the teachings of the early Church guided by the Holy Spirit over a guy 2000 years separated with a fluid theology.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes I don't think that's quite the point. The point is your theology is still fluid. ie. You could turn around tomorrow and completely change your view on everything. In comparison, Catholicism has a consistent stance (at least in official teaching) that can be traced all the way back to the Apostles. That stance allows for theological development but is still consistent.
I think the point is that you're not exactly consistent which may be a phenomenon of being near the beginning of the process and searching for that consistent stance, but either way. It's not worth following yet
@@brianbachinger6357 Hi, firstly, thank-you for a well thought out message.
On your point about the magisterium: I understand your position, but I think you slightly misunderstand the role of the Magisterium. There are many basic Christian beliefs that do not require the intervention of the Magisterium and that's recognised. However, as history has clearly demonstrated, even these beliefs are attacked. So the magisterium in those cases is more needed to hold up a standard and something we can fall back on for support when the basic truths of Christ are challenged. So basically it's less of a nanny system than you make it out to be. As you said, there are beliefs in which Christians struggle with and which many disagree on. You mentioned the divinity of Christ, depending on what Protestant church you go to, you can have that looking very different. For example, a church that holds to Total Depravity by implication denies a part of the divinity and or a part of His humanity. If flesh is totally depraved, Jesus could never be a fully Divine person while living in a physical body, or, that physical body had to be a somewhat disconnected shell because the divinity and physical are intrinsically exclusive. He can't be a fully embodied Divinity.
Apostolic Succession... This is a more difficult one and really does point to our fallen human state (we are depraved, but not Totally depraved). This one for me comes down to consistency. The modern claims of the EO are often inconsistent with the Early Church Fathers, both East and West. That being said, this is something that each individual needs to come to terms with themselves. Just bear in mind that none of the different churches deny the other's apostolic succession.
Doctrinal developments do not mean that something is not historically grounded. The groundwork remains consistent, the Spirit just works over the ages to provide deeper clarity on issues as they arise. I mean an example of doctrinal development that all Christians believe in is the Trinity. This was hashed out over centuries to come to terms with it and make some sort of sense of Jesus's revelation. The reason (for me at least) to reject Protestantism as a genuine development is that it drastically changes the groundwork. Doctrinal developments don't do that, they build on what's come before.
With regards to the development of the papacy: Yes this developed, but not from nothing. You see very early on there is reference to the primacy and special role of the Patriarch of Rome. What developed is what it looked like and how it played out as society developed. Methods of communication played a huge role in this. The way the Holy Spirit led this particular doctrine to develop is one that could've been quite different had the east and west not split.
Yes, we can use Scripture and history to discern where God has led His Church over the ages. But ultimately Jesus didn't found a Bible, he founded an authoritative church to be the pillar and bulwark of truth.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes You're right, I don't. But I wasn't claiming to. You replied to this original comment with an extreme. All I am saying is that that extreme is not really a good response to the comment saying your theology is fluid.
Out of interest, what "earliest sources" are you referring to?
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes In case you weren’t aware, Bryan Cross from CTC responded to similar points you’ve made in his post not too long ago.
Reminds me of Martin Luther … Ask God for guidance.
As Father Stephen DeYoung puts it, "If you're becoming Orthodox for any reason besides Christ, you're doing it for the wrong reasons." While I agree, one shouldn't rush into conversion without knowing the tradition you're leaving in depth, I've personally known intellectuals like Dr. Nemes, and something about sitting on the sidelines because you can't find a group that satisfies all of your inquiries just doesn't sit right.
Why would anyone become Orthodox when there is the Catholic church?
Yeah? Well, you know, that's just like uh, your opinion, man. 😸
This video highlights why I gave up on protestantism, here you have a man who is very knowledgeable and submits only to himself and his interpretation of scripture. This is why I as an orthodox embrace the fact our theology is based on the corporate experience of bishops in holy synod and working through the holy spirit. In addition to being maintained by saints who have gone through a process purification and god has used to guide the church back to itself and away from heresy. No offense doctor but you even admitted to creating your own rules of fasting and ascetism. This is not the orthodox way, one must submit themselves to a spiritual father and be guided by them or they will fall to pride and or be zealous and then burn out.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes Your first question, " Why not rather the corporate experience of all the other bishops who have been excommunicated from this group for whatever reasons?" This is too broad a question for a comment section on youtube to answer. Which bishops? It would help to be specific. Your second question, "Or why not the corporate experience of non-bishops in other ecclesial traditions who can also testify to the work of the Holy Spirit among them?" This is also broad, but this is very much how the orthodox church works, bishops making decisions in council, but the layity have overruled the decisions of bishops, it is an organic process. For example, when certain eastern bishops wanted to unite with the pope and the western church after the council of Florence, when those bishops returned home many were stripped of their title and or killed since they did not speak for the people. " It is not as if only the Orthodox church has spiritually impressive people. On the other hand, there are plenty of spiritually unimpressive people in the Orthodox church as well" To this I would say you are correct to an extent. And you are definitely correct there are many unimpressive orthodox. But I think we both agree all traditions have those unfortunately. I have read up on many of the more recent catholic saints and they are really good people but nothing compared to the saints in the Orthodox tradition. I encourage you to look up the lives of recent Orthodox saints such as: St. Paisios or St. Porphyrios, there is a palpable difference that I could not portray, you should check it out for yourself. Just to add, we do not doubt the holy spirit is at work in many places that we as orthodox do not know of. However, we simply claim the holy spirit is guiding the Holy Orthodox church for sure and that we believe. But we see the church as a hospital for the sick and where there are sick people bad things can happen but over time the holy spirit guides the church. God bless you Dr Steven! I hope you do read the life of Saint Paisios.
@@briantaylor4808 Your Orthodoxy is only your personal interpretation of what the corporate experience of bishops in the holy synod is. Every religious system in the end must be personally interpreted by its follower. Protestants can find much in agreement with the early church fathers and bishops.
@@johnknoxsbeard2159 Protestant can find much agreement with the Early Church Fathers ? This is a fallacious statement .
@@johnknoxsbeard2159 Yeah, no.
@@johnknoxsbeard2159 you may have some agreement with early church fathers as a protestant. However, have you noticed the fathers concensus on Baptism being regenerative? Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist? The importance of hierarchical structure in the church of bishops, presbyters, and deacons? Just read the book of Acts my friend and notice how the early church functioned. Even Paul who saw Christ had to go to the apostles and they baptised him and laid hands on him. This among many other examples point to the importance of apostolic succession. You are very wrong it is not my personal interpretation, the Catholic and Orthodox or eastern church has believed these things long before I came along. I would never dream of asking myself how I would interpret scripture or think of something this is because I submit to the church.
I'd like to see a discussion/debate between Dr. Steven Nemes and Jay Dyer. I think it'd be a fruitful discussion/debate.
Stay Protestant? Would that be Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, or nondenominational? So many options with so many epistemic conflicts.
Strawman
@@curiousgeorge555 I think it was a serious question, not just a dig
@@jukesngambits The way it was phrased, it looks like a dig to me. On the surface it seems meaningful but could confuse and mislead the uniformed.
What ever group that doesn't call other grown men "father" and bow down to paintings should be ok.
@@jg7923 George Washington (Father of our Country), Father Abraham, Oops…
Everyone prays in front of something.
Jews might pray at the wailing wall and my Protestant father (oops again that word) read his Bible and prayed in his easy chair. It’s where he died quietly.
An icon isn’t an idol any more than a photo of my departed dad is an idol.
My experience is real… my dad and the Saint are alive with Christ. We join with all the Saints in worship during the Liturgy. The praise always goes to Christ.
I've watched Dr. Nemes on multiple platforms and always walk away (1.) with a deep respect for him and his brain and theological reasoning but (2.) a sense of alarm because most Christians of any denominational stripe aren't doing this kind of uber-deep theological analysis (and perhaps shouldn't even have to). As a Protestant-turned-Catholic, I absolutely love the deep theology, but one can also understand why God in His foresight would also invest apostolic traditions with a repository of theological reasoning and general wisdom across the breadth of history. We are not meant to reason alone as Christians, we discern in community, and not every community can be "right" unless we accept relativism...
If someone like Dr. Nemes reasons theologically, they will come to a well-reasoned Protestantism; if someone less theologically well-grounded wanders from the apostolic faiths, they are likely to form a wild cult, or at least engage in complete scriptural misinterpretation or disregard for common, little-t Christian tradition. The latter group is why heresies have always been considered so particularly dangerous.
Saying the average Christian shouldn’t have to do deep theology when the Bible over and over again tells you to meditate on gods law night and day seems to be a bad objection to Protestantism.
And your point on not everyone being right is true but it’s also true for the orthodox denominations as well having an answer to everything and being easier doesn’t therefore make it right.
God says my people perish for lack of knowledge. You will be held for responsible for understanding the scripture, the gospel, which is clear. It is foolish to rely on the traditions of men. It is so obviously clear that tradition contradicts the written gospel, but since you bend the knee to it, you are blind. Tradition trumps God’s word, and that is a very dangerous position to be in. It is a terrible thing to fall in the hands of the living God. The scriptures are drenched with the path to salvation, to believe. Why does man feel the need to add to that? It’s really sad.
Just as you are sure with every fiber of your being that Roman Catholicism is true, I’ve met just as devout people from other sects. They are 100 percent SURE the Holy Spirit led them to where they are now. Why are we all going in different directions?
The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in. For that purpose the worst of the rooms (whichever that may be) is, I think, preferable. It is true that some people may find they have to wait in the hall for a considerable time, while others feel certain almost at once which door they must knock at. I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait. When you do get into your room you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise. But you must regard it as waiting, not as camping. You must keep on praying for light; and, of course, even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the rules which are common to the whole house. And above all you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and panelling. In plain language, the question should never be: 'Do I like that kind of service?' but 'Are these doctrines true: is holiness here? Does my conscience move me towards this? Is my reluctance to knock at this door due to my pride, or my mere taste, or my personal dislike of this particular door-keeper?'
When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if there are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house.
C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity is one of the best books ever written. I’m currently stuck in the hall right now unfortunately.
@@aidanmcwhirter2612 The Catholic Church is waiting for you when you're ready. It's a bit of a mess but it's His Church.
@@aidanmcwhirter2612the reformed church will welcome you with open arms
@@emilianoking9400 God predestined me to find Catholicism
As a former Pentecostal pastor, it is not surprising to see why Nemes places so much emphasis on experience. This is pure relativism disguised as wisdom. Truth is truth, regardless if I experience every aspect of it or not. For example, I have never walked on water but I know Someone who has.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes As a collective species, would you say that a sort of collective subjectivity is the best tool to approaching your dualistic philosophy? When you refer to you and others who do not subscribe to a particular institution, is this only feasible in an individualistic society as an idiosyncrasy but does not result in any collective movement progress? This is something that I believe is inextricable to the Christian faith.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes absolutely, if we cannot know the objective reality of things is it not beneficial for humans-a group oriented species-to construct a sort of “collective subjectivity” to guide us? We see this in the forms of various traditions and if we can conceive “theology as anthropology” then certain doctrines of the church not considered heretical are the best doctrines for human interaction. I hope that makes sense lol
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes is theology just merely the prescribed way of interacting with one another and the phenomenal world, hence Fuerbach’s “theology is anthropology”? I think that there is a contradiction in having the ability to know objective reality but never knowing if we really do grasp it, but a way towards reconciliation would be to take everyone’s subjective consensus to create a collective subjectivity. This in my mind takes the form of tradition, which is held as an infallible tool in some Christian traditions.
@@ernestlee1882 are you familiar with post-liberalism and the work of George Lindbeck? That seems to align a bit with your thinking here. I was curious to ask Dr. Nemes his thoughts on post-liberalism, but it was too far afield for the interview
@@GospelSimplicity my familiarity leans towards psychology and sociology, but from a cursory glance it does seem to address my questioning. I suppose my curiosity is how a philosophical system touches with a reality. Often times we end up in a very gnostic state where we conceive of an intricate philosophical system that has no real effect on our corporeal lives. We are obligated to believe in the dualistic nature of Christ but this doctrine has very real anthropological implications. I hope this makes sense but this was a great interview and I really appreciate the work here on this channel.
Alrighty, here we go!
@ 32:36 : Here we have a brief discussion of the role of personal discernment in the Christian religion. The Catholic challenge is that Protestantism replaced a system with one Pope with a system in which everyone is Pope.
The retort is that everyone has to use personal discernment. The Catholic must still hold, according to his own reasons, that Catholicism is true. And because of this, the Catholic falls prey to the same problem. Austin says this rejoinder basically ends the Catholic's argument.
