That's that's that's unnumber. What is going on? Everyone? Welcome to another
episode of Faith Unaltered. I am your host, Tyler Fowler with me as
my coach. Two co hosts David Russell, Delle Glover, a good buddy
of ours, Dane von Ason or two guests, Doctor Bo Branson and Jay
Dyer himself. Guys, how are you doing tonight? It's good to be
with you all. David, what's up? Brother? How are you doing?
Another week? Brother in the books? Doing all right? Man?
How are you not bad? Not bad? I'm tired, bro, long
week, you know, just garbage. But I'm excited to have this conversation
tonight. So for those that don't know the background to all of this,
right, all of the Orthodox shows we've been doing, because we've been putting
out a number of them. We've had a couple of debates with Father Jonathan
ivan Off, Samuel Fragg, and we've just been talking Orthodoxy and so for
those that don't know, I'm really investigating Orthodoxy so much so that I become
a Catechuman in the Orthodox Church. What's interesting is that both Dale and David
are trying to keep me from going that way, but I like I said,
I'm investigating. I want to know the truth, and I don't care
what I labeled myself. I just want to follow Jesus the correct way,
right. And so we've been exploring orthodoxy, and so I have two very
qualified individuals with us tonight to help me out with that. We're going to
talk about solo script Torah jaydyar Bo Branson and this. Guys. I'm ready
to I'm ready to kick this off, Dane. Before we do get started,
Dan and Dale, how have you guys been Deale? Go ahead,
Yeah, I've been good. Just did a show earlier this morning on s
J. Thomason's channel that was on my shred of trend, So we were
looking at the medieval history of it and looking at the thirteen eighty nine Darcy
memorandum. So yeah, this is my second show today, so he must
be tired as well. Oh I'm not as tired. I mean I'm used
to doing four or five shows a week. So next week show today,
I am tired officially. So uh. He jerks some red cream soda,
so he's ready to go. There is some good energy in the Canadian ring
cream soda. Guess right on, right on, Dane, how you doing,
brother, Yo, I'm great. It's fun to be back on faith
unaltered. Always a pleasure. Um. I had a busy week. I've
been in Memphis for my church. Is like annual conference. It's more than
I need to explain, but just a big church conference. And uh got
back home last night and went to the last night of vacation Bible School at
our church. So that one night of VBS wore me out more than the
whole conference from the past three days. So um, but I'm doing good.
I'm I'm in good spirits. Happy to be here to discuss solo script
tour with y'all. It's gonna be a fun show, believe so I do
believe. So all right, So without further ado, I will let our
guests introduce theirselves, take a couple of minutes tell our audience about you guys.
We'll start with Jay. Jay, Welcome and thank you for doing this.
I was excited to meet you Cup. What about a month ago now
you visited or Parish and that was a good conversation when we had a little
bit of dialogue together, and so I was excited that you you agreed to
come on here and talk solo script tour with us. So how are you
doing, and how's how's how's it been since we've seen each other. Great,
Yeah, it was really cool. I didn't realize, like I said,
you guys are so close. I would have come to meet doctor Branson
much sooner if I'd known that he was that close. I assumed, you
know, when you hear other states, you think four or five six hours
away, But you guys are only two hours away. So yeah, we
had a great weekend up there with you guys, and uh got to meet
everybody, and yeah, it was it was cool to chat. And I
remember you were asking about you know, solo scriptura and other issues like tradition
and church fathers. And I'm happy to discuss that I've had quite a few
exchanges over the years with various Protestant pastors and apologists, and I myself the
Protestant Bible College for a while. So so yeah, I feel like I
can, you know, hopefully have a good perspective on both sides of it
to contribute to the conversation. And what I do is do a lot of
debates, do a lot of movie analysis, do a lot of geopolitics.
Hosts the fourth hour of he who cannot be named every Friday. What else
do we do? We do you live events now, so we do.
We do comedy and philosophy talks and all kinds of stuff. So you can
find me on YouTube or on rock fin or any of the other social media
outlets right on. And I do have your channel in the description of this
video, so if anybody wants that, they can just go down there and
click it and I'll lead you right to it. Doctor bo Branson, how
are you doing, my friend? Now? We met from the Orthodox church
that you attend and that I attend now, and so how are you doing,
brother? And how's it been since the last time I've seen you.
I'm doing all right. I don't have a whole whole ton of news like
everybody else. I've just been writing this whole summer. So during life.
Do you want to plug your book that you're writing? Um, sure,
yeah, I'm in the middle of writing. It's going to be like a
four views book about the Trinity, so it'll have it'll be me, William
Lane, Craig Dale, Tuggy, and Bill Hasker. So I'm in the
middle of finishing up my my criticisms of William Lane Craig as we speak,
so right on, Yeah, it should be interesting. I think it should
be out sometime maybe the end of the year or something like that. So
okay, keep us updated and I'll keep people updated on my end for sure.
So I'm excited to hear about that. But all right, guys,
let's jump into it, shall we. I'm like I said, I'm I'm
excited because here's the thing. So I don't what I don't want to accomplish
in this discussion. I don't want to merely destroy Solo Scriptur or anything like
that if proven false. What I want to do is be able to present
our listeners with a more robust, a stronger alternative to solo script tour.
And so to start out, I think, um, and you, guys,
we'll start with Jay if you want, can you present us a positive
case for the infallibility and authority for both Scripture and the Orthodox tradition? Yeah?
I can. Um, Well, I make I can give you what
how I would argue that. Um. But I did have one question before
we started. I'm not trying to be rude or anything. I'm just curious
what type of Protestant tradition do you guys? Come from, would you say
classical Protestant Reformed or like evangelical Lutheran? What what what Protestant tradition are we
talking about? So I came from a Protestant uh so Southern Baptist Reformed,
so reform Southern Baptist tradition, and our other two Protestant buddies here are they.
I'm evangelical, I guess, like you know, we do only Craig
Michael those types. Okay, I would say the same as Dale. Okay,
yeah, I'm just curious. I'm a theological mutt, as they say.
Yeah, Josh says, you know, because that just because that can
kind of there can be a kind of a range of levels to which,
you know, people in the Protestant world may or may not give credence to
tradition. So it just kind of depends on, you know what, how
far back I guess in history we're talking about. But so the question is
what relatively quick argument? I guess what I give for the infallibility of scriptures,
and what the Orthodox Church being the also infallible church is that what the
question was just the just the authority of the Orthodox tradition versus like a Roman
Catholic tradition or something like that. Okay, so I would say that that
would be twofold. First argument I would make is that from scripture itself,
there's a cont tenuity of revelation that comes from the Old Testament time when we
didn't have what we could say is a fixed canon per se. Even though
in the Old Testament period we did have vine revelation that was conveyed through both
an oral and a written means. Eventually, as you know, Moses,
Joshua and the prophets write their text down prior to that. However, it's
not written down, it's it's oral. So I think one thing that we
could derive from that that we would all I think agree on if we unless
we're higher textual liberals or something, is that the the ability of to to
transmit the information orally is something that God can providentially do right, so that
there's nothing that prevents God's providence from maintaining and preserving the tradition that's passed on
from Adam to Abraham. That's that's uh that's not written down, right,
so he can still do that. So when the text begin the reblish begins
to be written down, we might assume that there we would toss away the
oral testimony. But one thing that's interesting, and all the research that I've
read, and aside from maybe Torah, only Jews that would argue, or
the Karaites or something, most Judaism historians and rabbi rabbinical history would agree that
there was not a soul of scripture a principle going on in the Old Testament
period or the period of the Moses and the Profits. So, for example,
we read in Isaiah speaks of the to the law and to the testimony,
right, the law being, of course the first five books, primarily
testimony being the prophets, and perhaps even the interpretive structure that the prophets themselves
might give to the law of Moses and to such a prior revelation. So
you know, when we have small texts like Zephaniah or something like this,
or other Old Testament minor prophets that are called preachers, right, in other
words, they were exted. They weren't just having one sentence of divine revelation
or exhuming one paragraph of a chapter of vine revelation. They may, but
they might have also been preachers. And so this is a preaching is a
prophetic office, and that doesn't always necessarily refer to predicting the future. And
I known a lot of you guys already know that. But there's a reason
I'm saying that, which is that they would be exeguting and expounding the law,
and then as subsequent revelation came, it would be also executed and expounded.
But again, at no point in any of that timeframe and the Old
Testament is that divine revelation restricted to only following the written text. And one
way we know that is that when we get to the New Testament, when
we have the fulfillment of a lot of the prophecies and a lot of what
the Old Testament types were looking forward to. We have places in the Gospels
where Jesus refers to traditions. Now I understand that as a Protestant, and
Unite said, well, but Jesus as God, so he can refer to
whatever traditions he wants to, and they therefore be come infallible, you know,
because he sort of references them or looks back to them. And but
I would argue that we don't just see that ending with Christ. We see
this as a continuing principle even after the death of the last Apostle. This
is why, for example, we have the you know, the phrase that
out of Egypt, my son came out of Egypt, right, which which
is not a specific reference of anything in the Old Testament. It's interpreted to
be either allegorical or or from Josea or one of the other passages, or
it's interpreted to be a reference to an extra canonical text. We have many
references to extra canonical texts as well, again also from the Old Testament.
So you have, for example, references to the books of the Wars of
the Lord. You have the references of the New Testament to the Book of
Enoch, And so for us, that suggests that divine revelation is not necessarily
limited to only the written texts. Right. So you might say, well,
but it's still solves scriptura, because really only that text that's referenced in
the Book of Jude from Enich is the only infallible aspect. Everything else is
doubtable or doubtful. Excuse me, and I would say that if we restricted
ourselves to a few examples, that might be the case. However, the
best argumentation, I think is when we get to the way that the prophets
aresuming the way the Apostles preached. We find in Paul's epistles and in Peter's
epistles the statement that they preach the word of God, and preaching the word
of God during this Apostolic period is not restricted to simply citing the text,
right, it would be all the oral teaching of the Apostles. So,
for example, when Paul says that he commissioned Timothy, and I would argue
that from the two letters to Timothy, he's making Timothy the Bishop of Ephesus.
He says, I laid hands on you, Timothy. Timothy, you
then lay hands on men after you who are able to transmit this body of
doctrine that's being handed to you. And he talks about all the things that
you heard in the presence of many witnesses. We go to the Book of
Acts. We know that Paul taught in emphasis for three years, day and
night. So Paul was, you know, expositing and teaching far more orally
than what he wrote, you see, And so that whole body of Apostolic
Pauline interpretation is what he's committed to Timothy to hand down. And you'll notice
by the way that this is intimately tied to the succession of the bishoprics,
the laying on of the hands, and even goes so far as to say
that I appointed you Timothy in Ephesis. No one else has appointed in emphasis
according to Paul's succession there. So that means that in the city of Ephesis,
that at that Apostolic time there's literally only one correct believing church in Ephesis,
that's the one that's quote orthodox, right, the correct believing one.
Likewise, the apostles then went out and did the same thing. And we
know, I think, because we have the presupposition of divine inspiration and divine
providence, we know that they weren't teaching different things, right, So Paul
wasn't teaching something different theologically ultimately than maybe what was being taught somewhere else.
If there was a disagreement, we know that acts fifteam, we have the
Jerusalem Council and the decision of coming together and deciding, okay, let's not
require of the gentiles more than was expected of them in the no way of
covenant right for admission into the church. If God, if Noah can be
righteous before God prior to Abraham and the giving of circumcision, then circumcision can't
be absolutely necessary for righteousness before God. Therefore, they come to this decision
on the basis of again not just citing the Texas Scripture. They do cite
the Texas Scription, but there's references, is what I'm saying, even in
the Book of Acts, to non canonical things, to extra biblical things,
principal traditions, for example, is more blessed to give than to receive acts,
says Jesus taught. Of course, we don't have any written record of
Jesus teaching that. A couple more examples, you know, Jesus says in
Matthew twenty three that the scribes and the Pharisees sit in the seat of Moses.
That's the cathedral in the Greek and that's the idea of a cathedral,
the bishop sitting in the seat of the cathedral, right, so Moses.
So when ezra Is set up what we know of as the rabbinical system or
the synagogue system, this was so that Israel could have teachers that weren't just
located in Jerusalem, right, so you could have a teaching of the law
throughout the land of Israel. This is where we get allah Ezra the synagogue
system. So Jesus is essentially saying that it is the tradition in the church.
Excuse in the first century worship temple synagogue worship service, the presupposition is
the scribes and the Pharisees sit in the seat of Moses. Therefore do as
they say, but not do as they do. There's no text to anywhere
in the Old Testament that explains this authoritative succession of a seat of Moses.
Therefore, it is a tradition that Jesus is recognizing and accepting. And we
can think of many, many other examples. And I'm gonna try to finish
this up soon. And note, you're good. I mean you ask a
tough question. It's like, can you prove your whole system? And like
one right, So so you know we have we have other textual references.
One I wanted to mention too that just came to mind. In the Book
of Chronicles, we have the reference that Hezekiah organized the worship. I think
this is where I'm going for memory. Hezekiah organized the liturgical worship as laid
down by his father David, and it talks about not just the liturgical worship
in the sense of having an altar and having you know, the libitical ceremonies.
It's the actual service, the liturgical worship service, and it's ordering with
the music and the symbols and all this kind of stuff. So this is
based on tradition. Now we know that God's very concerned with how we worship
him because in the story what is it Lyticus ten or eleven, they'd having
a buye who offers strange fire and God doesn't accept that. So, you
know, many Protestants, if you're a classical Reform Protestant, you'll talk about
the regular principal worship, that we can't worship God in any way or in
any pattern other than what He's given us, and believe it or not.
As Orthodox, I think we would argue, yeah, you're correct. However,
when we come to the New Testament, we don't actually have the specific
pattern of how the service is supposed to be conducted. I understand that,
yes, Paul and Corinthians limits us about certain abuses, and he says,
don't celebrate the cup getting drunk and fornicating, and don't do this, but
there's not actually an explicit order of the service just like there was no explicit
written pattern of how the worship service was to be conducted, and yet we're
tolding chronicles that haze Kaya ordered the service according to the pattern of his father
David. I think David was two to fifty years, you know, before
Hezekias. So there was this tradition as to how the liturgical worship of Israel
was to be done. Now, coming to my final points here, I
would argue that in terms of soul of script era, when we get into
the post Apostolic period, we find the church fathers, especially in the first
three centuries, many of them absolutely citing texts, many of them citing mini
texts, and because of that textual witness, we can reconstruct fairly accurate,
fairly consistent Gospel. There's an attestations, what I'm trying to say, from
these first three century church fathers. For example, in Aranaises against Heresies from
about one eighty, there's a ton of texts that are cited, right,
so you could you could compile kind of what Aranais knew of as the Bible
pretty well. But what we don't we still don't get for these three centuries,
is any clear pattern or idea of what the absolute canon of scripture is.
Now we get Marcion, who's one of the first to set up his
own canon. So actually the first idea of a specific cannon comes from a
heretic, and it still ironically doesn't prompt the Church at this point to actually
lay out a definitive cannon of scripture. And for the Orthodox, we have
obviously a little bit of different disagreement with the Roman Catholics because they typically cite
certain councils under Pope Damesis and during the time of Augustine for their Canada scripture.
