Speaker 1: All right, we are getting live here. Welcome everybody. I
hope you can hear me just now clicking on. We
want to make sure do the audio test. Make sure
everybody can hear us. Fine, but I'm sure we're gonna
be getting fussing, echoes, fussing. Can everybody hear me? Okay?
Let it catch up here? Make sure they can hear us.
Speaker 2: M delicious.
Speaker 1: All right, everybody can hear me now if you would,
we have father, a deacon and an eyas with us again.
Give us a little sound check there. Make sure that
they can hear you.
Speaker 2: Okay, my sound check is happening right now. Hopefully it
sounds good to everyone.
Speaker 1: Can you guys hear him?
Speaker 2: Complaints? Can you hear me?
Speaker 1: They'll let us know here in a second. It always
takes a second for the chat. Catchup. All right, everybody says,
both are great. Thank you. By the way, I want
to congratulate you on your technology stream. That was a
great stream. I watched the whole thing. It was very
relevant to the material that we cover at Jasonnalysis. I'm
thankful to also have the Larchet book. I'd got to
copy that from my priest a few weeks ago. So
thank you to him, and I will I think I've
added that to my reading list at Jays Analysis. If not,
i'll do it, but I think it's.
Speaker 2: On that great book. Great book.
Speaker 1: For a long time, I've been wanting to do a
stream Jerusalem and Athens because we keep coming back to
the issue of in all the debates discussions with the
Roman Catholics or whoever, we keep coming back to this
issue of what is the correct relationship between revelation and
human reasoning, between Jerusalem, Moses and this hate when this
thing readjusts and autonomous reasoning. So I want to talk
about that because that relates to philosophy, the medieval synthesis.
I want to talk about logos and logi because a
lot of people have a lot of questions about that.
If we can, I'd like to talk about some of
the things that you brought up in your stream that
I didn't know. I didn't even I never knew as
a apologies as in a Catholic I've never heard the
objection that one of the reasons that they got rid
of Mary Clergy was so that the church could get
the money. That's a that's so obvious. I never I
never thought about that. So I want to talk about
a lot of those objections that you pulled up, and
then a couple other ones you mentioned I'd never heard actually,
so we'll do some of those, and then I want
to talk about Amazon's synod. I've looked over the documents.
I think many of us have if you haven't seen
them Allso okay, it's not a big deal because we
kind of I see it as kind of the next
stage beyond Vatican two. And so for everybody out there,
remember to subscribe to Norwegian News when he talks. I'll
by the way, I forgot to know I did add
his channel in there. I think his channel is in
the yeah, gets in there. So everybody subscribe to our
friend Norwegian News on YouTube. And then the second half
of this talk will of course be for subscribers, So
you have to subscribe to Jay's analysis or you can
subscribe on the YouTube channel as well. Either way, it's
the same material, it's no different, just two different ways
to subscribe to the same content. So let's get into this.
Let me ask you a question. Playing Devil's Advocate. I've
answered this a lot on my streams and on my
shows and podcasts and essays, what would you say to
the person who says, you know, look, you come at us,
say a Roman Catholic, or could even be a Protestant
for that matter. In some cases, with this critique of Hellenism,
and you're criticizing Hellenism, isn't orthodoxy just Hellenism itself. Doesn't
it have a medieval synthesis of its own? Aren't you
just being hypocritical and having a double standard by calling
out the attempt to merge your revealed Hebrew theology supposedly
with the ideas of the Greeks. I mean, isn't that
what's going on when John says the word logos. I
know we've touched on this a little bit last time,
but I want to reiterate this because it's a big deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, So I'd say that it seems the primary
difference is, and I mentioned this in my in my
last talk talk, that are you guys getting an echo
in an echo?
Speaker 1: They shouldn't be getting one now because if you're talking,
I'm on mute.
Speaker 2: So okay, okay. You know, we've discussed that it's impossible
for people to be one wrong one hundred percent of
the time, and it's because we're made in the image
of God, and so so what that requires is that
for the Orthodox, we're still getting echo. People are saying,
I don't I don't.
Speaker 1: Know behind, so hold on, I'll see this every time.
I don't know why it does this, And every time
I fix it and I set the settings to be
the exact same for the next installment, and then it
does it again.
Speaker 2: I don't know why, because it's the devil. Why.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna fix so. I know you can't
focus with the echo. I'm gonna fix it. Okay, I'm
not talking to you, I'm talking to them. I get
frustrated with these people.
Speaker 2: The chat echoo.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind people that the chat that I see
is it's staggered, so I can't immediately see what's going
into the chat. It's about thirty seconds to a minute
behind what I see, So it takes me a minute
to figure out where we're at. And then once we
get it right, we'll roll. I know it's it's so
let me think how this works. There's three different inputs.
That's the problem. Let's because they can't hear me.
Speaker 2: So can you guys hear me? When I'm can do
you hear an echo everybody, and I'll wait one minute
for your response.
Speaker 1: All right, how about now, how do we sound?
Speaker 2: How do we sound? Guys? Small echo, but I guess
it sounds better for people perfect. I'm getting the thumbs up.
Speaker 1: Okay. I think it has to do with Indie source.
If Indie I source is turned up, it causes the echo.
So if I have to let me make a note
of that, so I remember, turn Indie source down.
Speaker 2: Are you on mute jay?
Speaker 1: Let's say if you would talk a little bit, make
sure we can hear you.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's see if we are sounding good, sounding good,
it's a good thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know the echo. I know the echo is
on his side. It's it doesn't have to do with that.
It has to do with the way that it's set
up when you're using Indie, So Indii causes it creates
two different sources when you try to pipe in somebody
through Skype. It's confusing. I don't even understand it. So
I have to do this every time. So I think
I just need to turn down the Indie source is
the key. So I've got that noted for the future,
for future, because that had the same problem last night.
With Owen anyway, I'm sorry, father, dig go ahead. What
do you say to the person who says, hey, look,
we're all doing medieval synthesis. We're all just trying to
merge with and talk the language of philosophy. Why is
it such a big deal.
Speaker 2: Again, So there's a distinction between the Orthodox using philosophers
where they get things wrecked right, where they're speaking truth.
As I said that it would be impossible for any
one person to be wrong one of the time, and
so obviously is Christianity is spreading through the Ah, through
the Empire, within the Greek language, and people embraced Hellenism
is saturated through the entire empire. The Church had a
duty to use philosophy to show them the things of faith.
Now that's quite different than using philosophers to point to
the truths that are higher truths in the faith, than
to actually take one's theology and marry it to a
particular philosophy. Then you're committed. So for example, we see
this synthesized and reach its pinnacle and aquinas in the Scholastics,
and therefore you're admitted to certain type of Aristotelian evenimes
neo Platonic language, potency, actuality that really ends up causing
some theological problems. So it's not that again that we're
fideist that we wouldn't use philosophy. The difference is embracing
a whole metaphysics and forcing your theology into a philosopher.
And as we talked, one of the primary problems that
arises from this is the Greek understanding of being necessity
and the divine is an impersonal, absolutely simple force that
when you embrace that, if you can't separate from that,
you're going to have some theological problems as we do. See.
So I think for you and myself that this is
what we're pointing out. We're not saying that we never use,
you know, philosophy. We don't embrace the metaphysics the philosophical
projects and then try to force our theology into those paradigms.
The West has done that, and that's why we have
theological problems in the West.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're right, we did touch on that last time.
I've got a really simple example that I've used many
times in my talks, and I want to reiterate it
for viewers. I wanted to get your take on it.
Fe free to disagree or qualified if you see it
as it needs to be more nuanced. But if you
want to illustrate this problem, let's take an example of
something like saying, well, do you believe in one God? Now,
a lot of people would say, yeah, I believe in
one God. So let's take the phrase one God. Does
that mean that because many different religions, many different groups
would say I believe in a God or one God.
That therefore the meanings across all these systems are synonymous. No,
I mean, of course not right. So if I said
I believe in one God, could I join forces with
someone who believed that that one God was Satan? What
about one God equaling Father? That would be our view,
We believe in one God because of one Father, Paul says.
