I’m a Protestant (Lutheran) who holds a high view of Mary watching this on the day of the feast of the assumption to try and figure out what I believe about this. Thanks for the video!

After 14 years as a protestant I've decided to become Catholic in part because of your videos thank you so much! 💯🙏😁

O I just love our Blessed Mother so much, how can you not? She's just so lovable🕊 I was an atheist and fully entrenched in the evils of the world for many years, but praise God the rosary and Our Lady of Guadalupe lead me to Christ and to truly love and believe in her Son.

I always appreciate it when protestants can disagree with Catholics and Orthodox without being dishonest. The "fight me IRL" tough-guy way of argumentation, that has become disturbingly popular, is extremely off-putting and uncharitable, and Dr. Ortlund stays away from that, so props to him.

Our Protestant brethren embrace contraception and see nothing morally wrong with it because “there’s nothing in the Bible that mentions it”. The fact that it actually does notwithstanding, why can’t Catholics believe in the Assumption? Since the Bible doesn’t say Mary was NOT assumed and there are indeed three examples where people are assumed, I submit the truth of the Assumption is supported more so than the contrary.

I have to admit Mary was hard for me to accept, but the Rosary blew my mind

Thank you so much for your rebuttal! I’ve been waiting for it. God Bless you and your family!

"The Bible says if you have 6 children, you have to become Catholic or Mormon" Trent just casually dropping facts.

Gavin's core objection seemed to be: "I just don't think it's reasonable for a Church to *demand* that people believe a doctrine which I don't think has enough evidence." This is what JWs and Oneness Pentecostals say about the Trinity, etc. He's bringing up the ever-present issue of Authority, but wrapping it up in a specific dogma and using his opinion of that dogma to attack Authority obliquely instead of directly.

People on CC's channel were saying that Trent would definitely make a rebuttal to that video. And Trent did not fail us, once again.

Another great video which equals heat with light. We really need more like this, thoughtful and well presented from both sides. Everyone can benefit from this video because it’s quality content from both sides which greatly benefits us as viewers. May God continue to bless the ministries of both of these men.

I was anxiously waiting for this video!

What a treat to wake up on August 15 to find this articulate discussion about the Assumption with these two brilliant Christian apologists.

It's funny when evangelicals take the pretense of being closer to the Bible and early Church without all these silly RC accretions when they always change quite substantially to be particular to their place and time, in this case 21st century America. They would look totally bizarre to Christians at any other time and place

This is the 3rd rebuttal of Gavin Ortland that I've listened to. I do appreciate his reasonable and charitable way of presenting his case. But in each of these videos, he seems to cherry-pick quotes. He does that with Schumacher here, quoting what supports his view, but omitting those passages which blatantly contradict him. This undercuts his arguments.

15 years ago when i was a catholic it really bothered me when I went to the apologetics and found contrived answers about papacy, Mary and all the catholic particular beliefs. Some months ago I knew about sort of a new wave of catholic apologists and checked your responses to Gavin. Now I found that the catholic apologists are even worse! The contrived answers, appeals to Newman concept of doctrinal development and the way you read your ideas into the scripture and into the fathers is simply unbelievable. Dr Gavin has a strong case about these deviant belief from scripture and now I know Rome is exactly the same. Every catholic apologist has surrendered his mind to the Pope: No matter how contrived, how far fetched the response needs to be, Rome and the Pope needs to be defended

Thanks for making this video. God bless!!

The Greek Orthodox Church shares the same belief, but calls it "The Dormition of the Theotokos". It's another example of the many things we share with our Catholic brethren.

This was an excellent, well-researched response! Thanks for posting this Trent. I was glad to hear you bring up Jude 9 as I've found that to be quite a relevant point.

Thank you Trent for responding to this Gavin video. When I was listening to his video last week, inside I was hoping that you would do a rebuttal to it and you didn’t disappoint haha! Please always do these Gavin rebuttals (when of course they’re needed)!! 🙏🏽

I'm a recent convert. Ortlund's points are well articulated and reflect what my concerns were when joining the church. Sometimes I still experience these concerns. However, as Trent (person not the council) mentioned, pretty much everything that Ortlund said about Mary's assumption can be said about the New Testament canon, both in its lateness, the diversity of opinion as to which books were inspired, and so on. Moreover, while it was in the 4th Century that we see Athanasius give the exact NT canon, the church did not dogmatically declare the canon until the Reformation some 1200 years later.

