WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.280 --> 00:00:02.640 All right, thank you for having me. Glad to be here. 2 00:00:02.720 --> 00:00:06.719 So I didn't really plan anything, so all I brought 3 00:00:06.879 --> 00:00:09.720 was a history of the popes. So I'm just going 4 00:00:09.800 --> 00:00:14.439 to start from page one and try to get comfortable 5 00:00:14.439 --> 00:00:15.800 because we got a good way to go. 6 00:00:17.359 --> 00:00:18.079 I'm just kidding. 7 00:00:23.160 --> 00:00:25.480 Jim said to be sure to talk about your heritage. 8 00:00:26.600 --> 00:00:29.079 And when I mentioned that I would be out this conference, 9 00:00:29.120 --> 00:00:32.119 somebody on Twitter said, are you really from the South, 10 00:00:32.520 --> 00:00:34.960 Where are you actually from? What's your actual heritage? I said, 11 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:38.200 I am from the South. I'm from South Kazaria, and 12 00:00:38.280 --> 00:00:42.439 I'm a CAGBJ and I'm here to wreck and infiltrate 13 00:00:42.479 --> 00:00:44.840 and destroy and subvert. I'm just kidding. That's a joke. 14 00:00:45.200 --> 00:00:49.119 I know a lot of people can't take jokes, but no, 15 00:00:49.240 --> 00:00:54.240 I am a full blooded Southern. My dad's side is English. 16 00:00:54.439 --> 00:00:57.159 The Dyers tended the Royal Swans, which I don't know 17 00:00:57.159 --> 00:00:58.759 if that's something to be proud of or if that 18 00:00:58.880 --> 00:01:02.799 was something that's kind of of ignominious. That's true. And 19 00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:09.120 then my mom's side is Clan. We're Scottish, so we're 20 00:01:09.159 --> 00:01:13.480 Clan scott and Clan I forget the other one. But 21 00:01:14.680 --> 00:01:16.920 when I looked into this. It turns out that we 22 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:19.959 have a castle. It's all in ruins, but the queen 23 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:22.000 owns the castle, so I'm not happy about that. Car 24 00:01:22.159 --> 00:01:25.120 labor Locke is the name of the castle, and I 25 00:01:25.200 --> 00:01:28.000 want to get that back from the queen. So we've 26 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:29.560 got to figure out how to do that later. Anyway, 27 00:01:29.599 --> 00:01:31.799 So let's talk about something that you probably won't expect 28 00:01:31.840 --> 00:01:32.480 me to talk about. 29 00:01:32.480 --> 00:01:32.560 This. 30 00:01:32.680 --> 00:01:35.640 I want to talk about how philosophy is worthless. And 31 00:01:36.599 --> 00:01:38.319 you know, I prayed about this, and this is kind 32 00:01:38.319 --> 00:01:40.599 of what came to me to talk about, and it 33 00:01:40.719 --> 00:01:44.159 ended up vibing synergizing very well with the talks that 34 00:01:44.200 --> 00:01:46.640 we've heard so far, because I think a lot of 35 00:01:46.680 --> 00:01:49.319 people hear Ortho Bros. And they hear people arguing and 36 00:01:49.359 --> 00:01:51.680 talking about philosophy, and a lot of people assume, oh, 37 00:01:52.079 --> 00:01:54.359 you just like to talk about philosophy, you have to argue, 38 00:01:54.359 --> 00:01:57.599 and you just want to talk about all this high 39 00:01:57.640 --> 00:02:02.159 abstract stuff. But what I think both my good friend father, 40 00:02:02.200 --> 00:02:05.120 Deacon doctor Annonius, and I have discovered, as we have 41 00:02:06.120 --> 00:02:08.319 spent a lot of time in philosophy, is actually that 42 00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:12.479 philosophy is quite worthless. I don't mean real philosophy in 43 00:02:12.479 --> 00:02:15.520 the sense of Christ as the wisdom of God or 44 00:02:15.560 --> 00:02:18.479 something like that. But I mean the secular, abstract discipline 45 00:02:18.520 --> 00:02:22.280 of philosophy. If we think about the logos in John one, 46 00:02:23.719 --> 00:02:27.520 this is not the logos of Marcos Aurelius's meditations. It's 47 00:02:27.560 --> 00:02:30.560 not the logos of Hellenism. There might be some overlap, 48 00:02:30.680 --> 00:02:34.280 there might be some parallels, but the logos in John 49 00:02:34.319 --> 00:02:37.879 one is pulling from the Hebrew wisdom tradition. It's not 50 00:02:38.039 --> 00:02:43.080 an impersonal abstract force. It's the I am. In fact, 51 00:02:43.120 --> 00:02:47.879 the logos of John one we know in the Triads 52 00:02:47.879 --> 00:02:51.240 of Saint Gregor Palomos he talks about in Exodus three 53 00:02:51.599 --> 00:02:55.080 when God said I am in fourteen