DEBATE (Orthodox vs Protestant): Is the Orthodox Church the only One True Church?

hi everyone uh this is according to john podcast and today we are going to have a debate it's the first debate on uh this channel and podcast so it will be very interesting for me also um we have the guests we have is father patrick ramsey and dr gavin oakland and the debate uh the question we are going to debate is is the orthodox church the only one true church so uh father patrick has has degrees both in science and theology he's a distant tutor for the institute for orthodox christian studies in cambridge uk and has a phd in orthodox christian ecclesiology dr gavin is a baptist pastor and has a phd from fuller theological seminary in historical theology and the master of divinity from a covenant theological seminary he is the author of several books on theology also and he writes uh on the internet on different topics uh related theology so welcome both to the debate thank you thanks john how are you doing are you doing fine this time yes thank you yes oh well yeah the debate format will be part one will be 15 minutes first statements then we will go on to part two which will be the rebuttal period first seven minutes each and then five minutes each the second rebuttal then we will go on to part three where we will have cross examination 15 minutes each and during this period uh the person that is cross examining he can interrupt or move on with his questions if he wants so that that's not rude if that happens and part four will be closing statements five minutes and then we will have a q a so this debate is pre-recorded but i have gathered some questions beforehand okay follow patrick you can begin with your first 15 minutes first statement thank you i'll begin my argument by focusing on the gospel and in particular what it is to be saved salvation is union with god being one with god theosis holy father keep them in thy name which thou gave have given to me that they may be one just as we are union with god the father is through and in the son of god hence the name christ hence the name christian i am not praying for these alone but also for those who believe in me through their work so that they may all be one just as thou father are in me and i indeed that they may also be one in us so that the world may believe that thou has sent me and the glory which thou has given me i have given to them so that they may be one just as we are one in i in them and thou in me so they may be perfected in unity and so that the world may know that thou has sent me and thou loved them just as thou loved me father i desire that those whom also whom thou gave me may be with me where i am so that they may behold my glory which thou gave to me because you loved me before the foundation of the world god became man that man may become god and the glory that thou have given to me i have given to them we are united to god according to both aspects of our human constitution that is both spiritually by faith knowledge and love and the holy spirit and bodily through baptism in water and in the offering and partaking of the eucharist the one bread and one cup the body and blood of christ and also through the practice of the virgins and avoiding sin therefore gird up the loins of your mind stay sober put your hope fully in the grace brought to you by the revelation of jesus christ as obedient children not fashioning yourselves after the former lusts as you did in your ignorance that as he who caught you is holy you also be holy in all manner of life because it is written be holy for i am holy we become one in mind with god and one body through and in christ who is the head because god is one without the visions or contradictions we need to be united in one mind and one body so that we are all or one or all of the same opinion now i beseech you brothers by the name of our lord jesus christ that you all speak the same thing there there be no divisions among you but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same opinion and one body by partaking of one bread for we be many are one bread and one body for we all partake from the one bread and thus in one communion with each other there is one body and one spirit just as also you are called in one hope of your calling one lord one faith one baptism one god and father of all who is overall and through all and in us all what is the church the church is a body of christ he is the head of the body the church and the household of god the house of god which is a church of the living god built upon the foundations of the apostles as fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of god being built together upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets jesus christ himself being the chief cornerstone the church as tangibly present on earth is that institution so founded on the apostles apostolic tradition and we know its existence in each place because in each place we find christ and the apostles in the presence of an orthodox bishop and presbyters upon whom the church in each place is founded and i also say to you that you are peter and upon this rock i shall build my church that is the rock founding the church is that grounded on an appointed apostle confessing the right faith of christ only with the bishop and presbyters can anything be called church because the church only exists on the foundation of christ and the apostles and like manna that all reverence the deacons as the appointment of jesus christ and the bishop as jesus christ who is the son of the father and the presbyters as a sanhedrin of god and of the assembly of the apostles apart from these nothing may be called church as wrote ignatius of antioch just around about 180. the bishops and presbyters are not self-appointed but appointed by those appointed before them back in succession to those appointed by the apostles to appoint bishops and presbyters in each city just as titus for this reason i left you behind in crete so that you would set and order the things that are lacking and you should appoint elders in every city as i commanded you how do we know the true faith of the church as the church has spread and settled they arose various opinions heresies they're taught ideas contrary to the faith once delivered to all by the apostles so that the matter did not devolve to one opinion against another opinion the bishops as each representing the church in each place gathered together to provide a common testimony to one in the same opinion of the received faith as opposed to the innovation of heresy initially these gatherings called councils or synods a regional extent and usually addressed a local matter sufficiently heresies begin as novelties in a specific place and time these councils or some prominent bishops sometimes produced a document outlining core elements of the faith at the time of constantine the great due to the widespread heresy of arianism there was a general gathering of the bishops from across the world and ecumenical council and at that meeting the bishops or fathers produced a statement of faith the nicene creed as a standard confession for those seeking to join the church to ensure that they were not following the heresy of arius just under 60 years later another ecumenical council was called to deal with a new widespread heresies and the council produced a second creed of faith fully consistent with that of nicaea that addressed these new heresies this creed of constantinople became the universally accepted confession or standard of faith for all churches and christians whoever could not agree with the statements of this creed were not considered to be christians other heresies arose and other ecumenical councils were held to refuge there and these councils produce statements of faith on the specific heresy as establishing what it was and was not christian belief no other creeds were produced though as concise statements of faith those rejecting the testament of these councils became cut off from the church for rejecting the testimony of faith and so breaking the unity of mind and opinion so as making it impossible to remain in one body of the church since the unity of faith and hierarchical communion was broken these groups could no longer be said to be part of the church nor represent the christian faith they went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would have remained with us but they went out in order that they might not be they may be made manifest but none of them were of us why the orthodox church the orthodox church or rather the communion of orthodox catholic churches recognizes itself as the continuation of the church or churches founded by the apostles this is established in two minutes first is the maintenance of the apostolic faith once to deliver to all the saints without change neither adding or subtracting from it as well as the traditions of the apostles in the practice of the church tradition these are testified by the ecumenical