Well... maybe not. The Catholic's complaint isn't that a Protestant has to use his brain and come to a belief about stuff. It has to do with the scope of what he's taking upon himself to discern, and the nature of the thing he's discerning. Catholics acknowledge that we do need certain motives of credibility to believe that the Church's claims are true - and we do personally judge that. But due to what Protestant philosophy did to the role of ecclesial authority and the authority of tradition, it ultimately falls to the individual Protestant to discern the entire content of the Christian religion on an ongoing basis. Not just discerning which tradition has the best evidence - but because tradition and magesterium are fallible guides, to determine what aspects of each tradition are credible. It is the difference between discerning which cup to drink versus discerning for yourself what ought to go in the cup..
@ 37:07 - The guest complains that that Christianity got off on a bad way by defining itself by a list of beliefs which must be believed. If you're anything like me, you were probably thinking of Paul saying, "Whoever preaches a different Gospel is accursed." Or John saying that anyone who denies the incarnation is "Antichrist". The dogmatic nature of Christianity is a feature, not a bug.
@ 52:26: He says we must eschew infallibily because we can never have the whole picture. OK... but do we need the "whole picture" to claim to know something infallibly? It would seem not. We don't have a complete understanding of the Trinity, but we can still know something about the Trinity and define it as dogma.
Austin rightly comments that it sounds like the guess is endorsing relativism. Well... he was. And it was interesting that even in his own descriptions of why we should embrace relativism, he couldn't avoid absolute language.
@ 1:07:00 - His proof for the existence of God is essentially "cogito ergo sum". OK, but being able to have confidence in God's existence is a far cry from having certainty that God became man. One could be a justified theist in his view... but a Christian?
@ 1:22:00 - He critiques the appeal to miracles to prove things which cannot be known directly by reason. Ummm... wasn't it Christ who said, "If you do not believe me, believe in my works" ? Saying "miracles happen in every religion" - if taken seriously - won't just disprove Catholicism.... it would disprove Christianity. If miracles weren't meant to give credence to unseen things, then why does God use them so often for that purpose. His objection here makes no sense.
Well, that's my take. As a humble Papist, I didn't really feel the sting of his critiques.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes On the second point, I don't think you've so much disagreed with my summarization as simply restated it. Namely, that you've presented that Christianity took a wrong turn when it began to further specify doctrines which are to be believed.
What I pointed out was that even in the words of the New Testament you find the Apostles drilling down on certain points and saying that being a Christian demands the rejection of some theses and the assent to others. This is not an illicit move for Christianity.
It seems to me that you're now saying that the Christian tradition should not have specified itself any further than the words of the Apostles Creed, because doing so would have prevented the split with the Arians.
Well, I think you're not likely to get much traction on this argument. There is a big difference between believing that Jesus is coeternal and of-one-nature with the Father and believing that Jesus is the first-and-most-glorious creation of the Father. It was necessary to define what Christianity meant on that subject.
And if you're going to assert that this level of specificity is not part of the Apostolic deposit, suchwise that Nicea was an illicit abstraction on theological opinions, you're not likely to get a wide hearing on that. For many, that kind of assertion would rule you out as someone to listen to.
That is, unless I've misunderstood you.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes It's great that after 1500 years of the existence of the Catholic Church, God finally sent 500 years ago, someone wise like Luther , to overthrow this ,,heretical Catholic church''. Poor all those people who lived, for example, 600 years ago and did not have access to such knowledge of protestant theology ,unless someone was born very wise, and somehow figured it out himself. I'm sorry, but that's how it all looks like.
not to mention the 4 centuries of martyrs who must have been cast into hell for having no bible.
@YAJUN YUAN They had a bible? The new testament? What copies there were of the writings were hand copied. Only the leaders of the churches had them.
What "bible" they had was the oral reading and teaching of the church.
Otherwise, please produce some proof of this alternative bible.
You've made the point, in all those centuries error DIDN'T creep in. That's what Jesus promised.
The Bible the Christians had from the very beginning was the Septuagint. The prophecies were fulfilled and close the old Covenant sacrificial atonement of blood from either the one who committed the sin or a animal sacrifice . The New Covenant was not a book but The Bread and Wine Covenant that was shown at the Last Supper. As time went on the New Testament was being written.
Hmm.. I was looking forward to a significant critique of my own position (traditional Catholic with very strong Orthodox sympathies) but what I got was an interesting (though repetitive - Dr. Nemes belabors his points, recapitulating everything two or three times.. Say it once professor, we understood you the first time. Three times as much information, in a third of the time.. Call it triune exponential magnification of grace by way of simplicity.. ) philosophy lecture. The latter part where he got around to his critique, that I suppose was meant to be a challenge, reinforced my faith in the Orthodox Catholic patristic apostolic tradition.
Catholicism and Orthodoxy are in their essential patterns roughly the same. The points of contention that separate the two traditions are (in comparison to the gulf that separates both of them from protestantism) rather minor - Roman infallibility and juridical supremacy, the filioque, purgatory, azymes, whether statues are legitimate iconography, the question of exactly how the Holy Spirit should be invoked at the epiclesis, the date of Easter and Christmas, a few other less significant areas of debate.. There is no form of protestantism other than perhaps High Church Anglicanism that shares as much overlap as Catholicism and Orthodoxy do.. That's because they're the historic apostolic Church. That's why the 95% consensus they share is called the apostolic consensus.
The only consensus universal to protestantism is the Bible.. A Biblical canon that is derived from the tradition of pre-Schism Catholicism. The very touchstone of "protestant orthodoxy" is a part of the Catholic consensus, in other words.. But protestants reject the Septuagint canon, while both Catholicism and Orthodoxy endorse it.. Yet another point of major overlap that Luther, Zwingli and Calvin didn't like.. Just like the seven sacraments and sacrificial priesthood and thousands of other important, and - until their reform - universally shared apostolic things like that, that the "Reformers" rejected.. Hmm.
Phenomenology could be thought of as deriving meaning from pattern recognition, I think? I see two halves of an apple, and an orange, here. One of these things is not fruit of the same tree..
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes Maybe not. Most of what you said was interesting and informative. But it wasn't a critique of Catholicism or Orthodoxy, it was a philosophical discourse. I enjoyed it, and it helped me hone my own thinking. Thank you for that.
It seems to me that the massive general consensus between the Catholic and Orthodox - to include the Oriental Orthodox - is what you might call a "salient signal" .. You could think of that general received consensus as massive correlation. Whether that signal, that correlation, signifies or implies that the Orthodox catholic Apostolic consensus corresponds to metaphysical reality or not, well.. That Dr. Nemes is a matter of faith that requires grace to discern.
The only miracle I need to believe that it does, is my experience of the sacraments. That, of course, is subjective experience, but it is - like my experience of God in every sense - very real.
I appreciate (or I should say I suppose) that phenomenology is an interesting way of pushing back at nominalism, which is the spiritual cancer that along with gnosticism is destroying our culture.. But I'm not that interested in philosophy these days, because I think it is a dead end, in its modern forms destructive.
You can't think your way into faith and culture. You can only ritualize and pray your way into it. That's why ritual and sacrament is far more important to living culture and personal sanctity than dogma or thought. You have to do it in order to be it. Thinking it of course matters, but most people can't or won't think. So they need to be saved by ritualized patterns of behavior, which is the essence of culture. People are inherently mimetic creatures, we absorb the patterns we are exposed to.. That's why Catholicism and Orthodoxy are superior to almost every form of protestantism: They create unified culture, where protestantism annihilates it. Protestantism is - in other words - the ur-source of secularism and nihilism.
I realize that protestantism, like the Schism, was due to the Gregorian Reform, the rise of "Roman" Catholicism. Rome is the epicenter of the schisms. But that had and has far more to do with politics than it does any dogmatic issue. There were three different claims to the Roman imperium. The religious schism is political schism: Latins/Rome/Catholics, Greeks/Constantinople/Orthodox, Germans/Aachen/Wurtemburg/Berlin (etc. etc. etc.) Protestants.. Orthodoxy now schisms as "Second Rome" Constantinople declines and "Third Rome" Moscow ascends..
All I mean here is that you cannot fully appreciate the truth of a thing until you experience it. I think that is one of the points of your own critique, isn't it? The truth of religion isn't primarily in dogma, it's in lived practice. If you want to know if Catholicism or Orthodoxy are true, you have to experience them, not critique the dogmatic literature. The dogma only becomes relevant when lived. The Catholic liturgical reform is another "reform" meant to make it more difficult to live such an instantiated life.. If you are interested in experiencing what I have, you should go as traditional as you can in your practice and prayer.. The books can come later, if at all.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Dr. Nemes. I mean it without the slightest snark, I found them helpful and interesting. Cheers.
Ok I love the last two sentences in particular, gonna remember this analogy.
All of that is settled and they are pretty major. We (Orthodox) also have more books than Roman Catholics do.
@@LadyMaria More books? Really, Maria? Impressive. My library contains a lot of your books, which makes them my books, too.
Like I say, when I thumb through (say) Olivier Clement's catechism, I can affirm about 95% of what he teaches, and only question the other 5% because that 5% is deeply contested - for example Hesychasm, Palamas vs. Aquinas, the big issue that I forgot to include in my list above - these things I do not have a position on. I also reject the Gregorian Reform, papal infallibility and juridical supremacy, while affirming papal primacy..
I'd say that makes me almost Orthodox, eh? Maybe even more Orthodox than some priests and bishops in the GOA.. Orthodoxia i Thanatos, amiright, Maria? Tell it to +Bartholomew.
One issue that is indeed major, that **you** need to address, is the scandal of how "Orthodox" ecclesiology is incoherent. The insane crap that is happening in the Ukraine now, the schism between Moscow and Constantinople, the fact that you cannot seem to hold a Pan-Orthodox synod let alone a Ecumenical Council, the fact that every major city in the world has 20 something Orthodox prelates claiming jurisdiction in the same space and squabbling over who is in control..
Well, shoot, Maria, all that isn't orthodox at all. It certainly isn't charitable or humble. It looks like you all may simply be a mess of carping schismatics can't get along with anyone, at all.
It seems that without an emperor to sort you all out, you cannot govern yourselves .. Pretty silly position for the Orthodox Church to be in, isn't it? Suggests that you guys may not be entirely orthodox .. Or actually Catholic, as in "the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church" of the Creed..
Isn't it odd how you refuse to call yourselves Catholic? Why, oh why won't you do that, Maria??? Oh, Maria..
As a Catholic I was nervous to watch this one lol….. I got the assumption that Catholics have been emailing you and making you feel bad for not being Catholic. As if that conversion happens in one day. Lol. Conversion even for a Catholic takes a lifetime. I’m converting everyday. And so I want to say sorry for that on behalf of them. I can relate but on the other side of the spectrum. I have many times have had Protestants make me feel I’m not a real Christian or good enough Christian because I give my perspective as a Catholic or opinion as a Catholic on different stories from the Bible. I was nervous to watch this episode thinking it was going to be a rant but it was actually wonderfully refreshing. I love psychology and neuroscience and this talk/discussion was on that same level of mindset. Thank you for this respectful interview. This episode didn’t make me question my faith practiced as a Catholic. It actually affirmed it more. Anyways as always you’re in my prayers! 🙏🏼👍🏼 love your content and ability to alway be respectful 😎
I agree with you conversuon to catholicism isnt that fast. It took me 2yrs to approach the church asking for baptism. I didnt know anything about much of Jesus life or the religion. Its been 11yrs and i can say that only 3yrs ago a light switch flipped on my mind and i finally accepted all dogmas with my heart. Also finally became a regular mass goer.
Nice comment and makes sense. I don't honestly know what I am anymore. I'm so tired of having to be this group or that group. My problem is that I understand why they all believe as they do. Can't I be a Christian and love all my brothers and sisters no matter what denomination and not have to prove or disprove any of it? I been going to Catholic church and getting to the place I'm understanding it and honestly, love it. Its such a refreshing change. I get confused because my God is so merciful to me and He knows I don't believe in the majority of Dogmas that Roman Catholics do. Here's a switch....I don't ask Mary to direct me to her son...I ask Jesus to direct me to His mother if this is real. Oh boy.
And contrary to what I read from others I have found Catholicism just the opposite. Protestant churches seem more works oriented while I find Catholic church brings rest to my soul. But like everything if you look too deeply, much to my heart break I'm learning about this Latin Mass vs NO Mass and the disunity involved over the True Mass. Kinda like the True church thing. Maybe too much You Tube. Lol
I don't think I want to learn the Catecisms of anybody. I want to stay in the simplicity of Christ. Aren't we supposed to love one another?
Like I said, I don't know what I am anymore. I do know this.
"Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, be merciful to me a sinner."
And He is. Isn't this in all of our theologies?