and fifteen. He 54 00:02:55.159 --> 00:02:58.199 did not say I am it, but I am He. 55 00:02:58.960 --> 00:03:04.120 That is the personal, relational covenantal God that Israel has 56 00:03:04.159 --> 00:03:07.639 a relationship with. This is the one who can show 57 00:03:07.719 --> 00:03:11.360 his face to Moses. But as Jesus says in John 58 00:03:11.400 --> 00:03:14.439 one to eighteen, or as John says in John one eighteen, 59 00:03:14.439 --> 00:03:17.199 and Jesus says in John six forty six, no man 60 00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:20.080 sees God, no man sees the Father at any time. 61 00:03:20.520 --> 00:03:26.319 Yet someone saw this God in Exodus three, the same face, 62 00:03:26.759 --> 00:03:30.719 the same presence, the same angel is said chapters later 63 00:03:30.759 --> 00:03:34.080 in twenty three to remit sins he has the name 64 00:03:34.120 --> 00:03:38.840 of Yahweh in him. We don't find that in created beings. 65 00:03:39.199 --> 00:03:42.759 Even throughout the Old Testament, in dozens of other passages, 66 00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:47.199 we also find that Yahweh and his angel presence face 67 00:03:47.599 --> 00:03:54.240 Glory Messenger, also have his spirit accompanying this presence, this manifestation. 68 00:03:55.240 --> 00:04:00.919 So the God of revelation, this is a personal god. 69 00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:05.520 This is a triad revealed throughout the scriptures, throughout divine 70 00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:10.159 revelation as the Father who is the source, the found 71 00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:15.520 the ark that eternally begets his son, and the Spirit 72 00:04:15.599 --> 00:04:19.000 who proceeds through that son and manifests and shines forth 73 00:04:19.120 --> 00:04:23.160 through that son. In Orthodox theology and trilogy, this one 74 00:04:23.160 --> 00:04:26.720 cause or Arkae is the Father, the soul cause that 75 00:04:26.839 --> 00:04:31.480 keeps this deity personal. Why am I talking about this, Well, 76 00:04:31.639 --> 00:04:33.560 One thing that we have engaged in is a lot 77 00:04:33.600 --> 00:04:39.120 of interactions with other religions other non religious people over 78 00:04:39.120 --> 00:04:42.639 the last several years, last seven or eight years, And 79 00:04:43.079 --> 00:04:47.240 one thing that comes to the fore is there's commonalities 80 00:04:47.240 --> 00:04:50.279 that I've noticed between the other religions and what they offer, 81 00:04:50.319 --> 00:04:53.480 what they present the deity that they discuss there might 82 00:04:53.519 --> 00:04:58.160 be some idea that there's a personal relationship with the 83 00:04:58.240 --> 00:05:00.639 Jewish God, with the Muslim God, or something like that, 84 00:05:00.680 --> 00:05:04.600 but it's certainly nothing like what we offer. And so 85 00:05:04.759 --> 00:05:08.639 in the domain of philosophy, this is usually referred to 86 00:05:08.800 --> 00:05:14.040 as classical theism. Doctor ed Fezer, the famous Thomas, for example, 87 00:05:14.399 --> 00:05:22.879 writes about the classical theist God is the god of Aristotle, Plato, Plutinus, Mimaonides, Mohammad, 88 00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:30.000 and Aquinas. Really since it was a little off there, 89 00:05:30.199 --> 00:05:33.120 something something's a little off, because again, to quote Saint 90 00:05:33.120 --> 00:05:36.800 Gregory Palamas, when God appears in Exodus three, it's not 91 00:05:37.279 --> 00:05:42.199 a supreme essence, it's something a supreme thing. It's I remember, 92 00:05:42.319 --> 00:05:45.199 didn't Biden say something like, yeah, we believe in the 93 00:05:45.199 --> 00:05:49.439 theme talking about God the theme? I was like, is 94 00:05:49.480 --> 00:05:55.079 Biden a classical theist? What's he talking about? No, we 95 00:05:55.160 --> 00:05:59.920 talket we believe in a deity that is uniquely contrast 96 00:06:00.079 --> 00:06:04.079 did too the type of deity that we see amongst 97 00:06:04.240 --> 00:06:11.160 the world religions and classical theism In Orthodox triadology, this 98 00:06:11.199 --> 00:06:16.040 one calls this father archae that has a son and 99 00:06:16.079 --> 00:06:20.839 a spirit. When and I'm not this talk is not 100 00:06:20.879 --> 00:06:22.800 mainly about theology. Believe it or not, it's actually going 101 00:06:22.839 --> 00:06:26.120 to be a little more down to earth. But this 102 00:06:26.160 --> 00:06:31.079 part is theological. When the son takes on the hypostatic 103 00:06:31.160 --> 00:06:33.600 property of the Father, what happens is we have a 104 00:06:33.639 --> 00:06:37.439 move towards what many theologians have called essentialism or the 105 00:06:37.480 --> 00:06:41.120 premissy of the divine essence, or the ussia or the 106 00:06:41.639 --> 00:06:46.519 one over against the starting point of theology and our 107 00:06:46.560 --> 00:06:50.959 relationship with God and the ordo theology and our actual relationship. 