Speaker 1: Welcome, welcome, Can you get me five.
Speaker 2: Four three two one.
Speaker 1: Zero dire wave dire way. The scientific method cannot justify
the scientific method. Therefore itself is a dogmatical physic.
Speaker 3: Subsision stop stop stop stop stop steps stop stop stop stops.
Speaker 4: Sensing sensing.
Speaker 1: A stass.
Speaker 4: Step. It's asssssssssstopsstssssssstopsssssh start start star sang.
Speaker 1: What's up? What's up? What's up? Welcome? Audio? Good? Can
you hear me? Felow quite, felow quite? Chat? Catch up?
Make sure you can hear me? When is ESA Turk
Hollywood two coming out? Bruh, it's been out since December,
it's been out for six months. Signed copies that Jayson aalysis,
by the way, does it sound good? Okay, welcome y'all
to Sunday. Addition, Jay's analysis, Bruh, asking about my book
Part two, Part two been out? Allow me to put
the link in the chat. Volume is a little low, okay,
all right? Oh well, the link to the chat right
there in the chat. Get yourself a signed copy of
us The Turk Hollywood one and two. Let me make
sure that my Mike's volume is up high enough in
the computer settings. First, I'm fixing the volume. Ah, that's one.
Apple has a tendency to automatically move the volume in
the computer settings low, so that should be better. Hollywood
Decoded too, No, no, there's not gonna be a Hollywood
Decoded too. It never was ago. They never did. Okay that,
but you can come and enjoy movies with me. I
just posted my alien analysis. Well, Aliens towerk for you
to fulfill your licentious pleasures that all you webs have.
We all know why you want to break into area
fifty one because of your insatiable lusts, and so I
made a video for you with Aliens twerking. I thought
it was very funny. The first five minutes are very
Samuel Heidstein, but welcome to jamesonnalysis. So the timing was perfect,
wasn't it to cover the debate between an Orthodox and
a Barley mine? Now I read this book ten years ago.
I read the debate ten years ago, and after all
of what's transpired in the last few months, the various
debates and whatnot, I thought, why not go back and
reread this? So I did the last couple of days,
and for those that don't know, it is now reprinted
under snuy Sunni New York Press, so you don't have
to buy the three hundred dollars version on Amazon, which
actually I gave away to a dude, Jason Nelson's supporter
Ludwig on Twitter. I didn't realize that I was giving
away three hundred dollars book. I hope he appreciates that.
But actually the books twenty bucks that you can buy
it at snuy Press on their website. You have to
go to their website on Amazon. You know, it's like
three hundred dollars on Amazon, So don't buy that one.
It has a good scholarly introduction for what it is.
The scholars, of course don't really get orthodox theology, but
they do their best, and if you read the thirty
forty page introduction you get a decent overview of what
the background is why this debate happened. Now, let's talk
about that first. Because in the debate with our UNI
eight person a couple of days ago, we heard many
many times over that the Franciscans and the Scotis or
what matter, And they prove that the Tomistic or in
the vein of the Tomistic version of absolute devind simplicity
is not actually Roman Catholic dogma. Why because of John
Scotus and he's an accepted theologian. That's not how Roman
Catholic dogma works. You can't rewind in time to find
somebody in the seventh century, the fourth century, the thirteenth
century when dogmas later become defined in Roman dogma. So
it literally does not matter what John duns Scotis said
about a matter that is later codified. Now he would
have if we had gotten into the debate, he would
have said, yeah, But John don Scotus is a acceptable
theologian in Rome Catholicism, so therefore any opinion that he
has is acceptable. Really, no, that's not how it works.
Thomas Aquinas has theological opinions that were later not accepted
in Rome Catholicism. Does that mean that because Aquinas isn't
accepted theologian, that any of his opinions are therefore acceptable. No,
of course not, because that's not how the Roman system works.
How often do the Roman Catholics tell us this constantly?
They constantly tell us that the reason that we need
the pope is because there's no way to discern the
dogma from opinions. And what do many of the Roman
Catholic theologians, especially those in the Uniate circles, wants us
to believe. Oh, much of this, you see, is just
in the realm of opinion. But as I've always argued
for many years now, at least not always always, but
many years now, the doctrine of divine simplicity in the
West is not just a doctrine that relates to propositions
about the simplicity of the divine nature. It's the founding
presupposition that infects the totality of the Roman Catholic worldview. So,
if my thesis is correct, it's not just a matter
of finding the council of Rhymes saying that all of
the attributes are equated to one another, which is what
Denzinger says in that quote in my essay show. It's
also a matter of looking at the other implications of
that doctrine. That's always been the argument. That's not some
new thing I've tacked on, as our opponent said the
other day, It's always been the argument, and all the
essays that have been writing, there's dozens of these essays,
dozens of papers, countless talks, and so therefore it's not
just a matter of looking at what the propositions are
in Denzinger about divine simplicity. Now we do do that.
We start there, We look at the different propositions about simplicity,
and there's five or six that are explicit in Denzinger
about that from the early on all the way up
until Vatican one statement. But that's not all that we do,
because that's not all the doctrine of simplicity in the
Roman Catholic scheme relates to. You see, it also gives
their christology a specific approach, a specific series of statements
set of statements, because divine simplicity effects obviously necessarily how
one will view the incarnation. How is it possible that
one hypostasis of the Trinity becomes incarnate and not the
entire Trinity becoming incarnate. So we have to have a
theology that allows for the possibility of one hypostasis, one
person in the Trinity, the second person, the Logos, entering
into a mode of being a tropos that the other
two persons, the Father and the Spirit, do not. Now, ultimately,
Roman Catholic theology, in its doctrine and statements of simplicity,
especially in Tunism, does not really coherently allow for the
second person of the Trinity to become incarnate. Do they
believe and confess that he did? Of course they do.
Of course Aquinas says many true things. Course course of
Quinas thought that the Logos became incarnate. That's not the argument.
The argument is not what he thought. The argument is
not did he at times confess true things? The argument
is that he confesses conflicting things. Two different arguments, very simple.
So if we equate attributes and persons, if we say
that the Son is the equivalent to the will of God,
if we say that the Son is literally identical to
the energies or the essence of God, which Roman Cathic
theology does say, we can't also in another book of
the Suma or in another place turn around and say,
but he's also truly distinct, and he became incarnate and
not the Father, not the Spirit. Because if the distinctions
are real, and they are then from the outset, we
don't have a problem of assuming the distinction entails composition
or division in this. When we go through these arguments
with these people, that's consistently what they come back to.
There cannot be a distinction between God's essence and his
activities or his energies, because that would lead to composition
in God. That wo mean God has accidents. Well, no,
he does not, and we don't say that. For John Damascus,
when he argues for the uncreated energies being distinct from
the essence, he does not think of them as accidents.
In God right, God is not cut up into substance
an accident. And if we read the philosophical investigations the
excuse me, the fount of knowledge he explains this. He
also states in defensive Orthodox faith that God does not
have substance an accident, as if he was composed. However,
the uncreated energies are not accidents. They are uncreated energies.
You see. So we constantly will see the clever word
games and tricks that the Roman Catholics play to get
around these facts. And what I wanted to bring up
with Scotos was that John Donscotis dies when san Gregor
Palomos as a child. San Gregor Palomos is a kid,
a young child, when John dons Scotis dies. And then
after the controversies of the Middle Ages, particularly the debate
between a Barleymite and Orthodox, we have the clear parting
of ways. You see, there's a development to these things.
This debate shows you the development and what path did
the Roman Church take. There's no disputing this. Clearly they
took the Barleamite path. Any Roman galactyologian that you talked
to today will argue the Barleamite positions even if he
doesn't know who Barlem is, because it's eventually codified into
their dogmas. It's not just codified in the statements about
what simplicity is, you see, and that's why this debate
is not just about what simplicity is. What does Saint
Gregory Palamas say towards the middle debate? He says, the
real difference between you and I is that for us,
Grace is uncreated and for you Grace is a supernatural creation.
The Roman Catholic dogma is that Grace is a supernatural creation.
It is not an uncreated grace. That's why in the
debate with Luke, I listed the four statements directly from
the first four statements in Ludwig Gott about what grace is.
Now we're a Roman Catholic at this point will typically say, yeah,
but he Grace is cause and caused Okay, it's cause
and effects, right. All that means is that the effects
are created. God himself is uncreated, and you, as a creature,
received the effects of grace, and therefore that's all it means. No, no, no, no, no,
that's not all it means. You see, because in Trent,
in the Anathemas of Trent under Justification, it says that
the righteousness that you get is not the righteousness that
God has. If you read Lagrange's commentary on a Quinas, specifically,
when he talks about grace, he says, it is a
supernatural creation. It is not the essence of God. We
are speaking of the grace itself. We're not talking about persons,
the creatures who receive the effects. We're not talking about
God himself. We're talking about the grace itself. What is it?
This has been answered in Roman Catholic dogmatic theology. That's
why Ludwig got lists four statements. There's many, but the
first four make this point very clearly. Grace is a
supernatural created accident in the soul. Hence, this debate goes
too many different areas. It's not just the debate about
propositions about divine simplicity, it's a debate about Christology. It's
a debate about the beatific vision. It's a debate about
how the human nature in Christ is affected by the
divine person assuming it. This debate literally goes to all
the places that you hear me go. You think that
I make these things up. You think that I'm just
saying this stuff. No, no, no, it's all right here
and rereading this after ten years, just like a few
months ago we reread Saint John Damascus defensely Orthodox Faith.
We lectured all the way through it, and two or
three years before that, we lectured through a fount of knowledge.
Everything that I've been saying is correct. I'm not wrong.
So let's get into this work itself. Oh but so
to sum up, in response to the chief objection to
our debater last time, his chief argument was that you've
changed your position because at one time you said that
tumism is the Roman Caolic dogma simplicity. Yes and no. Okay. So,
on the one hand, not everything that Thomas says is dogma.
We all know this, we all admit this, and even
in divine simplicity, Okay, you could argue that not every
statement that Thomas says is the dogmatic definitions in Denzinger. No,
that's true. But if we want to understand the import
and force of the argument, it has never been about
just claims relating to what simplicity is. That's only one
part of the argument. Because this is our starting point.
This is two different order of theologis right, the West
has a different order theologi from the East. Now, the
easiest way to disprove what the Uniate was saying was
to simply point out that it cannot be the case
that two rival theologies right here which anathematize each other,
can for centuries be in opposition. And then after the
ecumenical period of Vatican two, suddenly Gregory Palomos is a saint.
Now this is absurd. That alone shows you that Roman
Catholicism cannot be correct, because they cannot say at one time,
for many centuries Polemism is yoga or Hinduism or whatever
nonsense they come up with, and then after Vatican two
is suddenly because of ecumenical interests, oh you're acceptable, right,
Oh well, for many centuries, Uniates just ignored Rome on purgatory,
on how they viewed Palomos, how they viewed the energies,
and now it's acceptable. There's no midway between grace being
a supernatural creation and grace being uncreated. They're two mutually
exclusive positions, and in Orthodoxy it's condemned. It's sung in
the liturgy that we anathematize the Latin view that came
to dominate after this debate. So, in other words, it's
never been just propositions that relate to divine simplicity. It's
also been about the philioquay, because the Romancathoic position doesn't
understand what eternal manifestation is. The entire argument of the
Palamite son odds after this that relate to Philioquay and
uncreated energies centers around the statements and the fathers about
eternal manifestation. The modern the Vatican clarification on the Philioquay
from a few years ago still admits the tension between
the East and the West on the point of eternal
manifestation and on the point of Florence in the Double Procession.
It admits that Florence says that the son also participates
in the father's hyposthetic role as cause the son participates
in being a co cause he's not the principal cause principolitar,
as it says, he's a co cause. The son does
not participate in the Father's unique property that blends the persons.
There's only one cause in the Godhead, as all the
fathers in the East say, and that's the person of
the Father. There's not a secondary cause in the Godhead.
There's not a property that the father and the son share.
The spirit lacks. And if father and son are a
co cause, which Florence clearly says, and Florence explicitly says
that the Father and the son are a cause not
just of the projection of the spirit, of the eternal
manifestation of the spirit, of the hypostasis of the Spirit
explicitly says that, and the hints. Even the Ecumenical statement
of the Vatican Clarification on the Philioque admits that the
Eastern and the Western positions are still in tension on
this point. I know what I'm talking about. Secondly, as
I said many times, you cannot have a doction of
eternal manifestation without a doction of uncreated energies, because the
eternal manifestation is is the eternal manifestation of the energies.
That's what the thing means. That's what the statement means.
It's impossible to believe in eternal manifestation without uncreated energies.
This is precisely where the Roman Catholics confuse the doctrine.
This is the whole root of the doctrine. And that's
why I showed you in the second half of the
debate the statement from the Papadacus book about eternal manifestation
in the Palomite Synods. Now, not just the question of
the Roman Catholic doctrines of simplicity in Denzinger, not just
the question of Christology and how one person could become
incarnate an enter into emotive being that the other two
do not. Which again, if if God is an absolutely
simple essence in the way that the Roman Catholics almost
always define it, how does one hypostasis enter into emotive
being that the other two do not. This would would
require change and alteration in the absolute simple essence of
Gotten and as a result, all of their talk of
virtual conceptual, nominal logical distinctions would also therefore apply to
the incarnation, and the incarnation would then be virtual, conceptual, logical,
nominal and not real and therefore they would be here
six but they don't want to admit that. But if
they were consistent with their view of God's energies and
God's actions in this world being strictly created, that the
theophanies are created, they would also deny the incarnation. But
the point is that they're not consistent. Point is not
do they say correct things at times? Yes, point is inconsistency.
