Answering Cleave to Antiquity: Is There an Infallible Rule Outside Scripture?

Ben, who runs the Cleave to Antiquity channel, and Kelly Powers, who runs Berean Perspective, held a live debate on Modern-Day Debate. Ben belongs to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Kelly is a Protestant. The question was: "Is there an infallible rule of faith outside Scripture?" Ben said yes. Kelly said no.

"Infallible" means "cannot be wrong." A "rule of faith" is the final standard Christians use to decide what is true. So the question is this: besides the Bible, is there anything God protects from ever being wrong, so that Christians must believe whatever it says? Ben said yes: the Orthodox Church, mainly through its great church councils. Kelly said no: only the Bible is like that.

This article answers Ben's claims one at a time, in the same order as in the video. Each heading shows the time in the stream where the claim starts. The words in the quote boxes are Ben's own words from the video captions. Small changes: stammers and "uh" are taken out, "..." means words were skipped, and words in [brackets] are added to make the meaning clear or to fix a caption mistake. Bible verses are from the King James Version (KJV). Under each answer, a Sources box gives the quotes and links behind it.

Part 1 — Ben's Opening Speech

It would be impossible for there not to be

Response: Ben did not just say an infallible church is likely. Ben said the Bible makes it impossible for there to be none, and said it again at 13:12. That is a very big claim. To prove it, Ben needed a verse where God promises that the church's leaders after the apostles, acting together, will never teach error. As this article shows, none of the verses Ben used say that.

Think about Israel. For hundreds of years Israel had the Scriptures but no leader who could never be wrong. Jesus still blamed people for not understanding the Scriptures: "Have ye not read...?" (Matthew 12:3). He told the Sadducees, "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures" (Matthew 22:29). Jesus expected people to understand the Bible without an infallible teacher.

God promised his church that he would not leave us as orphans

Response: Read what Jesus actually promises in John 14:

he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth... for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless

John 14:16–18KJV

The cure for being an orphan is the Holy Spirit living in us. This promise says nothing about councils.

Every true Christian has this Spirit:

if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his

Romans 8:9KJV

John says:

the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you

1 John 2:27KJV

Kelly made this point at 1:28:13: the Holy Spirit leads all Christians, not just church leaders.

There is one promise in this chapter about teaching without error. It is for the apostles:

he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you

John 14:26KJV

Jesus was speaking to the apostles, who had heard him say those things, so they could be "reminded" of them. That promise came true when they preached and wrote the New Testament. John 14 says nothing about bishops or councils after them.

No objective mechanism of interpretation

Response: That is not what Kelly believes, and it is not what Protestants believe. Kelly said the Holy Spirit guides Christians, that the church has teachers and councils, and that the Bible is the final judge over all of them (15:12, 27:40, 36:10, 2:11:32). Protestants have the Spirit, the Bible, and teachers (Ephesians 4:11). That is what the churches in the apostles' time had.

Ben's "mechanism" also has to be understood by someone. Which councils count? What do their words mean? Which church is the true one? Anyone who chooses the Orthodox Church answers these questions by reading, praying and deciding for themselves. Ben did exactly this when leaving Protestant ministry to become Orthodox (1:56:53, 2:11:58). Kelly pointed this out at 1:29:38. So Ben's system does not get rid of personal judgment. It just moves it one step back.

People "will twist the scripture" (2 Peter 3)

Response: The words about twisting are in verse 16, at the end of a sentence that starts in verse 15. They do not help Ben. Look at three things:

1. Peter says "some things" in Paul's letters are "hard to be understood." Some, not all.
2. Peter says who twists them: "they that are unlearned and unstable." The problem is the reader, not the Bible.
3. Peter's answer is not "go ask a council." He tells ordinary Christians: "beware lest ye also... fall from your own stedfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord" (3:17–18).

Also, people twisted Scripture while the apostles were still alive. Ben says the apostles could teach without error. So even with infallible teachers around, people still twisted the Bible. Twisting today does not prove we need an infallible teacher.

Protestants disagree about baptism and the Lord's Supper

Response: Three answers.

1. Churches that claim to be infallible also disagree. The Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Oriental Orthodox churches (Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian and others) all claim to be the one true church that cannot be wrong. They disagree with each other about the pope, the Holy Spirit, purgatory, Mary, and which books are in the Bible. Claiming to be infallible has not made them agree.
2. The Orthodox disagree with each other. In 2018 the Russian Orthodox Church cut off fellowship with the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the split is still there. In 1755 the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria and Jerusalem ruled that people joining from the Roman Catholic Church must be baptized again. The Russian Church did not, and Orthodox churches still do this differently today. In America, several Orthodox groups have their own bishops in the same city. Ben even admitted "leeway in regional practice" (2:07:01) and "different deuterocanonical lists" (1:19:17), meaning different lists of extra Bible books.
3. Christians disagreed even when the apostles were alive. Corinth split into groups (1 Corinthians 1:12). The Galatians were turning to "another gospel" (Galatians 1:6). Paul did not say the problem was the Bible. He said, "there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest" (1 Corinthians 11:19).

Ben got part of one example wrong. At 8:20 Ben said, "The 39 article states that it's not only a sign. It is a sacrament. It is literally Christ's body and blood." The first part is right: the Anglican Article 28 says the Lord's Supper is "not only a sign" but "a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death." The last part is wrong. Article 28 says the bread does not turn into Christ's body, and that "The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner." So "literally" is wrong. Ben's wider point still stands: Baptists, Lutherans and Anglicans do disagree about the Supper. Ben's quotes on baptism were right. The Baptist statement was read correctly, and so was Anglican Article 27. And the Lutheran words about the Anabaptists are real: the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article IX, which is part of the Lutheran Book of Concord, calls them "the wicked and seditious faction of these robbers" (older Triglot translation; the Concordia translation says "rebellious").

Under the Protestant paradigm... there is no objective mechanism

Response: Sola scriptura means "Scripture alone": the Bible is the only rule that cannot be wrong. And the written Bible is objective. Its words do not change. Anyone can check them. Their meaning does not depend on the reader. That is why the Bereans could check even an apostle against it (Acts 17:11), and why Jesus answered Satan with "It is written" (Matthew 4:4).

A council's decision is also written words that people have to read. If the Bible needs an infallible interpreter to be objective, then the council's words need one too. Then that interpreter's words need another one, and it never ends (see the answer at 1:44:47).

The church is the pillar and ground of the truth

Response: The verse says:

that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth

1 Timothy 3:15KJV

Paul is telling Timothy how to act in the church at Ephesus. A pillar holds something up so people can see it. It did not make what it holds. The church holds up the truth by preaching it. The next verse tells us what that truth is: the message about Christ (3:16).

The verse does not say the church cannot be wrong. In fact, that same church at Ephesus was later warned that God might take away its lampstand (Revelation 2:5). Paul had told its leaders:

after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you... Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things

Acts 20:29–30KJV

He did not tell them they could never be wrong. He gave them "to God, and to the word of his grace" (Acts 20:32). Kelly brought up Acts 20 at 35:18.

Also, "truth is objective" does not mean "the person who teaches it can never be wrong." A math teacher teaches that 1 + 1 = 2. The teacher is not infallible, but what he teaches is true. Truth is true because God said it, not because the person repeating it can never make a mistake.

Christ's body cannot be divided

Response: Colossians 1:13 says, "Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son." It is not about division at all. Ben probably meant 1 Corinthians 1:13, "Is Christ divided?"

But look at who Paul is asking. He is writing to a church that was split into groups, and he still calls it "the church of God which is at Corinth" (1 Corinthians 1:2). Ben agreed at 2:02:46 that those Christians were still in the church. So Christians can be split on the outside and still be part of the one body. That is why Paul says to "keep the unity of the Spirit" (Ephesians 4:3). God gives the unity. We protect it.

If outward splits proved a group is not Christ's body, that would hit the Orthodox too. They have been divided from Rome since 1054 and from the Oriental churches since 451, and Moscow broke with Constantinople in 2018. Ben would answer that those who split away are no longer part of the body, so the body itself stays one. But every side says that about the others. Outward splits cannot by themselves show which group is the body.