108 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:55.680 These aren't abstract. These are connected. We have a movement 109 00:06:55.759 --> 00:07:00.000 away from God as personal to God as metaphysical, beating 110 00:07:00.319 --> 00:07:05.920 to study a thing, to program like an algorithm, a 111 00:07:05.959 --> 00:07:08.839 science project, something to look at in a test tube 112 00:07:08.839 --> 00:07:12.079 and try to figure out. But that's not what we 113 00:07:12.120 --> 00:07:15.399 read about in scripture, for example. To tie this into 114 00:07:15.399 --> 00:07:20.879 the South, the Bible Belt, the Bible, I grew up Protestant, 115 00:07:20.959 --> 00:07:24.360 and so I was, and I'm thankful for being given 116 00:07:24.480 --> 00:07:28.560 a lot of Biblical indoctrination and a biblical heritage, you 117 00:07:28.600 --> 00:07:31.240 could say, from the South. And I'm glad that we 118 00:07:31.319 --> 00:07:35.360 heard Flannery O'Connor sided many times. She's one of my favorites, 119 00:07:35.399 --> 00:07:38.319 and she talked about the South as Christ haunted, the 120 00:07:38.399 --> 00:07:40.680 Christ haunt, the ghost of Christ that haunts the South, 121 00:07:40.720 --> 00:07:45.959 because it's not exactly fully Christian, but there's the ghost. 122 00:07:45.759 --> 00:07:48.000 Of Christ there, which I think is a profound idea. 123 00:07:48.879 --> 00:07:51.560 And that's why Orthodoxy really makes the most sense for 124 00:07:51.639 --> 00:07:55.279 a Southerner, believe it or not, because everything that the 125 00:07:55.319 --> 00:08:01.240 Southerner kind of prioritizes kind of lines up with what 126 00:08:01.399 --> 00:08:06.600 Orthodoxy prioritizes, the virtues to honor the tradition, et cetera. 127 00:08:08.279 --> 00:08:11.000 But if we contrast this to the Latin theology of 128 00:08:11.759 --> 00:08:16.399 the Middle Ages, particularly Roman, Catholic, Tomistic, and even and 129 00:08:16.600 --> 00:08:19.839 Sealmian theology, we get, as I said, the move away 130 00:08:19.879 --> 00:08:22.639 from the beginning point of the person of the Father 131 00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:26.120 in our theology and our relationship with God, and they 132 00:08:26.160 --> 00:08:31.560 moved towards a philosophical essentialism, the monad as primary, thus 133 00:08:31.639 --> 00:08:37.480 subordinating the personal the existential to the metaphysical and the abstract. Thus, 134 00:08:37.519 --> 00:08:41.360 the philosophical God of the Hellenists, of Plato, of Aristotle, 135 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:46.279 of the Pristocratics, et cetera, is a god of abstract principles, 136 00:08:46.039 --> 00:08:50.200 is more like a number or a force. The personal 137 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:57.039 god that is Orthodox. In Orthodox Christianity is relational. He 138 00:08:57.120 --> 00:09:00.000 is not abstracted, he is not far off. In fact, 139 00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:03.600 Paul says this when he's preaching the Word is near you, 140 00:09:03.840 --> 00:09:07.399 even in your heart. So God, we could say, has 141 00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:11.159 being as one of his divine energies. But God is 142 00:09:11.200 --> 00:09:20.519 not identical to pure being, as the philosophers say, the 143 00:09:20.559 --> 00:09:23.080 God of the philosophers. If we were to contrast this 144 00:09:23.240 --> 00:09:27.519 deity to our deity, and I'm speaking kind of generally 145 00:09:27.519 --> 00:09:30.200 here as a survey of a lot of the Greek philosophers, 146 00:09:30.639 --> 00:09:32.879 cannot be in time and space. In fact, doctor ed 147 00:09:32.879 --> 00:09:36.080 Faser himself in his book Five Proofs, in the chapter 148 00:09:36.159 --> 00:09:40.720 on the Neoplatonic proof of the classical theist God, quote 149 00:09:40.840 --> 00:09:44.679 cannot be in time and space. Well, that might be 150 00:09:44.720 --> 00:09:48.639 a little problematic if you believe in the incarnation. This 151 00:09:48.720 --> 00:09:55.080 