In this conversation with Ethan Muse, it really highlighted the difference between Catholicism vs the Bible. Ethan: "I don't think you actually should have 100% assurance about your own personal salvation." Bible: "You may know you have eternal life" (1 John 5:13)

I love how you just ignore Scripture he quoted simply to assert your own with no reconciliation, hermeneutics, nor analysis. That question is also particularly stupid. Watch: How do you know which works are done that know you are saved if they’re evidence of the same? You don’t.

If God promises anyone who believes eternal life (John 3:16), then that's why I can know I have eternal life. 1 John 2:25 - "And this is the promise that he made to us⁠—eternal life."

There is nothing within Catholicism that contradicts scripture. The same cannot be said for the thousands of heretical sects that have been spawned by Protestantism.

All you have is your own interpretation, based on your own authority Pure narcissism

No, @needGod_net, your take is not correct on that verse... look below. "Run the race with perseverance" - you forget that God is sovereign. His salvation and Sacrifice on the Cross are His to give as a free gift as He wills. So what if He prepared the gift with the expectation of cooperative reception. That is His to decide. So what if he deigns for us to imitate Him on the cross through our long-suffering of resisting temptations. For "He is the Pioneer and Perfecter of our faith" ; the Bible does not say that the NATURE of the gift is instant salvation. It does not state that the salvation is instant or instantly perfect - it states that Christ (not us, not by our works) but Christ in His Wisdom, perfects our faith by using His Grace to build upon our new nature. When we cooperate with His plan for our salvation; we do not save ourselves... We give consent in our free will to be transformed by Love. Christ does the saving; we do the consenting. Love is seated in the will by God's design; no one can be compelled to love which makes consent and free will absolutely necessary. Faith is but the beginning of Love. Love is the perfection of the divine life. God. is. Love. (1 John)

How do you know you have actual faith and not just seeming faith?

The psychology behind legalism: Legalistic religious systems cannot allow believers to have assurance in their salvation because fear of losing salvation provides their system with the necessary motivation for believers to do works. Legalism is a system of extreme arrogance towards the plan of God where believers must help God do the work necessary to save themselves. Christianity is NOT a legalistic religious system, but a relationship with God based on His GRACE. In Christianity, God did ALL the work to enable mankind to be reconciled with Him. Therefore man can do NONE of the work for salvation. We receive eternal life by simple believing in Christ. That's it! And that is GRACE.

Ryan claims that a believer should know with 100% absolute certainty that he would never fall away from grace and that he would still inherit heaven no matter what sins he unrepentantly continues to live and die in. If he doesn’t have this certainty then he will not go to heaven. lol. First, this claim directly contradicts St. Paul’s warnings to believers: “I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this [in sins of the flesh] will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Gal. 5:21) But Ryan simply downplays this warning (as Satan did with Eve) and cites 1 John 5:13 as a support to his claim: “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13) Yet, nothing in this verse claims that a believer must know with 100% absolute certainty that he can never fall away from grace, irrespective of his actions, in order to be saved. Knowing you possess the grace of eternal life as the verse says is NOT the same as Ryan’s claim of knowing you can never lose this grace due to sins (something St. Paul warned explicitly could happen). So, it’s very clear that Ryan just asserted his own false opinion into the verse lol while ignoring the fact that it is directly contradicting St. Paul and the whole of Scripture. Also, when we look at the “these things” St. John wrote in the letter, we see that he is teaching the opposite of Ryan’s claim. He says repeatedly that we know we have life from the way we live, NOT irrespective of it: “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.” (1 John 3:14) Ethan’s Catholic view on the other hand, aligns perfectly with the warnings and attitude the Bible calls believers to have: “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12) “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lionlooking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” (1 Cor 10:12) “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” (Heb 12:14) “Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to lightwhat is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.” (1 Cor 4:5)

Ryan got visibly uncomfortable when Ethan started exegeting James.

It’s not him v the bible it’s him v you. I love how you just think your position has no interpretation involved and that you’re just espousing The Word perfectly. For shame Ryan, have a little humility. You’re super smart but you might be wrong about some things.

What does Jesus (not Ryan) teach about eternal life? Can you answer in full?

Catholicism is not anywhere in the bible This is why they didn’t want bibles available in all languages before 1600 AD …

To try to separate Catholicism exclusively from the Bible is a historical contradiction. The very fact that we know that Matthew wrote the gospel of Matthew didn’t come out of a vacuum. It came from a Holy Spirit lead church who canonised scripture.

1 John 5:13 "These things...that you may know.." What are these things that we may know? 1 John 2:4 "He who says that he knows him, and keeps not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." THAT is how you know--if you keep the commandments. No assurance.

Have, present tense. Not will have, future tense. Salvation can be lost, so it would be arrogant in their eyes to assume there's no possibility of falling away as scripture says can happen.

