Then the the the the the the the the the the the the the the
the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the
the the the the do there's a lot of stuff in there, and are
just saying the distinction I made between the two senses of justification is not at
hok because we have one of them saying we are not just fly by works,
another person saying we are justified by works. That's why virtually every atheist
scholar will say that that's a contradiction, because they understand that verbally they are
saying we are justified by works, We're not just fly by works. If
you say that justification means the same thing in both cases, then you are
necessarily admitting a contradiction. In scripture. So when I say that words out
object and meaning, I don't mean every single word has the exact same meaning
every single time it's using the Bible. I mean the words of the Bible
have meaning. So we can use scripture, and we can use the premise
that scriptures and fallible, which we all agree with, to say that there
must be different senses of justification that they are talking about here. Then all
right, welcome to open forum. I couldn't resist opening it up. Oh,
we had so many people in the chat commenting talking smack that I wanted
to give everybody a chance talking all that smack talking out a jazz to come
and make an argument, present their case, and to give them the floor.
And so I'm in a full red room redroom mode, red room red
room that means full on anger mode. I even unblocked and invited some people
like utter Paul, who I don't think are going to show up. But
let's go ahead and get to it since it's pretty late. Donnie Danny,
Donnie Jo John Jordan, Yo, Hello, can you hear me? Yes,
sir, So I have a question about praying to the saints. So
I understand why you do it, and that's that you're not actually praying to
the saints to get forgiveness and whatever you're praying for from them, but that
they're just saying, what's intercessor. But I don't understand if it's a tradition
of man or a tradition of God. Did Jesus, like, did he
ever preach that we should be praying to the saints and have them as an
intercessor? Well, first of all, we don't just believe what Jesus said.
The entire revelation is what where we derive our doctrines from, and that's
the Old and the New Testament. So when the Book of Revelation says,
for example, in chapter five, when when he had taken the scroll,
the four living creatures fell down before the lamb, having a harp and golden
bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And as
we read the rest of that chapter in the subsequent chapters, we read that
underneath the altar in heaven, the saints in heaven are offering the prayers of
the saints on earth and praying for them. So those are liturgical examples.
That's John singing to heaven and singing the worship in heaven, and he's seeing
that they're worshiping, which includes offering up the prayers of the saints on earth
to the lamb in heaven. So it's called the communion of Saints. So
the doctrine of the community of Saints means that the saints are included in the
worship of the saints on earth, because, as Jesus says in the Gospel,
they're not dead, but they live to God. Hence Hebrews eleven says
that we're all part of the same heavenly city. So does that make sense?
This is why David and the Psalms, for example, can speak to
and ask for the actions and intercession of the angels. Okay, yeah,
that makes sense. Yeah, that's a good question. Any other questions?
Okay, yeah, I have one more. I'm confused on what and this
might have been a question that was just asked. I just joined, so
I'm not sure, but what are the requirements for salvation? Because I've heard
i mean, well not just hurt, but I've seen the verse. I
don't have it on me, but that it's through faith alone. And then
there's also people that say it's faith and works or it's well, yeah,
that's really all I heard. It's faith and then or faith and works.
I don't really understand. Yeah, I mean, Jesus says that this is
the work of God that you believe on him whom he has sent. So
even according to Christ, faith is a work. So of course that yes,
works are now because it works. Paul says, the only thing,
the only faith that saves is faith working in love. So that's not James
that's Paul. So that shows that James and Paul teach the same doctrine.
Ebsollent. Hey, yes, sir, Hey, I'm just wondering just as
a lay person or an Orthodox catechumen, his debates often get so far into
the weeds that at least for me, it's just it's hard to understand.
And I'm just wondering why, if you could speculate, why do you think
God makes it so complicated to you know, get to the get to the
truth. I guess, well it is and it isn't. I mean,
not everything is complicated. Not everybody has to get into theology or make these
decisions on the basis of some like you know, PhD level stuff. So
there's no you know, a lot of people find Christianity, convert, find
Orthodoxy for very simple reasons. They find the liturgy to be beautiful or esthetically
pleasing, so all of those things are kind of simple approaches. But I
mean there's no easy answer as to you know, why the world is complex
or why there's you know, I mean, I don't know just the way
it is, no, I hear it. I just sometimes I just get
frustrated, you know, I wonder, like if I need to, you
know, study harder, or I'm just not smart enough, or you know,
well what I mean, what specifically are you trying to suss out?
I don't know. I mean, I don't know if there's anything specifically.
It's just you know, when I think about like all the different sects of
Christianity, and you know, people that you know are just are trying to
do the right thing and may have no idea that they're in error. You
know, I wonder about, you know, if they'll be said, you
know that kind of thing. Well, I mean, we leave that up
to God. So that's that's not really our you know, prerogative or place
to judge. Luigi, what's up man? Good job on the debate.
You got on mute? I can't hear you. Luigi, you want to
talk? Got a mute? Oh hey, good job, appreciate it.
Yeah, I just want to copa see say hi and see see what you
were talking about. Well, how did you feel about it? I felt
like it was pretty strong outing, pretty strong argumentation there. I felt like
he's got some I mean, I think he's got some stuff to think about,
you know. You know, he definitely used in different talking points than
I've heard before, But yeah, I just think what it comes down to
a lot of times with the father right, is like we have to look
at, first of all the context of these quote minds he's using, right,
And so that's what I was trying to do. Right when he brings
up Ironatis, right, is like, well, Irona says, if we
didn't have the scriptures, we'd be fine, right, because we're going to
reference the Apostolic you know, succession that we have, right, and so
like we have to we read the Fathers right. And this is what I
noticed as a Protestant, Like I would quote Stantaugustin, right, but then
San Augustine, you know, adamantly believe in apostoliccession. You believe you couldn't
be a Catholic church without it, right, And so it's like it's just
disingenious, right when we quote the quote the Fathers without without the context.
Yeah, exactly, That's what I was trying to expose. Yeah, I
was, uh, you know, I had this phase two when I was
a reformed person. I was trying to you know, make the church Fathers
into proto Protestants. So I think it's a it's a it's a thing that
we all do. But it really it's good. Really, it's really difficult
when you do spend time in the church fathers that you realize, well,
they all believe in, you know, things that we don't believe in.
Let's take a look, for example, that something that came up in the
debate that I thought was in the Q and A. It wasn't your fault.
It was just sort of passed over due to time. But if we
look at the Canons of Nicea, it's a very easy way to determine that
the church fathers at the Council of Nicea did not in any way have a
view amenable to Calvinism or Protestantism. For example, I've got them pulled up
here. Let's look at the canons at what the church fathers at Nicea believed.
Right away, we see that the canons deal with the episcopate, all
right, So there's an episcopacy. There is a structure of hierarchy. Let's
mention right away we have the threefold office of bishop, presbyter or, priest
and deacon. We have the mention of bishops being limited in their jurisdictions.
We have the mention of metropolitans, we have the notion that people can be
excommunicated right away. In Canon five we have again a hierarchical authority that can
excommunicate again things that are totally foreign to the Protestant Calvinist denomination which he comes
from. We have a mention of the pentarchy, or well what would become
the pentarchy, the early triarchy, I guess you could say, because at
this time it's just Alexander Rome Alexander in Egypt. We have the establishment of
canon law. Protestants don't believe or have canon law unless they're Anglicans. We
have the mention here of virgins and presbyters, and the notion of celibacy comes
up. We have in the canons here and the oblation of the offering,
so the Eucharus is called an offering here, which is a thing that all
classical Reformation people call a damnable heresy. So keep in mind that redeem Zuomer
is an ecumenist, and he's completely out of line with what the classical Reformers
believe. The classical Reformers killed each other over these issues, and so modern
day Protestants like to pretend that there's a unified Protestant tradition, which is just
simply not true. They were. I wanted to bring that up because like
in the English Revolution, like the Baptists and the Presbyterians, where like they
were an athetizing each other and kill each other. They were killing each other.