and regional councils and individual fathers that are held as inspired testimonies to the apostolic disposition or tradition but churches also claim an unbroken line of succession from those ordained by the apostles and are continuing into communion with those other churches teaching and practicing the same things this communion has established recognition and communion with the apostolic or patron seeds of rome as a new rome alexandria and antioch who remain as rocks of the faith of the unity of the churches as one body on earth sadly others have left this community because they refuse to accept the apostolic faith and traditions and to be with one mind with this communion or they wish to maintain their own institutions separate from that appointed by the apostles such a refusal to accept the truth or unity of hierarchy denies unity of christ as one body and in that state there is no possibility of recognition of these churches or as members of the body of christ groups that establish themselves later apart from the church even if not opposed to the faith of a church are nonetheless not united with the church because they do not receive their hierarchy from the church they are not unbodied with the church justice membership in the family ordination is established primarily by birth into that family as with israel ancestors so too has been a member of the church one must be bought into the church by a father of the church a priest who can trace his heritage to an apostle to be recognized as in the church requires one to come to the church and to be received by the hierarchy of the church through the mysteries so that physical union may be established where there is the union of faith this also requires a formal rejection of any errors or heresies and open acceptance of a faith and tradition of the church there cannot be an external recognition of other groups outside the church as they are even if they come even if they claim to have the same faith and tradition because of physical unity through the mysteries is not established they have not been born again in the household of god and so a foreign nation and a foreign people as such it is impossible to speak of any other group as church existing apart from the orthodox church and not established from her and in her as mother of all christians the claim that the orthodox church is the one and only church of christ is not an attempt to exclude anyone from salvation but a necessity of what the church is and what it is to be saved to accept those outside the church as though they are in the church is effectively to deny the church and their salvation the church desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth and her arms are open to all who wish to come to her in accepting her faith and the fathers as their own it's not that the church is trying to exclude anyone but that those outside the church claiming that it is exclusive are not willing to accept the faith and fathers of a church as their own but rather to be justified and accepted with their own fathers and their own faith or opinions because the church cannot accept within herself opinions contrary to herself all the fathers of another household as denying herself it is rather those rejecting her or not willing to accept there are rejected their own opinions that exclude themselves from the church and from salvation but church christ women but cannot force them into a church as being free in the image of god again salvation is union with god as one plus one church and one faith thank you father for that now it's time for dr gavin to give his first statement uh your uh mike there we go sorry i want to thank both john and father patrick for this debate i'm very honored to be a part of it and i pray that it will honor christ and advance the truth in my opening remarks i want to argue that orthodox christians can certainly be a part of the church but the orthodox church does not constitute the only one true church now let's start by considering how radical this proposition is if the orthodox church were the only true church then of the roughly 2.3 billion christians on planet earth less than 12 percent of them are in the church now immediately this raises the question what does that entail for the unfortunate 88 of christendom roughly 2 billion people are we to suppose that when jesus looks down upon his precious bride his body in this world his sheep the ones for whom he died this precious entity we call the church that he sees only orthodox christians roman catholics are out the anglicans are out pentecostals are out and so forth well different orthodox christians will construe this a bit differently today but the historic orthodox view is very restrictive about as restrictive as you can imagine from the fourth council of constantinople in the 9th century to the patriarchal encyclical of 1848 in the 19th and pretty consistently between them the regular claim is that perceived western innovations such as the filioque are heresy and heresy places you outside the canonical boundaries of the orthodox church therefore cut off from the grace of the holy spirit given in the sacraments and therefore yes outside of salvation patriarch decithius of jerusalem in the 17th century put it like this quote when these forsake the church they are forsaken by the holy spirit and there remains in them neither understanding nor light but only darkness and blindness unquote the 18th century orthodox theologian piezius felichovsky who is a saint in the orthodox church put it like this speaking of those who accept the filioque clause quote what hope do they have for salvation unless they openly renounce this spirit fighting heresy and become united again with the holy orthodox eastern church depart and flee from them as speedily as possible lest death overtake you in it and you be numbered among the heretics and not among the christians end quote i could produce many juicy quotes like this from orthodox saints and to my awareness you don't start seeing any change on that until more recent times maybe 19th century certainly 20th century now part of what is undergirding this claim is a particular construal of the unity of the church according to which division in the church is ontologically impossible there can never be schisms in the church there can only be schisms from the church so that roman catholics and protestants are understood as just the next heretical movements after the aryans and the gnostics and so forth in the early church but why should we accept such a narrow definition of schism in first corinthians 1 18 paul acknowledges the reality of skismata in the church in corinth schisms and yet he sees all of these different groups as part of the church similarly after the split between israel and judah in the old testament god still refers to both entities of as his people why can we not allow for imperfections in the church's realization of her unity just as we must certainly do so with the other marks of the church such such as holiness when we look at christendom today we see numerous traditions that produce saints that have advanced the knowledge of christ that promote the worship of the trinity the divisions between them are serious but they are not of the same rank as the divisions in the early church between say the church and the gnostics or the aryans to adopt such a one-size-fits-all definition of schism is ungenerous and unreasonable and doesn't even work for the orthodox church for we have ongoing schism between moscow and constantinople at this very moment another part of the rationale for the orthodox claim to be the only true church is her definition of apostolicity according to which the true church is identified by among other things a succession of bishops going back to the apostles but of course there's an immediate difficulty here the same appeal to apostolic session succession is claimed by many christian traditions within protestantism among anglicans and some lutherans among roman catholics within the old catholic church and then in various other eastern traditions most of christendom says our church has the bishops who are the real successors of the apostles upon what basis do we negotiate these competing claims for example the six oriental orthodox churches consider themselves to comprise the one holy catholic and apostolic church founded by jesus christ why should we accept the eastern orthodox claim of apostolicity over and against the oriental orthodox claim of the same to make juridical and historical lines of succession through bishops a necessary ingredient of apostolicity results in a narrow and overly technical conception of ecclesiological transmission we must pursue a more comprehensive full-orbed understanding of how the true church subsists throughout history among the church fathers for instance succession of office was not so much itself the indicator of the true church as much as it was wielded for the larger purpose of protecting a