God is absolutely simple, undifferentiated unity, a pure monad, a 152 00:09:55.159 --> 00:10:00.919 purely active eternal actualizer in Aristotle impersonal thought, thinking itself 153 00:10:02.320 --> 00:10:09.519 eternally moving a world or the heavens. Opposite of him, 154 00:10:10.600 --> 00:10:14.879 this deity is cashed out in opposition to the many, 155 00:10:15.279 --> 00:10:20.919 to flux and to temporality. So what's ontologically better is 156 00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:26.519 the one is stasis and is eternality, and he's opposite 157 00:10:27.279 --> 00:10:30.279 all the things that are not that this God or 158 00:10:30.320 --> 00:10:35.799 this deity is eternally willing itself at all times for 159 00:10:35.840 --> 00:10:41.240 all eternity, and is thus unchanging and supposedly pure actuality. 160 00:10:41.279 --> 00:10:43.600 In fact, Quinas goes so far as to say that 161 00:10:43.960 --> 00:10:49.519 the divine persons are only notionally or conceptually distinct from 162 00:10:49.600 --> 00:10:52.039 the divine essence, and so in that sense it would 163 00:10:52.039 --> 00:10:53.840 seem like the divine persons. 164 00:10:53.399 --> 00:10:55.840 Are also reducible to pure actuality. 165 00:10:56.320 --> 00:11:01.639 Well, this is not the deity that becomes incarnate, the 166 00:11:01.799 --> 00:11:06.200 God of Aristotle, of Platonis, etc. If he is all 167 00:11:06.240 --> 00:11:10.039 of these categories and characteristics that we've listed these attributes, 168 00:11:10.559 --> 00:11:14.919 that's not a God who responds to prayer. Now, I'm 169 00:11:14.919 --> 00:11:18.480 not saying that God changes, but rather that God condescends 170 00:11:18.879 --> 00:11:22.399 to interact with and synergize with his creatures. It's not 171 00:11:22.440 --> 00:11:25.080 that we act upon him to change his essence or 172 00:11:25.080 --> 00:11:28.279 force him to do anything he wills to have that 173 00:11:28.600 --> 00:11:32.799 reciprocal relationship. But that is impossible for the God of 174 00:11:32.879 --> 00:11:35.960 the philosophers. So the God that we serve is not 175 00:11:37.440 --> 00:11:43.799 found in Roman Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, Unitarianism, etc. Because all 176 00:11:43.879 --> 00:11:49.679 of those religions and faiths explicitly want and desire a 177 00:11:49.759 --> 00:11:53.080 classical theist God. Now, many Roman Catholics are better than 178 00:11:53.080 --> 00:11:55.440 their theology. I'm not saying that they don't love God, 179 00:11:55.519 --> 00:11:58.519 or that they don't have degrees of grace and so forth. 180 00:11:58.559 --> 00:12:03.279 But the confession of system itself, the public theology that's dogmatized, 181 00:12:03.679 --> 00:12:07.919 is really the root issue here. That it attempted to 182 00:12:07.960 --> 00:12:12.799 make the faith accessible to the world, and thus classical 183 00:12:12.840 --> 00:12:18.559 Theism is just simply a foreign deity. The thing that 184 00:12:18.600 --> 00:12:21.440 I've noticed in the last seven or eight years of 185 00:12:21.519 --> 00:12:25.679 interacting with all kinds of people across the board, particularly 186 00:12:26.039 --> 00:12:27.840 all of the top Muslims. And I'm not saying that 187 00:12:27.879 --> 00:12:30.799 to a brag. I didn't ever expect that that happened 188 00:12:30.840 --> 00:12:34.600 totally providentially. I had no interest in Islam whatsoever. And 189 00:12:34.639 --> 00:12:36.759 we had some friends in the UK who became Orthodox, 190 00:12:36.879 --> 00:12:39.519 and one of them was for a while catechist under 191 00:12:39.519 --> 00:12:42.240 Bishop ere name, and he said, Jay, we've got to 192 00:12:42.559 --> 00:12:45.919 respond to Islam. And I said, why I live in 193 00:12:45.960 --> 00:12:49.120 the Bible Belt. I don't see Muslims, although now I 194 00:12:49.159 --> 00:12:53.039 do because this was twenty seventeen, and now when I 195 00:12:53.080 --> 00:12:56.600 go to Nashville, or if I drive around Jacksonville, I 196 00:12:56.639 --> 00:13:02.200 see mosques suddenly everywhere. We drove to Las Vegas last 197 00:13:02.279 --> 00:13:06.039 year and I saw a mosque on an Indian reservation. 