We because we don't defer to just papal fiat and authority, we're not
immediately going to accept that. However, it is attestation to the fact that
in the West, in the days of Augustine, it was pretty clearly understood
that the Deutero canonical texts were absolutely part of the Canada scripture. In the
East, there are varying canons and all we can go to some of the
academic literature that I have from evangelical scholars, I usually try to restrict my
citation and sourcing when this debate comes up to Protestant evangelical scholars. One of
the great books on this is by Lee McDonald Formation the Christian Biblical Cannon,
and at the back of the text he gives an appendix. It's very helpful
for showing between Old Testament and New Testament, the differing canons that were pretty
popular in different church fathers and in different centuries. So for example, and
again I'm going to wrap up at this point here to try to make it
very quick, and then I'll tie you in how this relates to the infallibility
the church. But for example, when we look at some of the earliest
lists of the Canada Scripture, for example, the Old Testament we have in
the fourth and fifth century, we have the predominant canons of Milito, Sartis,
Origin, Athanasius, and Cyril Jerusalem, as well as Epiphanius and Gregory
Nazi Age's. Okay, so there's commonalities amongst these lists and the differing sort
of competing canons that we're being used. However, there's also quite a bit
of difference here. For example, Milito's canon does not include the dudal canonical
text. However, anaceous as canon does include certain due or canonical texts.
For example, the Letter of Barreck. It includes Epistol Jeremiah and includes a
first and second Asdres, whereas Cyril Jerusalem's canon includes Barreck Pistol of Jeremiah but
not the lets. There's one difference that they have that he has with Athanasius
on Esther. So Cyril Jerusalem includes Esther. Athanasius does not include Esther as
far as I can tell, at least from Lee McDonald's list here of the
canon, Epiphanius has basically the same list it looks like as Cyril of Jerusalem.
But that's just the Old Testament text and Gregor Nazianzus interestingly includes actually leaves
out quite a few Old Testament texts that even Protestants would accept. So the
point is that we're getting a lot of varying canons, and there's there's a
few war here. There is Council of Leodicia, which includes the Epistle of
Jeremiah and Barrack, and then there is the New Testament. We'll move on
to the New Testament canon. Here Hillary lists no, I'm sorry, this
is that was the East. This is the Latin Church's West Old Testament,
the Western Churches Old Testament canon. Now Hillary has a list that includes Tobit.
Drome, of course has what Protestants accept as the Old Testament canon,
and Drome's argument, of course, was that, well, that's what Jews
are accepting, so we'll go with that, which I don't think is that
good of an argument. By the way, Jerome, of course taught most
of the other things that Protestants don't teach, so I don't I don't think
Jerome's going to be too great of a source. Rufinus has a selection of
Old Testament books which is fairly consistent with the Protestant canon. Of course,
Augustine, the Council of Rome, Council of Hippo, Codex Vaticanus. None
of those will work for the Protestant cannon at all. They typically include the
durocanonical text, but they also have differences amongst themselves, by the way,
Codex batacanist Codex Sinaticus, Codex Alexandrines also having mostly due to canonical texts,
but also variations amongst them. Then, moving into other church fathers, Huse
Cbs disputes the Catholic Epistles. Interestingly, Clement includes text that we wouldn't include.
We wouldn't include The Shepherd of Hermis, the Acts of Paul, or
the Revelation of Peter Cyril of Jerusalem. In his New Testament canon has what
we would typically would include, but he also does not believe that the Book
of Revelation was canonical. And this is going to be important because one of
the interest, one of the crucial points that we want to stress for Orthodox
when it comes to canonist city was that a lot of the Church did not
accept the Book of Revelation as canonical and it was actually authanaceous. If you
read F. F. Bruce's book Interscripture, who's been one of the most
famous Protestant evangelical scholars, He's got some great chapters on Athanasius convincing Rome that
no, actually we should include the Catholic Epistles and the Book of Revelation.
So to me, that suggests that, no, we can't really divorce.
I mean, it's easy for us nowadays to look back and say, well,
we have this, you know, this basic sixty six books of the
King James Bible, the Protestant cannon. Why can't we just go with that
as pretty obvious in it again, put your mind in the attitude of a
person in the fourth fifth sixth century. When you go to your local church
and there's not a specific necessarily Bible there, right, there's not a sixty
six books of the Bible. Here's the key point. What is they're there?
You're going to have electionaries, daily readings that are being done in the
churches. And when I got into a lot of these Protestant scholars talking about
how the cannon came to be, I didn't even realize as a Protestant guy,
Reformed guy, that liturgy was a huge piece of the puzzle for how
the cannon came to be. So I'm not saying it was the only puzzle
piece, but it's a big piece because when Cannon city is being discussed and
for us as Orthodox, that eventually comes about by the time of Trollo in
the sixth Council, you know, I mean, we would find attestation to
the earlier Pope Damesist and Augustine Cannon, but it doesn't necessarily for us,
if equated to ecumenical status, until it's really covered by the Ecumenical Council,
and then it's received by the rest of the church. So the irony hears
it. For the Orthodox, the cannon is really late and Even then,
it's still kind of flexible because John Damascus, when he lists his cannon,
it's the same as the Orthodox canon, but he also lists an extra I
think I think he says Clement. He thinks Clement is canonical as well,
which is interesting because I'm not sure why he thought that. There's probably scholars
that could tell you why he thought that. But the Epistolic cannons or something,
is that what it is? Yeah, he does. You're right,
he has the cannon ends, and I think he has a Clement in there
too. But um, that might be because he's going from an earlier you
know, ruling from you know, a Synada, or he might have just
been pulling from was it Cyril Jerusalem? Anyway, point being is that for
us it's pretty late, and you know, liturgy played a key role in
that. So when the church Father said, okay, what books are canonical,
Well, let's look at what books were used and read in certain important
ancient Apostolic sees. Let's look to the ancient liturgies, the liturgy of Saint
Mark, Liturgy of Saint Basil. Let's look to the daily readings and the
electionaries that are read in the churches let's look to the tradition of the Church
and the various seas in terms of what their their tradition was about Apostolicity,
because, for example, Matthew doesn't list who the author is. So the
only way that we would know that Matthew was written by the apostle Matthew is
that the church's tradition says this is Matthew the apostles Gospel, right, and
so ferreting that out from umgraph which are not necessarily heterodox. I mean,
there's sudopographa that might contain true tradition. I think our liturgy, you know,
references things that are in some of the suppographical texts. The point being
that if canonicity is strictly requiring Apostolic authorship, which sometimes Protestants argue, there's
a lot of problems there because we're immediately gonna have to rely on the testimony
of the Church again to exam for example, to know that Matthew wrote Matthew's
Gospel, and that we shouldn't accept other sudapographical texts that have you know,
apostles names attached to them. So it's a confluence of things, is what
I'm trying to say. That go into how and why the Church shows what
books they did, and you cannot divorce it from this historical process. Therefore,
if I do believe the texts, and I do believe the guidance of
the Church within history, just like I believe God's providence can guide Abraham to
faithfully know the tradition passed down from Adam, I can believe that God's providence
can continue to preserve in the Church, which is something more than what was
existing in the Old Testament, which is the body. Right, So Jesus
says in the Gospels, as you know, that he will send the Holy
Spirit in the Gospel John, and that the Spirit will guide you and lead
you into all truth. And for us, he's speaking to the collective body
of the church there, right, And that promise didn't leave when the last
Apostle. But it's not like when John died. Okay, well, the
Holy Spirit's gone, so good luck. You know, hopefully you can figure
it out. Here's a roadmap of d I y and hopefully you don't come
up with a liturgy or church worship service that God hates. No, there's
a pattern of worship that mos that assuming the Adam path, that I'm getting
I had too much coffee today because I was having to do this podcast.
And there's a pattern of worship the Apostles laid down in the seas that they
went and evangelized and set up, and immediately after the Apostles, that's precisely
what we see when we read Ignatious, when we read Clement, when we
read Ambrose, when we read Cyprian, when we read Arnas. They at
Justin Martyr they have this liturgical pattern of worship, and even in Justin Martyr
or in erin As, we have them discussing the liturgy and its celebration,
but we still don't even have like a full on worship service. But we
can go to ancient texts like the Liturgy of Saint Mark at Alexandria, and
I think it dates from I don't know, two hundreds or something like that.
We can see other liturgical celebrations from around that same time, for example,
the Easter controversy, so we know the church was celebrating Pasca and Easter
early on because they were having these big debates with Pope Pope Victor over it
right and the quarter decimonarian controversy. So we know that liturgical worship is the
norm absolutely during these time periods. Even if we don't have Arnasrosimrti giving us
a full service, we do have those services, as my point, and
those services play a key role centuries later in the determination of the canon.
Therefore, we must have some historical body that is the preserver and the expositor,
the guardian of this tradition. And I would argue that the first thousand
years of Christianity, when we go to those councils, when we go to
those synods, that synodal structure that we have in Acts fifteen, the Church
operates precisely in that way, both in local synods, even though we see
those you know, Council of Ganga Albira, we have ecumenical synods which we
see with you know, Nicia and the subsequent ecumenical councils, and the canons
of those councils, I would say, are one of the strongest arguments against
the papal perspective. So you asked me specifically too about Roman Catholicism and why
Orthodox is not Roman Catholic. I would say that the easiest way to demonstrate
that without going into papal documents and papal dogma and Roman Catholic dogument would be
to say, well, we know kind of the claims of Rome about what
it sees itself as as the true church, is that the way the Church
operated in the first millennium, and if the Church of the first Millennium operated
in an Orthodox synodal way, and I think that it's demonstrable that they did,
and if there are canons in every one of the ecumenical councils for seven
at least that actually directly contradict and conflict with the Vatican One claim and interpretation,
to me, that's the strongest proof possible that the Church of the first
Millennium was not the papal monarchical system, but rather a synodal system of first
amongst equals. And by the way, the Alexandria document that just came out
that we just said a live stream on pretty much it basically concedes about nine
the Orthodox points I should add, which is a Roman Catholic of Francis approved
commission. Yeah, so I would say those things are the reasons why I
think that the social ure is not true and the formation that cannon basically requires
some notion of the infallibility of the Church within history right on on, Well,
y'all, we can just pack up and go home. J just killed
it, and so we're done here. I mean, there's nothing else left
to say. No, it's fine, but no, I Jay, there's
so many things that you said there. I want to hit on first and
foremost thank you, because I actually got Lee Martin McDonald's book because you recommended
it. Also got F. Bruce. So if those who are interested,
if you don't have any money, that's actually fine because if you sign up
for a free trial inscribe, they've got the audio book of of F.
Bruce The Cannon of Scripture on there for free, and you just canceled the
free trial whenever you're done with it. But great books and things that you
know, things were mentioned in those books that really led me deeper. So
I ended up getting this book, The Biblical Cannon from Lee Martin McDonald,
and I also got his newer version out The Formation of the Old and New
Testament Canon on Logos, and so I'm diving into those now, big thick
books. Haven't finished them yet, but I'm really interested in seeing which way
Lee McDonald is going to go there. But let me, let me just
ask my host real quick, guys, is there anything in what Jay said
that you want to touch on, maybe some key points or highlights that stood
out to you, guys, Dell or David, And then we'll go to
Dane as well. Yeah, I have a couple couple questions. I was
trying to write down a bunch of one of the first things you said there,
Jay is about, Yeah, it's definitely possible in God's providence that he
can preserve the oral tradition through the succession and that sort of thing. So
I just kind of wanted to ask your take from an orthodox perspective, because
obviously, when it comes to the down to the preservation of the written scripture,
even the most conservative evangelical scholars and Bible scholars do admit it's not one
hundred percent. It's probably about ninety five percent been preserved. So how do
you like, if that's not one hundred percent infallible in terms of the written
scriptures, why does it need to be one hundred percent infallible in terms of
the presentation of the oral tradition or is it? Do you guys think there
could be some minor errors there. I would say that the what we talked
about when we talk about passing on the faith once we're all delivered to the
saints, that would be that would be referring to the totality of the divine
revelation committed to the apostles and to their successors. So that's a body of
doctrines ultimately that includes things like you know, previous scripture and apostolic exegesis and
things like the liturgy. So in other words, we believe that Paul,
you know, really did set up a liturgical worship service, right, and
for us this is an appoint point about scripture. Scripture is more of a
liturgical document than it is like a private devotional documents. Something wrong with you
reading it as a private devotion, but it's not primarily for that. It's
primarily for an ordered worship service. And that's why the Jews actually operated the
same way, right, They had a structure of how you would read certain
certain texts in certain books and certain orders. And then it kind of concludes
with nowadays, at least the synagogue system, which does have a basis and
a lot of the older temple and synagogue services from the Patristic and time of
Christ era, like there's a structure to that, and so for us,
we simply adopted that same structure and pattern because we would say that Paul set
up this kind of worship out of the existing temple and synagogue systems. That's
why there's a great book on this that my buddy Lewis, he did a
whole documentary that you could look up on Orthodox Shahadah, and the book is
Orthodox worship living continity with a synagogue, the temple in the early Church.
And it kind of makes this point so the way it relates to what you're
asking about the inarrency of certain texts. So the question of an arretcy,
I think, is a different question from whether or not there was a historical
place for the church to determine the cannon. I don't know of anybody that
except for maybe like a King James Onliiness that thinks that literally every like you
know, John and Tittle is necessarily quote infallible or in that sense, because
we have to go from copyist manuscripts, which do have, like you know,
minor discrepancies amongst them. So, but copyist errors is different from whether
the body of doctrines handed down has been faithfully preserved and whether or not the
text themselves, for the most part, exhibit continuity and inspiration, which I
would say they do. I think they're God breathed, right, but that
is it. But we don't have AUTOGRAPHA, so we don't have the actual
text that Paul wrote or Matthew wrote. This is again another thing that points
to the necessity of the church in this if I if I can't go on
a time machine and see what Matthew was writing, and I don't even have
copies of Matthew. I like, you know, there's like a fragment of
John from the year nine, year one hundred, right. Most of the
other fragments and gospel collections are second, third, four fifty, sixth,
seventh centuries. So I'm having the point you're making. I would concede it,
and I would say, all the more reason why we have to kind
of distrust the testimony of the church and God's providence to preserve the text,
because we don't have the autographa, meaning the ones written by Paul or Matthew.
Gotcha, all right? Cool? And just one last question before I
turn it to David to save time. But one thing, so I was
interested. You mentioned some models in the New Testament times that you think kind
of support sort of what one biblical scholar calls a formal controlled process type thing.
Right, But there there, I think there's other models too, whereby
an informal controlled transmission of oral tradition could also work. Right, So we
have the Brillons, for example. They don't just defer to what Paul says.
They check for themselves in the scriptures to see, to test the teachers
and the leaders and stuff, to see are they telling the truth? Y're
not, so do you think? Well? But yeah, and I think
that's a good question. But if you if you notice, Deuteronomy thirteen and
Deuteronomy eighteen already laid down the principle that any coming profit has to be consistent
with prior revelation. So anybody in the days of Isaiah, if they were
lettered, they might conceivably do the same thing. Oh, here's a guy
Isaiah over here claiming to be a prophet. I can check and see if
I'm lettered. You know, is what he's saying consistent with prior previous divine
revelation? Yes, it is, so therefore maybe I should listen to him.
Right, So, if we're in a period when there is ongoing divine
revelation, it's definitely necessary that we would cross reference and check what's being said
with prior revelation. But and I would I'm assuming if you're Protestant, you
believe that there's some kind of cessation at some point with the depth the apostles
for public divine revelation, unless you're you're charismatic. I don't know. But
what I'm saying is that cross referencing and checking divine revelation that's new doesn't really
in any way effect whether such soul scripture is true or whether there's oral tradition
or not. Okay, just one quick follow up if you don't mind.
I know I said that was just to follow up quickly on that. So
are you saying for the From my understand, I thought the Orthodox divine revelation
in terms of the oral tradition is still open, right like you guys.