succession of the faith for instance in his oration on athanasius gregory of nazianzus is praising athanasius as piety and he speaks of him succeeding to the throne of saint mark that is the sea of alexandria and he says that the genuine ground of succession is not a succession of office but a succession of piety and unity in the faith if you don't have those things then he says it's not a real succession but a succession in name only he even claims that a succession of office without succession of piety is or doctrine is a succession of health to disease light to darkness calm to storm and prudence to frenzy and by the way i work very hard to try not to take the church fathers out of context i know that's a concern with protestants at times so i encourage people to go look up that passage i think they'll find it fascinating gregor of nazianzis oration 21 on the great athanasius chapter 8 you can find it at new advent other church fathers as well emphasize the necessity of considering a church's doctrine to see if she is the true church even if you have valid succession of office ambrose in his commentary on luke 9 5 quote it is therefore first and foremost to inquire into the faith of a church if christ is its inhabitant it must certainly be chosen but if a people of evil faith or a heretical doctor disfigures the dwelling it is considered a synagogue to be shunned end quote saint augustine on the unity of the church 4.7 quote whoever descends from holy scripture concerning the head that is christ is not in the church even if he is found in all places in which the church is designated end quote of course the cardinal articulation of this principle is galatians 1 where paul says not even apostolic status not even angelic status can continue apart from fidelity to the gospel now of course the orthodox church claims both succession of office and doctrine but here the challenge emerges so do other churches what do you do when you have multiple mutually exclusive claims of apostolic succession from different episcopal bodies all claiming their doctrine is the right doctrine here's how one roman catholic theologian poses the challenge quote the slightest acquaintance with church history witnesses to the fact that the presence of bishops is not an adequate criterion for discerning the true church of the apostolic succession amidst conflicting episcopal bodies who could be ignorant of the scandalous reality of bishops at dogmatic odds with one another for centuries bishops against bishops councils against councils who cannot readily acknowledge that every major schism and heresy throughout history has been promoted by bishops who invariably claimed to defend tradition and orthodoxy end quote in holy scripture not only do we have no promise that succession of office and succession of piety and doctrine will coincide but in fact we see precisely the opposite consistently throughout the old testament and climactically in the new testament the one who led the plot to crucify jesus christ was caiaphas who could claim unbroken succession from aaron this is why john the baptist is warning the jewish leaders in matthew 3 who cares if you have abraham as your father while you're not repenting of your sins we must not understand the transmission of the church from one generation to another in a mechanical way as though she were a kind of legal property that could be handed off as carl bart objected for such a definition of apostolicity neither the holy spirit nor faith is necessary but simply an archaeological knowledge of lists instead the true church can be discerned wherever jesus christ is present in word and sacrament the church is created by the dynamic activity of the risen christ according to his free and sovereign will in advancing the gospel for instance in the book of acts the church spreads organically and unpredictably as believers are scattered because of persecution the gospel comes to antioch in acts 11 because people are scattered after the persecution of stephen they speak the gospel in greek uh people respond to the gospel and the church is grown and when barnabas is sent there from jerusalem he doesn't say well we've got to have a laying on of hands to make this legitimate he simply encourages them in their faith and rejoices in what is happening this is a protestant ecclesiological instinct to perceive the true church as first an organism and then an institution rather than first an institution and then an organism now to be clear it is not that the forms of institutional succession are useless or bad it's simply that they are not strictly necessary the institutional serves the organic it does not enclose and limit it thus today when in a remote part of the world people suddenly get access to the internet and the go to biblegateway.com and encounter the gospel and respond to the gospel with faith and worship and baptism the church of jesus christ is grown even apart from a formal institutional connection with other pre-existing churches now here a question emerges what about the early christians who do insist upon bishops and father patrick has mentioned some of them thus far we must read these statements in context for instance consider the famous passage where tertullian appeals to the succession of bishops to determine the true church well if you keep reading right after that he says even if the heretics had a succession of bishops it wouldn't matter because their doctrine is bad quote but should they even affect the contrivance of a succession list they will not advance a step for their very doctrine after comparison with that of the apostles will declare by its own diversity and contrarity that it had for its author neither an apostle nor an apostolic man end quote this makes it clear that fortrethalian succession of office is not itself the criterion it's helping you to discern the larger criterion the succession of the faith these early christians like irenaeus and tertullian were under enormous pressure in this critical stormy early period of the church church's growth persecutions without heresies and schisms are within in response to this there's the development of a more hierarchical centralized church structure for the sake of maintaining unity and continuity with apostolic teaching an appeal to apostolic succession makes a lot of sense if you're two or three generations removed from the apostles if you're irenaeus and you know of the apostle john through polycarp of course you're going to appeal to that it does not follow that an appeal from that appeal that a succession of bishops will then roll forward indefinitely into the future for thousands of years via the laying on of hands as the way you mark out the one true church we must also appreciate that the schisms and heresies being addressed by these church fathers are not comparable to many of the schisms in the church today for instance cyprian who insisted of course on the necessity of bishops wrote his on the unity of the church to address novation who is an anti-pope his famous statement that you cannot have god as your father unless you have the church as your mother in chapter six is said with reference to the one who is an enemy of christ scattering the church and has committed spiritual adultery that's the person he considers outside of the church similarly his famous statement that outside of the church there is no salvation in epistle 72 to giubianis he's he's addressing the baptism of heretics and he lists heresies such as petropassianism uh various gnostic groups people who deny the trinity the martianites he spends a lot of time on marcion for example so marcion marcion rejected the god of the old testament he had a docetist view of the incarnation he elevated paul over the other apostles that's the kind of person he's talking about in his context similarly in his famous statement in epistle 68 that if anyone is not with the bishop he's not in the church this is a letter against his arch enemy or one of them florentius pubianus who's been viciously criticizing him and cyprian calls him sacrilegious and says god is going to judge him that is the context for cyprian statements those are the kinds of people he thinks of as not with the bishop these schisms in the early church are different than the schism of for instance 1054. that was a more institutional schism between orthodox groups it was not even immediately universal it took a while to spread the doctrinal differences between a cyprion and a martian are far more aggravated than the doctrinal differences between various christian groups today it's anachronistic to extend cyprian's language without qualification into the post 1054 era cyprian never faced such a world but if cyprian's statements about schism schism are applied to today we should apply them all consistently and that includes his assertion that there's no salvation outside the church which means 88 percent of christians are damned i am thankful that most contemporary orthodox