Or what about a Greek philosopher Aristotle, perhaps Plato? The
one quote God is just an abstracted monad thought thinking
itself the one whatever. Right, So we can have a term,
a phrase that means that has different meanings in a
whole bunch of different context. Now, I know that's kind
of a basic common sense idea, but unfortunately, especially in
the Tomistic scheme, the idea of generic theism, the idea
of classical apologetics. The tendency that we run into is
the assumption that words are synonymous across systems. Right, And
I think we did illustrate this. Yeah, they have a
unifical meaning across systems. I'm not talking about Aquinas saying
that we can't predicate unifically of God. I'm talking about
system to system. Right, when the Satanist says there's a God,
or if a I don't know, a Buddhist says there's
a God, right, they all mean different things. So the
phraise the we can't commit what's called the word concept fallacy.
And that's what's key here. And I'm saying this because
this is a problem that I've run into over and
over and over so many times with the Thomas. It's
a problem I had, and I've seen it come up
this weekend debates and discussions. It's an issue I had
when I was a Thomas and I was looking at
orthodoxy and I kept wanting to say, well, look, we're
all just saying the same thing. We use the same words.
Why can't it just be that we're speaking the same language.
But we got to just be clear on what we're
saying and realize that we're all saying the same thing.
And then I realized, oh, we're not saying the same thing, right.
Speaker 2: And you know, this idea comes up in philosophy too
with intentionality. Now an intentionality within philosophy, that doesn't mean
I have an intention to do something, but it means
words and thoughts that are about something and directed at something.
And we can use the same words and hit different
realities and entities. So, for example, what was a late father?
Thomas Hopgot talks about love who's not? For love? Love
is great love? What love? How love? Who? And what
he's getting at. It is the same principle that you know,
we have the secular culture of saying love wins. We
have Crolyism saying love is the sum of the law.
These are all the same words with entirely different meanings.
For the secular world and the occult love means something
like personal desire. For the Christian and the Orthodox, love
is canotic, it's pouring out, it's sacric it's just the opposite.
It's the inversion of surprise, surprise of the world. And
so it's very important that we understand, well, what are
we signifying what reality? The word isn't important. It's the
concept that it's signifying. And Christ realizes us too when
he says, who do you say that I am? Or
you get the evangelicals say this all the time, I'm
a believer? Is he a believer? Believer in what? Who?
An historian? Jesus, the ary in Jesus the you know,
take your pick. That everybody has a different gen So
it's quite important to hammer these things out that. Obviously
the word is equivocal in this sense, and it's important.
So going back to this kind of generic notion of
God that we'll all just mean the same thing. What's
the analogy that man's blind and God's an elephant? Ridiculous metaphor,
but we're all just trying to describe different in different
ways because we're limited. Well, first of all, the problem
with that is a denial of what's revealed in scripture.
God is the Lord and he has revealed us himself
to us. And that's what's so important about the Orthodox
faith is where is our starting point? Is it in
pagan man made specuative of philosophy, in which case, yeah,
we are all blind and not only not feeling the elephant,
we're just locked in our heads doing this metaphysicals and
ontological speculation about and of course you're going to get
all kinds of different descriptions. But when your starting point
is the Lord God, who has revealed himself to us,
then he tells you who he is, and he's not
a generic monad. That God's being and this was the
problem with the Greeks, is that God's being an existence,
was through his ussia, his his substance, and that is
Basil and the other Fathers explicate and explain that God's
existence is contingent upon his hypostasis. It's God is hypostasis,
the father hypostasis that gives his being, and not the
other way around. That you see it as first and
then let's try to work out personhood. And so when
you embrace that type of philosophy, then of course you're
going to come up and say things like, well, we're
all just worshiping the same God and different stuff. And
that's why Besil says you cannot conceive of God apart
from trinity. There is no God apart from hypostasis. The
Greeks never were able to develop a notion of personhood.
And I would argue, as you would as well, probably
the West has never developed any sufficient or robust understanding
a personhood. And for the Greeks, being was the unifying principle,
the united the many in the universe. But there was
the universe and cosmos. For the Greeks had a notion
of necessity. And so this question arises within Christianity and Orthodoxy. Well,
is God utterly free to create? And these are issues
that you brought up with the problems with absolute divine simplicity.
If all predicates are absolutely ontologically ident identical with God's essence,
in what sense is he free as creator? His nature
is Usiah would bind him. And so the Greeks were
never able to work out this dichotomy between being is
necessity and the cosmos and the freedom that lies in
person of it. And this is what the Orthodox are
able to do by saying that God is first and
foremost person, and that his being himself the divinity is
not through his usia, but through the hypostasis of the Father,
and therefore he's utterly free. And you and I talked
about this too. In what sense does hypostasis transcend nature
or being? Ussia it's because is I might have a
nice quote here from Basil at Saint Basil.
Speaker 1: If I might add two, it's Epistol thirty eight that uh,
if you if you've not read Basil's letter thirty eight,
that's where he goes it to great length to distinguish
usia and hypostasis. Uh. So I'm actually going to link
that for everyone because this is, you know, probably one
of the most important texting the Church Father is one
of the most important letters. I mean, obviously everybody should
be familiar with letter two thirty four because it deals
with as and synergi distinction. But I'm gonna put this
in description as well, and let me add two. So
I've added that. I want to add as well that
the if you want to read Edward Fesser, the famous
tomester my Nosi festor Is. I mean, he has three
essays on Plotinus's doctrine of simplicity, and if you read
those essays, I've got a link there, you'll see that
he says everything that I've been saying. There's no I've
not been wrong on any of the critiques of Tomism.
In fact, I've had it right the entire time. And
I want to make a point too that what you're
getting at here is that we could look at another
diagram that might handy little diagrams here if we took
the word hypostasis. If you read the Aeneids, Plotinus uses this. Okay,
he uses this term. Now where exactly he got it
is an interesting question. Perhaps he got it from Greek philosophers,
perhaps he got it from New Testament writers. Right, we
don't know. Maybe some philosophers or scholar knows. But let's
keep in mind that what this means in this scheme
is not what it means to us in Orthodox theology.
And that's why when you read that letter Basil, you'll
see that it doesn't mean the same. So, for example,
in his scheme, if I recall I'm going from memory here,
Plotinus thinks that you have the one, the one gives
birth to the diad I think is the noose in
his scheme. And then these two together, looking at one
another and loving and reflecting on one another, produce the
world soul, the anima mundi, which is the third principle.
So you get this this succession of beings that that
kind of comes into being the world soul or the news.
I forget which one I had some article pulled up here,
I can't remember one of the two links our world
to that world. I think the noose links our world
to the ideal realm. Anyway, it doesn't mean the same. Look,
noose is another example here. Noose here does not mean
what we think Noos is. Okay, Noos for us is
not some second demi urge principle in the original triad
of platonis. You see, so hypostasis doesn't mean the same thing.
Noose doesn't mean the same thing. Right. These are terms
that the same terms in Orthodox Christianity used in Platinas,
but they have completely different meanings. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: By the way. By the way, I'm gonna grab more coffee,
but keep talking because I am listening and the audience
is going to see you, So feel free. I'm just
gonna pour more coffee, but you won't see me.
Speaker 2: Jay, while you're at it, could you grab me a
cup of coffee too, and I will.
Speaker 1: Important I'll splash it on the screen.
Speaker 2: Okay, So it would be like.
Speaker 1: It would be like Pat Robertson. If you just put
your hands up to the screen, I'll pass the caffeine
through the screen into your bloodstream. It'll be a miracle.
Speaker 2: Hallelujah. So, as Jay pointed out in Saint Basil's Letter
thirty eight that he talks about the substance, we see,
the being of something never ex is in a naked state,
without hypostasis, without a mode of existence. And so in
this sense, this is exactly what Jay and I were saying.
In what way does hypostasis or a person transcend nature being?