"One faith" needs a mechanism that cannot be wrong

Response: The "one faith" is "the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3). It was given once, by the apostles, and we have it in writing. The same chapter of Ephesians says Christ gave teachers so that we would not be "children, tossed to and fro" (4:11–14). It does not say he gave a council that cannot be wrong.

Ben said not every decision is infallible. So which ones are? Ben said "usually," "typically," the big councils (47:19, 1:04:59). But big councils have contradicted each other:

• In 754, 338 bishops met at Hieria and called their meeting the Seventh Ecumenical (worldwide) Council. They banned icons. In 787 another council reversed them.
• In 449 a council at Ephesus was called as a worldwide council. It was later rejected as the "Robber Council."
• In 1439, Eastern bishops signed a union with Rome at Florence. The East later rejected it.

The Orthodox answer is that a true council is known when the whole church receives it, and that the councils of 449 and 754 were not received. But then no one can know, while a council meets or for years after, whether its decision binds them. In the Byzantine Empire, Hieria's ruling stood for over thirty years, until 787. So the "infallible" label can only be known after the fact.

The keys: Matthew 16:19 and 18:18

Response: "Binding and loosing" means saying what is forbidden and what is allowed. In Matthew 18 it is about church discipline: "tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican" (18:17). Then Jesus says, "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (18:20). Kelly pointed out at 52:08 that the passage says "church," not "bishops."

Neither passage says that whoever has the keys can never be wrong. Soon after Jesus promised Peter the keys ("I will give unto thee the keys," 16:19), Jesus said to him, "Get thee behind me, Satan" (16:23). Later Paul corrected Peter for how he acted (Galatians 2:11). Ben agrees a single bishop can be wrong. But neither passage says that a group of leaders after the apostles will be kept from error. And neither passage says anything about passing the keys on to others.

Matthias shows the apostles had successors

Response: Acts 1 actually shows the apostles could not keep being replaced. Look at what was required: the new apostle had to be one of the men who had been with Jesus "Beginning from the baptism of John," and who saw him risen, to "be a witness with us of his resurrection" (Acts 1:21–22). After that first generation died, nobody could meet that rule.

Judas was replaced because he turned against Jesus and because Scripture said so (Acts 1:20, Psalm 109:8). There had to be twelve apostles, whose names are on the twelve foundations of the heavenly city (Revelation 21:14). But when the apostle James was killed (Acts 12:2), nobody replaced him. Paul put himself at the end of the list of witnesses who saw the risen Lord: "last of all he was seen of me also" (1 Corinthians 15:8).

Acts 1:20 calls Judas's place "his bishoprick," and Orthodox readers see bishops there. But the Greek word simply means a job of oversight. The same passage calls it "this ministry and apostleship" (1:25), and it was open only to eyewitnesses (1:21–22).

The church is "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets" (Ephesians 2:20). You only lay a foundation once.

The judges in Deuteronomy 17

Response: Deuteronomy 17 tells Israel to bring hard court cases to the priests and the judge, and to do "according to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee" (17:11). It is a court applying God's law. It is not a promise that the priests can never be wrong about God.

Ben used Deuteronomy 17 as a picture of succession, and it does speak of a lasting office: "the judge that shall be in those days" (17:9). But that line of leaders was not kept from error. Israel's priests often were wrong. God told them, "ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law" (Malachi 2:8). And the high priest and the Jewish council, the highest leaders in that line, condemned Jesus to death. So the Old Testament picture is of a real authority that could still go badly wrong. Ben came back to this at 2:43:46.

Where does the scripture say that this is ceased?

Response: This turns the debate upside down. Ben is the one saying the infallible authority keeps going after the apostles. So Ben has to show a promise that it keeps going. The Bible points the other way: an apostle had to be an eyewitness of the risen Jesus (Acts 1:22, 1 Corinthians 9:1), the foundation was laid once (Ephesians 2:20), and the faith was given "once" (Jude 3).

Ben also admitted that something did stop. Ben said bishops today do not "issue new divine revelation" (at 58:06, 1:00:38). No verse says in so many words, "New revelation will stop." Ben believes it stopped anyway. Ben even said the councils are not "coming up with something new" but are "defending the faith once delivered" (at 1:46:22), the words of Jude 3. That is the same sign given above for the end of the apostles' authority. So by Ben's own thinking, "Show me the verse where it stopped" is not a fair test.

The Jerusalem Council is "the same exact process"

Response: It is not the same, because the apostles were there in person. Their decision was written down by Luke as part of the Bible. It was sent out as a letter from "the apostles and elders, with the whole church" (Acts 15:22). And it was based on Scripture: "to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written" (15:15).

The letter says, "it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us" (15:28), and Orthodox readers point to those words. But saying them does not make a later council certain. The Acts 15 decision is known to be without error because it is in the Bible.

Later councils had no apostles, and what they wrote is not Bible. Ben agreed that bishops do not bring new revelation (at 58:06). So later councils do not have what made Acts 15 special. Acts 15 actually shows what a good council does: it tests the question against the Scriptures (15:15–17). That is what Protestants ask councils to do today.

When did the apostles cease ordaining successors?

Response: After Matthias, the Bible never shows the apostles making anyone else an apostle. It shows them choosing elders: "when they had ordained them elders in every church" (Acts 14:23); "ordain elders in every city" (Titus 1:5). In Titus 1:5–7, "elder" and "bishop" are the same job. Peter even called himself "also an elder" (1 Peter 5:1). The job of elder goes on. The job of apostle, which needed an eyewitness, does not.

An Orthodox reader will point out that Paul gave Timothy and Titus charge over elders (Titus 1:5; 1 Timothy 5:19, 22) and see the first bishops in them. But Paul told Timothy, "Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine" (1 Timothy 4:16). He never says Timothy, Titus or the men after them could not be wrong.

Or else the scripture itself lied

Response: Ben gives only two choices, but there is a third. The Bible would only have "lied" if it promised an infallible church after the apostles, and Ben has not shown that it did. God keeps his promises through the Holy Spirit in believers (John 14:16–17), through his Word, which makes the man of God "throughly furnished," fully equipped (2 Timothy 3:15–17), and through teachers who are checked by that Word (Acts 17:11, Galatians 1:8). If councils can make mistakes, the Bible has not lied about anything.

Part 2 — Ben Questions Kelly

The apostles could teach without error: "When did that capability stop?"

Response: Kelly did answer. At 30:28 Kelly said it ended when the apostles died. At 30:53 Kelly gave the reason: Jesus called the apostles himself, and he did not make everyone an apostle. The Bible shows this. Apostles were chosen by Jesus and saw him alive after he rose (Acts 1:21–22, 1 Corinthians 9:1). When the last eyewitness died, there was no one left who could fill that job.

And Ben believes part of what the apostles had did not pass on. Each apostle could teach without error, but Ben said single bishops can be wrong (47:55, 1:04:59), and that nobody today gives "new divine revelation" (at 58:06). No verse says in so many words that those things would stop. So Ben's question works against Ben's own view too.

Was that council infallible in Acts 15?

Response: Kelly's answer here was not clear, but it was not a contradiction. Kelly said the council "wasn't infallible in the sense that everybody who was a Christian is infallible" (at 32:41), and that nothing says "it was an infallible council as you believe it" (at 34:01). But Kelly also said its decision was led by the Holy Spirit and was "true and accurate" (33:22, 34:05). The clearer answer is this: the Jerusalem Council's letter is in the Bible, so it is without error, and Christians cannot reject it. That does not mean later councils without apostles have the same power (see the answer at 12:17).

How can it uphold objective truth in a fallible way?

Response: See the answer at 9:12. Someone who can make mistakes can still tell the truth. The church holds up the truth when it preaches the gospel faithfully. Kelly said this at 35:43: "They're supposed to be out there preaching the truth. Doesn't mean that they're going to be infallibly without error all the time." Acts 20:29–30 shows that the very church in 1 Timothy 3:15 could have false teachers rise up from its own leaders.

