Hello, and welcome to Freed Indeed Live. I'm your host, Kevin Jay
Anne Hughes, and I'm joined today by the man, the myth, and
the legend, the one who made apologetics funny and made comedy into an apologetic,
Jay Dyer himself. Jay, how are you doing today? I'm doing
great. Thanks for having me. Yeah. I like the introduction there,
that's kind of funny. Yeah, so I wanted to just for my viewers
in case you don't know who Jay dar ist. He has a really popular
YouTube channel. He does Orthodox apologetics. And Jay, you were a Roman
Catholic for ten years and a Protestant for a number of years, and then
you converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. So just kind of start us out, tell
us about that, what made you decide to convert to Orthodoxy, and kind
of give us your story. Yeah, so, I mean I was raised
Baptists and a lot of that that time. Growing up, we were not
super serious about church. We kind of had phases where we would go often
and then not go. My senior year of high school, I started getting
a little more serious about religion. I was reading the Bible all the way
through and attending a lot of evangelical Bible study groups and had friends and a
lot of different prostant nominations, and so it was getting more serious. I
wanted to study religion and philosophy at a more academic level, so I went
to college to study that. We did a little bit of Bible school Bible
College, and then switched to Secular University and I'll get really into Reformed theology
Calvinism and did that for many years, and I started to have questions ultimately
about the history of the Church and the formation of the Biblical Canon. And
at that time, back in about two thousand and three, there weren't a
whole lot of internet resources regarding Orthodoxy. It was primarily just if you looked
online you would find a lot of debates between Roman Catholics and Protestants, so
that was about all there was out there. There was maybe a couple of
Orthodox blocks, but I didn't know about those at the time. So that
really immersed in the Catholic Protestant debate, and eventually kind of just study my
way out of Protestantism as a whole. Read a lot of books on the
formation of the Cannon, read a lot of the Church Fathers, and kind
of just took for granted a lot of the papal claims and the papal argumentations,
and I didn't know a lot about papal forgeries or any of that kind
of stuff. So I was kind of, I guess you could say,
duped by some of those things. But I had good intentions. I really
wanted to find the right church and you know, do the right thing.
So I became Roman Catholic in two thousand and three. And when you shift
from Protestant Roman Catholic, there's, I guess you say, a honeymoon phase,
and then you start to realize there's a lot of issues in the Roman
Catholic world that arise I think ultimately from questions of history and questions of theology.
So it's both of those things at once. And as I've gotten older,
I've more and more come to see that, you know, it's not
just ideology and theology at work. There's a lot of other historical, geopolitical
factors as well. So I focus more and more on those things as time
goes by, because I think when you're a young guy, you're very idealistic,
and you interpret things through the lens of the idealism of youth, and
you don't understand geopolitical forces and factors and state actors and non state actors that
have a lot to do with the world of religion, and sometimes that's from
the background. So the more I got into the geopolitics of Vatican Two,
the more I got into the what I saw to be really reconcilable issues between
the pre Vatican two and post Vatican do papal claims. I was just really
just kind of in an existential crisis for several years as a traditional Roman Catholic
went to the Latin asked for many many years throughout my twenties, and I
finally heard about Orthodoxy, I think from somebody online and some online debates,
and I started looking at Antiochian churches around me. This is about two thousand
and six, two thousand and seven. But I was still very Tomistic in
my thinking and kind of immersed and a lot of Scholastic ideology. So I
was interested in Orthodoxy, but I wasn't really ready to convert yet. It
just didn't make sense to me yet. So I attended an Orthodox church for
about a year with my girlfriend at the time, and we were both going
to be catechised and married in the church back then, but I wasn't ready
yet, so I kind of called all that off. I wasn't ready to
be married yet either, So at the time it was difficult, but I
think it looking back, it was definitely the right decision, both the not
getting married in and the decision not to convert. Yeah, because you know,
one thing that's different about Orthodoxy is that you're not I mean, we
want converse, but we don't. People want people to rush into it.
So I made the mistake of rushing I think a couple of times early on
in my youth, not with bad intentions, but just with zeal without knowledge,
I guess, is a good way to put it, like Paul says.
So so I held off, and I kind of I kind of didn't
know what to do. For many many years I was I never became atheist
or agnostic, but I was just kind of like, you know, I
don't know if I think Catholicism is true. I definitely not Protestant, not
Orthodox yet. And when you when you're looking at orthodox you start to realize,
well, you know, Orthodoxy has its own set of problems. You
know, nowhere it's going to be totally free of problems, But it's really
I think, a question of what are the problems, And if a problem
is systemic, meaning that the you know, something like contradictions in the papacy,
to me, that means that the system is not right. So we're
all we all have, you know, problems of immorality, immoral clergy and
this kind of stuff. But if it's doctrinal and dogmatic contradictions, then we
have another level of problem. And I just never saw that there was any
possibility of that being reconciled within the Roman Catholic setting. It didn't look to
me, like, you know, after Benedict Francis was doing anything but going
even further the Vatican two. So for me, it was just pretty much
done with Rome, I think in about twenty and seven eight, and I
just kind of held off, and I didn't really go to any church for
many years. And then about twenty fourteen I started kind of gradually getting back
into reading Church Fathers again. I read a lot of Saint Maximus, and
I got I was like, well, I'm gonna have to read Cappadocians at
length. So I got really deep into reading all the Cappadoceans, and I
had never really done that in my twenties. I'd mainly focused on my twenties
on Latin Church fathers, and I just kind of assumed, like a lot
of Roman Catholics do, oh well, all of that first thousand years is
pretty much subtled. We don't have to worry about that. You know,
the debate is just between Roman Catholics and Protestants. But the more that you
get into the church history and the more you get into, you know,
the Eastern perspective on things, you start to realize that, as the Alexandria
Document recently recently admitted, you know, there's a pretty good case for the
Orthodox view. And I think that ultimately I'm saying this is my view back
in twenty between two thousand and eight to twenty fourteen, I just sort of
getting more and more into Orthodox stuff, going back to church, going back
to the liturgy, and eventually was received in twenty seventeen eighteen somewhere in there.