So not only is there a problem in the statements
on simplicity itself by equating the attributes in the essence,
which Denzinger does explicitly. Not only is there a problem
with Christology and the uncreated energies relating to his humanity,
denying the uncreated energies which the efficce anity, which the
sixth Council explicitly teaches and says. Not only is there
a question of the philioque and the denial and confusion
and not knowing what eternal manifestation is. There's also the
question of the created grace, as we said, which they
say explicitly and dogmatically is a supernatural created accident, which
we deny. There's also the question of the sacraments. You say,
the same problems across the board. God God relating to
coming into the world with the Theophanes, God relating to
coming into the world in terms of the incarnation, and
then God coming into the world through the Church in
our ecclesiology and our sacramentology. In the Realmanchaolic view, if
you really believe in the real presence, then the Eucharist
is the essence of God. That has retarded. Nobody believes
that the Eucharist is the essence of God, except for
roalman Catholics, who say that that is the body, blood, soul,
and divinity. What is the divinity that's there? Is it
a supernatural created accident or is it God himself? Now
in their praxis, they believe that it is God himself.
But if it's God himself, then it has to be
the essence of God. Does it not? Does exactly? We
would say that that is preposterous. The Eucharist is not
the essence of God. It has not changed into the
essence of God. If you believe in absolute divine simplicity,
then it has to be the essence of God. The
uncreated energies deify and change the elements. That's the Eastern view.
Just like in Christology, the uncreated energies defy his humanity,
as John Damascus says in Book three of Defense of
the Orthodox Faith. Secondly, thirdly, Sixthly, not just the sacramental issue,
but the beatific vision. Luke ought to know that the
beatific vision is one dogma in the Romechallic Church. There's
no disputing that. Nobody disputes it. It's dogma. But no
Orthodox theologian believes in the beatific vision. We believe that
that is heretical and nonsensical and stupid. Roman Catholic theologians
across the world will say that the light of Mount
Tabor in Matthew seventeen, the transfiguration is a created light.
Because God's absolutely simple essence can't enter in through time
and space. How can that be an uncreated light? Oh
but wait a minute. Scripture actually says they saw the
glory of God. Is the glory of God created? No,
it's not. Jesus says in John seventeen that the glory
that he shared with the Father before the foundation of
the world, obviously that's not created. Is what he gives
to his saints. That's not created. It's uncreated. There's only
two options. There's no mediating term. This is the absurdity
of the positions that they call us a dial that
we have a diad, that we believe in two gods,
an uncreated and a created God. No, right, we don't
believe that the essence of God is a different God
from the uncreated energies. There's only one God. God is
Holy present in every one of his energies, as Saint
Gregory says. And we don't think in dialectics in terms
of God. If you start to think in dialectics in
terms of God, you will be Amian. You will be
an absolutely simple essence proponent in a Eunomian or Plutonian sense.
And that's why they actually literally have the doctrine of Eunomius.
All right, so let's get into this. So oh, and
they also don't have in their anthropology the doctrine of
the noose, which is an outworking of divine simplicity, because
if humanity is made in the image of an absolutely
simple essence, where nature and person are confused in God,
nature and person will be confused in humanity, and that's
exactly what happens in Western anthropology. Therefore, they have the
loss of the doctrine of the news. They don't believe
that man is a tripartite creation body soul, noose. They
believe that man is a body and an intellect. They
believe in a diad, a dialectical vision of man, especially
after Augustine, a body and soul. And that's why none
of them, none of them, No Catholic theologians teach the
docrine of the News. Now, all of those doctrines is,
including the recapitulation, which you could throw that in there
as well, have been lost in the West totally. The
West does not believe any of those things. Those are
all demonstrably the result and intimately tied to and connected
to the doctrine of absolute divine simplicity. So when I
say absolute divine simplicity, that is all the stuff that
I mean. I don't just mean statements in Denzinger that
only apply to the essence of God. And if you
don't know, Denzinger is the sources of Catholic dogma. That
has always been the argument. If Luke had paid attention
to the many, many, many talks that we've done, he
would see that we're not just listing the only reason
I have the essay that lists the dogmas about absolute
divince simplicity is because that's what that essay is about.
All of the other essays are about the outworkings of
this theology theological error in all these other areas. Don't
you see? There you go now. The scholarly introduction to
this work notes at the beginning that the argumentation from
Saint Gregory against the barleymite is from Saint Maximus. Of
course it is. You've heard me many times quote Saint
Maximus on the uncreated energies. The apologetic, as the introduction notes,
is one against platonism. Yes, thank you for the know
nothings who think that palmism is platonism. The whole apologetic
is against platonism. You have no idea what you're talking about.
How is this theosis achieved? Do we believe that this theosis,
this deification is achieved, this knowledge of God, this seeing
of God through rational inquiry and ratiocinations. No, the rational
noetic faculties of man are a natural faculty. They are created.
They're good. There's nothing wrong with human logic, human contemplation,
human reasoning. I mean, this book involves reasoning, contemplation, and logic. Obviously, this,
by the way, is another reputation of the piodox the
hyper pious who don't believe that you should debate or
do theology in the sense of arguing with or defending
the faith against the heretics, even though thousands of pages
of church Father's works do this. Many hyper pious, super
pious people. Oh, anyone who debates misses the spirit of Orthodoxy.
Palamism is not about debating. Here's a whole debate from
san Gregory Palamas. Total idiocy, total lunacy, stupidity, and really
it's just a cloak for spiritual pride. That's all that is.
That people who say that just want you to think
that they're super spiritual. And thus we have to see
then that the achieving of the vision of God is
not a rational exercise. It's not achieved through algorithms, achieved
through mastering the church. For others, it's not achieved through
the logic of Aristotelian syllogisms. It's not achieved through mastering
Thomas's Summa's it's not achieved through mastering apologetics. Now, all
of those things can be good things, but those are
all created things. There's no other You can't look to
another created thing to achieve the uncreated. The uncreated transcends
those created things, It uses created things. It deifies its energies,
the energies of God. I'm saying his energies, I should say,
to be more precise, his energies, because they are in hypostatic.
They're not abstract. They're always personal. Right, His energies interpenetrate
all of creator reality. They are not blended with creative reality.
Creator reality does not become the Us of God. We
are not pantheists. We reject pantheism. We do not believe
that the energies are abstract, impersonal forces out there. No,
they are personal, and hence they are in hypostatic, in hypostotized.
But the point is that it is only through the
correct prayer life, the correct approach to liturgy, through humbling oneself,
through repentance, that one can approach and achieve the truth.
That's the big difference here, right, You cannot attain to
the truth through mere intellect. You have to repent to
attain to the truth. And that's the first starting point.
Is that it begins by kind of rebuking the Barleyamites
for this platonic rational approach. Again, don't think in dialectical terms.
We're not setting reason against God or against faith. We're
not saying that that would be feediism, that would be
the evangelical error that many ameerdos have adopted, especially converts
from evangelicalism, who think that you shouldn't do apologetical Oh well, so,
John Damascu is one of the great theologis of the
church who wrote many, many books on apologetics. Is therefore wrong.
This is to be absurd. It's just ignorance. And most
of the time that again, the people who speak that
way are actually just cloaking their own pride. They feel
that they are superior to doing apologetics, or to defending
the faith, or to any of these things, and so
it gives them a feeling of superiority to you. It's
just a cloak for pride. It it's just a version
of prelist But no, in fact, you cannot achieve these
things through any created energy or created subject, substance, created form.
The grace of God is uncreated and therefore must come
to us through humility, through repentance. It can't be an
intellectual vision of some essence or some abstract form, or
some platonic maze. That you're you're navigating to get to
the monad. So we are not Platonists. The beginning point
of this whole approach is the rejection of Platonism, the
rejection of Hellenism consistently, and that's why in the Triads
the very beginning, Sam Gregory says that Plato and the
Greeks and Platonism are demonic, and some Catholic clown was
trying to argue with me saying that he didn't say that,
and after I showed him all the statements in the
Triads at the beginning where he says that, he just says, well,
that's not what he means. No, that's what he says,
and that's what he means, because even the scholars in
this work tell you that you can't achieve God through
mere reason. And again many people then make the opposite
end mistake of thinking that, oh, well, then human reasoning
is itself evil and bad. No, Jesus assumed human nature
and then includes human will and reasoning. Right, So if
Jesus assumed it and healed it, it's not inherently wrong.
He assumed all of the human faculties proper to human nature,
and thereby deified them and healed them. So you can't
then interject aspects into human nature that are somehow inherently evil. Oh,
human reasoning is therefore evil. No, it's not. It has
to be deified, has been transformed. The creations of God
show his energies.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: This is what Basil says in the letter two thirty four.
We know God through his works in creation. This is
why there is an analogia in Orthodoxy, contrary to what
some heretics say that there's absolutely no analogia. That's not true.
There is, but Barlem is a heretic because he ends
up with the view that there that there's a created divinity.
And therefore, as the scholars in this note that I've
said one hundred thousand times, the simplicity doctrine that Barlem
has is Eunomian. Exactly if you read in the Catholic
Encyclopedia what the Eunomian doctrine of simplicity is, that's exactly
what the Roman Catholics say. Saint Gregor Palma says, the
root of all of these errors is the simplicity doctrine.
And it's not a question of Aristotilian dialectics of substance
and accident that will determine this ultimately. But in fact,
what is revealed ultimately is a question of submitting our
intellect and our human pride in our philosophy to what
Revelation says exactly so absolute divine simplicity. According to Saint Gregory,
Palamas rehashes the errors of Arius, the Massallians who claim
to see the essence of God, Utikeys, the Utaychian Utychians,
and the Eunomians, all the stuff that you've heard me
argue say. Gregory says that we are separate from Hellenism,
and so there is a Jerusalem versus Athens that work here.
Why do I say this because I've spent many, many
years trying to look at this issue. I'm not saying
it's right because I spent many years. I'm just saying
that I know what I'm talking about. The last ten
years have been focused on this question of Hellenism, the
Patristic era and the one in the Many, so I
have a sense of what I'm talking about here. Now
we can go, for example, to Dionysius sat Dinysius the
Area Apiciite. He's the first to really take up this
issue after the Apostles, and he says that God is
both one and many, and he transcends one in many.
He says that that does not compromise the unity of
God because we genuinely think that he's both one and many. Right,
we can't predicate of God in any absolute sense, and
so there is a via negativa or the apathetic way,
apathetic theology, meaning that we predicate of God what he
isn't right, But there's also a valid cataphatic approach.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: We can say positive things about God, such as that
God is Father's Son and Holy Spirit, right, because that's
what's revealed. We start our order of theologic from what's revealed.
And this is why Basil, when he's interacting with the
blatonic Hellenic idea, he contrasts himself with this platonic idea
by saying, when we talk about the One, we don't
say that the One is an it. We say that
the One is he, right, and that constantes constitutes personality
personhood hypostasis. When we say that God is he, we
are primarily and principally talking about the person of the Father.
This is what Paul says. We read this every Sunday
and the Thanksgiving and the liturgies for every good gift
comes down from the Father of Lights. That's quoting Paul
the Creed says, we believe in one God, the Father.
So the principle of unity, the source of unity, begins
with the person of the Father, doesn't begin with abstractions
about the essence of God, doesn't begin with abstractions that
come from Hellenism. Now, at this point, when a lot
of people get confused, and they'll kind of they will
kind of veer off into other areas and they'll say, well,
but John uses the term logos. Jay, so clearly right,
think of a logloss. Right, that has to mean the
same thing that the pagan audience has in mind. Otherwise
he couldn't do apologetics. So when John and John Want
says logos, it's the same thing that Marcus Aurelius is
talking about, except it's not You see what you will
begin to see when you really, really, really study in depth.
And I've read countless works on this topic. I'm not
saying that makes me right. I mean I've read the
entire Pelican series, right, all of the all five values
in Pelican, especially when he talks about this. I've read
Jandy Kelly, I've read you name it, I've read the
Patristic era treatments of these issues, and I've read most
of these fathers themselves on these issues. And Jerusalem versus
Athens is kind of at the root of this whole thing.
This is the problem. And this is where we depart
from the Catholic view, the Roman Kelly view, because if
we look at Marcian, Okay, let's start with the early
early heretics, Marcian sees a dialectical tension contrast between the
God of the Old Testament who's mean, and the love
God of the New Testament, who's nice. Okay, this is
very common today. Okay, Marcian has a presupposition about either
or right. Either God is the mean God of the
Old Testament or he's this nice God to love in
the New Testament, and those two things and conflict. So
I'm going to go with the nice love God of
the New Testament. Now, this is a stupid approach with theology,
and it of course it ignores many, many clear proofs
of the continuity between the Old and New Testament. And so,
for example, in against heresies, Santor Innaeus has a lengthy
section where he refutes Marcian and he goes to many
many things that prove the continuity of the Old and
New Testament, explicitly refuting Martianism, explicitly refuting Martian's denial of
the historicity of the Old Testament. But that's a beginning
point where we start to see a departure between Jerusalem
and Athens, right, and I'm using those terms loosely there.
That's kind of a shorthand for the long term battle
between the Hellenic ideas. We're not talking about Greek culture,
We're not talking about Greek food. We're talking about Hellenic
philosophic assumptions. That's the key here. So don't misunderstand when
I'm saying Hellenic errors. I'm not talking about Greeks, I'm
not talking about people. I'm not talking about culture, talking
about the specific philosophic ideas. So and then when we
move into these different gnostic groups, we see that many
of the Gnostics, for example, that Aeronea stills with in
the first three hundred pages of his Against Heresies, many
of them were infected with these bizarre Platonic views, Platonic theory.
