The Catholic St. Augustine: Refuting Gavin Ortlund II

This second video examines more errors from Dr. Ortlund on St. Augustine and shows that St. Augustine did NOT hold to Sola Scriptura. This will be a LONGER examination than the previous one and will NOT be a show you want to miss!

[danielcarriere]

Just found this. Pretty massive takedown of Orylund at 41:33. Nicely done.

[Mkvine]

To me it doesn’t really matter how “nice” Dr. Ortlund is, at the end of the day he’s trying to refute Catholicism - in a “nice” way. I’m glad William is taking him to task on the fathers and holding his feet to the fire.

[lilwaynesworld]

Gavin Ortlund’s next video why John the Baptist was the first Baptist 😆

[TheJason]

Ortlund: "Cites" Augustine as a defender of Sola Scriptura.

Augustine: Lists the Deuterocanonical books as Sacred Scripture.

Ortlund: Rejects the Deuterocanon.

"Inconsistency is a sign of a failed worldview."

[MrJohnmartin]

There are very many problems with SS. By Dr Ortlund attempting to find support for SS in Augustine he is making Augustine sound incompetent. For Augustine must also hold to the same incoherent theory Ortlund believes, which makes Dr Ortlund's appeal to the Fathers an incompetent witness to an incoherent theory. SS is a tragic mistake.



For Dr Ortland's case for SS to stand he must first demonstrate SS from the text without any circular reasoning about the authority of the text. But to appeal to the text as the sole infallible rule of faith is to assume the text is alone an infallible authority written by God. Rest assured the text never claims infallibility, or any exclusive authority, or the only form of divine revelation inspired by God, nor provide any solid definition of what inspiration means. Any appeal to only the text to establish the texts authority must involve either unsound or unfounded premises, and circular reasoning, making any SS claim illogical.



If Dr Ortlund wishes to appeal to an external authority from the text to establish SS he is appealing to an external witness with authority for matters of faith. The external authority is not established by the text itself, making the external authority a fallible, non inspired and unsound opinion without merit.



SS cannot be defended, making the Protestant reformation one of the greatest catastrophes in human history. Jesus gave humanity a Church and the church of history is the Catholic church. The same church St Paul calls the pillar and foundation of the truth and Mathew grants the power to bind and loose, with such powers used by the Church in church councils and Papal declarations.


The problems with Protestant theology are insurmountable, making each part of the theological edifice problematic and the entire scheme an impossible burden to bear. SS has no infallible authority to determine the canon, so the adherent of SS must always live in fear or indifference to any claims or counter claims that may arise which demonstrate some part of the text is in error making the SS claim of infallibility false. The non demonstrable nature of an infallible, inspired text means the text is always subject to the inductive method which can and has been used by many scholars to cast doubt on the truth of many texts. Dr Ortland's position is subject to such problems which are not resolvable in this life without reference to an infallible authority to determine the canon.

[MrWoaaaaah]

Maybe this is just my English sensibilities William, but maybe a better approach is keeping the video shorter, don't even mention the personal things, and just present the academic points?

[systemdown]

Burning passion! good job Brother! God bless!

[stooch]

He approaches St. Augustine’s writings like he does the Bible: he finds proof texts and quotes them. The full context gets ignored and then dismissed when raised.

Then…to play the victim for simply being told the truth is a sly trick.

Keep up the great work, William.

[timboslice]

I like to use Augustine's view of infant baptism as the real deal breaker for sola scriptura. His reasoning is that youncan trust the tradition of the church when there is an absense of a doctrine in scripture. Think about whatever your view is on infant baptism, now imagine that view is dead wrong just just a second. Its clearly a life or death salvation issue and augustine is putting 100% faith that the church's tradition got that one right. Impossible for him to be a sola scripturist!

[takmaps]

Is it mean for Dr Ortlund to liken veneration of relics to mere superstition? (if he indeed said this)... I think it's deeply insulting to Catholics and to the power of God and maybe even blasphemous.

[juancrusader]

This is the same william who defended the Trinitarian faith w/shamounian against like 5 muslims for 4 hours. ive been a supporter since before i became catholic and i am sorry Gavin you have a long way to go before you get the same amount of respect william has in apologetics. ur a scholar but william has defended the faith against the best and does so with passion. i dont think u would survive the kinds of debates he has had. so telling ppl he was mean to u might rally ur troops but ppl know william

[bazzy]

I've never understood these apologists treating Gavin like he's a saint. He deleted one of my comments on his site, just because it was true.

[stevenstuart]

Ortlund's presentations (the one's I've seen online) are simplistic, one-dimensional, and unserious. All this banter about his "niceness" notwithstanding, it sounds like the typical content I got in my undergrad studies from my Church history prof who was also a Baptist. It impresses only insofar as people are unread as far as I can tell.

That doesn't mean he shouldn't be respected and answered strongly. I cringe at the notion that one's arguments have to be defanged and declawed. We must present with charity, but there is no charity in toning down Catholic claims or not calling out falsehood.

[Narikku]

I'm 25 Minutes in, I have not heard a single point that actually addresses the content.

I'd like to agree with you, but I don't know why I should.

[matthewbroderick]

Dr. Ortlund, not able to actually deal with the rest of the writings of Saint Augustine that refute Scripture alone, then goes on to say William was mean, rather than acknowledging William Albrecht was right! Plus, William wasn't mean, as William called Dr. Ortlund a nice person! William was just being honest in confirming the insincere motives of Dr. Ortlund in leaving out the complete writings of Saint Augustine! Keep up the GOD work William against those Anti Catholic videos who bear false witness against her, and who misrepresent the Church Fathers! Peace always in Jesus Christ our Great and Kind God and Savior, He whose Flesh is true food and Blood true drink

[TonyEspana]

Gavin maybe you can ask St Augustine to pray for you 😀☦️🙏🏼.

[markrome]

Trying to paint the Church Fathers as proto-Protestant to me is nothing more than religious appropriation. The Church Fathers were all Catholic and we need to resist those who want to make them out to be anything other than Catholic. Keep up the good work of defending the faith.

[Daniel_Abraham]

Can you do a video on Dr. Steven Nemes?

[jhonayo]

I'm on the path to Eastern Orthodoxy but you are doing God's work by refuting these false claims by Protestants

[KingJoeCB]

Even if "plenary" doesn't necessarily mean ecumenical in every context, it clearly does mean ecumenical in Augustine's quote. In the sentence immediately before, Augustine mentions regional councils in order to contrast them with the councils he calls plenary and "of the whole world." And even if Augustine had the wrong idea about which councils were ecumenical, it still shows that he did not conceive of a type of council which was infallible.