christians would not push cyprian's statements that far but in so doing they recognize his statements came in a different context i'm out of time so i'll address ignatius in my next rebuttal thank you dr gavin so now we move on to part two and your father patrick you can give your first rebuttal which will be seven minutes thank you thank you for your argument kevin um right by rebuttal of this is the core of it is there's an assumption that somehow we talk about christians as outside the orthodox church and the question is on what basis do we say that those outside the orthodox church are can be called christians that we can say that 88 of christians are outside the church then the orthodox perspective the christians are in the church those who are outside the church it uh cease to be christians now i having said that that does not mean in an academic sense in the sense of economy or discussion where we can recognize those who have some connection to christ or things are christians as distinct from being buddhists or hindus or muslims even but that does not mean in the strict sense of what it means to be a christian which is to be in christ the practical real life of existence of a christian so we keep those terms distinct from each other so there's an assumption and and the reply the argument that their christians exist or have are part of the flock or somehow on some basis other than what is determined by the church or being within the church as it is manifest on earth now there he also discusses the idea of schism as being in and out but schism isn't necessarily an absolute black and white schism is bad yes and properly there can no re a real schism within the church but that is in the sense of a schism that cuts one off completely from the unity of the churches they can be and this is what i would describe as a garment ripped in two whereas there is a complete break of hierarchical or union with any of the hierarchy of the church you become completely separated from the body that is one level of schism then there are schisms internal which are like tears in the garment such that one part of the garment is broken from another part of the garden but it does not mean that the garment itself is torn in two and this is the case between moscow and constant and noble they remain part of the one garment through the communal union with other patriarchates such as that of serbia and antioch but unfortunately they are tall and these happen throughout the history of the church yes the church the orthodox churches do not claim to be free from every single little tear in the garment these do happen within the church but what it's talking about with major schism is whether there is a complete break in hierarchical communion and then there's something about the claim that the modern heresy or modern teachings of protestantism or roman catholicism are somehow less heresies than in the past now in the past we do have some major heresies and protestants and roman catholics will not teach arianism they will accept that christ is the son of god um however in the past there were also heresies about minor matters it was considered even if you rejected second marriage you were a heretic the novations for example were um this where heresies were and everywhere orthodox but they were still heresies for one reason or another and even those who wish to worship on the um easter will celebrate easter on the 14th day when in some ways called heretics were falsely teaching outside the unity of the church and considered a sense outside the church they had to be received into the church through repentance so the teachings of the roman catholics and protestants now are in the same ballpark of the variations of heresies in the past so we're not talking about something different and who is to judge what heroes is what james says if you break one law even a minor one you break the entire law there is no real sense of saying one terrorist is more important the other the issue is it contrary to the tradition of the church and the faith of the church if it is it divides because in god there is no he's pure he doesn't have a partial sense of what's okay and partial sense of lie in him he's utterly pure there is only truth and so any lie any change is itself to visit from the church and uh one cannot claim oh i've got less or another no if you're not teaching the same faith and traditions of church then you are separated um how much time have you got why may uh two minutes thank you um offensive position is of faith and piety i think it was recognized that the succession of bishops has to be orthodox there is every bishop's off ordained with the creed of the gospel it is ordained only to be in a sense an orthodox lie but this claim that it's about alpha does not mean that the succession is established simply by faith because the faith is it has to come together the succession has to be relaying on of hands from the apostles etc and faith so we can't divorce the truth we can't use this as an argument that because we have to have faith that we that somehow the succession is irrelevant no the succession must come with the faith the two come hand in hand and yes rightly without the faith succession in itself is meaningless but that does not mean that just the faith itself adds the same as a succession and the next last bit is um yes that the heretics all claim different the truly betray truth of course they do otherwise i'm going to say oh we're not the church people join us the but the issue is then is what is the truth faith who is consistent with the fathers who is holding the the test common tester has passed down who is holding the niceness read the constantino who is agreeing with it who was agreeing with the fifth third fourth fifth second seventh ecumenical councils the eighth criminal council who was holding these in agreement if they're not holding these in agreement and it's clear that they are not in one mind of the church and they cut themselves off now if you're not within that agreement you have to choose what is a faith that is consistent just as you accept christ over buddha or muhammad this is a matter of faith a choice of faith as to and as determining which church is truly claiming the matter yes there's a lot of reasons a lot of we can find out a lot by examining the truth the consistency of it but again it falls down to it's a matter of faith and this in itself does not deny that there's one faith one church over claims yes okay thank you for that uh now dr gavin it's your turn uh for a seven minutes rebuttal okay thank you father patrick uh let me say a few comments of a more general nature at the beginning and then i'll give a few comments by way of reply uh first of all just to reiterate two larger points in the discussion first of all even if we accept the necessity of bishops my question of why eastern orthodox rather than oriental orthodox is still on the table there's an assertion that one of these churches is the true church and the other is not but the difference between them is purely doctrinal not historical and highly technical so i want to reiterate that question second the in the early church the episcopate evolved in a particular context we must appreciate that context now let me extend this observation a little bit with reference to ignatius because he's been introduced we have to recognize the development in this model and you see this with some of the eccentricities of ignatius's view of the bishop ignatius though he insists upon the bishop does not believe in apostolic succession he does not think the bishops are the successors of the apostles he instead associates the presbyters with the apostles furthermore he doesn't think of the bishops as having a diocesan jurisdiction but a congregational one he has a fundamentally different definition of the word bishop the bishop is not over a region for him he's just like the pastor of the church this starts to make more sense when you consider all of the apostolic fathers in the early 2nd century we have the shepherd of hermes referencing multiple times presbyters presiding over the church in rome in polycarp's epistle to the philippians chapters five and six we have qualifications for two offices presbyters and deacons back into the extra-biblical first century evidence we have the didache 15.1 which instructs churches to appoint two offices bishops and deacons similarly in the first epistle of clement 42 to 44 we're told that the church has two offices and chapter 57 references the church in corinth being led by a group of presbyters in the new testament every reference to church leadership without exception is always in the plural and the terms bishop and presbyter are used interchangeably there's many evidences of this just for the sake of time to mention one we've got two qualifications lists these are extremely important to tell you about the office in question titus 1 first timothy 3 not only are the list of qualifications