Many of them, not all of them, but many of them.
When we move into the period of the post Apostolic apologists, Okay,
let's take tation tation was early on a student of
Justin Martner sat Justin Marter, the philosopher as he's called,
who was an apologist who did use philosophy. But what
Tationan did was he got too involved by the Greeks.
He fell into the dialectical philosophy of the Greeks, and
unfortunately Taitan went into heresy. And then as a result
of tait some of his students became I believe they
were the ancretites, right, many of his students became these
not stick Marcianite vegans. Okay, that's listed in John Damascus's heresiology.
It's also i think listed by Saint Apolitics of Rome.
But the point being is that when this happens, that
group gets into either or dialectics of the Greeks Greek philosophy.
Let's look at as we move from these clowns into
people like Celsus or Origin. Okay, Now, Celsus was into
Greek philosophy. Origin was a patristic writer, influential scholar, and
church father. But He's not a saint and he's not Orthodox,
but he was influential and he was very into Platonism. Neoplatonism.
He did not have direct interaction with Plotinus. I'm not
saying that, but I'm saying that there's a lot of similarities, Okay.
And what eventually gets condemned by the Sixth Council explicitly
in Originism is his neoplatonic views, his platonic views. Doesn't
matter what you call it. It's hellenic philosophy. It's denial
of Eden. It's a denial of history, denial of the
eternality of the Sun in terms of his being eternally begotten.
It's a denial of genuine diversity in God at the
expense of the unity. So in the question of the
One and the many, Origin falls over on the side
of the premissy of unity and essence in God. And
so therefore whatever is not the essence of God according
to Origin has to be some lesser metaphysical status. Why,
because of philosophic assumptions, distinction must entail composition or division
if it's a real distinction. You see now again, many, many,
many philosophers, theologians have written on this topic. What I'm
saying is not my own ideas. I'm not making this up.
It's not new to me. David Bradshaw, very famous, has
books on this topic. If we move in then into
the period of Arius Arius and the Eunomians, right, these
two radical groups. They were convinced that if God is one,
anything that is predicated of God or said of God,
this is distinct from Father or from one, has to
be some lesser metaphysical status. The Son of God cannot
be homousus of the same nature or essence, because that
would imply that there's parts, there's two Gods, et cetera,
et cetera. This is the stuff that you hear. Arians
today still argue this is another dialectical Hellenistic idea. Now,
the Eunomians were more radical. They said, now we can
actually know the essence of God, and we can make
positive predications about the essence of God. And that's why
the essence of God is the Father then, and that
is defined. It's a definitional notion here. It is to
find as ungenerate, unoriginate, is what Eunomias said. And so
Saint Basil and Saint Gregor Nissa launched into gigantic refutations
of Eunomius, and guess what they used to refute Eunomius.
Can you guess what distinction they used? They used the
essence energy distinction they refuteus. If that distinction is not real,
the entire argument against Eunomius collapses. This is so stupid
that there is nothing more low iq than the people
who think that this is the same doctrine as Rome
Catholsis that that Palamas and Gregory and Basil they're not
teaching anything different, then the whole argument against Eunomius would collapse.
If we move into the period of Nestorius and Saint
Cyril okay ephesis, another Christological period. If you read mcguckin's book,
if you read Saint Cyril's own writings, what you start
to see is that Nestorius doesn't see how it's possible
that there's not some tension between divinity and humanity. There's
some tension. So there's a tunis here that is some
kind of moral conjunction, moral union between the son of
God and a human person. In Jesus of Nazareth, they've
got some kind of moral union here, but there's not
one divine person, the subject of all the incarnate actions,
is not the second person of the Godhead, as Saint
Cyril said, it's at times there's this divine Jesus that's
shining through, and at other times it's this man Jesus
of Nazareth. You see, this is another version of arianism.
It's not exactly the same as arianism, but it's another
version of arianism, and it's based on the same dialectics.
There's an oppit there's some natural tension and opposition between
divinity and humanity in Christ. This same problem will occupy
the Church for the next several centuries, all the way
up into the Fifth and Six Councils, which deal with
the two natures in Christ. The chief argumentation that Saint
Maximus deals with is against the Monothelites, who are people
who are essentially kind of a continuation of Monophysites, who
said that, well, if there's only a unity in Christ,
there's only basically this blended kind of thing in Christ.
When he becomes incarnate, a divine human hybrid, then there
has to be one action or energy in Christ. And
so what Saint Maximus does is that he goes to
great lengths, especially in the disputation with Paris to prove
that the Monothelites are wrong and that Christ has two
wills and two energies because energy is a property. Are
faculty of nature? Right? Say John Damascus covers this in
book three very clearly as he launches into a rehearsing
of the Christological controversies. And what I'm saying is that,
once again, right when he's arguing with Pearis, he accuses
Pearis of setting up dialectical tensions between the will of
man and the will of God, between Christ's human will
and his divine will, between Christ's human energy and his
divine energy. He says he thinks these things are intention
and the key is to understand going all the way
back to Cyril and the way Cyril explains it against Nestorias,
and the way that the Fifth and Six Councils explain it,
which is that the humanity of Christ is deified by
the uncreated energies of Christ legitimately raised, but it still
retains its natural, created properties. Christ's humanity never loses its
created status. It will always and forever be created. However,
it's not just created and mortal, it is raised. It defied, right,
it participates in that uncreated energy yet still retains its
creative property. That's only possible, it's only possible to believe
that and accept that if you reject Hellenic either or dialectics.
That's the key here. That is the overriding, consistent principle
that we want to understand that we reject, and when
we start to grasp that, that's when we start to see.
There's so many of these theological problems, controversies, and debates
center around dialectical either or tensions. Now, sometimes there is
an either or, right, there's not always a middle ground.
This is a kind of fallacy, right, there's not always
some middle term as if you know, well, for example
theism and atheism, there's no middle ground there. So sometimes
there is an either or. But in a lot of
the theological controversies over the centuries Jerusalem versus Athens, there
is a transcending of either or dialectics. And Saint Gregor
Palamas is kind of the culmination, you could say, because
certainly there's disputes and arguments after Saint Gregory. But if
you follow the logic from Niceea through Ephesis to the
Sixth Council with the Monothy lites all the way up
through to Saint Gregory's day. You will see a logical
train of the development of this theology. And by development,
I don't mean the Roman Catholic conception of development, where
it's evolving. In our review, the development is just a
restatement or a redefining, an explication of what's already there. Right,
So we quite literally say that we're teaching the exact
same thing that that to St. Dionysia's there opic I said,
we quite literally believe that Basil explicates the same faith
as Saint Paul. And that's why it is correct, as
Saint Maximus says, to understand that one thing that the
Fall did right, I mean it did a lot of
different things right. The fall man introduced corruption, decay, metaphysically,
morally right, there's all these problems the fault. But one
thing that it did philosophically speaking, you could say it
was introduced to these dialectics where people think that there's
hardcore either ores intention at all times, and it's not
always the case. So the great irony, and this was
a misunderstanding that I had for a long time about
orthodoxy that I had to kind of finally come out
of and the key piece of evidence for me in
being convinced that Orthodoxy was not just Helenism and neoplatonism
was the statement of Basil where he says, for us,
the one is a he, not an it. That's when
it finally clicked for me that I understood. Now I
see why the church fathers are consistently having to battle,
whether it's Marcian or whether it's Arius, or whether it's
the Massalians, or whether it's Eunomius, or whether it's Astorius,
or whether it's Purists, the Monothelites, Diascorus. They're consistently having
to battle with either or dialectics. And once you understand that,
it's very obvious. You see it. You see how Arius
says that if God is simple and the Father is God,
then if he eternally generates, that cause has to be
a created cause, because it would compromise the simplicity of God,
he says, and Athanasius refutes him by saying that the
Son is an eternally generated son. He's not temporarily generated.
He's not the first thing that God created. He's eternally generated,
and therefore he is not a creature. He shares the
same essence of the Father. Is he the direct offspring
of the Father's nature? Yes, he is right. And the
romancatoss trying to say, oh, that means divine, absolutely vine simplicity.
Then no, he's the direct generation of the Father's nature.
You see, Athanasius is not setting the essence of gods
some abstract, preeminent category that we start with. He starts
with the Father. And that's why Hebrews says that he
is the direct image and icon of the Father. Now,
so dialectics then is a consistent problem. And when you
read through many of these Church fathers and many of
the analyzes of the Church fathers, you will begin to
see that as very clearly evident. The heretics will constantly
think that there's only either ores right, either God is
one or he's many. He can't be one in many.
Either God is absolutely simple or he's composed of parts.
He can't have distinction without division. You see. Now, for us,
as we said, there are multiple Palamite synods after these
disputes up into the fourteenth century, and these are the
Palamite synods. They're just Orthodox synods, and they're received as
normative as I will show you in a moment we
sent many churches still sing this, and therefore Palamism is
nothing more than Orthodoxy. That's why the entire Orthodox world,
except for certain ecumenists who we will show are incorrect,
believes in the essen synergy distinction. Right, This is normative
in Orthodoxy. Will you find an Orthodox person at times
who's confused on this? Sure, but everybody body knows what
our liturgy says. Everybody knows what our catechisms say. Everybody
knows that across the world, the Orthodox Church believes in
a real essence energy distinction. Now, it doesn't matter how
many Fordom acumenists funded by giant foundations, all proven one
hundred percent proven. Now tries to say that there's no
distinction between essence and energy, and that Gregor Palamas doesn't
believe in a real distinction. Of course he does. That's
what this whole debate is predicated on. They're liars, they're
lying because they're paid to lie. They're not really Orthodox,
and it's all come out that they're paid by foundations
to promote this stuff. The Jesuit University of Fordham. Everything
that I said ten years ago about this kind of
stuff has all been proven true. The debate at times
does center on the classical tradition, so that is treated
of in the scholarly introduction, and they do note that
the Saint Gregor Palamas is not completely opposed to classical
education or the classical tradition. Right, So let's not mistake
what I'm saying for like Baptist type views or like
a independent landmark fundamentalist Baptist church like Jerusalem versus Aftertens.
That means everything that's Greek, and everything that's other church fathers,
and all philosophy his other devil, No, no, no, no,
he Saint Gregory Palamas was trained in Aristotilian logic. He
was trained in Aristotle. Saint John Damascus was trained in Aristotle. Right,
read David Bradshaw's Aristotle East and West. We don't have
a problem with Aristotle. We have a problem with the
Western usage of Aristotle. Indeed, throughout the Fount of Knowledge.
As I've said, like I lectured on the whole book
four or five years ago, Mathema ignored all this. Of course,
all of those Aristotlian categories are used in the proper
way in Saint John Demascus, and they're used in a
different way by quitnas. Now, when we come to the
work itself, understand that this is after the period of
the Tria, so he's already written the Triads. I believe
I'm right about that. I go out from memory, and
I did a talk on the Triads a year ago,
so you can go listen to that talk. This is
complementary to that talk. And it begins by pointing out
that Barleam is a heretic. Barley might views are heretical.
That's how the book begins. Barlem begins his debate by saying,
God's actions are identical to his essence. Did you hear
me exactly what Aquinas says? Not identical in a figurative sense,
identical in an identical literal sense, actus purist. He is
his essence. He is identical to his essence. His actions
are identical to he.
Speaker 2: And to his essence.
Speaker 1: And Barley, beginning the barley mighte says, let's make sure
that we can support our views from the Church fathers.
You see, because in the Triads, the majority of the
argument in the Triads is biblical. And this was another
thing that impressed me was that throughout the Triads it's
consistently arguing from the Bible. Now in this work, we're
moving on and there's going to be biblical references still.
But here the debate begins by the barley might saying
you better prove your view from the Church fathers and
from tradition, and Saint Gregory responds by saying, okay, but
let's keep in mind that every heretic believes his view
is proven by the Church fathers. This is the everybody says,
I am in, I am in the true succession of
the of the Fathers and the great theologians of the
ancient Church. But just claiming that is really meaningless. We
have to actually demonstrate that. So it begins by talking
about foreknowledge. Okay, and bar excuse me. Pelama says, foreknowledge
is an energy of God. And if we just stop
for a moment and think about the stupidity of identifying
the essence of God with foreknowledge and with the will
of God, then we would come to see that there
have to be real distinctions in God. Okay, God foreknowing
event an event is obviously not identical to God's will obviously,
and what argument do you constantly hear me? Make right?
What I usually say, I say, let's look at Christology,
don't I what's the first thing he goes to Christology,
he says, the clearest way to see that there's a
distinction between the energies in God, his actions, and what
he is in himself. His inner essence is in the
person of Christ incarnate, because this is God in time
and space, walking around right doing things. And Christology is
key because it shows us that he possesses two wills
and two energies. And if we do believe that his
actions within time and space are real, then clearly those
actions are different. His walking on water is not the
same thing as his creating the world. In fact, John
Damascus says very clearly in book three that that's an
action proper to his divine power. All the miracles are,
of course they are. Walking on water is not proper
to human nature. It's an action that shows that demonstrates
divine power. Is the action of walking on water the
same as the action of creating the world, and also
the same as the destruction of the world, all actions
of God God. Admittedly, of course not that would be ridiculous.
That's why Basil says in letter two thirty four, if
you add up all these attributes and say they're identical,
and that they're identical to the essence of God. You're
a fool. He begins the debate with that. He begins
the debate by saying that Saint John Damascus says that
the energies of God enter into history. He begins with
book one of defensive Orthodoxist How many times have I
begun with that? What's the next clearest argument? What does
he move to? He moves to the uncreated light in
Matthew seventeen, the glory of God shining within creation, the
glory of God around Christ and the transfiguration, the light
of God in the face of Saint Stephen, the light
of God that shines upon Paul when he's converted. This
is the same grace that the saints get. It's the
same grace that's uncreated. It does enter into time and space,
just like the Theophanes did. And so when Joshua, when Gideon,
when Abraham worship these Theophanes that manifest within time and space.