God Bless
Protestant seems more works based?? That literally goes against the vast vast majority of Protestant church’s and directly goes against Protestant theology. The church that is works based is the Catholic Church. And works based salvation theology is damnable
@@CCiPencil to not start any debating with you but I ask to please humbly read all of James especially James 2:14-26 . Simply put “Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead…..You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.”
@@CCiPencil Your characterization of the Catholic Church is false. You are commanded by God not to bear false witness.
Dr. Nemes, You reached out to me so I apologize and take down my previous comment. I listened certainly- and to your talk on the Eucharast as well. As great and learned as you are, your point of view is not something to which I could ever subscribe. Much Respect to a brother. Off to say the Rosary. God Bless 🙏
@YAJUN YUAN I do not say it is Meaningless! We are all ✝️ Christians. No one gets to sit on a high-Catholic Jesus horse. Take good care, bless!
@YAJUN YUAN not meaningless one is a mere symbol and the other is the actual Body and Blood of Our Lord. One is infinitely interior.
@YAJUN YUAN No, we were comparing Protestant bread with Catholic Eucharist.
One (if true) is objectively superior
Unless of course you would think bread to be equal to the Body of Our Lord in value terms. Okay then.
Our Lord sanctified All Waters with His Body at His Baptism and the Holy Spirit works in baptism to regenerate the soul.
Doesn't mean this is what happens at Eucharist or not. The Holy Spirit is certainly present but if you want to argue that bread is equal in value to the Holy Body of Our Lord be my guest.
And if the Holy Spirit was present who are you to say he is equally present at every celebration claiming to be Christian?
@YAJUN YUAN Both denominations do not Worship the Eucharist though. Massive distinction. One can be stepped upon. No harm. No foul. Not so with the Eucharist.
@YAJUN YUAN basically we Truly Eat the Body and Blood of Our Lord. We Adore the Eucharist. (Worship Our Lord)
If a Protestant did this in his church it would be idolatry as there is no body and blood. Just symbol.
This is BAD. Catholicism IS the ONLY RELIGION THAT JESUS ESTABLISHED.
Totally see why this guy doesn't fit anywhere. He can't deny himself, and his self can never decide what he even knows. Long time protestant, went Catholic after a year of digging around; know that it feels right as a "truth".
It is interesting that you interpreted Nemes this way and are framing it as an ego issue. It seems to me that he is framing it as a search for truth and, when he looks at various traditions, they are an admixture of truth and error and so there is a consistent dis-ease with each.
You then present Roman Catholicism as something that "feels right as 'truth.'" In this, though, you have made yourself -- your own ego -- no less central than Nemes did. The only difference is that you refer to it is a feeling, whereas he is being more rational about the process.
@@philoalethia I didn't just walk into a wall one day and become Catholic. I put pieces together, they fit, so it feels right. Unlike mathematical proofs or physics experiments, "feels right" is as good as you're going to get, and I think that's built in. On a side note, have you noticed that as the world goes off the rails, Catholic stuff is just bubbling up everywhere. RUclips, news, movies.....all tappin' on everyone's shoulders. I like it. Rational will get you to the moon with a iPhone in your pocket, but probably not to God. Peace be with you!
@@RoyCarter, I'm glad you didn't walk into a wall. That might hurt.
However, all you are really saying is that your way of exercising your ego is somehow better than other ways of exercising one's ego.
In any event, your repudiation of rationality is an attempt to repudiate what you are exercising to justify your repudiation. You are also attempting to repudiate an essential characteristic of humanity created and instilled in us by God -- a facet of the Image of God, who is the Logos, the Rationale. Roman Catholicism, itself, generally holds rationality in high regard and asserts that faith is reasonable/rational. You seem to be more in fideism camp. I "feel" (and think) that is a very bad idea, but to each his own I suppose.
I actually think he's next step is agnosticism.
@@JohnVianneyPatron It's the progressives that end up agnostic and ultimately atheist. This man of God isn't on that course at all. He just decided RCC isn't the ultimate truth.
Phenomenology teaches you not to trust someone else interpretation and therefore you discard Catholic interpretation of the scriptures and tradition. Okay.
But then, why don't you discard the scriptures themselves? After all the final form of the gospels (canonical vs apocryphal texts) was decided at the 4th century by the Church (council of Laodicea). So you should be consistent, if you discard the church interpretation, you should discard as well the church choice regarding what is the true gospel. And in the end, no text is "free" of interpretation (even the old testament text compilation is a choice, see the dead seea scrolls for instance). So if you remove tradition from your epistemology, you should be consistent and reject the entire Bible as a whole. And then, I don't see how you would manage to end up remaining a Xian...
Yeah Dr. Nemes is on his way to agnosticism.
Yes, why you should trust the Apostles when they just passed on the message ? Christ, being the source, did not leave any writings. You weren't there to hear and experience. It's all inaccessible !
Can't even trust Jesus because nothing is infallible.
Hmm. I actually waited two days to hear a meaningful challenge to my Catholic beliefs, just for kicks. Instead, this gentleman goes round and round the bush, and over peoples’ heads, never addressing these simple truths: The Catholic Church is the church Christ founded. He appointed 12 apostles, and put one of them in charge…going so far as to change his name to Peter (rock). He gave them the keys to the Kingdom. He said that the Eucharist was his Body and Blood. This man can’t see the forest for the trees. He’s trying to do spiritual calculus, and it’s really not that hard!
Yeah, thanks , but I’ll be staying Catholic. Anyone looking for a perfect church of humans is going to be gravely disappointed and looking forever.
Let us all pray for each other during this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Jesus does not want us divided. Imagine if we were one…what a voice in the world that would be.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes It is obvious. You’re sadly lost and don’t know it.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes I detect a less-than-rational hostility here Dr. Nemes. Seems like you have an ax to grind with a tradition of Christianity you may find too true for comfort…
@@tbojai Christ invited us to search and ye shall find. Christ never told people to blindly believe and the apostle Paul told us to question everything but hold
fast to the good . Remember he rebuked Peter and told him that he was to be blamed for being in the wrong ( Galatians 1 ; 14 )
St Jude wrote to fellow Christians to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints.
Faith is forever seeking understanding by looking for valid reasons to continue believing in the Gospel.
Dr Nemes is doing the right thing , I cannot fault him and respect him for his searching in seeking the truth .
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes id love to hear your reasons when you were considering the Catholic Church. Like what made you get to the point of almost entering? Do you have a video on this?
First thing is Christ didn’t die so that we can have a church and claims of papacy is unfounded. All the claims of the RCC are simply false.
The part where Catholicism loses me is Marian devotion and her dogmas, however
It’s like the faith is about Christ not Mary and Joseph
As far as Catholics converting too quickly, I think about all the Protestant groups with their altar calls and "winning souls for Christ". They go to a Billy Graham crusade and come out a Christian. I think Protestants should put the brakes on converting until they've deeply studied Catholicism.
@mark Rome I think I can agree with this. While they may be Protestants converting to Catholicism to quick, the same way are Catholics converting to Protestantism.
@@agihernandez7846 yes, its true ,but ,remember the saying " weak catholics become protestant,while strong protestants become catholic " . look who are converting to Catholicism they're Evangelical Bible Scholars ,Historians,Thelogians ,Pastors ,Missionaries,Seminarians ,Intellectuals ,to name a few. Then,which Catholics are converting to Protestantism and to what >10k Christian denominations ??? Respectfully aside ,theyre nominal Catholics,who were poorly or inadequately catechized .Ive never heard of a Pope ,Cardinal ,Bishops who converted to Protestant world .Yes ,there were Priests ,but many of them got married . There have been Catholics ,who left the faith ,became anti Catholic Evangelical Pastors ,who have now reverted to the faith .
@@truthhurtsalways4u “For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” (1 Corinthians 1:26-27).
@@benryangarcia are you done???
@@truthhurtsalways4u yeah haha. I just mean to say, just because a lot of the converts to Catholicism are academics and intellectuals, doesn’t necessarily mean Catholicism is true. Paul said most people who are Christian aren’t too smart haha, myself included.
Interesting thanks. Couple of remarks from a Roman catholic here.
- to build any knowledge of any kind you need to hold a bunch of principles as true (eg, laws of logic). I still don't see how you can use the phenomelogical approach to Theology and not falling into radical skepticism. At some point you must assume something in order to start thinking. I would have appreciated if the presenter told us clearly what he was holding for true for himself.
- If you hold for true that the Jesus founded his church on Peter and that the spirit is within the church, then there is nothing irrational in looking for sings within the church (such as Saints' miracles) or following councils.
- My biggest problem is that If you have to rely on doubt and empirical knowledge alone, I don't see why you would be a Christian at all. Aquinas is much clearer about it. Either revelation plays a special role within epistemology and you end up Christian, or it doesn't and I don't really see what would drives you towards Christianity (eg, you could believe in an abstract gos such as Aristotle)
As a former math student, I would also temper the statement about not knowing anything for certain. Thanks God, Theorems are not updated every year!
Well put. Thanks for the cogent synthesis of the pitfalls associated with phenomenological epistemology.
💯💯💯 . To be honest I get the feeling the host of this channel is just dragging stuff along. I don’t believe he will be Catholic or orthodox, he will just drag this along and try to convert Catholics into some weird new way of thinking like his guest. He said it in previous videos he really doesn’t believe Protestants theology is wrong.
You’re right on the money, which is why I think that if Dr. Nemes we’re to be consistent and apply the same standards to other doctrines, I don’t see how he can hold to Christianity.
@YAJUN YUAN
The final decision about what texts would constitute the holy scriptures was decided at the end of the 4th century by the Church at the council of Laodicea. So if you base your argument on the holy scriptures, you better have to hope that the spirit inspired these decisions taken by the Church...
@YAJUN YUAN holy spirits makes its home in the hearts of well instructed people , since bad Philosophy
Always leads to bad theology. If you sit with 5 different Protestants you will get 5 different answer on a scriptures,and all we’ll say they are guided from the Holy Spirit. Holy spirit can’t be confused giving people all different answers: we need a trusted teaching authority which God lefts us and that’s what we should be apart of.
Wow this was so flawed. The hoops he’s created and consequently jumped through to avoid Catholicism have simply brought him to relativism, as many have noted here. Everything he said is so easily countered.
I think he's attributing the disintegration of Protestantism into sects to Catholicism is sheer disingenuous.
I respect your journey and theological search. I’ve watched many of your videos on Catholicism, EO, etc.
However;
At 24:30, your guest says, “it’s possible there are truths everyone is missing”… ok, so the promise of
Christ to send us an advocate which would guide us in ALL truth was wrong?
This is easy…
I was on the same journey… I was diving deep into scripture looking at Protestant, Catholic and other interpretations. I grew to be overwhelmingly CONFUSED.
Then, reading Ephesians… it clicked. Not the theology within the book, but the greeting, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the holy ones who are in Ephesus, faithful in Christ Jesus”
What Church is in Turkey? What church has ALWAYS been in Turkey?
How about Thessalonica, Corinth, Crete, Syria, Rome, etc… this was about the journey of the APOSTLES and the EARLY CHURCH… Not ME, not a RUclips pastor, a RUclips commenter, etc…
I came to the conclusion that Truth comes first, Theological understanding comes second.
The TRUTH was that the early Church was Catholic/Orthodox.
That’s it.
The Bible, the Creed, take your pick… the foundations of Christianity are here, no where else.
There’s no debate. Those are the two Apostolic Churches.
We don’t need to debate that theology to come to the conclusion that European Protestants were late to the party and their theology is “reinventing the wheel”.
People have this idea that Luther and Calvin were resurrecting the church, steering us away from the evils of the Catholics… really?
Ex. Luther was an antisemite (he wrote “Of the Jews and their lies” among others;
Calvin called the Catholic Church the Synagogue of the Devil. The Geneva Confession is a hate document; Calvin believed I’m diabolical for being Catholic…Come on bro. Fighting hate with hate?
These men weren’t saving us from a sinful Church as they stated, but transferring God’s people to another. Some people in these faiths deny I’m a Christian altogether.
Choose Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. (I chose to be Catholic and think our political differences and cultures (ie. Language and expression), not THEOLOGY, have divided us). It’s sad the split of 1054 happened, but men are sinful and the cardinal sin of
pride takes over at times.
Notice I said this isn’t about ME, while your guest says “I” found, “I” came to, “I” “I” “I” on his theology hundreds of times throughout this interview. He’s became his own “Pope” deciding matters of Faith and Morals… why listen to him? His deep education in Theology? You can obtain a doctorate in Mormon theology too; formal education is important but hardly a litmus for truth.
This is simple folks, quit over complicating it.