And yeah, yeah, exactly. And actually it's crazy because on the
topic of closed communion, it used to be where you had to get a
note from your pastor for permission to commune at a different parish if you were
traveling, right, and so this was this was in the Protestant churches right
in the in the reform churches. Like that's just absurd in today's world,
right, you know, today they go around and they just you know,
take community with whoever. But that's not how it always haspent. So in
many ways you're correct that like even someone like RZ who really does make an
attempt to hold the you know, the teachings of the you know, classical
reformers all short of what they were actually teaching. Yeah, we look at
the canon and goes on to talk about the Eucharist at the point of death.
Again, we have discussions about the offering of the Eucharist. We have
the rules for catechumens. How many churches you know still have catechumens or the
dox. We have statements about again excommunication, we have forbidding of certain things
that canon can't be done at the altar. No reform Reformed church has canon
laws about the altar. So this is all completely foreign to all the stuff
that he would believe. And so this shows that the mindset of the canon
of the Council of Nicea. Most Reformed people don't know there's canons of Nicia,
right. They think Nicia is just the niceing creed. They have no
idea what the canons of the of the Council of Nicea are. That's the
church law of Nicia. Nathan m hm. It was like five Protestants and
that all dropped off where they go. So people are saying, when you're
going to debate Utter Paul. I've asked Utter Paul many times to do a
debate and he's always declined. Uh, and so he decided to disappointed.
I was kind of disappointed in his objection. Honestly, that was kind of
disappointed. It was weak. I'm not I mean, that's why he doesn't
He knows he's not good at debate. That's why he won't do it.
He just likes to make videos trying to provoke people. So Nathan, what's
up make it? I'm mute. Hey there. Yeah, I'm a recent
convert and I was talking with convert to why you cut out convert to Eastern
Orthodoxy, and I was talking with one of my Protestant friends and he mentioned
Matthew twenty three to nine, where it says call no man your father or
something like that. I was just wondering what the Orthodox position on that,
what was and like for the explanation, because we obviously call our priest's father,
So I was just wondering what the explanation or that was. Yeah,
so Paul calls Timothy his son in the faith, his spiritual son. That
means that he's Timothy's spiritual father. The Ten Commandments themselves say honor your father.
How could you honor your father if you can call no man father.
It's just being silly when Protestants have this sort of superstitious view that you can't
call anyone father. It's talking about don't call anyone father in the sense of
replacing God's role, because the Pharisees took on this role of displacing God.
And you even see that in the way that rabbinical Judaism operates to this day,
where the rabbis can basically trump and out debate and beat God. So
that's the very thing Jesus is talking about. Foster. Hello, Hello,
Yeah, what's up? Man? So I was I just had a question
about like infallibility of like councils and stuff like that. So I have like
two questions right here. So you would agree that a council is infallible if
the whole worth iton shirts accepts it, basically, right yeah. And also
at the same time, if you don't accept the council, you're just outside
of the church, right correct. So it isn't that like, I don't
know, sort of circular sort of because how do you know, maybe this
certain aduction maybe like household it's just like undecided, and so like you understand
the like sort of like circularity of it, or well, I mean,
at the end of the day, I don't reject circularity at a paradigm level.
It's unavoidable. So if you're gonna ask me, like what's my ultimate
authority and I say God, and you say what about the church fathers and
the councils, and I say, yes, those two and you say,
well, how do you know that they're right? And I appeal to God
and then I appeal to the Bible, and it's I admit that everybody's position
at a certain point will bottom out. You're only going to have one final
thing that you can appeal to. So yeah, it is actually at a
certain point circular because everybody ends up being circular. But that's different than the
question of vicious circularity, which has to deal with logical fallacies about first order
reasoning. So when you get into metal level questioning, you kind of can't
avoid those kinds of circles because they're unavoidable. So it's two different questions.
So that in other words, and that was one of the critiques I would
have with the debate, not that Luigi messed up or anything wrong, but
throughout the debate, I don't think redeemed Zoomers aware of or understands the difference
between normativity and epistem exerted toude. They're two different things. So if you're
asking me, well, how do you have a better position about how you
go about learning things than anyone else, I don't. I'm in the same
boat as everyone else. And we've made that point a million times when we
talk about the Protestant or the Roman Catholic. The difference is that between the
protest and the Roman Catholic I have different means. So it's a question of
the means and the question of who's in line with the Church of the first
thousand years. Is the Church of the first thousand years papal or is it
Protestant or is it Orthodox. There's no way to solve that question other than
going to the history, going to the text, going to the Church fathers.
There's no other way to do it. So we have to go and
look at the evidence, have to go and look at what the Church fathers
taught. That's a different question in terms of what we call normativity, which
is what Luigi kept bringing up. That's the question of did Jesus establish any
succeeding body of men that have the right to bind people's conscience? And Protestantism
unanimously says no, there's no body of people that has the right to trample
my conscience because classical Protestantism reforms the right of private judgment and the freedom of
the conscience. Okay, and then like an issue with you of a like
this like Robert sentods, and they just say like or like alcause like Kyrie
or whatever, they're like the conquests. Couldn't they just be like, well,
you know, if you don't accept this, you weren't a part of
the true Church, and we don't accept it, and so therefore it's universal.
Like so how would that like that makes sense? Well, the Robert
synods are false synods ultimately because they teach wrong theology. They're not false because
of some like procedural of Snaphu that they didn't follow, and they're false ultimately
because they do. And that's that's why we don't make the Roman Catholic argument
that the only way you know a true council is if a pope affirms it.
The Roman Catholic's one, you have a consistent approach to that. So
again there's two different questions. The way that I know a council ultimately is
only going to be a true council ultimately is only going to be the testimony
of the Holy Spirit, and that's no different than a Protestant or a Roman
Catholic at the end of the day. So the point when we say that
or bring that up. Is not to say that nobody can know or that
we have a epistemically privileged position. Nobody does. We're all in the same
boat. So the question is who's approach and whose system is consistent and what
do we actually see in history? That's the point. So are there fake
synods? Yes, well, at the end of the day, how do
we know. Well, ultimately, it's only going to be the Holy Spirit.
That's not the same thing as what a Protestant says, because a Protestant
has a different principle by which they judge these things. They think it's just
the Bible ultimately. But the problem is that the Bible ultimately doesn't give you
any way to judge any of those things because there's no basis to know what
the right canon of scripture is without the history of the Church. And that's
the main point, is that the epistemic foundation and principle that the Protestant relies
on is inconsistent. It's inconsistent because it needs the church to know the canon,
but it also rejects the church that gives the canon. Okay, sure,
I guess I kind of also leads to question, So you said,
you know basically like they need a canon of scripture and they like can't really
decide it. But you know what, obviously there isn't like a said list
of like binding or like ecumenical const Yeah, but we're not, so we're
not Protestant and stuff. So that's like asking me, well, on the
Protestant basis, why don't you have a Protestant solar scripturer list? Like if
my position isn't solar scripturer, then why would I be bound to the idea
of solo scripturer? I mean, there's nothing inconsistent in my position by admitting
that there's divine tradition outside of the written texts of scripture. That's not inconsistent
with my position. It's only inconsistent if if you apply a Protestant standard to
me. It's the same move that a Roman Catholic makes when they say,
well, where's the guy who decides the infallible councils. It's like that I'm
not a Roman Catholic, so I don't have that problem in my system.