I know you guys ended the seven ucumenical counsels, but couldn't there be a
future counsel? Or is it? Acumenical councils are not new divine revelations.
So divine revelation is a body of teaching of the full apostolic deposit. We
could say, so for example, Jude says you speaks of the faith once
for all, delivered to the saints. So when John died, I would
I would argue, there's not any new public divine revelation. Acumenical counsels expositing
the apostolic deposit is not new divine revelations. So those are different things.
We would say that the counsels explicate and may make precise what is already there
in the data of divine revelation. So there's nothing that there's not a new
divine revelation. Gotchas, what's kind of they're infallibor inspired in a judicating on
the previous revelation. Okay, yes, okay, cool, Yeah, over
to you, David. I don't have nothing else of yet. I'm still
thinking right now, questions we'll probably I'll try to get back too later.
That was a lot to take in, Kate hit On at one point,
that was a very broad question for you, and I'm glad that you had
the gumption and drive to answer it the way you did, so thank you
for that. All right right on, let me so let's go to Dane.
Dane, if you've got any questions or or if you want to add
anything, and then we'll go to Bou to see if Bou wants to add
anything as well. Cool. Yeah, I think that was an awesome answer
to a big question, Jay, So thank you for that. And I
did want to ask one follow up around um the synodal structure of the Orthodox
Church and the councils, and just sort of ask a question that I've heard,
um some Protestant Apologists bring up when when talking to some Orthodox folks,
and it's the question of like, how how do we know the Orthodox Church
is on the correct side of every Senate when there are dissenters who would say
that they're apostolic. So an example being, um, the Coptic Church and
the Monophysites, Um, you know, not not adhering to Chalcedon. And
so what's the way to discern the Orthodox Church the Chalcedonian creed. It's it's
solid, it sound, it's apostolic when we have this group of the Monophysites
claiming that they're actually um correct and rejecting that Senate. So if you could
parse that out, I'd I'd love to hear your answer, doctor Branson or
me. Who are you asking to either one. If I mean, whoever
wants to be a doctor? Branson, I've been rambling for a whole time,
So yeah, you probably know more about that than I do. I'll
have some stuff to say to follow up on. Well. I would say
that a lot of time the question you've asked a lot of times people are
confusing two different categories. I'm not saying you're necessarily doing that, But in
this debate discussion which I've been you know, hearing and having for probably twenty
years on this question of authority and how do we know which one is right
and who's goot the legitimate claims, I would say between a Protestant Roman Catholic
and an Orthodox, we all kind of are in the same boat. All
of those systems will, in the final analysis, admit that the only ultimate
assurance that the individual has is the work of the Holy Spirit. They all
at least give verbal credence to that at some point. For the Roman Catholic,
the assurance is supposed to come through the Holy Spirit leading the individual through
ultimately the papal documents, right, I mean the magisterium, which is ultimately
the papal approval and statements are the final arbiter, right, the final word
on the issues. And so the assumption being that the individual Roman Catholic then
is supposed to be in a privileged position epistemically to be able to parcel out
all the papal teachings into their correct bins and categories of authority. Right.
So that's how the papal system works. The Protestant system is similar, except
that it's the Holy Spirit leading the individual to accurately understand and interpret the text
of scripture ultimately right. So for the Orthodox person, we agree that ultimately
the final arbiter of assurance where an individual has to be the Holy Spirit working
on the heart of the individual. But where we would disagree with those other
two systems is the means that he uses. So whereas we're not primarily saying
that the means of certainty and assurance, not saying that Roman Catholicism is reduced
to papal documents, but in terms of knowing the dogmas and having assurance in
their system, it is that is the work of the Holy Spirit leading it
to the papal do comments. Right. And by the way, if you
got it, if you're a Protestant, it's I would argue, it's easier
because you've got this one. If you're Roman Catholic, I've got like a
giant stack of paper documents. You've got a lot more work to do,
a lot more to weed through, so hopefully you can put them in the
right bins. But um so, where we disagree with the Protestant, as
I said, is that the Bible has its place, and it's definitely I
would argue inspired, and it's an errant again in terms of the body of
doctrines passed down to the church. I don't mean that. I don't think
that means that every copyist manuscript is an errant. I think there are a
few copiist errors. But even still, it has a great I mean,
it's amongst all the ancient texts, as far as I'm aware, it's the
most unanimity and historical attestation above any other texts that are out there, Like
Plato has the oldest sex of Plato from like the Middle Ages or whatever.
So, um so, it has its place and all that, but it's
none of that equates to being the ultimate authority, or the soul authority,
or the final arbiter. Because it's kind of like if you think about the
Constitution. Right, the Constitution is the nation's ultimate authoritative document. However,
we need some kind of role of existing people to exposit that and give the
final word on the law. And that's of course what the Supreme Court is.
Supreme Court exposits and kind of gives the final interpretation of the document.
And we're just simply arguing that in not just because we want it to be
the case, but that Jesus actually did establish a body of teachers who have
authority. And then we see that in Act fifteen, and we see the
Church continuing that synodal system all the way up until till today. And by
the way, the normative government governing system is local sentods, right, it's
not actually ecumenical. So you got three hundred years with no ecumenical synod.
Yet the Church is continuing to exist. So so assurance comes in the one
sense for the individual by the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, I think sat Simmy,
the New Theologian, has a whole great chapter on that in his mystical
discourses, but or public profession, the Orthodox just simply disagrees with the model
that the Roman Calic Church has and the model that the Protestan has, And
we would argue that the first thousand years of the Church, which are so
crucial, especially for the Roman calic apologetic, that they demonstrate this synodal public
confession. So how am I going to know whether the Chalcedonians are right or
whether um, the you know, anti Chalcedonians are right. Well, at
the end of the day, we're not gonna be able to turn off our
brains, right, We're not gonna be able to just pick an authority figure,
right, I mean, that's the Roman says, well, I'll just
pick that. Well, and in the processes so I'll just pick the Bible.
None of the neither of those really answers as solves the individual knowing for
sure which one's right, because you still have to go into interpreting and knowing
the information. So, but beyond that, there are other things in the
councils, for example, and so Calcedon, for example, the question would
be is Chalcedon consistent with ephesis? And so every one of the acumenical councils
begins with after a nice obviously begins with the notion that we are continuing the
tradition of what we said before, and this kind of builds all the way
up, you know, through the seventh slash eight councils up until the Palm
might sentides for the Orthodox that we're being consistent with the cannons and the revelation
that came before. So it's true that there are councils Robertson out of office
and all that for us, but there's really no way to adjudicate this problem
without going into the actual specifics of the argumentation. There's no a priori way
to know, oh, this is the right council because of the pope right,
because the Roman Calticism itself actually doesn't give you a consistent, coherent list
of the councils. For example, Ladder in six forty nine should be a
Roman calty ecumenical council based on their system, but it's not. It never
has been, and the reason it wasn't at that time, if I recall,
is because the Emperor didn't sign onto it. Well, if it was
the papal system at that time, who cares whether the emperor so it doesn't
it shouldn't matter. But anyway, long shorty of short is that, yeah,
there's certain structures and things within the councils themselves about universal acceptance and this
kind of stuff and has to eventually be received by the whole church. And
so it's not just this total top down model, but it's also not a
total bottom up model where it's like, well, it's all the word of
the people or you know that that would be more of a Protestant model,
right, because of the Protestant doctrines of freedom of conscience and that you can't
bind me to your interpretation these kinds of things. Right, So it's I
would just argue that history demonstrates it's neither Protestant nor the Roman Catholic model.
And the specifics of the Oriental question are a little more hairy, but if
you go into the actual theological issues, I think we can show who's right
and is wrong. Cool, Thanks man, Right on, right on,
all right, doctor Branson. Is there anything that you would like to add
to either the question that Dan ask or to the arguments and the positive case
that Jay brought up a little bit ago. Yeah, I could just give
some some thoughts that I had that obviously kind of support Jay's position because it's
my decision, but the way I kind of, I mean, part of
what got me interested in orthodoxy was I was very interested in Judaism first.
And in Judaism there's this idea, I mean, in the Bible, right,
God gives the Torah to Moses, the written Torah, but then it's
it's just taken for granted that people will have disputes about the law. Right,
It's not taken for granted that, like it's so clear that there'll never
be any you know, any reason to worry about it. So God just
takes it for granted. Of course, people are going to be arguing about
how to interpret this and how it applies and whatever, and so Moses will
be the judge, right, So God specifically gives that authority of interpreting the
Torah to Moses. And an interesting thing it happens is God never tells Moses
to delegate that authority, but his father in law does, and so Moses
just says, yeah, that's a good idea. I'm here from morning till
evening. So he sets up this whole hierarchical system where, you know,
over I think it was groups of fifty or one hundred or whatever, there's
judges, and then there's a whole kind of system to appeal it all the
way up to Moses, right. And the interesting thing, I mean,
one interesting thing about that is just the concept of sort of delegating authority.
It just seems to be taken for granted in scripture that if God has given
Moses this authority, then Moses has the authority to delegate it to people below
him if he wants to, right, because that's never something he asks God
about. God doesn't give him the commandment about it. It's his father in
law, and he just does that, right. And the Jewish tradition is
that, of course Moses then passed that authority already down to Joshua and the
seventy elders. And it describes part of that in the Bible right where he
lays his hands on Joshua and it says that, you know, God's going
to take from the spirit that's on Moses and put it on Joshua. So
you get this idea of the laying on of hands, which is a big
deal in the Jewish idea of ordination. And then Jay mentioned Ezra to who
you know, when you have people coming back from the Babylonian captivity and all
this, like you you've got a situation where people don't really speak Hebrew.
So the text is in Hebrew, but people really you know, are speaking
in Aramaic. And that's actually kind of the origin of where we had why
we have a sermon today. It goes back to, you know, what
would have just been this liturgical reading of a section of the Torah, but
because people couldn't really understand that, they would read it in Hebrew, and
then they would read it in Aramaic or they would interpret it to the people
in Aramaic. And that's where we get the idea of a of a homily.
And that's also where like you get the targets and this sort of thing,
and and also um in the at the same time, I think it's
an Ezra or Niemiah that that God talks about, like, you know,
you'll they'll they'll have to be people set up who can interpret the law for
the people. Right. So again, it just kind of takes for granted
that there needs to be a class of people who are experts, who just
devote themselves to learning the Torah and being able to interpret it and apply it.
And the Jewish tradition is then that gets passed down again from so it's
from Moses to the the seventy elders to the judges. I forgot to mention
the judges, and then Ezra, and then down to the rabbis and the
men of the Great Assembly and the sanhedrin Um. And an interesting thing is
people people overlook this because the way it's translated in the Gospel of John.
But in the Gospel of John, Jesus celebrates Hanuka, and it's it's translated
in English and your Bible it'll say something like the feast of Dedication, and
people don't necessarily realize that that's the official name for hanukah Um. So when
in the book of the Macabee's Antiochus Epiphanies, you know, desecrates the temple
and sacrifices, you know, it's like pork or whatever, you know,
to Zeus or something, and so then it had to be rededicated. So
the feast of Dedication celebrates the rededication of the temple. That's nowhere in the
Protestant Bible, right, So so it's it's not in Protestant scripture, it's
not in the feast isn't even really mentioned in the Book of the Macabees.
The Macabees talks about the events, but it's just something that the rabbis created
the feast of Hanka, and Jesus is there celebrating it, right, and
so he and he tells the disciples at one point, you know, whatever
the Pharisees say, you should do what they say because they sit in the
seat of Moses. But he says, don't do as they do because he
thought they were hypocrites. Right. But it's interesting because he doesn't say,
like, oh, forget about them, they're hypocrites, so they don't count.
He says, you have to do what they say because they sit in
the seat of Moses. So he seems to say that they do have the
authority to create new festivals that are not mentioned in the Torah. He seems
to think they have authority that the disciples have to follow it, and so
forth. And then there's the passage about binding and loosing that I always get
amused when I hear certain interpretations of it, when people talk about like binding
and loosing demons, like as though you would want to loose demons, fair
enough, But if you I got interested in that because of the it's mentioned
by David Stern and the Messianic Jewish Manifesto and in his Jewish New Testament commentary.
But if you just look up binding and loosing on the Jewish encyclopedia,
those are technical terms in rabbinic Judaism that you see all over the talent mood,
right uh, And it's it's essentially um So the term for an interpretation
that the Jewish sort of technical term about an interpretation of the Torah is halakha
right, So from the word halak meaning to walk. So it's the way
in which you should go. So it says, you know, Moses will
tell you the way in which you should go. In other words, if
you you know or have a dispute about how to interpret the Torah. So
halakha is is sort of like it's kind of like the equivalent of like like
common law, like judge made law. Right, so you have the like
the Constitution is written, but you know a judge will interpret it. And
then once they've made that interpretation, and that sets the precedent and future uh,
you know, future legal cases have to follow the same precedent. And
in Judaism, that's the idea is that you know, the rabbis or whoever
is around at the time, they'll they'll issue halacha uh, and then you
know you have to kind of follow the precedent and um. And the term
for that that the term for uh for forbidding something is binding, and the
term for permitting something is loosing. So you'll see, like you know,
the house of Hillel binds divorce and the house of Shamai loose's divorce or whatever.
Uh. And the way So in Judaism, what you would do right
if you of course, I mean, if you have a you know,
little minor sort of questions or disputes or whatever, you would just go to
your local rabbi if it's a if it's a bigger issue, there's what they
call a bet den, a house of judgment, which has to be a
it's basically a counsel of at least three or more rabbis, right, um
and uh. And there so they can have a bet den they and they
issue halaka, they bind or loose whatever her right. And there's kind of
there's stuff and the talmud about this that like you know, when they when
a bet den binds or looses whatever, you know, God in heaven will
confirm that you know that decision. And so if you look at the language
that Jesus uses. It's very clear. And like I said, you can
just look up binding and loosing in the Jewish encyclopedia and they say this.
They're like, yeah, that's what Jesus is clearly talking about here, because
it's exactly the same sort of structure. He says, wherever two or three
And by the way, he's not in that passage, he's not addressing a
big multitude of people. He's specific only the twelve Disciples are there in that
theme, so he's not addressing like all Christians everywhere. He's addressing the twelve
Disciples. And he says, whatever, wherever two or three of you,
the disciples are gathered in my name, I'm there in the midst of you.
