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