This is funny. All this stuff about the “Catholic” faith being the foundation, and this Protestant is all about his own interpretation of things. And then comes your arrogant, self centered statement, “I chose to be Catholic”.
So you trust your own interpretation of the fathers, of the councils and traditions, enough to come to your own conclusions about which church is the true church? How arrogant!
How individualistic! When did it become all about you and your interpretation of things?
@@dylanwagoner9768 Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA; you completely missed the whole point of my post. Or should I say you misinterpreted?
@@RGWerd83 You can throw as many “whoa”s in there as you want. I read your comment again and don’t think I misrepresented. Saying you’ve been misrepresented and being misrepresented are two different things. The fact of the matter is that YOU investigated, and YOU made a decision. According to you that’s becoming your own “Pope”, but I think that’s a foolish statement.
@@dylanwagoner9768 That’s STILL what you got out of that? Then we are done here. No time to explain it to you.
Hearing Steven describe himself as being in ecclesiological no man's land, and thinking for himself as being just "who I am" is the stuff you get tired of as a Protestant. One of the attractions to Orthodoxy is the apophatic tradition among thinkers trying to figure out the truth that seems to produce a natural accountability.
Calling other grown men "father" when The Lord Jesus Christ Literally tells us not to do that in Matthew 23:9 and bowing down to paintings and kissing them is Not apophatic tradition.
@@jg7923 Neither did the Lord tell you to half quote scripture to justify your own opinion. No one bows down to paintings and worships them. It's called veneration. It's literally the same thing protestants do to these televangelists. At least the icons that we venerate are actual saints and not businessmen taking your money in the form of "seeds."
@@jg7923 so what feeling do you get when you see a picture of Jesus, do you admire it or would want to spit on it. I'd say as admiring it is not too far off from kissing who it represents. And if you spit on it and I saw you do so, I would not think you were a christian.
@@theunknownone2189 They are paintings and they exist to Make Money.
@@jordanplace6347 I'm not against religious art. I have some icons. I'm against people bowing down to them and kissing them.
I'm not Catholic, and I don't think I will be, but I find Protestantism has very obvious fatal flaws. Maybe less so in Lutheranism, it seems less a question of becoming Catholic, and more a quest away from Protestantism.
There is not only the catholic and protestant there is also the orthodox church
I would investigate Orthodoxy based on your comment.
@YAJUN YUAN:
I don't know how "Educational Porpoises" will answer your question, Yajun, but you might consider reading through my reply to the video, and then Dr. Nemes' reply to me, and then my reply to HIS reply. (I don't know whether that will require scrolling up or down; RUclips's sorting/ordering for comments is...unpredictable.)
What Dr. Nemes' and I are discussing is "The Epistemology of Faith": A fancy term for "How do we know, and know that we know, just what Jesus intended (intends) the content of the Christian religion to be?"
You and I and various other people in the 21st century want to (a.) know what Jesus wants us to know (His "revealed truth") and (b.) know what Jesus wants us to do (liturgy, lovingkindness) and not do (sin, bad practices); in order that we might (c.) believe what Jesus intends us to believe; (d.) live as Jesus intends us to live; and ultimately by God's grace (e.) be who Jesus intends us to be.
But all that starts with the "knowing" part: What IS His revealed truth? What assertions often claim to be part of His revealed truth, but really aren't, and are just human-invented add-ons, or sincere-but-incorrect suppositions. What did He intend the liturgical/worship practices of His Messianic community to be like? Always the same? Changing with the times? Forever and everywhere in Aramaic? Always done in the most up-to-date language of the people? Are there certain things which are immoral, but which the average person these days doesn't perceive as immoral? Did Jesus tell us they're immoral, and we've just forgotten? (Or ignored Him?)
What about the sacraments/ordinances/ritualish-things that Jesus commanded us to do? Are infants supposed to be baptized, or just adults? Why? Who is permitted to perform baptisms, and how? What do baptisms do and mean? Can you be baptized more than once? What about that communion ritual thing? Different Christians call it by different names; apparently it's THE central rite of Christian faith and practice, historically, but what IS it? What does it mean? What's it for? What does it do? Who may receive it? Who may consecrate it? Why does Paul say that "some of you are sick, and some have even died" among the Corinthians, because they received communion without "perceiving" the "body and the blood?" What about marriage? Apparently it's "adultery" if married people divorce and then get remarried to other people...but are there any exceptions to that? If your spouse is dangerous to you? Crazy? An addict? Comatose? Committed adultery against you? Does that just make it okay to separate from that person, but make remarriage STILL adultery, even though you were the injured party? And let's not even get started on whether men and women are "complimentary" and how married couples are supposed to play out that dynamic. I can think of a zillion questions people usually have about that, even outside of bedroom issues like contraception.
Any real religion worth its salt has answers to such things; any divinely-revealed religion needs to answer at least some of these just to make it possible for its followers to...well, FOLLOW it. But we all know that different little groups of Christians come up with their own different answers to these things, and to about ten thousand other questions.
How, then, did Jesus intend us to know WHICH answer is correct, so that we can follow HIS truth, and not the guesses of some dude who happens to be a good public speaker with (or without) a seminary degree?
To be sure, some of these questions will be matters of mere curiosity for certain persons. (Why should an unmarried person need to know Jesus' commands about contraception, for example?) But some will inevitably be practical questions requiring decisions RIGHT NOW. If I have a newborn, I need to know whether Jesus intends that kid baptized sometime relatively soon. If my wife left me, I need to know whether remarrying is permitted or not.
Let's say I have an online ministry teaching Christianity to new Christians, and so does another person, and he and I have differing (strong) opinions about what it means to eat Jesus "body and blood," who's eligible, etc. Let's say that some folks agree with me, and some with the other guy. And let's say the folks who disagree start calling me "heretic" and saying I shouldn't receive communion any more; and I reply that, no, actually, I think they're mistaken, and their view is heretical. And it's interrupting the peace of many believers.
So: We read through Matthew 18, and each of us decides we're gonna try to meet with the other and "win our brother" through kind discussion...but it doesn't work. So we proceed to the next step, and ask "two or three witnesses" to come along, and that doesn't work, either. According to Matthew 18, our next move is: "Take it to the Church, and if [either disputant] refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you as a heathen and a tax collector." Clear enough, right? The Church will decide.
Okay...but which Church? The Lutheran Church? The Seventh-Day Adventist Church? First Baptist Church of Woodsville, or Second Baptist Church of Woodsville? The Apostolic Full-Gospel Pentecostal Holiness Church of the Redeemer on MLK Boulevard in Midtown?
Let's simplify: Assume he and I worship in the same building on Sundays. Does that make it easier? Not entirely: Which PERSONS in the Church are we to go to, to have the matter decided? The pastor? A board of elders? What if the pastor has one view, and the associate pastors another? What if the deacons have a third view we hadn't considered? How did they all get to be pastors and deacons and elders and whatnot, anyway? There's a billboard for a church near me, with a big picture of the pastor and his wife, labeling them as "Bishops Myron and Cassie Hill." Is either "Bishop Hill" authorized to make decisions for "the Church," because they're "bishops?" How'd they get to be bishops? Did they just wake up one morning and call themselves bishops? Does that count? Are they REALLY the persons Christ had in mind when He said, "Take it to the Church?"
Yajun, you probably have answers to all those questions, that you believe true as a result of your prior Christian experience, maybe your upbringing. I have some answers, too. Lots of experienced Christians do.
But...they all differ. They don't just differ because some people are sinful or ignorant. They differ among folks who live holy lives, who have seminary degrees, who sincerely love Christ, who appear to be led by the Holy Spirit, who have Scripture memorized, who read Aramaic and Greek.... Even THEY don't land on the same page. They all have Bible verses they cite. They all have plausible arguments. They all say, "Well, y'know, in the original Greek, this word really means such-and-such." All of them have all the arguments that we laypeople just usually trust because it sounds plausible. But THEY don't agree, when you compare them.
Consider the local Baptist Church and Methodist Church in my suburb: Both fairly conservative, and outwardly very similar. On good speaking terms. BUT, one baptizes infants (with length Scripture citations as to why) and the other doesn't (equally good Scriptural support). Worse: They disagree on HOW ONE IS SAVED, and whether one can lose (technically, abandon) one's salvation by willful sin. And the Presbyterian Church down the road doesn't agree with either one.
If THEY read the same Bible and wind up disagreeing about something as important as SALVATION, what hope is there for the Average Joe, who has a job, and can't go learn ancient languages every time a moral or liturgical or soteriological question arises?
On JUST the questions I listed above, there might be two-to-seven different views Christians might take, on ANY topic. To simplify, let's say there's just three options, and there are twenty disputed topics. Let's do the math: That's 20 to the 3rd power, right? ...equals 8,000. That's 8,000 different "Christianities" that people might follow and live.
Which one is Jesus' "Christianity?"
If Jesus wanted us to follow His "Way," and if He, being divine, foreknew that this confusion would happen, then there must be some way we were supposed to KNOW, right? I mean, at least the questions that we had to take action on?
Some say, "Oh, just pray to the Holy Spirit, and He'll move your heart to the true answer." Um, okay...how come I do that, and get one answer; another person does it, and gets another answer? Surely the Holy Spirit is not schizophrenic?
How did Jesus intend us to know the Content of the Christian Religion?
That's what's meant by the question, "What is the Epistemology of Faith?"
When people say there's a problem with "Protestantism," I don't think it's specifically "Protestantism" they're blaming. I think they're looking deeper and asking: Regardless of groups like "Reformed Christians" and "Anglicans" and whoever else, we need to know: What is the Epistemology of Faith?
@@cw-on-yt fantastic comment! I just went over to see if you had a channel with videos. Dang.
@@theworldbeforeus1775 he shouldn't orthodoxy is protestantism with extra steps I was orthodox and seriously felt like a protestant especially with all the schisms and disunity among the patriarchs
Oh no…
I asked Dr. Ortlund many times, but he never answered me, "who has the final authority to interpret "This is My Body ", ( Matthew 26:26).
I also asked Dr. Ortlund this question many times and he never answered me, "how does final sanctification take place?".
Dr. Ortlund claims the early Church was Protestant in thought! Really?🤔 What year did Holy Scripture become the only infallible authority? Did early Christians reading Paul's letter to the Church of Laodicea, know it was not Holy Scripture? What about the oral teaching of the 7 Apostles who never wrote anything down? Why did the early Church Fathers pray for the dead and teach the Lord's Supper was not a symbol? Peace always in Jesus Christ our Great and Kind God and Savior, He whose Flesh is true food and Blood true drink
@Matthew Broderick. Yes Jesus would a Protestant too, according to Dr Ortlund.
Matthew the phrase " This is my Body " was said by Christ himself as he sat leaning and the Bread of His Body was in His Hands , but the next words were ' given for you '
; does that mean Christ was holding his body that was sacrificed in death or speaking about the next day where he literally died and shed His Blood .
So Christ was in the bread and with the bread and under the bread and the bread was shared with all the apostles (except Judas ) but Christ in His body
never moved from his leaning position and his blood was still flowing in his veins. So neither Christ or the Apostles would have understood it literally but sacramentally.
@@peterj6740 the sitting position doesn't matter in determining whether Jesus meant literally or symbolically.
It is literally as understood by Catholics and Orthodox and some Luther because
1. JOHN 6. JESUS didn't retract His statement to eat and drink His body and blood despite many left thinking Jesus was advocating cannibalism. Jesus didn't even clarify but went further to reinforce what he said. So many left that Jesus had to ask the Apostles if they are leaving too. But Jesus didn't clarify and say wait, this is what I mean symbolically.
2. The Old Testament prefigure the New and the New Testament fulfills the Old. The night before Exodus, the Jews ate the unblemished lamb to have their first born spared of biological death. Its not enough just to smear the lamb's blood on the door post. The Jews had to eat the lamb.
Jesus is the Lamb of God. We have to similarly eat Him to gain eternal life. This is why in John 6:54
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
This verse says nothing of symbols. Eat is a literal action.
3. Many have experienced Jesus in the Eucharist. I experienced Jesus in the Eucharist on the day of my baptism.
@@jeremiahong248 read Matthew < Mark > Luke regarding the last supper in the upper room in Jerusalem.
In John 6 - Jesus was at Capernaum and it was over a year earlier. Don't mix up the 2 different events.
The point I was making at the last Supper Jesus was fully alive with His blood flowing in his body.
The next day His Blood flowed out of His Body and He died due to crucifixion and a steel lance in his side.
The Apostle Peter on the night of the last supper in the garden drew his sword to protect Jesus from dying ;
If that is the case he would not have understood the Last Super Ritual which required Christ must die .
So the obvious answer is that Christ presence in the bread is a sacramental presence .
@@peterj6740 I have already given you the explanations. You can choose to walk away like those who did in John 6.