So you know, to me, you know, in terms of Christianity,
I just don't really see any other possibility as to what Christianity could be.
I don't see Protestantism or Rome as contenders at all for Christianity. So
Christianity is true, it's gonna be Orthodoxy in my bee. So, you
know, in the last several years we've been kind of interacting with a lot
of Islamic debates, a lot of Protestant debates, a lot of atheist debates,
and some Roman Catholic stuff as well, and there really hasn't been anything
since you know, twenty fourteen fifteen that I've heard that has been that has
swayed me in any other direction. So I feel like, you know,
this is I don't I don't know where else one would go. I mean,
I feel like there's such significant, you know, kind of foundational problems
in you know, perennialist philosophy and atheist philosophy and Islamic philosophy that there's just
not many other options out there. So unless one wanted to be just full
on agnostic, I mean, you pretty much have Orthodoxy as kind of the
world religion that's out there as the faithful expression of the religion that Christ handed
down. Amen. So you mentioned in there a little bit about politics.
How did you get into geopolitics because a lot of your best content is political
things. Right now, you've been covering a lot of the so called manisphere
topics kind of the red pill movement. You actually have a video called red
Pill Pros and Cons. So you've been covering that a lot. What's kind
of gotten you into that political sphere? And you have a really awesome book
Esoteric Hollywood kind of walk us through how you got into that whole. Well.
I had multiple interests. So back when I was doing my undergraduate work,
I wanted to tie in philosophy and literature, so I was studying.
My university didn't have a film degree, and they didn't have like a like
a major. They might have had a minor, I don't remember, but
they had philosophy and literature for grad school and a lot of film classes,
and so I always was interested in theater and film. And when I was
a kid, I wanted to be an actor. I wanted to be a
comedian, So that was kind of my main interest. And then I think
what happens is that the Internet opened up a way for people to really just
sort of be themselves online, and eventually, if you do that long enough,
all of your interests eventually, for me at least for people like myself,
maybe that those interests come out. So the entire time I was doing
on undergrad, I had a lot of film classes. I was always interested
in movies in Hollywood and the philosophy of symbolism. So I wanted to combine
all these things, and that's what I focused on in grad work was studying
propaganda and how Hollywood use propaganda. So that's kind of the basis for where
the two books on Hollywood came from. Simultaneously to that, I was also
studying geopolitics, and I would distinguish that from American politics or you know,
these political disputes about red pill stuff. I mean, I know there's some
overlap, but what I got into is really a kind of history of empires
and did a history degree as well, so I really found the big geopolitical
stuff fascinating because you know, if you read a book like Tragy and Hope,
or you know, any of these other big geopolitical tomes, or if
you read Ashral Spangler or any of these people, you start to realize that,
you know, history placed into this as well. And again that's what
I'm trying to, I guess convey with you know. The deeper I got
into Vatican two and the issues behind Vatican two is that you realize it's not
all about theology. There are powerful interests that are really entwined with Vatican Two,
particularly people in the American power structure, Time magazine, people, Jesuits,
Cia, these people have a very strong interest in making Roman Catholic Church
into a form of soft power. So I realized the more I studied Vatican
two and all that I was going to have to learn about what does that
mean soft power? What is Brazinski talking about when he's talking about using the
Romancolic Church in this way? And you know all these different famous you know,
people you hear about like Kissinger and rockefelleror Brazinski, And so I thought,
well, I'm gonna have to go read these guys too. And then
again it was just kind of like I have multiple interests, right, So,
I mean, I'm interested in Hollywood, I'm interested in geopolitics, I'm
in theology and philosophy. So it wasn't planned. It just kind of all
came out that I wanted to comment on all these topics just because we're in
the age now where that's where you can do that. You can kind of
be your own talking head commentator. You know, nobody would have ever dreamt
of something like this in the nineties. So here we are, and yeah,
just just just kind of it was just the stuff that I'm interested in.
So I started talking to the red pill stuff because I studied a lot
of that a long time ago, when it was first kind of popping on
the scene in twenty ten, or at least that instantiation of it, when
books were coming out like The Mystery Method, and books were coming out like
Neil Strauss's The Game, and people were talking about, you know, learning
social dynamics and this kind of stuff, and then that kind of turned into
that kind of evolved into other things beyond pickup stuff, more political men's rights
stuff. I wasn't like an activist, but I listened to a lot of
those podcasts and debates and discussions ten years ago. So it's just another area
of interest. And so if I've spent a lot of time reading or studying
a topic, I like to comment on it. So that's why I did
it. And it's a hot topic. Everybody's talking about it, so and
then that you know, led to eventually going on Pearls Show, and so
you know, it's it's kind of out there. I interviewed one of the
Tates a couple of years ago before they got super big. So yeah,
I just happened to kind of be adjacent to a lot of that stuff.
But that's why I talked about it. Now. When it comes to straight
up politics, I'm actually not that interested in it. Like Democrat Republican politics,
I don't really I don't really follow it. But I find that,
you know, the big, the big meta political stuff a lot more interesting.
That makes sense. I'm kind of the same way. A friend of
mine just recently posted a meme that was like him in two thousand and eight
talking about we need to invade Iraq because they want democracy, and then him
in twenty ten saying they don't care about democracy, and then in twenty twelve
saying, wait, I don't care about democracy, and then kind of going
down until now he's orthodox and he's like monarchy is the way, so so,
and that resonated with me as well, Like I don't really care about
American politics, but like the stuff you cover, the larger political narrative is
very interesting to me. And that's actually kind of how I discovered your show
was because I was interested in that. But to be honest with you,
a lot of the people that I would want to listen to. It was
like there was all these kind of weird conspiracy theory type videos that would pop
up, and I'm like, I just can't follow this. But your stuff
is all very well grounded and really rooted in academic sources, so that I
don't feel like I'm getting some kind of weird off the wall speculation. Yeah,
I think it's it's okay to speculate. One comment on that real quick.
I don't mean to cut, because we're all gonna, in our thought
process and analysis, have some degree of areas of unknown, and so I
think it's fine to have formulate theories because again it's just kind of unavoidable.