And whatever you bind on earth will be bound on heaven. Whatever you
loose on earth will be loose in heaven. So what it seems like he's
saying is that he's he's giving them the authority to make halaka right from the
Messiah, not from Moses. Right. And since he's greater than Moses,
they have an even greater authority now, right. And if you if you
assume I mean, and that's even Protestant scholars will will acknowledge this if they
if they've you know, um, you can, you can find some Protestant
commentaries on those verses and so forth. Um. The thing that they'll they'll
usually try to argue is, um, you know, whether that can be
passed down or if it was going to just you know, for the twelve
Disciples. But my what I would say is, you know, it's clearly
mirroring. Um. I mean, there's there's nothing in the actual Old Testament
about binding and losing all of that. That's all Jewish oral tradition and or
the oral torah, right, Uh. And so in any way in the
Jewish system, I mean, it is passed down, and the way that
it's passed down is through the laying on of hands. And so you see
this in the in the Book of Acts too, right, where the apostles
will lay hands for various things. One is the baptism of the Holy Spirit,
but also when they're ordaining deacons and press bers and so forth. And
so also I would point out that in the Book of Acts, so just
like with Moses, he doesn't wait for God to sort of tell him that
he can delegate this power. It's just sort of taken for granted that he
can delegate it and he can pass it down if he wants to. And
in the Book of Acts, what you find is the Apostles. Once the
community gets too big and there's these kind of disputes between the Hellenizers or the
Greeks and the Hebrews, they appoint the seven deacons, right, and there's
no like divine revelation that says this is okay whatever. They just assume that
they can delegate part of their authority, and they only delegate part right,
So they say, we're going to still be preaching, so we're going to
be the ones to explain, you know, the the gospel. They're going
to retain this kind of interpretation, you know function, but they say,
we don't need to be you know, just serving tables or whatever, so
we're going to delegate that to the deacons. And so one thing I would
say about this also ties into kind of that this structure of you know,
bishop, priest and deacon. People sometimes argue about the well, where's you
know, where's this threefold structure? And I think you can't argue that actually
is there in the New Testament. But even if it wasn't, I would
just say, it's just part of the same idea that you can delegate your
authority, and you can delegate part of your authorities. So in the same
way that they just delegated sort of certain functions to the deacons, if they
want to, they can delegate certain functions to priests but reserve certain functions for
themselves. And that's really what you have in the Orthodox Church, right as
priests can kind of do everything except ordain priests and bishops. And the way
that you by the way, you know an interesting, another interesting parallel,
the way that you ordain a rabbi is you have to have three rabbis together
to lay hands on someone to ordain the new rabbi. And that's what you
do with bishops in the Orthodox Church. You have to have three bishops to
all lay hands on the one bishop, right, And so it's the same
sort of structure and the same issue too. It's like if you have sort
of minor issues, you would go to your priest or your bishop, but
for a bigger, more serious issue, they have to have a counsel.
And what's the council? What's at least three bishops, just like the bet
then is at least three rabbis. Right. So there's these exactly parallel sort
of structures. And that's one reason why I did become Orthodox and not Catholic,
is because there's not really anything in Judaism like um a papacy. Right,
there's no sort of single head, there's a conciliar or synodal sort of
modeling. It's the same structure in uh in in Orthodoxy um. And I
guess that's basically what I would say that, you know, So it's you
know, in Judaism you don't have at least in orthodox Judaism, Um,
you don't have um, you don't have a papacy, right, But you
also don't have just kind of a free for all where just anyone can interpret
the Torah and issue halafa themselves. Right. And also you don't I mean,
you know, Jews wouldn't say that that they're infallible necessaries. It's just
sort of kind of like, once precedent has been set, that's the precedent.
That's that's been set, right, that's that's how a few things now
um. And uh, you know, I mean it's a similar sort of
issue like with the Supreme Court. It's like, um, you know,
the Supreme Court could overturn the Supreme Court, but a lower court can't.
Even if a lower court, you know, if you're a judge in a
lower court, you might think that the Supreme Court really made a bad decision
on some case, but you just say, but you know, that's the
way the authority structure is, right, So that's the because you do you
know, if you want to have a functioning community, it can't just sort
of be a free for all, right, Like it couldn't. It wouldn't
work to have like the Constitution at a bunch of laws. But like we
all just interpret the laws for ourselves, right, Like that delves into chaos
real quick. Yeah, so you have to have some sort of some sort
of system, you know, some some idea of who's and like you know,
like I would say frequently, I think the Supreme Court interprets the Constitution
incorrectly on of issues, But like I don't, I mean, but I
understand, like we have to have a system right where I mean, someone
has to have the final say even if they even they get it wrong.
Anyway, that kind of gets into other issues about infallibility if I can,
bo let me ask you this, because you're talking about Jesus delegating authority to
the apostles. Do you think because Jesus does that, that sets the precedent
for the apostles to delegate authority in some sense anyway, maybe an aspect of
it, that sets the precedent for the apostles to delegate authority to those whom
they choose. Yeah, I mean, that's what I'm saying, is that's
exactly. I mean, that's the system in Judaism is that rabbis can ordain
new rabbis, right, um, and the and the new rabbi has the
same you know, is equal in authority to any other rabbi. Right.
And it looks like the same thing Jesus is just saying, you know,
just like the Pharisees sit in the seat of Moses, they have this authority
to issue halaka, to make decisions about how to interpret the Torah, So
you allow that they get that from Moses. Right, It's the spirit of
Moses has been sent down this chain. And it just looks like what Jesus
are doing with you know, even the whole symbolism of taking twelve disciples to
represent the twelve tribes and then the seventy apostles like the seventy Elders. You
know, it's like a head non affirmation to what Moses did there. Yeah,
it's just kind of like he's starting a new Israel, right, it's
but instead of Moses, it's Jesus, right, right, it's obviously higher,
higher authority. So yeah, that's how I see it. Is it
just kind it just seems so obviously supposed to be this parallel thing. And
another thing that I mean, I guess is a little bit off topic of
Soli script to her. But you know, you don't see in in the
Old Testament, right, there's plenty of times when Israel, um, you
know, is doing all kinds of things that shouldn't be doing. I mean
it down to even worshiping false gods, right, worshiping like literally putting idols
in the temple and worshiping idols in the temple. Right. But there's a
commandment, you know, if you are a male Jew, you have to
go to Jerusalem to the temple three times a year and you have to make
a sacrifice. And that's never like abrogated that. There's never a revelation from
a prophet or something that says, oh well, because they're all screwed up
and they're doing everything wrong. It doesn't count anymore, and you should just
kind of make sacrifices at home, or we should start our own temple or
something like that. Right, It's just like, that's the Temple, so
you have to go there and don't worship the idols while you're there. But
but you still, you know, I mean, that's still that's still Israel,
and that's still the Temple. There's there's no there's no such thing as
Protestantism in the Old Testament, right, I Mean the closest thing you get
to it would be something like the Samaritans, right, who start their own
temple. But I mean even even Jesus in the New Testament is just like,
yeah, salvations from the Jews, not the you know, when he's
talking to the Samaritan woman like yeah, yeah, salvation, that's us.
But um, yeah, I mean you first go to the Samaritans, then
to the Gentiles, right, so first used in the Samaritans energy, but
um, but yeah, just bo doesn't he also say that there's a time
where you won't have to go to this temple or that temple, but you
worship mean spirit in truth. Yeah, that seems very Protestant. Uh,
it doesn't to me. Here's I guess here's why, um, because if
you notice, right in the Book of Acts um, and this is after
the resurrections, there's after the Crucifixion, after the resurrection, after the ascension
um, even after Pentecost, right um, the the disciples were worshiping in
the temple. Uh. And and you don't do anything in the temple except
offer sacrifices, right, well, they also preached in the temple, right
so like uh yeah, and they and and and also at that time,
gentiles also couldn't go into uh the inner parts of the temple still either.
I would say that they were They were probably doing that, uh, probably
up to seventy a d anyway, because Christ hadn't done that Judge Final Judgment
or Jerusalem yet that I think he was predicting. So, I mean,
you could look at it from that way too, I think so. But
no, Jay, go ahead, man, I'm sorry, No, I'm
the host here, I'm not. I don't want to stop. I would
say that even though Jesus says that it will not be in this temple alone,
that you would worship the Father, we do find, and that even
in the New Testament tax and even in places you might not expect, like
the Book of Hebrews, for example, Hebrews teen, which is a ballot
as you know what elements are fulfilled. In the New Testament, Hebrews doesn't
get rid of the notion of an altar. In fact, and Hebrews thirteen,
Paul says that we have an altar from which those who served the Tabernacle
have no right to eat. So altar sacrifice and eating is still very important
in the New Testament churches worship, which he identifies with the heavenly Jerusalem.
For us, when the apocalypse is revealed to John and he sees this ordered
liturgical worship service in heaven. You look at Revelations four to five and six.
You notice he sees all the incense, he sees people wearing vestiments,
elders, he sees angels. Looks very much like an Orthodox Church service,
because for us, the divine liturgy is that celebration of the heavenly worship on
earth. So while it's true that Jesus is saying to the woman, the
Samaritan woman, if you think about her context or her dispute with the Jews.
It was precisely over the question of where should we worship God, says
Jacob's Well, Jesus says, no, sorry, it was at the temple.
That was the theologically correct position. However, a time is coming when
the whole world will worship God in spirit and in truth. That just means
in the Holy spirit. Right. It's not saying that there won't be specific
places that we gather to that are holy. In fact, the New Testament
includes the notions of certain locations actually being holy. Peter saysn't his epistle that
Jesus was transfigured on the Holy Mountain. We know that in the gospels.
Right, we have the pool where the angels stirs, and the Gospel of
John the pool. So it's a holy site. So alters holy things which
are typically kind of contrary to the Protestant idea of well that's all fulfilled.
That's a Old Testament. Ceremonies might have holy things anymore. There's many many
instances I would say, where we find this carried over in the New Testament.
I was gonna to finish what I was going to say. When they
go to the temple, right you, you we do offer a sacrifice than
the temple, right. And if you think about it theologically, it would
be it would make no sense to be offering blood sacrifices, right, or
offerings for sin. But if you if you're familiar with the sacrificial system,
right, the one one offering that is not in any way connected with sin
and it doesn't involve a blood sacrifice is the thank offering or the Eucharist,
right, which is also specifically leavened bread. Um. That's the other whole
other issue. But but it's interesting. You know, a lot of times
people don't think about this. They think, oh, well, this sacrificial
system has been sort of done away with because Christ is the final, you
know, sacrifice for our sins. But there is a sacrifice that's still left,
right that is not a sacrifice for sins um. And it's it's the
bread offering, right, the grain offering or the thank offering. Um.
And in the Book of Acts, what you read is that the decid would
go to the temple every day, um. And then it says they would
go home and break bread from house to house. And if you know about
the the thank offering, it would be it would be a pretty substantial amount
of bread, and the commandment says that you can't let any of it.
Um, you can't leave any of it over for the for the next day.
Uh. And the idea there is partly that you would, um,
you would then be sort of incentivized to to feed hungry people or invite people
to come and share it because you can't, um, you can't leave any
of it over, right, so you have to you have to make a
big amount, so you have to share it with people. So it looked
I mean, it looks very much like I mean, they're they're going to
the temple to worship, and that's you would normally think where you would offer
a sacrifice. And then it specifically says they're they go home and break bread
from house to house. So it looks very much like the Eucharist, and
it looks like they're still doing that, you know, in the temple and
in a sacrificial sort of way like with the Old Testament Temple liturgy of the
grain offering. And then of course once the Temple's destroyed, um, they
and presumably in you know, outside of Jerusalem and other places, they would
just celebrate that on their own. But it doesn't look to me. I
mean, you know, you still have to have someone sort of again delegated
to to do that to make that offering right. And it doesn't seem to
me that there's any indication that it's just again kind of a free for all,
like anyone can just consecrate the Eucharist or whatever that I see anyway,
right, I appreciate that, Bo David, is er any follow up since
you brought up or okay, right, let's shift gears then for a minute.
So we recently did on Faith Unaltered a couple of shows, one entitled
Why We're Orthodox, the other entitled Why We're Protestant, and Dell, unfortunately
being a Protestant, he had some issues going on while we were doing that
first episode, and so he actually had came back on the podcast in order
to give his side of the story. And there's a quote that I want
to I want to read and I want to get Jay, I want to
get your opinion on it, and doctor Branson, I want to get your
opinion on it as well. But in this episode he says, Dell says
this. He says, quote, we have the Protestant Bible thirty nine books
in the Old Testament as well as the twenty seven books in the New Testament
in Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics and Protestants all agree that these books are in
the canon. Therefore, great Protestants win the debate and can use the sixty
six books as a standard to assess any other later books, doctrines, or
traditions that may come up. And as I get into the fourth topic,
I'll say that I think some Orthodox and Catholic doctrines and other books are inconsistent
with the Protestant Bible end quote. What would your guys's response be, specifically
to the understanding that because we all agree on the sixty six books, therefore
the Protestants win the debate by default, and Orthodox and Roman Catholics would need
to justify our other books. I'll just qualify go ahead, because so that
wasn't an argument for Protestantism in all of its doctrines. It was mirror.
That was an argument for mirror Protestantism being the default. So yeah, over
to you guys to answer that. Yeah, Jay, if you want to
take this one first, you can. Well, my first sense would be
that it's a fallacious reasoning, because the fact that we all three agree on
something would really have nothing to do with its status in terms of whether it's
true or false. And I mean I hear a lot of people arguing all
the time that you know, people say, well, the churches don't agree,
so how do you How can what you're saying be the case if if
all the churches and the different groups out they all disagree, so why should
we believe you what? It's kind of premise on the same kind of reasoning
that the status of agreement or disagreement really has nothing to do whatsoever with whether
this list or that list is correct or false. So that's number one of
fallacy. I would say that the another point would be that, well,
if there's divine revelation in those other texts, then it really again doesn't matter
how far we scale it down or how like. It's a question of what
the divine revelation in Toto is right, So there's not this is really irrelevant
to what the content revelation is, what groups except or reject what. It's
a question of what is that content? What is that divine revelation? So
that is going to be known again only through some kind of historical attestation of
a historical body that preserved it, and decided, you know what the book
would be, and it doesn't matter like how many Protestant groups kind of come
along and say, well, I like this can, and I like this
can, and it really ends up being kind of something that any individual Protestant
could conceivably construct on his own. Because if the Protestant idea of not being
bound by anybody else's interpretation, the right to private interpretation, the right to
freedom of conscience, and so forth in these matters, then on what basis
everybody probably knows that, you know, Luther disagreed or doubted certain books.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, Luther said, I reject the
Catholic Epistles and the Book of Revelation. On what basis can a Protestant really
say, well, you don't have the authority to do that, because it
doesn't really matter what if the Protestant position is right, it's premised on the
notion that it doesn't matter what any historical groups said what the canon of scripture
was, So the fact that we all agree on it is really irrelevant to
the Protestant presupposition of the right of private interpretation and the authority of the individual
to basically, I've done my own research. I prayed a lot about it.
By the way, I always I like to propose this thought experiment to
Protestants when this comes up, I just simply say, what would you say
to me if I said, I've done a lot of praying and the Holy
Spirit is lat me it trust me. I've read a lot of conservative scholars,
and I believe the only acceptable book of the New Testament is just the
Book of Jude. That's it. So sorry, you're all wrong, But
I want to know, like, on what basis would you say that that's
wrong? Because I can appeal ultimately to the guidence of the Holy Spirit,
to my own personal striving for truth what typically a lot of Protestants appealed to.
But if we don't have any normative authority, as we say, in
terms of philosophy, right within history, how are we gonna how are we
going to on what? How would we adjudicate that position being wrong? Or
luthor throwing out certain you know, five six books in the New Testament?
Like why would that be wrong? Oh? Are you asking? Um?
Yes? The way the way we're warranted, I would say, is in
the same way as the almost in the same way as the Orthodox position according
to Father Jonathan, And I know from what you said it sounds like you
have some differences with him. But um, I don't know. He's an
Orthodox priest. He's been on the show a couple of times. But Father
Jonathan, I'm not familiar with it. I don't know what what how would
you know? How differences? So, so, at the end of the
day, the way it's warranted. Look, we appeal to the Holy Spirit.
This provides us with a warranted true belief with respect to this. So,
but appealing to the Holy Spirit, as I was arguing, it can
give that's the ultimate thing that every individual will rely on. But when we
raise the question of normative authority and delusion, that shifts out of just the
individual existential experience domain into the public domain, and that involves history. Right,
So on what basis would you say that any Protestant with a different canon
is wrong or in delusion because we're going to have to appeal to some historical
normative authority. Right, that's different than existential assurance. So there are two
different categories. They're related, but there's two responses. In the first place,
on the individual level, Remember I said warrant not justification. Warrant carries
with it a factive component as an episdemic criterion. So under Alvin Planting his
definition warranted, it entails that if we're warranted, then the belief is in
fact true. So that's just a part of the definition warrant and that it
just comes down to you, do you know internally whether you're warranted or not?