Even the Father of the Reformation, Luther believed in the true presence. So should all his descendents in faith. Unfortunately its lost on many of them and you.
Its a free world. Choose what you want to believe. Only time will time if you will be risen from the dead on the last days.
Yes, take your time. I maintain the process of connecting the dots to the ancient church was not the hard part. The hard part is leaving the communion of people you love because they will likely drop you.
Except there's nothing ancient about Protestantism. When we study ancient history or ancient anything it refers to a bare minimum of a thousand years ago. Protestant teachings are only a few hundred years old. Anything they believe that's older is still Catholic teaching.
@@carolinehicks9719 this is a bit of a straw man and simply not true. Yes the church was more united in structure before the east west schism and the protestant reformation, but that does not mean that nobody but the papal church can claim the early history of the church. Many claim it as their theological roots
God is infallible, he knew what he was doing when he gave peter the keys to the one and only universal church ⛪️... God bless our catholic apologetics
So, I’ve actually done the effort of watching this tedious interview; by far the poorest of all the Protestants that have been on the show.
I really liked how he even went as far as to criticize st. Vincent’s definition on the rule of faith.
I feel a genuine pity that he feels like a challenging hero, although he is a lone wolf, advocating ecclesiastical nihilism.
Whatever happened to “the fullness of the faith once delivered to the saints”?
Makes you want to cheer when people actually have the faith to “cross the Tiber”.
In order not to become a Catholic, he had to try very hard.
Terminal uniqueness.
Fullness of faith is just being Christian
Inventing new devotions Is a personal pursuit not an issue of faith
This video could also be entitled “ALMOST having faith in Christian doctrine without reservations and lots of qualifiers.”
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes Do place these articles of faith below adherence to phenomenology? Sorry if I missed it but it was a long interview, and I was left with the impression that you would change your beliefs if your experience changes. Is there an experience that would change your belief in the divinity of Christ? Is your belief in the divinity of Christ the result of your own experience or do you believe because of revelation?
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes He wasn’t mean. Sounds like he was trying to understand you.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes ok that makes more sense.
After going through this video and a few others of Dr Nemes, if I'm understanding him correctly, I don't see how his view wouldn't result in radical skepticism or relativism especially in the realm of theology.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes the best thing you did sir was not convert . Because we sure don’t need anymore heresy polluting the church.
@@jaybig360 Heeectic
One would hope that if he had converted he would've been given the gift of humility from the Holy Spirit
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm still trying to fully understand your position and it's implications, but from what I've gathered, you deny the possibility of infallible knowledge, you place a high epistemological value on experience, and you discourage using the categories of Orthodoxy/heresy. I think your view may give comfort to people struggling with their relationship with God, but I say your view seems to lead toward skepticism/relativism, esp in theology, because if I accept these things, I think we will lose the ability to do things like define what Christianity is very well, the ability to unify as Christians on a communal level, and the ability to have confidence in what knowledge we do have of God which may lead some to agnosticism.
So I guess my initial questions for you is how do you define Christianity, where do you get that definition, and wouldn't this denial of infallible knowledge extend to almost every area in life?
@YAJUN YUAN sure, particular Christian communities can come up with their unique definitions of Christianity. But would you then say that Christianity is whatever a particular Christian community says it is? If so, can each of those varying definitions from different communities all be true? Does Christianity have an objective definition? And if so, is that definition knowable?
Wow, I really wish Steve told us what he believed in instead of what he doesn’t believe in. Long and very complicated. I got lost.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes Hey, Catholics believe that, too! How do you know that the books of the bible are infact scripture and inspired by God?
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes well we certainly have that in common !
Ok brother please help me
I'm not saying you going to hell for that "being alone" nor i judge you for that
But I don't understand you
Just reading Bible, Church is visible with everything from liturgy to priesthood
Reading Church Father's Church is visible
Reading History, Church is visible
So how can you justify "being alone"
I know Jesus is there for you and love you
But why would Christ tell me be Catholic and you be alone
Tell me that Eucharist is real and to you that is a symbol or nothing
When He prayed for us to be One
And in Ephesians 4 we are "ordered" to be one
And we are not
And today we have gazillion personal Jesus's but Christ is only one
Did ever cross your mind that you could be wrong and wrong spirit guide you and Jesus Christ is whats matter not us or our opinions.
God bless
I'm sorry to say this.... But he sounded seriously CONFUSED..... Even sounds gibberish to me.... I'm waiting for a rebuttal to this confusion by Jimmy Akin & Trent Horn.... All the best..... What I found funny is that he is totally convinced of his confusion...👍👍👍
I will watch but have never been compelled by that philosophical school completely apart from any import it may or may not have on different streams of Christianity . It also seems to be a presupposition of the video that if Catholicism doesn’t pass some sort of phenomenological litmus test it must be rejected . Of course I will likely question this litmus test even if I were Protestant, orthodox
or Catholic. But I am intrigued
EDIT After Watching full video. Well this did remind me why the philosophical school of Phenomenology has never been compelling to me. I thought his answer to Austin's question at around 1:01 regarding - how can we have certainty Christ rose from the Dead (as opposed to how can we have certainty certain creeds such as the Athanasian Creed are true) was illustrative. He never answered that question. He did proceed to answer how under the phenomenological approach I can know I exist (we will grant that rather than going off on a tangent). He then thought it apparent that we can therefore know that God exists. But he doesn't really make an argument for that other than saying there must be something that has bestowed my life/existence on me and that something is God. Maybe he would get in greater depth in a video on his site but at first blush it seems a deeper argument would have to replicate some of the arguments of Classical Theism (which I assume he is quite critical of but who knows?) . So I am not even sure how he responds to an atheist. But let's go ahead and grant all that. It hardly follows then that this belief in God (by itself) also secures a belief with certainty that an actually existing human being 2000 years ago , died and then rose from the dead. Again, maybe he makes a much longer defense of Christianity on his channel. But the epistemic cracks (from his point of view) he sees in small "c" catholic Christianity would also seem to necessarily arise (again per his methodology) in the most basic claims of Christianity itself.
I also thought it was too bad that Austin didn't ask him the "4 questions". Maybe Austin just decided it had gone on too long. But one wonders how he would answer those - especially the last one.
I was a cradle Catholic, then I turned Protestant back in my early 20's, and have now gone back to Catholicism. I used to think that Protestantism was so much better but now I see it all as fluff. It's a bunch of pretty music and a lecture. In Catholicism the music a part of the service as well as the congregation. Plus, the Eucharist is by far the biggest reason why I will probably never leave again. The problems in the Catholic Church or It's theology is nowhere near as big as being a Protestant.
I understand where this man is coming from whether I agree with all his points or not. I think people in the comments need to give the grace they want to receive. Peace to you Mr. Nemes, I pray your peace on your journey.
I love that graceful insight sister: "people (brethren) need to give the grace they want to receive". Amen.
Another great and thought-provoking interview! I can totally relate to feeling theologically homeless but yet not disconnected from the Body of Christ. I definitely believe in being connected and committed to a local church and I am. I have just come to appreciate so much the perspectives of people from various theological backgrounds. Anyways, thanks for this, Austin!
AND you overlook the fact that Jesus Himself, having full and complete knowledge of languages, culture, future and past, nonetheless CHOSE words that definitively characterize the eucharist as his own flesh and blood. Having full command of language Jesus could have and would have used different words if He had wanted his meaning to be that his actions were symbolic. Yet he lost almost all his disciples over their literal understanding of his words as themselves being first person witnesses who understood his words in that vernacular, that culture that time that situation and that moment to mean His literal instruction to accept and eat his flesh and drink his blood in that eucharist. Did all of his disciples misunderstand him? If so why didnt he correct their misunderstanding instead of letting them walk away? Yet you, 2000 years later have decided to reinterpret that definitive moment for some personal agenda that ratifies your own little faith! Get real!
I just can't reconcile or i just couldn't hear Austin's appreciation yet to this fact:
He admitted on the course of his journey with Catholicism that he changed church attendance due to internal conflict (maybe doctrinal issues).
I agree with one of the comments. Catholic Church is the most complete/adequate faith at any given timeline over 2000 years. It has some imperfections due to OF course 'sin'. But just as Jesus said. It will never die.
Our separated Bros hurls human imperfections and capitalizes it to justify 'not being true'. But continuity, unity and growth for 2000 years is feat that protestant churches falls short.
The only protestant contender is the protestant as a whole. That is splinting and fracturing by the day.
Well, we only became “separated brethren” in the eyes of the post-Conciliar church. Prior to Paul IV’s ratification of the documents of Vatican II, we were anathematized according to Trent of 1546. Are we brethren, or damned? Which infallible statement is infallible? Vatican II was declared “magisterium” nearly a year ago, so that introduces MANY questions.
You are our brethren. If that's the case long long way ago, then I apologize. But right now and long before, i'm sure you are our Brothers.
Too many questions to Catholic Church, questions that may have been answered already. I am praying and hoping we as Catholic don't get tired to explain and defend our faith. Meaning more work for us. :)
Just wild thinking, what is the likelihood that Austin has burner account here in every comments section? I know if im in his shoes, I would be really tempted :).
Please don't grill me for this accusation. Cheers :)
@@KristiLEvans1
Jay Dyer is brilliant at picking that nonsense apart. But when Paul teaches to treat the repeatedly unrepentant heretic as “you treat the heathen”, that’s a BROAD range of potential treatments, as heathenism is as diverse as culture itself. Early Christians could get along with many friendly heathens for generations before making progress in convincing them to convert. If a heresy wasn’t particularly hateful, there’s not necessarily a reason to become hateful enemies upon parting, especially since Christ teaches us to “Love your enemies”.
@@eldermillennial8330 well, during the time of Trent (and before and after), the religion of the state was law. So, yes - today, we are ecumenists to varying degrees. ESPECIALLY as compared to the Middle Ages and prior.
Way too repetitive. I don’t find him very compelling. He just muddied the waters.
This is how almost all of Dr. Nemes's arguments go: You should remain protestant and think for yourself because I'm protestant and think for myself 🤣😂
So you don’t think people should think for themselves
@@duckymomo7935 Oh boy
watch his debate with Suan Sonna and see how poorly he did
his material on the Church fathers is even worse
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes
pleasure
@@MZONE991 see how quickest humility extinguishes the passions?
@@diegobarragan4904
what?
I was pointing how how quickly his humility Quenched the outburst of your passions.
@@diegobarragan4904
again, what?
This guy has since abandoned the Trinity
Did you notice that his philosophy is based on "I think" argument and he calls that "the truth". How does he know that what he thinks is THE TRUTH? Austin you hit it! Your guest is his own pope.
My dude… this was by far and away your worst guest. I’ve never heard someone more repetitive with such shallow sophistry. A disappointing but gratefully for this channel exceptionally rare “miss.”
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes this is harsh, but I don’t say it TO be harsh. This was a meandering, repetitive, and ultimately vacuous presentation. What I walk away with more than anything is sympathy with how your philosophical precommitments are crippling you.
You know them by their fruits. Your ecclesial “homelessness” that you lament is the natural fruit of your unmoored and (despite your protests) unavoidably relativistic epistemology. It isn’t an accident that that’s where you landed.
That’s powerful evidence that your epistemology is not the fruit of a good seed. Surely you don’t think this where Christ would have WANTED you to land.
Echo others that your epistemology, even if you can accommodate theism, cannot accommodate infallible beliefs into the nature of Christ or his identity with the Father.
But above all: watch this video. Do you think you were convincing? Or did you take three ideas and repeat them for an hour?
No man or woman has the autonomous right to say "I want to be Catholic or Orthodox or Protestant". We should not be the determining factor. We are called to submission and obedience not the liberty to do what "we" feel is the direction. What I'm trying to say is one did Jesus his Church. Two, if so then who and what is the church. After that sincerely historical evaluation we then have the responsibility to align ourselves with the Body of Believers. Historical I'd say the only two options is the Latin or Greek Church. This shouldn't be a personal bias, but a historical bias...one based on authority. Enough said, though from my personal studies the Reformation isn't justified, nor is the greek break. Study it for yourself. It's no doubt that Christ established his Church, maybe the question is where has heresy manifested itself. What are the heretical movements? Where is catholic orthodoxy to be found?
I'm listening very carefully to this video, and I'm not hearing what I'd call an argument.
To put it differently: There are various things Dr. Nemes asserts that every Catholic theologian or philosopher would grant, trivially. They don't see why these things imply that they shouldn't be Catholic. Dr. Nemes needs to provide an argument (stated sufficiently-clearly so as to allow on-point engagement and the possibility of refutation) that these Catholic theologians and philosophers have overlooked the implications of these ideas which they trivially stipulate.