But what I do try to do, as you say, is lecture from
the big geopolitical power lead in their texts. So in that way, I'm
not typically theorizing. If I do have a theory, i'll say it's a
theory, but most of the time I'm just lecturing from those texts, and
so I can, you know, say pretty consistently that it's factual and not
theoretical. But yeah, I do agree with you that one thing you learn
as you get deep into this stuff is that there are real conspiracies, but
there's also a lot of disinformation, and it can get really complex, and
sometimes it's very difficult to sift a wheat from the chaff in terms of the
noise of disinformation that's out there. Right. So one thing that another thing
you brought up was that you had come out of Tomaism, and I was
wondering could you elaborate more on that, like what kind of influences let you
out of Tomaism? How did you come out of that? Because from my
perspective, Thomas I actually also came out of Tomasm. I'm a convert from
Catholicism, so I'm really interested to hear kind of what your angle was on
that. Well. At first one I heard a lot of the Orthodox critiques
of Tomas, and they were kind of weak, and they were built on
just kind of flimsy things like oh, we don't do scholasticism, we don't
do logic. And back in two thousand and seven or eight, I found
all that very unconsing because I'd read enough of the Church Fathers in the East,
like saying John Damascus to know that Welles he uses very scholastic logical,
philosophical argumentation and approaches, so it doesn't work to just kind of have this
general broad hand waving approach. But then eventually doctor Bradshaw put out the book
Aerosol East and West, which i'd read as essays prior to the book coming
out back in two thousand and seven and eight, and I thought there were
some really powerful critiques of Tomaism, but I wasn't ready to commit to giving
up Tomism yet in two thousand and seven and eight, just on the basis
of a few critiques. As I got deeper into studying absolutely one simplicity and
the Roman Calviy perspective, and I basically read, as far as I'm aware,
most of, if not all, of Bradshaw's philosophical theological papers and essays,
and then when Aerosol East and West came out, I read that,
and then I read other academic critiques of Tomaism, and so I was finding
the argument a lot more convincing. Then I realized, well, I'm gonna
have to go beyond Thomas. Im I have to go read the Saint Gregor
Palamas. So I decided I would have to just start working through the literature.
So I read the Triads, I read Debate Dollar with Barla Might,
got into the hundred fifty chapters, read Apodictic Treatise on the Holy Spirit,
the advanced copy of that, and uh, you know, I was just
finding more and more the argumentation for the essence interdistinction against the Tomistic position to
be just irreputable. So that was a kind of a side thing I was
doing as I was reading through a lot of same Maximus as a literature back
in twenty fourteen, fifteen sixteen, and yeah, I was just basically,
I think by about twenty fifteen sixteen, I was pretty convinced that there wasn't
gonna be any Tomistic response because it was committed to this approach. And I
noticed in a lot of the debates of the Thomas they would ignore and I
think this is still the case, the dogmatic pronouncements, because at the end
of the day, in Rome Catholicism, it's not really a matter of oh,
I you know, have whatever school you want. Well, the way
that system is supposed to work is you're supposed to follow the dogmatic pronouncements first.
I think Bradshaw shows that the fourth Ladder and Council, which is dogmatic
for Rome adopts the Peter Lombard doctrine of simplicity, which is pretty strict.
So if that's the dogma of Rome, I don't see how we can squeeze
in these other later positions like Skodaism and Tomaism, and I mean Tomaism,
I guess is more consistent with the Lombard definition of simplicity or identity thesis.
So for me, you know, that combined with the dogmatized position that Grace
in Roman colly Church is created, I mean it's a created, supernatural accident
in the soul. I mean it's clear and a couple of places in Denzinger
and it's clear and awe. So that's the traditional position. I think it's
more honest to admit that than trying to, you know, cope and come
up with all these things. And coupled with that, it's just sort of
like Thomas don't ever really respond to the last five hundred years of argumentation,
so I don't think in philosophy, so there's a lot of challenges to Thomastic
notions of self evidence and first principles epistemic justification that Thomas just never cared to
answer and then just ignore it and then when I read Father stan Eloy's Orthodox
Dogmatics Volume one, and like the first chapter is saying, we don't do
natural theology, we have natural revelation. I read that and I think twenty
sixteen that sealed the deal for me. I was like, yeah, exactly,
that's that's answering a lot of these dilemmas that I've had for so long,
because that's much more in line with kind of the presuppositional argumentation that I
was reading, ironically as a Calvinist. So I saw the orthdox position as
really in many ways harronizing irreconcilable problems in Calvinism and van til and in Tomism
and Roman Catholicism. So you have this Orthodox position that kind of seemed to
have the best of both worlds. Yeah, that's awesome. So what is
it? Just? Kind of first off, for anybody who doesn't know,
can you just explain a little bit about what is the essence and energy distinction?
And also what is Lombard's view of divine simplicity and why do you say
that those things are not compatible with Tomism? Right? So in the Fourth
Ladder and councilor when it Sielomber by name, it says that it identifies the
attributes with all identical amongst themselves and with the Divine Essence. And so this
is known as a strict identity thesis, that God's love, wisdom, mercy,
etc. Are all identical to the Divine Essence and even identical amongst themselves
when you name them. So the problem with that is that it denies a
real distinction between the attributes, and that would also be a real distinction.
It denies a real distinction between God's essence and his actions. So that means
the action of, for example, creating the world would be then synonymous with
the Divine essence. The Divine essence is necessary, eternal, etc. Unchanging,
Then the action of creating the world is also, by extension eternal,
necessary and unchanging. That would make an eternal world, which is precisely the
argumentation of Aristotle. Aristotle argument that the world had to have a eternal actualizer.
Now, romancallity theology doesn't admit that, but yet we have so many
places where even Romancallic philosophers like doctor Faser, basically in his book Five Proofs,
admitting that maybe we should adopt this kind of philosophical augumentation of eternal world.