unmistakably parallel but the terms are used reverted back and forth in titus 1. the logic is appoint presbyters if they are blameless for a bishop must be blameless now the greater office can include the lesser but not vice versa there's no way to understand paul's language unless we accept that these two offices were not yet distinguished the evidence accords with the interpretation of jerome and the early church as well as a near consensus of academic historians of early christianity today namely that there was a development from a two-office structure to a three-office structure francis sullivan a roman catholic theologian summarizes it like this quote there exists a broad consensus among scholars including most catholic ones that such churches as those in alexandria philippi corinth and rome most probably continued to be led for some time by a college of presbyters and that only during the course of the second century did the threefold structure generally become the rule with a bishop presiding over each local church end quote now this does not mean that the monarchical episcopal structure is wrong it simply means that it lacks urad devino it's not by divine right rather it's a development to meet the needs of the time almost every institution goes through this kind of evolution after the founder or founders are gone they become more institutionalized it's not surprising that the early church under the threat of heresy and schism felt a need for a more centralized form of organization and you can see further continual developments such as archbishops which emerge in the 5th century we also have to appreciate the imperial context in which the early church is evolving all seven ecumenical councils were convoked by the roman emperor gregory the great claimed god set the emperor as the guardian of the peace of the church and the one who preserves the unity of the priesthood there's all kinds of canons of early synods specifying all the specific ways the emperor relates to the churches how you make an appeal to the emperor etc now consider the differences in context from the early church to today in the time of cyprian in the mid 3rd century there is about 1 million christians all within the roman empire today there are 2.3 billion at least professing christians when you go from 1 million people in the roman empire to 2.3 billion people a growth of over 2 000 times all over the planet it would be absurd to expect the same kind of institutional structure and procedure in both circumstances in fact if you fast forward just a millennium the episcopate is serving a very different purpose if you happen to be a lay christian in western europe in the late medieval era you're facing indulgences you're being financially manipulated by indulgences you're being starved of the sacrament you don't get communion in both kinds and you don't get either kind very often you're ignorant of the word of god because there's official resistance to translation into the vernacular and you may well be getting persecuted the western church claimed the power of the temporal sword and massacred groups like the waldensians albigensians and hussites there's a big difference between an episcopal in the third century opposing martian and an episcopate in the 15th burning yan huss now that's about the western church but my question for my orthodox friends is what is one to do if one happens to live in constance in the early 1400s do you continue to cling to the necessity of bishops even when they are the very ones starving you of the gospel and potentially burning you at the stake in such a circumstance the way to re serve the one true church is by returning to apostolic teaching and practice now just a few brief comments um in response to father patrick's comments thus far this will probably have to bleed over into my next rebuttal so john you can cut me off but much of father patrick's opening statement i agree with salvation is defined as union with god um but but for the first two thirds or so i don't see anything that actually establishes the proposition of this debate namely that the orthodox church is the only one true church many churches have apostolic traditions or tradition have the monarchical episcopal model they claim apostolic succession there's all kinds of questions that come up with uh ecumenical councils like who decides which ones are ecumenical what kind of episcopal bodies can comprise a legitimate ecumenical council but the main the main thing is it's irrelevant because there's other non-orthodox traditions that accept those ecumenical councils it's irrelevant to the proposition of this debate the main argument as i heard it was two things there's the maintenance of the apostolic faith and an unbroken line of succession and i would simply say the claim needs to be established that it's the eastern orthodox church exclusively that has maintained the apostolic faith over and against the oriental orthodox for example and uh time but you can finish finish your sentence so oh i don't want to go over no okay i'll pick it up thank you though sorry for being exact no no no that's your job all right um great so now we're coming to the second rebuttal period and it's five minutes each and your father patrick uh go first right now he raised the point about oriental christians now there's two issues here one that says the issue is technical well i don't know what exactly that has a relevance of weight or what meaning the issues of the trinitarian theology are extremely complex and difficult they're not easy simplistic ideas and so some of the matters of division are the human standard technical but this does not mean that that issue isn't real established and divisive just as some technical differences in human studies may cause a group to be do something completely wrong um in whatever it's doing so we can't in itself but technology is not a way of judging whether something's right or wrong now the oriental orthodox so-called were divided from the church because they refused to accept the council chalcedon that the christ has two natures one epistasis and two natures they refuse to use the language of two natures and they refuse to accept the combination of the authority appropriate to the bishops of the escorus whom they call the saint who was condemned by the council so this is why they cut off they were cut off from there and this is quite clear where they are not part of the orthodox church their claims are not that of of the orthodox church or the church and they are a separate group and so and as i say this is utterly clear um no one might want to believe what they believe that's it's fine but it's still not what the orthodox church claims to be therefore they are not orthodox christians um the time now the other thing is about the development of presbyters and bishops now there's interesting theories that they came out because the names that seem to be interchangeable but this is not the case the fact is is that what we do have and this is why i've taken some ignatius carefully is that we have a modern understanding of a bishop and presbyters which we are anachronistically putting back and saying that's not what we see in the past but the problem is some of the modern ideas of the monarchical episcopate are not actually what they are how to understand the episcopate the issue is that there is a synod in each church the synod of christ and the apostles established in each place is a group and they are all in a sense equal they are all presbyter or bishops or priests they are all the same as priests there is one that is established from among them as the arch priest the high priest who is a center of unity and as such he has a specific role and as a singular point of ordination singular point of consecration of altars and a singular point of consecrating the holy myr this is for the unity of the priesthood in each place this is what the distinction of peter is about to distinguish one among the equals so that there is unity and this was established from the first and it's no problem that sometimes we talk about presbyters sometimes we talk about the bishop in the singular form these are quite interchangeable what we can't have is just something for presbyters on their own without bishop because that is not the early tradition of the church and this is seen utterly clearly throughout all the from the second century on that there's one singled out and all the lists of bishops go back and they'd be able to name that one who's singled out and there's no encounter not think contradictory about this so these ideas that there's somehow some development in this are simply the products of people who don't actually believe that the structure is necessary to prochurch there is no contradiction in any early materials that this is the structure that was widespread and that it is the one that carried on um from there now this is also true that the things of the chief seas kiprin himself in the third