Has he done so? I'm not hearing it.
The closest thing is his assertion that our conclusions drawn from phenomena can't be infallible. The term "infallible" here has one definition. He also says that Catholic theology (he says "Roman Catholic" but he's implicating Byzantine Catholics and Melkite Catholics and Syro-Malankaran Catholics in the same breath, so "Roman" is just overprecision on his part) rests on "infallibility."
Well, "infallibility" is used one way in his discussion of phenomenology, and a very different way in Catholic theology. It doesn't seem likely that what he says about conclusions drawn from experience is even ON THE SAME TOPIC as the judicial process through which God is presumed to exercise His guidance of the Church in Catholic ecclesiology. It sounds like Dr. Nemes is just equivocating, here...and that he doesn't know what the word "infallible" means in the context of Catholic Magisterial decisions.
Moreover, Dr. Nemes denies infallibility in the context of what human beings can conclude when operating within the limits of a human's natural powers. Well, the whole point of a supernatural charism is that it builds upon, without destroying, the powers that something has within its nature, to take it to levels beyond what its nature could achieve alone. And "infallibility" in Catholic theology has always and everywhere been described as an instance of "grace perfecting nature": That is: It is an example of God supernaturally helping us to achieve something that could not, even in principle, have been within our powers without His assistance.
What is it that God is presumably helping us to achieve, that could not otherwise BE achieved? Simple: A realistic, intellectually humble, and practically usable ability to identify and submit to the truths of Christian revelation. That is the purpose, the telos, of "infallibility" in the judicial sense of the term found in Catholic ecclesiology.
Without that supernatural gift, there just is no such thing as "knowing" what it is that Christ revealed to His apostles, which should make up the content of the Christian religion today. One could guess what it was; or one could be irrationally confident and claim, without adequate foundation, that one "knew." But it would be a claim without foundation PRECISELY for the reasons that Dr. Nemes cites when describing the fallibility of human conclusions drawn from experience. Multiply that observation of Dr. Nemes by millions of individuals and two thousand years of cultural shifts, and nobody can any longer have a principled basis claim that he knows what Christianity is...unless he has supernatural assistance.
What form of supernatural assistance?
Well, God could directly error-correct every human being's mind, or perhaps just the minds of the baptized, every time they wandered into error. But clearly, He has chosen not to do it that way (or history would look very different).
God could perhaps directly authorize a certain book, or collection of books, and empower it (them) such that any person engaging with their content in a reasoned and honestly-seeking fashion would automatically come to the same conclusions about all divisive topics. (This is often criticized as the dumb, straw-man version of the Sola Scriptura claim.) Obviously that doesn't work either, or there'd be exactly one Protestant view on everything.
There is the smarter version of the Sola Scriptura claim, given by folks like Gavin Ortlund, which allows some additional data from early Christian traditions and the patristic writers to moderate the individual's parsing of scripture. But this version, while more respectable, unavoidably reduces to "solo" Scriptura in practice, and for the very reasons given by Dr. Nemes: Even that larger data-set requires the user to selectively prioritize bits of data according to his own guesswork, and then (possibly) submit to an ecclesial authority whose conclusions agree with his own (if he can find one close enough). Well, that's a disguised version of "solo" Scriptura: "If I submit to an authority / only when I agree / then the name of the authority / to whom I submit, is ME." The plausibility of this version was ruled out as soon as what Dr. Ortlund calls the "magisterial reformers" all insisted that the right doctrine of communion was required for salvation, and yet disagreed about what it should be.
What, then?
Well, there's the Catholic idea.
The first part of the Catholic idea is that God simply hasn't told us all the truths there are to know, yet; but, that such truths as He has communicated to us are conveyed in a Sacred Tradition (including, but not limited to, liturgy and scripture) which, because of cultural shifts and changing mindsets and individual phenomenological fallibility, can provide a certain amount of unity around the truth. (Thus far, the Catholics agree with the non-Catholic Eastern/Oriental sacerdotal churches.) But the next part of the Catholic idea is that the unity to be found from merely interpreting (sometimes erroneously) the Sacred Tradition is not quite enough. So, God added a supernatural element wherein The Church can, at times, rule out certain misunderstandings of the Sacred Tradition, and affirm, against those misunderstandings, a more-precise (not necessarily perfectly-precise; only precise enough to avoid the errors Christ wants us to avoid TODAY) statement of the truths Christ wished us to know. AND, Christ did so in a fashion where the decisions are associated with objectively-identifiable individuals, so that any Tom, Dick or Harry knows whom to ask, if they want further clarification. (Q: "Where's the pope?" A: "Dude in Rome. Big ears, white outfit. Can't miss 'im.")
Three things follow from this:
1. The Catholic idea nowhere contradicts what Dr. Nemes asserts about human fallibility via phenomenological considerations. There's just no overlap.
2. The Catholic idea allows Christ to guide His Church in a fashion which is objectively identifiable in history, taking Christians who choose to follow it out of the subjectivity of their own minds and opinions and what they can "get" when acting on their own natural intellectual powers, pushing them to interact with persons asserting truths that they themselves are not yet (if ever) able to "get." This means they have practical access to a realm of objective truth otherwise inaccessible to them.
3. In the Catholic idea, humans retain the option of receiving or rejecting Christ's truth. They can first objectively IDENTIFY what it is, in a principled way; and then, they can still reject it. Other supernatural solutions would seem to require manipulation of human minds, which tends to override human freedom. The Catholic idea doesn't do that, not even for the pope.
In summary: I don't see that Dr. Nemes has provided a syllogism wherein his phenomenological observations contradict the Catholic Magisterium.
It seems to me, rather, that his observations are a good articulation of Part One of an argument FOR the Magisterium.
One more observation: In his argument against the Vincentian Canon, Dr. Nemes successfully reinforces all that I have stated above. For of course his argument shows that without some form of supernatural assistance, the dataset promoted by the Vincentian Canon is insufficient to identify (within human natural powers) the content of the Christian religion.
How much more, then, should we assert that, without some form of supernatural assistance, the SMALLER dataset of Scripture, (or, of Scripture plus some subset of patristics) is even MORE insufficient to identify (within human natural powers) the content of the Christian religion. Even worse, it would falsify an awful lot of what the Apostle Paul (!) or even Jesus in His human nature (!!!) asserts that we should believe and do. Note that Paul, and Christ in His humanity, had access to a far smaller dataset than we do....
Dr. Nemes does a good job of proving that, without some form of supernatural help, Christianity is unknowable: Lost in the mists of time. All we have today -- without some form of supernatural help -- can only be regarded as dubious "reconstructions" of whatever it was Christ "delivered once for all to the apostles."
Very well: Now that that's adequately settled, either we all agree to give up the whole pointless exercise and sleep in on Sunday Mornings; or...
...or, we presume that God, as a kindly Father, has granted us the supernatural help we need, in SOME form. And then we need to ask in which form He opted to grant it. If it isn't "the Catholic idea," then...what?
P.S. What Thomas Aquinas means by "inaccessible" is related to what Dr. Nemes calls "the domain of the inaccessible" only in the use of the same English word, "inaccessible." Catholic theology does not, in fact, operate from a representational metaphysics as described by Dr. Nemes. (Even Aquinas doesn't; but even if he did, Catholic theology is bigger than Aquinas and willing to correct him.) This seems to be another equivocation on Dr. Nemes' part.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes :
Thank you, Dr. Nemes, for your reply.
Irenaeus was right if his words are taken to narrowly apply to his own time and experience. But he was wildly (albeit understandably) wrong, if his words were intended to offer a working epistemology of Christian truth for all places and all times, including 2022 AD in the debauched post-Christian West, and 29,345 AD on Mars or Alpha Proxima III (should the Lord happen to tarry so long). He did not have the experience, in the year 180, to grasp the cultural drift between his era and the year 2022, including the differing trends in hermeneutics, epistemology, and the like.
It is in all such contexts that Christ intended His truth to be knowable with the kind of confidence permitting an honest seeker to take reasonable action. But it is in such contexts, including our own, that no epistemology lacking supernatural assistance can produce confidence which is both principled (not overconfident) and sufficient to make the daily living of the faith practical.
Please realize that, as a scholar, you are naturally apt to think otherwise: You can look things up on the Internet, amass a personal library without ruinous expense, and you have the kind of intellect to parse most of what you read...and it's your job. Moreover, as an academic, you may (possibly; but how can I know?) be prone to the usual intellectual overconfidence of academics. (Of the 100 most-wrong ideas of the last century, the one thing most of them have in common is you have to be an academic to take them seriously. We need academics; but their willingness to state their tenuous conclusions overconfidently is consistently a danger to society.)
Anyway, it's just-barely plausible that you, if you take a lifetime, poring over patristic sources in original languages and using the best lexical information and archaeo-sociological research, can piece together for yourself a coherent notion of the content of Christian revelation from the kinds of sources Irenaeus had in mind. Of course, the next 10 academics with access to the same sources and methods, who do the same, will come up with different-and-incompatible conclusions! ...but, okay, you go ahead and make your own reconstruction: You have that luxury, as a well-read academic with suffient time on your hands for such an exercise!
But knowing the content of revelation sufficiently-well to determine whether to baptize one's own newborn is not just the duty of academics like yourself. It was the duty of Christians in AD 105, and AD 185, and AD 425, and AD 925, and AD 1225. It's the duty of your plumber, your laundromat operator, your landscaper, your stockbroker. It's the duty of a Christian in Africa in daily fear of being abducted by Boko Haram.
How are any of those persons to know whether the Southern Baptists or the Russian Orthodox are right about infant baptism? Or whether he can remarry after divorcing from a Christian spouse? (Would it be adultery to do so? Would it matter if she'd gone crazy? Or committed adultery, herself? Or renounced Christianity?)
How will he know whether receiving communion while in a long-term state of conflict with a fellow churchgoer -- they disagree on what it means to "discern the body" in 1 Corinthians 11, and each calls the other a heretic -- might result in him getting sick, or dying? What is to happen when each gets tired of being called heretic by the other, and each independently decides to "take it to the Church," so that the Church will decide who is in the right (Matthew 18)? Which Church? Which persons in the Church? Suppose a married Christian woman thinks that artificial contraception is immoral, but her husband wants to use condoms. To whom will they go to resolve the issue?
Let us say he takes up reading the Bible: Good, right? Now he asks: "Is this inerrant? Is it divinely inspired? All books, or just some? What does inspiration or inerrancy mean? Is it literalistic? Do the texts alone give us sufficient data to know how to get saved? Whether any sin can result in our throwing our salvation away? Whether we can get it back thereafter, if we've done so? Are the texts sufficient in any other ways?" Getting official Christian answers, authoritative answers, to these questions will determine whether his faith and practice looks like Unitarian Universalism, liberal Episcopalianism, Rad-Trad Catholicism, Russian Orthodoxy, Southern Baptist conservatism, Independent Freewill Baptist fundamentalism, Holiness Pentecostalism, Mormonism, Seventh-Day Adventism, Open Theism, Liberation Theology, or something else. His outcome can vary AT LEAST that much...unless he gets real answers.
Christ, if He is God, has given us an Epistemology of Faith which makes the content of Christianity accessible if His epistemology is followed. And He is God, so the question is: What epistemology allows the plumber, the laundromat operator, etc. to have a principled knowledge of the truth?
I know you believe that the kinds of sources you've identified allow people to have a "sufficient gist." But the examples I just gave: Infant Baptism, Discerning the Body, Eating His Body and Drinking His Blood, Eating and Drinking Condemnation on Oneself, Church Discipline, Contraception, Remarriage After Divorce...Sorry! The complicated, nuanced issues are both quite practical and quite unavoidable...yet, the history of disputes and the questions of daily practice illustrate beyond doubt that the "gist" is not sufficient.
You could say that Christ gave us no such "official Epistemology of Faith," that what I'm asking for is something He never intended to provide. Very well: Then the Christ who prayed, "May they be one, Father, as Thou Father and I are one, that the world may see, and recognize that Thou has sent Me...," He who promised the Holy Spirit to lead us "into all truth," and whose apostle Paul commanded the early Church to "agree on everything" ...THAT Jesus neglected, in the end, to make it any of that possible. If Christ gave us no such Epistemology then He failed of His promises, and isn't God, and we can stay home on Sundays. (But, He is God. So...where's His Epistemology?)
Scripture may be "materially sufficient" in some theoretical way, but it is observably not practically sufficient, even for soteriology. Scripture-plus-Patristics is better, but still leaves room for hundreds of plausible reconstructions of the faith.