GOD BLESS HIS ONE AND ONLY CATHOLIC CHURCH

YAAAAS! Been waiting for this!

No problem re audio only. Most of the time I’m listening rather than watching.

Your rebuttals are so helpful! So often I encounter these types of videos from intelligent, open-minded, well-intentioned Protestants and don’t have a way to refute what they are saying. Thankful apologists like you exist, Trent.

Thank you, Trent, for your content. I love the comments section of these videos. Seeing so many Jesus lovers getting excited about the Catholic faith is great. Even if people disagree, it's fantastic that so many good conversations pop up from these rebuttals. May God have mercy on us and bless us!

Wonderful video! Thank you for an intelligent rebuttal.

I am in RCIA right now and struggling with this. This video made me feel the arguments are even weaker than I had hoped- I really hope I'm able to overcome this disbelief in the official dogma.

Why is it so hard to believe that Our Lord’s mother was assumed into Heaven?

There's a protestant arguing like an athiest again. You can't say you doubt the validity of the early Christian evidence, but believe in the biblical evidence. When atheists use the same arguments against the bible

dang this is a powerful rebuttal. especially toward the end!

Of course he releases this on the feast of the Assumption haha, perfect timing.

Thanks for this program. I'm a High Church Anglican or Anglo-Catholic and I believe in the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I guess I would probably be considered a Protestant, but I consider myself an Anglo-Catholic.

Cant wait to listen!

Another thing to point out that with how Christians are so good in keeping relics, any remains of Mary would have been saved but there is none which may be another evidence of her bodily assumption to heaven.

We have relics of apostles but not of Mary. We have two tombs of Mary, no body. Why? Assumption is a fact. Get over it.

I think this was a weak rebuttal from Trent. As should be obvious from the full video, the evidence from historical texts for the Assumption/Dormition is just not that strong. There are other reasons to believe in it, but the historical texts are not favorable. Pretty much all of Trent's comments boil down "well, it's not quite as bad as he says it is". If this were a debate, Ortlund would have been the clear and obvious winner.

This is another excellent rebuttals. I wonder if you also do academic rebuttals in theological Journals to advance ecumenical dialogues? Your approach is really irenic and really suitable for both platform (popular and academic).

Absolutely loved this Trent.

For me, I always had this question: if Mary was not taken to Heaven in body and soul, then where is her burial site and how come there's no pilgrimage there?

I LOVE the back and forth between my favorite apologists!

1:20:15 "It's so important not to yoke the consciences of Christians to believe this - that are beyond what the Gospel requires...Can you see the bind you put us in?" This is the same position that critics take on contraception, abortion, IVF, divorce, homosexual marriage, Mary's Perpetual Virginity, or even the Virgin Birth. Now they may or may not think they have good reasons to reject those things - but in any instance it *presumes* that understanding or liking those doctrines are the sole reason for accepting or rejecting them. It is strange that the vast majority of Protestants (except Anglicans) *reject* the Intercession of the Saints, for example -- even though the evidence for that doctrine is ancient and overwhelmingly well attested. That suggests that acceptance or rejection of a doctrine isn't solely about the historical evidence or ancient practice.

I came to Christ late in life. My conversion began within Catholic circles. But it was the doctrines around Mary, including praying the "Ave Maria", which in my spirit I found troubling. So, I took a different path and focused on Christ alone. It was there in the embrace of the Lord's grace that peace came. It was afterward that I discovered from scripture and the earliest church fathers that there is no warrant for the extreme Mary dogmas held by Roman Catholicism.

listening is good too trent. you do yeomans work already so thanks to God for your work and ministry.

I'm Catholic and the points about her not having bodily corruption are really good evidence to me. I never heard that before.

Dr. Matthew Levering's book on the Assumption is an excellent read.

I agree "there is no way on earth to believe that" but I do have reason from HEAVEN to believe it. God is good and much better and more generous than many people think.