The Bible doesn't interpret itself

Response: Ben uses personal judgment too. Before Ben could "submit to the teaching of the church," Ben had to decide which church is the true one, which councils count, and what they mean. Ben made those choices as a former Protestant pastor (1:56:53), and later said so: "I just think the Bible teaches Orthodox doctrine, which is why I became Orthodox" (2:11:58). That is exactly what Kelly does: read the Bible and follow it.

"The Bible doesn't interpret itself" is only half true. People read and explain every text, whether it is the Bible or a council. The real question is which text is the final judge. Protestants use clear Bible verses to help understand harder ones, and the Holy Spirit helps believers understand (1 Corinthians 2:12, 1 John 2:27).

The Bereans had "the normative authority of the church to correct them"

Response: There was no church in Berea yet. The Bereans were Jews in a synagogue hearing Paul for the first time (Acts 17:10). Ben is right that they had their own traditions. But just before this, in Thessalonica, "the Jews which believed not, moved with envy" had turned against Paul (17:5), and they later came to Berea to stir up the people against him (17:13). Luke praises the Bereans for doing something different. They "searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so" (17:11). Kelly said this at 37:47. The test they used, even for an apostle's preaching, was the written Word.

Did Ignatius or Polycarp teach sola scriptura?

Response: Kelly never said they did, and said so both times (38:05, 42:44). Kelly quoted Polycarp, Clement and Ignatius for a smaller reason: none of them taught that the leaders after them would never be wrong. Polycarp said he was below Paul and sent people to Paul's letter. Clement sent people to "the Scriptures" and to Paul's letter. Ignatius said he did not give orders "as Peter and Paul" did. Ben needed to show where any of them taught that bishops, alone or in council, cannot be wrong. Asking about sola scriptura is a different question.

Ignatius and "the office handed down"

Response: The words "and the office handed down to them" are not in Ignatius. His letter to the Ephesians, chapter 11, ends: "who have always been of the same mind with the apostles through the power of Jesus Christ." That is all. At 39:47 Ben added the same words to the Trallians letter. But Trallians 3 says: "let all reverence the deacons as an appointment of Jesus Christ, and the bishop as Jesus Christ... and the presbyters as the sanhedrim of God, and assembly of the apostles." The words "succession" and "successor" do not appear even once in Ignatius's seven letters.

Also notice what Ignatius actually compares. He compares the elders (presbyters, many of them) to the group of apostles, and the bishop to God or Christ. In Magnesians 6 he writes: "your bishop presides in the place of God, and your presbyters in the place of the assembly of the apostles." This is a picture of a local church gathered together, like the apostles around Jesus. It does not say bishops get the apostles' power to never be wrong. Being "of the same mind with the apostles" means agreeing with what the apostles taught. Kelly agrees with that.

To be fair to Ben, Ignatius does give the bishop a very high place: "See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles" (Smyrnaeans 8). That is closer to Orthodox practice than to most Protestant churches. But obeying a bishop is not the same as the bishop being unable to be wrong, and Ignatius never says he cannot be.

No salvation outside the church

Response: A "schism" is a split in the church. Ben read this passage correctly (Philadelphians 3–4). But it does not answer the debate question. Ignatius warns people not to break away from their local church, its one bishop, its elders and its Lord's Supper. He does not say how to tell who split from whom when two groups both say they are the true church. Rome says the Orthodox split away in 1054. The Oriental churches say the other side split away in 451. Ignatius's warning cannot settle that by itself.

Ignatius also spoke of one bishop over each church. That is not how the Orthodox Church works today. In American cities there are Greek, Antiochian, Russian, Serbian and other Orthodox bishops in the same place. Most of these bishops are in communion with each other, so for most of them this is not the kind of split Ben meant. (Since 2018, though, the Russian and Greek bishops have not been in communion; see the answer at 10:01.) But it is not the one-bishop pattern Ignatius describes. And at 1:13:15 Ben named "parallel jurisdictions," meaning more than one bishop over the same place, as a sign of schism.

Kelly can agree that splitting a church is a serious sin (Romans 16:17, Titus 3:10). Saying a church exists is not the same as saying it can never be wrong.

Exact word fallacy

Response: Ben meant that Kelly was demanding certain exact words. Just before, Kelly had asked where Ignatius says "you got to be a part of the Orthodox church to be saved" (at 42:05). Ignatius did not use that later name, so Ben had a fair point there. But Kelly's real request was for the teaching, in any words, that bishops after the apostles would be protected from error (43:04: "I'm looking for their teaching. Where did they teach this?"). The word "Trinity" is not in the Bible, but the teaching is there. Ben still had to show the teaching. Ben showed passages about obeying church leaders and not splitting the church. Hebrews 13:17 also tells Christians to obey their leaders, and nobody thinks that makes those leaders unable to be wrong.

The apostles and their successors had the keys

Response: None of these lines mentions keys, binding and loosing, or being kept from error. Ben quoted them correctly (Magnesians 6 and 13, Trallians 2). They tell the church to obey its leaders, but they do not say what Ben needs. Ignatius tells the church to "be established in the doctrines of the Lord and the apostles." The teaching belongs to the Lord and the apostles, not to the local leaders. Obeying leaders is not the same as those leaders being unable to be wrong.

How were they able to practice sola scriptura in the first 20 years?

Response: Kelly granted one thing: while the apostles were alive, the church did not live by sola scriptura. But that does not make sola scriptura wrong for the church after them. Kelly said: "They didn't have sola scriptura when the apostles [were] around. They had the teachings of the apostles and they went to scriptures. But since the death of the apostles, there is no infallible apostolic authority after them" (46:02). Sola scriptura has always been about the church after the apostles died. While they were alive, what they spoke was God's word. No Protestant denies that.

And the apostles themselves pointed the church to the written Word for after they were gone. Paul said:

not to think of men above that which is written

1 Corinthians 4:6KJV

He said Scripture makes the man of God fully equipped, "throughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Timothy 3:16–17). Peter wrote so that Christians would remember his teaching "after my decease" (2 Peter 1:15).

Ben's question also turns back on Ben. The first worldwide council met in the year 325. If Christians need an infallible rule besides the Bible, what did they have in the more than 200 years between the apostles and that council? For the earliest years, before there was a list of Bible books, Ben pointed to "the authority of the bishop" and "the tradition that is handed down to them" (1:20:10). But Ben also said single bishops "may sometimes make mistakes" (1:05:00).

Part 3 — Kelly Questions Ben

Infallible "usually," "typically," through councils

Response: A "charism" is a gift from God. Ben said the gift of never being wrong shows up "usually" and "typically" through the big councils. But a rule that cannot be wrong needs clear edges. If it sometimes comes in other ways, Ben did not say what they are. If it comes only through the big councils, there are seven that all Orthodox accept, and the last one was in the year 787. Some Orthodox count a few later councils too, which makes the question "which ones count?" even harder. And some councils that called themselves worldwide were later thrown out (see the answer at 10:38).

At 48:02 Ben said one of the fathers Kelly read taught this: "There may be a single bishop that teaches incorrect, but when the church comes together as a whole and they have a [synod], right, this is when these things are corrected." Kelly did not read any early father who said that. The closest thing Kelly read was the 1672 council (at 16:49), which says a single man speaking for himself can be wrong, but the church cannot. That may be what Ben remembered. But that is a council from 1672, not an early father, and it states the very claim this debate is about. The early fathers Kelly read said something different. Kelly read Cyril of Jerusalem, who told his listeners not to believe even him "unless thou receive the proof of the things which I announce from the Divine Scriptures" (Catechetical Lectures 4.17). Kelly also read Gregory of Nyssa, who said, "let the inspired Scripture, then, be our umpire" (On the Holy Trinity). Cyril says a single teacher, even Cyril himself, can be wrong, as Ben said. Gregory says neither side's custom can be the rule. But both point to Scripture, not to a council, as the judge.

Ben calls the 1672 council's decisions binding

Response: Kelly asked if Ben accepts the 1672 council as true without error. Ben said its dogmatic declarations "typically are infallibly true" and "would be binding," though this council is "not necessarily referred to as an ecumenical council," meaning one of the big worldwide councils. When Kelly read its words that the church cannot be wrong, Ben said "Yes," adding that this works "typically" through the worldwide councils. So Ben treats the 1672 council's decisions as binding. That causes a problem for what Ben said later about the Bible's books.