If I had a Roman Catholic system, that might be a problem. I
mean, like like a Bonan just like sort of like appeals like the historicity
of like I mean, I guess like like like like like like just say
just say it, man, try not to do so many like go ahead,
Okay, my bad. I'm just like videam zoomer. I guess he
just would have made this argument, but like why why can't a Protestant just
look through like the history and whatever and just say, like, well,
this seems to be the episode composit and therefore we're gonna treat it like the
highest and obviously councils heavier in the past has been Robert Senden, so therefore
we're just gonna, you know, the councilors are gonna be on the lad
the scripture or whatever, because it's missing the whole point that Paul says the
church is a pillar and ground of truth, not the scriptures, and it's
the church that determine what goes under the scriptures. Yeah, and I would
say, we have an actual method right of determining whether or not a council
is legitimate, and it's going to be that all the patriarchs affirm it,
right, So he doesn't have a method. He's just asserting like his own
personal you know, conscience on Yeah, I'm gonna accept the new Testament cannon
of Carthage, but not the Old Testment cannon. Well why, well you
know because this other father says that that's not actually part of the canon.
Okay, well why does that father? Why is that your method? Why
is that father your method? You except everything that father says? No,
No, just the stuff that I like. Okay, Well, like this
just gets absurd, right, And that's kind of the point is like the
method is going to be that which is affirm by all the patriarchs, and
that's going to be the normative authority his method ultimately, and this is what
all of the prosper reformers say. And I have the quotes by Turretan Hodge
Luther. They all say, you ultimately, it's your conscience that you're appealing
to. You can always override the church with your conscience. We don't agree
with that. We disagree with that, okay. And then also, but
like patriarchs, you know, you know, they can air and so like
whenever you're seeing like is this a valid council or whatever, and you just
say, well, you know, the patriarchs all accept it. I mean,
what if like one patriarch or you know, the patriarch or the West,
whatever you now of Rome, they obviously aren't a part of Orthodoxy anymore.
So, right, so we believe that people that are outside the church
don't they don't count anymore. And so just because they're a patriarch doesn't mean
that they're like there's no protection, that they're infallibly guided as individuals. Sees,
the point is that after something comes up, if it's eventually received by
the entire church, and it's not even just the patriarch, it's it's also
the rest of the church. For example, it took a while for the
Palamite Synods to eventually be received by the entire Orthodox world, and they were,
so there's this like reciprocal relationship between patriarch, its the rest of the
bishops and the Orthodox people, even even the people of the church. It's
not just the hierarchs, it's also the people all they all play a role
in the receiving and accepting of this. And amazingly, even the new Roman
Catholic document that they just put out even admits that there's a role of the
acceptance of the entire church and its population in Roman Catholicism as well. So
that's another concession. And so I think what's going on is that you're you're
confusing two different things. And we're not arguing that the Orthodox Church gets a
trump cart on certitude and it can give you certitude and the Protestants are all
relativists. It's two different points. The point is that the Protestant position is
inconsistent by on the one hand, saying that they have certitude about the canon
of Scripture, then they admit that it comes from the Orthodox Church. That's
another important point that they're missing. It's not just the church as readeemed Zoomer
kept appealing to. No, No, it's the Orthodox Church. Bro Go
read those dudes. They were Orthodox. They believe what we believe. They
don't believe what you believe. So it's getting it from our church and our
dudes, and also trusting the tradition that they hand it down, to know
that it was apostolic, or to know that it was written by you know,
Mark or any of the Apostles or the Disciples or Matthew, because some
of the Gospels just say you know Matthew, Well, Matthew who how do
we know that that's Matthew the Apostle, not just some random other dude.
So apostolicity requires the tradition of the Church, saying this is the book that
we've handed down in this bishopric that Matthew wrote, when we're trusting the tradition
of the Church, that it's an apostolic text. Okay, that's not the
only thing, but that's one of the elements for canonicity to be included in
the Bible. The other thing that I missed a few minutes the beginning the
debates, so I might have come up, but the Bible isn't like a
book that's just circulated for private devotion. It's situated within the liturgy. So
you can't actually divorce the canon from the liturgical recitation and the daily lectionaries and
readings. And that's a key point that when I was a Protestant and I
read that, that really was kind of a clincher for me because it meant
that it's not just the tradition of the Church in some generic sense, it's
actually the liturgical worship of the Church, which is not written down in the
Bible that I'm relying on, or excuse me, that the church fathers are
looking to and relying on as part of their criteria for the canon. So
that was devastating to a Protestant position of solar scriptura because I'm not just relying
on this generic idea. It's like we're having to rely on the liturgy as
part of the way that the canon is determined. And the liturgy is definitely
not something that Protestants accept as some sort of authoritative position, so it's all
the more damaging and devastating. That's the point, is that the Protestant wants
his cake and to eat it too, and to throw out the very thing
that preserved and handed him the book, and you can't do that. We
believe it's a reciprocal relationship of Church and Bible together. They can't be divorced.
You can't get the you can't get the book without the community that handed
it down. That's the point. And that's a different question from is there
a body of people that Jesus established in history who can bind people's conscience and
excommunicate them with authority. Those are two different questions certitude as at an individual
level, where we're all in this Protestant Romecaolic orthodox versus a historical question of
normativity. Does anybody have the authority to bind us with their aughts? You
ought believe this and if you don't, you're out of the church. Two
different questions. And then I mean, like my first question about like it
wasn't really about like like certitude. I was just thinking like practically, like
you know, if the whole church has accept a council for it to be
acumenical, although the times, if you aren't accepting that council, you're not
in the church. I mean, how do you know, Like I mean
kind of already said this maybe, but I mean, like, how do
you know? It's just like maybe an issue is like still, well there's
not and not everything's black and white like at the time of a controversy.
So you might have people at the time of a controversy who aren't clear on
all the issues. And you know, we don't have to like we can
leave these things to God and not have to worry about you know, like
did I get a PhD in theology? To be saved? Like, it's
not about getting a PhD in theology. It's about having the right attitude and
humbly submitting to the church. So for example, Augustine, we believe he
got some things wrong, but he's not like Origin, who's a heretic and
was cast out of the church views without correction. Origin did that, and
that's why he was extual communicated. Augustine said, I submit this to the
Church for their judgment. So the difference between them was not a question of
who had more theological or philosophical knowledge. It was the question of humility.
That's what saves us, not our you know, how much theology knowledge we
have. So it's yeah, it's possible that I could be living at the
time of a controversy and I don't know, you know, how the council,
you know, I mean Augustine I think died on the way to one
of the cumenical councils. So he didn't make it. And so you know
do we say, oh, well, he didn't make it, so he's
well, no, we don't think that. I mean, it's not Orthodoxy
doesn't have this like legalistic spirit of you know, these really black and white
attitudes of like, oh, you're all damned if you didn't get the right
you know, theological position. You're a heretic if you continue an obstinacy against
the presentation of the truth. That's what makes your herotic, not just being
wrong. So so if you're asking how in other words, there's no easy
answer to somebody living in the time of a big controversy. Okay, yeah,
and then also like like how long would like one of these like controversies
like last for you know, like I don't know what the Erring Constverras is,
like something like eighty years. Is it possible like something that could happen
for like two hundred years or like I don't know. Oh yeah, absolutely.