Are they worshiping creatures? No, they're not worshiping holograms. They're
not worshiping created phantasms. They're not worshiping created analogs, they're
worshiping the preincarnate logos. So just as it's possible for
the logos to be incarnate, excuse me, preincarnate. When he
manifests as the Angel of the Lord, and the Old
Testament saints bow down and worship, and he's given the
name Lord Yahweh. Just as he's able to enter into
time and space, so also can he become incarnate, and
so also can the uncreated light that is his divine
glory manifest and the transfiguration. Now, all of Roman Catholicism
says that the light that manifests in Matthew seventeen is created,
I have never heard. So I don't know where the
uniates or any of that. Maybe they could come up
with something. I've never heard it because I've never heard
a Roman Catholic say that that is uncreated light, because
that would deny the whole of the analogianis and the
causal view of how God relates to the world. In
everything I've ever seen in Romanism, I have never seen
a Roman theologian say that Matthew seventeen is the actual
uncreated light of God entering into time and space manifesting
for the apostles to see, and yet that's what happens. Now,
maybe there's some uniate theologian out there in some university
somewhere who thinks that it is that does not translate
into the possibility of that existing in Roman Catholic dogma.
Let me make another point on that too, which is
a little more practical, but I think is still a
persuasive argument, which is that, let's say that it's true
that ninety nine point nine percent of the Romancolic Church
does not believe that, and zero point one percent of
the Romancolic Church does hold that, and somehow that's legitimately true,
and you can somehow hold that opinion within Roman Catholism,
which you can. But let's say for them, you say
the argument that you can. What does it say for
a church that has two mutually exclusive positions, and the
supposedly true Church has for many, many, many centuries, ninety
nine point nine percent of it held that that light
is created, but point one percent has actually been correct,
and nobody else in this church knows it. That's ridiculous,
that's stupid. So you are the Apostolic Church and zero
point one percent actually knows this very basic doctrine. But
the rest of the whole thing has bumbled on this
for centuries. That's absurd. What's more likely the case, right,
that that it's just two different doctrines, Right, That's what
this whole debate is predicated on. Now, somebody them said, well,
but Barleam isn't really representative of the Roman Catholic position.
Yes he is. He's perfectly representative of the of the
Roman Catholic position because he became a Catholic bishop, Roman
Catholic and eventually the views that he holds are one
percent across the board what you find in any standard
Roman Catholic dogmatic manual. Now he moves then to an
argument that I've made many times, what Roman Catholic would
dare say the glory of God is created. In John seventeen,
we have Jesus launching into an extensive discussion the high
priestly prayer about the glory of God that he possessed
with the Father before the foundation of the world, that
he shared in common with the Father, and the spirit
that he will give to the apostles. And he clearly
between verses one to three and then to verse twenty
says that it's the same glory. It's not a created
analog that he's going to give us. It's not a
supernatural creature that he's going to give us. The same
glory that he possessed with the Father before the foundation
of the world, he says, will be given to us
and to the apostles. Is that a creature? Of course,
it isn't. No more than the light of the transfiguration
itself is a creature. It is the uncreated light that
Paul talks about when he says God dwells an unapproachable
light to Timothy, if grace is created and grace is Christ,
Christ is, in other words, if we're getting what Christ had,
If the grace that we're getting is created, it's a
supernatural creation, and the glory that Christ has is a
supernatural creation, then Christ is a creation exactly. And that's
how the argument falls into arianism. Barleam says, well, look,
the Saints, though, reply to you. This is every Roman Catholic.
Isn't this hilarious that every interaction that you have with
Roman Catholics and Thomas on this point, and Protestants too.
Let's include the Protestants have the same view. Let's not
make this just about Roman Catholics, because the Protestants, ninety
nine point nine percent of all Protestants adhere to the
Western doctrine of absolute devine simplicity across the board in
all of their theologies, whether it's Charles Hodge or Burkhoff
or BABVNC or Calvin or Luther, they all believe in
absolute divine simplicity in this same way all the way
up into the Puritans. They say the same things. And
what's the next reply that you get from every single
tomust Ah? But you see, God is one and simple,
and the Church fathers teach that God is one and simple,
and therefore you making this distinction, you make God composed.
Of course, we believe God is one and simple, but
we don't believe that the simplicity and unity of God
is compromised by there being a real distinction between the
person's do we of course not right, Father, Son, and
Spirit are really and truly distinct from or another. They're
not modes or masks that God has. Right, that would
be modalism, that would be Sabellianism. We don't believe that
that was rejected in the Church. Right, So, when, for example,
Athanasius argues with the arians. He points out that the
action of God generating the Son is eternal and natural.
It's therefore divine. Right, It's not caused in the sense
of temporal causes. It's an eternal cause, where the Father
eternally generates the son. There was no point at time
in which the son was not it's an eternal generation.
That eternal generation suggests a real distinction. Right. The Father
is the unriginal cause, the son, the eternal generated son.
That eternal action of generating, which Athanasius does say is
an action, is distinct from any action of creating or
contemplating the creation the logi the exemplars. Right, the son,
the eternally generated son, is not identical to either of
those things. Right, But it is an eternal movement of
the Father generating the son. Cause suggests movement, But it's
not a movement. That's like the energy that goes into
creating the world. Therefore, there's a natural movement, a natural,
eternal begetting of the Father's nature, which is the son.
And therefore, because it's eternal, because he's of the Father's nature,
he's absolutely fully divine. He's not any lesser ontological metaphysical status.
Than the Father, But that eternal generation is an action
that's distinct from the action of creating the world, right,
because the world comes to be at a point in time.
If you don't believe in a distinction between essence and energy,
and you believe in divine simplicity, then the son is
a creature. The action of creator, of generating the sun
is like the action of creating the world. What distinguishes
eternally generating from creating in time and space? Now, if
you'd have the base with Muslims, they will tell you
that God is eternally a creator, and because he's eternally
a creator, the Son is a creature. There's no eternal logos.
I'm saying, there's no eternal logos. That's the second person
of the God had In Islamic theology. Islama theology has
this confusing thing about the Koran being an eternal word.
Whatever point being is that they don't believe in the trinity, right,
And one of the reasons they don't is because they
don't have a problem identifying God being creator, with God
being Father and with the essence. Right, So it's the
it's essential to God to be a creator, and if
it's essential to God to be a creator, and God's
essence is eternal, and God is eternally a creator. That's
what the Aryans argued. And since fatherhood is essential, being
unoriginal is essential. Anything other is a work of God,
and if anything else is a work of God, it's
distinct from that one essence, that one fatherhood, that one creator. Therefore,
the Son is the first creation of God. He's the
first work of God. And then through that Son he
created the world. That's the Aryan view. But you see,
we have to make a distinction between the eternal generation
of the son and that action and the action of
creating the world the essence in distinction. That's one example
of that. You say, well, Jay, where is this? This
is proven to be the argument that Athenatianus makes against
the Arians. If you read the Father of Fluorovsky essay,
e cciited it many many times. The whole essay proves
beyond any shadow of doubt that that's the whole context
of the Aryan argument, And in fact, Saint Gregor Palamos
will even cite that very debate and then cite Saint
Cyril of Alexandria using the same arguments for the Essen
Sentergy section. This is baffling to me that the goofy
Roman Catholics come in here trying to use Athenasious and
Saint Cyril to disprove the Essen senergy stinction when that's
a key lynch pin in their argumentation. Uh, let me
add this, so again we have to stress this Athanasius
whole argument against the Arians is what I was just
telling you, and anybody who reads the famous Fluoroski essay
will know that beyond any shadow without now point being
is that this essay, we know that that this is
not just something that uh Fluorofsky cooked up, because it's
the same argument is made in here. It's not something
that Florofsky is made. Let me get clever here and
try to prove that Athanasius believing the essence energy distinction
to no, No, it's the same argument was made for
centuries before in Saint Gregory. So as we moved through
then the debate continues by saying, Barley, Barlem, there's the possibility, well, uh,
maybe that these distinctions are just into uh oh wherever
we heard this before? Oh, every Roman Catholic ninety nine
point nine percent of right, Maybe the distinctions that we're
talking about are just intellectual. But the intellect can see
these distinctions, but really in themselves are all the same,
because if we thought these distinctions were real, it would
mean that God's composed. How many times we have to
respond to the same point. Distinction does not entail composition
or division. And if you can admit that the Father
is the cause of the son, does all the Eastern
fathers say, then you already admit the distinction does not
entail division or composition. So there should be no problem
in believing and a distinction between God's energies, actions and
what he is at himself. And in fact, he says
that if you believe in fact, this is Saint Gregory's argument. Now,
he says, if you believe that God is absolutely simple,
but that you participate in a created, supernatural grace that's
also divine, then you make two gods. You have a
uncreated God and a created God that you participate in
a created, supernatural grace, which is literally what they say
is that the same as the uncreated. The Roman Catholic
will tell you no, if that's not the same, then
you have two gods. You have a created God you
worship and you have an uncreated God you worship, so
actually you are the Diaddic polytheis not the Orthodox because
we believe that the uncreated energies are fully God. The
distinction between essence and energy is not a composite God.
It's not two gods. Every energy is fully divine. They're
not accidents in the aarriistic thing and sense. God is
not substance an accident. Yes, correct, he's not composed, but
that doesn't mean that differentiation in him is not real.
It's not merely conceptual. Are the persons in the triad
only conceptual notional distinctions virtual distinctions? No, they're real. The
Father really does eternally generate the Son. That's not a
notional distinction. It's an actual, eternal begetting. And that's why
the Father, as all the person of the Father, as
all the fathers teach, is the soul, cause and monarchia
of the Godhead. The next team moves to the beatific vision.
He says that if you believe that you will see
the essence of God, you are a Eunomian exactly. And
this disproves Luke and his madness from yesterday or two
days ago, whatever it was, because Luke says that it's
only about what the statements in the dogma are about
divine simplicity. No, it's not. It immediately goes into beatific vision.
The Roman doctrine of the beatific vision, where your intellect
is finally satiated and you're made happy by seeing the
essence of God, is utterly absurd and Eunomian. It's the
same heresy as Eunomius, and the same heresy as the
Massallians who said that there's all the essence of God.
And Saint Gregory then moves into saying, you are now
in a presubositional trap. Did you hear me? A presubositional
trap because you have hung yourself on an either or
And the idiot Roman Catholics say that I make up
the presuppositional argument. No, no, this is the presubsistional argument,
because he's putting Barleum into the either or traps that
Barleum has created for himself. It's not. We are not
in the either or trap because we deny the dialectical
tension of either or right. There can be distinctions in
God without composition or division. Barleum says, our intellect rises
up to see the essence of God. First we must
move through this pathway of creatures, and then we through
intellectual vision like Plato, we can see the essence of God.
And then in the eternal state will be perfectly satiated
and we won't want to change, will be perfectly fixated
in a static vision of the essence of God. That
is Platonism. That's what Plato said, That's what Origin says.
The typic vision is the heresy of Originism and Plato. Now,
the only difference is that Origin thought that in order
to retain free will, you have to be able to
move your gaze away from that one essence of God.
And that's what the fall is. The fall is your
intellect moving away from the singular essence of God and
falling then into creatureliness. Again, No, all that Plato crap,
We've tossed all that out. That's once again Jerusalem versus Athens.
We don't want any of that nonsense. It's not our
created intellect that sees the essence of God. Okay, body, soul,
and noose are transformed by the uncreated energies. That's the
key here. So when Saint Maximus discusses the vision that
we have, Maximus says explicitly, we do not see the
essence of God. What we see are the many logi,
the many uncreated energies in the one logos, very different
the exemplars. Now, he moves to the exemplar argument. How
many times have you heard me make the exemplar argument?
I made it against classical theists, made it against other
Thomas because it's absurd. The exemplars are identified in Tonism
and in most of Aromatholicism, with the essence of God.
Augustine says this, even but the exemplars of created things,
the patterns, principles, and archetypes of all the created things
are not identical to the essence of God. The essence
of God is absolutely simple and undifferentiated. It's a perfect unity, right,
And so if created things are based in the essence
of God for their patterns and archetypes, then all things
are nothing but reflections and manifestations of the essence of God,
which is impossible, and thus all if you're consistent with that,
you would actually believe in Maya. You would believe that
distinctions in the world are actually illusory, because there's no
such thing as chair fareness. Right, The chair doesn't have
an archetype in the essence of God. The essence of
God is not like any created thing. Moses says this,
does he not right? Not only does Moses say this,
Paul says this in Act seventeen when he goes and
he talks to the philosophers battling Hellenic philosophy. Act seventeen
is completely a refutation of Hellenic presuppositions. He says, the
divine nature is not like anything created. It's not like
gold and silver and things in temples. That's idolatry. What
does Rome Catholicism say creatures are analogs to the essence
of God. You're an idolator, now, I know that they
say that. Yeah, but it's not a perfect analogy to
the essence of God. It's not an analogy the essence
of God at all. There's no creatures that are like
the essence of God. That's why we are in perfect
continuity with Moses. When Moses sees God and experiences God,
he experiences the goodness of God. It's made explicit in Exodus.
God says, I'm not gonna show you my face, it
would kill you, but i will show you my goodness
is the goodness of God created?
Speaker 3: No, it's not.