And in this sense exactly that obviously being substance is
dependent upon its archaean principle, which is hypostasis. And so
it is the Father who is the cause of his
being and the processions as well. It's his hypostasis, and
that is and again, when Jay gets back, I think
it would be nice to talk about how the Greeks
use the term hypostasis and versus the fathers and why
that change occurred.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great topic. So enlighten us on that.
How does hypostasius come to change? Because we know by
the way John Damascus will treat of this. And I
actually just got a Metropolitan Herotheos's book on person Orthodox tradition.
I've read a bunch of that. Now. John Damascus covers
it in the Fount of Knowledge, and he covers it
multiple places in exposition of Orthodox Faith. It's also dealt
with very well in God history and dialectic, especially the
way it's treated of in Volume one, which I want
to touch on a few quotes out of this. When
you make your point, so go ahead.
Speaker 2: So if we go back to ancient Greek philosophy again,
there arcade and first principle of all things is being
or one or the logos and essence being. All of
these things are considered to be general. Person was concrete,
it is concrete. And so one of the problems that
we have going back to ancient Greece, and it's carried
out through the West, is this problem of dialectics and
the inability to synthesize what appears to be contraries. And
one of these was that again substance or usia is
the general, unifying principle of nature. So it's abstract and
it's general, whereas person is concrete in particular. And so
again you get this with Plato. What's his ultimate arcade
the form of the good being, and then the form
of the good which gives being too. The forms, but
that's all general, and so he was not able to
work out any kind of individual concretization of the abstract idea.
So again we see these dialectics that are unable to
be synthesized. And then obviously with Aristotle you get just
the opposite. You get an emphasis on the concrete individual man,
but you have a separation from the eternality of being
in the generals. So this poses and again with the
notion of being or substance of the unifying principle of
the cosmos, you get problems of necessity. So we've got
two issues here going on. The inability to synthesize a
kind of arcane first principle of being with a concretization
of the individual, the individual man, the individual book. Greek
philosophy isn't able to work that out, and subsequently as
well necessity and freedom. And there's obviously a link because
in Greek philosophy hypostasis stasis standing under is the idea,
and so hypostasis and Greek had the notion of substance,
and obviously there's a link between hYP personhood and substance,
but it's never articulated and worked out and tell the
fathers where they have to address these things. And so
what you begin to see is a changing of those words,
you start to get a little bit of some Tertullian Obviously,
it gets worked out much more in the Cappadocian Father
of Saint Basil Saint Gregory, because they're having to address
these issues when critiques are coming in. And here this
is why Saint Basil says that being cannot exist in
a naked state nature, essence in the sense of essence
cannot exist on its own, but always exists in the
mode of hypostasis, the person. And so in that sense,
person or hypostasis is primary. And then when you make
that primary, is the father say it is the hypostasis
of the trinity that creates the world and creates being.
And so Platinus doesn't have this right. He has this
kind of monad, and he tries to draw these kind
of distinctions out and to create world spirit and this
notion of creation, but they're unable to articulate it, and.
Speaker 1: Ats that they have a lesser ontological status. And plotonis
as well. I mean, the world's soul is like the
third tier down from the monad because the assumption in
the system, as Fessor points out, and as many have
pointed out, the assumption in that system. This goes all
the way back to what Parrell pointed out in God
History and Dialectics. The assumption in that system is that
distinction entails not just composition or division, but also lesser
ontological status. Right. The fact that we are distinct beings
from the one requires us to go on our long
platonic mystic journey back to absorption into the one.
Speaker 2: And that's because for the Greeks again, utmost reality super
ends right, supra existence is unity, right, and therefore any
distinction or properties is always considered not only less being,
but moving towards non being in non existence, and so
again you see this dialectics of opposition where it's like
they cannot synthesize the one in the many. And this
is exactly what the Fathers do by changing the term. Again.
It still has a link to being in the original
sense in the Greeks, but now it's given a new
meaning and provides a context in which being can exist
because it cannot exist in the mode of nakedness, right,
but always in the mode of person that you get
the synthesis between the one and the many. That again,
and this is going to play out also in the
essence energies distinction too, right, How can you have one
in many?
Speaker 1: Right? And it's also going to be useful to point out,
as Saint Gregor Palamustas to barlay onm that the energies
are all in h hypostatized. They're also personal energies. They're
never you know, generic, they're never they're never purely natural
energies that come to us like New Age forces or
you know, the force in Star Wars or something. It's
always hypostatic, hypostatized because they're coming to us from the person,
because nature is always instantiated in the mode and the
tropos of persons. This is why, in perfect harmony with
what Basil says in the Letter thirty eight, this is
why Saint John Damascus can say in Book three that
all the heretics, the root of all the heretics errors
is in the confusion of nature and person. Says that
on page two seventy two. If you have this volume,
it's book three, chapter three of whatever volume they have.
And so then he goes from there to moving on
to talking about the person of the Father, right being
the sole arcade of the trinity. This is another reason
why we don't have the philioquay because we can't confuse
the father's hyposthetic property with the son. The son can't
take on the father's unique hyposthetic property. He goes on
to kind of illustrate and lay out in a more
clear way than he did previously, in what sense nature
is common amongst the father's son and spirit, and then
in what sense each of the persons are distinct. And
this is important too for the philly Okuay. I didn't
really intend to get off into philly okuay, but it's
just the way John Damascus takes it in his work.
Because we don't want to We can only say things
about God that either are applicable to him in terms
of his unity, or they're applicable to him in terms
of the persons. So if we say sonship, right, that's
an that's a property, a hypostetic property that's unique to
the sun. But if we use the term love, that's
a attribute and energy and operation that's common to all
three persons. Now we might be able to say, as
Gregor Palomos does, and as the counselor Blackernae does, that
there's a sense in which perhaps the spirit manifests eternally
love in a special way, but that doesn't mean that
he is more love or he's identified with an attribute
those That's where you get all the confusions and nonsense
in the Roman Catholic scheme is they will collapse eternal manifestation,
the eternal processions into hypostatic properties. And this is a
very important This is something I never got as a
Roman Catholic, as a Tomis and it's because I didn't
make these proper triadic distinctions, because that's where it begins,
right in the triad in this theology. And by the way,
everything that's true in this sense in the triad is
then I mean obviously not saying that there's each ternal
energetic processions in the incarnation. I mean they do come
to us from the Father through the Son in the spirit,
but I mean it's not exactly the same. But what
I'm saying is that the way that we conceive of
the relationship between Father, Son and Spirit, person and nature
is also going to be applicable to the incarnate Christ
because all of the teachings and beliefs that we have
about the hypostasis in the trinity, it's going to be
consistent with one hypostasis entering into the mode of the
state of being incarnate. So we have to have a
doctrine which allows for that, if we have an absolutely
simple essence doctrine. Again, the way look at the way
that Fessor explains and explicates the standard Roman Catholic view
of simplicity. There's no way that one hypostasis in the
trinity could enter into a mode of existence that the
other two do not, right, if that doctrine of simplicity
is true. So it all hinges on what we're talking
about here with person nature making that distinction. Making in
distinction doesn't mean they're divided, right, So it's all it's
a distinction without confusion, without division, and it protects the
father's soul causal role. Right. And then when we come
to Christology, when we understand what Saint Cyril did so
brilliantly with hinosis, which is where he compares the relationship
of the body and the soul and man, where he
says that that kind of of a union. It's not
a perfect analogy, but it's a kind of useful analogy
because here we have a human whose body and soul
it's a it's a true union. But we don't mix
and blend and confuse soul and body even though they're
truly united. And that's Cyril's analogy for what goes on
in the incarnation, in that the divinity and it's not
just a generic divinity. This is why we can't have
this roma caa the misunderstanding of the incarnation to think that, oh, well,
it's just the divine nature melding or uniting with the
human nature, and that equals Jesus. No, No, Jesus possessed
his hypostasis from all eternity. He's the eternal Logos. That's hypostatic, right,
and then he assumes the human nature, and the human
nature has for its hypostasis the person of the logos.
There's no human there's no created hypostasis in Christ at all.
That's period and that's why Cyril is so important.