I mean if you look at the history of the Philly oakuay, I
mean, it lasts as a dispute for hundreds of years until it really gets
clarified when Rome dogmatizes their position at twelve seventy four, and then when the
Orthodox reply with their position at the Palomite Synods, and then Rome restates their
position at Florence, and that had been disputed going all the way back to
you know, even when Saint Maximus was saying, well, maybe we can
give the Latins that you know, the benefit of the doubt, and maybe
they just mean in terms of economya. So it takes many centuries actually for
that to be solidified at a dogmatic official level between East and West. Okay,
yeah, yeah, thank you, guys. Yeah, those those are
good questions. I don't know why you keep like holding up your hand and
thumbing down. What's your problem, dude? Sorry, No, I was
just reacting to Derek and that wasn't when you were talking. I think there's
a time delay. Oh okay, Oh yeah. As always, I appreciate
the opportunity to come on and ask questions. So I think the big distinguishing
difference that you guys have highlighted tonight between Nefflis Orthodox and Protestants is this distinction
of epistemic certitude and a binding normative authority. Right now, I've heard Trent
Horn when he's doing supposed refutation videos of you that whenever you're arguing against Protestants
and you make the argument of you know, needing a normative authority, but
then you turn around against Catholics and then you say that you need the Pope
and then the encyclicals and then these other things. So how does the normative
authority versus epistemic certainty problem? How is it not solved by Catholicism? And
then historically, how do you factor that into cases like after the Council of
Florence, the lay people like drowning their bishops or whatever. Who it wasn't.
Just so, there's a couple of mistakes here. First of all,
I don't understand Trent's parallel in terms of what you're talking about. What's the
what is the what is the parallel between? On the one hand, if
I critique the Protestant position with making that distinction between epstemic certitude and normativity,
how does that in any way relate to the critique of Rome. First,
let's hammer that out before we go to the other issue. Can you help,
Can you explain that a little more? I don't understand. Yeah,
so Trent would say that whenever you're making a video critiquing the epistemology of the
Roman Catholic right, say that, well, they have the councils, but
then they need the Pope to interpret the councils, and then they need the
paid one cyclicals to interpret that, and then they need the priests to interpret
that. And you criticize their magisterium, but then you appeal to your own
infallible magisterium and call it a normative authority. No, no, no,
no. So this is again a fundamental misunderstanding of the critique. The critique
of the Roman Catholic position is of their epistemology, and the response is not
for me to run to normativity. The critique is of the inconsistency in their
system, of their classical foundationalism and self evidence and all the things that they
believe in, and that this doesn't actually work in practice, because it's always
just moving the goalpost and kicking the can down the road and appealing to another
thing that never actually produces the thing that it's supposed to produce. So that's
an epistemic critique of the selling point that Roman Catholicism pretends to give. I
also point out that they themselves confuse epistemic certitude and normativity in their apologetic That's
not my argument or that's not what I'm preferring or putting forward. So does
that make sense? I'm saying that on their own grounds, the Roman Catholic
epistemology is inconsistent because it believes in self evidence, it believes in basicality,
it believes that things are just properly basic. And then it turns around and
things are just properly basic, and then it turns around and it appeals to
all of these other things to try to justify the things that are self evident.
That's an inconsistent position on their view, because they don't believe in circularity.
If you believe in foundationalism, if you're an evidentialist, you cannot appeal
to circularity. That's the critique of their position. And on top of that,
I've said that when they try to make the selling point that the papacy
helps solve these problems, I further point out that it doesn't solve the problems
because it kicks the can down the road and you're in a worse position than
a Protestant because you have more documents to try to sift through than just the
Bible. That's one critique. It is not my response to say that the
Orthodox have quote normativity and Roman Catholics have epistemic problems. I mean, it's
just fundamentally totally misunderstanding the whole argument. But that's not surprising because Trent thinks
that the Kogito is a good argument. Okay, yeah, so everybody has
the same issues. Okay, everybody's in the same boat of how are we
going to choose and know which one's right? The first right, So you're
saying that they're dogmatized self evident epistemology contradicts the circularity of the papacy and the
encyclicals. Well, yes, by being circular, they're contradicting their epistemology foundationalism.
Right. Yeah. So now, given that you hold to the normative
authority Roman Catholics hold on. Roman Catholics and Orthodox agree that there is a
living body of people who possess the ability to mind consciences. So we do
not have the exact same problem as the Protestants. We Orthodox Realcalic agree on
that principle that there is a living body of people who has authority, and
that's where we would be in. I wouldn't make that same critique of normativity
to the Roman Catholic right. So this this, this is similar to the
question regarding the Oriental Orthodox bishop that was asked to Luigi during the Zoomer debate.
But given that historically there were cases where like the layman killed the people
who was signed on to the Council of Florence or whatever, and there are
circumstances where the laymen actually hold their bishop account accountable for bad doctrine, how
how do you separate the normative authority from when you, as a layman have
a responsibility of your conscience. Right, So normativity does it. Normativity does
not mean that I turn off my brain or that I don't have as a
layperson my own appeals to authorities above the best. So in the Orthodox Church,
a priest or a bishop, they're not the lords of your conscience in
the sense that they're limited. We believe that both there is an authority and
then they're limited in that authority, and so in the same way, that's
why it's a synodal thing. It's not the bishop just randomly comes to you.
The bishop rules together with his synod. They make decisions. It does
not mean even that their synod is infallible, because we had many people in
the history of the Church who were saints who were excommunicated by local synods,
who were persecuted by other bishops, or even patriarchs who became heretics. So
the only thing that's infallible at that level is an ecumenical council or a pan
Orthodox synod that's been received by the whole church. That doesn't mean that I
only have to submit to what's authoritative. I have to submit to my rulers
when they rule in truth and according to the limitations put upon them. That
is the Orthodox position, and that's very different. You might say, well,
that sounds Protestant. No, no, it's not Protestant because Orthodox Church
is decentralized. Okay, everybody thinks of it like this Roman Catholic thing of
like it's all this sort of like top down pyramid thing. It's not like
that. It's literally a decentralized thing. And even the laity have a role
in the church, even a lady have a role in the dogmas of the
church. This is very People find this crazy because they're so trained to think
in this sort of Roman Catholic way. But it's neither Roman Catholic nor is
it Protestant. So to a Protestant might sound like a Roman Catholic, and
to Roman Catholic it might sound Protestant. But that's because Orthodoxy is none of
these positions. So how do I know, Well, there's no there's no
one size fits all answer to all of the to a case by case situation.
So in other words, if the bishop comes to me, then that's
because we believe that the laity have the Holy Spirit, and so we can
trust that the laity will know when the clergy are unfaithful, and this has
happened multiple times as well. For example, in the Iconic class controversy,
many of the clerics were iconoclass and the laity and the monastics were the ones
that were the primary champions of Orthodoxy in their crisis. So the normal governance
of the church is by the bishop and by the synod, but there are
situations and cases where a local synod and a local bishop can absolutely be wrong
and be heretics. So there's no there's just not there's no like, oh,
it's this one easy thing that solves all the cases. Okay, So
you're saying that we should submit to those who are in authority above us,
but there are also things like ecumenical councils and the scriptures that are above just
the authority of the bus Well, God's above them, right, and so
that's why I mean, it's a it's a pretty consistent pattern in church history
to say that you submit to your authority within the limits of their authority.
Right. So, for example, if the bishop came and said I want
to I want to sell your children into the slave trade, No, sorry,
you don't have the authority to do that, you see, So he's
overstepping his authority. The bishop comes and says, we're no longer gonna believe
in the Trinity. So you have a duty, because there's a higher authority
than him, to appeal to that higher authority. And the thing that I
think blows people's minds with this, that a Roman Catholic would have a hard
time understanding, is that every person in the Orthodox Church has access to the
same spirit. So just because there's a bishop, like a bishop is not
a lord, like he doesn't have this like you know, he's not some
king that I that I worship or something like that, and he can just
tell us to do anything. No, we have a duty to not let
the bishop or the priest do that, you see. And that's very strange
because in the Roman Catholic view, it's sort of like, you know,
the priest is up here, the bishop is way up here, the pope
is at the top, and like if you're a laity like you, you're
sort of like the bottom of the totem pole of being or something. You
don't really have possessed real being like the dude over in Rome does. That's
totally opposite of the attitude of the fullness of Catholicity being present even in the
infant in the church. But you'll notice a Romancaolic church they don't give infants
communion as because it's as if they think there's this gradation in the body of
Christ to where you're not fully in Christ until you're I don't know, thirteen,
and you are able to take communion, but even then you're not,
you're not the pope. It's like I thought, we all have the same
grace, the same sacraments, the same spirit. That's our Orthodoxy is so
different than Rome. Yeah. So you would say it was something like Constantinople
or whichever patriarch it was, appointing a female deaconess and it was a bishop
in Africa under Alexandria. Okay, I thought a patriarch approved it. Well,
he might have, but I mean, do you understand that in the
history of the Church, like many patriarchs have been heretics, many of them.