This is, I expect, one reason Christ gave us neither a not-yet-written book, nor the not-yet-born patristic writers, as our dataset for the Epistemology of Faith. He gave us instead a set of Authorized Men As Representatives, men whom Clement of Rome tells us "picked successors," and said to some of them, "What y'all bind on earth is bound in Heaven," and to one of them, "What you-singular bind on earth is bound in Heaven," and "if [a disputant] refuses to listen even to The Church, let him be as a heathen and a tax collector." And then, a promise of divine assistance to those authorized representatives: "Lo, I am with y'all always, even unto the end of the age."
Somehow, the Epistemology of Christian revelation must put THAT into practice, and in such a way as to make the plumber able to know whether to baptize his kid, remarry after his wife leaves, take communion or forebear, etc.
With respect: The natural methods you suggest aren't within several light-years of up to that task. (I once thought they were! ...so I get why you might initially think so. But then, I had to make some decisions that they couldn't cover. My circumstances forced me to face their practical insufficiency.)
Hence my response to the ideas you presented.
NOTE: I have respect for you as someone wrestling with all this, even if I think you aren't correct. All the best to you, and kudos for taking the risk of putting your ideas out there where nobodies like me can quibble with them!
In Christ, CW
@@cw-on-yt Amen Brother!
@@cw-on-yt excellent.
I’ve been watching several of your podcast. This has to be the most ridiculous one. I know you want to be neutral but you are way more smarter than this heretic!
People who join the Catholics should believe that Jesus started one Church with one set of believes and one way of true worship. God told the people of the old covenant every detail of how to worship and that is what he did in the new covenant as well. Paul tells we communion is a sign of agreement. If all people do is choose for themselves what is right then how would we trust the people that wrote the Bible.
Protestantism is just not compelling 🥱
Protestantism is too individualistic and modern. It is but a puddle before the vast oceans of Catholicism and Orthodoxy.
I'm 30 minutes in and I have to pull the ripchord and bail out. Maybe at Some point there will be mentioned an actionable objection to Catholicism, other than I let others think for me. Christ in the euchrist, confession, Christ founded this Church, are a few of the reasons I'll stick with Catholism.
Something I heard once from a Lutheran Pastor is that the Catholic Church turned away from scripture therefore it is them who split off from Christs church. I myself am currently “stuck in the hallway” as C.S. Lewis put it. Assuming it is possible for the Catholic Church to be wrong on doctrine, (something I’m sure all catholics deny) can you explain to me what seems to be a big contradiction regarding the sinlessness of Mary? Everything I’ve known as a Christian is just so shaken by that very notion. The whole point of the Old Testament and the life of Jesus was to show us that we are helpless without a savior and no one can live up to Gods standard on their own. I mean there are so many Bible verses that indicate this and throughout the whole New Testament I haven’t really seen anything that elevates Mary anywhere near being sinless.
@@aidanmcwhirter2612 Some teachings aren't easy, particularly from a protestant point of view where church tradition or the writings of the Church fathers are given no validity because they're not in the Bible.
The sinlessnes of Mary is important if it's the truth. Agreeing or disagreeing with that depends largely on one's understanding of scripture.
I'll do my best to be concise and on point.
In the gospel of Luke the "walk to Emmas" discloses the Saviors "bible study" method. Christ reveals to the two desciple how, starting with Moses, all the Scriptures (old test) related to the coming Messiah. Typology is a way of describing this way of looking at scripture, covenant theology is another way to describe it.
Mary is addresses by the Savior twice as "woman" in the new testament. Once at the wedding at Cana, the other from the cross.
Eve was only named by Adam after the fall. How was she addresses prior? "Woman". In typology the "anti-type" is always greater than the "type".
Example. Christ is the new Adam, but greater than Adam. Christ is the new Moses. but greater than Moses.
Protestants don't tend to view Mary through a topological lens, but 1st century Jews and the early church did.
Hope this gives you something to consider. Mary and the communion of saints are difficult for some to come to terms with. Good luck and God bless.
Jeff M
By saying that the Bible is the final authority you're actually placing yourself as authority over the Bible.
How strange he almost converted and now he disagrees with almost everything. 🤔🤔🤔
Final acceptance of Catholic truth requires absolute faith and humility. There are a lot of words here, but not much of those two requirements. Not surprised.
It seems to me that this line of thinking would eventually draw one away from ANY faith, either protestant, catholic or otherwise. I was hoping to hear how he fits revelation (scripture) into this line of thinking.
Imagine if the Jews in the old covenant didn’t have an authority established by God himself in Moses, priests, scribes etc. That would have been chaotic. Even Christ acknowledged their authority.
In the new covenant Christ himself established this authority. Because of that we have a bible for this gentleman to use.
Ah, so since Jesus himself acknowledged the authority of Moses, the priest and the scribes as a God-ordained authority, and we are to take this as a comparative example of the authority of the Catholic Church, it must stand to reason then that the Jewish theological leaders of Jesus' time were people He readily submitted to and followed as a magisterial system that maintains the truth?
@@Mic1904 preach
Pray for Dr Nemes. He appears so frustrated and lost and …angry. I think he’s on a dangerous road .
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes I’m sure you are frustrated by the comments. Keep praying on it. God bless you.
I wonder if the phenomenon you are experiencing is Exile. I'm a cradle Catholic revert, and it's not like I feel at home at mass or with other Catholics; I disagree with a lot of people on a lot of things because there is room for disagreement (Church doctrine is the safety rails but there's room between them).
I didn't rejoin the Church because I feel at home there (some days mass feels like heaven on earth, others its an obligation to fulfill); in fact, Catholic teaching has served as the reminder to NOT feel at home in this world, to remind me that I'm in exile from the Kingdom.
Edit: oh my goodness. Thinking for yourself is not what anyone means by being your own pope. You lost all my interest in continuing watching this interview claiming the Church is responsible for the splintering... you have a Pride to subdue. I'll be praying for you.
This dude just waxed on abstract philosophy for an hour and a half without giving any concrete reasons why he doesn't accept Catholicism. He strikes me as the type of guy who would fart into a wine glass just to enjoy his own bouquet.
I mean jokes aside he seems very smart but I can't shake serious relativist vibes from this talk.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes have you ever found a strong critique of your position in any RUclips comment? You seem to respond to many, which is impressive, but is it worth your time?
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes I'm willing to give it another listen. You lost me there for a while and I think many others...but I'm not a philosopher. And I like many of your other talks.
I bet this is one of those conversations which Austin mentioned interested him, but he thought that the audience would't like them. If you ask me, talk to whom ever you want. Austin, your interviewing skills are continually improving, and that is commendable! However, you have to be prepared for dislikes and criticism in the comments.
This man's theology is nothing but double speak. His criticism of catholic beliefs as being narrow is precisely the point of Christ's establishing a church! TO DEFINE WHAT WE BELIEVE! AND IF YOU DON'T THEN YOUR NOT A PART OF THE ONE AND ONLY CHURCH!.. that church is the catholic church!
@23:00--26:00 This attitude celebrating ecclesial homelessness and nobody having the Truth is antithetical to Christ and the Church he established in the Gospels and that we see develop in Acts. All throughout the NT we see calls for unity, authority, and moral and ecclesial correction. I'm very curious how Dr. Nemes reconciles his position with Matthew 18:15-20
And perhaps one reason academic theologians struggle to find an ecclesial tradition to"sign on to" is their own intellectual pride. Jesus calls us to obey God's commandments, not agree with them. Perhaps that's a big difference between the Catholic/Orthodox worldview and the Protestant one: the former emphasizes obedience and the latter agreement.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes I'm homeless as well. Is there a solution? Is there hope for unity?
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes I sincerely appreciate the reply. Can you answer this part of my post:
"I'm very curious how Dr. Nemes reconciles his position with Matthew 18:15-20."
--I am sincerely wondering your opinion on that passage, not just looking to quarrel.
It feels like Dr. Nemes is proposing a kind of post-protestantism here. I say this because I feel that his proposal doesn't give any scope for Sola-Scriptura. I feel it might even undermine the definitive authority of Sacred Scripture as believed by the Catholic Church and by all Christians in unison. Even the word "anathema" comes from Galatians 1:8 used in the very same sense that you reject: "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be under a curse!"
1 Timothy 6:3,4 "If any one teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching which accords with godliness,
he is puffed up with conceit, he knows nothing; he has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions,..."
1 John 4:6 "We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error."
2 John 7-11 "For many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.
Look to yourselves, that you may not lose what you have worked for, but may win a full reward. Any one who goes ahead and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God; he who abides in the doctrine has both the Father and the Son. If any one comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into the house or give him any greeting; for he who greets him shares his wicked work.
Orthodoxy and heresy, sticking to what is taught, right teaching and false teaching is all Scriptural. The Apostles clearly said, believe what we have taught and preached. They did not say you think for yourselves and come out with your judgment of reality.
What you said about Aristotle's concept of truth helps to reaffirm Catholic way of understanding doctrine. Truth is the correlation between an idea and a thing. What is this thing that we are talking about in Christian theology? Jesus Christ who came in the flesh, word made flesh. As a Christian living in 2022, how can my idea correlate to Jesus Christ who came in the flesh? Would it be through my subjective experience in prayer? Or my personal interpretation of Scripture? I suppose not. The only way my ideas can correlate with the reality of Jesus Christ who came in the flesh is given in 1 John 1:1-3. The Apostles saw, heard and touched Him. They had direct contact with the Reality. By having fellowship with them, we too have that. That is how we determine who is an orthodox father and who is not. Anything that is somehow disconnected with the Apostolic teaching and the Apostolic Churches is disconnected with Jesus Christ. That's why when dissension comes Paul appeals to the custom and to the Churches of God in 1 Corinthians 11:16 "If any one is disposed to be contentious, we recognize no other practice, nor do the churches of God."
The logic of the inaccessible. If you deny what Acquinas said then you are saying that revelation was not necessary. Do you mean to say that we could have known everything about God and salvation even without the help of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ? Mathew 13:35 "... I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world"
In trying to disprove Catholicism we may end up arguing against Christianity. If one were to ask Dr. Nemes, why does He believe in Jesus Christ or how did he come to believe in Jesus Christ, what would be his answer?
Our Lord’s miracles were not merely to solve some problems of the people He met. They were primarily signs pointing to His authenticity and authority from heaven.
Luke 11:20 “But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”
John 10:37, 38 “If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father."
John 20:30, 31 “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.”
Miracles were given precisely as signs so that we may believe that Jesus is the Son of God. When Moses threw his stick to make it a snake, other magicians did it too. But his snake swallowed them. So too Satan may try to copy God and perform false signs. That doesn’t invalidate the authentic signs that follow true believers. St. Paul has warned about that in 2 Thes 2:9, 10 “The coming of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be with all power and with pretended signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are to perish, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.”
When one listens to your whole presentation, one may come to the conclusion that there is truth. But it cannot be definitely known. Whatever I think today, I may change tomorrow. But there is no point in which I can arrive at the truth because there is further possibility that I may change my opinion. Is there a danger that this might lead to some kind of agnosticism?
As always, I appreciate that you look at things from so many different side. I was protestant for 30 years. I had looked at Protestant theology, went to church before it was a rock concert 😉, and thought I knew much more than I did. I find it interesting that the guest was drawn to Orthodoxy but it seemd like it was on his terms and in his zeal placed burdens upon himself as he guided his own spiritual life. So he ended up not experiencing Orthodoxy. What threw me off when we started to look into the history of the church, to prove Orthodoxy wrong, was that about 1100 years of Christianity was overlooked. Many wonderful protestant pastors who had gone to seminary and studied theology admitted that the 1100 year chunk of history was only focused on for a day or two during all their studies! (Maybe its better now?) That made us want to dig. We relied more on the ancient writings but noted that in the Ante-Nicene Fathers the translation said one thing but the translators would at times discredit the translation because it didn't support the protestant theology they believed.
Thank you again for keeping the conversation going!
I remember how shocking and absurd it was to read the Protestant book for teens, “Jesus Freaks”, that focuses on martyrs, and see that HUGE gap between 500 and 1550. But it started to make more sense why they did it when I read Charles Dickens’s “A Child’s History Of England” followed by GK Chesterton’s critique of it. Dickens, as a semi-HighChurch Anglican with a few Lowchurch impulses, got stuck trying to define where the ancient Church went wrong, and seemed to settle on arguing that, once the martyr era was over in England, any well known Saints should be suspect, because an ACTUAL Saint would avoid fame during peaceful times and would die in obscurity, known only to God. That many TRIED to do that but couldn’t always avoid risking becoming famous in order to help people who often happened to have big mouths somehow didn’t enter into his consideration. He applied an arbitrary prejudice retroactively that can easily be picked apart for its unfairness at the least scrutiny. MANY Protestant historians have been unable to get out of that trap, so tend to just skip that period, especially when teaching children.
