The Resurrection Debate Between Alex O'Connor And Trent Horn

You can watch it here. Trent made some good points against Alex's position during the debate, but I want to supplement what he said with some of my own responses to Alex. And I want to respond to Trent to some extent. I've responded to Alex on resurrection issues in the past, and some of what he said in his discussion with Trent covers the same ground. I'll link to some of my previous responses to Alex, since what he said in this recent discussion doesn't advance his side of the argument in any significant way. I also want to add some further comments to what I said in response to him in the past.

Following The Chain Of Joy

"Now, if you love what He made, what must He be who made it? If the world is beautiful, what must be the Author of the world?" (unknown source, in Mary Magdeleine Mueller, trans., St. Caesarius: Sermons, Volume I [1-80] [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004], Sermon 21:5, p. 110)

Problems With Roman Catholic Apparitions Of Mary

Fatima has been getting an unusual amount of attention lately, largely because of a recent debate on the subject between Ethan Muse and Sean Luke. The Zeitoun apparitions got a lot of attention last year. I don't know enough about Fatima to address it as much as I have Zeitoun. But I want to discuss some of the factors involved in evaluating Marian apparitions in general.

Prayer to saints and angels in Revelation 5:8 and 8:4?

Because prayer to angels and saints is so absent from and contradicted by the Biblical sources and the earliest extrabiblical ones, advocates of the practice resort to unverifiable appeals to passages like Revelation 5:8 and 8:4. Neither passage suggests prayer to angels or saints, just as the angels' carrying bowls of wrath elsewhere in Revelation doesn't lead us to conclude that the angels are the recipients of that wrath. And the earliest interpreters of those passages in Revelation refer to how the prayers are directed to God. There's no mention of praying to angels or saints. For some documentation of that fact, as well as a discussion of the Biblical evidence against the abuse of Revelation 5:8 and 8:4 to support prayer to angels and saints, see here.

I came across another example while reading Tom Schmidt's translation of Anonymous Greek Scholia On The Apocalypse. In a passage about Revelation 5:8 that seems to have come from Origen, we read:

"Somewhere it is said, 'Let my prayer be directed as incense before you [God].' [Psalm 141:2] Bowls full of these incenses are the guides of those who genuinely pray to Christ." (Francis Gumerlock, et al., translators, Cassiodorus, St, Gregory The Great, And Anonymous Greek Scholia: Writings On The Apocalypse [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022], 131)

Psalm 141:2, which is about praying to God, is cited, followed by a reference to those who "pray to Christ". Origen makes similar comments, including the citation of Psalm 141:2, in section 8:17 of Against Celsus.

For a collection of resources on the evidence against prayer to saints and angels, see here.