Speaker 2: You have you noticed the same the same theological errors,
the same theological as philosophical errors that occur in the
West as well. So either you get a collapsing and
confusion of soul and body in forms of materialism or
on the opposite of the spectrum substance dualism. And again,
if if you go back to kind of Chalcedonian formula
completely united but distinct, that we don't have a problem
with that because we have a paradigm that allows us
to express this and to see this. And so obviously
one of the problems that we as Westerners before we converted,
when you were a Roman Catholic, we were saying, I
wasn't able to grasp this is because the paradigm that
if you embrace this sort of Greek Aristotilian paradigm where
you're unable to make the proper distinctions, then you don't
see it. And I mean we see this all across history,
for example, that our paradigms don't allow us to see
certain realities. If we have the incorrect paradigm, we're limited
in that sense. And so that brings up a really
good point that we've got to make sure that we
have the right paradigms so that we can be able
to articulate and see the realities that are present around us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I would just add that if if somebody
does want to dive deeper into this, Uh, this I've
been reading is pretty good this week. There's some areas
where I don't think I don't think he's totally correct.
I think he's got a few things wrong. But person
in the Orthodox tradition is pretty good. Byzantine Christ is
really good. It's very deep, very difficult. I just got
a hold of this and I haven't I read a
little bit of it, but the concept of person and
Gregory of Nissa by Lucian Rescuescu, you would know more about.
I don't know my Romanian but and then got what's
that one? Have you read God History and Dialectic?
Speaker 2: No, that's a good I've read parts, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you like that anyway, So those and by the way,
the the book, the John McGuckin book on is really
good for really laying all this out. So that's really
what cured me of my Calvinism was and errors and
even retaining Calvinistic ideas and to Rome Catholicism was the
mcguck and book on Cyril, because he really shows how
what in hypostatized means. And like you said, it's nature
existing in the mode of person. But it's also not,
just as we said last time, just an instance of nature, right,
that's not what a person is. A person's just an
instance of nature. Then when it comes to the trinity,
we would be Sibelians, we would be modalists. We would
just say, well, the son is just an instance of
the divine nature. The father is just a particular instance
of the divine nature. And that's not what it is.
There's a real distinction, a real say level up right
beyond what usia is. That is person that instantiates the nature,
all right, And this is how we can be truly
trinitarian and truly have a distinction between the first the persons,
And as was pointed out last time, that's why the
grace that we get is not just generic nature. We
don't just participate in some uncreated generic energy. We participate
in sonship. We participate in a hypostatic, uncreated grace. You see.
If it was just generic, then we wouldn't be made sons.
We would be made gods, you see. But we're not
just making god. We're not making gods in a generic sense.
We participate in sonship obviously by ad option, because we're creatures.
But that's why the grace is hypostatic. That's why it's
important to understand that uncreated grace, as secondary or Palma
says to the barley mine, is in hypostatized and to
say that does not mean that persons are therefore oh
their intense like you said, you said it well last time, Oh,
they're intension with nature. Right, the person is so mysterious
and it goes so beyond nature that we just can't
even know it or talk about it. And therefore maybe
we should consider like perennialism or something, right, like all
the religions are teaching it. You know, that's where somebody
might try to take that kind of a mistake of
going too far in the mystery of personhood, that it's
it's totally you know, we can never say anything about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's qualify that what we mean by that personhood
in hypostosis both how's the mystery and transcends nature. Is
that obviously not in the sense that you just explained
and articulated there, but that again by nature. For example,
we'd like to say there are no metaphysical or natural
laws that can encapsulate hypostasis in personhood, and therefore in
that sense it transcends because what laws are really nature
and being right the way that we work out metaphysics
and the natural philosophy as well. And so one of
the problems too, is that and this ties into your
comment about you better be careful if you don't make
these distinctions, because you'll run into Sabelianism. Is that for
the Greeks, person lacked ontological content. This is why Prosopone
had this meaning of a mask. The real being was
the Usa in the essence, and therefore the mass lacks
any ontological content and has to be put on to give.
In Orthodoxy it reverses that again that personhood in hypostatsis
is what gives being to Usia, because Usia, being in substance,
cannot exist in any can state. And this is why
Saint Basil and the Fathers say that it is hypostasis
that has created the universe and sustains it in not ousia,
not being. And if you don't make that distinction, you
either go into Sibelianism or you can end up in
Try Try Theism.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, that on Not Three Gods talks about that.
And so we want to be careful too, because we
want to point out that the son's relationship to the
father is one that is truly distinct. I mean he
is truly distinct from the father, not because he has
a different nature. It's completely the same, the father communicates
to the son the full divinity, but he really is
a different, distinct hypostosis. And so there's some sense then,
in which hypostosis each of the divine hypostaces fully instantiates
or fully includes the divine nature. There's no lack there, right,
the son doesn't have any lesser divinity.
Speaker 2: But at the same Periodorus, right, you exist, they exist
inside each other, within each.
Speaker 1: Other, right peracrid That's another way to prove this doctrine.
But just in the sense of each type of stasis,
it's itself possessing the fullness of divinity, right, it does.
Yet at the same time, hypothesis is useful in distinguishing
the persons, because the father really does eternally beget a
son who is distinct from him, And even though they
share common natural properties together, as the spirit does, they
really are distinct. And I think that a lot of people,
as you've been pointing out, when they try to do
trinitarian theology, they will miss the mystery aspect of it
in a real sense. Here I'm not saying mystery in
a bad sense, but in the sense that we have
to accept what revelation and tradition tells us in that
God is just as much one as he is three,
and he's just as much three as he is is one.
And this is the way that we avoid falling into
on the wrong side of that false dialectic right of
absolute divine simplicity over here, or perhaps we're so stressing
distinctions that we, like you said, fall into tritheism. This
is the only way to really properly balance this. And
that's why the Fathers are so important, is because they
have hashed this out over many centuries.
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's another good point too. So what the ancient
Greeks don't have that Orthodox fathers were able to add
is again, personhood in hypostasis is not an adjunct to
be added to being, but rather like as a category
you add to a concrete entity. Because remember they're struggling
with this dichotomy between general being in concrete individualization of
the personhood. And therefore what the Fathers are able to
do is say that being it is itself the hypostatus
of being. Personhood, like you said, it exists, so nature
and being always exists in the mode and tropos of personhood,
and in that sense it's primary and it transcends, so
not only in the sense that we have no metaphysical
or natural laws that can encapsulate and bring down personhood
the way that we can with being in nature, but
also in this sense that it's the primary archaic, the
first principle of being itself. And this explains to what
you were talking about with the essence energies distinction, that
God's entergaea is his eternal actctivities are being. This is
what in the West they don't get because they associate
God's essay in the senseia is one. But we understand
and only through this distinction. This is why these distinctions
are so important to make hypostasis primary and as the
arkae is that it is the cause of being, and
therefore yes, you can only explain that. So what you
get is a consistent theology when you have the distinctions
between essence and energies. So the energies are being not becoming,
so they're not creating grace, they're not becoming into being.
They're eternal in their God and they find their source
in the Arkae, the Father, the hypostatis in personhoods. So
what we're going to argue again is it's consistent theology
all the way through and that we pick up on
the Greek words because we are christianizing the Greek pagan world.
Then so we have to use their concepts in language
without embracing their enterprise and their metaphysics. And then what
we do, through God's grace and the Holy Spirit, is
we're able to baptize those words in Orthodox Christianity in
order that we may solve the distinctions that the Greek
Hellenistic paradigms were unable to do. And so if you don't,
if you do not have this theology, if you're committed
to a scholastic embrace of Greek Hellenistic Aristotelianism or whatever
other philosophy and ancient Greece, you're not going to be
able to work these things out theologically, and you're going
to have inconsistencies, which is exactly what we point out
with Rome. It's not that they deny the incarnation, it's
not that they don't deny the trinity, but given their
principles and their commitments, there's inconsistencies exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It reminds me of an argument that came up
not too long ago where somebody was essentially saying, look,
God perfect the law of laws of logic, law of
non contradiction, the law of identity. They perfectly reflect God
and the mind of God in a one to one correspondence,
such that God could never ever be beyond that. And
you're an idiot because you say God transcends logic, all right, Now,
what I said God transcends logic. I was quoting Gregory
Palamas who says that, and he's actually quoting Dionysius and
the Divine names. He says that God transcends the logical categories.