Well, this is just really surrendering Christianity at this point. So it
amounts to Hellenic philosophy and its principles above divine revelation. It puts Hellenic philosophy
and its principles above the councils and their definition, particularly the Cappadocean clear as
day teaching of the distinction between the essence and the energy letter two thirty four,
A Basil's very clear. And then you know from that you get Saint
Cyril very clearly demarcating the essence from the energy and pointing out that in the
Eucharist you partake of the deified energized flesh. So the flash of Christ and
the Eucharist is the deified energized flesh, in other words, energized by the
uncreated energy. So Cyril's very clear about that. That's the theology that underlized
Ephesus. This comes up again in the sixth Council with Maximus making the essenceneries
stinction the basis for his crystological diophysicism and dio energism. So Maximus is idea
that there's diotealotism and there's two wills two energies to natures is premised on the
essencenergies sanction. If you read the dispute with Purists, that's really clear mc
caathers. We're always just denying this and saying that no, it's not a
real distinction. The whole argumentation and disputation with Purists is based on it being
a real distinction. And John Damascus in book three, section fifteen of un
the Orthodox Faith takes all those same arguments from Maximus then just teases them out
in Christology. So once you understand that Christology necessitates the essence inery distinction,
that's pretty much open and shut case right there. So basically we have to
have a reality that distinguishes different real distinction between different actions and attributes and God.
God can do different things. So for example, Palamas when he argues
with Barlam, he says, when God rests on the seventh day, it
means you stop the work of creating. And if you have a theology of
identity thesis that identifies action with essence, there's really no way to explain God's
ceasing to act or ceasing this act and doing some other thing. This also
underlies the denial of the Theophanes. In Roman Catholic metaphysics, they consider that
Theophanes impossible, and so they have to be created holograms or angels. And
yet we're told countless times in scripture and in the Patristic tradition that no these
are the angel award really is energetically present in time and space. And if
you realize that the second I mean, if there's not a problem, let
me rephrase it. If it's not possible for the second person that God had
to energetically manifest in time and space and the Old Testament because of absolute simplicity,
as many Roman caloities argue, then there is no incarnation. You see,
this uncuts, it underdoes the whole theology of the incarnation, because the
incarnation is the second person of the Godhead entering into a mode of being that
the Father and the Spirit do not. And if God is reducible to and
identical to actus purists, then you can't have actus purists entering into time space
in a mode of being that's really incarnate. It's a very simple point.
And yet they will talk infinitely in circles to cope and get around this objection.
But to me, that's open a shut case, as well as the
arguments that marleym has with Saint Gregor Palmas, because Palmas says, well,
let's just end this debate with asking about what we participate in. We all
agree that we can't participate in the divine essence, So what is it that
we're participating in? And if the answer from the Roman calog is that it's
another creature, even if it's a supernatural creature, it's not good enough.
That's the area and argument that you can be saved by a creature. Palma
says, when Christ came John seventeen to give us a share in the glory
that he had with the Father before the foundation of the world, that's a
real sharing and eternal glory is not a creature. End of debate. So
do you think that's why the West doesn't have very much talk about theosis?
Yes, in part I mean cal the Catechism mentions it, and they've they've
had this desire to want to revive this Eastern lung of the Church and its
ideas. But you know, the whole argument throughout the post Tridentine period was
that the Eastern churches lack and have lost the fullness of the faith and now
we have Bishop Baron on videos saying the Papal Church needs to recover the fullness
of the faith by finding the Eastern Fathers and letting the Eastern lung of the
Church breathe. So you'll notice there's been a complete flip in the post Tridentine
counter Reformation apologetics and dogmatization versus what we get in the Chi eighty document,
in the Alexandria Document now admitting all of the almost of the objections the Orthodox
Church for the last thousand years. So to me, the Alexandria Document is
yet yet another nail in the coffin because it's a papally approved theological commission admitting
basically ninety ninety five percent of our arguments and points. So if that's the
case, the Vatican One is false and the Roman Gallic Church's false, right
exactly. You You also mentioned about how you saw a lot of the Orthodox
apologetics as bringing together kind of the best of both worlds with what you had
experienced in Calvinism and Toomism, and I thought that was really interesting because some
of the other folks that I've interviewed on this show before have talked about how
in their process of converting to Orthodoxy. What they actually found was that Orthodoxy
was the fullness of everything that they loved about whatever they had been before,
especially if it's a Christian, you know, sacked. So, you know,
could you talk a little bit more about that, like, do you
see Orthodoxy as kind of the fullness of you had experienced when you were Reformed
and Roman Catholic and all of that, And if so, kind of what
are some ways in which you think Orthodoxy is the fullness of of those other
realities. Yeah, there's a lot of ways you could approach this question.
First I would say is that we have to be very clear and precise that
I'm not saying that just because there's a medium medium position that it's necessarily right.
In other words, Centrism can also be wrong. So it's not true
just because it's Centrists. Somebody might misunderstand me as if I'm saying that or
oh, because I see this as a position between Rome and Protestantism is therefore
true. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that the elements in Catholicism
that were correct and the elements within Protestantism are correct. I think as you're
pointing out are really the fullness of those things are in Orthodox theology. So
you know, we could think of things like criticisms of the papacy that the
Reformers had the Orthodox had already had right and yet you know, criticisms that
Roman Catholics would have a Protestants in terms of tradition apostolic succession. You know,
Orthodoxy makes those same arguments and has that same critique. So you know,
a lot of a lot of those kinds of things was probably your audience
is familiar with, but you can get really nuanced as well and deep into
you know, areas for example, where van Till would critique Tomistic epistemology.
Even though I don't think van Till had the answer, I think he had
good critiques, and he would make critiques that echo or are parallel. I
don't think he read Steany Lloyd, but I think Staniloy and van Till both
had critiques of Toomaism that overlap. So you know, people can recognize good
and bad arguments. And also we have to be clear to a lot of
people will make this fallacy. They'll say, oh, you're making the argument
that the transant argument for God. That's a Calvinist argument. That's a genetic
fallacy. So an argument is true or false irrespective of its source. It
has nothing to do with who made the argument. So it wouldn't matter if
Calvin or Aristotle made the argument. I mean, Calvin doesn't make the transi
argument, but it wouldn't matter either way because the argument stands on her own.
It's nothing to do with the source. That's again the genetic fallacy.