Yeah, yeah, mystorious Yeah, okay, yeah, so an orthodox
Christian would have like a moral obligation to oppose that absolutely. Then like other
forms of submission to like the patriot signing onto a council or something. Yeah,
it depends on the case. At hand. There's no one size fits
all. So you know, like, what are they pushing what I mean,
is it something theological? Is it something you know, personal? Like
the bishop comes and says, give me your land. It's like, no,
you can't do that. Noah. There's spheares of authority, just like
the king can't come and say to the church you're gonna worship me now and
not not Jesus because I'm the king. You know, there's spheares and limitations.
Go ahead, Hey, I wanted to run something by you. I
was head of CASU debate with a Protestant today and I didn't he had an
objection I didn't really know how to answer. So he's a big fan of
William Lane Craig. And I'm sure you know that Craig is an open pollinarian.
Yeah, I've heard. He also now has a heterodox He denies two
Wills in Christ too, what we were debating about today. So you know,
I made the appeal to you know, if you just look at all
of the Christological heresies of the first millennium, one common characteristic of all of
them is that they failed to properly unite the human and the divine in the
one person of Christ. So whether we're talking about nature's wills energies, they
all have that characteristic And so you know, the line of thought that Craig
seems to follow, and that this guy seems to follow, is that,
well, if there is no soul, human soul in Christ, then it
follows that there would be no human will, just the one singular divine will.
So I will is a is a faculty that is proper to nature's right.
So hence two natures, two wills, right, how many wills are
in the trinity? One and not three? Okay, So if there's one
will in the trinity, then we know that will is not a property of
person but a property of nature. So I don't think William Lane Craig would
deny that there's one will in the trinity. I mean, who knows,
Maybe he comes up with some weird uh, you know, three wills in
the trinity. I don't. I don't know what his position. I don't
remember what his position is on that. Doctor bo Branson, I think has
a response and a critique of this. But so you said you were unfamiliar
with what's the actual argument, because well, his argument was that, well,
no will is a faculty of person, not of nature. Okay,
so then there's three wills in the trinity, and we're and he's a triph
he is, yes, I don't I think that went over his head,
but he's only a Actually, I didn't quite know how to answer, was
there are no such things as abstract natures out there floating around that have wills
of their own? Okay, Well, nobody says that, So how is
that an objection? I mean, that's the whole point of the term in
hypostad In hypostatic, which is used by the Fifth Council from Leontias to Jerusalem,
the whole point of that term is that nature exists in the mode of
the person that has it. So correct, that's the teaching of the Fifth
Council. So but since nobody's arguing that natures exist in the abstract, I
don't understand how that's an objection to any any position that we hold. H
Well, Keith like used the example of you have a conjoined twin. You
know, they share a body, they share a nature. But I suppose
in that example that's not a good example that don't really share in nature because
they share a body. Well, all human beings share in nature because we
all have the same nature of adam like begets like. So when you have
a son, your son shares your nature, and so you have a body,
mind, soul and will in the same way that your father has body
mind, soul and will. But what makes you unique, person person is
a distinct category the subject or the agent that has the body, mind,
soul and will. Nature and person are distinct. John Damascus makes it very
clear that all heresies hinge on the failure to distinguish nature in person. And
you'll notice that there's a reflexivity between these ideas in the Trinity and in Christology.
So any confusion that you make or introduce, and this is what for
example, monophicites do, that's what a pollinarians do. Any confusion that you
introduce into Christology should then be reflexive into the triad. Any confusions that you
make in the triad are also reflexive into Christology. So if I confuse nature
and person in the Trinity, guess what I'm going to confuse nature and person
in Christology in Christ Incarnate. If I confuse nature in person in in the
incarnation of Christ, then I'm going to confuse it in the trinity. If
I confuse nature in person in anthropology in the human person, then I'm probably
going to mess up when I do Christology as well, because I'm trying to
explain in Christology what Christ assumed. Well, if he assumed a human nature,
then nature has to be whole and entire. That means that it needs
to have all the components that we possess, or it's not healed. So,
as the Church Fathers say, what is not assumed is not healed.
If Christ didn't assume the rational soul, then he didn't heal our rational soul.
If you didn't assume a human will, then he didn't heal our fallen
human will. But this is so fundamental to the Second Ecumenical Council, which
is the first one to condemn a Pollinarianism. Is very bizarre to me that
anyone would would try to argue against Christ possessing a rational soul. But William
Lane Craig does this because he doesn't understand the Patrice teaching. He doesn't understand
the distinction between nature and person, and he thinks of persons as if they
are the modern idea of an individual, and so he thinks that an individual
is a body and a soul, which is the classic post Augustinian, the
medieval Latin idea of what a person is. And that's not what a person
is, especially not in the Orthodox tradition, because we have the doctrine of
the noose. But again, it all just simply goes back to failure to
distinguish nature in person in trinity, failure to distinguished nature and person in Christ
incarnate, and failure to distinguished nature in person and individual human beings. What
do you think of Is it proper to say that plants and animals have a
will even though they aren't persons? No, no, they're not possessed will.
I mean you could say, maybe an animal possesses a kind of will
aristotla uses the termina terminology of a vegetative, so they possess a kind of
animus or kind of a life force, but they don't possess a will.
The only person who can possess a will is a being who possesses the divine
image to be able to choose freely. So free will is a component of
our nature. It's the freedom to choose based on the rational faculty. And
since animals do not have the reasoning capabilities of human beings. They do not
possess what we call a human will. So they might possess some kind of
instinctual will, if you want to use that term, but it's not what
we mean by human will. I mean we know Jesus possesses a human will,
because Jesus is not my will, but thy will be done. And
if you read the debate between Maximus and Puris, the whole debate about that
text and Gathsimone is that Jesus submitted his human will to the divine will that
he shares with the Father. Right, Okay, well that clears that up
for thanks for helping. Yeah, those are great questions. Now it actually
relates to the next super chat question, which is from Scuma Bear for ten
dollars. Did you see that Wimland Craig denies two wills in Christ? Yes,
that's exactly what we're talking about. Would you try to reach out and
debate him? He will not debate quote other Christians. I've already asked him,
so no, he's not going to debate. But heresy breeds more heresy,
so he wants to keep doubling down and going from not just being a
pollinarian, but also now to being a monothelite. It's not surprising Icono,
Matt, Hey, can you hear me? Uh huh? Like the last
guy, I was speaking to a Protestant friend and I was kind of penning
him on substitutionary atoma and just how nonsensical it is, and he decided to
just like up and change his entire Christology to thinking that Jesus didn't become God
until the transfiguration. And I was wondering if you knew if there were any
specific groups throughout history that I could read upon in some reputations that maybe a
church father gave to them. That's a really so that would be a form
of adoptionism. So adoptionism, I've never heard of it being postponed to the
transfiguration. But usually the adoptionists say that at the baptism of Christ, Jesus
was adopted to be the son of God. All you have to do is
read Chapter one of the Book of John, where it clearly says that Jesus
is the eternal Son, eternally in and from the bosom of the Father.