There are some extra Old Testament books, like Wisdom, Judith, Tobit, Maccabees and Sirach. Protestants do not count them as Scripture. They are often called the "deuterocanonical" books, which means "second list." The 1672 council named these books and said: "we judge these also to be with the other genuine Books of Divine Scripture genuine parts of Scripture." It said, "the denial of these is the rejection of those." And it said, "All of these we also judge to be Canonical Books," meaning real books of the Bible.

But later Ben said something different: "We don't have dogmatic statements on the [deuterocanonical] books" (1:15:27); they are "inspired" but "a secondary authority" (1:19:56); "66 is the canon" (1:14:34). The 1672 council, whose decisions Ben called binding, says those books are fully part of the Bible. To be fair, the council admits they were "not always... considered on the same level," and the Russian Church's Longer Catechism (a book of basic teaching) leaves them out of its count of Old Testament books. So Orthodox standards themselves differ on these books. Still, Ben's view does not match a council Ben called binding, and the church that is supposed to settle such questions has not settled this one for all Orthodox. (See the answer at 1:14:18.)

Ignatius applies the keys to bishops

Response: Ignatius is talking about prayer, not the keys. He points to Matthew 18:19, "if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask." That is not 18:18, the verse about binding and loosing. Ben knew this and said 18:19 belongs with the verse before it, 18:18 (at 51:11). The two verses are in the same passage. But Ignatius speaks of "the prayer of one or two," not of binding. His point is simple: if the prayer of one or two people has power, the whole church praying together has even more. And he says "the bishop and the whole Church." That fits what Kelly said at 52:08: Matthew 18 is about the church, not just bishops.

The rest of the passage Ben read says: "He, therefore, that does not assemble with the Church, has even by this manifested his pride, and condemned himself. For it is written, God resisteth the proud." Ignatius proves his point with a Bible verse (Proverbs 3:34 in the Greek Old Testament, quoted the same way in James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5). Nothing here says the bishop cannot be wrong, which is what Kelly asked for at 50:42.

Ignatius literally applies Matthew 18:18 to the bishops

Response: Ignatius does not quote Matthew 18:18 (see the answer at 50:16). Kelly asked, "Where in Matthew 18 does it say that the church [is] preserved from doctrinal error?" Ben answered that this was about "interpretations of the verse." But that is the whole debate. If the verse itself does not teach it, then it comes from someone's interpretation. And then Ben needs proof that the interpretation cannot be wrong. Ben pointed to Ignatius, and Ignatius does not say it.

Polycarp: "I'm probably not going to be able to give you an exact word"

Response: Polycarp was a bishop who knew the apostle John. Kelly asked where Polycarp said future bishops would have the same power as the apostles to not be wrong (53:40, 55:43). Ben said Polycarp treats Ignatius's letters the same way as Paul's. But read Polycarp's letter to the Philippians:

• About Paul he says, "neither I, nor any other such one, can come up to the wisdom of the blessed and glorified Paul" (chapter 3).
• About Ignatius's letters he only says, "by them ye may be greatly profited; for they treat of faith and patience, and all things that tend to edification in our Lord" (chapter 13). Christians say that about good books all the time.
• In chapter 12 he writes, "It is declared then in these Scriptures, Be ye angry, and sin not, and, Let not the sun go down upon your wrath." The second line is only found in Paul (Ephesians 4:26). So Polycarp counts Paul's letter as one of "these Scriptures." He never calls Ignatius's letters Scripture.
• When people teach error, he says, "let us return to the word which has been handed down to us from the beginning" (chapter 7). He does not say, "go to a council."
• He starts the letter "Polycarp, and the presbyters with him." He writes together with his elders and claims no title of apostle.

So Polycarp clearly does not put Ignatius on the same level as Paul.

Ignatius on Peter and Paul: "He's writing in humility"

Response: Ben is right that Ignatius gives firm directions in his letters. But Ignatius wrote: "I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you. They were apostles; I am but a condemned man" (Romans 4). Yes, he is humble. But look at the reason he gives: "They were apostles." He says he is not in their position. He says it again in Trallians 3: should he, "being a condemned man... issue commands to you as if I were an apostle?" And in Ephesians 3: "I do not issue orders to you, as if I were some great person." A bishop who thought he held the apostles' job would not keep saying that he does not give orders like an apostle or a great man.

Ben said bishops have the apostles' job but not "new divine revelation." But if you take away being an eyewitness and receiving revelation, what is left is the ordinary job of an elder. Protestants believe in that job. Ben needs more than that: a teaching office that can never be wrong. Ignatius never claims one.

Jesus taught it: Matthew 16:18 and 18:18

Response: "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18) is a promise that the church will never be destroyed. It does not promise that church leaders will never teach anything wrong. A church can last even when some leaders make mistakes. Israel lasted through bad priests. The churches in Revelation 2–3 had errors and still existed.

The Orthodox take the verse further: if the whole church ever bound a false teaching on everyone, hell would have won. But the verse promises that the church will last, not that its councils cannot be wrong. Large councils have contradicted each other, like Hieria in 754 and the council of 787 (see the answer at 10:38). Whichever one was wrong, the church still lasted, and no one could tell which council was the true one until years later.

For the keys and Matthias, see the answer at 11:16 and 11:35.

Polycarp "takes up the apostolic office"

[Asked "Is he an apostle?"] "He takes up the apostolic office. Yes."

"They take up the apostolic office. We're not saying that they issue new divine revelation."

Response: Polycarp never said that about himself. He wrote together with his elders (the greeting of his letter) and claimed no title of apostle. He said he could not match Paul's wisdom (chapter 3). In the standard English translation he even says the Philippians knew the Bible better than he did: "For I trust that ye are well versed in the Sacred Scriptures, and that nothing is hid from you; but to me this privilege is not yet granted" (chapter 12).

An Orthodox reader might point to The Martyrdom of Polycarp, chapter 16. It calls him "an apostolic and prophetic teacher, and bishop of the Catholic Church which is in Smyrna." But that was written by his church after he died, to honor him as a teacher who followed the apostles. It does not say he was an apostle, and it does not say he could never be wrong. It calls him the bishop of one city, which is what he was.

I cited Ignatius. I cited the scriptures.

Response: The quotes did not say what Ben needed. Ignatius was quoted with words he never wrote (39:01). A verse about prayer (Matthew 18:19) was treated as if it were about the keys in the verse before it (50:16, 52:33). The Bible verses (Matthew 16 and 18, Acts 1, 1 Timothy 3:15) say nothing about leaders after the apostles, alone or in council, being kept from error. Kelly asked again and again for that teaching from Jesus, the apostles or the earliest fathers. Ben never showed it.

Part 4 — Open Discussion

Is the Council of Nicaea inspired like the Bible?

Response: Being guided by the Holy Spirit is not the same as being inspired (God-breathed) like the Bible. Every Christian is led by the Spirit (Romans 8:14), but no one thinks every Christian can never be wrong. Only Scripture is called God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). Kelly explained this at 1:04:23 with Moses, David and Peter: men "moved by God, filled with the Holy Spirit," who still were "not infallible." Ben even called that "a pretty good example" of how the Orthodox see single bishops (1:04:44).

"So that's our safeguard" / "two or three are gathered"

Response: Kelly asked how anyone can test people who say they speak by the Holy Spirit, since Mormons and Muslims say that too (1:05:27). "The church" does not answer this, because Rome, the Orthodox, and the Oriental churches each say they are the church.

Matthew 18:20 promises that Jesus is present where two or three meet in his name. If his presence meant they could never be wrong, then any two Christians praying together could never be wrong. The promise is that Jesus is with them, not that they cannot make mistakes. Kelly said this at 1:05:45. The Bible's own test is the Bible:

To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them

Isaiah 8:20KJV

Peter's mistake was fixed at the Acts 15 council

Response: The "Judaizers" taught that non-Jewish Christians had to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses to be saved. But Acts 15 never mentions any fight between Peter and Paul. The council met because "certain men which came down from Judaea" (15:1) and "certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed" (15:5) were teaching that. At the council, Peter spoke against it (15:7–11).