198 00:13:07.559 --> 00:13:09.799 I started to read about the Saudis and others and 199 00:13:09.840 --> 00:13:11.799 how this is actually going down, and they've been putting 200 00:13:11.799 --> 00:13:14.799 billions of dollars for many, many years into Islamic education, 201 00:13:14.840 --> 00:13:16.919 the building of mosque and so forth. The point I'm 202 00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:22.679 saying is we will be encountering the Muslim discussion, I 203 00:13:22.679 --> 00:13:25.240 guarantee you in the next several years, because what we 204 00:13:25.279 --> 00:13:29.480 see in places like the UK, they're really just ten, fifteen, 205 00:13:29.480 --> 00:13:31.600 twenty years ahead of what's intended for us. 206 00:13:31.679 --> 00:13:31.960 Now. 207 00:13:32.200 --> 00:13:36.000 Maybe providentially won't get that way. I feel like it will, though. 208 00:13:36.039 --> 00:13:41.519 I feel like we will continue to encounter things like Islam, 209 00:13:41.639 --> 00:13:44.559 maybe not so much Judaism, although I've had had minimal 210 00:13:44.639 --> 00:13:46.840 jud debates with Jews. 211 00:13:46.559 --> 00:13:47.919 And so forth in the last few years. 212 00:13:48.120 --> 00:13:49.720 The point of all this is that there's a common 213 00:13:49.759 --> 00:13:54.159 threat I've noticed between the interactions with the Jews and 214 00:13:54.200 --> 00:13:57.279 the Muslims, and the Roman Catholics and the others, the 215 00:13:57.320 --> 00:14:03.240 other world religions, the Unitarian world faiths, is that the more, 216 00:14:03.240 --> 00:14:07.159 that we go to the scriptures, we see how preposterous 217 00:14:07.399 --> 00:14:10.879 those religions are, even though they lay claim to some 218 00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:14.720 degree of attachment to the Torah or something like that. 219 00:14:14.759 --> 00:14:17.960 We know that, of course Judaism is actually temutic. We 220 00:14:18.080 --> 00:14:22.200 know that Islam is actually based on copy paste weird 221 00:14:22.440 --> 00:14:25.879 things out of the scriptures, out of gnostic texts, and 222 00:14:25.919 --> 00:14:29.519 that Islam itself actually borrows from the Talmud. Many people 223 00:14:29.519 --> 00:14:31.279 don't know this, but there's quite a bit of tumutic 224 00:14:31.320 --> 00:14:34.799 influence on Islam as well. So what this gives us 225 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:41.519 is this unknowable, unreachable Unitarian deity that's pretty much the 226 00:14:41.519 --> 00:14:45.240 same deity as the philosophers, the classical feist God, the 227 00:14:45.240 --> 00:14:48.200 god of pure act, who cannot be in time and space, 228 00:14:48.360 --> 00:14:52.600 cannot manifest. And when you debate with the more scholarly 229 00:14:52.960 --> 00:14:57.799 people from these religions, well Christianity and christ and the Trinity, 230 00:14:57.879 --> 00:15:01.720 it's all illogical, it's irrational, doesn't make any sense. And 231 00:15:01.799 --> 00:15:05.960 so Allah or Hushim or God or the thing the 232 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:11.279 one has to be this perfect thing and perfection is 233 00:15:11.639 --> 00:15:17.559 a presupposition based on what they believe metaphysics dictates. But 234 00:15:17.639 --> 00:15:21.120 as we've seen tonight or today in the previous talks, 235 00:15:21.240 --> 00:15:24.240 again providentially, it fits perfectly with what I want to discuss. 236 00:15:27.120 --> 00:15:32.120 This deity is not that data. We do not put metaphysics, 237 00:15:32.279 --> 00:15:36.600 the arbitrary dogmas of Aristotle and Plato and Aquitness or 238 00:15:36.600 --> 00:15:41.399 whoever else before divine revelation doesn't mean that philosophy can't 239 00:15:41.399 --> 00:15:45.600 be a helpful tool. Certainly, the Cappadocians made heavy use 240 00:15:46.159 --> 00:15:51.279 of various Neoplatonic philosophical ideas, terminology, and so forth, say 241 00:15:51.320 --> 00:15:55.799 Maximus utilize both Neoplatonic and Aristotilian ideas and categories. But 242 00:15:56.519 --> 00:15:58.679 it's never, at least at least the intention is it. 243 00:15:58.799 --> 00:16:01.360 Maybe sometimes even some of the saints and fathers were 244 00:16:01.440 --> 00:16:05.480 too philosophical, but the intention was never to have philosophy 245 00:16:05.559 --> 00:16:10.000 dictate and confine divine revelation. And so though all way 246 00:16:10.039 --> 00:16:11.919 it goes so far as to say that in a 247 00:16:12.200 --> 00:16:16.919 strict sense God contradicts himself. Many Orthodox theologians have talked 248 00:16:16.919 --> 00:16:22.440 about God transcending logical categories and transcending the antinomies, or 249 00:16:22.440 --> 00:16:26.480 what we think from the humane vantage point, are oppositions 250 00:16:26.519 --> 00:16:32.759 or contradictions. The Trinity is a mystery. It transcends created 251 