Then the the the the the the the the the the do don't they do?
Then the the the the the the the the the don the the the
the the the the the the the the the the the the the the All
right, what's up, y'all? Shout out to the mafia don himself A
J. Barker sitting in that John Gottie chair making the calls, deciding who
lives and who dies. Clowning right. So if you guys remember in the
last live stream, we had somebody call in. I didn't know who was
calling in. It was just name. It was just voices to me,
just voices in my head. And it turns out it's our buddy, A
J. Barker, who is Tim Gordon's buddy who when I looked him up,
it turns out has a book on Aquinas. Correct, you've got something
recent that's published on Aquinas. Yeah. Yeah, it's not like it's not
a scholarly work of him, but it's more like, uh, inspired by
studies of Thomas. Here's my free flowing you know, takes on these things.
So it's there's no one, there's no like, you know, inquisitor
telling me what's what's you know? Approved as Thomas and what's not but but
drawing from the sort of inspiration of his work, I lay out topics as
best I can. Gotcha cool? Yeah, so you called in and then
the latter part of that live stream and you got some some good comments and
questions. We had a good exchange, and so you suggest that we have
a more formal setting where you actually have your Mafia don chair in the background
there to ca all the shots. And I said, yeah, we can
do that. So I did have a lot going on today, but we
were able to squeeze it in. So AJ, before we get started on
our topics, why don't you tell us whatever you're comfortable telling us about yourself
and who you are and how you got to be buddies with the infamous Tim
Gordon. Yeah, I have a little bit about me. I'm I mean,
I'm a Catholic. I live up here in Minnesota. I first networked
up with Tim years ago. I'd actually just reached out to him and asked
if you wanted to do a conversation on natural virtues. I was a football
player, a wide receiver for the Minnesota Gophers. Now eleven twelve years ago,
I was a wide receiver there and so he was kind of one of
the only Catholics I would talk about sports, and so I asked him,
you know what, would you want to do a conversation sometime about that.
So that was maybe twenty eighteen, twenty seventeen, eight, maybe twenty nineteen.
It was a while ago now, And so we did that, and
then a couple of years went by, and then we started talking again more
regularly, and uh so that's kind of the occasion for getting into the fold
with him. And now, I mean, I consider I'm a good friend,
go on to Sea Mask podcasts semi regularly, going to be on there
with him tomorrow morning. And yeah, I've been invited, and it happens
too early. So I'm not a responsible I'm not a responsible adult who wakes
up at an appropriate time. I'm still like a teenager that stays up till
two or three in the morning. But I would like to eventually be on
there. But yeah, well we have to do him so early because of
the great Will Noland is over in in you know, Brita, Britannia,
and so yeah, and I've talked to He's a cool guy. We've had
some uh friendly exchanges. He puts out some good stuff. All right,
Well cool, I'm glad you you were willing to reach out and chat.
So as AJ suggested, we would, we would kind of cover some of
the topics that we hit on last time, like tomis, epistemology, transient
arguments for God absolutely to my simplicity, the energies, theophanies. I don't
remember what other topics, but I'm happy to go wherever, wherever you want
to go. I have to give a little bit of a caveat. I've
got another podcaster in a little while, so I have to get ready ready
for that. But I mean we have we have time. I'm not trying
to rush it. But I've also got like a super headache today, So
I apologize if i'm a little if I'm not as sharp as normal, but
I'll strive to be as on point as possible. But what topic would you
like to start with? Well, I think why don't we we start maybe
first? I think kind of in our discussions behind the scenes, would would
seem to have boiled down to that the transcendental argument. I know at one
point we got to the impastor you know, what's what is the justification for
your whole system. And at that point I just kind of I was like,
well, it's God. It can only be God. God can be
the only justification. He's the starting point. He's not something you reason to
by conclusion. It struck me that that really seemed to really align with what
russ Mannion was saying in his paper on the contingency of Knowledge. So maybe
one question i'd put your way is, I know you've kind of mentioned that
that you've observed that classical Tomism does not accept the transcendental argument, and I'll
take your word for that, but I guess partly I'm wondering is if we
accept the transcendental argument, which is God has to be the starting point for
any discourse, which we do. To me, that's Saint Paul saying,
you know, God in whom we live and move and have our being.
And I've mentioned briefly to you how there's Thomas scholars who have developed the idea
of premotion that in every single instance God has to be the one who gives
reality to our being. It would seem to me that that those things would
at least somewhat line up, not as a logical conclusion of tumism, but
as the starting point. So I guess I'd love to hear first any you
know take or response that you have. Yeah. I think the point though,
is that while it's true that in the Thomas system, metaphysically speaking,
God would be the ground of these things, and he would be the necessary
being, the primary being, you know, all of those terms would be
true, but God would not be a first principle, so he wouldn't be
any kind of epistemic starting point in tumism. You would have to start with
your natural principles, natural science as it used to be called ancient medieval world,
so you'd have to learn first principles, and then after doing first principles,
and after doing natural theology in the order of epistemology or the order of
logic, you could say, then God would come down the road. So
you're correct that metaphysically speaking, yes, God is sort of the ultimate being
in the system. He's there in a sense, maybe even to ground out
everything. But that wouldn't be the case in Tomistic epistemology. That would be
a metaphysical conclusion based on the starting points of first principles. So first principles
would be things like what Aristotle talks about I think in metaphysics, I think
maybe book four, I'm going from memory. I haven't looked at along metaphysics.
But he talks about like you know, the law of non contradiction,
law of excluded middle, other basic principles, parapatetic axiom for example. These
would be kind of starting points for knowledge claims in Aristotle and in by extension
in Aquinas. And so the reason that there are for example, thomass who
have been interested in transcendental arguments, and there have been Thomas who have made
transcendental arguments, there's not any Tomas that will or ever could make a transcendental
argument for God's existence because the transcendent argument for God is it different. It's
a type of transcendent argument. But just like I'm not a Kantian because I
use a transcendental argument and Kant use transcendent arguments, right, it's it's the
same principle here that Kant didn't make a transcenent argument for God. He just
utilized transcendent argumentation in his idealism. So you could argue also that Plato used
types of transcendental arguments as some of the dialogues, but that doesn't make Plato
an adherent of the transcendent argument for God's existence. So it's a unique,
different argument from just any kind of transcendent argument. So there might be some
parallels and commonalities. But for example, if you look at say some of
countries intelas right in this this is Thomas as apologetic as you know. But
for the sake of the audience, this is Thomas's apologetic work for how would
we go about arguing outside of the church. Right, So maybe in the
church we would read the Syma Theologica and that would be for theology's sake,
but what about apologetics against those who challenge Christianity or Theism in general. So
Thomas wrote this book as it's a series as well on his apologetic and the
work really I think sets out just even if you read volume one, it
really sets out the stuff I'm talking about. For example, we have within
the first seven rate chapters, we have the affirmation of parapatetic axiom, the
basic empiricist approach that Aquinas has to theology. We have the notion of two
tiered knowledge. So there's natural knowledge and there's supernatural knowledge. There's nature and
there's grace. So that's chapter three. So in other words, the reason
that we couldn't have in a trances argument for God's existence in Tunism is that
it would violate the two tiered system of natural and supernatural knowledge. Yeah,
okay, I can definitely follow that distinction between natural and supernatural. I am
very well versed in the Suma gentes, and my I mean again, my
take from it is that in this one be speaking directly to the contragentes,
but that the countray theologia, that he is so adamant on the authority of
scripture that this is the the necessary sort of linking point to the emphasis on
divine revelation as a starting point. And to me, I mean that's that
is where people say Thomas baptized Aristotle. That's the strong distinguisher is that he
gives a precedent to that which is divinely revealed and and constantly refers back to
that. Right, but divine revelation again is there's an overlap between natural theology.
So as you know, there's two circles that Thomas always draw, and
then that middle overlapping part is right where we there's faith is not contrary to
reason. Reason is the natural faculty that we have and then faith or revelation
builds on that. So it's it's it transcends reasoning. And as Orthodox,
a lot of these phrases are statements we could agree with, but where we
disagree is really the meaning of this of the phrases of the statement. So
it's not like I don't believe that you know there that there's a place for
human reasoning or something like that. So but in our system, for example,
staten ELOI says in the very first page of Orthodox Dogmatics, as I
pointed out, we don't believe in natural theology like in atomistic system. We
do believe in natural revelation. And so, in other words, the reference
point of the medium, whether it's nature in the sense of sticks, rocks,
trees, that points to the second person that God had, because creation
is the manifestation of his logi or his thought forms or his ideas. So
it's a it's a direct personal crystological move that, for example, Maximus makes
with the divine ideas to make the cre that's patterned on it immediately crystological.
And so whether it's divine revelation or whether it's the natural order, both of
those are pointing to the logie. So the content is the same, the
medium of the of the reference towards that content is different. So the Bible
is obviously different than sticks and rocks and trees. Sometimes the collab cam.
So if collab cam drops, I lost you. Sometimes the collab cam for
whatever reason, it usually works pretty good, but every now and then it'll
pop out. If you just give it a second, it'll pop back on.
So so yeah, So what I was saying is just simply that you
know, the the the idea that you could have a trendsidental argument for God
would violate first principles. And you can see this, for example in Thomas's
rejection of the ontological argument. Now, I want to be very clear,
I'm not making the ontological argument. I think it's just as problem as the
classical arguments for God's existence. But the move that I'm making is similar in
the epistemic sense that when Thomas rejects the ontological argument, he says something like,
you know, faith is required, so if you could logically prove God's
existence, you wouldn't need faith. But the argument that I'm making is even
more radical than that, and I'm saying that you couldn't have logic itself without
the triad. So that's a much more radical move than even the ontological argument.
But if you're familiar with Thomas's rejection of the ontological argument, it would
be I mean, I would that's another example of why TAG wouldn't work for
aquitas, because there are no a priori arguments for the triad or God's existence.
Yeah, well, I two things come to mind. You know,
Tim Gordon and I have had extensive conversations about how the Enlightenment deconstructed the idea
of the sort of seamless continuity between nature and SuperNature, and so to boil
that down for you, there are many people that think that the natural law,
according to Thomas, is like something imposed on nature from without, and
then there's this like spiraling number of possible premises to the natural law accordingly,
because it's like reason, you know, imposes itself onto nature, and then
from this we get the natural law, and it's not really clear what nature
is what other things are. We've talked a lot, and this always always
stuck with me on a deep level. So this might even be going outside
of Thomas and more in line with what you're saying. But the notion that
it is nature itself that informs us. Our reason is merely observing what nature
has set up, that it itself is a sort of fount of God.