What Peter did in Antioch (Galatians 2:11–14) was different. Ben is right that Peter gave way to the circumcision group there. He stopped eating with non-Jewish Christians because he was afraid, "fearing them which were of the circumcision" (2:12), and Paul said this was pushing them "to live as do the Jews" (2:14). But Paul does not say Peter taught that they must be circumcised to be saved. Paul called it pretending: "the other Jews dissembled likewise with him" (2:13). Paul corrected Peter to his face, by pointing to the gospel: "they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel" (2:14).

Some think Antioch happened before Acts 15, some think after. It is true that the question did go to "the apostles and elders" in Jerusalem (Acts 15:2). But either way, it does not help Ben. If it was after, the council had already decided and Peter still went wrong, so the council did not stop it. If it was before, Peter was corrected on the spot by Paul and the gospel, not by a council. The council that came later had apostles in it, and its letter became part of the Bible (see the answer at 12:17). Either way, an apostle was corrected by the truth of the gospel. That is Kelly's point.

You just conceded to something infallible outside of the scripture

Response: Ben was the one who drew the key line. When Kelly said, "I infallibly declare that Jesus is the word of God," Ben answered that it "would be an [inerrant] statement," but "You don't have the [charism] of infallibility" (1:10:13). A charism is a special gift from the Holy Spirit. So there are two meanings of "infallible":

1. A statement can be infallible in the sense of simply being true, with no error in it.
2. An authority is infallible if God protects it from ever being wrong, so that you must believe whatever it decides.

The debate is about the second meaning. Kelly said the Council of Nicaea's teaching was "infallibly accurate because it lines up with God's word" (1:09:44). In other words, it is true because it agrees with the Bible. That is the first meaning, the same one Ben gave to Kelly's own sentence. Then Kelly asked, "I just said Jesus is the word of God. Does that make me infallible?" (1:10:44). Ben answered, "Does that make you infallible? No... that doesn't make you infallible" (1:11:31). So both agree that saying something true does not make the speaker an authority who cannot be wrong. By Ben's own line, Nicaea's teaching being true does not by itself show that the council had the second kind of gift.

Ben's stronger point was that Kelly said "people moved by the Holy Spirit made those decisions" at Nicaea, and agreed that "The Holy Spirit cannot be wrong" (1:09:24). But Kelly had already said that "people can be moved by God, filled with the Holy Spirit, and yet not be infallible," and named Moses, David and Peter (1:04:39). Being led by the Spirit is not the same as being kept from every mistake. Kelly accepts what Nicaea taught because it comes from the Bible. That makes the Bible the final rule, and Nicaea a good, trustworthy witness that can still be checked.

The Oriental churches are "monophysites" and "schismatics"

Response: It has everything to do with the debate. A rule that cannot be wrong only helps if you can find it. Here are two groups that both claim it. The Oriental Orthodox churches (Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian, Syrian) also claim to come from the apostles. They also accept the first three councils and read Ignatius. They do not accept the name "monophysite" (people who say Christ has only one nature). They condemn Eutyches, the teacher usually tied to that name, and call their own teaching "miaphysite" (one united nature).

"They set up rival bishops" works both ways. In 451 the Council of Chalcedon removed the bishop of Alexandria, Dioscorus, and the Chalcedon side put in its own bishop, Proterius, even though most people in Alexandria did not want him. In the decades after that, both Alexandria and Antioch ended up with two rival lines of bishops.

Whoever is right, you cannot settle it by asking each church, because each one says it is the true church. A person has to look at the Bible and history and decide. That is the kind of judgment Ben called "a subjective view" (at 36:58). But it is the only way left to choose. Ben's later answer, "they rejected Chalcedon" (1:49:26), assumes Chalcedon was the voice of the true church. That is the very thing being argued about.

We all agree on the canon

Response: The "canon" is the list of books in the Bible. Ben's answer has four problems.

1. The 1672 council disagrees with Ben. Ben said its dogmatic declarations "typically are infallibly true" and "would be binding," though it is "not necessarily referred to as an ecumenical council" (see the answer at 48:29). It says Wisdom, Judith, Tobit, Maccabees, Sirach, and Susanna and Bel and the Dragon (extra parts of Daniel) are "genuine parts of Scripture" and "Canonical Books." "66 is the canon" is the Protestant number. That council rejects it.
2. The Council of Trullo (692) approved several lists that do not match. Its Canon 2 approves the "Apostolic Canons," the councils of Laodicea and Carthage, and the writings of Athanasius, Gregory the Theologian, Amphilochius and others. These lists disagree:
   • Apostolic Canon 85 has three books of Maccabees, leaves out Revelation, and puts "Two Epistles of Clemens, and the Constitutions" in the New Testament. (Trullo threw out the Constitutions themselves, but it left Canon 85 and its list standing.)
   • Laodicea Canon 60 leaves out Revelation. (Some scholars doubt this canon is original, because some old copies do not have it. But it was in the collection Trullo approved.)
   • Carthage Canon 24 counts Tobit, Judith, two books of Maccabees and five books of Solomon as "Canonical Scriptures," and keeps Revelation.
   • Athanasius leaves Esther out of his list.
   • Gregory the Theologian's list (he is also called Gregory Nazianzen) leaves out both Esther and Revelation. Approving all of these together does not give one list. It approves lists that contradict each other.
3. They don't even agree on the 66. Three of those lists leave out Revelation: two from church canons (Apostolic Canon 85, Laodicea 60) and one from a father (Gregory). Two fathers' lists leave out Esther (Athanasius, Gregory). Even the councils' own lists disagree, since Laodicea leaves out Revelation and Carthage keeps it. So Ben's claim at 1:22:57 that they all have "the same canonical books" is not true.
4. "Closed" but not defined. If the extra books are "not closed," and the church has never decided for sure which of them are Scripture, then the Orthodox Church does not have a Bible that has been decided without error. Ben said that is not required. But then the "infallible rule" has not answered the most basic question a rule of faith must answer: which books are God's Word?

At 1:18:00 Ben said Kelly was "being blatantly dishonest" and "had no idea that the council... listed the canon." But Kelly had already said, at 1:16:26, "I read it and it never gave a definitive declaration of which books were binding." Point 2 supports that. At 1:17:52 Ben compared Kelly to Muslims who say the word "Trinity" is not in the Bible. That comparison has some force, because Kelly had asked about Trullo, "Where does it say it's binding?" (1:17:09). But the bigger problem is point 2. Even if Trullo's approval binds, it approved several lists that do not agree, so there is no one list for it to bind.

They are inspired. They're a secondary authority

Response: If a book is inspired, God breathed it out (2 Timothy 3:16). God's Word does not come in first-class and second-class levels. It is hard to see how a book God breathed out can be second-level. And it is not what the 1672 council said. That council said "the denial of these is the rejection of those."

Ben's view (66 canonical books, plus inspired books on "a secondary tier within our canon," 1:20:37) is not what the 1672 council taught. That council grants that these books were "not always... considered on the same level," but it still calls them "Canonical Books." It is not Jerome's view either, since Jerome said these books "are not in the canon." So Ben's "66 is the canon" (at 1:14:34) does not match a council that calls these books canonical, though Ben said its dogmatic declarations "would be binding." That is Ben using personal judgment about a decision of Ben's own church.

The first 20 years ran on "the authority of the bishop"

Response: Ben is right that there was no finished list of New Testament books in those years. But in the first twenty years, the church followed the apostles, who were still alive, and the Old Testament (Acts 2:42, 17:11). Paul's letters started coming out within about twenty years of Jesus rising from the dead. Paul expected them to be read in the churches as the Lord's commands (1 Corinthians 14:37, Colossians 4:16, 1 Thessalonians 5:27). In the New Testament, "bishop" and "elder" are the same job (Acts 20:17, 28; Titus 1:5–7), and no bishop is ever said to be unable to be wrong. Ben had already said single bishops can be wrong (1:04:59). So "the authority of the bishop" cannot be the infallible rule Ben is defending.

We are the exact same as the early church

Response: The early church did not agree on the Orthodox list either. As shown at 1:14:18, the lists that Trullo approved disagree about Revelation, Esther, Maccabees and Clement. That is not "the exact same" as a church with a closed list.