Oh, it's wrong because it came from that person and I don't like that
person or whatever. I mean, Aristotle makes arguments about causation and teleology that
pass into tons of people in the Protestant, Roman, Catholic and Orthodox tradition.
Are we going to say, oh, well, Aristotle was not a
Christian, so therefore the arguments are all false. That's again, has nothing
to do with a true or false So we have to be careful of genetic
fallacy. That's a misunderstanding. But yeah, I mean, there's just so
many different ways you could go about kind of addressing this issue. And then
you know one of the big ones, which is related to us since there
distinction as Philly okuway, and you know, I never saw either Roman Catholic
or Protestant people really really addressing this sufficiently. The closest thing I could think
of to a sufficient addressing of the question was the Vatican Clarification on the Philly
Oakway, which came out in the nineties or whenever, two thousands, whenever
that came out. The Vatican Clarification of the Philly Oquay admits that at one
point, as you get down throughout the document, it admits that there are
still tensions between the Father as the soul cause versus the causal power of the
Father being somehow shared or committed or transmitted to the Sun. And the document
admits that that's kind of a irreconcilable difference between the Council of Lions and Florence
and the Orthodox, traditional Palamite and Photian approach. So, you know,
if Protestantism in Rome never sufficiently address that, and if I see that,
for example, you know Constantinople one is really adopting pretty clearly the Cappadocean model
the Trinity, which is a soul source, the fathers the soul source.
To me, that's again another kind of open and shut case where neither Protests
nor Orthodoxy has really sufficiently dealt with or can dealt deal with or answer this.
And I would say for people who really want to go deeper into that,
just watch the lectures from doctor bau Branson on that topic. Awesome.
I think other things too you could mention as well, like the geopolitical power
of the papacy. You know, the Protestants critique that for a long time.
That's actually against the cannons. You know, the ancient cannons, the
first seven Councils don't allow for the bishopric to become a giant state power.
And yet that's what we have with the papal states. And you know,
I'm well aware of all the Roman Catholic attempts to justify that, but it
completely goes against the canons. So you know, that's a thing that you
would hear luther or different Protestants perhaps bringing up. But that doesn't make Lutheranism
and Protestantism true. So again, you know, just I would just constantly
be finding, you know, kind of a midway between these positions. Think
about works of super irrigation, you know, super superabundant, great works of
us merits and all this kind of stuff indulgences that we have in the medieval
Latin tradition, you know, Protestants of critiquing that, and that's a great
critique because we don't find that in the first thousand years of Christianity. But
that doesn't mean that I'm gonna jump over into Luther's you know, sola fide
so, because that's also not patristic. So if I if I find it,
you know, well, once again orthodox, he has kind of got
the the the correct middle ground here. Awesome. Awesome. Now I also
have some questions for you from our from our viewers, if that's all right.
Sure. So the first one is actually I just wanted to say that
the vast majority of comments I got when I asked people if they had questions,
the vast majority of people who wrote in didn't have questions. They just
wanted to let me know that they really appreciate your content and that they've been
following you for a long time. So a lot of the people following my
stuff are also following your stuff and really appreciate it. Can I ask you
a question just out of hers? Yeah? Sure? What was your Roman
background? Were you a trag cat Latin mass or like, what what what
was your path? I was actually pretty nominal so I didn't get into theology.
As a Roman Catholic, I was pretty nominal. I went to church
every week. I wasn't like a twice a year Catholic. But I was
kind of just very superficially Catholic. It wasn't that important to me. It
was just kind of a part of my life. And then when I was
still pretty young, I converted, or I began the process of converting to
Judaism. But somebody challenged me with the words of Christ in John chapter fourteen,
I am the way the truth in the life, and no one comes
to the Father except through me. And I was really struck by that because
I realized that all of the rabbis that I had been reading, they all
said that Christians could still go to heaven by being good people. But Jesus
said that if we don't follow him, then we don't have God. And
I kind of had this Pascal's wager happened where I was. It's like,
well, if I leave Christianity for Judaism and it turns out I'm wrong,
yeah, then I lose everything. If I stay a Christian and it turns
out that the Jews are right, then I still get to go to heaven,
So it seems like a no brainer to stick around. It's a good
point. What's that also too? On that point, I mean, I'm
not an expert on Judaism, but you know, to me, it looks
like it's kind of all over the place, you know what I mean.
Right, there's as many Judaisms as there are basically rabbis. So you know,
you'll get told, oh, no, you really should be orthodox Jew.
You know, that's the best way to be as assuring your place in
the afterlife, all the way down to you know, all the religions are
just past to God. I mean, so there's like, really, it's
very relativistic, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. And then
I think they have they have an idea that you only ask your local rabbi
and you do you do whatever he says, right, But what if my
local rabbi contradicts the other local rabbi exactly? So it's very relativistic, and
to me, it's like, I just don't see how that's coherent. There's
also a lot of political ideology that goes into Judaism. Yeah, there's a
lot of Zionism and these things that's very important to Now that's not to say
that all Jews are Zionists. Obviously there's Jews for Palestine and stuff, but
there's just a very even then though, you have this very interesting sort of
political agenda that comes in, which is why you always see Jews involved in
sort of social movements, because politics is very much, very very much a
part of the Jewish life. I think you could argue the same with It's
the same with Roma, Uh, same with Protestantism in a lot of ways,
and also the same with Islam. Islam becomes very political eventually too.
Yeah, definitely. I from what I've studied, it seems like Islam is
actually more of a political system even than it is a religion as we get
more modern, seems that in a lot of ways. Right. So that's
that's always been very interesting to me. But so after that, I spent
a time in Seventh day Adventism, which is super cringe but uh, but
over time, what brought me out of Seventh day Adventism was comparing Ellen G.
White's statements to the Bible and realizing that these things just can't be reconciled.
And then I discovered that Ellen G. White had made a whole bunch
of prophetic predictions that never came to pass. For example, she predicted that
Britain was going to enter into the American Civil War and that Britain's involvement would
force the rest of the European nations to get involved, and that this would
result in a global conflict that would, I don't know, cause a bunch
of destruction and all this, and she said all that was going to happen.