And that seems to align a lot more with what you're saying. And then
the second piece around the LOGI that even sticks and these things are a sort
of manifestation of Christ. And I just I'm not trying to strong man your
argument here, but I actually what I see as similar is when they talk
about Christ being the second person of the Blessed Trinity. And I know we're
gonna have distinctions on that, but when they well from the lens that I've
learned it through, when when when Christ is the second person of the Blessed
Trinity, the reason that it's appropriate for him to be the blessed the second
person of the Blessed Trinity, though containing all of God in himself, is
because he is the image and for us, we're going to see things through
our senses. So to me, that actually in a subtle way lines up
with that observation that all of visible creation is going to speak to the image
nature of God, of the second person of Blessed Trinity, as manifesting God
to in his in his creation. So that's true. I mean again,
I understand that Atomis would affirm that the natural order points us to God,
but a Thomas could not and would not say that the natural order points us
to Christ because it would be to violate the two tiered system. Right,
So again the reason that and I'm going from memory in it's it's early on
in the Suma because in book one he's dealing with apologetic arguments and could we
say this, can we say that about how we would know? So he
starts out with first principles in the in the Szsuma theological not Szuma contrad gents,
but he says, so first principles tell us this is this, That's
all what I'm talking about here. And then he says, what about what
about arguments like the ontological argument? And he says that it would violate the
idea that there's a leap of faith involved. And he doesn't say the phrase
leap of faith, but he says that. He says that faith is not
like first principles. First principles, this science natural science, and so natural
science and its conclusions give certitude based on evidences and piling up the evidences or
a high degree of warrant and certitude, maybe not absolute certitude, but things
of faith are not that way, he argues. He says that things of
faith are more like there's an element of unknown and thus an element of leap.
I'm not saying that Thomas is a total fideist. He doesn't believe that
faith is completely irrational, but he does think that there's if he would say
that what I'm talking about, I think violates the distinction between nature and grace,
violates the distinction between creating and uncreated, or something like that, because
the two things are pulls apart. So that's why, for example, the
only way that you know God in his system is via created effects, and
that's just completely contrary to everything that we as Orthodox think. Now, it's
not that we don't think created effects speak to God. They do, but
we don't. Just inhabit a world where there's a veil of the created order
separating us from the divine. The divine penetrated and entered into the created order.
And so that's again the incarnation is an element of disparity here. Human
epistemology an anthropology is an element of disparity here between us and the Tomus because
at every point, whether it's or epistemology, or whether it's our theology,
or whether it's nature and grace, we're arguing for an interpenetration of these things
by the divine, not a situation where the divine is cut off by a
wall of created effects. So again it's like, and I'm not trying to
be rude or disparaging, but like you know, Thomas is very very clear
in the Sumicondrid and telays like he lays out first principles, right, and
first principles are going to guide everything that you know about the domain of the
sciences and natural theology and natural philosophy. Then you'll build on top of that
natural structure the second tier of and SuperNature, which is trinity, Christology,
virgin birth, miracles, all those things, because those things go beyond and
for him, in some sense require a degree of leap of faith. So
what I would say is that let me give you an let's put this into
one concrete example. So for example, I would say that you can't understand
the natural order without the doctrine of the fall, because when I look out
at the natural order, I do see design, I do see order.
I do see causation. I do see you know, motion, tilos,
all those things. But what we don't see. Another thing we see though,
is predator prey relationships. We see death in the natural order. So
a lot of atheists, for example, and you can go back to like
an Enlightenment atheists, classic atheists, they dole Bach and those people coming out
of the Enlightenment Voltaire type people, they would say, you tonets when you
argue for the natural order, demonstrating design and purpose and all these things.
Maybe that's the case, but it also seems to exhibit lack of design,
poor design, death, decay, entropy, destruction, all these things that
don't make for a good designer. So a lot of the atheist apologists at
that time pointed out that if you, as a Thomas, were going to
argue for theism, it would be more akin to something like gnosticism, where
this world was designed by a poor, blind, goofy creator who created this
mess with a bunch of death and chaos and destruction in it, when he
could have designed something a lot better if he's omniscient all these other attributes.
So their point is that as a Thomas, you've arbitrarily picked things like design,
cause, order, t los, etc. In the natural order,
and you've ignored things like death, entropy, decay, destruction. So the
point is that what I'm saying is that the natural order is an example of
something that you can't properly interpret without the doctrine of the fall, because the
fall for us is what gives an account for they the chaos. The death
for us, as Orthodox death is unnatural. There's no such thing as natural
death. It makes no sense because in Genesis Adam brings all forms of death,
physical and spiritual. So you need divine revelation because that's where the doctrine
of the fall comes from. Right, But in the Tomistic system, you
interpret supposedly the natural world without divine revelation. That's your first principles. And
what I'm saying is, well, you can't even understand the natural order without
the doctrine of the fall. But the doctrine of the fall is part of
divine revelation. So that violates how Atomis will go about interpreting nature. Yeah,
so my first response would be the distinction between a natural evil and a
moral evil. That God is the author of all natural evils according to his
providential designs. So that you're trying to cut you off. Oh yeah.
But the argument was not that God is not providentially behind these things, or
that there's not a distinction between moral evil and naturally evil, but that things
like death, decay, and entropy. Right, death is a as a
result of the fall. Would you agree? So for humans? Yes?
Do you Are you under the impression that death is a consequence of the fall
for animals as well? Oh? Absolutely? I think Romans eight's very clear
that Paul says in Romans eight that God subjected the entire order, natural order
to death, decay, and corruption, and that's why it awaits the recapitulation
in Christ. So you may not be aware of it, but in Orthodox
theology we follow the teaching of the Seven Councils and the point that do you
know what recapitulation is? Have you heard of that? No? So this
is a Christological teaching that's in Irenaeus, and it's continued in Cyril of Alexandria,
Athanacious, It's all the way up until Maximus job Damascus. They all
teach that when Christ assumes human nature, he assumed universal human nature. That's
why all men are resurrected, even the reprobate. So all men are going
to be resurrected, and not just physical flesh resurrection. And this is because
Paul says in one crienty is fifteen that as an atom, all die,
so in Christ all will be made alive. Romans eight says that the whole
created order was subjected to decay and bondage, waiting for the liberation that would
occur in Christ. So Christ doesn't just resurrect the entire human race, he
also restores the entire created natural order to a new heavens and a new Earth.
So this is very This is far a field from the Tomistic idea of
the escton being a beatific vision. So it's an actual bodily resurrection with all
the universe restored. Yeah. So I again this is going off memory for
me, but I've been studied Romans at length. But I have, you
know chapter eight as and this could be translation differences, but all of creation
yearns is waiting in yearning with labor pains, but was waiting in yearning with
labor pains for the coming of Christ. So there is a relationship. I
think that's clear. There's a relationship. I like what you're saying. It
says in God subject the resurrection of all creation. It says God's objecting the
created order right to that decay. It's not waiting for the incarnation. It's
a statement about the escton. I'll read the section so we're clear what he's
saying. Yeah, yeah, I'm pulling it up on mine as well.
So he says that I consider the sufferings of the present time, this is
eight eighteen, are not worthy to be compared to the glory which will be
revealed in us. So this is an eschatological statement, for the earnest expectation
of the creation equally awaits the revelation of the sons of God. For the
creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected
it in hope, because the creation itself will be delivered from the bondage of
corruption into the liberty the children. For we know that the whole creation labors
groans, in labors with birth pains together until now. Not only that,
but we have the first ruts of the spirit. So he's saying, I
understand him to be saying that all of the created order fell when Adam fell,
So all elements of death, decay, destruction entered when Adam sin because
Adam was the steward, he was the head of the entire created order.
That's why Christ. This is it's very important to pair this with one Corinthians
fifteen, which is the crystological recapitulation passes where Paul talks about the extent of
Adam sin on all of his descendants, not just but on all of them
identical to the extent of what Christ brings. So that means all human beings
are resurrected because Christ assumed their universal human nature. Right. No, and
I mean I certainly agree to the general judgment proposition that all will be raised,
both the saved, right. And why are the wicked resurrected? Because,
for example, in I mean, it may be in aquinas some people
have argued it might be, yeah, yeah, but it's not in Augustine.
For example, Augustine struggles with why the reprobate or resurrected because they have
no connection to Christ. Yeah. So again I'm give you my understanding,
which is that because of our nature, the soul is immortal, it's proper
to our nature for the body to remain united to it. This is where
I would distinguish the creation the rest of creation, animal creation prior to prior
to Adam. And so this is where like, like you were just saying,
when I'm reading there for the creation verse twenty of Romans eight or verse
nineteen, for the creation weights with eager longing for the real revealing of the
sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its
own will, but by the will of Him who subjected it. In hope,
I'm seeing that not as a consequence of the original sin, but as
their nature doesn't entail poss an immortal soul, they're going to be subject to
death now creation because but hold on, it's the whole creation, it's not
just animals. So again, I guess I'm just not under like for us,
death is the enemy. Paul says, there is no such thing as
natural There's no there's no natural death. All death as a result of adam
sin, including plants. So that's why the us Gaton describes not a beatific
vision of the essence of God where the intellect associated. It describes a new
heavens and a new earth where there are people groups, there's nations, there's
these things that don't make sense in this beatific vision imagery of what I see
in Aquinius from Catholicism. And that's why the other passages like Colossians won.
Paul says that all the created order has been redeemed in Christ. How is
all the created order redeemed in your view? Yeah, so I would.
I would see it that because God, now it's himself too material creations through
man, through the access point of man, that at this point now we're
going to have affected something supernatural. What from my understanding is that it's natural
for man to live immortally. It's not natural for a plant to live immortally.
And this would be like Jesus uh talking about do not do not be
anxious for you see the lilies of the field who one day are are beautiful,
on the next day are cast into the fire. And you know how
much more, how much more God loves you whom He has all you know,
all the numbers. The du kind of says God does not will death.
Yeah right, that God did not create and did not will death.
But you're saying that, well, it's one of the wisdom texts as God.
I think it's wisdom. God did not create death, so death.
So you're saying that, well, death is natural for plants, is it
for animals or for anything that doesn't have an immortal soul? Okay, but
where does this for us? Where's the idea that death is natural for those
things but not for human beings? Where's that like? In scripture? I
couldn't tell you. And well, but see, I couldn't give you a
specific one, but Scripture always encapsulates all death as a result of what Satan
first and then Adam did. So Satan introduces that in the angelic order when
a third of the angels fall with him at the very beginning. Satan then
tempts Man, and Man enters into a covenant with the Angel of death.