But that's not But I was talking about the public notion of normativity as
distinct from the individual subjective assurance. Two different Okay, so maybe I think
I might be answering you with the second, more objective argument. And this
is where I was trying to say, I'm kind kind of like you,
guys, but a bit different in that I would say, Look, it's
this the Holy Spirit acting upon in true individual Christians across denominations, overall of
time. And so for us, for example, the list of canon that
we accept would be Trolo slash sixth Council. Right, So do you think
that there's another way to identify the Biblical canon than that historical process? I
think that they're I think that there is. I think it's it's just basically
the Holy Spirit working within the So there's not any public way to adjudicate between
competing Holy Spirit claims. The only the only way to do that is by
saying that I think that the majority of true Christians over time have all accepted
these books. And well there's only that. Again, that's presupposing that Protestants,
Orthodox and Roman Catholics are all true Christians. And so how do you
know you have the right definition or category of what who? I mean?
Are Mormons? Right? Are there excluded? Presumably? Right? Yeah,
they would be excluded. So but wouldn't they be excluded in part because they
don't have the Nicene teaching of aternity. Yeah, that's exactly why I would
deny them. Okay, so but does that mean that you accept the Council
of Nicea. Yeah, I believe that the Count Nicia more or less has
true propositions. I don't think it's inspired or anything more infallible or anything.
But well, what do you think goes into a council? For example?
Do you think it's just the confession that's produced or what do you think is
entailed there? Yes, so my understanding and you kind of this is why
I was asking you before. I thought that the Orthodox view is that when
a council comes together, they are almost getting some kind of inspired divine revelation.
Well, but I'm asking on your perspective. I'm just wondering because you
said, I accept Nicia, but when I go to the Canons of Nicia,
I mean they teach probably twenty things that you don't believe. Are you
familiar with those things? Probably not. No, I'm just thinking of the
trinity aspect of it. So well, wait a minute. So but Nicia
and then the nice constant Politan creates as for example, I believe in one
Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and I would argue that it makes sense to
interpret at the way the people that wrote it right meant it. So,
for example, Cappadocian theology basilness up when they wrote one Holy Upsolite Church.
There for the creed. They're referring to the visible episcopal structure that is attending
those councils. Right, they were bishops. They did the eucharists, right.
The candidate Nicea talk about the Eucharist. It talks about giving the euchris
to the dead. It talks about feasts, it talks about virgins, It
talks about all of these things that Protestants don't accept. So when you say,
well, I accept Nicia, Nicia is predicated on a kind of historic
authority. So you're not accepting Nicia. You're saying, I accept the Trinity,
not the Council of Nicea. Yeah, it's exactly. I think you
said. It was your second point that you gave in your opening, where
I would take the views of Protestant. Look, I'm accepting the true propositions
that are that are all. So now it's not the Council of Nicia,
and it's not even it's not it's your right, not the right the creed
that's produced by the First and second councils. Right, So it's not the
creed that I like. Right, Yeah, yeah, I agree with you.
As a as a historian, we would want to understand what the people
meant, and okay, for the sake of argument, maybe they meant a
visible universal Church. I disagree with them. I think that there's an invisible
universal Church. So I would reject that part of the council. So yeah,
so I am subscribing. Well, it's interesting because we don't but see
through these centuries. Then what you're saying is the true Christian appeared at first
to be aligned with Nicia and people's public confession. But now it's getting scaled
down right what, Oh no, actually it's not what you guys are saying.
You guys are not actually a true church. It was what that would
amount to. At least the classical reformers, many of them were consistent enough
to say that the Roman, Catholic and Orthodox churches are not true churches.
So is a true Christian? Now the pert and this this was your measure
of then whose Canada Scripture we accept? You see that it's getting whittled down
to basically just being Protestantism. So it's assuming the thing the thing that was
in question. So in terms of okay, so to start, let me
rephrase it like this, and I don't mean to catch off it. So
basically you're saying that the Canada Scripture is determined by what the true Christians at
all times believed. The true Christians at all times believe the propositions out of
Nicia that affirm Protestantism that I adhere to. So basically it's just restating your
position of what Protestant Christianity is is now scaled down to what a true Christian
is because the canon then is just what the Protestant canon was. But none
of that, all of that is just a big circle. So I wouldn't
say necessary all of true Christianity. I'm just saying kind of. It's an
argument that the default is. One way we can identify which doctrines are true
Christianity is that the majority of Christians across x or different sex and denominations over
time subscribe to it and only the protest hold on. But in the Aryan
Crisis, the big contention of Nicea orthodoxy was in the far in the minority.
So would that make Aryan and semi arianism true because it was the majority
at the time of Nicea. Well, there's been about seventeen hundred years where
Arianism is not the majority of view. So well, but I'm saying,
let's just take your position and imagine that we're a Christian in the year three
hundred. Well, how would you on your principles, how would we know
where the where the true delineator between a true Christian and a false Christian is.
Well, we'll see that. Okay, So at that time we might
have an issue. Right, But I'm saying for me, right now,
is your position out to be true from the beginning. I mean, no,
I'm saying, we have a mechanism today as Protestants to know, Um
that just not the same works. Now, it wouldn't It wouldn't have worked
for the first several centuries. Yeah, they would have had another mechanism to
tell at that time because and that would be what I mean so is that
this is basically a mission that the first several centuries of the church is not
the Protestant Church right, No again bis Christianity. Um, so it was
biblical Christianity at this point, but they don't have access to a clear canon
and no way to really recognize the true and the false church, is what
you were admitting. No, I'm I'm saying, so they had a different
mechanism right through the Holy Spirit of recognizing which scriptures in the first century they
also had What is this mechanism and what do you have any evidence of this
from history? Or you're just sort of assertingness. I'm not trying to be
mean. I'm just saying, like Jay, you're kind of leading him to
um, let him answer first. Let's let's see what he's got to say
in a roundabout way. First, So, well, he's asserted the mechanism
I just want to know what. Yeah, So okay, let Jay,
let me ask you a yes or no question. Would you accept that there
could be additional mechanisms that apply today that maybe didn't apply back then, that
are valid, like progressive revelation or something. Yeah? Are you saying like
that we today, because of information the Internet, we have access to mechanisms
for determining things in history that they didn't have. Then is that what you're
getting at? Well? No, because the original question that Tyler asked is
my mirror Protestantism as the default. So it's an argument that I had and
the principle, how do we discern that today? Is that? Okay?
Well, for two years, the majority of Christians across denominations or sex all
accept these sixty six Protestant books, some of them accept others additional ones,
but everyone agrees on these. So we can say at least these we know
are inspired. But why would the majority accept didn't somehow equate to the proposition
that therefore those are the true books. That's what I'm calling into question,
the assumption they're basically and by the way, what exactly was the mechanism I
didn't hear that you responded with a two quot quay, But what was the
mechanism. It's the Holy Spirit producing properly basic beliefs with respect to these books
and their status over time across the denominations. So in fact, in the
third, fourth, and fifth century, the true Christians did know the Canon
of Scripture. Yeah, I think yeah for the most part. I mean,
how if many of them couldn't read, and many of them didn't have
access to a full Canon of Scripture, were they somehow knowing in these centuries
before the Cannon actually came to be, which is a consensus of basically every
Protestant scholar, how were they knowing the Canon of Scripture? Yeah? So
I think I think you're right that the that the people who were illiterate couldn't
read it for themselves, but they could happen with most of them, right,
they could have it read to them and in that case they recognize the
Word of God that's being read to them. But at the local churches,
as I showed from Lee McDonald, many of them didn't have the full sixty
six books nor the full Orthodox canon eventually, which comes about by the Six
Councils So what I'm saying is, what's the mechanism by which they're supposed to
know the canon of scripture, which, by I'm just saying, by necessity,
they can't know that. You see, Oh yeah, well, I
mean, yeah, of course. I don't think any Christian in the first
century knew the full canon of the New Tests, well, say, the
third century. So remember this was supposed to delineate true and false Christians,
And you're saying that it's the lowest common nominator of people who believed in the
things that were taught in scripture, but they didn't even know what the scriptures
were because they didn't have access to a full canon. That's kind of what
I'm getting at. So the average guy in the year three hundred, shouldn't
the means of salvation be the same for somebody staved in the year three hundred
somebody staved in the year twenty twenty three, necessarily, so the means of
salvation, yes, the conditions for salvation, but not necessarily the means of
learning that. That's That's what I was trying to argue, is that today
we have an additional mechanism that I think warrants my my Protestant default argument.
Uh, and you're right that that type of argument wouldn't necessarily apply for Christians
in three hundred eighty years before, so I would need to postulate some other
mechanism like the Holy Spirit James White type type argument. And we can debate
that. So but how but doesn't it matter which cannon we have, whether
it's right or wrong? Right? Well, I mean I don't think so.
I mean, no one I thought. I thought the cannon was part
of true and false Christians. So now but it's it's not an essential belief
necessary the way the way I well, it's interact. I could conceivably scale
it down to just the Book of Jew so the way so the way I
determined the essential you know, you're you're a damned or take versus, you're
a Christian. A true Christian is from the Bible. So it's whatever the
Bible. But the question originally was what are the contempts of the Bible?
So that's being assumed in that answer. Exactly. It's implicit that you need
to know what the criteria are. So that's what we're here to talk about.
So you know, we can't just say, well, it's the Bible
the Bible's the Bible? How do we know what books are the right list
of books? For example? And the reason this matters is a point that,
for example, Luther makes. Luther makes the point that, well,
I definitely don't want Maccabee's and Sarah can some of these other due to orcanonical
texts in there, because they give credence to the notion of prayers for the
debt, they give create us the notion of works going up as a memorial
before God. So you know, for Luther, it was very important to
exclude those because the three the theological presuppositions that Luther had to set works and
law and grace and law in a dialectic couldn't allow for texts that could be
supportive of what he was arguing against Catholics. Right, So, in other
words, just theological presuppositions determined for him the canon of scripture. And I'm
just saying that seems to me that the Protestant position will be a lot more
honest if it was. I'm not calling you out or saying you're a bad
person. I'm just saying if we were to say that, look, you
know, ultimately Protestantism's view of the canon presupposed Protestantism. That's kind of the
point. I'm not okay, I need to think that over. I'm not
sure that it presupposes it, but I yeah, Like, can I just
interject one thing, that's it's not the case that everyone agrees on those sixty
six books two, So I think that's something you're maybe not taking into account.
Doesn't have second, third John or second Peter. There's an Armenian canon
of scripture that doesn't have a few of the book books. Um, I
mean, so there are there are New Testament cannons and Old Testament cannons that
are that are smaller than the Protestant cannon. Yeah, but the majority of
Christians over times are Roman Catholics, aren't they? Yeah, so we should
just be Roman Catholic. No, I'm just saying that's we can accept what
the majority of those Christians across the denominations accept on what basis the scripture is
right? On what basis are we supposed to adopt the majority position? Argument
that seems to come prepackaged with assumptions. Basically, Well, I think because
the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit that this is now we're back to
the Bible, and I think the bottom line of it is, I don't
think we're getting a non circular definition, right, Isn't that It seems like
we're sort of defining the Bible in terms of what true Christians believe. But
then how we determine who's a true Christian is going to be partly determined by
what's in the Bible, which amounts to a Protestant reading. So, if
I can interject her real quick, is this so I watch your debate with
Pedro, Jay, is this the same line of argumentation that Pedro is using
that It took a little bit of the debate and he still really didn't grasp
what you and even the audience was trying to show him in his circular reasoning.
Is that kind of the same thing that's going on here? Or am
I off? There was a point I think in the debate where Pedro did
go down this line of thought. And remember two specific points that he made.
I think one of them was this point which I was just again trying
to say, well, look, you know, it's fine to say these
things, but when we actually dig into what is meant by those things,
it turns out to really just be a restatement of the original proposition, which
would just be a circle basically. So and by the way, I'm not
being unfair because I would say, for example, in a lot of Romanca
debates I've had, Roman cathoicis say something like, well, look, the
only way to know the Bible is through the office of the papacy. Otherwise
we wouldn't know what books are supposed to be in that collection. And they'll
just sort of default to again those Augustinian Damasian Pope Damasist synods, and so
we'll see, this is how we know. But then at the same time
it's they'll say, well, the reason we know the papacy is true is
because of Matthew sixteen. So Matthew sixteen is confirmed by the papacy. But
the papacy is known because it's confirmed by Matthew sixteen. And that's a circle.
And if a person does want to make a circular argument, then okay,
that would be consistent with a certain type of epistemology. But ninety nine
point nine percent of Protestants in Roman Catholics want to have a type of an
evidentialist, you know, foundationalist epistemology approach, and so that's going to be
difficult, I would say for them to tease out. But yeah, and
then Padro had another argument about divine artifact, which was that if God from
all eternity knew the canon, then the canon six six books, the Protestant
Canon was predetermined the divine mind or something like that, which is it just
ignores the historical reality. So the fact that, yeah, but it didn't
just drop into our lap like the book and his transmission and his history has
a has a formative process in these centuries of the Church. And again,
you know, I would argue that if we want to have a lowest common
dominator of Christianity, then it's going to be the same doctrines and dogmas that
we're required in these centuries. And when we go to those centuries and we
find the Niceno Constpolitan Creed as the basis for what you would have to believe
and would be catechized in, and we can go and read for examples,
Saint Ceril Jerusalem when he when he does catechises the catechetical lectures very famous a
Patristic corpus. It's model on the Creed. So he just exposits in a
catechetical way, the teachings of the Creed, and this is the this is
the Bishop of Jerusalem, this is and this is consistent with what the other
bishoprics and Christendom are teaching. So they're expositing and teaching these things the way
that we as Orthodox expositive teaches them teach them. So this idea that you
can give verbal credence to these centuries and then when we actually dig into it
we find out that it's it's not really credis because most Protestants, most Evangelicals,
would not have anything to do with the actual church where Athanasius was at
right, they would they would be running him out or he would be running
them out right. So that's the reality of the situation, and in fact,
a lot of protestantsm actually matches up to a conglomeration of many early Church
heresies. There's elements of Marcianism, elements of Nacissism, elements of Massallianism,
Montonism, and depending on what Protestant we're talking about, we actually have precedent
in a lot of these heterodox groups. Even in Arenais's date, when are
an As one eighty writes about you know what doctrines are necessary to join the
church. Right as a bishop, if you're going to join my church,
you're going to believe in the tradition. He says in book three of Against
Heresies that aligns with the apostle succession. And he says one of those great
churches is the Church of Rome, which because of Peter and Paul, has
a lot of honor, and he says we ought to look to them as
an example of a church that we should want to be in communion with and
that we should base our apostolic succession principles on. Right, the way that
Rome does absolute succession is a model for how the true churches are recognized through
apostolic succession and the tradition that they confess. So these appeals are to tradition
absolute succession in one eighty again for the orthodox normative church of that time.