Speaker 1: The goodness of God is uncreated. Go read dynasties. Next
he begins to say, all right, I'm gonna let's argue
not just from the logie of Saint Maximus. Because Saint
Maximus writes at length and Ambiguum seven, which we will
cover in Part two, on the uncreated energies, the uncreated logi.
He says, creatures revealed to us those logi, but they're
they're not identical. Creatures are not identical to the exemplars,
and the exemplars are not the essence of God. This
is very key, and Maximus is unambiguous about that, Hence
the Ambiguum number seven where he covers this issue. The
logi right, Therefore, it is absurd and stupid to identify
the exemplars with the essence of God, which classical theists
still does. Then he was on to say that God
may have done many other works beyond the works that
we know. He has energies that we don't know, because
Scripture says he has many, many, many infinite works. We
will never exhaust the works of God. And who does
he cite for that, Saint Basil Saint Basil says, God
has many, many works, and he has even more works
that we don't even know. And I'm sure, oh, you're
making up those quotes. Those are all made up. All
this is referenced. So let's give you the citations. This
is against Eunomius chapter two to cite Maximus, it is
Ambiguum seven, and it is Maximus against Thalassios chapter thirteen.
There you go go look these up. Write these down
and look them up. Liars, you're making those quotes of
Next he moves to said Barlem moves on. He says,
all right, look, maybe the grace itself isn't created. It's
actually uncreated. So Barleum moves his position, and now he
says that, no, we really do participate in theosis. We
really do, and we're really getting divinity, but that divinity
is uncreated. And this is what you will see the
Roman Catholics do. They get so confused. They will literally
flip back and forth and say both things within the
same debate. They'll say the same no, No, you're really
getting a supernatural created grace. The grace itself was created.
And then like five minutes later they'll be like, well
you are participating in the divine nature. In duification, you're
really being deified, and it's the divine nature. Is the
divine nature a supernatural creature? No, So Saint Gregory calls
out barleym here and he says, you earlier you said
that it was a creature, and now you're saying it's uncreated.
And then he says that if you were consistent, you
would adopt atheism because absolute divine simplicity actually cuts God
off from being imminently present in this world. Exactly. It
removes the imminent energies of God, and it makes God
a cut off being who only interacts through created effects
in this world. That's what every Thomas will tell you. Yeah, okay,
if that's the case, then that leads to atheism. We
don't actually know. We never interact directly with that God.
And in fact, all we have are created analogs which
are supposed to tell us these different attributes. How do
you know if you're experiencing mercy as opposed to foreknowledge,
as opposed to justice, as opposed to love, as opposed
to punishment, as opposed to wrath. You don't, So you
never know because this God is cut off from this world.
If all we ever experience is creative effects, how is
there an incarnation, a real incarnation, the second person that
God had really became incarnate in time and space. He's
not just a created effect. It's not just a notional
virtual incarnation. It's not just a conceptual incarnation. That's why
you're a heretic. God is wholly present in each energy,
and therefore there is not parts to God. Next, he
moves on to dealing with the fact that sat Dinysius
says the essence of God has no name. God is divinity,
and that unity, that power is beyond our conception, and
therefore it itself has no name. We do not know
the essence of God. Even when we say God is
super substantial, God is a super essential one, we are
not naming that essence, he says. Those are just still
energetic titles for God. Even the name one, and even
the name essence is an energy because what it signifies
we don't know. We're not saying that they're confused. We're
not saying that essence is energy. We're saying that we
only know that God is one essence because He's revealed it.
So if we say that the grace of God that
we get is a created light. He says, that is
an impiety. That would mean that we aren't really deified.
We're just given another creaturely substance, another creaturely accident. I
don't care. It doesn't matter whether you say it's a
created substance or a created accident, because the point is
that it's a creature. This is the other bumble that
Mathema tried to play gotcha on, and it actually functioned
to get him, and that's why he crumbled this last week.
Saint Gregory goes on to say, if the Father is
the soul caushi monarchia of the godhead, as Barlem admits,
which by the way, some of the Thomas don't even
admit this. If you go and listen to the doctor
Fine Gold de Bait. He was lost when I said this,
which is common parlance amongst all the fathers for the
first eight centuries. Barleam admits that the Father is the
sole cause. Then Gregory moves on to say, then distinction
does not entail division, because he's the cause of the son,
and that implies a real distinction between father and son,
and Barlem says, yes, it is a real distinction. But
that doesn't mean that the essence of God is composed.
And at this point Gregory Saint Gregory says, yeah, exactly right,
And so he goes then to Saint Athanasius. He says,
Saint Anthonasius teaches a distinction between essence and energy page
sixty one, and therefore there is no absolute simplicity. He
says that God's actions are not his essence, and God's
referring to God as he or to his existence is
not identical to his essence, and he cites st Athosian
Athanasius in multiple places there to prove.
Speaker 4: That that is so.
Speaker 1: Again, let me once again send you the essay where
we have the argumentation proving the many, many citations proving
that Athanasius does not teach absolute divine simplicity athenacious. Entire
argumentation against the Arians is predicated on there being a
real distinction between God's nature and his will and counsel,
and that has proven definitively, and that same argument that
Fluorofsky makes is right.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 1: We have then a litany of essence energy distinction citations.
I tweeted many of these out yesterday. He then launches
into this litany of many of them, one of them.
Let's let's let's read a couple of them. Athanasius says,
the God being God is second to his essence. Did
you hear me? God being God is second to his essence?
Gregory says, if the judgments of God cannot be discerned
in any way are searched out, and the promise of
good things transcends all conjecture founded upon the queries, how
much more is the divine nature higher than all the
things that are set about it? And on account of
it unnameable and unapproachable? Saint Basil says, when all of
these activities, which are the activities of the Spirit, they
are unnameable due to their greatness, and innumerable because of
their multitude. For how can we think that what is
above the ages and which were His activities before the
intelligible creation? Did you hear that? Which were his activities
before the creation? How many of are those graces which
flow from Him to creation? And what is the power
of those in relationship to the coming age? Hence, even
when you think something about above the ages, even that
is lower than the Spirit himself. So God's actions are
not identical to who he is would then that the
essence of God, which is above all names and unutterable,
abound around which are the powers and energies which are
also before all ages. Right. And he elsewhere he distinguishes
the energies that are eternal from all time, such as
the glory of God, the love of God, to the
energies that relate only to space and time, right creating
the world. And that's dealt with at length in the Triads.
And again this is all straight from Easter for Fathers.
Then he moves on to talk about Grace itself. He says,
if if we are deified, then it has to be supernatural,
does it not? And Barlam says yeah, I would agree
with that, right, And so if grace is supernatural, then
it cannot be identified with natural and Barleum says, I agree.
He says, are created things natural? He says, yes, in
this sense they are. Well, then if it's supernatural, it
has to be uncreated, and Barlium says, yes, I would
agree with that. Then therefore or Grace is uncreated and
not a supernatural created substance exactly. He says that if
we participate in the un in the glory of Christ. Again,
he says that then that signifies a real participation in
uncreated grace with the very life that God has. Yes,
he says that that is uncreated. Next he moves to
proving this again from Saint Basil, and not letter two
thirty four, but actually from a different letter. This is
letter one eighty nine where Saint Bezos is. But either
you call the nature of God divinity, and then the
nature of the three is one, or you call the
energies divinity and then the act the energy of the
three persons is one. Correct. So there, once again is
Basil make the distinction between essence, energy, nature, will person.
They're all distinguished. But does that mean that distinction entails divisions?
Are we saying that God is made up of these
ten parts? No, of course not. He's not made up
of twenty parts. Not if he has infinite energies, he's
not made up of a million different energies. Right, Doing
different actions creating the world and on water doesn't mean
that he has two different parts. There, there's two different actions. Next,
he goes on to talk about the fact that the
many energies are not abstract. They are in hypostatic, meaning
that they are personal. Right, and then he says, the
fact that there's a distinction does not mean that they're divided.
God is not composed, because there's a distinction between his
actions and his essence. And he proves this by saying
that look at the seven spirits of God. Right, we
have this statement from scripture from Isaiah and then from
the Apocalypse, the seven spirits of God sent out to
the seven churches. He says, are those created or uncreated?
Barlam says, those are the spirit they're uncreated, And he
says yes. And then what does he cite? He cites
what I just cited last night or the other night
from Saint Maximus. Sat Maximus says in that section that
the seventh spirits are the uncreated energies that God transfers
to the church. He says, when we say that the
seven spirits of God are present, that they're real, differentiated
actions of God, the works of the spirit. He says,
does that mean that God has seven parts? Is God divided?
It's the Holy Spirit divided into seven because they're seven spirits.
Of course not. And he says, do you think that
they're really different? He says, does everybody have the same
gifts in the church? No right. And in one Corinthians twelve,
when Paul uses this term inner gaia in the Greek,
he says that the spirit distributes many gifts, and he says,
there's many workings of the spirit in that text, many
innergayia of the spirit, and yet one spirit does that
negate the distinction? No right. So one person can have
the gift of tongues, which is from the spirit, and
another person can have the gift of ministry and the
gift of mercy or whatever. Are they all the same no?
Are they the same spirit? Yes? So then therefore you
can have distinction that's real without division or composition. One
Corinthians twelve is abundantly clear. The Greek word is entergaia,
and the works of the spirit are really divine, They're
not created analogs. Next, I want to mention that Saint
Gregory calls Barlem stupid and heretical. Now, a lot of
people get mad, and they will be super pious and
they will act like, don't ever say that somebody is
stupid and heretical. Saint Gregory just calls Barlem stupid and heretical.
There's nothing inherently wrong when it is in fact the
case that a person is stupid. To call them stupid,
now you should not be mean. It should not come
from a place of hatred or a pride. But if
in fact a person is being stubborn and stupid and foolish,
as the Bible many many times calls people foolish, which
presupposes that you have the ability to recognize when people
are foolish. There's nothing wrong with that, and there's nothing
wrong with continuing and nowaday if we believe this religion
to say that the people who still hold this view
are stupid and heretical. Now, being a heretic, of course,
requires obstinacy, wilfulness. Right, You're not just accidentally a heretic. Right,
heresy is a sin of will, not just a sin
of ignorance. Now, a person can be wilfully ignorant, but
that's a different issue. Heresy requires knowledge and obstinacy. In
our moral theology and amongst the Church fathers. Right, you
can be ignorant and wrong. Doesn't mean you're saved just
because you're ignorant. I'm not saying that either, But I'm
saying that a heretic in the parlance of the Church fathers,
in canon law, and so forth. There's a person who
demonstrates obstinacy. That's why Paul says, reject a heretical man
after the first and second admonition. Right, Paul doesn't say
reject everybody because everybody's a heretic, Right, he says, reject
it to Timothy, a heretical man after the first and
second admonition. That's why what you see me typically do
is when people are obstinate, obtuse, ridiculous, I don't interact
with them anymore. That we will interact initially, we'll have
a time period. If you are obstinate, I move on
and I don't interact with you anymore. And so Basil
excuse me. Barleum, according to the Synod, according to Saint
Gregor Palomas, is called stupid and heretical. David Bentley Hart
is stupid and heretical because he's literally repeating what Barleam says.
He says that there's no distinction. Pallemism is not different
from Romantholicism, even though Roman Catholicism is literally what Barleam says.
And I can therefore say that David Bentley Heart is
stupid and heretical. Saint Gregor Palamas moves on into emphatically
stress again that the seven spirits of God in scripture
do not necessitate the spirit is divided up into seven parts.
It doesn't mean that the spirit has seven persons, He's
not seven hypostases, but that there really are distinct differences.
There are differences in these seven spirits. Next, we have
the allegation of act as purists that God is pure
act He is his existence, he is his essence, and
Barlem falls back on saying, well, again, if there's a distinction,
then it must mean God has composed of parts. So
he just kind of like just like a Roman collage. Repeat,
it doesn't matter what you say. You say all this
stuff and then just fall back into saying, yeah, but
God doesn't have parts, Well, that would mean God's composed.
Distinction does not entail composition or Division's that's where the
argument goes next. Distinction does not entail composition or division.
While their son in spirit are distinct, that does not
entail composition and division. Even Luke was admitting to me
that a Quinas admits nature in person are distinct. Yes
he does, but he contradicts himself. That's the point. So
if nature and person are distinct. God's will is distinct
from his essence and from the persons. These are real distinctions.
Is the fact that they're distinct mean that God has
divided up into parts? Nope, And that's where the word
in hypostatized comes into to focus here. In hypostatize, all
that means is that the mode in which nature always
exists is in persons. Right. It's always instantiated in persons.
There's no abstract human nature. Human nature always is in
the mode of persons. Right. There is a universal human
nature that you and I, we all share, but it
always exists in the mode of some person. It's in me,
it's in you, right, and it's common. We all share it.
And in the same way in God, there's a common
unified nature. Right, but three persons. Now, the mode of
being that God has is different from the mode of
being that humans have. Right. So, even though we're saying
that there's in hypostatized for both God and for humans,
God doesn't exist separate human right, It's not like three
different beings. Right. We believe in the Father is the
source of unity because he communicates that divinity to the
son into the Spirit and also, each of these three
persons dwell one another. So the Father fully imperfectly endwells
the Son and the Spirit. The Spirit perfectly and fully
dwells the Father and the Son et Sara Sarah. If
you identify the existence, person an essence of God in
a real sense, all as if they are perfectly simple.
Saint Gregory then moves on to say that you will
be an atheist, and this position will end in atheism.
And the fact that we call God one does not
mean that he's undifferentiated. If you believe in actus purists,
you should be a modalist. He says, how many times
have you heard me say that?
Speaker 3: Many times?