century was clearly the chief see of his region there were groups and synods of bishops who gave it around so that they could have done other bishops this was again part of the being of the church this is apostolic tradition the church could not continue without the synod to ordain new bishops to maintain the church this is fundamental call to what the church is and also the chiefs caesar patron scenes were also from the first and when the council of nazis says rome alexandria and antioch it talks about them as ancient custom in other words from the times of the apostles it does not talk about establishing something new and again this is in the early 4th century and nothing to do with 5th century these things were established clearly from the first century by the apostles and there's no evidence to suggest otherwise and this one is trying to interpret it from a framework which denies these things as being part of the being of the church and we've run out of time sorry so dr gavin it's uh your five minutes okay where the five minutes goes faster than the seven minutes doesn't i'm going to talk fast here okay there's so much here but let's just try to hit the high points okay first this claim the distinction between eastern orthodox and oriental orthodox this is the whole point that needs to be proven how do we know which is right each group group is saying we're the true church and they broke off from us and the other group says no no we didn't break off from you you broke off from us the point is there's no historical basis for privileging one of these claims over in the other you have to measure the doctrine of each church by the first century apostolic deposit the idea of the monarchical episcopal church structure developing i'm sorry i just need to go back to clement the didache the shepherd polycarp and the entire new testament and there is zero evidence of a bishop over a church in any of those documents and then we have the eccentricities of ignatius's view it can be you know the claim came up well all the evidence in the second century later on well that's fine of course once it develops there's evidence that it's there from the early second century other than ignatius and anytime in the first century there is zero evidence of a bishop over a local church and we have clear testimony of the words being used interchangeably that's a real problem now just quickly parenthetical thought archbishops metropolitan regions not the same that's the difference between 5th century and 4th century there the testimony of jerome why should the cyprian's testimony or other testimonies be privileged over the testimony of jerome he said the presbyter is the same as the bishop before parties had a rape been raised up in religion by the provocations of satan the churches were governed by the senate of the presbyters but as each one sought to appropriate to himself those whom he had baptized instead of leading them to christ it was appointed that one of the presbyters elected by his colleagues should be set over all the others and have the chief supervision over the general well-being of the community without doubt it is the duty of the presbyters to bear in mind that by the discipline of the church they are subordinated to him who has been given over them as their head but it is fitting that the bishops do not forget that if they are set over the presbyters it is the result of tradition and not by the fact of a particular institution of the lord um a few other issues that have come up is the filioque of the same rank of heresy as aryanism or gnosticism or the other issues in the early church if so why didn't the eastern fathers rise up in rebellion against jerome ambrose augustine tertullian hillary and say look at this heresy rising up in the west why doesn't john chrysostom stand up and say stop reading the western heretics they're saying the holy spirit proceeds from the sun as well in the seventh century saint maximus the confessors declares that it is wrong to make accusations against the romans on account of their teaching that the holy spirit proceeds also from the son because they are able to derive uh this doctrine from the unanimous support of the latin fathers and cyril of alexandria controversy controversy over the filioque clause at the level of heresy doesn't begin until the 8th and 9th centuries if the filioque causes such rank heresy as to divide the true church from the false church why did it take so long to be denounced as such moreover must the orthodox now look back and regard all these western fathers as heretics why were they tolerated for so many centuries this issue is extremely technical are we really to think that this is what christ would want his church is only the people who are right on that i beg to differ on that now let me just say one other issue that's come up obliquely how much error can the church fall into is the holy spirit always going to preside in such a way that succession of office will be guaranteed to be within the parameters of christ's church um think about galatians 1 6 paul says i'm astonished that so soon you are already departing from the gospel okay already in the first century churches are departing from the gospel think of the witness of the old testament god has given so many promises to the nation of israel that they will be the light to the gentile nations but if there's any lesson to be abstracted from the pages of the old testament it is surely this that god's people fall into idolatry over and over again this is the recurrent pattern in the book of judges for example in the book of kings even during the reform efforts of josiah and hezekiah the high places remain up let alone what happens in the bad with the bad kings um the same claim of this kind of institutional privilege could be made by the pharisees against the apostles we sit in the seat of moses who are these upstarts it could be made by ahab over and against elijah the true church is not marked by these institutional parameters those serve a role but the true church is marked by fidelity to doctrine and piety are you finished yep okay uh so thank you for that we move on now to cross-examination and your father patrick begin 15 minutes right um one question we have come as a point of raise is about how do we define a christian and i have raised quite the point of the ecumenical councils now what have you you are you sort of as i said you're making an assumption about what is a christian so how are you defining that term and what measure do you have and from what source are you taking that and why are you not taking that which the orthodox church uses as a measure so in other words why is uh someone a christian are not a buddhist for example or a christian and not a muslim or a christian and perhaps not a um mormon or a christian and perhaps not a jehovah's witness so can you please define where you would sort of draw the boundary and how that would be done okay that's a fair question and it isn't it is complicated and messy but i would say i don't actually think it's just my side's burden to prove that i think your side would also need to establish this is why this definition of christian is correct and then we'd bring those competing claims together and evaluate them i would say uh the reason a christian uh you know someone say a presbyterian today is a christian and a buddhist isn't is because the presbyterian has been baptized in the name of the christian god the father the son and the spirit and while yes we've all got the challenge of the tricky edges right where exactly are the parameters there it just seems to me to be manifestly the case that we cannot restrict that boundary within solely the orthodox church and there's many reasons i have for that the main one is just i with all of my heart i cannot accept that the holy spirit is only at work within the orthodox church in such a way that he works through his church i look at the lives of saints that i admire both catholic and protestant and say i cannot accept that that is not the work of the holy spirit in their life so i think any time we start to restrict the one true church into one sort of set of institutional parameters uh boy does it pass the common sense test uh i just know too many people i mean i i've met people who have come to a baptist church heard the gospel um immediately their life has been changed and they went from a depressed alcoholic to a pastor who who founds orphanages and their life it's a 180. i cannot accept that that's not the work of the holy spirit because it seems to bear evidently the fruit of the holy spirit i cannot accept that richard wormbrand who was tortured for 12 years in communist romania converting his guards who are torturing him through his prayers and charity for them that he wasn't a member of the holy of the church just because he happened to be lutheran so uh i think the the greatest uh concern i have about this debate is at a common sense level of just observing