So all death has its source in the one who rebelled against God, the
Angel of Death. And when Man made a covenant with Satan in the garden,
he entered into that kingdom. And this is why Christ went into the
Kingdom of Death to destroy the Angel of Death. So this is what the
destan. Are you familiar with the descent into hades? Yes? But right
there you're saying it. You're talking about the angelic order and the human order,
but you're talking about that's all. I'm not saying that. I'm not
saying that that's why all of these passages, like in Colossians speak about the
redemption of everything. Let me give you an example. Maximus says that when
when when Adam fell, all the created order was jarred as a result,
and it's it's out of whack with the low gie upon which they're based.
He says, when Christ assumed universal human nature, he also restored all of
the created order everything. Jupiter mars everything via that incarnational act to be restored
in the escton back to what it was intended to be in the garden.
So but what I hear is that, well, God created some things in
the garden to die, like plants and something like that. But again,
this is a later idea that it's added. It's not there in the Patristic
consensus when it comes to the idea of what's going on in the garden.
And I understand the tomistic idea of how it works in the garden with the
donum superadditimin and all that, we don't have any of that. So,
but that's because and I'm not trying to be off kilter or get off topic,
but like you have. For us. Christology is the meaning of the
natural order. Adam is made in the image of Jesus in the garden.
That's another way to see that. And this is actually a debate between Franciscans
and Thomas as well. To show that Thomas don't teach this. Adam isn't
made in the image of the divine Essence. Adam isn't made in the image
of the intellect of God. Adam is made in the image of the triad
right, and in particularly in the image of Christ. Because who's walking in
the garden. It's the logos the same guy walking and wrestling with Jacob.
Right, we know that Jesus as who wrestles with Jacob, because Jesus identifies
himself in the Gospel of John as the one who wrestled with Jacob. So
it's not an angel. So again I'm not trying to shift off of you
know, the issue of Genesis. We can stay on that or move on
to the Oftenes or whatever you want, but the Oftenes are a good element
to demonstrate that, like we have a totally different understanding of Genesis and what's
happening in Eden than Atomas would have. Another way to illustrate this is that's
it's the Eden is a created paradise that was always intended to be eternal.
It was never intended to have death as some functioning of it. And that's
why for us, like mosquitoes, predator prey relationships, these are all results
of the fall. They're not natural. There's nothing natural at all about death,
because all death is a violation of God's original order. And it's not
I mean the do orconomical text, I forget which one it is. Somebody
can been in the Chat. It specifically says God did not will death.
So now you're saying, well, but there's this other category of natural death
that he did will. But that's what I'm saying is that that's why the
escaton in scripture always pictures the final state, not as that some mental ethereal
thing where we stare into God's essence. It's always pictured as bodies walking around
and doing stuff like when Jesus was resurrected. Remember the end of John,
when Jesus resurrected and he's walking around and he's eating fish, and he's walking
through walls and he's doing all kinds of crazy stuff. But it's still that
same body, right, But I'm saying that in Tomism and in Roman Catholicism,
because of the Beatific vision doctrine, you get this sort of displacing and
almost forgetting of the importance of the body and the resurrection because of the stress
on intellect. I would argue that in a Quinas and August and basically the
soul is identical to or pretty much summed up in intellect, So there's no
doctrine of the heart or the news, which is a fundamental Orthodox idea.
So point being is that you know, what we're seeing in the Esketon is
the Edenic state extended to the universe. The universe is basically a kind of
eating in the Esketon that I would see portraying scriptures. This is very common
in the Eastern file. But I say the asketon that you're talking about very
different right in the Atific vision, and that's because in the garden we have
totally different ideas about what's going on, and there's I just don't understand how
death could be natural when you've got so many passages that extend Christ's redemption to
every molecule. Yeah, so do you abrogate Genesis one with Genesis two,
starting with the Atom and Eve story, because to me, the just the
first thing on the surface that comes to mind is that when he creates plants
and animals and then subjects all things to man, that that entails the eating
and the living off those things, which would necessarily bring with it death.
No, and this is prior to the fall. So you'll notice, as
pretty much every church father exegutes the giving of the skins, the biological skin
bodies that we have now are the bodies that are given as a result of
the fall. That's why God says he skinned the animals and gave them coats
of skin, so you would the state of things could still be physical,
but it not operate the way it operates now. So we believe that Eden
was a very different metaphysical system than we have with our you know, fallen
bodies and fallen state. That's why the New Testament passages like First John describe
when we see him, we shall be like him right because we will be
conformed, Paul says in Philippians, to the image of his heavenly glorious body.
So the physical resurrected body of Christ is the image of what was intended
for man in Eden, which is a body that doesn't require physical sustenance,
but it's still bodily in its existence. It's still extended in space and time.
It still moves around and does stuff. So the resurrect the body of
Christ is the paradigm of the entire future escton, and it is what Eden
was intended to be. So that means that Eden was not operating on the
fallen mode of being. So there was no death. There weren't mosquitoes eat
There might have been mosquitoes, but they weren't eating in sucking blood. So
the whole predator prey relationship entered as a result of the fall. It's not
prior to the fall. And that's you can see that by the fact that
God doesn't even allow us to eat animals until up to the time of Noah.
So we weren't eating animals in the garden of Eden, right, but
plants presumably, But even you're saying if they didn't need nourishment, it would
kind of then undermine the observation of Jesus coming back in the flesh and eating
the fish and doing those things. Well, he doesn't do it because he
needed physical sustenance. It says he did it to demonstrate that he's still the
same guy. Right, so that the resurrected body, as Saint Cyril says,
you should read the two letters of Cyril to census. He says,
the resurrected body of Christ even transcends the blameless passions. The blameless passions would
be things like hunger, thirst, being tired, and so forth. So
Christ never had blameless or blame full passions. Blame full passions would be things
like what you call concupiscences or the aspects of of original sin. We call
it the passions in Orthodoxy, and so we don't believe that Christ had any
internal motivations towards either blameful or blameless passions. So for us, when we
say blame less passions, this comes out of the Sixth Council. Christ did
thirst, he did hunger, but those are results of the fall that are
blameless. They don't entail any sin. Yeah, So I mean, I
guess to me that seems to map onto the distinction between antecede and concupiscent and
consequence, sorry, consequent desires. I don't think that we just Orthodoxy in
Rome disagree on that point. Okay, okay, Okay, so part of
the questions, because I'm seeing where some of this stuff is obviously going to
remain key, as if we try and go through to divine simplicity to Theophanes,
to essence, energies, and so it might be something where it's it's
hard for us to really navigate. I I mean, I guess I if
you want, I could try and recap sort of my final position at least
to this part of the discussion about about the distinction between nature and grace,
as I see it as a continuation as grace, you know, again,
grace perfecting nature, that they can't be unrelated in that way. It's let
me grab a book, make your statement. I'm gonna grab a book.
I'm listening. I'm not being rude. Yeah, yeah, no. But
to me, that's that seems to be the place in which you see a
sort of at least enough coherence for us to then be able to move on
to those next layers of conversation where it doesn't seem that it's so I don't
know, fatally contradictory our positions. I would say that it does seem to
be a distinction that that to meet death is natural to a thing without an
immortal soul unnatural to us. So would firmly agree that death is unnatural to
us. And it would even account for even when we approach death, if
we feel that our soul is well prepared, because of the unnaturalness of it,
there's going to be a sort of revulsion in us toward it, and
that that speaks to our nature as as not being one that is meant to
terminate. And so the way I would take it is Adam in the Fall.
And I know that there are a lot of discussions between tumas, between
obviously between Franciscans, between any number of groups about what things would have been
like prelaps arian prior to the fall. But I can give you my take
on it would be something to the effect that prior to the Fall, Adam
still would have existed in the body. He would not have yet had glorified
nature. I'm sure this opens its own bag of worms, but he wouldn't
have had glorified nature at that point. Now, at the end of his
life, it would have been something more akin to Marry or Elijah or Enoch,
where there would have been some sort of like assumption into heaven. But
it wouldn't have been the the pure glorification of the nature that we see in
the resurrected Christ. Now yet now they're going to do that assumption and sort
of a my serious way be grafted in to that. But that would be
kind of my take on how nature. Nature is seamlessly interconnected with the supernatural,
that it doesn't seem that it would raise a big enough red flag to
not try and go forward to divine simplicity. But I do see how these
are. I mean, it is a significant distinction. The notion that nothing
would have died at all, plants, animals, anything, prior to the
fall, does seem to be a significant point of difference, right, And
I would say that to sum up where this really the rubber meets the road
between Orthodox Roman Catholics, is that Orthodox Christology, which comes out of the
Seven Councils, especially as you get up into the Seventh Council, is pretty
clear about Christ assuming universal human nature and then what the effects, what the
consequence of that would be. And again this is called the doctrine of recapitulation.
And this is very it's often very foreign to Roman Catholics when they first
hear about it. I have an essay here that I wrote many years ago
about the idea of recapitulation, so you'll first read about it. You'll read
about it in erin As and Eronas. When I was Atomis, i'd never
heard of this, and I didn't even realize it was like a big point
of difference. But it really does contrast because you don't, first of all,
you do never see this in Augustine at all. And for us,
you know, we think he's a saint, but we follow him far less
than Roman Catholics do because the Trinitarian theology that's accepted for the Ecumenical Councils is
constantinople one accepting the Cappadocian doctrine, which is not the Augustinian doctrine. So
there's a really good book that points out what we're talking about in the garden
in terms of a man being made in the image of Christ, and that's
deification in Christ. And this is funny because, like I said, like
this actually mirrors a debate between Tomists and Franciscans. So Franciscans just on this
point are closer to Orthodox than anyone else because they agree that there's some sense
in which Adam is made in the image of Christ, and that's for us
why you can't really do anthropology or natural theology without Christ, because Adam was
made his very meaning is the second person of the Godhead. But that again
is against the notion of natural theology where you start your epistemic enterprise with the
first principles of natural philosophy and natural science. And we're saying that it's not
that you can't do science or you can't do this, but the episthetic first
principle would have to be we would argue divine revelation and not these sort of
arbitrary ad hoc you know, principles of Aristotle or whatever. Doesn't mean that
this doesn't mean that principles are wrong. It just means that how can they
be epistemic starting points given the fact that, in my view, you can't
really you can't really justify them without just sort of asserting them. So do
you want to talk about let's talk about Theophanes because this came up. I
mean, yeah, my understanding of you know, what's going on in the
garden when we see the Lord walking in the cool of the evening. And
now I'm not trying to be some kind of weird fundamentalists. I understand the
Bible uses, you know, figurative language. I understand the fourth senses of
scripture, of the quadriga. We believe that as well as Orthodox. So
I'm not saying that that everything in Genesis is quote literal in the sense of
like a talking snake. I think that that's an angelic being. It's it's
one of the fallen angels. So there's always this serpentine symbolism and imagery connected
to Satan. It's not saying that he's like a literal snake, per se.