Speaker 1: Now somebody will say, yeah, but John Damascus, this is
what next. Barlem moves then to say yeah, but wait, wait, wait,
but John Damascus says God is not composed of substance
an accident. Gotcha, bro, Now, look how stupid this is,
because not only does John Damascus say, of course God
is not composed of substance and accident. But that's because
the uncreated energies aren't accidents, right, They're not accidents in God.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: And John Damascus goes on at great length from book
one using the argument for essence introducing in there to
applying it to Christology. And every one of these Tomas,
especially Mathema, are completely dishonest because if they would read
the work, they would know they would see that he
uses the essence introducinction in book one to apply that
to the Christology and the energies in Christ in book
three the energies in Christ. Right, And there's a come
up with a million different objections. He's not talking about
inner God, He's just talking about energy in general. No,
the section is about the energy is in Christ. What
a bunch of liars. So Barleam pulls the trick that
Aldo Thomas pull, which is that well, John Damascus says
God's not composed and he doesn't have accidents, correct, and
the energies are not accidents. Now let's look at another
argument that doctor Taylor Marshall has used, and he's relied
on this. I refuted this argument in a comments debate
ten years ago, and he still uses the same dumb argument.
Point I refuted this in the lectures on John Damascus.
Taylor Marshall says, yeah, but Basil says God's essence is one.
Of course, it's his essence is one he says God
say John Damascus says God's energy is one. Therefore, absolutely
my simplicity, You dishonest person, read the book. The book
doesn't just say God's energy is one. It says God's
energy is one and multip They love to do this.
They quote Hunt and rip it out and ignore the
entire context. They do it with Athenacius, where they ignore
the fact that the entire context of the debate is
about God's actions being distinct from his nature. They do
it with Johnamascus where they pull out the quot where
he says that God's energy is one, and then they
leave out the part where he later says God's energy
is also multiple. They set up the dialectics all the time.
By the way, we want to add a little adendum
here which refutes the modernists and the Ecumenus, where the
Saint Gregor Palomas in chapter thirty five launches into a
lengthy discussion well one page, that the scriptures are an
errant they do not contain errors, they are God inspired
in every respect, they do not have theological errors. They're
not historically inaccurate, and you have to believe this. I
have stressed this over and over and over, you can't
believe that the scriptures are have errors. Next, Gregory Pelmus
stresses again the person nature distinction is similar to the
distinction between the cause the father being the cause of
the son. Now he's not saying that the same, but
he's saying that we believe in a real distinction between
person and nature and God. If we didn't, we would
be modalists. We also believe in a real distinction between
father as the sole cause and the son has caused. Right,
that is a real distinction, That is a real eternal generation.
That is a real distinction between father, son, and spirit.
He says, therefore, distinction is not composition or division. He
then goes on to cite Saint Athanasius and Saint John
Damascus at length in multiple places in this regard. Next,
he re emphasizes Saint Basil's arguments from Letter one eighty
nine about common energies signifying common nature, and then he
goes on to make the argument that if you were consistent,
you would be a modalist and a Eunomian, and that
Eunomius was more consistent than the Roman Catholic because Eunomius
believed in absolute to my simplicity and said that if
there's any distinctions and the Son is really distinct, then
he is not the same essence, and he would compromise
the perfect unity of God. That's Eunomius's argument. Eunomius is
more consistent than the Roman Catholics. Eunomia says, I'm a
modalist because if I admit that distinction entails division and composition,
and if I admit that the Sun is distinct, then
he's not of the same essence as the Father. He's
some other kind of being. Next, Saint Gregor Palamus cites
Saint Basil in against Eunomius, Chapter one, section eight, where
Saint Basil says that the simplicity doctrine where you unite
all the energies and actions in God and I say
that they are identical to the essence, is absurd. Once again,
Taylor Marshall and all these people are dishonest or they're ignorant. Next,
he says that you believe that in the resurrection you
will actually see the essence of God. He says that's
called the heresy of the Massallians who believed that they
saw the essence of God. Next, he says that when
Paul saw the divine light in Acts nine three and
Acts twenty two six, that was not a creature. Paul
actually saw Christ. Next, he moves to the famous letter
of Saint Basil Letter two thirty four, where Basil in
one page are used for the essence introduce section very
clearly saying that if you believe that all these are
identical to the essence of God, you are fool. And
he says that Saint Basil can say this and still
believe that God is perfectly holy, one and united. We
all participate in God in different ways, showing that distinction
is not division. Right, So he gets barleym to the
Barley might to admit this, if God is pure essence
and that we do really participate in God, then it
would lead to pantheism, correct Saint Gregory says. He then
restresses the fact that on one Corinthians twelve says that
there are different innergaya, different energies of the spirit one
Corinthians twelve, and those energies are actually and truly different. Therefore,
they're not identical, and they're not merely created effects. They
are uncreated. God is then multiple in a unified way
and unified in his multiplicity. Did you hear that God
is unified in a multiple way and multiple in a
unified way. That's the Orthodox doctrine, because we don't believe
in dialectics, and we don't believe in the stupid heresies
of Barley. They are called stupid heresies. Now, if they're
called stupid heresies by Saint Gregory Palamos, can we then
unite with the Roman Catholic mister ecumenists, No, we can't.
If they're called stupid heresies, then obviously they're different. Next,
he quotes to Saint Maximus. Sat Maximus says that the
Saints get the same uncreated energy that God has. And
that is let's see where that is. The Saints get
the same energy as God. That is from Saint Maximus.
It's in two places. It's in the letter to Marhinus
ninety one and it's in on Problems, section ninety one.
If you believe that you see God, you have the
doctrine of the Messallians. We as Orthodox, believe in divine simplicity.
We do not believe God is composed. He's not divided,
he doesn't have parts. And he says that I will
solve this dilemma for you. The divine is one. It
is simple. God has one essence. That one is is
is that one is, in an appropriate way, a whole
w h O l E. In relation to all things
that we think about it. God is not divided, He's
not split. He does not have parts. For it is
then a whole goodness, a whole wisdom, a whole justice,
a whole power, just as we as we experience him.
He's saying, He says, we think about God this way,
it is this. It is this in our thoughts, he says,
but it is not. It does not become this because
of because of our thoughts. In other words, it really
is this, not even when it is thought, but because
it is such from all eternity. Did you hear that?
What does the Thomas say? What do the Ecumenists say?
They say that Sant Gregor Palmas says that it's a
conceptual distinction. It's not real. It is not this because
of our and even when it is thought, it is
not this. But it is this from all eternity, because
these attributes manifest themselves through his works. So God is
one in as many works, and he's also multiple in
his many works, there is no dialectical tension between the
one and the many and God. We don't set the
essence of God over against the multiplicity in God. We
don't set the multiplicity in God over against the essence
of God. He's not more one than he is three.
He's not more three than he is one. He's perfectly one,
but he's also genuinely three. Next, he quotes Saint John
Christistom to the effect that the deifying grace that we
get is an energy of God, and that energy, in
order to deify us, is not created. We are not
deified if we are only giving another, if we are
given merely another creature. Salvation is not the giving of
another creature to us, but the uncreated to us. That's
how we become immortal. That's how we have eternal life.
Eternal life is not just created life. It's eternal life,
you see. Next he talks about the angelic nature and
how even that is created, makes some more distinctions between
human nature and angelic nature, but then he talks about
how the being of God is different. The book then
ends with the Barleamite admitting that he was incorrect, especially
after dozens of citations from the church fathers on the
distinction being real, and he says that those who are
haters of this and haters of Saint Gregor Palamas were
in fact actually envious and jealous. There you go. So
that is the summation of the dispute with Barleum, the
debate with Barleum. Clearly, the Ecumenists are incorrect. This is
not reconcilable with Tomism. Clearly Barleum says all the same
stuff as a quitas. Clearly, after this period the Roman
Catholic Church adopted the Barleumite type position across the board.
I don't just mean on propositions about what simplicity is.
I mean about God's simplicity. I mean about Christology. I
mean about the philioque, I mean about creative grace. I
mean about the sacraments, I mean about the Beetic vision.
And I mean about no doction of the news. That's
the critique. And by the way, the papacy itself is
also an outworking of divine simplicity. The imbalance of the
one and the many in the Trinity in the Roman
Catholic conception has led to the doctrine of the imbalance
of the one and the many in the church. That's
exactly why they have a supervision, because they have a
super essence, a super essence that's absolute, simple, right, all right,
So we see that the acumenists are wrong. We see
that it's uh. He calls the heretics stupid and heretics
and he and then the last point that we wanted
to make was once again in the different essay of
Father Fluorowsky, the essay called Saint Gregory Palamas in the
tradition of the fathers.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Here we have the explanation of why this is dogmatic.
So I'm gonna put that in the chat. There there
is the other essay, and let's look at one of
the a couple of the quotes here from Fluorovsky. Saint
Gregory begins with the distinction between grace, essence and energy.
The divine and divinizing illumination of grace is not the essence,
but the energy of God. Right. The basic distinction was
formally accepted and elaborated at the Great Councils of Constantinople
thirteen forty one, thirteen fifty two, thirteen forty one, thirty
fifty one. Those who would deny this distinction are anathematized
and excommunicated. Did you hear that, Ecumenists, you cannot deny this?
Did you hear that David Bentley heart fordom you are excommunicated.
The anathemas of the Council of six fifty one were
included in the right for the Sunday of Orthodoxy in
the Triodion Orthodoxy. Elogians are bound by this decision. Do
you see that therefore we cannot unite with tumism. The
essence of God absolutely is incommunicable. The source and power
of human theosis is not the divine essence, but the
grace of God, the inner gaia, the divinizing energy by
participation of which one is devinized as a divine grace.
It is no way the essence of God or grace
is not identical to the uzia of the essence. Right
divine grace is an uncreated grace and energy. This distinction, however,
does not imply or affect division or separation. Here is
one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth century in
the Orthodox Church, Father Florowski, saying what you've heard me
say five hundred times. Nor is the uncreated grace an accident?
Do you see this? Thomas. He's telling you what I've
been telling you, but you don't listen. Energies proceed from
God and manifest his own being. The term proceed simply
suggests a distinction. Right, We're not talking about eternal procession
of the spirit here, is just using it in a
general sense here of coming from, but not a division.
The grace of the spirit is different from the substance
and yet not separated from it. Now what Roman Catholic
believes this? Maybe some of these uniates, but so what
the rest of their church rejects this? And let's read this.
Saint Gregory quotes Saint Cyril of Alexandria. Can you see that?
But Saint Cyril at this point was simply repeating Athanasius,
what have you been telling? Hearing me say the essence
s energy distinction is Athanasius's argument against the arians. If
you don't get that, you're a fool, and his reputation
of arianism. He formally stressed the ultimate difference between the
essence of God or the effusus the nature substance on
the one hand, and the will on the other, distinction
between will and counsel. If you read the other essay
where he covers this right and the essence of God.
This is why the Son is not a projection or
a result of the Father's will or energy or work,
but is in fact a direct offspring of the Father's nature.
That's my quote. Indeed, not a necessity of compulsion, no
faught to them, but a necessity of being itself. God
simply is what he is. God's will is eminently free.
He is in no sense necessitated to do what he does. Therefore,
creation is not identical to the act of creating, is
therefore not identical to the essence of God. The essence
of God is what it is by necessity if creation,
if the act of creating is identical to the essence
of God, then creating the world is just as necessary
as the essence of God. It's stupid. That's why Basil
calls it stupid.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: And so he then cites the section where the this
is dealt with in Contrarianos against the Arians, where he
talks about the energy of the will being distinct from
the nature. Athanasius teaches the essence energy distinction. There you go,
now shut your mouths. Of course, this distinction does not
compromise to buying simplicity. It is a real distinction. It
is not just a logical device. Can you hear that, Tomass?
Can you hear that? Can you hear that? Saint Gregory
was fully aware of the crucial import importance of this
distinction at this point. He is a true successor of
Athenasius and the Cappadocians, and so are we and you
are not all right? There we go very clear. Now
I will be taking questions. The next half of this
we will delve into the quotes that he uses from
Saint Maximus, will delve into the logi. Right, it's time
to return to the logos logi distinction in Saint Maximus,
the exemplars and how the Orthodox view believes them to
be created. Excuse me, uncreated energies, uncreated thought wills we
call them, and not exemplars in the essence of God
like the Thomas say, because that would lead to a
necessary creation. So there's that, and I'll take your super chats.
If you want to subscribe, you can go to Jasonelsons
dot com. You'll see the members subscribe to become a
member for all of the archives and the part two talks.
So if you want, if you're interested in Saint Maximus
and his statements on the logi, how the logo are
also uncreated energies, how he cites say Maximus. That's what
we'll talk about in part two. I've had many, many,
many requests for more on this from Maximus, so that's
what we're going to do in part two. But because
of the recent debates and controversies and events, this was
very timely both against the Ecumenists and the Roman Catholics
to show the distinction of the position. So I wanted
to make that whole book public. In terms of the discussion,
we'll get into the deeper stuff with Maximus and the
low GI in the second part. For subscribers, I'm going
to put the link into the chat right now. If
you want to subscribe to Jason Elysis for that, you
can do that over at my website. There you can
subscribe by paper or credit card. You can also get
my book. There are two books on philosophy and film
Start Hollywood one and two there for you and to subscribe.
Here is the link at the top for the tab
to subscribe to the website if you want to subscribe.
So there's that. You can also do it through Patreon
if you want to, and tutoring. Tutoring is available through patroon.