um obviously the holy spirit is at work in places other than simply within the parameters of the of the orthodox church though i certainly would say he's at work there as well okay thank you now if on the case of holy spirit working there are many miracles stories and transformation stories and and lives of great piety among buddhists and which way are we to say that these stories that exist among buddhists about their changes their great part their miracles etc are not the holy spirit and those amongst those who at least sort of talk of christ or just but at some level are so how would you address that and how would you distinguish between okay fair question i would say that buddhists don't believe in the holy spirit and that uh the criterion of first corinthians 12 is a good one no one speaking by the holy spirit can say jesus is cursed anyone saying jesus is blessed or jesus says lord is speaking by the holy spirit that which brings honor and praise to jesus christ is of the holy spirit uh that's not happening in a buddhist context and you're right to press me on this it's tricky i don't claim to have solved this or to know exactly where those parameters are nor is it incumbent upon me in this debate to prove them i'm simply suggesting that it's not just the orthodox church i don't have to know exactly where those parameters are outside of that but i would say that you've got christians uh and i would call them christians they've been baptized in the trinity um out in other traditions that have enormous foundational creedal core in common with the orthodox catholics you know when the lutherans in the 1570s wrote to jeremiah ii ecumenical patriarch of constantinople they listed all their similarities and it's an enormous body of doctrines the trinity the two natures of christ the nature of evil the saving office of christ in his death and resurrection the truth and inspiration of holy scripture the second coming of christ you've got this common core foundation of doctrine they affirmed all seven ecumenical councils they said we're not rejecting anything that comes to us from the fathers they differed on the filioque they differed on icons they differed on relics other things like that um that's an enormous body of common doctrine and so i don't see that as in any way comparable to say you know buddhists having some kind of positive spiritual experience and i actually somewhat take offense at the comparison that you know because someone isn't within the institutional or canonical bounds of the orthodox church that therefore it's kind of like a free-for-all you know obviously there's a kind of um a broader set of doctrinal criteria for what we call christendom that's why we call it christendom the next question is and this cuts back to what i said earlier and i think you those are who sets and how do we define what is that broader sense of common doctrine that is defines christianity what is that who's that body who's to determine that because the baptists presbyterians lutherans roman catholics all have and orthodox all have various opinions of what that is and who they are and where that boundaries of those doctrines are uh how do you determine what is they they are and and how is that in any way somehow proven as some sort of generic truth that must apply to all christians by on what standard yes again very fair question i understand where you're coming from i would say that every one of us faces that question including the orthodox in the current schism between moscow and constantinople who who decides who's right who has that right to make that decision who's on whose authority do we make that decision we've all got to know we all no one has a privileged sixth sense sixth sense by which we can just immediately know you know what the doctrine is that is right we've got to work hard at that i would say our ultimate criterion is the holy scripture because that comes to us with its own claim of um divine backing it claims to be god breathed uh it claims to you know be unbreakable john 10 35 the scripture cannot be broken so that is the safest rubric we have to look at and then is are there judgment calls that we make along the way if we look to the apostles creed as a as a standard uh are we making a particular judgment absolutely but i don't think those judgment calls are avoidable for any christian why should someone accept orthodoxy except chalcedon and reject the oriental orthodox view they have to make a judgment on what they think is the correct doctrine between those two groups so i just feel that this need of doctrinal discernment is something that every single christian will have to uh face and i don't think there's any short easy way around that thank you now you you did mention that somehow we live in a different context in the modern world with whatever christian bodies are around and their various claims as being genuine christian bodies and that in the past something like aryans etcetera and and what way would as you say for judging aryan as being any well first question just briefly would you judge that an aryan was somehow less christian than would be any baptist or protestant or lutheran or roman catholic today yes i think that arianism rises higher on the level of doctrinal weightiness uh if you don't believe jesus is divine if you don't believe jesus is god that strikes at the very heart of the christian faith um it you know what is the gospel well we start in john 1 1 we see the word of god has become incarnate for our salvation arianism strikes at the heart of that now that does not seem to me to be at the same rank as the filioque because of many reasons one is the filioque is more technical and particular within the schema of doctrine it's more focused number two it's it's extremely difficult and number three is it was affirmed by many within the church for hundreds and hundreds of years as i mentioned a moment ago so it seems to me that uh in ranking the different importance of different doctrines uh arianism will be very high on that list and it seems to me that what divides contemporary christians i will call them uh is much lower than that thank you yes because i the aryans obviously for all other things apart from that one point where they put christ as a first creature for some philosophical reason we're in all other ways holding every other doctrine that a christian would hold and perhaps even more christian in many ways and some jehovah's witnesses or mormons are today but that's now in that um regard i'm just trying so i just get my head back into gear again um sorry i've sort of lost my train of thought um i'll just think of a new question give me a moment um the right um again why do you think and on what grounds do you judge and value your opinion in judging as opposed to the fathers of the orthodox church and judging that one doctrine is more technical and precise than something else or more important than to salvation than something else what how are you grounding us and who's authority what authority what basis um are you making this judgment call okay um one one reason would be that you have enormously intelligent people way more intelligent than i i am who uh are on both sides to great number so in the filioque clause when i read the eastern criticisms i think okay i can see a lot of the appeal when i read thomas aquinas defending it let's see i can see a lot of the appeal and these two sides seem to me to be well within the broader creedal context of classical ancient christianity again the western fathers who affirmed the filioque i mean they wouldn't have called it then that but they affirmed that the spirit proceeds from the sun they were not anathematized there's zero uh you know calling of this heresy that i'm aware of until the eighth or 9th century so that's one criterion is looking at the testimony of church history another would be looking at scripture how did these so you asked about you know how do you know one doctrine is more important than another well again i don't have a sixth sense on it but you have to work at it one criterion could be uh what do you see in terms of the weightiness attached to a particular doctrine in holy scripture in the gospel of john i believe it's in john chapter 8 jesus says if you do not believe that i am you are dead in your sins i'm pulling this verse from memory i might have mis slightly misquoted it but this is one example of where we see the deity of jesus if you're convinced as i am that that echo at me i am is a reference to that from exodus 3 um where you see uh well it's about as significant as a doctrine could be if if i'm hearing jesus correctly in that verse then we could go to other passages you know where the the doctrinal significance of the deity of christ over and against the aryans is labored to great effect throughout holy scripture so i think we can in other words we can look to church history we can look to holy scripture and we can see how others have worked through