And likewise, other elements of Genesis might be symbolic. But one thing
that can't be symbolic is the notion of God having a form or a body,
and that exists in the Old Testament in vast passages. And I know
this only because I've had to launch into this specific topic in great detail,
going even into the rabbinical sources of modern rabbinical exegetes who admit that the Old
Testament is rife with images of God having a body and a form. And
how could that be given the fact that we tend to think of Old Testament
religion or Judaism as a sort of a unitarian, non physical, iconoclastic religion.
And the answer is that it wasn't iconoclastic and it wasn't unitarian. In
fact, the very arguments that we champion against Islam, because this is the
key point of departure between Islam and Christianity, is this notion of God in
the created order. Every mauslem will tell you that God cannot enter the created
order because it mean that he undergoes change, because he's absolutely simple, because
blah blah blah blah blah. Right, And the answer is that, well,
God, in terms of his divine essence, is not in the created
order. But God has a way, a manifestation by which he can be
in the created order. Hence the incarnation is possible, and that's via his
divine personal energies. So for us, the Theophanes are the first easy proof
not just that the Old Testament is a Trinitarian, but also that there's some
distinction between the inner, unrevealed aspect of God that can never be known his
essence, and then what He reveals and manifests us to us his divine personal
energies. So all of those energies, I stress they're personal because this is
not like a divine essence, that's like giving us the lower because a lot
of times Tomas said, well, this is polytheism. You're denying the divine,
the doctrine, divine simplicity. Every Orthodox person believes that God is absolutely
simple in his essence, in that he's not composed of parts, he doesn't
have composition, He's not acted upon to be changed or something like that.
But God does have the ability to act in different ways and to do different
things, and to be in time and space, and to change without himself
undergoing change. So, in other words, so some of these theophanes come
and go like the cloud, like the fire. These manifestations, the theophanic
manifestations, cannot be creatures because they are specifically worshiped and identified as God and
as Yahweh. For example, I give two great examples worship the wrestling with
Jacob, which we're told in the Book of John early on, Jesus says
that you know that ladder that descends from heaven to earth, that's Me.
And that means that that ladder that descended to heaven and earth over the angel,
that Jacob, that was Jesus. That Jacob's worship with and he's he's
called God, he's called Yahweh. So this angel figure that appears not just
in Genesis multiple times, but in Judges, in Joshua, in Daniel,
in Ezekiel one through eleven, this angel just means messenger, doesn't mean created
all the time. This angelic messenger is the messenger of the Covenant. Exodus
three, Exodus twenty three, the messenger in the face of the Lord,
in whom is the name of Yahweh. That's Jesus, very clearly. Jesus
himself identifies himself as the guy at the meal with Abraham and Genesis sixteen,
the guy eating with Moses on top of the mountain in Exodus, right,
Jesus says that that was me, right. So the point is that I
would say, this is one of the strongest arguments against Thomism, is that
although Roman Catholics and Thomas might themselves believe, yeah, pretty clearly, that's
a that's Jesus. I mean, justin Marter argues against Tripho the Jew,
he says, how can you not believe your own scriptures when the Angel of
the Lord is Jesus present in all these passages? Precisely because the doctor of
divine simplicity in the Thomas system absolute divine simplicity in Tomism, you get this
struggling with how an absolutely simple essence can be present in time and space.
And it's book three of on the Trinity where Augustine struggles with us and even
he says, it's perhaps it's the Lord, but I can't see how given
his divine simplicity, because to be in time and space would be contrary to
the Neoplatonic definition of what an absolutely simple essences, and Augustine explicitly says and
uses the Plutinian definition Origin says the exact same thing and first principles. He
says, the exact same definition of what divine simplicity is. The Cappadocians,
there's a whole PhD Thesis you could read on this called Basal of Sasareea Gregor
Vanessa and the Transformation of Divine Simplicity by Gallowitz. They don't believe, they
don't use this definition of what divine simplicity is. So we're not denying divine
simplicity, but we're not starting our simplicity doctrine out with a plutonium doctrine of
it, which excludes from the outset of the possibility of God being in time
and space, which then I would argue the Thomas and other people are just
simply inconsistent because I know you confess that Jesus is the second hypostasis incarnate.
Yeah. Yeah, so I like the way you lay that out. We're
in agreement on the divine simplicity of God's essence, I think, and this
kind of draws back to our other conversation, but I think the disagreement would
be over the divine simplicity extending to God's one simple act. Is that correct?
Right? So the Thomas doctrine is that the attributes of God and his
acts are all synonymous amongst themselves and with the divine essence that is. That
is the Thomas doctrine, and we would disagree with that. Yeah. So
the action, the action of walking on water is different from the action of
creating the world, which is different from the action of deifying the human nature
that he assumed. And so you would say, as every Thomas says,
those are created effects. They're not created effects. I'm talking about the acts
themselves, not the effects. We all agree that when God created the world,
that's an effect of his action. I'm talking about the act itself.
Creating the world is different from resting on the seventh day, for example,
And if you read Confessions, Augustine says, I can't understand how God,
being absolutely simple and identical with himself, that he could create and then rest
on the seventh day. And in Palomos's debate with Barley and he actually brings
this passage up and he says, if all of God's acts are identical with
his essence, then how does he rest and cease from the action of creating.
I don't mean again, and I'm not trying to be rude to you,
but I've had this debate probably fifty times in the last fifteen years.
I don't mean the effect of the created order. I mean the action of
creating itself. Okay, so don't just say, well, God's the cause
and creation's the effect. We know that you believe that the distinct is over
different actions, because it's specifically Divinity involved in and doing different things. Creating
the world cannot be the same thing as becoming incarnate, being born of a
version, walking on water, doing a miracle, which is a For example,
John Damascus says, every time Christ does a miracle. This is a
demonstration of his divine energy in time and space. So how to divine energies
enter into time and space and do miracles and deify the human nature and do
all these different things that Christ is doing if it's not possible for an absolutely
simple, pure act being to be in time and space, because that would
require change. So, in other words, the philosophy and the natural theology
that you guys do contradicts the supernatural theology that you tack on later, is
the point. Yeah, So I want to grant the definitely different acts,
right, definitely different actions. I'm not trying to find some way where it's
like, well, actually you know this him creating the world. I like
the way you've put it, walking on water, doing these they're they're all
different things. So the question becomes, does that square with the ones in
black? I know I'm not going to go to cause verse effects distinction.
I think I have a good insight or way of thinking about it that begins
to answer this. Now, it does have to take recourse, that distinction
between discursive reason and what we're taking for this higher form of intellection, divine
intellection that doesn't require the same steps as dis discursive reasoning. So if you
want, I could try and lay that out first, or I could just
go for it. What do you do? So, I mean, let's
let's before we do that. I'm not trying to get away from that.
You can bring that up at any people, right, I mean, let's
talk about wrestling with Jacob, wrestling with the Angel. I mean, who
or what is that? How is that possible in your system? I can
accept that as as Christ okay, as being God, not not a created
not you know, not not the creative effect, but being God. Okay,
that's not possible in Tunism. And I'm not trying to be rude,
but I don't see yeah, yeah, no, no, no, that's
fine. But we've gotten to this impass already where it's like, if I'm
outside of Tomism, so be it. I don't have, you know,
some some person standing over me going hey, you have to be here,
here and here right now. I think that it merges with Thomas, but
that's just not my number one priority. Well, you know what I mean,
Technically, it might be something and it's possible that you know, there
is a place somewhere where Aquinas mentions this, right, maybe he maybe he
just maybe he does that because I actually think that in a lot of places,
people are better than their systems and their theology, right. I don't
think that everybody gets every point absolutely consistent with the rest of their points,
and and that's true for all of us. So I'm happy to be charitable
and grant that Aquinas didn't intend to be incorrect or to try, you know,
to to contradict or something like that. But but I would. But
that's a different art from whether it actually is consistent. So my argument is
just simply that the way that you guys conceive of you know, And I
can read Phaser here in his introduction to Scholastics, he says, for example,
if we turn the divisions of act and actuality, this is not long.
The first table to be made is between pure act and mixed act.
Act is purists or act utterly unmixed with any potentiality is the core of all
Scholastic philosophy's conception of God. Everything else is in act and in some way
mixed with potency. And then I'm gonna skip down to the last point.
I'm not trying to lie. It's not being deceptive, it's just getting to
the bottom of the paragraphere. He says, an angel, for example,
is a relatively pure act in that it is without matter. And then he
says, however, its essence is still in potency relative to its existence.
Right, So this is something that Thomas believe is a feature of all created
things. Right, this is not the case, so that he says,
this is absolutely not pure act. Only God is absolutely pure act. Right.
And this is specifically about this notion of potentialities in God. And I
don't know if you're familiar with the modal collapse issue, but this has been
a huge debate in tumism or people critiquing tumism for a long time. And
we can talk aboutency no, no, no modal collapse in that if if
God's action of creating a synonymous with his essence, then God has eternally created
the created order. So this is the modal collapse argument. So the point
is that the effects would be just as eternal as the action. And I
know that Thomas will say, no, there's an inter we interpose God's will
there where God then it will to create all of these other things. But
it's missing the point that the point is that all potentialities right. God has,
for example, knowledge of the worlds that he didn't create. Right,
Like, God has knowledge of a world, a possible world where there's no
Thomas Aquinas, Right, possible world where there's no I don't know China.