Well, obviously it didn't happen. So so adventists have all kinds of
excuses why that's okay. But at the end of the day, sacred Scripture
says that if a prophet prophesied falsely correct one time, you're supposed to put
them to death. And not that I'm saying we should have put Ellen G.
White to death, but I am saying that if God right exactly,
it shows she was a false prophet. And there's myriads of these away.
It's the same for the split off of Seven Day Avenues, which I was
witnesses, because all stays Russell came out of SDA, and then between him
and judge what's his face, there's a whole bunch of false in Times predictions
as well, because he built He built Beth Serum, which was supposed to
be where King David would live in californ San Diego when he came back.
Basically this was like you know, two story, you know, million dollars,
giant house. And then what do you know when David didn't come back,
you know, judge, what's his face? Ends up living there?
Exactly all kinds of these things. So then my to kind of make a
long story short, I started Freed Indeed Ministries mostly to try to win Seventh
day Adventists to the true Gospel. So I was always debating Adventists. And
at that time I was a Protestant. I actually became a Reformed Protestant brilliant.
He got a Reformed background like me. I did. I did.
I got into theology there. I started going to I went into the I
actually started seminary in an Adventist seminary. But then when I realized that I
couldn't stay Adventist, I left and switched over to Liberty University. And I
loved my time at Liberty, but I was always doing debates with Seventh Day
Adventists, and I kept having this this argument that I would bring up where
I would say, well, Adventists claimed to be the true Church, but
you guys weren't around until eighteen forty four, so where are all the Christians
before eighteen forty four? And you know, that was actually a pretty good
argument. It was really successful at getting Adventists to think. But the problem
was that eventually I turned the argument around on myself and said, well,
wait a second, where were all of the Calvinists before John Calvin? Where
were all the Lutherans before Martin Luther. If I'm going to keep making this
argument against administs, then I have to be intellectually consistent. So I started
studying church history a lot, and I have some cringe videos that are still
up on YouTube where when I first started this, I was I read,
I think I read the letters of Saint Ignatious of Antioch, and in one
of those letters he said something about predestination and I just clung to that,
and I was kind of telling people, see, look, the church fathers
were Calvinists, so I'm going to find Calvinism all through the yearly church.
Well fast forward five years, when I've been doing this study for a while,
That's not what I found. Predictably, so I ended up I ended
up first becoming an Anglican because it was just much more familiar to me.
What kind of reformed where you Reformed Baptist or like PCA. I started out
as a Reformed Baptist, but I found them to be very similar to Adventism
culturally, and so I got honestly, I got turned off by that pretty
fast. I joined a high church Presbyterian Church, so they were liturgical,
which I liked, but they were yeah, So I was in that for
a while. I still have a lot of respect for Doug Wilson and the
CRIC guys, but but over time I just couldn't stay there because I was
realizing more and more that you just can't find Calvinists in the Early Church and
it's just not a consistent framework. And then after I got out of it,
I started to realize how many philosophical problems there are and theological problems.
But when when I was in it, I couldn't see that. All I
could see was that there was this huge polemical problem. And then really I
converted to Orthodo. I wanted to convert to Orthodoxy, but I didn't feel
ready yet. And then the code, the Big Sea happened, and all
of the churches in my area shut down, and I ought to be honest
with you, I thought that was a really cowardly response. I wrote a
letter saying that I thought that it was just really cowardly that I thought the
churches should stand up. And basically, if we got arrested, we got
arrested, but we should stand up to the tyrant, the medical tyranny of
shut it. They can't shut down church, was what I kept saying.
Well, it just so happened that about five minutes from my house there is
an Orthodox church that never shut down and that basically had the same philosophy I
did, that the government doesn't have the right to tell us to shut down,
and they were really the pre there who's now my priest father, Michael,
was very intelligent, so he figured out that one of the things that
you could do was have gatherings as long as they were outside. So he
started holding the liturgy outside so that there was nothing they could do. We
were still following the rules because we could have gatherings outside. So I started
attending the Divine Liturgy, and the very first time I attended the Divine Liturgy
I was. I was pretty much sold. I joined the church. I
joined the church in twenty twenty and then I just I've been part of the
Orthodox Church since then. So it's been a weird journey. It's it took
me kind of a long time to get into Orthodoxy, but in a weird
way, I thank God for COVID. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't really
get back into it seriously, you know, until twenty thirteen, fourteen,
So yeah, uh, you know, my first exposure two thousand and six
seven, and you know, it probably took me, you know again,
ten years before I was like, you know, I'll probably I'll probably just
go this route, you know, so I definitely understand the long term conversion
route. That was my approach. Good. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting
you and I have a lot in common, so that's pretty cool. How
if you don't mind me asking, Yeah, pinpoint right, I'm just curious,
like, how long were you Reformed a slash Anglican before you got into
Orthodoxy. I was in the Reformed movement for about three years, and then
I was Anglican for two years, and I probably would have stayed Anglican longer
except that when COVID happened, and they shut down. That was it for
me. That was that was really too big of a too big of a
just cowardly movement. I couldn't especially when there were like down in California,
John MacArthur didn't shut down his church and was fighting against the state. And
not that I endorsed John MacArthur, I think that he does a lot of
stuff wrong. But I was so taken aback by the fact that someone with
no connection to the Apostles whatsoever, was clearly demonstrating a lot more courage than
the people in this Anglican Church, and really in any of the churches in
my area except to that Orthodox Church. But the Anglicans were making a claim
that they were the successors of the Apostles, that they had all of these
you know, martyrs in their history. Really was it like a conservative like
calvin Anglican, like a high Church? It was a It was a very
high church Anglicanism. And I was still a Calvinist, but I think that
most of the people in the Anglican church I was at probably were not Calvinists.
Was it Reformed Anglican or like mainline Anglican. It was Anglo Catholic.