All right, let's get to some of these subgests. Hunter
twenty three ninety nine pounds as you ask, thank you
for asking. Hunter, appreciate that Hollywood Decoded two is not
going to happen. Unfortunately it was not. They did not
want to purchase another season. And I don't think our
other TV show is going to be purchased either. But
that's okay. TV shows come and go. There will be
more futures, I'm sure for all that kind of stuff.
And Hunter again says, it's a shame. It is a shame.
It would have been nice to have Hollywood to Code
season two or the other show that we were going
to do, Pop a Culture would have been cool. Maybe
we can maybe those will still get picked up. You know,
you never know. Uh Shale eight four nine, Jay, I'm
new to Orthodoxy and the only church nam he is Greek.
I've been going to liturgies and was wondering what I
should be wary of or asked the priests about. Well,
I mean you don't have to ask him questions to
see if you're wary. I mean you should be able
to get a feel for the church, for you know,
going there for a while to see if it's if
it's good or bad. But I mean, if you want
a simple test question, you could just say, do you
believe in higher critical approaches to the Bible?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: And do you believe and accept Freemasonry? Those are two
good test questions. And if he says that he believes
in higher criticism, then you know you have a modernist.
Or if he says he is cool with Freemasonry, then
you know that you probably should find a different one.
Are Juan non sequitor of five pounds? Doesn't the change
in the change in the tropos of the sun imply
a change in the hypostasis? Is a hypostasis divine or
divine human? What does the anthropos mean? Again? I feel
like I know who this is. I would let me,
you know, let me just get John Damascus out for you.
And I actually went and read the sections to all
the sections that I think you know who you are
sent to me. The first thing I will say is
that if you look at how in hypostatized is used
in the Philosophical chapters, you will notice that in chapter
twenty nine he talks about two different senses to the
way that this term is used. Sometimes it's used to
just talk about the way that human beings are, and
sometimes it's used to talk about the individual in itself,
in itself. Did you hear that in itself? Now?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 1: Huh? If you move over to chapter forty one, he
will tell you what it means. That what the hypostasis
becoming composite means one compound Hypostatius made from two natures.
The very thing I told you the whole time. The
hypostasis is personhood, correct, right, it's pre eternal. So Jesus
was a person from all eternity. What he assumed made
him composite. But what did he assume a nature? Right,
he's composite because he has two natures, one compound hypostasis
from two divine natures. Excuse me, from two natures, two
diverse natures, he says, one human, one divine. You see,
So I am not denying that he's composite, and I
don't have a problem saying that hypostasis is the subject
which is composite. But it's not the hypostasis itself, because,
as both down Damascus and Saint Maximus say, he he
is a reference to hypostasis personhood. He remained in himself
what he was. He remained what he was when he
assumed human nature. There was no alteration in the hypostasis itself,
in itself, because it's from all eternity. Now, when we
move on to chapter forty three, he discusses person what
is hypostasis? Right, and he talks about operations from the hypostasis,
and he says that one should know that the Holy
Fathers use the term hypostasis, person and individual in the
same way. So, for example, Peter and Paul are hypostasis, right,
but they have one common nature. Then he goes on
to discuss in hypostaton or in hyposthetized. He uses it
in the damn same sense that I told you that.
It means that the only mode or tropos in which
nature exists is in the mode or tropos of person.
What is called in hypostatized is that which has assumed
another hypostasis, and in this it has its existence. Thus,
the body of the Lord, since it never subsisted of itself,
not even as an infant, is not a hypostasis. The
human nature is not a hypostasis. Right, That would be
the stories, but it is in hypostatized because the divine
person is the hypostasis. The body of Christ has as
its personhood the divine person of the Logos, and this
is because it was assumed by the Hope. Again here
it is forty four. Why does Christ's humanity not have
any hypostasis of itself? Because it was assumed by the
hypostasis of God the Word, and this subsisted and does
have this for a hypostasis. So the hypostasis of the
body of the Word is the eternal second person of
the Godhead. The only person there, the only person that's present,
is the second person of the Godhead. Now you said,
and we can go over by the way in chapter
sixty six where he expounds in hypostatona again the two
natures are what becomes hypostatically united, but they are absolutely indivisible.
I told you that I believe that we don't mix them.
And you're a heretic for calling me. You're bad willed
for calling me a heretic saying that I'm a Monophysite.
And by the way, I don't want your money. He
goes on in chapter sixty six to say that the
hypo stasis of Christ assumed an additional nature, and he
talks about the controversies about Saint Cyril. He says that
in Christ, because in him the divine and the human
natures are united. Right, so he becomes composite because he
has two natures. Right, the hypostasis itself remains what he
was it in terms of he remains. The hypostasis is
subsistence in self. He says this in this section. This
is section sixty six. In Christ, the divine and the
human natures are united, while his animate body subsisted in
the preexistent hypostasis of God the Word. His animate body
subsisted and its mode of being, its existence is in
the pre existent person of God the Word. He's not
saying that the body of Christ existed from all eternity.
He's saying that the body of Christ subsists in the
pre existent hypostasis of God the Word. This body has
this logos for a hypostasis. It is, however, quite impossible
for one compound nature to be made from two natures
or from one, or for one hypostasis to be made
from two. Did you hear me? It is quite impossible
for one compound nature that would be a monophysite to
be made from two natures, or for one hypostasis to
be made from two. Therefore, it's not composite in itself.
It is composite in the sense of having two natures.
The hypostasis of Christ possesses a divine nature from all
eternity and united himself to a human nature, the humanity.
The human nature has for its hypostasis the second person
of the Godhead. It is quite impossible for one compound
nature to be made from two, or for one hypostasis
to be made from two, And then he goes on
to say that the hypostasis is subsistent in itself. It
must further be known that in the Holy Trinity, a
hypostasis is the timeless mode of each eternal existence. Right,
so each person exists in an eternal hypostatic mode. That's
not modalism. I know that you know that, but some
people might mishear me and think that I'm talking about modalism.
And then he also refused this in there's a section
in I made a note about this, we shared it
in the chat. There's a section in the defense where
he talks about this as well, when he talks about
who the hypostasis is from all eternity, And how the
only sense in which it's composite is the two natures.
He suffered no alteration or change in who he was,
except that he became composite in assuming nature human nature.
And by the way, how stupid is it to call
us monophysite when I sit here spending countless hours arguing
about two energies in Christ. There's no way to be
monophysite and hold to two energies in Christ, because energies
are properties and faculties of nature. If I was monophysite,
there would be one energy in Christ. I wouldn't be defending.
I wouldn't have giant stacks of books that deal with diothelitism.
By the way, speaking of Christ's composite after the incarnation
does not mean that we continue to view him as
if he were separate. He is the god Man. There
is only, and for all eternity one god Man. That's
why Saint Justin Popovich's works are so good is because
he consistently emphasizes the god Man. But just like it's
not wrong to talk about the theological controversies, and therefore
to talk about Christ as pre existent and Christ as
having two natures as this book does. Dummy, it's not
wrong to speak that way. So let's see the section
that is in the defense that deals with this is
where he talks about Cyril and the energies. This would
be section eleven of book three, where he talks about
in what sense the incarnation and the union happened? How
to understand Cyril. Dude, I wouldn't be sitting here quoting
look at this if my intention was to undermine Orthodoxy.
I wouldn't be citing the guy who the Monophysites don't like.
This is so stupid. So anyway, I may just write
an essay on this, because multiple sections in the What
you're not understanding is what it means to say that
he's a divine person from all eternity, right, the pre
existent eternal word.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I understand what you mean when you say he was complex.
He was simplex beforehand, and then he was complex because
he assumed a human nature. So sometimes you can talk
about the hypostasis for the whole person of Christ, and
sometimes you can talk about the hypostasis referring to it
in itself. That's not dividing Christ, that's not saying he's
he has parts after the incarnation that we want to
divide him. It's using the theological language that he uses. Okay,
So what you misunderstood was just simply the terminology. You
misunderstood the fact that saying the hypostasis is composite does
not mean the hypostasis itself is composite. He remains what
he was from all eternity. Both he and Saint Maximus
say that when they explain it anyway, I'm not interacting
with you anymore anyway, so themthrowpost is explained in book
three to mean what I'm telling you it means justin
stam ten dollars, Yo, dog, could you clarify Excess thirty
three eleven, where it talks about distinct attributes glory and
goodness seems to be different in translations. Well, of course,
I mean, as you know, the septuagen is the normative
text for us. So let's see what expdus thirty three.
I don't think that. I mean the point was to
differentiate God's essence from his actions, and that the story
of Moses tells us this. So let's see. Let's see
what thirty three eleven says that Moses spoke face to
face Okay, so you're saying that distinct attribute glory and goodness.
Thirty three eleven. All the people saw the pillar of
the Cloud and the tabernacle, and they worshiped each man
at his tent door. The Lord spoke face to face
with Moses as a man speaks to his friend. Then
he would return to the camp, but his servant, Joshua,
the son of Nune, a young man, did not depart
from the tabernacle. Okay, I mean, maybe I'm missing the
I mean, I know he tells Moses that he will
let his goodness pass before him. So let me look
at what the Masoretic text would read there thirty three eleven.
I don't I'm not seeing that. Maybe it's different between
the two agent and the masoretic text is what they issued.
So the Mazarek text says, so God the Lord spoke
to Moses face to face. Yeah, I don't see where
you're talking about the difference between glory and goodness. It's
it's you know, in the Moses story, it talks about
Moses says, let me see her face, and God says,
you can see my goodness. Sorry, justin I'm a little confused.
Misty earnst one dollar. Thank you missing appreciate that oplaton
o platon, the hypostasis itself is from all eternity. By
the way, this is all we have to do is
to read this. The only sense in which is composite
is because his hypostasis has appropriated and taken on a
human nature. The human nature has for its subject the
eternal divine person. Right, So in no sense is Christ
a human person. His humanity does have for its subject
a divine person, and Saint Maximus is very clear about that.
But when you read this book, which is a refutation
of monophysitism, it makes all of that very clear. By
the way, I'm banning you because I know who you
are and I don't want your five dollars. Sauna Shauna
Sawyer ten bucks. Bless Jay for explaining original Christianity, how
and how the theology practice is devolved from the time
the heresies of Franks, the great skills of the Reformation,
Renaissance Vatic into New World Order. Yes, that's the key.
It's it's it's a big picture, and that I think
is the correct analysis. Steve Green five bucks, what is
meant by accident in this context? Well, in the risk
Atilian conception, you have the notion of objects being composed
of substance or an essence, and then they have accidental qualities,
which are maybe secondary qualities. Right, So a chair has chairness,
but then it has the secondary or accidental quality such
as being read or being short, or being small or
you know whatever. Those are qualities that aren't necessary to
being a chair. But whatever chaerness is, that's the essence
of being a chair. Right. So in Roman Catholic theology
they will adopt the substance accident approach of Aristotle and
then try to kind of apply this across the board.
And then when they apply it to the deity, they say, well,
God cannot God has pure, perfect, simple substance, and therefore
if he has distinctions that are real, then it must
mean that he has accidents and accidental qualities, and that
can't be because that would mean he's composed. So that's
a category mistake where we don't apply the risk to
the categories to God himself. Now, when I say that,
I don't mean that we can't speak of God as
the cause. Right. If I say God is the first cause,
that doesn't mean that I believe that he is the
thought thinking itself of Aristotle. Right, if I say that
God is logos, that doesn't mean that he is identified
with Marcus Aurelius's principle that permeates the universe. It's not
the same thing. So we can't make category mistakes or
word mistakes, word term mistakes, right, mistaking words for the concepts.
But what happens in Roman Catholicism is that they assume,
like with John Damascus, when John Damscus talks about distinction
between God's energies and God's essence, they say that it
can't mean what Orthodox say because John Damascus says that
God has no accidents. Correct. But John Damascus, as you
just saw Father Florofsky say, does not conceive of there
being accidents. That the accidents are uncreated energies. Uncreated energies
are not accidents in God. Slaber Chops, Tim Bucks God,
bless you day, Thank you, slabtops Lem just appreciate it.
Bruce Bronson one dollar, Bruce Bronson, one dollar, thank you.
So once again, Yes, the hypostasis of Christ is composite
in the sense of now he exists and subsists with
two natures. The hypostasis itself is from all eternity, and
it is the pre eternal word of God. He's a person,
he's a hypostasis from all eternity. The only thing that
he assumed was a human nature. He remained what he was.
Both John Damascus and Saint Maximus say in assuming human nature,
now he is the god man. Now those natures are
not compounded, they are composite. Composite does not mean compounded
and confused, You are confused. I'm talking about the psycho
who keeps following me and gets banned. That's you. I'm
not going to name him. He's done. We're not interacting
with him ever again. All right, So the only reason
he asked that question was to try to trip me
up so he can try to have some kind of dirt.
But we've already subtled the matter with that guy. We've
gone above his head. My work has been blessed now
by the hierarchs, so it doesn't matter what he says.
All right. I don't see any more super chats. Do
we have anybody who wants to debate? Anybody want to
come on and debate. Also, we covered that composite issue
again in my chat. It's just a category mistake. They're
misunderstanding what's composite. Yes, the hypostasis is composite in the
sense of assuming human nature. Two nature's is what makes
it composite. Islami Janissary going debate. So we have a
Muslim and wants to debate. Yeah, we have Muslims debating
all week in the in the discord. By the way,
I will be debating Matt Dila Hunty August eighth. So
if you've not, I'm sure most of you probably know
who Matt Dila Hunty is, the now well known atheist.
He did a debate with JBP a while back. It
was very popular. People are saying, don't bother.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: John Damascus says, there's two senses to which we use
the word in hypostatize or what referring to when we
talk about hypothesis, Sometimes we're talking about us, when other
talking about God. Sometimes we're talking about the whole being,
and sometimes we're talking about just the hypostasis itself. No,
Christ as a divine person, his divine, his divinity is impassable.