Kelly's reason for the Old Testament books is not "individuals." It is the Bible Jesus used. Jesus spoke of "the law of Moses, and... the prophets, and... the psalms" (Luke 24:44). He spoke of the martyrs "From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias" (Luke 11:51). Those are usually read as the first and last martyrs in the traditional order of the Hebrew Bible, which ends with Chronicles (2 Chronicles 24:20–22). Paul says the Jews were trusted with "the oracles of God" (Romans 3:2). Josephus, a Jewish writer in the first century, said the Jews have "only twenty-two books... which are justly believed to be divine" (Against Apion 1.8). The fathers Kelly named (Melito, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Jerome) give lists close to the Hebrew Bible. None of them counts Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach or Maccabees as part of the Bible. Their lists are not exactly the same as the Hebrew Bible: Melito, Athanasius and Gregory leave out Esther, and Cyril and Athanasius count Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah as part of the book of Jeremiah, not as extra books. But none of them has the longer Orthodox list.

And Ben quoted individuals too: Jerome (1:31:19, 2:07:26).

Part 5 — Ben's Closing Speech

"Fast and loose" with Jerome

Response: Ben is right that Jerome did not throw these books out. Jerome translated Tobit and Judith, and he noted that the Council of Nicaea was said to have counted Judith among the Scriptures. Kelly's "outright rejected" (1:23:38) was too strong. At 1:51:07 Kelly explained the point: Jerome used them, but held that "these extra books were not considered divine scripture." Ben's own words, "secondary authority," grant that part: Jerome did not put these books on the same level as the others.

Jerome went further and said it plainly. In his Prologus Galeatus (his preface to Samuel and Kings) he says books outside the Hebrew Bible "must be placed amongst the Apocryphal writings," and that Wisdom, Sirach, Judith and Tobias (Tobit) "are not in the canon." In his preface to the books of Solomon he says: "As, then, the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees, but does not admit them among the canonical Scriptures, so let it read these two volumes for the edification of the people, not to give authority to doctrines of the Church."

Jerome does quote Wisdom in Against Rufinus. But he calls it "That Book of Wisdom also which is read to us as the work of Solomon" (Book 1). He does not call it Scripture. Quoting a book to teach a lesson is what his preface says is fine. The words Ben read are really Jerome's, but they come from a different book, Jerome's Dialogue Against the Pelagians (Book 1, section 33). There, right after quoting what he calls "The Book of Wisdom" (the first line is really Sirach 3:21, another of the extra books), Jerome adds: "You will perhaps deny the authority of this book; listen then to the Apostle." So even where he quotes it, Jerome treats this book as one whose authority a reader may deny.

Ignatius gives the keys to "the bishop and the whole church"

Response: Here Ben correctly says Ignatius points to Matthew 18:19. That verse is about prayer, not the keys (see the answer at 50:16). And "the bishop and the whole church" puts the power in the whole gathered church. That fits Kelly's reading of Matthew 18 (at 52:08): "It says the church... It doesn't say bishops." It says nothing about a council that cannot be wrong.

Ignatius never says "apostolic seat," and the words "succession" and "successor" do not appear in his letters. What he says is that the elders are "in the place of the assembly of the apostles" (Magnesians 6). It is a picture of the local church gathered around its leaders. Ben's other quotes are close to Ignatius's words, and they are Ben's strongest lines. Trallians 2 tells the church to "be subject to the presbytery" (the elders). Trallians 3 calls the elders the "assembly of the apostles" and says, "Apart from these, there is no Church." Trallians 7 says to "continue in intimate union with Jesus Christ our God, and the bishop, and the enactments of the apostles." But they are about how a church should be ordered. Not one of them says leaders can never be wrong.

If you're conceding infallible interpretation... you're conceding sola scriptura is false

Response: See the answer at 1:08:32. Kelly said Nicaea's teaching is true because it agrees with the Bible. Kelly denied that this makes the council an authority that cannot be wrong. Sola scriptura does not say nothing outside the Bible is true. It says nothing outside the Bible is a rule that cannot be wrong. Creeds and councils can be right and still be under the Bible and checked by it. That is exactly how Kelly described Nicaea.

Otherwise the promise of God... this would be false

Response: Neither promise says what Ben needs. "Pillar and ground of the truth" describes the church's job of preaching the truth (9:12). "I will not leave you comfortless" promises the Holy Spirit living in believers (5:38). God keeps both promises today without any council that cannot be wrong. Ben never showed a verse that promises an error-free teaching office after the apostles.

Part 6 — Live Questions and Answers

An interpretation is something that is outside of the scripture

Response: If every explanation is "outside" the text it explains, then every explanation of a council is "outside" the council. Then the Orthodox need another infallible authority to explain the councils, and another one to explain that one, forever. Ben's argument would knock down the Orthodox view too.

A correct explanation is just the text's real meaning, understood. Its authority comes from the text. When Kelly said "Jesus is the word of God" (1:10:44), the authority was John 1:1 and 1:14, not Kelly. It is the same with Nicaea. Kelly said at 1:47:08 that sola scriptura still learns from history, councils and the fathers. It just keeps the Bible as the final judge over them.

The Oriental churches "rejected Chalcedon"

Response: See the answer at 1:12:51. This answer assumes Chalcedon spoke for the true church. The Oriental churches say it did not. Calling them schismatic because they rejected Chalcedon uses the answer as the proof. Anyone who wants to decide between the two sides has to look at the arguments for and against Chalcedon. That means using personal judgment with the Bible and history.

Jesus used the Septuagint; the Jews made their list later

Response: The Septuagint is the old Greek translation of the Old Testament. The Masoretic Text is the Hebrew Old Testament as copied by Jewish scribes. Ben mixed up several things here.

• Which translation is not the same as which books. What translation someone quotes does not decide which books are in the Bible. The Masoretes added vowel marks and notes much later, but the Hebrew text itself is much older. Copies of it were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. When the Masoretes lived tells us nothing about which books the Jews counted as Scripture in Jesus' time.
• The Greek was not the only one used. Ben has a point: the New Testament often quotes the Greek. Hebrews 10:5, "a body hast thou prepared me," follows the Greek of Psalm 40:6, where the Hebrew says "mine ears hast thou opened." But on the cross Jesus quoted Psalm 22:1 in Aramaic, not Greek: "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (Mark 15:34). The Gospel writers quote both the Hebrew and the Greek. "Out of Egypt have I called my son" (Matthew 2:15) follows the Hebrew of Hosea 11:1. The Greek says "out of Egypt have I called his children." "They shall look on him whom they pierced" (John 19:37) follows the Hebrew of Zechariah 12:10. The Greek says "they shall look upon me, because they have mocked me."
• There was no "Septuagint list" in the first century. The full Greek Bibles that have the extra books are copies made by Christians in the 300s and 400s, and they do not agree with each other. Codex Vaticanus has no Maccabees at all, Codex Sinaiticus has 1 and 4 Maccabees, and Codex Alexandrinus has all four. And the New Testament never quotes any of the extra books with "it is written" or calls one Scripture. At most it hints at them, as Hebrews 11:35 probably remembers the martyrs of 2 Maccabees 7.
• The Jewish list is older than Ben said. Josephus's twenty-two books (Against Apion 1.8, about the year 95) and Jesus' naming of the law, the prophets and the psalms (Luke 24:44) both come from the first century. Josephus also says that "during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add any thing to them," so he describes a list that was already old in his day.

At 1:55:08 Ben also self-corrected: Jewish Bibles do not have 66 books. The Hebrew Bible has the same books as the Protestant Old Testament, just counted as 22 or 24 books.

King Stefan Milutin: "It doesn't mean necessarily that he consummated"

Response: Leave aside what happened in the marriage. The facts nobody disputes are enough. In 1299 Stefan Milutin married Simonida, who was about five years old. She was his fifth wife. He divorced his fourth wife, Anna Terter, to marry her. Orthodox church law does not allow anyone a fourth marriage at all (the Tome of Union, 920). Yet the church made this king a saint.