So that the point is just that if Protestantism is not a historical reality,
then there's at some point a division, divorcing, a loss of what the
and it really doesn't matter what flavor Protestant it is, you're ultimately going to
have to come back to some kind of blackout view. Right. So the
apostles lay down the positive faith and then depending upon which Protestant we're talking to,
right, it's well it was all black out, or well they had
a lot of good with a lot of bad. And it's sort of like,
well, why are people who are basically heretical the ones that aren't preserving
and determine the candid scripture? Right? It seems to not really make sense
given the fact that you might argue that in the Old Testament. Okay,
so the Jews were often heretical, they fell into heresy, but the Church
is different from Old Testament Israel. So Protestants like to use Old Testament in
Israel as a model. But we can't absolute size the peer to the Old
Testament because the reality has come to replace the type and the foreshadowing. For
example, what circumcision did was a type. Baptism is the reality. And
when a lot of Protestants, for example, have a take issue with the
Church fathers and baptismal regeneration, which they universally teach, the argument will be,
well, let's go back to the mode of operation of the Holy Spirit
during the Old Testament, because circumcision didn't affect spiritually what it signifies their or
baptism shouldn't. But this is to take the Old Testament modus operandi and absolute
tize that as if there's not a distinction between the Old Testament New Testament precisely
on sacraments and the Holy Spirit, and there is, because Christ said,
with Pentecost right, it's a whole new thing. Right. Pentecost is a
huge fulfillment the Old Testament feast of Pentecost in weeks. So it's the reality
of which those things were. The types, So we can't go back to
the types. But much of Protestantism is predicated all this point on returning to
typological and shadow realities. I gotcha, I got youa So let me ask
you this real quick and then we can just having other discussion around the way.
Is why baptism and the real presence are so important, Bachelor regeneration and
the real presence right on, right on. I appreciate that. So let
me ask you this and forgive me. I just want to make sure that
I've got this down and our audiences got this down as well. So if
you were to answer the questions that you asked Dale specifically about understand and knowing
what exactly. The canon is how would you and you can be brief if
you want to, how would you argue non without begging the question? How?
What would your answer look like? Like I said, without begging the
question. Yeah, we have to go to the historical testimony and witness of
the church fought so obviously the internal evidence of scripture that it doesn't tell us
what books make up the Book of the Bible. There are cross textual references,
sure, between different authors citing other authors and different authors citing certain Old
Testament books. But if that is, if pure citation is somehow cannons city,
then well now we've got the Book of Na being cited Sogan philosophers,
right sure, And we also have well again, we don't. We don't
have throughout the Roman Empire and the seas of the early Church, we don't
have a consistent canon. We have varying canonsrying links. But we do have
a body of oral teaching that accompanies the interpretive those texts, because texts don't
just stand on their own. This is another thing that I think Protestantism rests
on. This enlightenment and post printing press notion or something that's weird idea that
the text just means what it says, and it says what it means.
But text don't operate that way. Text require an interpretive matrix, a schema,
a web of beliefs that we have about that text, and each text
is situated within the rest of the text, and they don't really make sense
without the holistic context. And I think most Protestants believe in canonical interpretation and
holistic exodus. Iss sure, but even the Bible itself, I'm saying it
doesn't make sense without the milieu and the context of the church. You see,
because the Church is the pillar and brown of truth. Timothy said,
it says to Timothy, Paul says to Timothy, not the other way around,
right, Paul says to the Thessalonians continue to keep the traditions, whether
oral or written, And again, those are just really I think points bolstering
what we're saying, which is that the Bible is situated within a context,
the milieu of the life of the church, the liturgical life of the church.
It's meant to be heard and exposited by an authority figure in a structure,
and you can't have that divorce from the actual history of the church.
So the way that I get around a circular argument would be that, well,
just simply that the history of the church, we can go into these
guys up here, demonstrates that there's no clear canon. It varies amongst many
centuries. Tradition is seen by these guardians of the text as necessary for the
text. That's who makes this final authoritative decision for us as orthodox. So
that to me is consistent as a system. Okay, right on, Bot,
is there anything that you would like to add to what jaj said?
And then I want to get danes opinion on some of the stuff, because
you've been very quiet, bro, and I'm getting worried about you over there.
So I'm listening, man, Yeah, I know right when when they're
smarter people in the room just sit back and listen, right, be a
sponge, Right, That's what I'm doing. Go ahead, bo, No,
No, I don't have anything I think to add for now. Okay,
all right, Dane so um Dale said something that I would like to
hear Jay or doctor Branson's opinion on talking about how in the scriptures um and
from a solo script or a perspective, you can get this list of primary
doctrines and I'm you know, I'm skeptical that that's true. Um. I
think, first of all, people give different definitions of what is primary,
you know, um. But second of all, the scriptures don't necessarily give
a list. Um, this is primary, this is secondary. This.
You have to believe this, you can have liberty of opinion. So what
is y'all's response when you hear a Protestant say solo scripture can provide all the
primary doctrine doctrines. I'm just curious. I mean, I know you would
disagree, but no one I would say that the Protestant position is easily self
refuting on that point, because if solo scripture is a primary doctrine, solo
scriptura can't provide the Canada Scripture necessary for solo scriptura. So that's one primary
doctrine that it can't provide. Certainly, the New Testament teaches the doctrine of
the Trinity as it reads the Old Testament. But whether or not this is
completely clearly evident just from the exposition of the Scripture, I think it's there's
a there's a development in the sense of explication of the doctrine of the Trinity
and the other Christological doctrines which are implicit in the scriptures, but the way
that the Church exposes them, utilizing a lot of philosophical concepts and things that
are extracononical, various insights from Platonic, Neoplatonic, Ristintilian philosophy later on.
I mean, those things are very helpful and they kind of become part of
the expression of the church, the mindset of the church. But none of
those things are contained in the scriptures. And so to me it's just kind
of I mean explicitly right, like I don't know, something like the Fifth
Council's doctrine of inn hypostatized, the idea we could say is in scripture,
but that express that specific terminology and the expression that it's encapsulating that we see
in the Leontii, that's not in scripture. So, you know, there's
so many things like this that I think when we put it in context historically,
it makes it makes so much more sense that it's not really these texts.
It's a group of people. The community is the body of Christ expression
the word, right, the living word, we're the living word. Doesn't
mean that the texts aren't important or they're not. In an other sense,
the word, but Jesus is calling us to more than just abstract propositional knowledge
post Enlightenment Reformation, but actual participation, and the Protestant devaluing of sacramentology I
think contributes to that idea that the highest faculty in man is propositional knowledge and
this kind of stuff, and that's all just really a movement away from a
visible social living community. Cool. Thanks, Yeah, doctor Branson, is
there anything you want to add on that? Could you kind of rephrase the
question for me? So, yeah, I'm just curious your response to Protestants
who claim that scripture alone can give can give us the primary doctrines, the
things that must be believed for a person to be saved. The main thing
I think when I think of a question like that, I mean, you
know, so of course it could, and I apologize, but it just
seems like such a crazy idea to me to think that that actually is is
true, that like that's how the Bible is written. It's always I mean
really, even when I was a Protestant. I remember when I was a
Baptist, like as a kid, sometimes people would I don't know if they
were joking or if they were serious, but you know, they'd be like
that, they'd refer to the Bible. They'd be like, this is like
the instruction manual for your life. And I always, I mean, even
as like a you know, teenager, I was like, this is a
really poorly written construction. You know, like like there, it's not arranged
by topic, there's no index, like it's all like they're just like that's
just not at all how it's written. Um. It just just always struck
me as a really crazy idea to think that the Bible is supposed to be
like this. You know, people talk about the clarity of scripture, and
it just seems I just I can't. I can't figure out why anyone would
think that unless they just had to, like unless they were forced into it
by you know, sort of the system that requires it, because I mean
I just didn't. I just like, why would you like why would you
read lamentations or something and think, oh, this is so it's like the
Zuma theology I over, you know, just so laid down in such a
clear system and it's obviously not. I mean, you know, I don't
know, like could you, I guess in theory, like could you go
through the Bible and figure out what are the primary things or something. I
mean, I guess, but I mean it's certainly not like I mean,
it's obviously not written that way. It just it's always just struck me as
a really weird thing to think. And I don't know what evidence it's based
on, Like why Yeah, So this has been this has been a real
tipping point for me because as as we were talking before the show, doctor
Branson um that I'm I'm a pastor in the Methodist Church, and so I
am, you know, Protestant, but I've been really struggling with with upholding
soul of scriptura for a while now because this idea that it can provide a
list of primary doctrines and then usually the definition people will give me as well.
A primary doctrine is that which deals with salvation, how a person is
saved. But Protestants we don't even agree on that, right, So some
Protestants would affirm baptismal regeneration and infant baptism while others would not. And um,
you know, I'm more on the side of baptismal regeneration and big proponent
of infant baptism, but uh, you know, a Baptist would disagree with
me on that, and I'm like, well, at this point, we're
two Protestants that disagree on a primary doctrine because this is how a man or
a woman is saved. Like, so I've been uh, you know,
I'm I'm as uh, I'm definitely still a you know, believing in the
infallibility of scripture and the inspiration of scripture and the divine authority of scripture.
But soul of scripture is a little too far from me. So yeah,
no, I agree. It's one thing that always struck me when I when
I was a Protestant is you know, I felt like, I mean,
either the Bible just is not clear or we're all idiots, um, or
I have to just anyone who really disagrees with me on something of serious I
have to just assume that they are evil or be you know, stubbornly resisting
something that is really clear, you know. But but the reality is,
it just seems so obvious to me that, um, you know, there
are sincere people who just did you know, sincerely disagree about about some things
and I don't. Right on, guys, right on. So here's the
thing. We are at the two hour mark. I've got one more question
left, would you all be interested? And if not, that's okay.
I've got one super chat right now, so I would like to get to
that. But would you guys be interested in answering audience questions after we wrap
with this question? Sure? Okay, I'll probably jump off, but yeah,
I'm in it for your last question for sure. All right, sweet,
So if you have a question for Jay Bow or the or the panel,
go ahead and send us that. As Josh said, and the chat
super chats get answered first, and it would really help supporting our ministry as
well. So thank you for those. So, Jay, I've heard on
a few of your videos now that deal with soloscript tour that German theologians and
scholars after Luther used like higher criticism to dissect the scriptures. Can you give
us a brief timeline of the key points of this happening from Luther's time till
today and does the logical outcome of this process result in something akin to what
Marcion did in the early second century. Well, certainly Luther himself believed that
the text of Scripture, at least at different points as he saw them canonically,
because there seems to be some fluctuations as to what he thinks is the
cannon over time. And I've read a lot of Luther. I've actually read
more Lutheran and Luther and Calvin than I have any of the other I haven't
read a lot of the second generation Lutherans or whatever. But I kind of
had a face when I was really into Luther. So I got heavy into
his ideas when I was eighteen or nineteen. And what I see is kind
of like a lot of rhetorical flare and a lot of sort of doubting at
different phases of what he thinks the cannon is and what I argue. And
I argue this point, I think people there are scholars that have made this
connection. But there's a couple of books of Father John Wyford recommends that go
into this, which if you go watch our stream that we did, he
recommends some of those texts. But the idea is that Luther kind of set
the stage because he was a kind of a translator, textual critic, scholar
to a degree. I mean he translated you know, the luther Bible,
but um the New the New German New Testament. But the problem, I
think is that the principle that he lays down of doubting the canonical rule,
which had been pretty well established in the West for a long time, you
know, up to his time. That really set the stage for transferring the
preserve preserve preservation of the scriptures from the church or some ecclesial entity. Now
it becomes the purview of the university. And we see this directly going on
with Tubidgin and the different German universities that now take it upon themselves to kind
of be the locus of the authority for scripture, and the whole Protestantism ends
up going in this direction over time. It may not, it's not overnight.
So I don't know the exact you know, like critical scholars like a
generation through luther because I've never really followed the Lutheran tradition that much, but
I can tell you that, you know, I don't think it's accidental to
Julius Velhausen, who is the father the documentary hypothesis. He's coming out of
these schools and so he's kind of the first to say I'm going to go
on a rampaging quest against anything that has to do with ceremony. So he
just sort of wants to purge the Bible of anything ceremonial, and this leads
to the theory of their being different JEPD the Jahwis School, the Elois School,
Precy School, Deuteronomous school. And so now that the Old Testament is
first on the chopping block to get sort of divided up into this, which
is ultimately a denial of the continuity and coherence of the text. But remember
Jesus said, if we accept the Gospel John, the Scripture cannot be broken.
So this is really a strong breaking of the Scripture because now we're sort
of dividing it up into an incoherent jumbling of different competing schools based on the
terms that are used, the names of God that are used in different sections.
So for example, I'm reading right now a rabbinical book on the Theophanes
and the manifestations of God in the Old Testament to in preparation for the debate
that I'm going to do with Daniel Hikikichu, the Muslim guy. And the
rabbinical texts are interesting because there's a lot of debate and fluid. There's fluidity
as the point here. It's like there's not this strict unitarian view, but
a lot of The debate of fluidity centers around the assumption that will Deuteronomy doesn't
have Theophanes, so it's a deuteronomous text. The priestly texts allowed for Theophanes
because they wanted people to come to where God was embodied in the Theophanic presence.
Right. So, but this is all based on presuppositions, right,
So the presuppositions of unbelief. Typically in critical schools will treat the texts as
if there are any other text. So the idea is that will I have
to treat the Bible like any other text, and I'm subjected to the same
quote scientific evidentialist criticisms of any other religious texts or any or other literary text.
It's kind of the rule in the higher textual world. But again,
that really just assumes the Bible isn't what it claims to be, right,
because if the Bible is what it claims to be, then it's not going
to be subject to this typical, you know, kind of unbelief approach.
But I mean, can you can definitely trace Luther's questioning I think of the
canon and the rise of Protestant textual criticism from their straight to Julius Belhausen and
all of the documentary hypothesis, which ultimately leads to the complete dissolution in the
academic world of the Old Testament. Then we get the Jesus quest doing the
exact same thing with the New Testament. So I'm not saying Luther himself didn't
believe the text, right, but he allows for the possibility. He's he
sets the precedent for the academic world being the new authoritative exp positor, whereas
prior to that it was the ecclesial world. And clearly Jesus didn't set up
an academic debate squad. He set up a church right right on. Thank
you for that. I appreciate that so much. Uh, doctor Branson,
anything that you would like to add, give me the question again that you
were Yeah, basically the role of higher criticism and how it affects the church
in Luther's time, and then the logical conclusions of his ideas today. I
wouldn't have much to say about that except I hate Hegel. That's it.
We'll get a T shirt made a little line. Yeah, there you go,
there you go, Uh, Dale or David and Dane, since you've
got to leave here in a minute. Is there anything that you want to
add to to what you just said. No, I am good, just
don't like higher criticism. Yeah, Moses wrote the torah Um Paul wrote all
the epistles attributed to I mean, the fact that that's even um been circulated
in Christian circles is kind of shameful in all honesty. So how that.
Just look up Julius Wellhaus and he's he was very open about what he wanted
to get rid of. You know, he had this assumption that true religion
can't have ritual and ceremony, so all that stuff had to be purged and
then then we would get to the true sort of core uh, scale down
religion. M hm, David, I'm on the flips that I can't imagine
any religion without ritual and ceremony. So but yeah, guys, this has
been enjoyable. UM appreciate uh, Doctor Branson and Jay y'all's time. Um,
the other three I see all the time, so um, I'll see
you soon again. Um, but this has been great. I got to
hop off and go help get some kids to sleep, So join this thing.
God bless all, y'all, God bless But thanks all right, David
Dale, anything any questions, comments, concerns. You guys are both good.