At around 45:38 does Gavin just skip over that fact that his 5th century source that he is using clearly state that Mary was a virgin until the end of her life saying that if she did die she was crowned with virginity?

"but nothing was written...." Well when you consider that Christianity was illegal until 313 AD and only became the official religion of the Roman Empire after 380 AD it seems kind of a miracle anyone would write something down so they could be discovered before this time. Or that anything survived the book burnings of the Romans.

If we can say the Church can affirm the scriptures and particular interpretations of the scriptures, then something Ortland views as such a secondary issue should be no problem. That is how it should be viewed, but protestants see it as rhetorically expedient to attack what they view as a soft spot to undermine the whole authority of the Church. It's funny Ortland admits this himself, and for his congregation, why shouldn't they just say his particular interpretation of the essentials is nonsense and leave? And from his view of authority, this is exactly what they should do and he can have no recourse. He sees many of the problems for protestants lacking historical credibility including from the Fathers and their problems of authority, but he just puts a band-aid on a bullet hole having to necessarily adopt such tenuous positions like RC Sproul on the Canon and evangelicals generally on authority in the new testament not really being authority but some dubious sense of local authority. This gets me thinking that similar to the situation between the political right and left, Catholics can understand what protestants are saying but protestants can't understand what Catholics are saying, and for any given issue Catholics are more accurate in addressing how various protestants will respond than vice versa.

Thanks much for this video.

The simplest proof of the Theotokos’ Dormition/Assumption is that there are no relics of her. If there were, we Orthodox and Catholics would know EXACTLY where she is. But since she left us no bodily relics, it’s only sensible that God took her into glory.

Thank you for your hard work defending the faith, Trent! You are a great hero for Catholicism

You realise of course that the technology attack was demonic. We know how much the devil hates Our Blessed Mother. This work must be important for the salvation of souls. The saved audio is God not allowing the devil to go too far. God bless you for your work. Carlo Acoutis had 5 computer fires, but he still got his work done before he died. Hang in there.

Thank you for this wonderful gift on Assumption Day. Great work and timing!

I just came here from the podcast, to watch the video version. 😅 Oh well! Guess I’ll go back to my pod catcher!

Man I have been getting the "Protestants debunk Catholicism" KZfaq algorithm lately and I was JUST praying to God about it earlier. Was hoping I could get a rebuttal of Dr Ortlunds critique and what do you know, boom, this comes up today. Thank you!

I like the sound of this fella’s voice

“This issue alone is enough to make someone a Protestant” ~Gavin Ortlund Really??? What issues are “enough” to reject Protestantism I wonder? Gavin plays nice and sweet talks very well but his deceitful and dishonest anti Catholic bias always comes out in the end.

One of the things I noticed Trent does in his argumentation, he uses two logical fallacies. When he was talking about Duffy specifically he brought up how Atheists or Muslims would quote Duffy. That is called poisoning the well: the use of unfavorable information (whether it is correct or false) as proof for why the opponent is false. Example: Hitler was against smoking, so you’re a Nazi if you’re against it. He also presented it as a false dilemma. An argument that is “either you’re with us or against us.” In Trent’s case he set up his Duffy argument to say either “either you’re Catholic or you’re an Atheist/Muslim.” He also set up to say, “Either you completely agree with Duffy on everything, or you can’t cite.” That is obviously wrong because you can agree and disagree with the same person about different things. Example: Trent and Gavin agree about the Trinity but disagree about papal authority. This is not an honest way to argue

I'm looking forward to the debate on apostalic Succession Trent

The more I listen to these objections the more apparent it is to me the core objection is Authority. The irony, Gavin doesn't explicitly make the claim that he is an authority but it is implied. Why should Gavin believe Gavin?

Audio’s great my dude! Take your time off!

I still don't get why Dr. Ortlund would still use the 10,000 people bible survey argument. That's like a double edged sword on his part.

Best gift Trent could give us on the Solemnity of the Assumption

So much appreciation that a Protestant looks to Catholic sources...instead of spewing false, erroneously garbage. This man is awesome.