This matters for the debate. Is making someone a saint an act of the church's authority that cannot be wrong, or not? Ben answered that saints are honored for different things, and that Milutin was "an example of an emperor" (1:56:01). It is true that making someone a saint does not say the person never sinned. But if the act cannot be wrong, then the church, without error, set before everyone as an example a king whose marriages broke its own laws. If it can be wrong, then another big act of the church can be wrong. Either way, Ben said the gift of not being wrong is "typically" expressed through the dogmatic decrees of the ecumenical councils (at 47:28), but did not say whether making someone a saint is one of the acts that cannot be wrong.

Why the church names saints

Response: The "so great a cloud of witnesses" (Hebrews 12:1) is the list of Old Testament believers in Hebrews 11. The Bible itself names them. Protestants also honor faithful Christians as examples:

Remember them which have the rule over you... whose faith follow

Hebrews 13:7KJV

Kelly asked what makes an official saint different from any other Christian, since the Bible calls all believers saints (Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:2). Ben's answer, saints are "accepted by the church... due to the evidence in their life" (1:58:27), puts the decision in the church's judgment again. That leads back to the question at 1:55:48.

Protestants decide heresy for themselves

Response: Heresy means denying what the Bible clearly teaches about the faith. Paul defines it by the gospel, not by a council:

though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed

Galatians 1:8KJV

John defines it by Jesus:

every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God

1 John 4:3KJV

Kelly gave the same kind of answer at 2:09:16 about Unitarians, who deny that Jesus is God, quoting Jesus in John 8:24: "Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins." Protestants do disagree on some questions, such as baptism, and Kelly admitted it (1:59:48). But the Orthodox and Rome also disagree, while each claims a guide that cannot be wrong. These central tests are not just personal opinion, because the Bible's words are fixed.

Ignatius says whoever follows a church-splitter "shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (Philadelphians 3). As shown at 40:08, that warning cannot tell anyone by itself which side did the splitting. And in Ignatius it is the elders, not the bishops, who are "in the place of the assembly of the apostles" (Magnesians 6; see the answer at 39:01).

Councils prevent splits, like Acts 15

Response: Councils are called to try to prevent splits, as Ben said. But some were followed by splits that never healed, and other splits no council has healed:

• The Church of the East (the old church of Persia and lands further east) never accepted the Council of Ephesus (431), and that council still divides them from other churches today.
• After the Council of Chalcedon (451), the churches that accepted it and the Oriental churches that rejected it split apart.
• The split between East and West in 1054 was not healed by a council. When the Council of Florence (1439) tried, the East rejected it.
• Inside Orthodoxy, the split between Moscow and Constantinople since 2018 has not been fixed by any council.

So a council cannot be counted on to bring unity. For Acts 15, see the answer at 12:17. The apostles were there, and their letter became part of the Bible.

Revelation: "all of those agree on the biblical canon"

Response: Ben granted that some fathers left Revelation out and that it "was disputed" for a time. But the councils' own lists disagree too: Laodicea Canon 60 leaves out Revelation, while Carthage keeps it. Trullo also approved Apostolic Canon 85 and the list of Gregory the Theologian, and both leave it out. The person who asked the question was right: Cyril of Jerusalem and Gregory the Theologian did not list Revelation. Even today, Revelation is never read at the Orthodox Divine Liturgy, the main Orthodox service.

Comparing it to Peter and Paul (2:05:02) does not help either (see the answer at 1:06:09). Paul corrected Peter in person by pointing to the gospel, not through a council.

"Some leeway in regional practice"; Jerome at the Council of Rome

Response: Which books are in the Bible is not a "regional practice" question. It is the heart of the rule of faith. If a church that cannot be wrong leaves some of the Bible's books up to local custom, it has not given its people an infallible rule on the most basic question of all.

The list said to come from a Council of Rome in 382 is found in a document called the Decretum Gelasianum. It was put together later, and many scholars doubt that the list really comes from 382. Whatever its date, it lists the extra books together with the others, with no second tier. That is not Ben's 66 plus "a secondary tier." And Jerome, who was in Rome at that time (his Letter 127), wrote his Prologus Galeatus (his preface to Samuel and Kings) and his preface to Solomon's books after 382. In them he still said these books "are not in the canon." If that list bound Jerome, he did not think so. At 2:08:03 Ben replied: "He says they're not a part of the canon."

The Bible teaches Orthodox doctrine, which is why I became Orthodox

Response: Ben's path to Orthodoxy started the Berean way Kelly was defending: read the Bible and follow where it leads. Ben used the Bible to judge between churches, and chose Orthodoxy. Kelly uses the same method and comes to different answers. Both are using the personal judgment Ben called "subjective" at 36:58. The difference is that Kelly says so openly and keeps the Bible as the judge over every church. Ben says, "I submit to the teaching of the church. I'm not coming up with my own dogmas" (at 36:43).

The church is the fullness of Christ... Become Orthodox.

Response: Paul wrote Ephesians "to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 1:1). The body of Christ is everyone the Holy Spirit joins to Christ:

by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body

1 Corinthians 12:13KJV

Kelly answered with a joke that made the same point: "the church is the body of Christ. So if you're a part of the church, don't be Orthodox" (2:14:48). In other words, you don't have to join the Orthodox Church to be in Christ's body. Saying "the body of Christ" means "the Orthodox Church" is the very thing Ben had to prove, and Ephesians 1:22–23 does not prove it.

They can go back and they can watch the clip

Response: The clip, at 46:02, shows Kelly saying: "They didn't have sola scriptura when the apostles [were] around. They had the teachings of the apostles and they went to scriptures. But since the death of the apostles, there is no infallible apostolic authority after them that was passed on. That's why we go to scripture." That is the normal Protestant meaning of sola scriptura. Kelly did not give anything up (see the answer at 45:04).

How do you operate on sola scriptura without a scriptura?

Response: See the answer at 45:04 and 1:20:10. In those years, the new teaching came from living apostles, and their words were God's Word. Sola scriptura is about the church after the apostles. Ben's own words, "the teachings of the apostles and their disciples," make the point. The disciples handed on what the apostles taught, as Paul told Timothy to do:

the things that thou hast heard of me... the same commit thou to faithful men

2 Timothy 2:2KJV

The test of what they handed on was the apostles' teaching. Now that the apostles are gone, that teaching is found in their writings.

Remarriage "is adultery," but bishops may allow it

Response: The question asked why anyone should follow bishops who can be wrong instead of Jesus. Ben's answer shows the problem. Jesus said:

Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery

Matthew 19:9KJV

Ben says remarriage is adultery, but then says bishops may allow it, with a penance, for more reasons than the one Jesus gave. (Protestants differ here too: many accept desertion as a reason, from 1 Corinthians 7:15, "A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases.") The Roman Catholic Church, which also says it cannot be wrong, forbids those remarriages. So two churches that both claim an infallible rule give opposite answers to a question Jesus answered himself. Jesus' words in the Bible are still the standard to judge both of them.

Ignatius shows "the succession of the bishops"

Response: Ignatius does stress unity around the bishop and the Lord's Supper in each local church. But he never talks about bishops being passed down in a line. He never uses the word "succession." He never says any bishop cannot be wrong (see the answer at 39:01). He does give the bishop great authority: the bishop "presides in the place of God" (Magnesians 6). Yet about himself, a bishop, he says the line Kelly read: "I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you. They were apostles" (Romans 4). So it was not surprising that Kelly used Ignatius.

We have a consensus on the canon

Response: See the answer at 1:14:18 and 48:29. The 1672 council, whose dogmatic declarations Ben said "would be binding," is a statement on the extra books, and it says they are Scripture. Ben added that it is "not necessarily referred to as an ecumenical council." But if only ecumenical councils bind, then, as Ben said, there is not "necessarily an infallible binding statement" on these books, and the "infallible rule" has not said which books are in the Bible. And the lists that Trullo approved did not even agree on the shorter list. They disagreed about Revelation and Esther.