Oh so this isn't the closing No, I mean yeah, I've got
my last question out. Jay just answered it. So if you've got any
follow up or if you want to ask a question or whatever, No,
just I don't have any further questions at this time. But just for the
closing, I just wanted to kind of reiterate uninterrupted what my argument was again,
just for the audience to get it out properly type things. So I'll
do that at the closing though. Okay, all right, let's jump then
to the audience questions. And again before I jump into these, I just
want to say again thank you for Jay and Bow for coming on. This
has been super enlightening for me, and I know I'm going to be on
this video for a little bit now. So if you like the content,
if you like what Jay said, what Bo said, and the little pushback
that we got from Dell and Jay, that was fine. So I appreciate
that guy's cordial and heated and so I like it. But uh, but
like like this video, think about subscribing to the channel as well. If
you can't financially support us, obviously, subscribers help us in multiple, multiple
ways, and if y'all would please pray for us, I think that's one
of the best ways to support anyone is by offering prayers up to God for
that person, and so that would be a really great way to help us
out as well. But the first super chat we have here is from Orthodoxology.
I'll post it on the screen and read it out. Have you guys
ever encountered the first Principles of Scripture argument made by Clement of Alexandria that Anthony
Rodgers and the likes make And what are your thoughts on that? I'm not
familiar with this argument now, I'm not either, to be honest, doctor
Branson. Yeah, okay, so Orthodoxology. If there's another way you want
to phrase it or kind of elaborate on a little bit, Uh, send
me a comment and I'll post that up as well. Let's see here our
other super chat is from Jamie Church. Can't change the Law second Thessalonians.
Two thoughts, Uh, that's the in that the section about the apostasy and
you know the man of sin correct? Yeah, I guess the argument is
that anyone that would attempt to quote change law is there for the man of
sinners. I don't see how that relates to Second Theslanians too, but um,
yeah, I think if you watched the documentary that my friend Lewis made
over at Orthodox Shahata it's called Orthodox Worship Continuity with the Old Testament, Temple
and sin Agogue, you'll you'll see that the Church isn't really quote changing the
law. Now, if Jesus gave the law, which we would say the
New Testament makes it clear that he was there at Mount Sinai. He says
this to the Pharisees, you know in John five and John eight and nine,
that he was there with Moses, he was there with Abraham. So
Jesus is the one that gave the law at Mount Sinai. And if certain
ceremonial or dietary things referred in their practice, in their celebration by the Jews
to him, and he fulfilled those things, then they can still be kept
in a unique spiritual way. So for example, for us, you know,
if you look at Paul's epistles and to the Corinthians, he says that
not to put to seeds in a field. He says, that's a spiritual
principle that we still keep by not being united with unbelievers. So even the
ceremonial commands are not necessarily quote done away. They might be fulfilled in a
certain way that they were cut by Israel, but then spiritually kept by us
as the Church. And then some of those ceremonial commands are also still kept
by the Church. We still have holy places, we still have holy water,
we still have an altar, we still have an incense and a temple,
and a lot of those things that were in the Old Testament we still
have. But I would also add too that for the Jews, it was
never the Jewish idea that all of the laws were supposed to be kept by
the John Tiles. Anyway, it's physically aren't possible. So yeah, I
was gonna say that it's something I've noticed. I think it's one thing that
attracted me to Orthodoxy. Two was I felt like I didn't really find a
lot of churches that I thought had a coherent relationship with the Torah. And
of course, yeah, in Judaism, you know, Jews don't expect gentiles
to keep the Sabbath, or keep Kosher, or you know, any any
of these things. There's that in Judaism there's there's the idea of the Noah
Hide commandments, which for them there's seven um which are so if you if
you think about that, the idea is sort of sort of like concentric circles.
Right, So you've got you know, Adam and Eve. Anything that
God commands them has to be followed by all of their descendants. Anything that
you know, God commands Noah has to be followed by all of his descendants,
and and so on. So you get these sort of you know,
smaller circles as you get down to Abraham and then Moses and the children of
Israel and then the dividic Covenant, you know, and then you get down
to Christ. And you could tell that what happens in the in the Book
of Acts as kind of this question like is the so is this new covenant
with Jesus like and yet smaller you know, concentric circles. So it's all
taking place within the Torah. And so Gentiles need to you know, become
Jewish to be able to get into that covenant or is he taking us all
the way back up out to you know, Adam and Noah And it's it's
you know, expanded to everyone and the ruling that that James gives at this
Council of Jerusalem in the Book of Acts, where he says, look,
let's just tell the gentile converts to abstain from blood and things that have been
strangled, sexual immorality, and not to eat food sacrifice to idols. Those
are four of the noah Hide commandments. In later rabbinic judaism Um, they
left out a few that It's not clear if that's kind of an early stage
of the development of that idea and maybe that rabbies me up with some extra
stuff later or the ones that he's leaving out are kind of self explanatory too
for Christians. So but anyway, I mean, you know, the the
the Torah, you know, even on the Jewish view, I mean,
it's it's only specifically given to Israel, and it is not expected, um
for gentiles to follow all of In fact, interestingly, you know in judaism
Um, you know there's the even the idea that that some of the commandments
in the Torah um really should not be kept by gentiles. I noticed something
in the Chat a while back about keeping the Sabbath and the always always kind
of I mean, I used to kind of think about that sort of issue
too. But you know, in the Talmud, I mean, it really
is like a gentile who observes the Sabbath is worthy of the death mentalty.
I mean, it's a really like it's this hugely insulting thing in the in
the tour because there's this commandment to to Adam, you know, you'll work
now, like after the fall, you have to work now and bring bread
out of the earth by the sweat of your brow. And it's a specific,
know, a specific gift to Israel to have the Sabbath, and it's
not meant for gentiles. And so for you know, in the tal Mood,
it's the ending Mammondes. You know, there's some very harsh words for
you know, gentiles trying to keep the Sabbath, because it's like that's not
that's not directed towards you. So there's not a lot of Torah or law
that is directed to gentiles. Anyway. I'd like to add a point too
if I can. Yeah, I just remembered. So if you read Hebrews,
particularly Hebrews seven is a really important chapter in regard to this question because
Hebrews, obviously the book is about the superiority of the New Covenant to the
old. And we might be tempted to think on a surface reading maybe that,
well, Hebrews is really just saying that all the Old Testament stuff is
fulfilled. You know, when I was a Protestant, I typically read it
that way, although I detect that this question is kind of coming from probably
a Messianic judaism or Hebrew's Roots kind of vantage point or something like that.
But if you read Hebrew seven, it's very interesting because it notes that contra
sort of Messianic Hebrew Roots type of attitude, there is still there is still
a priesthood, but it's a new priesthood that is fulfilled the Ironic priesthood.
So in other words, Priesta didn't go away. The Ironic priesthood was instituted
as a lesser, newer priesthood from the Melkizedekian priesthood. And Hebrews is making
the argument of superiority of the mel Kizoedekian priestood unto the Church is the Melkizedekian
priesthood. And this is very important for us because it's a great it's a
crucial argument that we have to make against Muslim because Muslims want to retain worship
from the Torah and the prophets. Yeah, there's no notion of sacrifice,
no notion of temple, no notion of altar, no notion of priesthood.
But God has always had a priesthood. And in fact, Hebrew seven is
arguing that the eternal heavenly priesthood of Melkizedek is the priesthood of Christ. So
that was typological of Christ. It's superior to the Ironic. The Ironic was
an image of that. Believe it or not, is what I think Hubrews
is arguing. So it's saying that in verse twelve the priesthood being changed,
therefore there is a change of the law. So in fact, you're correct.
The Church can't change the law, but the god Man can change the
law. Right right on. I love it. I love you guys.
So the next super chat we had is from Diana des Let's see. She
said, thank you for having Jay on. I know, we just go
on. Let's see her Solomon, Jay's ultimate appill is same as yours,
deal Holy Spirit. So I made a distinction between normativity in the notion of
public authority in a separate question of the individual's subjective assurance, which comes to
the Holy Spirit. So I made a distinction actually between these two different things
which were often conflated. For example, you'll hear Roman Catholics do this a
lot where they say, well, the only way for you, as an
individual have certainty is the pope. But does the pope really do that?
Does he actually function to give individual certitude? And that question In that sort
of bada and switch that the Roman Catholic apologists are doing there, it's kind
of trading on an ambiguity of category confusion. So normativity and public authority is
not the same thing as personal subjective assurance. Those are two different things.
They relate to one another, but they're two different things. So my ultimate
the fact that my ultimate appeal is the same, really doesn't say much because
in the final analysis, everybody's going to appeal to the Holy Spirit. Right,
That's what I said at the very beginning. The Protestant of the Roman
Catholic the Orthodox are all going to say that for the individual's final ultimate appeal
of assurance, it's going to come down to the Holy Spirit. So we
all, if we all agree on that, well, then why do we
have all these different groups in sex and churches. Well, that's because the
historical public events and debates and you know the messiness of church history, right,
that's the public domain. And the debate that we're ultimately having here is
not whether the individual can have assurance. The debate that we're having is what's
the public normative authority that states what the cannon is, what the scriptures mean
and binding and loosing, Doctor Branson, anything that you'd like to add,
No, I think that's right. I always think it's weird when people I
just find infallibility such a weird thing to argue about, because if it's if
it's you know, if the idea is we're talking about like knowing something with
one hundred percent certainty or something right, I mean I'm not. I mean
like, let's suppose the pope is infallible or something like always think, well,
good for him, Like I wish I was the pope so I could,
but like I'm not. I'm not. I'm never gonna be a hundred
percent sure that the pope is infallible. So like if he issues something,
I mean, if he says something, I think it contradicts the Bible.
Like I'm not gonna be like, Oh, I guess that's really the right
way to think about it. I'm just think like, oh, I guess
I was wrong that he was infallible, so you know what I mean,
Like, so it just seems like, I mean, because if if I
mean, even if I've got like ninety I'm ninety nine percent sure that he's
infallible, like just the way probability theory works out, Like if he says
something I'm like ninety nine percent sure isn't right, then I'm just gonna have
to revise my probability distributions and things. I guess he wasn't infallible after I
always always fine. And then if you're just talking about infallibility like like it's
this metaphysical thing, like he's just got this magical power so that he'll he
in fact, will never be wrong, like great, but that if I
don't have any evidence for that, then it doesn't help me. So it's
so yeah, I mean, so yeah, I do think. I mean,
yeah, obviously, ultimately everyone just has to think about things for themselves
and hopefully the Holy Spirit leads them to to the truth or whatever. Like,
but that's kind of an epistemic point, and I take it the that's
a Jay's just saying. That's a separate point from like who has authority sort
of like I would say that, I mean, the Supreme Court has the
authority in the United States to interpret the law, and that's who has the
authority? How do I how do I know that for sure? While I
you know, I read the Constitution, I took you know, social studies
in high school or whatever, and you know, they could those my teacher
could have been lying to me, or they could have been wrong. I
could misunderstand it or whatever. But I'm pretty sure it's all AI generated deep
face, and yes, that is probably true, and you know that.
Yeah, right on, right on. Okay, guys, So that's done
with the super chats we do have? Oh no, wait, I lied.
There's one more that just came in five dollars per aspirate at astra.
As an evangelical atheist, I still find the untangling of church history and religious
ideas fascinating. Good good content guysical atheists evangelically. Oh okay, that's not
me, by the way, putting that in there. You read my super
chat wrong, now, that's uh yeah, that that caught me off guard
for a second. I was like, wait a minute, because I have
heard of, like, you know, Christian atheists, which I don't know.
I want to interview one of the girls that I saw on TikTok advocating
for that position. We were supposed to set something up, but it never
came to fruitione. But that's okay. Um, so okay. So there
was a couple questions that came in that was not super chats um and they're
kind of I don't know almost I get the sense of like imperative that they
want me to ask you Jay. Um. So this first one is and
I don't know what this acronym stands for. Maybe you do. Can you
guys please ask Jay about chalk? Yeah. I think they're just being funny.
That's okay. I have a sponsor. So my sponsor is chalk dot
com. So if you're looking for ways to boost test sauce, run use
the promo code J fifty J five zero at chalk dot com. Right on,
right on. Okay, Um, let's see here orthodoxology. Maybe Jambo
can bring up some common objections. I don't know, David, did you
put that one on there? Bill? Common objections to what good question to
the critique. Oh, I think maybe some yeah common here against Orthodoxy,
I think is what he's asking for. No or again, I was thinking
more on the solo script or aligne and with that that's a wrap. Well,
I mean, I think some of the things we've heard tonight are common.
We hear the objection. Common objections are, Yeah, the scriptures or
theooneustos God breathe, they're sufficient to make the Man of God able to do
you know so, But a lot of those things aren't, are absolute tized
or assumed to be just about the written text. Right. For example,
the scriptures are able to make the Man of God able for every good work
and so forth. Well, but does that mean that that's all that is
needed because the scriptures are able to do that, right, I mean the
church is also able to help the you know, don't forsake the assembling right,
pray with one another. Those texts a lot of times don't mention other
things that are integral to what we do, like prayer or going to church.
So we wouldn't absolute size those things as if nothing else was needed or
necessary, because it's highlighting one thing that is is perhaps even primary. I
think you could even argue that some of the scripture, some of the Church
fathers, this is a common Protestant objection. Well, the church fathers speak
of this premacy of scripture. Well, but that still doesn't negate that there's
other authorities and that there's other divine revelation that's not strictly written down right,
So the fact that one is, for example, in the ecumenical councils,
you often see them kind of citing scripture. They'll use patristic citations prior to
like if it's the fifth Council, what do the previous Church fathers say?
Then they'll use arguments of logic and reason, And so there's kind of there
is you could say, maybe a tear but premiacy or giving a certain even
within the scriptures. For example, we think that the Gospels kind of have
a premiscy in the liturgy. They're honored above Paul's epistles, but honoring something
above or giving a kind of a statu hierarchy to even the text that doesn't
necessarily mean that old than the ones that aren't. You know, the Gospels
are therefore fallible and they're wrong, or you know they're having hierarchy, doesn't
necessitate a dialectical either or of therefore not infallible or something like that. So
I hear a lot of Protestant objections I think typically based on just sort of
assumptions about when one church father says that, you know, he has a
high view of scripture, but then they'll ignore the other places where he talks
about the necessity of tradition, you know, something like that. Yeah,
I saw that on your in Pedro's debate. That seemed like an objection that
he was bringing up a lot, especially what I think it was athanacious.
Is that Does that sound familiar? Yeah, I mean authentatious, you know,
basically, this is the Holy Spirit guided and I see you. So
any Protestant would agree with that, right right on, doctor Branson. Yeah,
I'm good, Okay, all right. The last question we have actually
comes from our other co host, Joshua Davidson, and I thought this was
this was pretty good. My question is can Jay get us in contact with
pigot? I need some symbolism, but all right, I mean to come
on your shows that we're saying, I think that's what he's asking. Yeah,
I can always I can always ask. Yeah, that'd be that'd be
great. UM, I don't know if Josh wants to add anything else so
that or not. He's I don't know why he's not here. He said
something about being tired or whatever or else. He would have been here,
but he apologized for not being able to show up. But Jay, since
you gave your sponsor. UM, if I can find mine real quick,
I'm gonna give mine. It's Barnabas Clothing dot com. Uh you can.
They've got Christian uh T shirts, They've got hoodies, they've got jewelry,
they've got stickers, they've got all kinds of stuff. I'm actually wearing one
of their shirts now. UM. And and I love I love Barnabas Clothing.
Um. I've been a brand ambassador for them for about two three months
now, and everything about them is just phenomenal. So I'm not trying to
like hype them up to make them out to be something that they're not.
I really really like their their stuff that they in the in their brand.