So I mean, I mean as a Alexander of Saint Alexander argued Athanasius,
his mentor, if Jesus is an eternal father, then he must eternally have
a son. Right. That clears it up. I appreciate it, Jack,
Yes. And so the heresy that you're speaking of is called adoptionism.
All yeah. Adoptionism was a form of arianism in the early church. Dan,
I'm gonna try to get to everybody here, anonymous. Five dollars.
Thank you for the content. I was wondering what your live stream will be
when you taught this was from last night on Lord Voldemort. I did today's
live stream on Jacquette Lee's book Millennium. We didn't know if it would be
the last one. It sounds like the judge ruled that he has more time,
so we've there's some more months. I've been a catechum for five months.
Thank you. Father. McHale's streams and Sam Schreman's streams are great resources.
Yeah, I agree, Thank you, DC. We're working three dollars.
Thank you so much. What's up, Dan, hi Ja, how
you doing good. I just have a few questions for you. So,
I'm a Protestant, and I have lots of protest and friends, and when
I talk about the stuff like church authority, what they think on it,
and some arguments that they have. They bring up some passages from the Bible,
like where Jesus gives Peter the keys to the kingdom and at the same
time calls Peter satan and that he does not have his mind on the heavenly
things, but just on human things. Yeah, well, I mean we're
not Roman Catholics, so like we would agree with that, So like I
don't. Peter isn't the first, you know, supreme pontiff. And so
in the orthodoxraphy, what does it mean when Peter has the keys to the
kingdom? Oh, well, he says in Matthew eighteen, the same thing
to the entire college apostles, and it means that they will be the rulers
and overseers and the proto bishops of the church. So the keys of the
kingdom means that they have the authority to preach the Gospel, to make decisions
in terms of like excommunication. He says, when he breathes on them,
whoever sends you, they're remitted. Who ever sends you retain, they're retained.
So they have the ability to forgive and retain sins, and that they
have the ability to excommunicate. So in the history of the church, those
are all kind of the functions of the keys. Okay, I see.
And just one more question. Whenever I see you make videos on stuff like
on Protestants, you say that there's like a common grace kind of between Protestants
and Catholics. What does that mean to have a common grace? I don't
ever remember saying that. I don't know what you mean. Okay, well,
just one of the little clarifications. So that's all, thank you.
I mean, common grace is a Calvinist doctrine that God doesn't immediately exercises wrath
on every human being because of common grace. So doesn't have anything to do
with something between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Slap atna. Yeah, I'm mute,
I did it. I have a question for you. What is the
difference between Holy Ghost and Holy Spirit? Is that? It is that our
question? I mean, I don't know. No, I said that they're
equivalent, so no, it's they mean the same thing, the same thing.
Yeah, so when I play every Guy, I don't need to say
both. No, that's referring to the same thing. But thank you.
Uh. Curie design what's up, man? Hello? Yeah, what's up?
Oh? Hey? Uh? So I was wondering if we could go
into the Lutheran uh view of Christ's presence in the Eucharist. We can.
I'm going to critique it as a form of monophysitism. Okay, yeah,
I grew up Lutheran. I was wondering if what's the Orthodox problem with consubstantiation.
Well, Christ's human body does not become omnipresent. It does not take
on the properties of the divine nature. So the deification of the human nature
and the Orthodox Church still we still have the view that the human nature retains
its creaturely properties. So even in deification, I don't cease to be a
creature. And so there's no way that we could say that the humanity of
Christ is as Luther says his argument, and maybe you could argue that later
Lutherans argue a different way. I don't know. But it doesn't take on
the property of the divine nature. Okay, gotcha. I thought it would
have fallen more into the essence of bread is can that be the essence of
Christ flesh? At the same time, I mean, that's why I got
that's more of a that's more of a Roman Catholic critique. I think a
better critique is the monophasite critique. Okay, yeah, that makes sense,
all right, thank you. He has do great work. Yeah, good
question. I appreciate that, ying ying Yang twins. I just wanted to
say, first point about those soy feminine method ministries, right, and they
keep calling you out and chat and stuff, saying I'll only debate with you
in person. These guys went on faith unaltered and debated Father John wife but
Bro Branson online. Yeah, they're saying they won't debate you online. Yeah,
I can't believe these guys. Man. But the second point I was
trying to make is that notice how Redeemed Zoomer in the debate kept switching between
different process and traditions theology. Right, So notice how at one point he
would make an Anglican position of the Eucharist, then he would make an Anglican
position on branch theory, and he would make a Lutheran position that they kind
of see tradition as having a little bit of weight and so forth. And
you bring up a great point that these guys killed each other over this type
of stuff in the Reformation. How can he just like it just shows the
utter chaos of the Protestant world. Chaos. Yeah, to make it up
as you go type of thing. Exactly, exactly exactly, but that's what
I want to say. Love what you do, Jay Man. Appreciate it.
Yeah, really good points there again. Appreciate that, Matt, what's
up, dude? Yeah, it was a good debate. I mean I
wish it had gone on longer. I felt like, right when it was
getting cooking, you know, it's like, oh, time's up, So
it would have been nice to have like more back and forths. Go ahead,
Yeah, how you doing, what's up? Doing? What's on your
mind? I just have like two really quick comments and then if that's all
right, try to make it quick. Okay. First comment is I haven't
actually laughed as hard as I did the other day with your sacrament of the
pot luck bit. I was literally wheezing at work, like just hilarious.
I don't remind you. I don't remember what was this and you said the
sacrament of the plot. Look was that an older bar stream? I don't
even remember. Yeah, I was just going back through some of your catalog
dude, hilarious. Appreciated using that cartoon of them just made my whole week.
But my other comment is, do you think, you know, with
the with the over intellectual, kind of legalistic Roman Catholic perspective on everything.
It's like I went to Mass for two years straight, very shrad perish.
I was like hours away from being confirmed, and it's like they they're so
obsessed with like these you know, this whole structure, but they don't even
follow themselves. Because I realized the only people that are making commentary on the
New World Order, the Great Reset and criticizing communism is Orthodox Christians, and
if they're Catholic, they're said of a cantus, like so are they just
complicit with you know, being a part of a church that's literally, you
know, pushing for this type of world? I mean, and it's right
in front of their face, Like all Francis has to say is bundle of
sticks and Italian and all of a sudden, you know, pinesap all of
them like, oh we won, we won. What about your Africa bishop
or you're you know, you're yeah. I mean, if if one person
in Africa equated to the pope, that might be a good argument, but
I mean it's like, no, this is your infallible head. And by
the way, it's not just Francis, it's also it's also Benedict going and
praying in the synagogues and the mosques. It's John Paul the second doing all
the same stuff. So yeah, I mean, I don't know. I
don't know what the mindset is. I've been out of that world for so
long that I don't even remember what it's like to think in the Roman Catholic
mindset. Have no idea, man, I don't know. I don't know
what they're thinking. I was really impressed with the Are you there? Yeah?
Jay, Sorry, I thought you were trying to finish the point.