00:16:33.000 --> 00:16:36.840 logical categories, but it's not crazy or incoherent. Fact, it 252 00:16:36.919 --> 00:16:41.600 is itself foult all throughout divine revelation. The strongest case 253 00:16:41.799 --> 00:16:46.000 I've seen against Islam and Judaism has been in fact 254 00:16:46.039 --> 00:16:49.519 that the Old Testament teaches the Trinity everywhere, and if 255 00:16:49.559 --> 00:16:54.600 you really pay attention, with divine illumination, these Theophanes are 256 00:16:54.720 --> 00:17:01.320 quite often, almost usually Christophanes. So the Christophanes the long 257 00:17:01.360 --> 00:17:06.039 ago have refuted the unitarian deity of the philosophers and 258 00:17:06.079 --> 00:17:09.319 the Jews and the Muslims. And that's because our deity 259 00:17:10.839 --> 00:17:14.839 is much like the deity that appears to Jacob. In 260 00:17:14.839 --> 00:17:17.640 Genesis twenty eight, we read Jacob went out from the 261 00:17:17.640 --> 00:17:20.359 well of Oath towards Heran. He came to a certain 262 00:17:20.359 --> 00:17:22.680 place and stayed there all night because the sun had set. 263 00:17:22.960 --> 00:17:24.640 He took one of the stones of that place that 264 00:17:24.720 --> 00:17:27.079 has put it at his head, and he lay on 265 00:17:27.079 --> 00:17:29.079 that place to sleep. When he dreamed, behold he saw 266 00:17:29.079 --> 00:17:32.519 a ladder, and it was set up on the earth. 267 00:17:32.599 --> 00:17:35.039 Its top reached to heaven, and there the angels of 268 00:17:35.079 --> 00:17:39.119 God were ascending and descending upon it. Behold, the Lord 269 00:17:39.240 --> 00:17:42.240 stood above it. So the Lord is standing. And we 270 00:17:42.319 --> 00:17:44.960 find this many many times in the Theophanes that God 271 00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:49.079 comes down and he stands there, which is a bodily reference, 272 00:17:49.400 --> 00:17:54.680 even though Christ doesn't incarnate yet. The Lord stood and said, 273 00:17:54.759 --> 00:17:58.200 I am the Lord, God of Abraham, your father, and 274 00:17:58.200 --> 00:18:02.759 the God of Isaac. Do not fear. I will give 275 00:18:02.759 --> 00:18:05.839 you this land and you will be a great nation, etc. 276 00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:10.839 So again reiterating the promise to Abraham. And then in 277 00:18:10.880 --> 00:18:15.880 Genesis thirty one we have another Theophany, another appearance of 278 00:18:15.960 --> 00:18:19.880 Christ to Jacob. The angel Lord spoke to me in 279 00:18:19.920 --> 00:18:22.839 a dream, Jacob, here I am, lift up your eyes, 280 00:18:23.640 --> 00:18:26.440 see the male goats and the rams, etc. I am 281 00:18:26.480 --> 00:18:30.319 the God who appeared to you at Bethel. So an appearance, 282 00:18:30.359 --> 00:18:33.799 a manifestation of theophany where you anointed the pillar and 283 00:18:33.839 --> 00:18:37.559 made a vow I will be with you. And then 284 00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:43.559 we read. Then Jacob asked, this is Genesis thirty two. 285 00:18:44.480 --> 00:18:47.599 Tell me your name. He said, why do you ask 286 00:18:47.720 --> 00:18:53.359 my name? Very similar to what is said to Samson's parents. 287 00:18:53.400 --> 00:18:55.799 Why do you ask my name? Seeing as it is wonderful? 288 00:18:55.839 --> 00:18:59.480 So we know it's the same speaker that spoke to Manoah. 289 00:19:00.279 --> 00:19:03.240 Why do you ask my name? It is wonderful? He 290 00:19:03.319 --> 00:19:07.279 blessed him there. Jacob called that place the form of God. 291 00:19:07.640 --> 00:19:12.440 For I saw God's face. I saw God face to face, 292 00:19:13.319 --> 00:19:16.400 much like Moses is said to see God face to face. 293 00:19:17.960 --> 00:19:20.680 And thus my soul was saved when the form of 294 00:19:20.720 --> 00:19:23.680 God passed by the sun rose on him, but he 295 00:19:23.799 --> 00:19:25.880 limped on his hip. This is, of course, after the 296 00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:32.319 wrestling with the Lord. This makes no sense according to 297 00:19:33.119 --> 00:19:38.200 classical theism. This deity doesn't appear. He certainly doesn't wrestle 298 00:19:38.240 --> 00:19:41.920 with Jacob. He's not called the form in the face 299 00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:45.480 of God in time and space. That's just not philosophically possible. 