Okay, did God create those worlds? No, he didn't create He created
this world. Okay, So what that means then is that there are potentialities
within God. God has divine ideas of all of the worlds that didn't create,
and yet he didn't create them. So that would then, on this
definition, make God a mixed being and not pure act. Yeah. I
don't. I'm not a big fan of what he was just saying there about
angels. That struck me to say that the essence and well, I forget
word for word what Phaser just said that created beings. Yeah, they're created
beings. But but as far as I know, because they don't have matter,
their their their nature, their essence is going to be identical with their
individual person, their individual existence. Now, their essence is not that they
exist. No, he's just saying that they exist in a state of potentia,
right, that they undergo change. Yeah, there, they have created
attributes regardless of whatever the point is not the angels. So the point is
that God is absolutely simple, pure act, and that means that no uh
mixed, there's no mixed potency or no potentiality. Right, Okay, but
if there's no, so every being that possesses free will, though in some
way, has potential to do this thing or that thing. So this is
why the Cappadocians, for example, or do that God does possessed potentiality.
So Thomas, I know, I've read read this at one point that seems
relevant, but he and I want to hear your at least initial take on
this. But he says that while God can have all the conceptions of possible
worlds, even the ones he didn't create, he does not have any conceptions
of impossible things. Is that at all? Yeah, but that's why I
just said possible worlds. I didn't say anying about impossible follow right, No,
I agree, I agree, I agree. This isn't going to be
a slam dunk point. I just want to make sure sure that you know,
I don't know, just that there's some Look, so God has knowledge
of things that he didn't create that are possible, and yet he didn't create
them. Yeah, and so that's a potentiality. So how can God's essence
be pure act? God God cannot be reduced to pure act. Yeah,
so so here and now I'm I'm gonna give you what I think is actually
a really good take on it. God's act is not discursive, So this
is this is gonna be very important because the discursive act differentiates between what you
desire as the end and what you choose as a means. So choice is
always going to pertain to means. And so that's going to actually say that
when we act, oftentimes we're going to act by choices we make without the
end even in sight to us. We have to come to knowledge of the
end. God is one simple act, and it is the end, the
end which he knows, which is the desiring of his own goodness. And
so every single act that that means that in his you know, eternal moment
of existence, there is only one act that's exactly identical with his essence,
and that act is the act of both knowing himself perfectly and desiring his own
goodness. So becoming incarnate the same as that is walking. No hold on,
no, no, no, no, no, it's not because becoming
incarnate is going to be included within the category of the act. Now this
is not the point. Is it is pure so becoming so becoming so walking
on water is the same as creating the world. No, it's not.
It's not so there, so the acts are not the same the sub act.
So this is I know you're probably you know rolling Yeah, you're probably
rolling your eyes. No, there are sub acts. From our reasoning towards
how this works, the incarnation is just appearance, that would be That would
be the doc to start. Second, so to say that the incarnation just
appears to us to be in time would be the docket's argument. Yeah,
no, no, but I'm not saying it just appears that way. They
are here, so you understand your system nation hold on, hold on,
yeah, hold on, yep, hold on, hold on. So what
what The example they would lay out that I think makes this profound is that
when we act, as I said, choosing means and then somehow later on
trying to get to the end or figuring it out where there's a succession of
these things, and that the choice in the act is going to happen at
separate times. They would they would contrast it. Thomas would contrast that with
someone who's like, if they get to the point where they're a master builder
of a house and they always build a house in the same way, if
they set their will on building that house, they're going to know within that
choice of building that house all the different phases of what goes into making that
house along the way. Right now, this is this is an analogy.
What he's saying is that the de fine hold on. No, it does
actually answer because the divine Act doesn't have the distinctions of discursion, which are
these sequential choices at different times than the final one. There is only the
one, final, perfect act, which is the desiring of his own good.
So basically he restated that it's only one act and it appears to us
to be multiple different actions. But no, creating the world is really a
different action in time. It's distended. It's distended in time, so it's
going to happen different. You're missing the point. So you're wait, so
it is really different. Yeah, they are different. All those things are
different, really different or conceptually different yes, metaphysical different, yes, metaphysically
different. It's that God in he for him. Okay, so then God
is act. God is not identical to his his act of he is pure
act. He is pure act, he is identical to his act. Then
he is not really is his desiring of his own goodness. Then there's not
really distinct actions. You see, those are mutual, exclusive claims and positions.
I hear you. What I'm saying is that the distinction is that when
we do discursive acts, we have to do one at one time another another
time. The real point is that God, I know what you're saying.
One, this is not answering. I know that you believe that we're humans
and we argue in a discursive way. I understand all that. I understand
that that's your system's presentation. But that's not answering the objection about on God's
end, the actions themselves are different actions and intemism. God doesn't do different
actions. It's that simple. And then you said, but no, they
are different actions, and then you the explanation is the human vantage point of
discursive reasoning. That is not answering the fact that it's not a human vantage
point problem. It's God himself doing different things. I mean, do you
not see that it's God himself acting to create, and then God himself stepping
into time and space so the real issue seems to be can God himself act
in time and space in your view? Right? And yes he can,
and that's going to be included. This is I think the best way to
think about his temporally. When he does his one act of desiring himself,
he's going to have contained within him a million different acts that are going to
be taking place. That one, again departed from tumism. Yeah, okay,
that's fine. Maybe I'm departing from tumism. I actually don't think i
am. But that's that God does within multiple acts. Do you understand he
has within him multiple ideas too that you said just now, God has within
him multiple acts, But that would mean that God is not pure act.
Yes, within within the one pure eternal act, which is the desiring of
his goodness, is going to have within it. Just as a house.
A builder of a house knows that they're going to build a house, and
they're going to do one thing on the foundation, one thing on the walls,
one thing on this thing. Those are all separate things. It's all
contained in the act of them build going to build a house. This is
how it works, that God desiring of his goodness. Again, you're contradicting
yourself because it can't be one act. I hear God is actus purists and
also God it is as act as purists precludes and excludes multiple acts in God,
those are mutually exclusive positions. No Thomas will disagree with that. Yeah,
and what I'm saying, And that's that's why if they would, if
if they buck me from that, so be it. But I'm seeing it
as again the builder of the house. That's their act. That's what they're
doing, and they're going to have contained in it a lot of other things.
God his one simple act is him desiring his goodness. That because act
is generated by the will, which is the desiring apparatus, his desire is
for his goodness. And in bringing that out, he's going to freely choose
any number of things that are going to bring that to fruition, and that's
going to send it out into into time. Is there acts leading up to
now and future acts that still have yet not happened. It's all contained desire.
Again, you're not answering the objection. I don't think you understand what.
I'm not trying to be a dick, but I do I do understand
objection. Can you tell me what the objection is. Yeah, the objection
is that if these are distinct acts, how does that how does that marry
up? Your analogy is to a created thing that is not appropriate to God
himself. God is pure act. Your analogy was, well, but we
have discoursive reasoning, and it's like a building of a house, and there's
a lot of different parts to it. That doesn't matter because that's just totally
dissimilar to the thing in question, which is a being which is unmixed with
any potentiality and is strictly pure act. So the analogy doesn't answer the thing
that is in question. It's totally dist It does though, because because I'm
actually not saying that that that the builder of the house is the sort of
standard way that now we're going about it. I'm saying that someone who gets
really, really really good at building the house comes closer, comes closer to
the sense in which we're talking about this, which is the one who's really
really good at building the house. Well, you know what all those things
do? You understand that it would be a mixed being. If God is
pure act and also has within him multiple acts, that would be a mixed
being, Right, I do not grant that. I do not grant that
because in God it is one simple act. All the other words, this
is a contradiction. Pure act means there's not many acts. And now you're
saying, but God also has many acts, which you describe as the effects.
I'm not talking about the effects. No, but I'm not even just
talking about the effects. What I'm actually then, God doesn't have multiple acts.
God is pure act. I'm I think that I'm granting to you that
I'm not taking the line of reasoning that you've heard from these other people.
Okay, So then I'll just say I acknowledge that these are different acts,
different you're all contained under the one, the one ultimate act. Yep.
So your fellow Thomas will then say that that's a violation of divine simplicity.
And you've now positive potentia in God. So maybe you're okay with that,
and that's great because that's moving in the direction of orthodoxy. I mean,
do you think that God has knowledge of the world that he didn't create?
Yeah, okay, and he chose not to write yep. Okay, so
there's potency in God. Only by I mean, I would say, I'm
sorry, only by analogy. It's that it's that he can grasp it.
He has tamed under the one act. You can say by analogy, But
that's just asserting your system. And this is where I think we get to
the point of the pistemology issues, because every time I have this discussion with
A Thomas, the debate ends up being that an argument is asserting and stating
the system. So but by stating this fall I tried to anticipate that that
would be a roadblock. What I am What I am saying is that the
one simple act was before all time. It's eternal. The one simple act
is God desiring of him of himself, the goodness of himself. That's that
is the ad that's stating Thumism. We I'm not trying to be a d
We know that we know that Thomism teaches that God knows and sees himself as
is the end and he is the good in the end. I know all
that, right, I'm not I'm not taking issue with whether you know what
Thomism posits about God's you know, intellection of himself and all that. The
point is that I don't understand how asserting the system answers these objections or deals
with the fundamental issues, especially when we get to epistemology, like the first
principles. Right, So, like you were agreeing with me earlier on about
well, you know, it seems like God should ground the system out.
And you know Thomas talks about God is sort of like the ultimate being,
necessary being, So why couldn't he ground up the system? Well, because
we don't have the same epistemology. And I would argue that pretty much all
Roman says is wedded to I've never seen anybody not be a classical foundationalist.
So every Roman Catholic I've ever seen pretty much has some form of that.
It's pretty much bound up with the way Vatican One talks about the verifying things
through you know, going and looking at evidences and church history. And I
mean that's why you guys always do evidentialist apologetics. You always do classical argumentation
from the five ways of the Suma. But that's all wedded to a certain
epistemology that has to be kind of made sense of first, right, unless
we want to just I'm not going to grant your sister. So I argued
to you that it was putting the metaphysical cart before the epistemic horse, So
I want to know, you know, how do we know why should I
start with your first principles, like the parapatetic axiom? Right, We're not
We're not going to make any leeway through that because I would, I mean,
I would say the same thing that I I the God. God presupposes
that the intellect that any of this stuff can happen. So the only way
that we can get to postine what God is through God. You're talking about
God, what God I suppose I'm I'm trying to approximate in my so Okay,
but like again that's say, by the way, Jay, these same
these same things come to you, then these same things because if your argument
is that you yeah, yeah, I get it. But I'll just say
to you that I'm not a classical foundationalist, then you're not a Roman Catholic,
because that's pretty much that may that may be if they if they issue
the excommunication, then it'll formally be the case that I'm not the Only way
to get excommunicated in Francis's Rome is to like be traditional. So I don't
think you're going to get excommunicated. I'm aban in that way. Well,
I'm not trying to be averag. I'm not trying to be but I'm just
saying the appeal to that as the shutting down of a line of reasoning that
to me seems solid. Though I get it, the perfections of it can
only lie in in the foundation being God that presupposes everything else, not as
a condusion to it. I can't, by reason, get to the point
of of claiming God. You're missing the point that it's not about like red
abstracting and finding some sort of abstract grounding or something like that. It's a
point. The point is that really divine revelation is the starting point. That's
the the that would be our first principle. Right, So if we're going
to cast out Tomism, then I'm then I'm gonna have to say that now
you're beginning to violate the entire Roman Catholic principle of starting with natural philosophy and
natural theology. So in other words, if you admit that, you would
be giving up natural theology because natural theology is wedded to first principles natural philosophy.