Go ahead, really loud, Yeah, can you be okay? Yes,
go ahead? Yeah, yeah. I have one question and one comment,
if you don't mind. My question is about sin as it pertains or maybe
affects divine providence. My understanding is that sin is the same or identical to
working your will in a form that's contrary to the will of God. And
so it seems to me that it should follow that we are able to make
things transpire which are contrary to God's will. But I'm always hearing from clergy
that everything that happens to me I should interpret or understand as a gift from
God or right. So there's a difference between divine providence, which includes everything
that happens for you know, reasons that we don't know, and that's why
we trust God for even when the bad things happen. That's different than the
notion that you should quote follow God's will and not do bad things. So
it's just two different senses of the word will. Right. So God,
as a person, I'm sorry, that's not what I mean exactly. It's
more that when when bad things happened to me, I tend to think that
that's a byproduct of my own sin mo primarily, but also other people's sins,
and so I don't really it doesn't really seem to me, and maybe
I'm wrong, but it doesn't really seem to me that it's God willing the
hardship upon me. It seems more like to me that God didn't want that
to happen to me, but it was because of my sin and other people's
sins that it did. Right, well, not everything that happens happens for
our sin, Because remember there's two examples. There is the you know,
the situation of Job, and nothing that happened to Job came upon him because
he was sinful, But everything that happened to Job came upon him to make
him even more righteous. And then there's also the case of the guy born
and the Pharisees all say, well, he's born blind because he because he's
cursed, because he's under sin, and Jesus says, no, it wasn't
because of any sin that he was born blind. So no, So those
are two examples that let us know that no, not everything that happens is
because of you know, some punishment. Oh I don't, but I don't
mean that because Clargy often tell me that if I'm going through a sickness or
of whatever any other hardship, that it's God's will that I endure that.
But I'm inclined to think that God wants me to be healthy and and not
to have injustice viz. Well, but I'm saying it's two different there's two
different notions of will. So like, uh, God, can I can
permit something that I desire to be otherwise? So for example, I might
allow if I had a son, I might allow him to go through something
that's difficult so that he learns a lesson, yet I don't desire for him
to, you know, experience the bad parts of that. I still might
permit it. So I think it's just trading on two different notions of desire.
So if I have a chronic illness, it's God permits it but doesn't
desire it. I'm sorry, I just don't understand that. Yeah, I
can both of those things can be true at the same time. I can
permit something and yet I don't ultimately want the bad parts of that to happen,
but I permit it for a greater good. Does that make sense?
What was your other question? Yeah, the other thing was just I really
enjoy seeing how you use the transcendental arguments, but at the same time,
it seems like it's it's kind of just like a go to that always works
against any kind of materialists or atheists, and so a lot often when I
see you debate, your opponent doesn't really get much of a chance to really
stay the case because it's just dead on arrival. And of course you're right,
and of course the argument makes sense, but I don't know, it
just seems that maybe if you allow them to carry on a little more,
you you could maybe be more more likely to convince them, if that makes
sense. Yeah, I'll take that into account. I think the lot of
times in debates the opponents aren't interested in being convinced, but you know,
debates are typically more so for the audience. So maybe that's why I don't
concern myself so much with trying to convince the opponent in the debate, because
not a nine point nine percent of the time the opponent is not going to
be convinced, but much of the audience can be. But I will take
that into account. It might be more beneficial to let people hang themselves by
explaining more Dashia. What's up a jay? You can hear me right?
Uh huh okay. I was just listening to that debate tonight and the part
that got into the epistemic question I kind of touched on some of the things
that I was thinking about. And do you think that the epistemic question is
resolved by the system, whether it be Catholicism or Orthodoxy or Protestantism, Because
I've heard you kind of respond to the question where like everyone has to sort
of resolve it for themselves and the Holy Spirit has to work, right,
So I think that it ends up being a question of which answer is consistent.
That's what I'm saying. So like, there's not good that you're not
gonna know from the outside which of the systems, like automatically will solve all
these problems for you. But what I can do is look at the systems
and see what they claim about their solutions and see if it's consistent. So
if a Roman Catholic tells me that the papacy is going to give me certitude
and solve some of these dilemmas, then I want to look and see does
it actually do that. And if I look and see that it doesn't do
that, to me, that doesn't seem to work. If I look at
the if the if I look at the Orthodo, I'm scume me the process
system and it claims to give me, uh, you know, answers based
on going to the Bible and all this stuff and all of the sudd that
we heard tonight in the debate, and then I and then I say,
well, but is this a consistent presentation? Because Protestantism wants the Bible divorced
from the Church, and that's what I'm saying, doesn't really make sense.
And so that's not that's fundamentally not consistent in Orthodoxy. It's not telling you
that we have the like silver bullet way out of this problem, because again,
everybody's in the same boat. But what we don't have is an inconsistent
account of how we have knowledge and how we you know, look at church
history and the relationship of the Bible of the councils. You know that that's
the point. That's the argument, and it's so it's a different argument.
Yeah, I think because like I came from Protestantism, and so I did
the whole like through Catholicism into Orthodoxy thing, and then my thought process was
kind of like, well, I just kind of want more epistemic certainty or
somewhere I can like ground ground truths and sort of in a not just say,
you know, grounding it in God necessarily, but also in sort of
like a physical way or like the Church. Well, I think I think
over time as an individual, you do get that in Orthodoxy. So you
do get a greater grounding, you do get greater certitude. But I guess
what I'm trying to say is that from an apologetic standpoint, when we're arguing
with people outside there's nothing that I'm going to be able to put forward as
like the trump card that both Protestants and Romancolics try to do, which I
don't think works. So that's the whole point is it's like I agree,
yah, yeah, no, I agree with you that I don't think just
like saying the papacisy because when you critique the Roman Catholic system, I think
you're right. The only thing that I see is kind of a problem then
is I see kind of like, well, if it lands on each individual
person, then everyone's kind of responsible for their own Yeah. I don't know
if it's always historically been the case, because people would be born into a
culture or family and then they would sort of well, Jesus says to who
much is given, much is required, So you know, at the end
of the day, God's going to judge all that based on you know,
how much light you've been given and not everybody's given. Have a lot more
responsibility these days to figure out the truth. But yeah, so yeah,
well yeah, again, depending upon your situation, in your in your scenario.
So like the guy that called in earlier, who's like a lot of
this stuff's difficult, I don't get it. No, I don't think God's
gonna judge somebody like that as harshly as someone else who does get it and
who has you know, been exposed to more so. So No, we're
not saved by you know, getting a PhD. Sean, what's up?
Yeah, so I had a question. So I was reading with also Ideology
by Michael Pamanzanski. Yeah, so what is the difference between the essence energies
fiction and the Catholics? Absolutely device simplicity. I mean, there's a whole
lot of talks that you go look at. I mean I've addressed that probably
fifty times in the last seven years. So I would say go check out
those talks. I did a whole lecture, for example, through the on
the Orthodox Faith by John Damascus. But to make it very simple, Roman
Catholics, for example, when they see the Theophanes in the Old Testament,
typically will say that it's not God himself. The Orthodox view appeals to the
essenceyenter distinction to say, when it says in Leviticus nine that the glory of
God appeared to Moses into all of Israel, it really was the glory of
God. It wasn't an angel. It wasn't a hologram, It wasn't a
created thing. You can't call angels and created things the glory of God.
Only God is uncreated. God's glory is not a creature. And so ultimately
the debate in terms of history ends up being a debate between the barley Mites
and Palamas about the transfiguration, because Palamas says, the transfiguration light is the
same glory light of all the Theophanes in the Old Testament. So I just
lectured through literally every theoten the in the Torah. It took three hours.