This doesn't mean God's irrational and illogical. It just means
that God, because he's infinite, he transcends the conceptual human order. Right,
there's a realm of the mind we could call the
noetic realm. That's that's true. It's created by God. There's
noedic energies when we think we're in this realm, right,
that's still a created realm. It's not a realm of
the uncreated. We're not Platonists, right, So that's still a
created realm, and we do have there is a sense
in which the logi does kind of come into to
overlap with that realm. You could say, as well as
a created the physical realm. You know, I'm not trying
to make a distinction between the physical, but there is
a distinction between and the fathers, the noetic realm and
the physical realm, all right, and the spiritual realm plays
into the noedic realm as well. So I say that
because there's a lot more nuance in our philosophy and
our theology and our worldview that the realman Catholic scheme
doesn't have. So if somebody were to say to me,
why would you dare say that God transcends logic? That
sounds like you believe God can contradict himself. That's not
what we're saying. I'm not saying that. We're saying that, yes,
the laws of logic are a reflection of the Divine mind.
They are not a one to one correspondence to the
Divine mind. That would make us platonists. That would make
us Hellenis neoplatonists. Right, we would be like Pythagoras, thinking
that numbers are God or something that's not true. We
don't believe that. So it's very important to make the
distinction between saying, on the one hand, yes, we do
have a kind of medieval synthesis. If you want to
call it that by what you termed baptizing these terms,
baptizing the language. I mean, if you think about the septuagen,
that's what the subtuagen is. The Septusian is an attempt
to take the Hebrew revelation put it into the language
of the Greek diaspora so that they could understand it.
But the key there is that they weren't baptizing pagan
philosophers per se. Right. I mean, even in the Book
of Maccabees there's apologetic treatises. You could argue against Greek
the gayness of Greek wrestling that's actually argued against in
the Maccabees. They bitch about the the gross gayness in
the Book of Maccabees that's going on in Hellenic culture, right,
So they're not melding with the pagan aspects of the culture.
They're taking the terms and the concepts of putting it
into that language. Anyway, long story short, I really like
that you pointed out that the cause if we understand
why does this matter? Who cares? Why does this? Because
if we understand that the cause of being in general
is personal and not just a super essential essence, that
we start with that we reason down from or reason
up to in the tomistic analogious scheme, when we understand
that we're starting with I am, that I am, and
that that's personal, that leads us to understanding that reality
is personal, all reality is personal. God's personal, and in fact,
the entire Greek project of impersonalism is undermined through this
apologetic and through this point.
Speaker 2: And by the way, here's a good addition to in
a very similar vein to saying that, well how, because
what we're saying is that yes, God is identified with
logos logic and also transcends it as well. This is
the same sort of arguments that Clement of Alexander is
making when he says God is both won and he's
not one. He's beyond the one you said.
Speaker 1: Exactly, this is this is actually what I said to
that guy. I forgot to mention that the guy who
said that, I was like, well, is God one and three?
And if he's one and three at the same time,
then he transcends the law of identity.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, great, great point. So that is just adding to
your argument there.
Speaker 1: Uh, real quick, I wanna take a look at this chap,
this this little paragraph here from God history and dialectic.
And I always quote this because it's such a great
summation of the point that we're making here, and it's
the one of Saint Basil versus the one of Platini's
all right, toe in toe on, And basically he just
points out that if you read it, he says that,
in addition to employing the term simplicity, we know that
the one is a reference to God. Right here Basil
does so in a unique sense that confounds any attempt
at a neoplatonic analysis. In the Greek, the one is
in Poltoni's system, referring to the neuter toe end right,
as evidenced by his use of the pronoun it to
describe the one. The one's an it. God is an it,
a thing, a substance. For Platonis, the one is that
which exists, that thing which exists you see, or simply
it's translated as a being. Again, in the neuter toll
on for Saint Basil, God is never referred to, but
in the masculine the one for him is whole ice.
I think that's correct. I'm not a Greek scholar, but
and referred to as him. Likewise, the one is he
who exists hole on this seemingly minor point will assume
crucise significance when we turn to the application of the
dogma to art in the iconography of the First and
Second Europe. He's talking about the first millennium of the
Church being Orthodox, as the second millennium in terms of
the West being Roman Catholic. And even more significant when
we look at the Second Europe as a process of
the application of the gnostic technique of assigning new meanings
to old terms. And then we'll come to understand the
tetragrammatim of Exodus as I am who I am. He's saying,
the Second Europe of Roman Catholicism will not interpret this
as the personal god of Basil, but in the abstract,
impersonal essentialism of Plotinus. And that's exactly what we see
if you go through Jilson. When Jillson executes Exodus three fourteen,
he says, this means I'm perfect super essence and being right.
Speaker 2: And a lot of people don't realize this, that they
think of Quinas as thoroughly Aristotilian, but he has this
neo Platonic influence on him. For example, not only in
what you cited there but that Aquinas comes up with
this idea and essa essensia that beings stands to essence
as what is it? Form is to matter, so matter
can't exist within itself the being gives that to Now
where are you going to find that an Aquinas, I
mean an Aristotle? What what gives being to the forms?
What gives becoming to matter? You don't find this anywhere
in Aristotle whatsoever? This is again some neoplatonic influence that
so he's not just the hardcore Aristotilian. You can find
a lot of places that he is actually very neo platonic.
Speaker 1: Right, and and by the way, let me let me
pose another objection to you, hypothetical objection to from our
from our haters. What would you say to the person
who says to me, yeah, exactly, father deacon. We know
that Aquinas is very influenced by Dynysius. In fact, he
quotes Dionysius more than anybody else in the Suma. So
if you're going to argue that Aquinas is influenced by Neoplatonism,
then you Orthodox are are undercutting yourself because you think
Dinysius is a saint. Well, Aquinus quotes him all the time.
So you're saying that that therefore orthodox, he is Neoplatonism, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously what we would say too, is that
Aquinas and and quoting Dionysius, that he's not understanding it
the same way that that that we would, and that
we've worked very difficult, very hard to make these distinctions
between neo Platonic thought and the terms and that that
we're using.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me give let me give you one example.
So in two places, right off the top of my head,
I can think of where Dinysius and the Divine Names
talks about the energies, he calls the names of God
energies in two separate places. For us, they're uncreated energies.
When Aquinas quotes and discusses the Divine Names, he does
discuss what Dynastius says. But just like with John Damascus,
he quotes John Damascus, he'll quote Dinasis, He'll say, the
names are just distinguished in our human conceptions, they're not actual,
real distinctions in God or in reality. And we simply
depart from that and we say we think that Diagnosius
really did believe that the energies were real, distinct energies,
and that that's true into Basil, and it's true into Maximus,
and it's true all the way into Saint Gregor Palamas.
Speaker 2: Right, So they're not reading, they're not reading the same way.
It's the same thing that comes up to with the
Bishop of Rome and the arguments that they make for Premissy.
They're so used to making arguments to the Protestants and
that that will just be able to be transcribed straight
over to Orthodox And it's like we and you can
cite all the passages from the Fathers, We agree with them,
but you're reading it in a different way. You're reading
in a very later development of Vatican wants in reading
your paradigm into the father. This is why paradigms are
so important, and it's why we don't. For example, I
brought up in the last podcast that when you see
the Fathers arguing with heretics and the councils, for example
of Nicea with Arius, and Arius is a master of
citing scripture and knowing scripture. What you don't find is
that the Holy Fathers get down at the same level
and just start matching scripture with scripture. Well, that's not
the correct understanding. They operate in terms of presuppositional apologetics.