And yet Saint Paul in 1 corinthians 4:4-6 demonstrates that even he wasn’t 100% certain of his own personal justification and instead said left it to God’s judgement

You don't have it. Or else Paul wouldn't admonish believers to work out their salvation in fear & trembling, persist until the end and finish the race as well keeping the eyes on the prize.,

Ryan spent considerable effort defending a forensic account of justification, and I don’t deny that element. The difference is that I don’t reduce the whole of salvation to that single, truncated frame. Both truths must be held together: God not only declares us righteous, but in His grace He truly makes us holy. Substitutionary atonement is often paired with the claim that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to believers—what we can call the “Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness” (ICR). Proponents argue that passages like Romans 2–3 necessarily entail this conclusion. But ICR overreaches for several reasons. 
 First, it wrongly presupposes that works done in cooperation with the Spirit—Spirit-wrought works—cannot truly situate a person as righteous. A common prooftext is, “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Rom 3:10). But this statement is predicated on man in the flesh, not man transformed and empowered by the Spirit. Paul is describing humanity apart from grace, not the regenerate life within the New Covenant. 
 This matters because, in Romans, St. Paul is preparing to unfold the benefits of the New Covenant—chief among them the indwelling Spirit who empowers what the Old Covenant could only command. The Law could instruct, but it could not give life. 
 Now, if one insists, “No one is righteous,” we run into an apparent tension with Scripture itself. In James 5:16 we read: “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” Likewise, in Luke 1:6, Zechariah and Elizabeth are described as “righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments.” These are not throwaway lines. Either Scripture contradicts itself, or we are meant to make distinctions. 
 The Catholic reading does the latter: “no one is righteous” is true of man left to himself—man in the flesh. But when a person cooperates with grace, enabled by the Spirit, he can truly be called righteous. James explicitly ties righteousness to right living (see Elijah), not to a merely external imputation. Luke likewise attributes righteousness to faithful obedience. Neither text suggests that righteousness is something alien credited to them apart from their transformed lives. If ICR is necessary, one must explain why sanctification—real interior renewal—does not render a purely forensic imputation redundant. Moreover, if Luke can ascribe righteousness to Zechariah and Elizabeth’s obedience without “robbing God of glory,” then the Catholic position stands on solid biblical ground: God’s grace truly makes us righteous, not merely declares us so while leaving us unchanged. 
 For this reason, it is inadequate to say righteousness “has nothing to do with us.” The biblical data consistently links righteousness with a life lived in grace. In fact, the language of imputation can feel out of place in Paul’s broader argument, especially as he moves toward describing life in the Spirit. Even Protestant scholar Ben Witherington III notes that Paul’s contrast is not between faith and all works whatsoever, but between reliance on the Mosaic Law and life in the Spirit. The Law could command but not empower; thus “works of the Law” cannot justify. But this is not a rejection of all works—it is a rejection of unaided, fleshly effort, which the Catholic Church, not Calvin, condemned as being the heresy of Pelagianism.
 This becomes explicit in Romans 8:1–4: the “law of the Spirit of life” sets us free from the “law of sin and death,” precisely so that “the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” That is not mere imputation—it is transformation. 
 So, Paul is not opposing faith to Spirit-enabled obedience. He is opposing “bootstrap” righteousness—works done in the flesh—to the life of grace, where the Spirit actually empowers us to fulfill what the Law required. The message is clear: live in Christ, by the Spirit—not in the flesh. Tbc

To claim you are guaranteed heaven is the sin of presumption. It is a sin against the Holy Ghost. You will be judged as Jesus makes clear especially on your words and your deeds.

This is close to lying. It ignores the Scripture Ethan used and makes it sound like Ryan was not running from the Bible the entire debate, as he did. The debate was Ethan/Bible/History/Church vs Ryan/Ryan’s Interpretation

So what do you do with all the scripture that warns that you can fall away, or be “cut off” or that not everyone who calls out Lord Alford will,inherit the kingdom, or that if you do not forgive or repent you cannot be saved regardless of your intellectual faith?

Ethan is correct. You’re so foolish in trying to promote this “believism”. In that case people, you can sin all you want it seems. According to Ryan.

What does “may” mean, Ryan?

John assures believers they presently have eternal life through Christ (1 John 5:12-13) — that's real, grounded hope. Trent rejected something else: the claim that a believer can know with infallible certainty he can never fall away, apart from special revelation. Even Paul didn't claim that kind of certainty: "I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified" (1 Corinthians 9:27). He also said to work out salvation "with fear and trembling" (Phil 2:12). Bottom Line Confident hope in Christ's promises ≠ presumption that final perseverance is automatically locked in regardless of how one lives. Both despair and presumption are excluded — the virtue between them is hope.

Bible: "You may know you have eternal life" (1 John 5:13) It's by examining yourself by the verses that come before is how, you know. 1 John 1:6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 1 John 2:4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 1 John 3:10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. 1 John 3:14–15 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

If you continue reading 1 John rather than cherry picking it out of context, it specifically talks about mortal sin. That is to say sin that separates us from God. You have to read scripture as a unified whole rather than in isolated sentences.

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. - 1 John 5:2

It also says have a blessed hope, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, don’t fall, if one errors from the truth….dome draw back to perdition, 1 Corinth15:2 By which also ye are saved, 👉if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

Yeah, you took quite a severe beating on this one…kinda like when you said a Gospel was not Scripture with Joe. Hope you see the error of your ways, someday and repent of all the folks you’ve led astray.

It’s like you still revert back to the same position even after you are drawn out.

You got ripped to pieces in this debate. You don't trust in Christ alone, you trust in your own personal interpretation, and out of context of scripture alone. 😂

Loving God is necessary for salvation, the denial of that really exposed who was following this so-called false gospel

"I don't think.." That's all I need to hear.

You're a master cherrypicker!

Did Christ say “I did it all guys, just believe that and you’re good”? Or did he say things like “if you love you you’ll keep my commandments”?