We went through every reference in the recent talks that I did. You can
go watch those and to come away from all of those as if it's not
the son of God in time and space, if it's not the actual energetic
divine presence of the Sun in time and space, is utterly stupid. But
that is the Roman Catholic position, that it's not the logos, because how
can an absolutely simple God appear in time and space? Okay? And then
one more questions, sovine providence, I'm not calvinists, I'm remember it with
the best see but what is the difference between divine providence and the habits understanding
of like determinism. Right, So the Calvinist doctrine makes God the direct cause
of every event, so typically they don't really make a big distinction between primary
and secondary causes. As Orthodox, we believe that God has a permissive will
in the sense of his divine providence, where he allows evil things to occur,
but he is not the direct cause of evil. There's secondary causes,
which are creaturely causes, whereby creatures are able to act in an evil way
against God or against the good. And that's a feature of the way the
world's created, because created beings have their own created natures. And so,
for example, many Calvinists, maybe in all of them, they share the
same position as many Muslims that because God is the direct cause of every event,
they they affirm a form of occasionalism, which is that God literally is
destroying and recreating the world at every second. And they say that to be
consistent with the idea that there are no secondary causes. So that's typically what
a Calvinist means when they talk about trick. Calvinists when they talk about predestination,
like John H. Jonathan Edwards, had this view. It's basically the
same as the Islamic view. So it's just pretty telling. I think if
you look at a lot of classical Calvinist theology, it actually aligns up with
a lot of Islamic theology as well. Yeah, good questions. John Damascus's
discussion on providence and secondary causes is very good too. Mark in the on
the worthoxy gotta unmute Mark, sincere hypocrite three dollars. According to Redeemed Zuomer's
logic in the debate, I should just read the Bible. And if that's
the case, then why would I not pick Marcian's cannon. Well, in
the debate he said something like, you could conceivably study and come to your
own canon of scripture. Yeah, exactly. I've made that argument many times
to Protestants, like, Okay, so if I study really hard and I
pray really hard, how can you tell me that I'm wrong if I come
to completely different canon of scripture than you? Uh? And well, why
not Marcians canon? How does redeem Zumer not realize that he's totally arbitrary and
circular when he puts the car before the horse? Exactly? Scumabar ten dollars?
Are we already did that? One? Anonymous. I asked Redeem Zoomer
if he would affirm personal properties in the trinity and what distinguishes them from the
Father. If we start our triadology with a divine essence, then I think
you're arguing it doesn't work exactly. The more than I read the Church Fathers,
the phili oquay itevibly turns into modalism. Yeah, I mean, Photius
argues in the mysticogy that it's a diad, andconceivably it could also become modalism
as well. I'll see thirty five dollars. I appreciate the post analysis.
Also, Father Moses, boys listening to you, maybe want to mention my
son's affectionately knowing you as the lecture man. I guess I'll take it,
lecture man, thank you. And I wish that I could make it to
your Las Vegas event to chill with you guys. Yeah, I remember we
will be live June twenty second, Las Vegas. Go get your tickets,
kievan Narvis. I just had a couple of questions relating to tonight's debate.
Maigi brought up in the debate that Christ doesn't want the church to be scus
and then and therefore, you know, established the councils such as Jerusalem.
But I'm wondering how like without an emperor, there's local synods. But the
whole reason Constantine called the Ecumenical Council is because there was a lot of local
synods disagreeing. Is that is that right? Uh? I'm not sure if
he specifically called it because a lot of local sinats are disagreeing, it could
be I'm not sure. So my question is there's a lot facing the Church
of the moments, such as the EPs initiatives and yeah, you know all
of them. So some of these I feel like we could be more united
if we had some type of the ecumenical council, but we can't have one
of those. So how do we go about Well, yeah, I mean
there's no easy answers to this. And if you look at church history,
some of these types of schisms that are parallel to this, I mean you're
talking like things that last for like one hundred years, so we could conceivably
have some situation like that. So I don't know what the answer is.
I mean, ideally, you're right that the solution would be a pan Orthodox
synod, but the problem is that the state powers behind for example, the
ep they're not going to allow a Pan Orthodox synod with the other patriarch,
right, so until perhaps some force removes that control that the power leads have.
Maybe it might be fifty years from now, it might be a divine
providence in a long period of time. We just don't know. You know,
we're in one of these situations where you know it's going to be a
problem for a while. So with are you familiar with the upsala in nineteen
sixty eight record the what upsala upp s a l A. It's it's basically
the EPs green initiative that was approved by most of the churches, including the
Russian Church. Yeah, like the eco initiatives interesting and I was wondering,
like I was surprised to see that the Russian Church signed on to that.
I'm sure that had geopolitical baggage, But how can would an ecumenical council be
the only way to get like back from that, like withdrawal that or uh,
well, I mean it depends on what I mean. I don't know
what this is or what is it? Upp epsala I believe so not the
best with spelling, but it was in nineteen sixty eight at the World Council
of Churches, which is kind of why I was surprised the Russians accepted it
from the World Council of Churches. Well, I think the Russians are no
different. Certain jurisdictions have removed themselves from whatever degrees of participation they were involved
in in the nineteen sixties. I think that the Russia, the MP was
under the sway of the Soviets, and there were actually a lot of Soviets
in the UN and the World Council Churches. So I'm not exactly sure what
level of participation like, for example, there might be some I think Antioch
or somebody is not part I don't think Rocorps is a part of it.
So whether to what degree the participation is I'm not sure. But sometimes it'll
be like, okay, well we will be a member who presents papers,
but that doesn't mean that were signed on to all these things. But I
wouldn't be surprised if in nineteen sixty eight the MP that it was probably compromised
and signed on to this. Yeah, I mean, this is this is
new to me. I haven't even heard of this. Last question real quick
on lay LAY members kind of duties. I saw some books, and unfortunately,
the only parish that speaks English around me is a Greek parish. So
they had a set of books for Lynz that were done by sister Vasa,
And I'm sure you're familiar with her. Would it be a duty of mine
to like bring that up to the priests and say, do you know like
what this author spouses or do I just leave it there and let people read
her content? Well, I mean, I guess that's up to you,
depending upon you know how well you feel like you know him. But I
don't think it'd be wrong to point that out, but I would just do
it in a very respectful way. Twoton Storm the cat ten dollars. I
read that in the Talmud there is a belief that God has a feminine side.
I think that the Talaman has a lot of speculations from a lot of
different rabbis. This is one of the things that kind of makes it relativistic.
So it's like these endless debates of all their rabbis, and it's like
we don't get anywhere, and it's relative ized, and then you can kind
of make the text into whatever you want. Some of the Kabbalists do believe
that there is that feminine side that they based on Chakaina, and they'll argue
that there's some sort of like a manifestation of the goddess. Switch Again,
I don't I wouldn't agree with any of that. The Vulcan handsign is star
Trek is the blessing of the Yeah, I think when he does this,
Uh, Leonard Nimoy, I think did get that from the Koha nine blessing.
I think that's correct. Tanji, what's up? No way, the
other guy dropped off. Mark, it's getting pretty late. About to call
it a night, I think, uh huh. I want to show off
something proud of. I got a browser here. This is Jay Dyers,
much vaunted, much sought after philosophy one oh one. Now he just got
this page up. We are just testing it out. You guys are some
of the first people in the world to see it. I want to say,
for my part, it's not philosophy one oh one. I think this
is a miss mistitling. I really think is as like philosophy unleashed, because
the philosophy one course, they give you kind of some useless information that you
can't make sense of. Jay actually lays out over twelve weeks, dozens and
dozens of hours put into just the presentation of this, let alone the hundreds
and thousands of hours of research that it takes to have a coherent evolution and
history of the origins of philosophy, the uses of philosophy, the different ways
to look at it over time, and how that has been brought about to
what we have today, which is almost an absence of philosophy on the objective,
logic and reason side, in an overabundance of woke philosophy that is irrational
and is made up day by day as people are like, I think we
should bring racism back, and then here's a justification, and then it gets
wokeified and spread out, and then all of a sudden you have a bunch
of communist socialist ideas where you become the property in action. You need to
be able to stand on your own ground. It helps to have a foundation
in philosophy because it's a method define truth when you get down to it.
Philosophy is there because you love I'm going to put you on something crazy real
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