I just finished reading the debate on Sola Scriptura between Moses Flores and Benjamin Rosado and I noticed one fairly significant error in Mr. Rosado's closing statement. He said:
this was passed down from generation to generation to all people until this very day. It is called Apostolic succession. This means that the same message is handed down o that we are believing the same thing taught by Christ and the Apostles. Wonderfully, we can even read what next generation Christians like Irenaeus (who was taught by Peter and Paul) believed. This is the best way to clear up scriptures that are interpreted in different ways by today’s Christians.
Now Mr. Rosado is a really nice guy who as far as I can tell has a very meek and humble spirit, but it has been said that he is a Charismatic Catholic and from my experience with Charismatic Catholics (sadly with most all Charismatics of any denominational background [and remember that I am Charismatic!]) is that they are not the most careful students. I believe that this has been demonstrated throughout Mr. Rosado's segments of the debate on a large scale but this one thing jumped out at me, that is the statement that Irenaeus was taught by Peter and Paul.
It's true that I may be entirely misunderstanding this comment and that Ben might mean that Irenaeus was taught through the writings of Peter and Paul (although there is some doubt in my mind that Peter actually authored the letters that bear his name) but I don't think so. I believe the statement if taken as is was simply asserting that Peter and Paul discipled Irenaeus. But Church history does not bear this out.
Clement of Rome in his First Epistle to the Corinthians (ch. 5) mentions Peter and Paul's martyrdom and this was written around A.D. 95. Irenaeus was not born until A.D. 130 so it would have been impossible for him to have been taught directly by Peter and Paul. We could also look to Eusebius' Church History (2.22; 25) which would date both their martyrdom in the mid to late 60's A.D. again making it impossible for Irenaeus to have learned from them directly.
In point of fact Irenaeus learned from Polycarp as a child and Polycarp was discipled by John but the evidence that John lived to the end of the 1st century A.D. is overwhelming, most notably from Irenaeus dating the book of Revelation (Against Heresies 5.30.3) toward the end of Domitian's reign (A.D. 81-96).
So while this is a minor error it speaks volumes of Ben's fideism. Now Ben relies on the RCC and their ability to accurately define doctrine according to Scripture AND Tradition (which is the crux of the debate), yet appears to be uninformed concerning the history and traditions of the RCC that he seeks to defend. But in Ben's defense, even if he were the most knowledgable Roman Catholic on the face of the planet, his position is still ultimately indefensible since it is wholly circular--appeal must be made to Scripture to assert Rome's authority (e.g. Mat. 16:18; Jo. 20:23; 21:16) yet Rome claims authority in declaring Scripture (Trent, Session IV).