Mr. Horn: the mere fact you admitted that this dogma can't be traced back to the apostolic age is precisely the problem. The Gospel preached by them that saved those who believed upon hearing is the SAME gospel that saves us today! The mere fact a dogma comes attached with anathema or some other threat that can't be traced back to the Apostoles and the OT is evidence enough to doubt it. What did Christ say when he spoke to the jews about denying Christ as YWH? As is written in John if you deny that I AM you will die in your sins. Therefore, the only way we know the state a person is if they won't believe that Christ is I AM. The same I AM that spoke to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and then to Moses and the prophets. We can not add to thr gospel. You are saved by believing that Christ id I AM and as a result of that belief you do his command to love that is how we know that a person is Christs disciple or follower! By believing that Christ is LORD of hosts and doing his command!

I often wonder if they believe that John the Baptist is exhibiting some form of false modesty when he says he’s not worthy of even carrying Jesus’s sandals. Taken literally than who is worthy of bearing him in the Womb?

03:21: "I have no interest in debating the assumption in particular because I don't debate subjects where I"m too far removed from the other person theologically on the subject." Umm....didn't we just debate not only the bodily Assumption of Mary, but also her Perpetual Virginity & Immaculate Conception on whether or not they contradict Scripture, specifically, this past April? You can't get more "far removed theologically" than that. And the topic didn't have to do with sola scripture or church authority, either. Just saying, Trent....... 🙂

I can’t remember where I saw this asked recently, but maybe someone in the comments can help. If I become Catholic, do I have to pray the rosary? I can accept the 4 Marian dogmas, but I don’t get anything out of the rosary. If feels too distant and formulaic. I’ve enjoyed connecting and praying with Mary in other ways. I just don’t understand the need for someone else’s prayer strategy if it doesn’t draw me closer to God.

It was easier to watch rebuttals of Dr. Ortlund before I saw a post debate video with him and Trent on Pints with Aquinas because now I like him and had to unblocked his channel. With so many things spinning around in my head, my question remains: How can the opposite conclusions on central doctrines be drawn when two honest and brilliant minds examine the same historical and exegetical information?

I know that if the whole argument from tradition is true that this means that the assumption of Mary is necessarily true, but it's very difficult to get over my skepticism of claims like these. It's hard to genuinely believe that the apostles would have taught this and if it were another religion I think alot of people would be more skeptical of the authenticity of this claim, and the other marian dogmas.

Steve Ray a Catholic apologist wrote " It seems clear that Luke has used typology to reveal something about the place of Mary in salvation history. In the Ark of the Old Covenant, God came to his people with a spiritual presence, but in Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant, God comes to dwell with his people not only spiritually but physically, in the womb of a specially prepared Jewish girl"....so if we admit Mary is the Ark of the New Convenant would it appear or logically follow that the immaculate conception the virgin Mary would be lifted up by God and preserved from rotting in an earthly grave because of her individual holiness by saying yes to God to bear His Son the Mesiah and the grace....the fullness of grace God gave within her to transform her like he transforms all of us when we submit to God to be bodily assumed into heaven?

Do you deny the Mosaic authorship of Exodus?

I absolutely love being catholic… that being said, I still sometime struggle with Marion doctrines because for so many years I had Protestant doctrines shoved down my throat

Bishop Theoteknos sounds like the coolest DJ you have never heard.

Heres what i never understood about this whole thing: Protestants seem to recoil at the idea of the Assumption because some how it deifies Mary, yet are perfectly fine with Enoch and Elijah...like what gives?? Why be SO resistant to the idea? I mean if anyone is going to be assumed into heaven its Mary 😂 they start with a strange preconceived notion that its just absolutely blasphemous on face value and its just not

Super informative

18:11 I'm sorry but all of the reasons cited by pope Pius the 12th are so weak and speculative. They're like "oh well wouldn't Jesus like to do that for his mom" that line of argument can be applied to anything. Why shouldn't John the beloved apostle be assumed, what about Jesus love for humanity i guess that means everyone is saved right?

Wait, is Trent using the Book of Mary’s Repose as evidence for the assumption? I thought it was a gnostic book that denied the sonship of Christ and had a gnostic creation myth. Are there really no better sources for the belief’s historicity?