It was Anglican province of Christ the King. So I uh, I think
that that's based in California, if I remember correctly, but very conservative,
very traditional, and still but still open to Calvinist people. So it's not
totally like against Calvinism, but Denglicanism has had that history of kind of tolerating
high and low Church Anglicans right and Calvinists, as you know. So yeah,
right, which I think that to a certain extent, that's what draws
a lot of people to it. But I was telling somebody the one time
that what draws you to Anglicanism is also what will eventually repulse you, because
as you become more and more firm in your convictions, you'll start to realize
that Anglicanism's big tent leaves a lot of room for frankly heresy to just pop
up and run a mock. So the very things that make you want to
be Anglican at first are the things that are gonna make you not want to
say yeah. So another question I got, which I can't pronounce this guy's
name because it's Greek, but he asked if you could explain the meaning of
the thousand year reign of Christ in the book of Revelation. I think the
thousand year reign posts Constantinopolitan Creed has to be understood spiritually. So just as
God doesn't literally own the cattle on a thousand hills, and then the cattle
that's number one thousand and one he doesn't own, so likewise, the thousand
years is not a literal time frame, but a common usage in scripture for
just a really long time. So I think that the kingdom is clearly set
up at the First Advent. The kingdom is the Church, and that's why
the resurrection that's spoken of is baptism, the first resurrection, second resurrection is
bodily resurrection. So you know when Constantopolitan Council number one in three eighty one,
when it clarifies in the Creed whose kingdom shall have no end? That's
added to exclude killyism or literal millennialist interpretations. So as Orthodox, it's not
permissible to think that it's a literal thousand years. You could potentially conceivably be
post millennial because postmollinialism doesn't necessitate a thousand years. It just argues that Christ
comes at the end of the thousand year reign, which I think is true,
and the real difference between Ahmil and Postmill would be whether or not things
have the world gets Christianized prior to the return, or it doesn't and things
get worse. So that's really the essential difference between those two. And I
think both of those are potential positions in the Orthodox view because they're not acclesiastic.
So that's the Yeah, that's that's and I would say that there's a
lot of other texts and things you can read to make it pretty clear that
when Jesus came, he set up the kingdom. And so if jesus Kingdom
is a thousand years, well did the world end or did he come back
in the year one thousand thirty three. No, so clearly it's not a
literal thousand years. Right now, speaking of Postmil, you actually studied at
Bonson Seminary, right, Yeah, I still have all my post Mill stuff
up there. I've got you know, Gary North, and I've got bonds
and rush to any Ken Gentry books, David Chilton books. A lot of
those books are still useful, still very good. David Chilton's commentary in Revelation
is really good. And I mentioning you mentioned the Doug Wilson stuff. I
just not too long ago bought Lighthearts two volume commentary on Revelations, which is
over there so or it's over there so but yeah, I mean I think
there's value in those commentaries and whatnot some of those books, but I don't
think that, Like you said, ultimately they're ecclesiology and the historicity and you
know, the big issues like essence, energy and Philly oquay like they don't
They're just they have no idea about any of that stuff. So yeah,
I just think it's completely a historical and unworkable. I mean, how can
you have within the same church reform Baptists who will not commune their children and
payto communion people right next to him, right? I mean, was payto
communion optional in the first thousand years of Christianity? No? No, right
exactly. So yeah, the whole Doug Wilson thing is kind of silly,
but a lot of people, it funnels a lot of people Orthodoxy, right,
it does, It definitely does. Now. You know, it's interesting
because one of the questions I got was actually a guy named James who's Orthodox
curious but he's Presbyterian, and he was actually asking what your thoughts were on
post millennialism. So you mentioned that it can be you know, it can
be held with an orthodoxy. Do you feel that there's a strong case for
post millennialism and orthodoxy or what do you think is kind of where would you
go with that? I think that there's a pretty good case for at least
some kind of maybe what they call optimistic eschatology. But what are your I'm
open minded. I don't know. I mean, you know, it's just
really hard to say, and there's a lot of various scripture that I don't
understand, so it would be presumptuous of me to, you know, try
to get really dogmatic about it. I mean, it's possible that, for
example, if we have an optimistic eschatology, uh, you know, let's
say something like the conversion of Jews, which anything is a future event.
If that occurred, you know, and Paul's prediction in Romans eleven of the
world converting as a result of that, that might be something happens quick,
you know, maybe within a few years there's some you know, worldwide conversion,
and that fulfills things like Zacharia fourteen. Right. Perhaps Zechari fourteen is
just fulfilled in a spiritual sense. Throughout the history of the church, it
seems to speak of kind of a worldwide thing and nations that don't convert or
submit experiencing cursing and punishment. So it can't be eschatological. There's no you
don't get blessings and cursings in the Escatan right because history is done. So
it seems to presuppose some kind of still historical process of phenomena going on.
But so you know, there's different ways to read and interpret Zaka fourteen.
So it's just, you know, there's a lot of things that are that
are I just don't have the answer to. So, you know, maybe
twenty years from now, if I God willing have been given more scriptural enlightenment
and discernment, maybe then I have a better answer. But I think as
you go, you you more and more learn how much you don't know.
So I would say, yeah, I mean, I just don't know.
I mean I would hesitate to say whether I don't know, that's probably I
mean, I'm open to I hope there's a you know, the world continues
for ten thousand years. When we get ten thousand years more years of people
converting, I mean there's more people in heaven, right, So yeah,
that sounds good. Right, certainly, I hope it is not the end
of the world and we're not going into some beast system right now. So
I'm opted. I hope that the optimistic view is correct, but also at
the same time, if it's not, then you know that's God's will.