Moses' seat and the Levites

Response: Jesus said the scribes and Pharisees "sit in Moses' seat" (Matthew 23:2). But he also warned his followers to "beware... of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees" (Matthew 16:12). He told them they had "made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition" (Matthew 15:6). Kelly read that passage at 2:45:07. So the men in a teaching position that God set up did teach error, and Jesus corrected them with the Bible ("Moses said," Mark 7:10). That is the closest thing in the Bible to Ben's chain of leaders, and it shows a chain of leaders who could be wrong. Ben agreed that single bishops can be wrong (2:44:09). But in Jesus' day the ruling council went wrong as a body: "the chief priests and all the council sought for witness against Jesus to put him to death" (Mark 14:55), "And they all condemned him to be guilty of death" (14:64). One counsellor, Joseph of Arimathea, "had not consented to the counsel and deed of them" (Luke 23:51), but the council still went wrong.

Jesus' words "whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do" (Matthew 23:3) are best read as: do it when they read and teach what Moses wrote. They cannot mean "believe whatever they teach," because in the same chapter Jesus condemns things they taught (23:16–22). Deuteronomy 17 does speak of an office that went on, "the judge that shall be in those days" (17:9). But it never promises anyone in that office that they will never be wrong (see the answer at 11:54).

"Hold fast to the traditions"; small-t and big-T tradition

Response: In 2 Thessalonians 2:15, Paul tells the Thessalonians to hold on to what he himself taught them, in person and by letter. The chapter is about the day of the Lord, which he had already explained to them face to face: "Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?" (2:5). Kelly explained this at 2:48:34. The verse says nothing about bishops later on. And Ben did not name any spoken teaching from the apostles that still exists today and is not already in the Bible.

Ben splits tradition into "small t" (local customs that can be wrong) and "big T" (official church teaching that cannot be wrong). But the church itself decides which is which, so that split cannot be used to prove the church's own claims. And Ben's last words, "all the dogmas of the church do line up with the script[ure]," agree with Kelly's method. If church teaching can be checked against the Bible, then the Bible is the higher standard. If it cannot be checked against the Bible, then nobody can test whether it "lines up."

Where Ben's Quotes Were Wrong

These are places where what Ben said did not match the real source.

Conclusion

Ben's case rested on four things: the promise not to leave believers as orphans, the church as "pillar and ground of the truth," the keys and the choosing of Matthias, and Ignatius. None of them teaches what the debate was about.

• John 14 promises the Holy Spirit living in believers, and promises the apostles they would remember Jesus' words. It does not promise bishops who can never be wrong.
• 1 Timothy 3:15 describes the church's job of preaching the truth. Paul had already warned that church's leaders that false teachers would rise up from among them (Acts 20:29–30).
• The keys are given in a passage about the gathered church. Matthias was chosen by a rule that ended when the eyewitnesses died.
• Ignatius was quoted with words he did not write. His real words say he does not give orders like Peter and Paul.

Then Ben's own answers worked against Ben. Ben said single bishops can be wrong, that the gift of not being wrong is "usually, typically" expressed through the church, "typically" in the dogmatic decrees of the ecumenical councils, and that the extra books are inspired but second-level, and that the church has no official teaching about them. But the 1672 council, whose dogmatic declarations Ben said "would be binding," says they are fully part of the Bible. The Council of Trullo, which Ben relied on, approved lists of books that disagree with each other. And Ben said the reason for becoming Orthodox was deciding the Bible teaches Orthodox doctrine.

That last answer is the Berean way. In the end every Christian, Orthodox or Protestant, has to test what they are told by the Scriptures. Kelly's point is that this is not a weakness that needs an infallible church to fix it. It is the rule God gave: "To the law and to the testimony" (Isaiah 8:20).

Sources

Every quotation in this article was checked against the source below on 20 October 2026.

The debate. Quotations from Ben and Kelly follow the auto-generated captions of the Modern-Day Debate livestream "Is there an Infallible Rule of Faith Outside Scripture? | Kelly Powers Vs CleaveToAntiquity", with the timestamps shown in each heading. Each "Watch" link opens the video at that moment.

Scripture. King James Version, checked verse by verse against BibleGateway (KJV). Septuagint readings of Hosea 11:1 and Zechariah 12:10 (and Psalm 40:6, Brenton's Psalm 39:7) are from Brenton's translation: Hosea 11, Zechariah 12 (Greek text).

Early fathers (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers translations, New Advent and CCEL):

• Ignatius: Ephesians (chs. 2, 3, 5, 11), Magnesians (chs. 6, 13), Trallians (chs. 2, 3, 7), Romans (ch. 4), Philadelphians (chs. 3–4). The words "succession" and "successor" were searched for in all seven letters and do not occur.
• Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians (greeting, chs. 3, 7, 12, 13); Martyrdom of Polycarp (ch. 16).
• Clement of Rome, Letter to the Corinthians (chs. 45, 47).
• Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 4 (ch. 17 on Scripture as proof; chs. 35–36 for his canon, with Baruch under Jeremiah and no Revelation).
• Gregory of Nyssa, On the Holy Trinity ("let the inspired Scripture, then, be our umpire").
• Athanasius, Festal Letter 39 (Jeremiah "with Baruch, Lamentations, and the epistle"; Esther among the books to be read, not the canon).
• Gregory of Nazianzus, canon poem (Carmina 1.1.12): text and notes (no Esther, no Revelation).
• Jerome: Preface to Samuel and Kings (Prologus Galeatus) and Preface to the books of Solomon; Against Rufinus Book 1 (Wisdom "read to us as the work of Solomon"); Dialogue Against the Pelagians Book 1 (section 33: the words Ben quoted at 1:31:34, and "You will perhaps deny the authority of this book"). Jerome's note that the Council of Nicaea "is considered to have counted" Judith among the Scriptures is from his preface to Judith (Latin and English; summarized in NPNF series 2, vol. 6, p. 494). Letter 127 (ch. 7: "the needs of the Church at length brought me to Rome").
• Josephus, Against Apion 1.8 (Whiston translation).

Councils and confessions:

• Apostolic Canons (Canon 85), Synod of Laodicea (Canon 60, with NPNF's note on its doubtful genuineness), Council of Carthage 419 (Canon 24), Council in Trullo (Canon 2). NPNF vol. 14.
• Synod of Jerusalem 1672, Confession of Dositheus (Decree 2; Question 3), Robertson's 1899 translation as adapted by crivoice.org (1899 printing, Decree II pp. 112-113, Question III pp. 155-156).
• Thirty-Nine Articles (Articles 27, 28).
• Augsburg Confession, Article IX; Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article IX (Concordia translation; the older Triglot reads "seditious").

History (reference articles, checked for each fact used):

• Council of Hieria: 338 bishops, called itself the Seventh Ecumenical Council, overturned in 787.
• Proterius of Alexandria: installed after Chalcedon deposed Dioscorus, met by riots, rival patriarch Timothy Aelurus from 457.
• 2018 Moscow–Constantinople schism: Moscow broke communion on 15 October 2018 over Ukraine; still unhealed.
• Cyril V of Constantinople: the 1755 Oros requiring converts from Rome to be baptized again, accepted only by the Greek churches; signed with the patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem (Metallinos, I Confess One Baptism); the Moscow synod of 1667 received Latins by chrismation instead (Dragas).
• Commemoration of the Union of the Great Church (Mystagogy Resource Center): the Tome of Union (9 July 920), which allowed third marriages with limits and "absolutely prohibited" fourth marriages.
• Simonida: born about 1294, married in 1299 as the fifth wife of Stefan Milutin, who divorced Anna Terter to marry her.
• Decretum Gelasianum: von Dobschütz dates it to the sixth century; its tie to a Council of Rome in 382 is doubted.
• Book of Revelation: the only New Testament book not read in the Orthodox Divine Liturgy.
• Development of the Old Testament canon: Melito, Athanasius and Gregory omit Esther; the contents of Codex Vaticanus, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus.
• Development of the New Testament canon: Cyril of Jerusalem's list without Revelation.
• Second Council of Ephesus: called as a general council in 449, later rejected as the "Robber Synod."
• Council of Florence: Eastern bishops signed union with Rome in 1439 (Mark of Ephesus refused); the East later rejected it.
• Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the USA: its members are the bishops of the separate Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States (Greek, Antiochian, Russian, Serbian and others).