Uh, I mean you were touting the semicuntries and telays. This would
be to then toss it out, So by the end of the conversation you're
already tossing out this the scg right. No, no, I'm not.
And what I would say to you is that again, you don't understand the
doctrine the doctrine, hold on, hold on, the doctor. You're not
understanding then, the doctrine of premotion. Because God has to move the intellect
in every single moment, He has to support every single being in every single
moment of its existence. So I address this anything that I'm doing, I
address this at the beginning. I addressed this at the beginning when I said
that you're putting your metaphysical cart before your epicentic course. So everybody in the
Middle Ages argued from premotion and made these kinds of arguments, and I understand
that. But when you get to the time of David Hume and Kant,
the question flips and we have to be able to answer that objection. So
we can't just rely on asserting systems from the Middle Ages, as if that
constituted an argument. Maybe termism is true, maybe Roman Catholic epistemologies is true,
but it can't just rely on reasserting medieval systems without addressing the specific argument
that's being made. This specific argument is saying that I'm not going to grant
you any of your metaphysical assertions until you give me the epistemic principle by which
you know those things to be true. Because every epistemic, every metaphysical claim,
is a knowledge claim and epistemic claim. So how do what is the
epistemic principle? And every Roman Catholic believes in a form of classical foundationalism and
first principles, So so how you so? So that would go against says
you? Yeah, it says me, says you. Here, I'm telling
you, so, can you give me a single I'm telling you that the
foundation, I'm telling you that the foundation is theistic revelation. There's no such
thing as as You're missing the point. There is no generic theism. So
Thumism relies on generic theism that doesn't exist. There's no such thing as generic
God that we all believe in. That's why in our last say anything,
I didn't say anything about generic What you keep saying God, And I'm asking
you what God? You said, the God, the God of the God
of Platonists, which no no, no, no no no no no no
no Bye. Bye by revelation. I believe that to be the divine trinity.
So well again, now we've moved away from Thumism. So I'm glad
that you don't want to maybe maybe, but why why does this have to
keep bottlenecking the converse station? Where moving from classical foundation? Because are you
here to defend because alicism or not? I mean, what do you mean?
No, I'm here to try and make sense of things. Okay,
well, but I mean I thought we were. I'm not trying to be
rude, but I thought, like you know, you wanted to defend Toism.
Correct, I mean as best I can. Okay, So we can't
have Tomism and transcendental argument for God that tries to argue trinity. Those things
are mutually exclusive. They're not going to work. I don't see why those
are mutually exclusive, because because if the transcendental argument as a foundation is that
theistic revelation is the starting point, then I'm struggling to see how then we
can and not other ones. Like five minutes ago, you just said,
get it. Fine, if it's not Tomism, it's not told, then
you you can't tout the SCG. That's the starting point for the semicontrid In.
You just you five minutes ago you said that was great. Now you
got to throw it out. That's wait, wait, I can't hold on,
hold on, I can't tout observations that he makes throughout the SCG.
So now, now, if one thing for the part of SEG, if
I say one thing, if I say one thing from the part from apart
from SCG, then I'm touting the whole of it. Sounds like we can
get to an understanding about simplicity and is one pure act. You're not understanding
systems, just how systems work. The fact that there's things that are true
in Tomism or the SCG does not mean that the starting points of Tomism and
it's a pistemology and a system work. I'm saying that you would have fine,
But that's where I'm at though. I'm saying, I'm trying to take
the true things okay, But you just laid it out. You said there
can be true things about the system. So I'm saying, I'm not worried
about the system. I'm talking about true things. But the debate is about
systems, right that we we were here to debate things like tag and natural
theology, you're gonna have to give up natural theology is the point here.
I don't think you want to do that. What I'm interested in is your
argument for how reason works. I'm interested in what is your argument for how
the senses work in our material body? All of that, all of the
stuff that you see, let me phrase it, A lot of the stuff
that you see Aristotle and a Finess say is in Maximus and is in John
Damascus. So a lot of the things. Just lay it out for me.
How does how do? How does? I don't have a problem saying
that our sense that we abstract from sense data, none of that. That's
not the problem. The problem is the epistemology is different. And if the
epistemology is different, this cancels out how whole medieval classical foundational and starting point.
And if that's the case, that's all that devastating for Roman Catholicism.
And you say, well, that's that's what I agree. No, I
agree that would be devastating if that is the case. So well, can
you give me a single Roman Catholic theologian, scholar, church person ever who
says anything like what I'm saying or disagrees with classical foundationalism. Is there any
of them? I've never seen, so it doesn't exist, right, because
we're going to be an ai chat But no, I don't even I didn't
even know that. They all agree with it in uniform. It's a it's
an outworking what's already been defined in Romanism. Right, So again, like
for example, clear, Wait, is it clear what's been defined and what's
not. I didn't know that that. I would think you would want to
argue to me that it is because you're Roman Catholic and at the point of
the papacy. It's confusing to me, though, right, I can be
honest, it's confusing to me. I don't know what's defined what's not.
I loved I heard the comment you made once upon a time a few weeks
back, that can we get an ex cathedral statement on ex cathedral statements?
I would love that. I would love that. I don't I've never seen
that. If that's what its job is, I would I would agree,
I know, honestly, I would agree. I would actually really like that.
So part of my question is, how are we now saying that we
actually do have these defined statements of what Catholicism is. That would seem to
contradict that, and I'm actually more in line with your with your other statement,
which is that I think it's pretty hard to navigate what's defined what's not.
So I don't get I get boxed in to classical foundationism. Well again,
so with everyone, with everyone in the church, because to not go
along with that would be to up sat so many fundamental things. Right.
So in other words, okay, but you see, there may not be
there may not be. Quote I from the chair of room ex Cathedral,
say that you must now believe in classical foundationalists of pistemology. The point is
that classical foundationalism sums up like the essence of scholastic ideas throughout the whole period,
including things like your doctrine of be a tivic vision. Now it's not,
but I'm saying, like the intellect does the highest faculty in man and
so forth. That kind of goes along with this. The parapatetic axiom goes
along with classical foundationalism as your epistemic approach. So I don't need like an
ex cathed I don't need that because I don't need that. If you're the
outlier and no one else in your Church teaches contrary to that. Yeah,
yeah, I mean according to you. Again, here we're at that.
Actually, not according to you, represent Roman Catholicism. If you can argue
that there's a Roman Catholic and I hope, well, if you can argue
that there's a Roman Catholic theologian that doesn't hold the classical foundational, I'm open
to hearing that. I've never heard of this because it would be so contrary
to the system. How about how about your boy? Right now, it
seems to be that I'm holding to it. Yeah, but you don't have
the liberty as a Roman Catholic to just do whatever. You're bound by a
vast network of dogmatic statements in a system. Yeah, but I still have
liberty as a person that supersedes it. Well, now it sounds like you're
not interested in defending It's again, I'm not trying to be rude, I
thought you. No, no, not that, not that. All I'm
trying to do. What I'm trying to do is get us through this the
muck of these objections, so that we can get to a place where,
like you just said, you actually don't disagree with Aristotle's with the Oriscotelian understanding
of taking an information through the sense data to arrive at conclusions. The difference
for you, you said, is that your foundations are different, and your
foundations are theistic revelation, and I'm saying that's my foundation. I also agree
with the Arisitilian understanding of taking an information through the senses to derive in an
understanding. So now you either have to tell me how that is, how
theistic revolution would disqualify a rational argument, how those things connect. That would
be nonsensical. I'm not going to affirm things like the parapetic axiom is my
first principle first, that's one example. That's why I chose that as the
starting point, right right, So my first principle is that it has to
be revealed from God, that God is the source and foundation of all things
in whom we live and move and have our argum. Nothing can be separated.
Now you're moving into the direction of what we would call natural revelation,
and I applaud, I applaud the movement. So let me no, thank
you, thank you. So I'm not offended by it. And Ali says
the Orthodox Church does not make a separation between natural and supernatural revelation. Natural
revelation is known and understood fully in the light of divine revelation. We might
say that natural relation is given and maintained by God continuously through his one divine
divine act above nature. That is why Saint Maximus Confessor, what's his one
divine act? Wait, what's his one divine act above nature? Right?
So Maximus teaches that God does know himself by one divine act. That does
not mean that all of God's acts are identical. So Maximus also teaches that
God does many actions. So we do believe that God has one divine act
by which he knows himself, but that doesn't mean that his actions are identical
to his essence. Well, in this case, his one act is identical
to it because it is an eternal, single act, and so should inherent
to him. So the quote is not denying multiple actions in God. It's
saying that God does know himself by one divine act. That's true. Maximus
says that I don't disagree with that. That's not talking about that's not talking
about whether God creates the world and enters it by one divine act. That's
that's a different dispute, and Maximus does not. It's going to be encompassed.
It's going to be encompass in the one should learn about somebody the theology
before you just state at the Thomas position and state, well again, I
didn't even finish the quote, right. This is why I say Maxews a
Confessor does not posit an essential distinction between natural revelation and the supernatural or biblical
one. According to him, the latter is the embodying of the formal of
the former in persons and actions. In other words, the content of scripture
is the same as the content of Nature, which is the divine person of
the logos. It's not saying that God is produced to one act. If
you read Book one of John Damascus, for example, this is something Taylor
Marshall does right where he goes to a quote where John Damascus says that God
has one divine act right by which he knows himself and by which he creates.