If you want to enter discount code bc amb Tyler F fifteen, you'll get
fifteen percent off your order at checkout. So check check them out. Uh.
Like I said, They've got a lot of different things on there and
I really really liked their their quality of their materials. So let me know
what you think about Barnabas clothing, David dell Any. I mean we're wrapping
up. Is there anything that you guys want to add? Um, now's
your last chance to do it. If you do. Thank you Mark for
the comment. I didn't see that one. Thank you Mark, Um and
Orthodoxiology had that one last one. Thank you for this comment as well.
But yeah, guys, two weeks of worth coming in July. I'll be
hosting those shows with Travis Ben Watkins will be on the eighth and Travis win
Rich Subtles the Faith Faitheist Atheist will both be on those first two weeks of
July, and I'm excited to see what they have to talk about. Ones
on the value of disagreement and the others on value and uh theism. So
I'm really excited to have those deep philosophical discussions with these guys and see where
they're where they're at. So especially with Travis, you know, he's growing
in his walk and doing stuff like that, so I want to see where
he's at now. I'll be interested to see what Travis brings to the table.
Too on that one, since he's converted to Orthodox as well. And
see, well you're not allowed to be on so I'm not going to be.
I'm taking a break from from all of my wife's pregnant and I need
to spend some time with her before this baby comes. So so if y'all
could be playing praying about that, that'd be that'd be great too. But
yeah, she's, what I want to say, eleven weeks this week,
so she's you know, it's still early, but she's definitely filling that first
tribe master pain, So be praying for her if you would. But Bill,
is there anything coming up on real seekers that we need to know about?
Um? Well, the only thing I had I was just going to
do like that recap of yeah, yeah, my talk with Jay and stuff.
So of course, all right, so yeah, so what I'm understanding
here? So it is interesting because when I approached this question of the canidicity,
UM, I don't really necessarily care about what Jay said. He cared
about this normative kind of like an outsider test, how how do you tell
as an outsider? I'm more interested in how do we gain knowledge personally as
to what is scripture or not? And the uh. You know, that's
why I can appeal to you properly basic police, and I think that's a
valid form of gaining a warrant in true belief. However, I think that
God can provide us with multiple sources of warrant, some of which may qualify
as the outsider test. And that's where I think my mirror Protestantism or or
you know, the Protestant Bible only is um is warranted based on the fact
of an argument. Right, So a modus simple modus opponent's argument, if
the majority of true Christians over across denominations or sex over time accept a doctrine
as a true essential doctrine, I think Jay's right where he's saying, I
might be implied that understanding what the canon is in order to use the canon
to define the essential beliefs is needed. So okay, great, So let's
include canonicity as an essential belief for the sake of argument. We if they
agree on that, then it is probably true. Obviously it's a fact.
You know, we can affirm the antecedent that. Yeah, the majority of
Christians overtime across denominations do accept the Protestant canon as it has inspired even if
they accept otherwise. So it's important to note this argument is warranted, it
is valid, it is sound. Um. Now Jade does he challenges that
first premise, right, So why is it the case that the majority of
Christians across the nominations over time accepting something. How does that make it true?
And that's where I would just appeal to the fact that, Look,
the Holy Spirit is said to guide all true Christians at the very least into
essential truths, gospel true us. Isn't that based on what's in the text
the claim about the Holy Spirit guiding us? Right, that's from John right,
Yeah, but the question is what are the texts? So it's a
circular arguments though, But it's it's it's not because if you if you are
getting knowledge from the Holy Spirit as to a certain proposition, right, like
the Holy Spirit in the moment produces within me a properly basic belief with respect
to a given proposition or something like that. Right. Well, I'm familiar
with planning as theories, but I mean I could just simply ask you,
how do you know that that's a properly basic belief? That? So,
now, canonicity of scripture, which is the historical event is now something that's
a properly basic, self evident principle. How do you divorce the historical formation
of the canon from I mean, it's not it's not a prey or it's
not a self evident principle. Well, it can be any proposition, can
you say that? But how is that given the fact that your basis was
the text of John. You just cited the text of John for how you
are reading the Holy Spirit in this event? Right? Okay? So okay,
So if if you don't mind, just let me like say my thing
and then I'll let you respond with your counter response. Afterward you'll get the
last word, I promise. But um, I just want to give how
it works. Like I said, so here in the moment, God provides
us through the Holy Spirit that means of obtaining warrant. How does warrant work
while it produces a properly basic belief, this is a warranted true belief.
So that's propositional knowledge. How do I know that I'm warranted? Well,
this is where we get into the externalism and internalism debate. I believe that
we are acquainted with knowledge, so we have knowledge of acquaintance whenever we are
warranted. So that's the mechanism of how I know that the Holy Spirit is
actually giving me this properly basic belief and that it counts as knowledge. Okay,
so great, so in the here and now, that's that's how I
would, I guess, appeal to this. I know that it's true that
the Holy Spirit has to provide us with most Christians across denominations over time,
with the true essential beliefs. At least, that's all I'm arguing for.
It's a minimal argument. I know that that is true, and using that,
that's how I can make my argument type thing. Now, it's true
that look this avenue, Jay is correct that this avenue our source of warrant
doesn't necessarily work in the first century or the first three hundred years. Necessarily
they didn't have that. They didn't have a completed cannon at that point,
right, So they can't go, well, look at the majority of Christians
over time across denominations and game warrant in that way. Um, it just
may be fine that that avenue isn't open to them. They had some other
source of warrants, something like James White's argument about you know, again,
the Holy Spirit is attesting to them. Well, look, I'm a Corinthian
and Paul's teaching to me the Letter of First Corinthians or something like that,
and I just know the Holy Spirit attests me in a properly basical way.
This is the word of God. So I know at least that that is
that is cannon kind of thing, and you can operate on that basis over
time. So that yeah, that's my final word. Over to you,
Jay. You can if you want the last word, you can't. I
mean, I would just simply say that if I just paus it my position
as somehow a self evident principle, on what basis would either of us try
to figure out who's wrong if we have mutually exclusive claims, or if another
person has a mutual exclusive claim as to what the true Christian is or what
the canon is. There's got to be some way by which we can adjudicate
who's right and who's wrong. They can't both be right right right. But
I'm open to the fact of just saying, well, maybe in the first
century we just didn't have an outsider test to tell a third party an atheist
looking on or pagan looking on, there was no available means because all at
the end of the day, all that matters is that individual Christians have knowledge
that this is the Word of God and live on that basis. But again,
I'm just trying to figure out how it's not circular given that your original
premise, I'm arguing, isn't actually self evident. It's actually wrapped up in
a lot of assumptions. Some of those assumptions were that the true Christians line
up with you as what you as a Protestant belief that's the true Christian right.
So what I'm saying is that in the original premise, there is the
assumption that the true Christians and the self evident principles that I'm laying out are
the case by which we would How do we know that that's the starting point?
Okay, again I'm not trying to debate, but in terms of that
first premise, like how you're asking me that, how do I know that?
It took? Gets you with two things. It took issue with the
first premises claim, and I took issue with the notion that there was that
this was actually the case historically, and a third point that just because the
majority of people believe it doesn't why does that tell us that we ought to
believe something well, right, because in this case it's a special type of
belief, right, like the I'm saying that, Well, how do you
know that right? On what basis do you know that? Because my point
is that it's based on your Protestant presuppositions of what the text of John say
about the Holy Spirit leading and guiding you. But the question is about the
text them, So you can't appeal to the text from the question is about
what books make up the text. Of course you can, because it's it's
not the I'm not reasoning or deriving this conclusion from what I read in the
text. I'm not too good because the argument was that you said that the
Holy Spirit is who is my first principle guiding me to because we're told that
he would lead us to guidess intul truth. That's a quote from John.
That's from the text. Okay, So here here's what I'm saying. For
like the early Christians, they hear the message right about you. Yeah,
okay, okay, fine, So I hear this proposition about the Holy Spirit
guiding us to truth. It comes from John. I acknowledge in a properly
basic way this is true. This proposition is true. So it's not an
argument per se. How do you know that that first position or first proposition
itself of it and true? How do I know through like I said,
the Holy Spirit produces? How do you know the Holy Spirit is the principle
by which we are guided into truth? Because it's a text, it's it's
from a text of scripture. Right. Do you think that's self evident or
is it from scripture? Or is it both? Oh? Okay, I
see what you're saying, Like, how do I know that the Holy Spirit
is operating as opposed to media? I know that you that that proposition comes
from the text of John Okay, I don't believe that it was like beamed
into your head by osmosis. You got that believe from the text. The
text is something out of history. Yeah, it's not a self evident maxim
that you derived through philosophical speculation. Right. Well, so that's true.
Yeah, so so probably and you said that it doesn't come from the text,
probably are grounded in an experience. So in this case, this is
what we learn in scripture, right, and it's not coming from scripture.
But I'm just saying, said we learned in script sure, but then you
said it's not coming from scripture. No, well, the first Christians heard
it orally, and then the Holy Spirit talking about you. Yeah, well
this is what happens to you. You're not the first centry Christian. To
you, You're you're epistemic certitude justification for the self evident principle. Okay,
So so however I get that proposition into my head whatever experience, do I
read it with my eyeballs or do I hear it orally like the first Christians?
If it comes from the tax, then Jay let them answer, but
it is does it come from the text? He's saying no, But then
he said yes, because grounding. So there's a difference, right, so
property basically you are undrived. Right, so it's not really if I were
to really not derived from the text. No, it's grounded. What you
said it was derived from the text. Right, So you're saying that the
phrase in the Gospel of John is not from the Gospel my point? Please,
I get that you're trying to do the gotcha thing. Just just stop.
We're friends. I like you. I've had a great conversation with you,
But just let me have it. But you're not going to tell me
to stop. I mean, we're having a conversation, so well, if
I'm not, I'm not going to allow you to say and assert things without
making sense of Well, it's my show. I'm not being uni right,
I'm just trying to get out my point and then I'll let you. I
was quiet for the entire time until you said I could talk. Okay,
okay. So it's grounded in the experience of reading the by the text.
Hey, let me finish right, reading that problem, then the Holy Spirit
produces within me a properly basic belief with respect to the truth of that proposition.
I'm not going, oh, I read this in the text, but
it did come from the premise in an argument to go therefore it must be
true. That's the difference. But that is what I think. What you
want to say is, um, he's so he's reading the text. The
justification isn't from the text, right, the just exactly just sort of the
air by the Holy Spirit. But the question originally is what are the texts?
What makes up the Bible is a bunch of books, right, So
the question is which books make up this book? And so unless you want
it to be circular, it's not going to be an appeal to the text.
And I'm just pointing out that your first principle is an appeal to the
text. I think you could say, I mean, hypothetically speaking, you
could just imagine, you could just have a fever dream where you imagine the
proposition that whatever, whatever, the proposition is right, and the Holy Spirit
magically makes you know it. So how do we adjudicate between contradictory claims of
the Holy Spirit? Right? That was kind of my point with the luther
example, or the person who says, well, my cannon that I've studied
to is two Gospels. That's it. Nothing else. Who's that too?
Sorry? Who is that? Who was that question too? Yeah? Okay,
well, so like what was the question again? Because again I think,
how would we adjudicate between rival claims of the Holy Spirit's guidance when obviously
in history, like everybody's gonna claim what the Holy Spirit's got him. Me
Marcian thought the Gold Spirit was guiding him to his canton. Right, So
when we have contradictory claims, how we're going to resolve this claim apart from
normative public authority? But also, I mean, but besides just hypothetic like
Marcione or like you know, just Jude or something. I mean, there's
much more innocent, like real cases like this in history, like the Peshita
you know, is used by the the entire like or has been used by
the entire like a Syrian church and lacked you know, second Peter and second
and third John Gregory Nazi ends and leaves the Book of Revelation out of his
cannon. He I mean, he specifically lists the other twenty six books and
specifically says nothing else is part of the canon. Right, So like there's
you know, people like whole can you hold churches and like saints and you
know serious like there are serious canons you know of scripture that are different from
the Protestant cannon. And those people would say that the Holy Spirit was leading
them to believe that canon. To Luthor believed that the Holy Spirit at the
point where he was denying Hebrews in Revelation, and he thought the Holy Spirit
was leading him to that as well. So we've got to have some kind
of public means by which we can adjudicate these these varying Holy Spirit claims,
as my point, and that's really what I'm what we're trying to get through
to you guys with the orthodox position, right, is that we do have
a public authority that does function in that role. Okay, cool, and
thank you so thank you so much. I finally got out. Thank you
so much, Jay for indulging in this. Like I said, despite the
interruptions, I've had fun, Like I've learned from you and stuff like that.
So what one last question, because my whole thing, what if there
just was no outsider test, but yet there was an internal test for Christians
to tell between competing claims. Why does there have to be an outsider test
at all periods of history? Well, I think we see in the rimes
of the Church fathers. Then pointing to those external tests in those centuries,
right, if you read book three of r and As he does precisely what
I said. He does have these external signifiers and signs and things that you
can point to. The Abstoli succession, the reciting of the Common Creed.
What's the you know, do they have the same faith as the Church in
Rome and the other churches throughout the Empire? I mean there are these external
criteria that are listed in many cases in the church others. So First of
all, I just think that it's historically a fact that that is the case.
And I also don't buy the sort of Wiemling Craig position that there is
such a thing as lowest common denominator Christianity, or that we could in some
ways scale off who's a Christian without some kind of public historical reference. For
example, Mormons are not Christian, Show's witnesses are not Christian. But that
again hinges on. You know, is Nicia an expression of what it is
to be a Christian? If it is, then now we're again it's you
see how it's not as self evident or as clear. Once we get into
the weeds, we actually have to start ferreting out. Okay, well,
actually, you know, Nicea teaches the much more than just the duty of
Christ as all these other things. So now now Niceya is not actually any
real historical thing for a Protestant. It's really just a it's just a well
it's nice that that happened, but it really doesn't have any relevance to a
Protestant, you see, because the actual teaching him Niceia includes all of these
other elements that no Protestant accepts. So I'm just saying you can't have a
self evident internal positions as a Christian when Christianity is a historic religion with a
history of church fathers and people putting the Bible together. There's no such thing
as a Bible or canon divorced from history. That's I just don't see how
this is possible. And I understand the motivations for why we want we might
want to construct some a priori guidance of the Holy Spirit, but really my
point was just that it looks to me like what that amounts to when you
flesh it out, is just Protestantism, right, But that's the thing in
question, is Protestantism. So cool? Yeah, yeah, thank you so
much for answering that the Yeah, thanks for the conversation. Absolutely all right,
y'all, that was interesting. So and Jay and Bow again, I've
really really appreciate you all coming on to do this. We'd love to have
you guys back on again, maybe talk about like Christology or something. By
the way, Yeah, I was gonna ask at the end of year and
Padres conversation, there was talks about doing a Christology episode with him. Did
that ever come to fruition or not yet? I haven't heard any haven't heard
a peep. I don't know what happened with Pedro, Okay, I mean
I think I haven't seen him on any more live streams or debates, so
I mean there wasn't any drama. I just haven't heard from no right right
right, okay, right on. If that ever comes about, let me
know, man, because I would love to hear you guys talk about that,
or you know, come on our show and talk about some Christology.
But y'all, that wraps it up for this episode. We will see you
next time. We've got one more episode this month, June thirtieth, at
seven pm Eastern time. We're going to be talking the paranormal with one of
my Roman Catholic friends, Nicholas Soliner. So stay tuned for that and we
will see you next time. Until then, good night, God bless and
stay like Christ like go