You do not have the correct starting point and paradigm
to interpret these. And likewise, look, we have the same verses,
we have the same words, we have God, we have
both having a sort of premiacy, but given your paradigm,
you're going to read those with entirely different meanings. And
so rather than getting down at the level of your opponent,
we analyze things in terms of paradigms and starting points
and make our critiques from there. Most people don't do that,
and so they get very aggravated.
Speaker 1: That's a great point in fact. Yeah, I mean, I'm
glad you likened that too. What goes on with with
the proponents of papal infallibility, because I noticed that in
the in the debate with Abara, because you know, Abara
is going to put out these these ideas when he
wasn't citing forgeries, by the way, but he's going to
put out these ideas that are fine in orthodox way, Right,
we wouldn't have a problem with an appellate structure, right
that there were appeals that that kind of went up
the but in his mind, oh well that's Vatican one,
that's your appealing to the guy who's infallible, right, what
else would it be? Right? So, yeah, the assumptions are
read into these things, and there's a lot of nuance.
It goes into a lot of these examples. There's a
lot of contact that's ignored, especially like you know, people
that go to Catholic Answers and they go to the
Papal premiscy page and they just kind of throw out
all these, you know, machine gun the quotes from the
Catholic Answers page on Papal premiascy without understanding that in
a lot of these cases there's context and a lot
of these cases. Let's take Jesus himself, this is a
really powerful one. Two chapters after Matthew sixteen, Jesus says
the exact same thing to the College of the Apostles. Right,
So the keys text of Matthew sixteen eighteen remit and
retain sins. Two chapters later he says the exact same
thing to all of the Apostles. Whoever sends you remit,
they're remitted. Whoever sends you retain, they're retaining. It's not
specific to Peter in Matthew eighteen. So the point being
is that we can't take that one verse of Jesus
and say, ah, that's the verse that means all of
the papal premiacy texts that I presuppose, and that's I'm
going to read that into that text. And as I think,
who was I talking to a recently, somebody had a
great point recently that it was the French guy. How
often it then became this norm by especially Jesuit apologists
and so forth, to take literally start taking texts that
are prophecies of Christ and start reading those about Peter,
like the Cornerstone of the Old Testament. Oh, that that's Peter. No,
it's not. It's talking about Jesus, right, And that.
Speaker 2: Just shows two again why it's important that we point
out that the Latin project is the Greek project. That
they were married in a race, so they're not just
pulling pieces out of the philosophy, but that the West,
all the wey, beginning with the pre Socratics, has a
problem with dialectics and either or dichotomy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if something that one can't see.
Speaker 2: Right or here, if Christ is saying it to Peter,
he can't be saying it to the rest of the apostles.
It's an either or, and you can go through all
of these theological errors and oftentimes point reduce it to
this problem of dialectics that I've got to fit it
into either box. And again Protestantism inherits the exact same paradigm.
This is why if you point out that there's only
one church, it's the Orthodox Church, what are you going
to hear, particularly from evangelicals. So you're saying, I'm not saved,
that Salvation's is in or everything's read is an either or,
because they don't have the paradigm to be able to
make the nuances and synthesize what would otherwise appear to
be contradictory or contrary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, that's what I
saw so consistently, not just in the debates about the
triad when it came to the Arians and the Trinity,
but eventually by the time of all the way up
into the dispute that Maximus has with Pearis. If you
read the dispute with Pearis, you'll see that eventually what
he's arguing against is a kind of almost Jansenist view
that's subtly present amongst the mon Inenergists and the Monothelites
that the human will has to be in some natural
tension with the divine will. So in Christ there couldn't
be a real symphonia in harmony of the two wills.
There's got to be some like button heads going on here.
And so the Monothelites and the mono inergists argue that
there has to be some sort of subsuming and overriding
of the human will to replace the natural human energy
in the will of Christ, so that the divine basically
just kind of controls it or something, you know. And granted,
some of the language of the Fathers can be difficult
at times because sometimes actually from Athanasius to Maximus, you
have the logos Sarks terminology, where the logos who's already
possessing person at where's the humanity like a suit, where's
he's in fleshed right, So that's not always wrong, And
as Bathrello's points out, you can even read an orthodox
correct that's not Monophysite or it's not a Pollinarian view
of the logos Sarks christology. There's nothing wrong with that
as long as we don't deny to the humanity the
fullness of humanity, right, as long as that's guarded against
that terminology is not wrong because it's used in John one.
He's the logos became enfleshed, right. So what I'm saying
is that there are many places where we can find
similarities of philosophic language. We have to be careful and
nuanced with the language, but all the way up into
the Sixth Council and the debates there, we can see
the assumptions of dialectics at every point, whether it's in
the Trinity, whether it's in Cyril and his debates with Thestorius,
or whether it's the Fifth Council and the Postcusceledonian Cyrillic debates,
then the Neo kirillions that won out in the Fifth
and sixth Council, we can see that we're dealing with
this constant assumption that there can never be a harmony.
There's always going to be this kind of tension. Jesus
can't have, you know, truly human will, because that would
mean that if he does, he's fighting against God, and
that's not possible. But the assumption is that he is
human will would fight against God. It doesn't fight against God.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, great point.
Speaker 1: You mentioned a couple of things that I want to
get to before we take super chats, and then we're
going to do more of this talk. We're going to
get into the Amazon Synod. We're going to talk about
how a lot of the theology and presuppositions in my view,
and I don't know all of your views on this,
will get your take on it. You may disagree or
you may agree. I think what we see is a
long train of theology that's led to where we are
with the Amazon Synod in the roalman caalvoc Realm. Vatican
two is just a stage in this long process. I
think that we're going to be vindicated on that analysis.
So we'll get to that in the second part. So
if you want to hear the rest of this talk,
this is a half and half, you'll want to subscribe
either here on YouTube or over at Jay's analysis in
the subscription section, through PayPal, credit card, or whatever you
want to use. So let's take some of these super
chats before we get to that part two. Bruder Klaus,
thank you for becoming a member to the website. Appreciate
that much, appreciate it. You'll look under the community tab
there for the posts for members. Beys Chungus one ninety
nine do you have any thoughts on the aerial toll houses.
Thank you for the great show. I think that, yes,
there's something to the toll houses. I don't think that
we have to go into an extreme of like every
little literally every little detail of there being eight or
ten or two, twenty three or one thousand and you
got to pay all these debts and every but there
is definitely something to the return of the soul after death.
We pray for people have your death. I don't know
what your take on that is, if you want to answer.
Speaker 2: That, Ah, that's exactly my take too. We don't have
to be with the Fordham crew and Aristotle p that
a rejection of the toll houses again, is it not
this false dialectics again that I either have to accept
it and this insane detail and have this whole you know,
robust theology built around it, or I reject it. That No,
it's again, this is a mystery, but it's a tradition
in the Orthodox Church.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 2: From Holy Men again is Orthodox, not Scholastics. And so
the proof in the pudding when it comes to truth
is holiness. And so I look to people that are
particularly holy because I trust them and all of knowledge
is based on trust, and so we have to see
are we trusting the right people? And how am I
justified in making that trust? And for us Orthodox it
is the mind is polluted and diseased, and is Saint
Isaac the Syrian says, it's through the news and asceticism
that we begin to cleanse the mind so that it's
able to see correctly speak correctly. And that's our anthropology.
And so because they have credentials, because they're holy, and
that's good enough for me without having to go into
the exact detail of what exactly you know is absolutely
truer about it in what detail? I think that's to
get distracted from the issue.
Speaker 1: Roll thingk stakes five bucks, Thank you for the show.
What's your response to people that say Judaism, Islam, and
Christianity believe in the same god, the God of Abraham.
I would say that in a sense, perhaps you could
say that that's true because for example, in Judaism, yes
they still have aspects of revelation, but you could view
it kind of like a cult, like the Jovah's witnesses
have aspects of revelation, right, but they don't have they
have a corrupted you know, New World translation version of
the Bible. So it's corrupted, it's it's not authentic, it's
it's corrupt. And so in the same way, yes, in
a sense, do we worship Allah well in the Arabic
translations of our liturgies and Orthodoxy that use the term Allah.