And we agree with that because there's only one God acting. So every
action of God is proper to the divine nature, which is simple and one,
and thus it's one act that God does. However, God also does
multiple acts because he does different things. So it's two different contexts. And
if you read the rest of book one of John Damascus, as you get
down to the bottom, he says that God also does many actions. So
to take one quote, like you were saying, oh, well, there's
one act, so I guess it's termism, It's not Tomism. He also
says he also says God does many actions that are different and distinct. For
example, the logi are not the same thing as walking on water. God's
divine ideas are in him, and they are many, and they're not the
same thing as walking on water. Those are two different divine acts different Yep,
they're different things. Again, as I've said, that's that's that you
want to be clear that you're not works Well, I want to be clear
you're not a tomb according to you. According to you, Yeah, can
you name a Thomas who says that there's different acts in God. I don't
need to name a Thomas. I can go to him talking in the Suma
about the one simple act literally using the analogy of the house builder. One
simple act does not mean that there's objection Thomas. So you're saying Thomas teaches
there's many acts within God, within the divine essence he says, they're all
contained in the one simple act, and then he elaborates the analogy of the
house builder. But the analogy to understanding, the analogy is to a created
thing which doesn't match up to the uncreated thing. And you're going to say,
but there's an analogy based on emotion, there's an analogy based on the
analogia entis and all this kind of stuff, and all that's based on the
first principle, right, the epistemology that that there's a similarity between the first
cause and his effects. Right, I'm not following. So the argument that
you're making about the builder of the house is based on an analogy to created
things. But the thing that we're talking about is very totally, almost totally
dissimilar to created things. That it is dissimilar. Yeah, yeah, No,
the analogy is that the analogy is that as someone grows an understanding of
a thing, there their acts. There's specific diverse acts get consolidated in the
purpose behind one single act. The question is not I can use an example.
You're missing I wos example. Let me use an example modern culture,
and you don't understand that, Kobe Bryant, hold on, hold on,
let me. Hold on, let me throw this one in there. Kobe
Bryant once said, I have two moves. I go right or I go
left. All right, this is profound and to a Toomas this is actually
easy to grasp the profundity of what he's saying. We've all watched Kobe Bryan
play. Does he only go right or only go left? Is that his
only move? No? He has step baps, he has crossovers, he
has everything. But he has seen it with such clarity that when he's going
against a defender, every little thing that he's doing amounts to him ultimately going
right or him going left. Again. This is again, I'm telling youstand
hit on it. You don't understand that the analogy is not applicable to God.
I know that you think that it is, But it doesn't answer the
objection because the analogy is not Let me finish, The analogy is not like
a created thing where there's multiple different options and actions. The thing and self
in question is one pure, simple, single act. So to make these
analogies to created things that are existing in multiplicity and have a potentiality fails.
And that's why you keep making a bridge between the created thing and the uncreated
thing as if the analogy matches up. So that's when I start to say,
now I call into question the epistemic principle because the way you describe God
is not like created things. So I don't think this analogy matches up that
you're making. So how do you have a bridge? What's the epistemic justification
for the analogy itself? That's why I went to epistemology, not to get
away from the question, but that I don't think that in your system,
the way the Tomistic system, Catholicism, whatever you're trying to argue for,
because it seems to have moved away from Tomism into something else, Like I
don't think that there's an analogy that like, I don't grant you the bridge
between the created and the uncreated. So how do you know that the properties
of created things can be applied? Wait, you don't think there's a bridge.
Wait, you don't think there's a bridge between the supernatural natural in your
What you just said, don't worry about my system, Jane, don't worry.
Hold on, Jane, don't worry about my system. You're moving the
goal. You think you came with a system, and now you've moved it
to not have a system, which is a little bit disingenuous. Hold On,
hold on, We've we've had these. You noticed you came defending days
ago, and now you're not atomist. Even that, I said, let's
talk about the trinity. I understand it from a tomistic perspective. Right,
that's the best I can do. But let's talk about the trinity. That's
that was the starting point of it, right, I don't think that there's
And then I brought up the Manu paper. You said, I read the
Manion paper, and now it's like, okay, well, I don't have
a problem with any of that stuff. Well, the Manu paper is contrary
to the autonism and pretty much every Roman Catholic epistemologist I've ever seen. Yeah,
I didn't see it. I saw him delineate. Bet you didn't see
it theistic epistemology and autonomous hold on, hold on, I saw him distinguished
between theistic epistemology and autonomous epistemology. And then spend the paper deconstructing autonomous epistolology
in all its forms really well, and then getting to the conclusion we're saying,
therefore we must insist on the theistic You know, you know that I
did not just argue there's no analogia between creatures and God. I'm arguing I
know that you don't think that. I then then that was a disingenuous response
when you said that, because I'm asking me saying what, but what is
this? What is it that you're doing? It seems to me disingenuous because
you don't think that there's no analogy between the supernatural and Now on me,
if I ask an objection, it makes me there is either. Come on,
if I ask, it's not disingenuous. It's because I know the flaw
in that system and I'm trying to get to the point of it sure being
disingenuous. So what's the basis? Do you believe in analogia? And I
don't know those words. So analogy of being? It's fundamental toutonism, right,
How do we know God by the fact that the effects are like the
first cause? And I've even said to you that again, I think this
is an insightful thing that actually bridges to a lot closer to what you're saying.
The Tim Tim Gore and I have talked about this at length that the
enlightenment brings in the is aught distinction, and it's a it's a fallacious distinction.
I'm squarely in the camp that there is ought is hold on. What
this means by taking out that is ought distinction as if there's some gap between
them, hold on, it means that what is is the thing that matters,
what is right? And to me that that squares with there being no
sort of gap between the natural and the supernatural, that there is a continuum
between it. Yeah, I agree with that, but that's the missing the
point, man, It's the point is not oh, but the point is
that we actually agree on a lot of these And so what's interesting to me
is, how then can we talk about the the let's call it the proximate
epistemology, not the foundational epistemology, but the proximate epistemology of say, like
you said, you granted that you think arisol is right about taking information in
through the senses an abstraction and universal right. So talking about that, what
is that tell us about reason? How it functions to the point, and
then we can build up. But then we can build up to the distinction.
We can build up to the distinction between the divine intellect. Why he's
one simple act, intends the end, and he contains within it all the
parts. So you want me to grant the first principle so that you can
lead me into the rest of what still tomas And you're missing the whole point,
the question of the isa. I'm not saying grant the first paying Yes,
you are. The distinction is not there at too. Now, maybe
Hume's motivations were to destroy metaphysics, and he kind of did that. It
doesn't matter. The argument stands on its own or it falls on its own
regardless of his motivations, right, So that would be an ad hominem to
say that, Oh, well, Hume's a bad person, so I don't
care about his arguments. And a lot of Ruman Catholics not saying you,
but a lot of Room Catholics will say that to me. All you're using
Hume because you're a skeptic and you're bad. You have bad motivations. You
know. I can look at the argument on its own merits. If I
begin with sense data, if I begin with a parapetic axiom, it leads
to Hume. That's the point. So I don't believe in the isot distinction.
I raise that objection to atheists. That doesn't make me an atheist by
using the objection, dude. But so that's what you're confusing. So I'm
not throwing out I don't think I'm let me finish because you don't understand what
I'm getting at that point is not do I throw out causation? And do
I throw out tilos? And don't you believe in tulos too? Jay?
You're you're believe in metaphysics. And the point is, how do we justify
the starting points the first principles? And if it's not going to be the
Tomistic way, dude, everything I'm saying Tim will tell you this, like,
you can't depart from First Principles and Thomism, it would no longer be
Taumaism. Yeah, Tim's not my authority. I'm just citing him as somebody
would. I'm not saying that he makes it know, but and he probably
would, And trust me, I hold a lot of respect for Tim,
you know I I defer a lot to him. By the way, if
you if you want to ask Tim, we can talk about the multi days
long disagreement we have over predestination and grace. So It's not like Tim and
I are just lockstep on everything where that whereas if he if he declares on
something, I'm just you know, book shut, Okay, that's what it
is. This is not how it works. I'd imagine it wouldn't work that
way for you either. If I said you, well, you know you
can you can refer to Tim, or you could refer to to to this
or that person contemporary, it wouldn't it wouldn't end it. I went to
remind everybody in the chat, you can uh send a super chat via the
stream labs functions. So stream labs is how we do superchat. Yeah.
Again, I think that. I mean it's it's I like the discussion,
but it just doesn't seem like I think we're you're missing the point of a
lot of what I'm saying, and uh sure, I'm not trying. I
don't know how I stick it to convey like. So, I'm I'm glad
that you're willing to like to question tumism, but I just don't know.
So if if you're willing to question thumism, is it a point where it's
not really a point counterpoint thing and you're just asking questions because it seems like
you are giving arguments and then you're saying, well, I'm not really giving
arguments for any position. I mean, it seems like the goalposts of mood
because I didn't know what your position. Well, I hope, I hope
not I am. I am saying here's how I understand it. I think
there's some profundity in some of these understandings. Here's my articulation of what I
understand. I am interested if as you critique it and you refine it,
that draws me closer. I believe you know the extent they're good critiques,
which I've seen a lot of them from you, that it draws me closer
to a deeper understanding. Right. Ultimately, that's my interest is that that
union with God. I I think I'm saying that earnestly right. So for
me, when I look at this like like here would be my one liner
rebuttal to the essence energies distinction cause And I know you don't agree on the
act, but to me, I'd say, okay, So if the one
simple act of God is desiring his own his own goodness, and everything that
occurs thereafter in creation is contained within that, then that's actually gonna start to
be able to count for all the myriad multiplicity of acts that we see.
And so then to introduce the energy essence distinction as the as the way of
sort of communicating those myriad multiplicity of acts, I'm gonna say, is actually
going to be then unnecessary philosophically, make it bad philosophy, and lead ultimately
to the derogation of God. That would be to me, that's like the
most interesting proposition I have to make. But if it gets so sidetracked on
which system I am a part of or which you know not, I'd actually
love to hear that get hashed out. Right. So I think that God
is one simple act desiring his own self, and within that one act that
he sees with such clarity, it's going to hold a multiplicity of acts.
So those multiplicity of acts are still going to take place. Walking on water
is different than him creating the world, different than all these other things.
And so if we add an additional direction, you're moving in the direction to
differentiate the energy essence that we're adding a superfluous distinction. Now, like I
said, this is this is a more subtle point. But where I see
it derogating the faith in God is that because now even though you hold to
his simplicity, you hold it in a bracketed sense. And then there's this
multiplicity over here, and so now we have more and more things, and
then before you know it, it's like the Trinity is obvious in his revelation.
