Editing Openai/691a45a6-8ed0-8010-a7d9-24657a41a9aa (section)

==== The Catholic model cannot explain why public revelation stopped.** ====

If he’s smart, he says something like:

“Your model requires you to explain why Christ’s church—guided by apostles—suddenly stopped receiving public revelation, prophecy, visions, and new scripture.

If the Holy Spirit continues guiding the Church, why did revelation end?

Why no new books of scripture after the first century?
Why no new apostles with genuine prophetic authority?
Why the dramatic shift from charismatic Christianity to institutional Christianity?”

This is clever because it flips the burden of discontinuity onto the Catholic model.

Catholics can give an answer, but it’s abstract:

“Public revelation ended because the deposit of faith was complete.”

Hansen can strike back:

“That’s circular. How do you know it was complete? Because the institutions you say were authoritative said so. But those institutions are precisely what is in question.”

This is his strongest punch, because it spotlights a real transition in Christian history that Catholics treat as theological necessity, not historical inevitability.

A debate judge who values philosophical consistency over historical documentation might see this as a real point in Hansen’s favor.