300 00:19:46.519 --> 00:19:50.319 And yet once again, what do we read in Leviticus 301 00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:56.400 Leviticus nine, we have a very similar situation. But I 302 00:19:56.440 --> 00:20:02.400 really like this passage because problematic for any position that 303 00:20:02.880 --> 00:20:05.240 again wants to restrict what God can and can't do 304 00:20:05.359 --> 00:20:10.920 based on arbitrary categories of human created or created human logic. 305 00:20:11.200 --> 00:20:14.559 I know, saying God didn't create logic, but just calling 306 00:20:14.599 --> 00:20:18.440 it created categories. Aaron lifted up his hand towards the people. 307 00:20:18.440 --> 00:20:21.440 This is Liviticus not and he blessed them and came 308 00:20:21.440 --> 00:20:23.400 down from the sin offering, and they'll burnt offerings and 309 00:20:23.440 --> 00:20:26.119 the peace offerings After this, Moses and Aaron went into 310 00:20:26.119 --> 00:20:28.680 the tabernacle, and they came out and blessed all the people, 311 00:20:29.079 --> 00:20:32.559 and the glory of God appeared to all the people. 312 00:20:33.720 --> 00:20:37.720 How do all the people see the glory of God? Well, 313 00:20:37.720 --> 00:20:39.880 we know about the glory cloud in the Old Testament, 314 00:20:40.559 --> 00:20:45.559 and we know again in numbers twelve we're told that 315 00:20:45.599 --> 00:20:51.920 the Lord came down in the cloud, descended in the pillar, 316 00:20:52.319 --> 00:20:54.279 and stood at the door of the tabernacle. So again 317 00:20:54.319 --> 00:20:58.559 bodily movement standing there at the tabernacle. For example, when 318 00:20:58.559 --> 00:21:01.119 he appears to Gideon and Judges, I think it's a 319 00:21:01.200 --> 00:21:06.440 Judge six it says Yahweh turned his face to get in. 320 00:21:06.920 --> 00:21:09.200 The God of the philosophers doesn't have a face, he 321 00:21:09.200 --> 00:21:11.720 doesn't have a form, he doesn't manifest in time of space. 322 00:21:11.759 --> 00:21:17.920 He's not a Theophanic deity. Thus this is so key 323 00:21:18.359 --> 00:21:22.559 and so simple actually for those that are biblically literate 324 00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:28.000 in terms of combating and refuting other world religions that 325 00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:31.440 also lay claim to these same passages and texts. 326 00:21:31.119 --> 00:21:33.640 At least to some degree with Islam Judaism. 327 00:21:33.680 --> 00:21:36.599 But again, mainly I think Islam is the thing that 328 00:21:36.640 --> 00:21:40.599 we will be combating in the future because the system 329 00:21:40.599 --> 00:21:43.200 of the establishment of the global elite. They really see 330 00:21:43.279 --> 00:21:46.279 that this is a way to alter and change the West. 331 00:21:46.920 --> 00:21:49.880 More so than perhaps in the other cults or sex 332 00:21:49.960 --> 00:21:52.240 or groups, new agers or whatever. This one seems to 333 00:21:52.279 --> 00:21:56.559 have the real meat when it comes to altering people 334 00:21:56.559 --> 00:22:02.319 groups and changing demographic warfare. Let's just call it that. 335 00:22:03.519 --> 00:22:07.400 Well again, Philippians, too, we read that Christ, who was 336 00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:11.079 in the form of God, did not consider it robbery 337 00:22:11.119 --> 00:22:14.039 to be equal with God, but humble himself and took 338 00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:19.519 on our form. This is the famous Kenosis passage where 339 00:22:19.559 --> 00:22:23.839 we know that God willingly got the son, willingly limited 340 00:22:23.920 --> 00:22:26.359 himself in time and space. He didn't lose any in 341 00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:30.240 his powers, but in a sense, he didn't exercise every power, 342 00:22:30.400 --> 00:22:34.119 every dunamus that he had when he became incarnate. When 343 00:22:34.160 --> 00:22:37.839 he was walking around in Jerusalem, he was not doing 344 00:22:37.880 --> 00:22:38.759 the conflagration. 345 00:22:39.119 --> 00:22:40.720 He was not creating the world. 346 00:22:41.480 --> 00:22:44.920 This again is why there's a difference between what God 347 00:22:45.039 --> 00:22:48.359 is his essence, and what God does his actions or 348 00:22:48.359 --> 00:22:53.960 his energies. But if Christ is the deity that becomes 349 00:22:53.960 --> 00:22:58.759 incarnate and steps into time and space and becomes our advocate, 350 00:22:58.799 --> 00:23:04.200 our redeemer, our or savior, our perfect Man. Then it's 351 00:23:04.240 --> 00:23:08.359 not the god of classical theism, and all of the 352 00:23:08.400 --> 00:23:11.559 strivings of classical theism and the God of the philosophers 353 00:23:12.359 --> 00:23:16.720 really didn't amount to much. Thus, I think philosophy is 354 00:23:16.799 --> 00:23:19.640 kind of worthless. And I'm speaking here of worldly philosophy. 