But is that equated to like we talked about earlier,
And if we have the term I believe in Allah,
I believe in one God? Is that the exact same?
Do we mean the same thing just because we're using
the same syllables and vowels. No, Because when we say
who we mean who is our one God? It's the
Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. And the only way
to him is John fourteen six through Christ in the spirit, right,
So you have to be trinitarian. So no, I mean
in one sense with the limited aspects of truth that
are in Judaism and Islam, because they do have some
aspects of revelation. Yes, But also no, because just like
Jehovah's witness, they have aspects of the revelation like we do,
but they corrupt it to the extent that it's it's
not selviffic, is my view.
Speaker 2: Right, Absolutely, So they can say true things about God
because is and I'm so glad you gave a shout
out here to our man from Romania, one of the
best theologians, Demetri stan OLOI, and both j and I
rec men especially chapter one on natural revelation, and that
we don't make this dichotomy strong dichotomy the the West does,
and saying natural revelation versus supernatural revelation supernatural, that we
receive supernatural revelation through nature, and so yes, I would
imagine just as the Greek philosopher's you can get things right.
But are we talking about the same God. Well, if
you think about what Saint Basils says, you cannot conceive
of God apart from trinity, then no, we're we're not.
So I think it's perfectly fine to say as you
did in a way yes, in a way no, And
then I can provide the distinctions. You can say true
things about God, but you don't end up, in your intentionality,
end up hitting and talk helping, you know, and worshiping
the same God because you have to have this necessary
component of trinity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean think about you know, like a like
a Joe's witness could say, well, I believe in God
the Father, and I believe that there's Jesus Christ, and
I believe that there's a spirit. Okay, that sounds good
in terms of the terms, but when you ask them
what they mean, they don't mean anything close to what
we mean, so it's completely different. Net Cup for has
focused five bucks. Thank you for this. Do you have
any favorite hagiographies or biographies. I'm currently reading Father sur
from Rose is massive biography right now. It's very good.
I've read a lot of the biographies of church fathers.
Those are really good. That's probably my area where I've
put most of my time in terms of hagiography. If
you go to the liturgy, you know you'll hear a
lot of the hagiography. So, but I don't know of
a specific book personally. Do you have a specific book
he'd recommend on just the Lives of the Saints?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Where is that book? What's We actually got a
really nice one on women's saints that was that I
bought for my wife. That's an excellent one. I can't
remember it offhand. What another? And then you have into
obviously you have individual books like Elder Patios. Sorry about
my mess back here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Herman Middleton has a good book on the elders.
If you know Hermann. Herman's book is Vessels of what
is it, Vessels of the Spirit. I think that's a
good book on the elders.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely recommend Elders mount Athos by hero Monk Isaac.
That's an excellent one. They're trying to see. Well, I'm
not going to waste you guys time by coming through
my library training to find but perhaps I could post
some some links to recommended books on that issue. So
great question.
Speaker 1: Let's see Bruder. Wait, no missed one. Richard rawl five bucks.
Justin Marter said states in his oratory address to the
Greeks that many times over Plato and Aristotle took from
Moses in the Old Testament when you went to Egypt.
Do you have any thoughts on this? This is actually
an argument that comes up commonly in the Church fathers
and their apologetics. I think that's entirely plausible. I don't
know if we know for sure, but yeah, I could
easily see Plato and Aristotle being influenced by Isaiah or
the prophets, or you know, something like that. Maybe they
read Moses. It's entirely plausible. I don't know if hey
Mody knows for sure, but what do you think on that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just I'm trying to remember where I just
read something. It was in response to this kind of
critique what Tatulian asked, what has Athens to do with Jerusalem?
And that you particularly get this within evangelicals, that Greek
philosophy perverted the New Testament and all this different stuff.
And the counter argument to that was, in fact, there
is some evidence that the Greeks themselves were introduced ideas
of revelation from Moses and the patriarchs of old in
the Old Testament.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've made an argument many times. It's entirely plausible,
and I may have heard it from a Bible professor
many years ago when I was at Bible College. I
can't remember where I've first heard this, But you know,
the Jews went to Egypt. Joseph is raised up to,
you know, right underneath Pharaoh in the Book of Genesis,
and then you know, we know that the Egyptians embalmed
and buried there they're dead. So it's entirely possible that,
you know, we get the impression that because Joseph marries
Pharaoh's daughter. Presumably she converted. Presumably people in Egypt converted.
We know that when the Jews left Egypt there were
many converts who actually went with them, Exodus says, so
it's entirely possible. It's entirely plausible that the theology of
the Jews did also influence Egypt. We know there was
overlap there. I mean, it says Moses learned and knew
all the mysteries of the Egyptians, so there was some overlaps,
some interchange there. That's entirely plausible. Maybe that's why the
Egyptians had a period of monotheism. But I don't know
that anybody knows for sure. But I believe the Genesis account,
so I believe that that, you know, Joseph really did
do what he did. Needs it, Amy Polino twenty bucks.
Thank you, Amy, always shouting out getting them fat super chats.
Much appreciated. Amy straw hat Bear five bucks. How how
do you read notes? Do you read note intensive or
eyes to words solely or it depends. I'm a slow reader,
as you can see. I do it with intense crazy
sticky notes. And when I write my notes in the
sticky notes, and in the book it helps me remember.
So that's how I do it. But do you want
to share any tips on how you read?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like your I'm going to start adopting your
sticky tabs.
Speaker 1: By the way. One reason that I wish I had
for all these years, I you know, have thousands of books.
I've collected many many books, and I wrote in them all.
And now I regret it because a lot of the
books that I have are rare and out of print,
all marked up, so they will be worth a lot less.
Not that that's that big of a deal, but they
would be worth a lot more if I'm not written
in them all.
Speaker 2: What I'd like to do is get a piece of
paper out and then illustrate that with cartoons. And so
I just doodle out and drop. And I'm kidding.
Speaker 1: That I thought you were serious. Sounds like that's not
a bad idea.
Speaker 2: We're like, wow, what a great idea. I'm ia try
that I.
Speaker 1: Would draw a little, fat, little aquinas when I'm reading
through the Suma and like he's talking in little bubbles, and.
Speaker 2: That actually might not be a bad idea that I
feel terrible if I write in pen because I so
I'll do in pencil, and then I feel like, you know,
if I can always go back in a race some
of those things. So I'll tend to highlight certain relevant
areas and then I kind of go through stages. So
once I have certain areas highlighted that stand out to me,
then I'll transcribe that into kind of more detailed further notes,
and eventually what I try to do is start to
write stuff out, just solidify. I don't know if that's
the best method, and the reason why is because everybody's
different they use. There's not a one size fits all
because we learn in different ways. But that's kind of
my motors operandi.
Speaker 1: I'm definitely a more visual learner, so my mind pictures
the page and I think about what the page look like.
So that's how it works for me. Let's see who's next.
Brewder Klaus upgraded his membership from silver to gold. Much
appreciated brewder Claus. I'll have to put the sign into
the archives for the gold members on YouTube so that
you can sign in on Jay's analysis to the archive.
Franklin Chan ten bucks, thank you for all the great work. Jay.
Thank you. Franklin Chan longtime supporter much to you, much
love to Amy and Polino and the long time jasonnalysis
NERD supporters Drunken Warlock ten Bucks. A question for both
of you, what is your famous favorite book on the
saint or saints? Well, as we said a minute ago,
he gave, we gave a couple hagiography examples. Uh, my
favorite book would probably still be something theological. So I'm
trying to think of what would be the most important book.
I think on the Incarnation by Saint Nathanasius is very
very important. I mean it's such a great, you know,
thirty page encapsulation of the whole of our theology. That's
a good one. I don't know of one specific book
on a saint or saints. I guess since my patron
is Daniel, the Book of Daniel holds a very prominent
place in my heart. Do you have any more thoughts?
Speaker 2: Ont did you know that yesterday on the new calendar
was the feast day for Dionysius the arapea guy. And uh,
we had a young adults Orthodox group and I have
a text on I mean remember the author on Dionysius
arape guy. I love Dionysius that and so I would
recommend that also my favorite and I remember reading that
as a freshman in college. Was affamacious on the incarnation.