So whatever, right, God will get us through whatever happens. So now,
do you think do you think that maybe I don't know how to ask
this question, it's going to come out weird, I think, But do
you think that there's maybe a problem within Christianity broadly, and maybe even Orthodoxy
specifically, of kind of reading too much into parent events and seeing kind of
seeing the Book of Revelation unfold, so to speak, where you're kind of
reading the newspaper through the lens of revelation. Yeah, I said Jesus,
Yeah, I think that that could play anybody. I mean, I've seen
it in Ruman Catholic traditional circles. I've seen it in Protestant evangelical circles circles,
I've seen it in Orthodox circles as well. So sure, yeah,
I have a friend kind kind of a loose connection, but he converted to
Orthodoxy, and now he's always posting about like this Russian nationalist stuff and he's
an American but he's just super into Russian nationalism and that's fine. But but
it's just funny because he's got this kind of like Russia centric ends times speculation
going on. Yeah, I've always been I've always been hesitant about any of
that kind of stuff. I mean because I've seen I've seen a lot of
people get burned with that kind of stuff every years. So yeah, but
you know, I think he's a sincere guy. I just I can't see
that particular thing. I mean, so if that happens, then though,
okay, I guess that's cool, right, I mean, right, whatever,
But yeah, I'm hesitant about a lot of that stuff, right right,
which I think is good because since you're a person who studies a lot
about politics, I can imagine that it would be tempting to start to kind
of pull in some of these things. You know, you're into theology,
you're into politics. It's like this, this could this could easily blend,
right, Yeah, But I mean there's also a lot of you know,
people get duped and and conned by a lot of that stuff. So yeah,
right, exactly. So the same guy with the Greek name did also
want to know, speaking of kind of the end time stuff, he wants
to know if you could have explain the connection between the marriage Supper of the
Lamb and the Eucharist, because he I think he's getting at but he's a
little bit confused about whether the marriage Supper of the Lamb is supposed to be
seen as an eschatological events. All of the things that are eschatological are also
in the here and the now, so this in theology is called already not
yet. So everything that is described, for example, a book of Revelation
about partaking of the marriage feast, that's the divine liturgy. And if you
read the Gospels, you know Jesus making that clear when he's talking to the
apostles about I will sit with you, you know, eating in the kingdom
and judging the twelve tribes of Israel. So that's that's the history of the
Church Christ amongst the apostles, in the liturgy, in the in the marriage
feast. So the marriage piece is the divine liturgy, and it's also an
eschatological event too, so it's not either or it's a both end and I
wouldn't. I don't recommend Roman Catholics stuff typically, but you know Scott Han's
book marriage stuff with their lamb. The basic idea there is orthodox nice,
okay, And James wants to know where do you get your awesome eighties Miami
vice kind of attire? Where do I buy that? Like I guess is
whenever I go to a store and I find a shirt that I think is
exceedingly garish and ugly, I buy it. So not one place, I
just kind of get it wherever, and then it kind of just kind of
turned into its own thing, where then my family members and people just buy
me. They're oh, this looks like Jay, I'll buy that form So
it just kind of turned into it. So sometimes things just kind of take
on a life of their own. So, you know, I just started
kind of doing that when I moved to Florida in twenty eighteen, and then
it kind of just stuck with it. So, yeah, he's gonna steal
your look, man, he's gonna steal cares. I'm just playing. I
just like Florida and the beach and all that, so nice. Yeah,
that's cool. Now you live in the Midwest, though, right, Well,
we bought a place in Florida, so we might be moving moving back
the Okay, we have a house in Tennessee too, so wow, I'm
outside Nashville. But we also I went I lived in Florida for a year
in twenty eighteen to see if I liked it, see if I wanted to
move there. And then right after that, when I was thinking about moving
there, is when COVID happened, So everything kind of changed. And then
I got a deal on a house in Tennessee, so I was like,
well, I don't want to pass up that deal, so right, but
then we wanted to be back in Florida because I don't like the Tennessee weather.
I mean, I have a lot of friends and family that I like
in Tennessee, but I would much rather be in Florida. So so anyway,
so yeah, I mean we now we just need to sell a rental
house that we have here before we can move down there. That's cool.
Yeah. I really love Florida too. I actually live in the Northwest,
which I have to admit I have grown to appreciate the Northwest a lot.
Yeah, I mean I really love the scenery, I really love the nature
here. I don't really love the politics here. Yes, Seattle and Portland
pretty much dominate Pacific Northwest, make it obnoxious. But like, if you
can kind of look past all that and just enjoy your surroundings, you can
go hiking all the time, you can go well Tennessee, Tennessee is really
pretty for nature. I mean it's got nice but I mean I grew up
in Tennessee, so and then I grew up in San Diego for teenage years
in part, and then grew up back in Tennessee again. So I feel
like I've they've had my share of woods and forests and lakes. So I'd
rather be in beach climate than forests and lakes. And I mean Tennessee gets
ice storms, and I just it's not any fun. So I get you.
I completely understand. Yeah, I've had a lot of fun trips to
Miami, so I would definitely, I would definitely live in Florida. But
yeah, well, Saint Augustine is where we we got a place, and
I mean it's a lot more it's a lot more chill than than Miami.
It's it's the oldest city in America, so it's very It feels like if
you've been to California, like Balboa Park or something. You know, it
feels like it's Spanish. It's Spanish architecture, and so it's got like a
it's got like a Spanish pirate vibe, which is which is fun. So
that's awesome. Ye, Saint Augustine, Florida. Wow, that's cool.
Speaking of Saint Augustine a fellow, but I got head out pretty soon,
sure thing, sure thing. So this is the last one. A fellow
named Sean wants to know. Since Saint Augustine seems to get quite a bit
wrong theologically, why do we unorthodox he still consider him a saint. Well,
he had the humility in the book to say that he submits the Book
on the Trinity to the judgment of the Church. And you know the later
councils that mentioned his works when they mentioned him as a saint, the Fifth
Council, for example, I mean, they don't mention on the Trinity,
they mentioned his anti Manichean works. So you know, the reality is,
you know, Church Father's got things wrong independently, and getting things wrong is
not you know, I mean, salvation is not mainly iq test So the
Church adjudged his life of sanctity to cover for whatever theological you know, wrongs
there were. So so that's my answer to that. Awesome. Well,
thank you and thanks again for joining today. I appreciate your time, and
everybody, please do share this with your friends so that they too can be
freed. Indeed, and I'm gonna go ahead and include links in the description
to Jay Dyer's YouTube channel and also to where you can buy his book,
Esoteric Collie Wood. That's on my website. Be sure not to get it.
Don't get it from Bezos and Amazon. Yeah, get it from his
website directly. Don't support the evil Empire exactly. All right, thanks having
to appreciate it. Great chat. Bye,