355 00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:22.599 Certainly we have Saint Justin, Martyr of the Philosopher, but 356 00:23:23.119 --> 00:23:25.160 even perhaps Justin at times might have been a little 357 00:23:25.160 --> 00:23:28.440 too philosophical. And certainly many of the disciples Tation and 358 00:23:28.519 --> 00:23:32.960 others who were known as the logos apologists made this 359 00:23:33.119 --> 00:23:37.839 mistake of putting philosophy in metaphysics before what we're actually 360 00:23:37.920 --> 00:23:43.480 taught in divine revelation. We read in Saint Justin Popovich 361 00:23:44.319 --> 00:23:47.680 Orthodox Faith in Life in Christ an excellent section where 362 00:23:47.720 --> 00:23:50.960 he talks about perfection. And you notice the idea of 363 00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:54.480 perfection in the classical theist tradition or the world religions 364 00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:58.319 is this metaphysical thing. It's the one that's got to 365 00:23:58.400 --> 00:24:00.680 be no distinctions, and it's out there. It's not in 366 00:24:00.720 --> 00:24:03.279 time and space, and it's totally abstract. It's this and that. 367 00:24:03.759 --> 00:24:04.440 It's eternal. 368 00:24:04.480 --> 00:24:09.599 It's opposite time and space and flux. But what a 369 00:24:09.720 --> 00:24:13.079 perfection isn't mainly just some metaphysical speculation. What if it's 370 00:24:13.119 --> 00:24:17.079 actually about a person. And I thought this was a 371 00:24:17.119 --> 00:24:19.960 really good insight that And again this matter is because 372 00:24:19.960 --> 00:24:23.200 when you say debate a Muslim, a Muslim says, well, 373 00:24:23.319 --> 00:24:26.079 God Allah is perfect because he's not in time of space. 374 00:24:26.119 --> 00:24:28.839 He can incarnate, That's why he's perfect. Well, how do 375 00:24:28.920 --> 00:24:31.759 we know that that's what is perfect? It's just an assumption. 376 00:24:33.119 --> 00:24:37.759 And Saint Josephovich says, was Plato perhaps the perfect man? Well, 377 00:24:37.759 --> 00:24:39.599 why did Plato want to leave this world to get 378 00:24:39.599 --> 00:24:42.680 back to the ideas, the eternal ideas? If he was 379 00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:46.240 the perfect man. What about Buddha, Well, Buddha wanted to 380 00:24:46.359 --> 00:24:50.960 escape and achieve nirvana, so he wasn't perfect. What about Moses, Well, 381 00:24:51.079 --> 00:24:54.720 Moses continued to seek help from heaven. Moses made his 382 00:24:54.799 --> 00:24:58.880 own mistakes. What about Mohammed, Well, Mohammad was a bloodthirsty 383 00:24:59.359 --> 00:25:04.359 warlord and he offered a sensual paradise after destroying the infidels, 384 00:25:04.559 --> 00:25:07.559 so it doesn't seem very perfect. What about Kant and 385 00:25:07.599 --> 00:25:13.480 the philosophy of German idealism? Now the meta rationalistic being 386 00:25:13.519 --> 00:25:15.680 on zick the world of the beyond that we can 387 00:25:15.759 --> 00:25:17.160 never know really. 388 00:25:16.920 --> 00:25:18.440 Puts us in a skeptical state. 389 00:25:19.160 --> 00:25:24.960 What about what about great literary figures like Shakespeare, say 390 00:25:25.079 --> 00:25:28.359 Justin Bobovitch as well, Shakespeare pointed us to the worlds above, 391 00:25:28.440 --> 00:25:30.680 But that doesn't really seem like a perfect man. 392 00:25:31.279 --> 00:25:34.319 And then he lists other characters, Nietzsche and others, And. 393 00:25:34.279 --> 00:25:35.960 What's missing in all these is that none of them 394 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:38.640 are the god Man. What if the god Man is 395 00:25:38.680 --> 00:25:42.200 just simply the perfect Man, and that perfection isn't an 396 00:25:42.440 --> 00:25:47.960 abstract category that we judge God or metaphysics by, But 397 00:25:49.279 --> 00:25:52.640 the divine revelation of the Son of God is perfect God, 398 00:25:52.720 --> 00:25:56.079 perfect man, and thus the god Man himself is the 399 00:25:56.160 --> 00:26:01.839 perfect example of philosophy come to life life as living wisdom. 400 00:26:02.440 --> 00:26:06.160 Philosophy is an abstract really ultimately, I am the way, 401 00:26:06.200 --> 00:26:09.680