Orthodoxy is really strange. Lots of bells and whistles, esigetical sermons, if you could even call it that, and tons of chanting. I get it feels spiritual and mystical, but I didn’t learn anything from it. You don’t learn the word of God from orthodoxy. Neither do you in mass. Strange stuff.
@@florida8953 Interesting that you would say that. The liturgy is jam packed with the word of God. It's also a fairly small part of Orthodoxy, which is a way of life, not just Sunday liturgy. There are daily readings from the gospels and epistles. I've learned a ton from Orthodoxy. It took me about 8 years to convert, but I had no intention of converting for most of that period; I was just looking for the truth.
Seriously, his arguments could just as well have been as an atheist trying to discredit all of Christianity. The scripture "always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" seems to ring true of truth in this case.
It seems Dr. Neves is promoting subjective truth vs objective truth or my truth vs what others perceive as truth. The writers of scripture certainly would not accept Dr. Nemes views. There were challenges to the Church teaching that were refuted by 1st Letter of John, Letters to the 7 Churches, and various writings of Paul among others. They all advocated an obedience to an understood objective truth.
I resonate with Dr Nemes on this. I've always felt the logic of catholicism was off in a "circularity of infallibly" sort of way, but never worked out how it was actually so. It depends on a consensus of experts when questioned about the validity of its doctrines. That is a logical fallacy. I remain there & try to do my best within it because it is a similar situation with different doctrines in other denominations that I've investigated. Great channel!
I am not a Catholic because of the theology, I am a Catholic because it is the truth and it is the truth that the apostolic fathers said and what they preached.
I love the Eucharist it is everything to me and it's only in his Bride , The Holy Roman Catholic Church. That's why the Enemy is always trying to destroy it by using people's personal preferences and the intellect. He's very sharp. That's why humility is so important and obedience. This is Church is the the way to heaven. It's the only way.
Your childlike faith is all that is needed. People overcomplicate things.
@@michellemcdermott2026 100% agree
How did you establish or reason your current position to be the truth?
@@Mic1904 with some assumptions like all people do.
My assumption wasn't that I alone had the truth.
My first assumption was that the early church knew better than modern day churches and definitely better than my own understanding.
My second assumption was that Jesus meant what he said when he prayed that the church will be guided into all truth. I didn't make this abstract and neither did the early church.
My third assumption (from Scripture I gained it) is that the church is Israel. In a way. As Israel is to be grafted into it.
(We who were once far off are now a nation - St Paul)
This made me study the Jewish roots of every Catholic practice. Which helped me drop some bias.
I didn't start out on my journey pro Catholic. I had a heavy anti-Catholic bias. But I read works like Against Heresies and immediately realized something. This church was not Protestant. That's it. I read the church fathers and knew that their way of worship resembled sacramental churches more. Things were holy to them. They had priests. They had the Eucharist. They believed in traditions and Scripture. I was still not Catholic. But I quickly lost my Baptist faith. Until I started seeing the papacy in rhe early church documents. And I don't mean just a reference here or there. I mean I saw it in a couple of church fathers. I saw it in Pope Agatho and Pope Leo, I saw it In Irenaeus etc. Besides this even if I wasn't going to become Catholic one thing was clear to me. The people inside this church who were martyred. These people were not Baptist, were not Lutheran, were not Anglican. They were one church. United under bishops who were united with each other.
But then after I became convicted that I should become Catholic. I also thought about something. It shouldn't be this hard. Either Catholicism is true or God doesn't really care what denomination we are from. And if Catholicism isn't true. It seems to me that things were way less murky when Israel had the faith.
But I believe it is providence that makes us such a big church. Even though we are unfaithful to God. He remains faithful to the church. One thing that surprised me as I read the first hand sourced is how everyone always praised the early church martyrs but never read their words.
It was as if when us Baptists spoke to atheists we were filled with so much confidence in the history of the ressurection but when it came to other practices we had some vague notion of the early church and basically became super skeptical. Extremely so.
I put down Against Heresies with tears in my eyes. I felt like a gnostic. Not because of their teachings but because I was so prideful. I knew better. No one could really teach me anything. But in the early church I saw submission to authority. In Israel there was submission to authority. Even if they were hypocrites.
As Our Lord told His disciples.
Do whatever they teach, but do not do what they do.
The final day I was any sort of Protestant was when I read the history of the Biblical canon. I realized although some churches had the true canon it took years to become a standard worldwide. And it took human action. And my heart was glad that every Catholic and Protestant worldwide is bound to at least some of that same canon. But this took many local councils in the the West. Was even a bit neglected in the East. But at Florence and finally at Trent. Universally bound forever upon the hearts of the faithful. That made sense to me. I wish my pastor told me the history of the Bible.
Besides these intellectual arguments I also read about the mystical saints of the church. Eucharistic miracles and relics etc
So I'm Catholic now, and after a year of debating my parents. So are they.
But they would not have become merely from my words. No there was war between us. They tried to "save" their poor son. So they did the right thing. They read prime sources. They came to the same conclusion. Without a PhD without being told by modern Protestant or Catholic apologists.
Nemes rejects the Deity of Christ and the Trinity, he discusses it on his blog.
I've slowly been drawn closer to Orthodoxy because learning more about it. Growing up no one I knew, knew anything about the Eastern church. Now that I have come to have some knowledge it's becoming easier to see the flaws in Protestantism and where it is going wrong. For me I feel like we've lost alot of the knowledge of our faith because of the Great Schism.
The Great Schism was the break between the Orthodox and Catholics. There's still a great deal of similairities w/ them though.
I can only speak for myself but I think this was the worst guest you ever had on I know you want different backgrounds and thought but I think we could of done with out this one I'm trying to be nice and I'll just leave it at that still like your channel
Agreed. And I’m Protestant. The vibe i got from this was that we can’t know anything
As an orthodox catechumen I don't want something that looks "traditional", I want the church of the early church Fathers and that's not a church of Baptist pastors. I don't think Steve really grasps why ppl leave even though he should, it's called the historical epistemology of the church which has come thru apostolic succession anything else is FALSE EPISTEMOLOGY including papal authority as there wasn't 1 apostle Peter there were 12.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes
Whether they did or didn't look orthodox is somewhat irrelevant and avoids addressing the problem of epistemology and being led into ALL TRUTHS. There is only one historical way that happened and that is through apostolic succession without that all church "truths" (to which protestantism has very little agreed upon essential truths) are dead on arrival. But I thank you for the privilege and honor of responding to someone as lowly as myself. As someone who attends the Romanian orthodox church I do hope you come back to the church founded by the apostle Andrew. Forgive me if I have come across too strong and not with grace as well. Thank you brother for conversing with me.
Doamne milueste
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes
Then all churches are false and we cannot recognize any doctrine that has formed since the time of the apostles onwards. If you want to take such a very wooden view of that verse, not to mention that there isn't any view of that interpretation in the early church obviously. Gob bless friend.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes
As for your understanding of apostolic succession I don't think you quite understand what it means or maybe you are being a bit naive on purpose? Irenaeus has a good description of it IIRC and likens it to the sun i.e. that it is looks the same when viewed around the world everywhere.
Anyway I thank you for the conversation hopefully it has piqued our curiosity a bit more further to the matter of truth.
@@ThruTheUnknown dacă ești român, știi că povestea cu Andrei datează de la începutul sec. XX.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes
Also I would encourage you to contemplate how protestants can arrive at any notion of concrete truth (sure some passages are clear but many definitely are not) without what the early church had in terms of apostolic succession, something which you do not seem to have provided yet.
If no one church has all the truth and Jesus set up a church then Jesus would be a false prophet. He said he would give her the Holy Spirit and the Spirit would guide her through all truth. If you and me disagree or a church down the street disagrees with both of us who has the truth. We are promised all truth by the Spirit. This church would also be built on Peter. Some of what Protestant teach is not so easily found or found at all in the Bible. Sola scriptoria is not found in the Bible.
I don’t know why this guy is a Christian at all because he basically says you believe what you and we can’t know truth.
Good luck on founding your 70,001 new no protestant but christian church Dr. Steven! Im out of course😂.
Ok someone tell me, I’ve watched 20 minutes and I feel like he keeps talking about ‘the reasons protestants are drawn to Catholicism’ does he ever get more specific??? I don’t want to listen to an hour and a half and not get anything
The name of the channel is Gospel "Simplicity" buy I find this particular topic too complicated. How many Christians are there in the world? How many would actually understand this? I would appreciate it if someone really did a research on this.
Funny how he accuses catholic theology of something he himself is upholding. The Church says God reveals himself to us, a Revelation we can’t attain by our own means. This gentleman agrees with Onfray that God breathes life into us or ‘engenders us in His Life’ and we cannot attain this by our own means (see 1:05:09), ‘there’s nothing I can do to secure a moment of life’s more…’
He adds that we are fundamentally passive in regards to the life we are given by God… well, doesn’t that sound like what St. Thomas Aquinas said about the Revelation of God? All he argues is that men can never obtain salvation by their own means, by their own philosophy or knowledge, but rather, that their knowledge should help them into submitting to God’s Revelation (Philosophia ancilla Theologiae). As to the other arguments, they caricature catholic theology. If it was what this gentleman claims it is, I certainly would get a good laugh at Catholicism. However, it is very unjustly misrepresented here. I could counter his fallacies and omissions philosophically, even phenomenologically, but that would make far too long of a comment for a meh RUclips video.
”If I am doing a phenomonology of X, then I am asking the question ”what is X?” and I answer that question by describing as far as is possible the essential structures of X as it is disclosed in expreience, so I turn to the experience of X in order to answer the question of what X is, so the answer to what X is is going to be a description of how X is experienced and especially the essential structures of being experienced of X”.
-Alright, I think that’s very helpful for people.
😖😖
My advice to anyone confused as to where to go is to devote plenty of time to simple prayer, avoiding too much theorising and intellectualising. Ask God to show you the way.
Amen.
Good job on the clickbait thumbnail pic "The Fatal Flaw of Catholicism?"
It did its job, I thought I might find something real to consider. But, I didn't find an original argument against Catholicism.
Dr. Nemes, your ecclesiastical homelessness is reminiscent of the children of military personnel or missionaries who have a foot in two worlds. It can be a real gift to others if you can use your experience wisely. I think eventually, though, that person is better off with a place to call home. You might have already found such a place. Thanks for sharing.
I don't care for the ads, actually I appreaciate you are getting support and showing products/services you believe! That being said, placing them *just after* your question breaks a bit the rhythm, not contributing to the experience of the viewer.
Keep up the good work, great video :)
Hi Austin, I tend to find with most of your guests (including some Catholics guests), that the conversation and the guests propositions revolve to much on the rational side, and I don’t mean of offend your guests but It seems that the aspect of faith and virtue it’s missing. In the case of Dr. Steven Nemes, his proposals are very relativistic and trying to find truth (in the field of faith) from a rational point of view and the scientific method does not work and therefore it seems that uncertainty governs him, and in a certain way it could undermine the concept of faith itself. When talking about saints, people focus to much on what theology they wrote down, instead of how God manifested through them and how this impacted people’s spiritual life. That’s why I love Padre Pio, he wasn’t much of a theologian but a simple man, and God used him and manifested through him, changing thousands of people that knew him and millions of people that found him, leading them to conversion.
@“Words of Life” with Dr. Steven Nemes The only reason I mentioned saints it's because you did reference them in the video. I never said that saints prove Catholicism and I never said that weren't any saintly ppl that belong to other religions, there are lots of saintly ppl in the world but only some of them are called to be world class saints (and applies not only to Catholic saints). Why is Padre Pio so special? because he was, and I like him, that’s a personal preference. Anyway, my comments weren’t meant to offend you, and maybe I misrepresented your points of view, but I had to be honest and say what I perceived from it. I wish you the best and I pray for your journey to lead you into the truth, and I ask for your prayers for my journey to lead me into the truth as well.
You have provided no definitive proof to invalidate transsubstantiation. But you have bent over backwards over and over to construe church fathers and scripture in a way that suits you. You have chosen to disavow the Real Presence, which is your right. But your hard labor devoted to invalidating the Real Presence to others is unwarranted and misspent effort. It seems to be yourself you are trying to convince.
There was a place where the discussion was about our reality changes over time but this isn’t true of God.
God is constant and true. He doesn’t change.
You can read the writing of the Apostles, Church Fathers, Saints through the ages for almost 2000 years and God is unchanged and true.
If you have no foundation except yourself, Joseph Smith is as correct as Luther or your opinion in interpretation of theology.
(Happy Protestant 47 years, Happy Orthodox 27 years)
When he mentioned Romanian, I immediately thought of Maria Coman. Great Orthodox hymns with a very gifted (thanks be to God) voice.
“A calling to make something new” lol