That's good. Did they want more of a biography to
feel I tend to well, I like biographies too, So
it's it's hard. You know, there's biographies and then there's
the hardcore theology. I love them both.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's a you know, if you go back
drunken Warlock, you could hear some of the previous statements
about books on the Saints seven me becomes a silver member.
Thank you, Shot seven, much appreciated. Look under the community
tab for the uh we've been working through. I post
one about every day or two of the archived material
content on YouTube, so you'll find those under the community tab.
Traditional Christian also became a silver member. Thank you again.
Look under the community tab. Much appreciated. Glad to have
you as a member. Orthodox Pilgrim fifty bucks. Wow, thank
you man, much appreciated. Thank you, he says, keep the
discussions going. You are reaching people. Well, that's good. God's
peace to both of you. Remember everybody subscribed to Norwegian News.
I've got his channel linked in the description. Definitely follow
his work. Neo Crusader has become a Gold member. Wow.
Thanks man Again. I'm going to put the log in
stuff for you guys after this talk on the community
tab so that all the Gold members can also now
access the archives. It is Nelysis and Warlock two dollars again.
Do you have an orthodox view on concealed carry firearms?
I believe that firearms are I don't. I don't think
there's any I mean, people from Fordham University would tell you,
you know, but no, I think that self defense is biblical.
I've always heard it was biblical. I never heard anybody
say it's not. Do you have any differing view on that?
Speaker 2: Well, that's a good lithemus test. Find out what Fordham's
saying and do the opposite.
Speaker 1: That's funny. Yeah, I mean I saw one of those
guys saying, please please take away everybody's guns. So they
were there was the argument was, I'm not kidding, it
was Byzantium didn't have guns. You couldn't have guns in
Byzantian as. If these people care anything about a Byzantine civilization,
give me a break.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And that was actually, uh, that was
civil law and that was not canon law. Interesting and
also I think it was military grade weapons, so that's
not going yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, you're right, as if in Byzantium, if
somebody came in and attacked your family, you're just supposed to,
okay that my family, who I'm supposed to do anything.
Speaker 2: Orthodoxy doesn't believe in passivism, right, we pray for I
pray for our military. I'm not saying the military always does.
In principal, military is good and supported by the Orthodox Church.
Now doesn't mean that your particular military is doing good
things or anything like that. So that's an important distinction.
But what we see is in principle there's nothing wrong
with and we have tons of passages from the Fathers
and liturgy too that to take up your sword even
outside of military work as well. Now as for clergy,
we take on a different role. So so it might
be one thing to go hunt or target practice or
something like that, or hunt for food, but because we
take on the role of Christ and Marredom that we
as clergy would not use guns for self defense. We
would lay our lives down. But for the lady, Yeah,
there's absolutely no no conflict.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point too, that this is something
that's distinct and Orthodoxy like you don't in the Middle Ages,
in the Latin tradition, you have like these warrior bishops
and cardinals who would like go out into battle and
this is weird, weird stuff like that. There's not we
don't have that orthodoxy. Early drunken warlock became a member.
Thank you man, welcome skullduggery nerd bear of the reprehensible
five dollars? Is it pot? Is it difficult to keep
fast days on the carnivore diet. I'll let you handle
that because you just covered this in your stream yesterday
when people were asking you how do you do it?
And I think you gave a great example in terms
of economium.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 2: So what's wonderful about Orthodoxy and unique too, is that
we don't have this pharasitical legalism. We have the law,
and you must always understand that the laws and means
to an end. And Christ says the sum of the
law is love of God with all your heart, mind
and soul, and love of neighbor is self. And so
if you ever see that the law comes into contradiction
with the ends in which it's to obtain, it is
the bishop who has the discretion and authority how and
how much to apply the law. And so this is
the principal economia that's not present outside of the Orthodox Church.
And this is why you get this kind of pharasitical legalism.
And so again, every priest that I've talked to, if
you go first and foremost, you need to go to
your father, confessor, your priest and discuss these things with
don't listen to lady Lady asks any clergy Lad, You're insane.
They have all kinds of crazy ideas. Okay, we have
a hierarchical structure. We go to you know, we're trained
for a reason. Go talk to your priest about certain
health concerns. In that well, Father, what am I supposed
to do during the fast if I'm eating only animal products?
There's other ways too fast. I've never come across a
priest that says, I'm sorry. You have to commit to
the letter of the law, even if it destroys the
ends to which it's your health, or that it's trying
to obtain an achieve And so priests will give the
blessing and they'll have you fast in other ways, and
we get so caught up and thinking that fasting only
applies to food.
Speaker 1: This is a great point you made too. Yeah, fasting
isn't just oh, what's the what's the food? What's the food?
You talked about how this is a time for not
talking too much. It's a time for meditation, contemplation, it's
a time for alms. Yeah. Absolutely, that was a great point.
That's that's forgotten because we just focus on whether we're
eating or not right.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I would say everybody, if you
didn't hear Father Deacon's stream on technology, go to his
channel and watch that. It was really good. Na kept
for us focus became a member goal. Thank you for that. Again.
I'm gonna post the log in for the archives. If
you're a silver member, if you just joined, you get
access to all the ones that I've posted so far.
They're going up one by one. There's no other way
to do it since YouTube granted me the member's feature.
But of course, remember if you don't want to do
it that way, you can always go to Jay's analysis
and purchase a membership there as well. So for hour two,
he and I will continue this topic. We're going to
talk about Amazon synod and what's coming up and what's
going on there. That will be for subscribers. It'll be
posted later on either later tonight or tomorrow, and then
in another hour, probably about seven thirty or eight, I
will live stream on my twitch because I'm having I
just want to build up the twitch a little bit
as a backup. You know, you never know what's going
to happen. I'll put my twitch here in the chat
for anybody who wants to. I'm gonna be playing what's this.
It's this medieval game what's it called? Plague of Innocence
where you're trying to escape during the plague. So it's
been fun so far. We'll be talking philosophy, theology there
as well a lot of weird medieval Latin stuff going
on in this Plague of Innocence game. So head over
to my twitch. I'll be there in an hour after
Father Deacon and I finish up the second half, but
that will be available to subscribers. Let's see we got
another membership, Diego. Thank you, Diego much appreciate it. Glad
you're here. Drunken Warlock asks another question, what do you
think about pre marital kissing? I will let Father Deacon answer.
Speaker 2: That better talk to your Priest's.
Speaker 1: Number one easy way out of that one, Yeah.
Speaker 2: The easy way, but it's it's because again, the priest
is the your father confessor, and your priest is the
one who administers medicine, and everybody has different situations that
must be contextualized and so again, and it's the same
thing that goes with the bishop's applying canon law is
that they see this within context. There's not a one
size fits all as far as the prescription of the
medicine for healing the soul. So for example, if somebody
has a serious problem with lust or something like that,
the priest might say, you know what, I don't want
you to do that. And that's why it's so important
to develop a healthy relationship in confession and outside of
confession with your priest and discuss these concerns with your
priests so that they can give you the appropriate medication.
And what I'd also add too, is that on this
kind of medical analogy, that a lot of people will
have multiple priests as confessors, and that's equivalent to doctor shopping.
That you might get contradictions in the medicines that are applied,
and so you stick with one that doesn't mean that
you can't later go find a spiritual father, but there's
issues that come up. I have people write me that
I have two priests that are giving me contradictory suggestions
and prescriptions on and it's like, well, that's a perfect
reason why you need one spiritual father at a time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, great points there. Okay, that's all for now.
So again we're going to continue this and then I'll
be at my Twitch channel in one hour, maybe a
little over an hour, and we'll be doing plagy of innocence.
If you guys want to chat with me, joke around,
ask some questions, I'll be there. Thank you. Norwegian Noos
Father Deacon Ananias follow him as we said on his channel.
There it's it's listed and if you want to hear
the second part, you'll want to subscribe to Jay's analysis
and we will continue with the Amazon discussion.