Somehow that as you said last time, that I am which identifies as
his essences, I am he according to Patmos or Patamos or Palamos, or
be familiar with some of the How does he become tried even familiar with this
tradition and you're already ready to sound off on it. You don't even know
who it is. I'm not trying to be a no, no, you're
right, And it's like I'm just listening and I'm like, you have no,
I don't even know what I don't know what it is you have any
already with the with the have no idea Eastern the Eastern fathers the first say
a thousand years do? You very very limited? So why why would you
why would you think that like it's appropriate then to think I'm going to solve
this with a lot of like well, I read Thomas here and I'm not
faulting you for trying to work it through. But the way to work it
through is not like speculating about how to prop up the system that you have,
but to begin to read these people like Basil and like Ceyl of Alexandria.
Let me give an example to make this concrete again. What do you
eat in the Eucharist if you don't believe in the essen center distinction, the
divine substance of God? No Roman Catholic teaches that you eat the divine essence.
Come on, dude, do you know your Roman Catholicism? What?
Yes? I do? Do? They say the body? That's what they
say that the divine substance? No Roman Catholic teacher. Right, So my
question is what's the divinity? It's not the essence of God that you're eating.
Your church is already I'm not falling, I'm not following the question.
This is where we get to the essence introducetinction. It's it's defined at ephesis.
Man, it's in Cyril, right. So this is why you need
to know those things before sort of like trying to argue it or debate it.
Right, Cyril says, we don't eat the essence of God and it's
not another creature. It is the divine immortality and uncreated energies that deify the
Eucharist, which is the flesh of Christ. So you're partaking of the uncreated
energies, according to Saint Cyril of Ephesis itself. That's why when I ask
you what you eat, you said the divine essence. Yeah, no,
Romancheay teachers that you eat the divine essence. You teach that it's a created
substance, a created great I actually said, the divine subcent Excuse me,
it's a created accident in the soul. You don't eat the divine essence?
No, Romanchelly, teacher, is that that I'm taking in the divine substance
that I'm nourishing, sanctifying. You don't eat the divine essence. That's not
your church is teaching. And I go ask any Roman Cavolt okay. And
my point is that this illustrates how your system doesn't make sense and you need
the essence centered distinction, which eis solves us for you already. Right.
What I'm saying is that all the things that you're talking about with with the
energy distinction, well map onto the right understanding of the divine simple ass So
everything it just blows over your head, no idea what we're talking about.
I mean, you think that you're eating the divine homes dude, but you
you already said it that I have to go read all these things at length.
So why would I Why would I now jump back into it? Yeah?
Why would I now jump back into that same stream of conversation? Obviously
I'm gonna move on to the next thing, because I'm granting you that I
got to read all the tones on all these Eastern thinkers in order to me.
You could read a few of them to begin, just to start out,
Yes, for example a couple For example at Ephesus at Ephesis Cyril,
when he expounds ephesis, he explains that it is not the divine essence that
we eat in the Eucharist, because you understand that nobody believes that your church
does not teach you that you eat the divine essence. Okay, it's already
dogmatized. I can read you the statements if you want. That what's in
the soul and what you partake of is a supernatural accident in the soul that
is a creation. So you believe that, right, right? No,
that. I mean, that's that's sanctifying grace. Yeah, I know that
it's nourishing my sanctifying grace. You think that, so you think the divine
substance is a creature? Exactly? You see the problem here? Sure?
Sure, but I'm saying that what I'm getting in the Do you not understand
how entitative habit? Do you not understand that you just contradicted yourself. You
said you eat the divine substance. You said it supernatural creation, when I
would is the divine substance? That is the divine substance a creature? Hold
on it is? No? Okay? So no, I just said no,
so you eat the what the divine essence? No? Apparently not right.
So your church has dogmatized that it's a supernatural creation, so that the
grace itself is a creature, So it's not so you understand that itself shows
you it's not that. Yeah, that grace is grace is a created effect.
No, grace itself, not the effects, the grace itself. What
are you partaking of? You have to have the essence inergy stinction, and
it's already an ephesis, is the point. Cyril has already explained this no,
what see what what? What I would what? I would understand it
as here, here's what I would understand it as God in his one symbol.
Don't you want to understand a lot of other things? Are you above?
I want to understand this is? This is the problem? Hold on,
hold on? Is what you want to understand it as that's the point.
Yeah, there are going to be times where God interacts with creation within
that header of his one simple act right and those things he's going to show.
What what Thomas would say is that it's it's not any change in him
because God is present and there to all things. He says that he's in
all things by his power, his presence, and his essence. So if
he's in all things by those by those three, by his power, directing
things by his presence, having all things open and bear to him, hold
on, hold on. If he's in that way, hold on, hold
on. If he's there in that way, then anytime there's a creative effect,
it's not going to necessitate a change in him, but a change in
creation already contradicted yourself. So now you realize you're saying that substance earlier,
and now it's a creative effect. It can't be better because you asked me.
Yeah, let's back up, you asked me, Do I not recognize
that I contradicted myself according to what you're saying? And no idea. It
shows that you guys follow what you're saying, right, so you reject EPHISI
says the point because is not trying to. But it's a clearly expounded for
you already by Cyril in the Two Letters to six Census where he talks about
the Eucharus being uncreated immortality that you partake of quote not the divine essence.
So it's already been explained. But you guys follow a second millennium guy that
tells you that is I call what you're saying. Yeah, And that's just
one example. I just chose the Ucharus as a easy reference point in the
two Letters to sixth sense, especially this. I think it's the second letter
where Cyril explains this. Anyway I am gonna do. So hold on,
we're gonna have to have another discussion because I have to go. I got
Burmus coming on here in a little bit. We got another podcast we're gonna
get into. Yeah, we're gonna get into Jeff Stein MC Effrey pretty soon.
I've got a couple of super chats here. Do you want to any
any closing ideas or I thought you have. No, I just want to
say that I appreciate you, you know, having me on. I think
what my final parting shot would be that there are gonna be times where my
my language is sloppy, as you seem, you know, as you well
pointed out, and so to me when I don't all of a sudden fold
right there, it's sort of a granting that, Yeah, if I get
down to the core of it, I think I'm understanding one piece of it,
right, so we have sanctifying grace. It's nourishing that in saying maybe
another piece. But I could have used, you know, certainly a term
that that, by the way, is sloppy from an intellectual perspective, so
to my own detriment having done that. But what I'm trying to do here
in this conversation is present what I think our good ideas, interested in your
takes on these things, your rebuttals to them, your critiques, and not
just the critiques of what I'm because I do appreciate it. Next time,
I'm happy to if we're gonna have another chat. Maybe me and you and
Tim can have a big passion it or something. I'm happy to address more
so what my position would be. But I took it like you were coming
to present tomism and we kind of moved away from that, which is fine.
It doesn't bother me. Okay, Well, I apologize that that it
didn't seem clear on that, and you certainly have no you know, I
appreciate you having me on. There's no obligation to have me back on.
You got a great, big audience. I love it. I'm a part
of it, you know. So you have a do you want me to
link your Twitter? I know you're on Twitter. Do you have a channel
on? No, I don't. I don't tweet, but my I mean
my substack. I have a AJ Barker link is my substack, and I've
I've got a short novel that I'm dropping here at the end of the month
that I will do serially in parts. So yeah, I mean that I'll
link all that before I check it out. But yeah, if you're watching
this later, I'll have all of AJ stuff linked in the show description.
Verrella second since twenty five bucks and says, do you have a video or
Licener reviews either of the following Soviet America by William Foster or the nineteen fifty
three book Communist Activities in New York, and it's an area of hearings.
No, I've not heard of those books, but they sound interesting. I'm
always in the Cold War stuff. DC would working five dollars. I'm enjoying
your Red book, Jay, very interesting topics. Thank you so much.
DC appreciate that. Cerrial up on number ten dollars. I'm back from a
long hiatus. I hope you're doing well. Do you plan to have another
event or talking Ashville anytime soon? I just looked to Jamie Kennedy today.
He wants to do a an LA event, so I don't know if we'll
do a Nashville event. He wants to try to do that. In March,
Tim and I were talking about trying to set up a national event,
and then we got busy with going to Italy for three weeks, and then
I got super sick from that. So I still want to try to make
the national thing happen. What we'll just see, but I'll keep that in
mind. Cyril, thank you for that. Super chat. Guys, if
you want to sport the show. Do so VI super chats through stream labs
one loves since ten dollars and says, is the act identical to the essence?
If so, does the essence have any array? I don't know what
you mean by I know what that means. Does the act become an array
when it interacts with creation? So? I think some Thomas argue that God
is absolutely simple, and he knows himself by one single act, and then
when he creates that multiplicity is a feature of the created order, and that
somehow in God there's multiplicity. But not really, because also the divine ideas
are synonymous with the absolutely simple essence. So I don't believe that that problem
or distinction is over resolved. Our friend here has a different approach to that
which you already heard. If you want to, you super chatted pretty late,
so maybe you want to go back you can hear his account of that.
Guys, I want to remind you too that we have the The show's
sponsor is my favorite based red pill company, tonkat Alie. Go get that
Tonkat one hundred. Use the promo code J fifty to get fifty percent off
all of those awesome products. Of course, as you guys know we have
the chad Mode, which is your excellent non toxic pre workout. It's I
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So be sure and headed at Chalk dot Com use the promo code j fifty
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the Male Vitality Stack that they have up on the front there. It includes
the Action two point zero, I think, the ton kat Elie and the
chad Mode pre workout, So go get those products. Thanks again to AJ
for coming on guys. I will be with Burmas tonight. I got to
figure out if if we got to do it on Rock Fin, it might
be too spicy for YouTube because because Burmas is very studied in the the jeff
Stein McAffrey stuff. I've gone way deep down that rabbit hole in the last
few days. In fact, I'm about halfway through Whitney Webb's book, So
I don't know if we can pull that one off on YouTube. It might
have to be over on Rockfin. We'll see, but regardless, I will
either be here in one hour with burmas or over on rockfin Aj. Thanks
again for coming on. We'll do another chat in the near future. I
appreciate you handling it like a chat. You didn't spurg out, you didn't
get mad. We got heated, but it was still fun. Yeah,
yeah, how men should do it. I feel absolutely yeah. I told
my buddy I was like, this guy seems more like an Aquinas, like
like a like an Aquinas frat bro, which is better than the like the
bros. Right, So like, yeah, I'm sure the glasses and like,
well, right, no, there's no I don't detect any soy physiognomy
pass, so we're good to have the check