I'm Assemblies of God, feeling drawn more and more to the Catholic Church. I'm having a really hard time getting past the Mary dogmas. I can get on board with the bodily assumption, even perpetual virginity. But sinless since birth? I'm having a hard time with that one. I know I'm on the right path, because I speak in tongues, and have been more active then ever in my faith, and even had a vision that helped me get past the communion of saints through the eucharist. But this one is tough for me, just waiting for confirmation I guess. Excellent video.

Psalm 45 Noble men ask her favor! The virgin to the right of the King in heaven. He exalts her for all generations!!!

>”Whoever can pronounce that should just immediately win the debate.” Lmao I win!

I've watched quite a few of these Ortlund / Trent rebuttals of rebuttals now on multiple issues. As someone working toward converting to the Catholic Church, I find a lot of the discourse helpful in conjunction with my own reading of the historic church's beliefs and practices, and scriptural basis for what were and sometimes are originally suspect ideas for me. But I'm so confused about the comments I see on Gavin's videos and how it echoes people in my own life to the point I need to ask anyone who will reply. I watch his content and before I can even listen to an obviously better researched rebuttal that I'd come up with, I'm already thinking about how uncharitable, cherry-picking, and sometimes just downright mean Gavin can come across on issues. But then all the comments are universally "Even as a Catholic you make great points!", "Wow so charitable!", "A true defender of the faith", "Wow look at how horrible Trent / Jimmy are with their ad hominems", etc. and it just baffles and confuses me. I'd love for there to continue to be good discussions about points of doctrinal difference but is this really a case of battle lines are drawn so people will just stick to their side with biases that make being charitable impossible? I don't know. I've seen echo chamber mentality from both Protestants and Catholics on social media, but I've definitely been seeing it more tipped, at least to me, on the Protestant heavy side the more I've opened up the pandora's box that is researching what I believe and why I believe it. My biggest gripe seems to be the refusal of some Protestants (including in my own personal life) to believe Catholics when they say "We believe X and don't believe Y", as if they would know Catholicism better than my priest or these researched Catholic apologetics who can clearly explain what they believe. Why are there so many Protestants ready to die on seemingly the stupidest hills? Like the insistence that Catholics worship Mary and the saints and just reject any pushback? I don't know. It's all very discouraging to have family members seemingly hellbent on deliberately misunderstanding Catholic beliefs to the point that it makes me wonder if I'm crazy for not just agreeing with them unquestioningly. Does anyone have any encouragement or insight into this kind of division and maybe some advice on how to handle the people in their personal lives who are zealously opposed to you joining the Catholic Church as if it was Satan's personal pet project?

Love Trent's application of Protestant standards regarding Marian evidence to Protestant doctrines! Check out William Albrecht's refutation/rebuttal on Patristic Pillars too. While Trent's authority-centered perspective is valid and useful, Albrecht's engagement of the scholarship and early Fathers is a bit more thorough (he also plays clips from interview of Fr Daley) and visual.

FR PARKS IS THE G.O.A.T. You really need to get him on your show

My pre-listen material is that Mary’s assumption has precedent in Elijah as a sign of divine favor from suffering death, consistent with prefiguring the resurrection that we should not suffer death, and that Mary assumption is a logical conclusion of another dogma, immaculate conception. Immaculate conception being appropriate for Mary to be a Queen of Heaven, that is the mother of a King, and appropriate as a feminine New Eve to Jesus the new Adam as they take on a more perfected role of being “parents” of humanity in the sense of reconciling what Adam and Eve did/do. It’s something on the mysticism realm that’s more directly referenced in the more mystical elements of scripture (like revelations and Genesis) so for the less-mystically minded it’s harder for them to accept except by authority.