So when he was crucified, he underwent death. There's only
one person, one subject there who is undergoing this action.
But because he's a divine person. He is impassable, right,
his divine nature is impassable. John Damascus covers us at
length at the end of book three and at the
beginning of book four. So at the end of book
three he talks about the death and dissent of Christ
into Hades, his human soul descending into Hades. And in
the beginning of book four he ends that section and
he explains what we mean. So the only reason that
you Islamic apologists are saying that is because you think
that that Christ is just like kind of one entity.
We say that Christ always possesses two natures, and that
when he suffered and died, it was only his human
nature that suffered and died. Now, the subject who underwent
that actions is the second person of the godhead, right,
the only person present for all those actions. Now, I'm
not dropping the discord link into the chat because there'll
be a million retards that will pile in there and
junk it up. Jay Paul says in Timothy that God
is immortal, but he died a human death. So he yeah,
this is called dialectics, right. God is immortal, but that's
why we say he took on a human nature. He
didn't become a human. He remained divine and he assumed
human nature. And those natures interpenetrate one another, but they
never lose their properties. Right, So his humanity really did
suffer die, but his divinity is impassable. Right, so he
was never separated from his humanity. As John Davascus says, Look,
just read the last look, all right, Actually be helpful
because a lot of people make a mistake on this point.
This will also help refute that moron. It was just
in here, all right. So let's go to book three
and I'm gonna put up the screenshot for you here,
so this will respond to your question. What we're saying here.
Let's take the death of Christ as an example. Now,
we never separate Christ as if we actually in reality
are dividing him. Okay, he's always the god Man, even
in his death. He is the god Man for all eternity.
He will beat the god Man. Right, But there was
a death that occurred. Now, John Demssus is going to
make clear that when Christ died in this what he
calls the appropriation. This is right after this the section
where he talks about my God, My God, why have
you forsaken me. The Father did not forsake him in
the sense of splitting the trendity, because he's a divine person.
But Christ's death was real, It wasn't a phantasm, it
wasn't imaginary. Well, how do we make sense of that?
How can he die? Right? Well, because you're you're thinking
of Christ as one compound thing, right, one, he's only divine,
he's not. He's divine and human. So let's read this.
The Word of God then itself endured all in the flesh. Right,
So the second person of the Godhead, right, the Word
of God then endured in it in it's then itself.
By the way he speaks of the second person of
the Godhead itself, just like I told that retard, he
says he doesn't. There it is right there he the
Word of God itself. Right, the second hypes the second
person of Godhead, the eternal hypostasis, endured everything in the flesh,
while his divine nature alone was passionless and remain void
of passion. Christ has two natures. This is what you
don't understand. So God didn't die in the sense of
his divine nature changing. For since the one Christ, who
is compound of divinity in humanity. Oh oh, by the way,
did you see that retard? What's he compound of divinity
in humanity? Right? Two natures compound the very thing that
you said was an off site. Get out of here,
you retard, and exists in divinity in humanity. He truly suffers.
He exists, in exists, his hypostasis exists in humanity and divinity.
It truly suffered. What truly suffered he did in his humanity,
in the part which was capable of passion. What part
was capable of suffering his humanity. I'm not talking to
the Islamic guy as the retard. I'm talking about the
guy who's been obsessively tweeting or not tweeting following me
that I had to go to the hierarchs about.
Speaker 2: This.
Speaker 1: Right here, er Hutson as well. By the way, he's
so stupid he thinks that talking about the different natures
after the incarnation divides Christ, when this whole section is
about the different natures and what was impossible and what suffered.
This guy's a clown. But the only part that could
suffer mister Muslim was the humanity. Right now, he doesn't
have parts in the sense of being a divine person. Right,
he's the second person of Godhead from all eternity. He
assumes human nature, and he does suffer, but he suffers
in his humanity, in the part of him that could suffer. Right,
So Christ himself does not have parts. But when he
assumed human nature, he became composite, compound of divinity and humanity.
Compound of divinity in humanity. That's not monophysite retard for
the soul. Indeed, since it is capable of passion, shares
in the pain of suffering of a bodily cut, though
it is not cut, but only the body. But the
divine part, which is void of passion, does not share
in the suffering of the body. Christ's divinity is impassable.
His divinity was not changed, didn't suffer in alteration, It
didn't die. Observe. Further, we say that when we say
God suffered in the flesh, this is called communicastio idiomatum.
This comes from Saint Cyril, and it just means that
we can say one thing about one nature, but we
can apply it to the whole Christ. That's what commune
castio ideomotum means. But we never say that his divinity
suffered in the flesh, or that God suffered through the flesh.
For if when the sun is shining upon a tree,
the act should clean the tree, and nevertheless the sun
remains uncleft and void of passion. Much more will the
passionless divinity of the word united in subsistence to the flesh.
Subsistence here just means person, the one, the divinity of
the word, united in the subsistence, in his subsistence to
the flesh. Right, his divine person is united to the flesh.
That is his human humanity is human nature. It remained
void of passion when the body undergoes passion. And should
any one poor water over flaming steel, it is that
which naturally suffers by the water, I mean the fire
that is quenched, But the steel remains untouched, for it
is not the nature still to be destroyed by water.
Much more than when the flesh suffered, did his only
passionless divinity escape all passion, although abiding inseparably from it.
For one must not take the examples too absolutely and strictly. Indeed,
in the examples one must consider both what it is
like is unlike. So he's just saying these are analogies
with the steel and water and fire, heat whatever, for
if they weren't like in all respects, they would be identities,
not examples. Then he goes on to say concerning the
divinity of the Lord, how it remained inseparable from the
soul and the body at Christ's death, and that his
subsistence continue to be one. This is also going to
refute that retard even further our psychopath, not the Muslim guy,
the other guy. So continuing, he says, since our Lord
Jesus Christ was without sin, he committed no sin. A
scripture says, right, he was not subject to death, since
death came into the world through sin. There had another
so called true Orthodox clown trying to say I was
a heretic because I said he assumed the nature that
Adam had. That's what John Damascus says right here, he
was not subject to death, right, But he willingly took
on our mortal condition. But not because he inherited original
or ancestral sin. He took on himself death on our behalf.
You see, he will too, and he made himself an
offering to the Father for our sakes, for we sinned
against him, and it was meet that he should receive
the ransom for us, and that we should thus be
delivered from the combination. God forbid that the blood of
the Lord should have been offered to the tyrant. Right,
So he's saying that it wasn't an offering to Satan.
Wherefore death approaches and swallowing up the body, talking about
Christ's body as bait. Death is transfixed on the hook
or excuse me, the Christ's body, he's saying, is debate.
The bait is transfixed on the hook of divinity. Right.
So the it's almost like the if you think about
the matrix, when when Neo like goes into agent Smith
or whatever and it destroys Agent Smith. I mean, that's
a dumb analogy, but I don't know. This is what
pops in my head, Like when when when Satan took
this into his realm, into the realm of death, so
to speak, this sinless and life giving body, uh, is
the bait, and then this is the means by which
Satan is destroyed. He's saying, after tasting the sinless and
lifegiving body, it perishes and brings up again all who
died of old. He swallowed up speeding of death for
just as darkness disappears in the introduction of light. So death,
so is death repulsed before the assault of life and
brings life to all, but death to the destroyer. Wherefore,
although he died as man and his holy spirit was
severed from his immaculate body, yet his divinity remained inseparable
from both. See there, I mean, from his soul and
his body. So even though his one hypostasis was not
divided into two, you see, he remains to be one
hypostasis when his death, when the death occurs, for the
body and soul receives simultaneous in the beginning, there being
the body and the soul, they have one hypostasis, the
word eternal word. He's a divine person. And although they
were separated from one another, the body and soul, that
is by death, you see. And wait, let's see, So
the one hypostasis, that's what subsistence means here of the
word alike is the subsistence of the word and of
the soul and body. Right, So, in other words, there's
only one person present, the divine person and the soul
and body of the humanity. The only person that they
have is the person of the word. For no time
had either the soul or the body, a separate subsistence
of their own. That would be Nestorianism, different from that
of the Word. And the subsistence of the Word is
forever one, and at no time too, you see, so
that the subsistence of Christ is always one. That means
the subsistence the hypostasis of Christ is never composite. It
is always one. It is composite in the sense of
having two natures. It is not composite in the sense
of undergoing an alteration and change. It is always one.
Subsistence means person. For although the soul was separated from
the body topically, yet hypostatically, they were united through the Word. So,
in other words, even when Christ died and his soul descended,
the only person present as his soul descends into Hades
is the divine person of the Word. They were always
hypostatically united in the person of the Word. Now let's
look at the death and destruction in the descent into Hades.
This is a great question, by the way, because this
trips up all the Protestants. Protestants are all tripped up
on this, and they fall into a bunch of a
whole bunch of heresies on this one. So let's look
at this last section. Where's my screenshot? Make sure I
got the right screenshot here? Yeah, here we go. Concerning
corruption and destruction, the corruption has two meanings. It signifies
at times all human sufferings such as hunger, thirst, weakness,
nail's death, that has separation soul and body, so forth.
In this sense, we may say that the Lord's body
was subject to corruption, for he voluntarily accepted those things.
In other words, he was not subject to those things naturally.
He did not accept ancestral sin. He did not accept
original sin. Whatever terms you want to use. We don't
teach that. Maximus is very clear in at the lassium
twenty one, and that's why he has no nomic will.
But corruption means also the complete resolution of the body.
In other words, his body didn't decompose, is what we
were saying. Body Lord did not experience this form of corruption.
As David says, he will not leave my soul in
hades hell, nor will you allow your holy one to
see coruption. Wherefore he talks about two heretics, Julianus and
Guyanas thought that Christ's body was incorruptible in the sense
in the first sense, that he didn't experience hunger thirst
before his resurrection, which is absurd, for if he were incorruptible,
it was not really the same essence as us. In
other words, he didn't really have full humanity. The gospels
tell us that this happened, that he was hungry, he
was thirsty, nails, there was wound in his side. But
if they only apparently happened, then the crucifixion wasn't real.
It was a sham. Right, we don't believe that. So
he's just talking about two errors that we don't accept.
The second maning of the word corruption, we confess that
the Lord's body is incorrupt, that is indestructible, for such
as the tradition of the church. Indeed, after the resurrection
of the Savior from the dead, we know that our
Lord's body is incryptible, even from the first sense of
the word. For in other words, after the resurrection, he
doesn't suffer hunger, thirst, weary, weariness, et cetera. For he
bestowed those gifts upon his resurrected body. That's so he
deified it. Right, Descruption must put on incruption Concerning the
descent into hades, the soul Christ soul when it was deified,
descended into hades in order to that, just as the
son of righteousness Malchi for two rose from those upon
the earth, so likewise he might bring to light those
who sit under the those in hades in darkness and
the shadow of death as a nine two, in order that,
just as he brought the message of peace to those
upon the earth and release of those prisoners, he became
to those who believe the author of relazing salvation. So,
in other words, the gospel was even preached to the dead,
as Peter says, so that he might become the same
lord to those in hades. Every need will bow to him,
those in heaven, those in the earth, and those under
the earth Philippians to ten. And thus, after he had
freed those from who'd been bound for the ages hades, straightways,
here rose again from the dead, showing us the way
of resurrection. So we do not say that God in
his divinity suffered and died. That is a mistake in
terms of the communicastio idiomatum. All right, Uh, let's see,
I don't think there's anything else going on here. We've
got one more super chat. John Kalikas ten bucks our
graces divine help towards salvation for rational creatures. Sure, I
mean they're not just helps, but they're salvation itself. If so,
how do they exist before all creation, including creatures? They
are intended to help? Well, they're not just helps. I mean,
that's kind of like the Roman Catholic idea of like
God giving you little spankings and power boosts or something.
That's not the Orthodox conception. The Orthodox conception is that
grace is the uncreated life of God and glory of
God himself. So I would say to you, John Kleikus,
just read John seventeen. That's one of the clearest passages
because Jesus says that the same glory that he possessed
with the Father and the Spirit before the foundation of
the world, which is obviously an eternal, uncreated glory, is
the very thing that he intends to give to the saints.
So from John seventeen one all the way down to
verse twenty in his high priestly prayer, he makes that
very clear. So anyway, all right, good talk to you guys.
If you want to read more on this. Again, everything
that I'm saying, it's all in defense of the Orthodox faith.
Especially Book three. Okay. So Book three is where it
really talks about Christology and where he really applies the
uncreated energies to Christology. It's where he goes into what
the new theadric energy is. It's what he goes where
he goes into in what sense Christ is composite and
in what sense he's not. Okay, it's all in book three.
And this is the second time I've read it in
ten years. I just did an entire lecture series through
the whole book. I know what I'm talking about. I'm
not making this up. I'm not inventing heresies. To those
who are so called Orthodox, and then to those who
are Roman Catholics, we want to stress that we are
in coherent consistence with the Counsels and the Fathers, and
you were not, and that's why you have to become Orthodox.
And so those who are interested in the website first
part two with Saint Maximus, you can again, I'll put
the link again here for you. You can join the
website or you can buy the book at the shop
at the website. So let's do that real quick and again.
August eighth, Matt Dilla Honey all to be debating Matt.
That should be an interesting debate. There is to subscribe
to the site and if you would like to buy
the books, the sign copies, Philosophy and film all your
favorite movies. You can purchase sign copies of the book here.
Cool beans, dude. All right, God bless you guys, have
a good night, and I will talk to you next
time in Part two with Saint Maximus and the Logi
that will be up in the next day or two.