So, I am on team Catholic but I do love me some Dr. Ortlund commentaries. I think this man loves Christ with a passion and I bet he is a fantastic pastor. And no doubt he has much deeper theological training than me, and although I'm sure he wouldn't out of charity, I bet he could run academic circles around me. With that said, I find two points interesting off the top of my head. First, the idea of giving Revelation 12 to 10,000 people to find the Assumption. One could probably say the same for the doctrine of the Trinity and homoousios. To my mind this is a moot point since the Church is guided into all truth by the Holy Spirit, not 10, 000 randomly drawn individuals. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding Dr. O here. Secondly, with the idea of the timeline of Revelation 12, a woman giving birth in heaven etc. My background is more in the arts, music, poetry, literature. This just isn't an issue for me. Apocalyptic visions... one would think anyhow, follow more of an ecstatic, poetic path and not a chronological timeline. I'm not saying this is a lack of imagination on his part, but simply a lack of a poetic or literary way to view the passage. Anyhow, if I lived on the west coast and was looking for a Reformed Baptist church to attend, I suspect his would be a fantastic one to call home.

I’m personally of the belief that Mary was Assumed alive.

Brother Trent, Lutheran here, trying to figure things out. Is the Assumption of Mary a salvation issue according to the Catholic Church? Thanks so much!

At 6:30, Ortlund uses the phrase "Roman system". Why do Protestants do that? Are they TRYING to insult the faith of Catholics by calling calling Catholicism a "system"? A system of what? Works by which we earn our way into heaven? at 8:30, what doctrines of the Baptist faith would a member of Dr. Ortlund's congregation be allowed to reject before be disfellowshipped? at 13:35, Ortlund asserts that the proclamation of the Dogma was "very controversial". To whom? When I asked my inlaws about this, they were puzzled by the question and finally said, "It was what we all believed, so we didn't think anything special about it. We were glad, but it wasn't a shock to us."

Most holy Theotokos, save us.

At 40:00 Trent mentions the name of Theotokos being applied to Mary and how Gavin wouldn’t believe it even if it is early, but Gavin explicitly affirms Mary being the mother of God. Also there is a difference between understandings of doctrines such as justification and reports of historical events. One of the reasons people believe the resurrection is because of the accounts of witnesses, which Mary’s assumption doesn’t have for 400 years, which is pretty damning for a historical event.

Protestantism takes a Catholic book and decapitates it from the faith from which it came, arguing even amongst themselves on how to interpret it. This causes ALL kinds of chaos, confusion, and error.

Thanks!

31:19 I'm a protestant and I don't believe all doctrine is found in scripture alone. But if you say: "Believe this or else you go to hell" - you better find that doctrine in scripture. Sola scriptura does not mean, that scripture is the only source of doctrine, but it's the only infallible source.

To summarize the lengthily epistle I posted on the original video by Dr. O... I appreciate that he does not depend on anti-cathoic tropes of the past. My critique of both Catholic and Protestants like Dr. O are a few. First there seems to be a dependence on Proof texts from the Fathers, in Dr. O's case it appears he finds a few citations and then feels, I'm done, not looking further, overlooking who the individual heresy or heretic that Father is seeking to correct. But what I think is most lacking is sources outside the Fathers, for example the attacks by the Roman Pagans against Christians being cannibals, because they claim to eat their god... Supports that it was not an idea unknown to not just the Early Church, but also to non-Catholics. Second there seems to be a complete blind eye by Dr. O to non-written non-Patristic evidence. In the case of The Assumption of our Lady, which he will not trace until the 5th Century, however there is archeological evidence of the belief in a 2nd and 3rd Century Christian Cemetery discovered in Spain in the past couple of years, where two sarcophagi were found with depictions of the Assumption of our Lady. Sola Patris is just as dangerous a road to go down as Sola Scriptura. While sometimes Catholic Apologists use the writings of non-Christian writers, and archeological evidence, I think it is often overlooked.

I wish all my Protestant friends a happy Feast of the Accretions

I think one of the basic understandings of how special Mary was as follows: was she special enough to be the mother of Christ like many of a few other women throughout history but just happened to be there at the right time. Or was she special beyond other women that she was the only one worthy of bearing Christ who is God. I think the latter and the Catholic view of what she is reflects this best.

Despite Catholic protestations to the contrary, It is difficult for Atheists as well as Protestants not to have the impression that Catholics worship Mary, when they see pilgrims at Fatima or Guadalupe, Medjugorje or anywhere else, crawling on bloody knees toward Marian statues and shrines in order to bow down, kiss and kneel before Mary's statues.