these doctrines and then we can ask about their logical relation to the gospel if jesus were not divine could he save us from our sins well um i think a good case can be made that you need a divine savior so there's all kinds of criteria like that we could look at not not to short-circuit the process or act as though it's easy or obvious but there are criteria we can look at to rank these different doctrines it seems to me thank you now just going back to the point you've set a rule about being baptized in the trinity what about those protestants particularly pentecostals who may be jesus only pentecostals the fact is in a thumbs up are unitarians and all those who are baptized just in the simply in the name of jesus or probably some modern um people who might name in the back to the name of a creator the the lord or something and and the life givers some gender neutral terms for for the trinity what do you make of these yes i have thought about this in a in a pastoral vein before actually um so i in general would make a distinction between those who baptize in the name of jesus because they are unitarians and those who baptize in the name of jesus as a formula and practice but are in fact trinitarian and uh you know for ins in other words if you're a trinitarian but you happen to baptize in the name of jesus that's just what you say during the baptism i would i would put uh less significance on that um it just seems to me that that would to say that that is the same would be putting too much emphasis on the actual procedure as opposed to the intention the context the meaning the theology and and just are these people within the creedal boundaries of say the first four ecumenical councils so i would probably distinguish those two cases in that way okay so so 15 15 seconds 15 seconds well thank you very much for your reflux okay uh so now uh dr gavin it's your turn for the cross examination 15 minutes okay again i want to reiterate my thanks father patrick for this debate and i'm very grateful for the opportunity let me ask some questions about salvation since that has come up so kind of a weighty topic but i think it's so important not to avoid it um am i headed for hell that's my first question based on what you've said thus far all right well based on what i've said so far um the you you seem to be outside of the orthodox church you're not in communion of the orthodox church you don't ex i take it you don't really accept the fullness of the faith of the orthodox church so on those grounds um you really judge yourself on that matter whether you're not the part of the issues i'm not answering this directly is that i don't know what's going on in your heart precisely and so why i say that is yes in exterior sense you're in a sense apart from the church and so it's not looking good whether what happens of a sense of um in the future or whatever i i can't say you were going i don't know what's going to happen with you in your relationship to the church in years to come so all i can say is that this state if you if you are choosing not to come into communion with the orthodox church because you don't accept something at teachers or something like that you don't accept the need for the hierarchical communion with it to be under one of its bishops etc then you are putting yourself outside the church and in a sense outside christ outside salvation okay so so if i reject orthodoxy to my dying breath i am not saved and there's something very interesting happens yes now with that qualification of unless something very interesting happens can you point to any pre-20th century instances of that qualification in the orthodox tradition because i'm not aware of anybody who would leave any sort of wiggle room like that yeah i again i'm influenced by modern thinkers and but also modern thinkers there is a sense where um i'm not um willing to well i can in a sense make a judgment someone's outside the church um for example a bishop can excommunicate someone and if someone is excommunicated then they are cut off from the church and if they die in that state they are cut off from outside the state so i i basically my qualification is um simply an if the orthodox faith is correct and everything as i have understood as presented as it has been as i've received it then yes there you are um i was opening up the fact that i don't know everything and anything and everything is on my hand like that and i'm not going to pretend i know everything and everything and everything i just simply stayed on the doctrine as i've received it and expressed and understand it yes but i i'm not god and so i i'm leaving some space open for my own um potential ignorance though not really i appreciate the space i appreciate the space i what i'm uh of course we're asking about is does anybody else leave that space in the orthodox tradition other than people in the 20th century orthodox theologians because i i don't see any orthodox theologians before the 20th century who'd give any of that space do you um not really that's why i i wouldn't say that it's a tort that deserved that space um i not sure whether anybody keeps that open you might be right there's maybe a modern phenomenon there to keep that door open so i i won't yeah i can't actually speak on that precisely at that moment and if there was nothing open and i'm wrong and being open well i'll have to correct myself so what about it for someone like c.s lewis i mean we take a question like c.s lewis suppose that this c.s lewis gets to judgment day and he says you know lord i thought i came to know you in 1931 i thought i was in a i got baptized i thought i was in a state of saving uh relationship with you um and if i understand the orthodox view correctly as you've espoused it he would be damned what would be the reason jesus would give him for c.s lewis not making it to heaven right now that that is a um again it comes down to unity of body and soul we are humans we are physical spiritual creatures and so as you've agreed that the salvation is union with god and it has to be affected both physically and spiritually now the physical is a sense a connection with christ through the baptism but it's also an interconnection of every other member of the body of the church and this is real physical reality this has to be instituted for a physical baptism it is taken for physically eating the body and blood of christ and being in linked with a physical hierarchy which is a physical laying out of hands interconnecting all the high rocks and when you can really see that this is broken because christ is truly incarnate he takes a true body he truly saves us physically so this relation has to be really tangible it's a real physical thing it can't be abstracted or spiritualized out of in a sense it has to be maintain a physical sense so yes you may believe this the same thing etcetera but unfortunately you were cut off from the body because you're the church's will whatever anger can church many years has cut himself off what can we do you have the gospel has to be preached by the preachers have to go to to preach the gospel in all places it says in romans how are they going to fear if the preacher does not turn up and so thank you i i'm sorry to interrupt i hate interrupting but i i in the queue this is the one time in my life i would interrupt so forgive me that's right but i have several questions just follow-ups if i may how in light of the fact that he was not a martyr who dies for his faith but a criminal who by his own testimony was dying for his crimes how was the thief on the cross saved well there's a couple of ways we can um talk about it where is one over question was he jew was he not um in a sense um it was the jews were the church prior to christ now since that comes to an end but there could be some residual on until the resurrection that the jew is still part of the the body of christ in a sense um even at the time of crucifixion so that's one one way of thinking about it the other one is that he does die in faith he dies because he he's on the cross it maybe initially starts to curse christ and then he goes hold a minute he recognizes christ who he is he recognizes that he dies for um he's innocent and he also recognizes that he's not going to die he's going to rose again how on earth could he say remember me in your kingdom if he's expecting him to just die now what a massive sense of faith in christ and who he was to think that on the cross while he's died with him and he confesses his sins on the cross so he's confessing the faith of christ he's confessing his sins and he he dies the same death as christ he is truly baptized by not the the symbol in the water on that but by taking on the very death that christ took and he accepted it as proper to himself so he wasn't trying to reject it or fight it so he and again he just christ he gave himself over to an acceptance for of his or his sin so i think there's enough reason there to say that this was symbitic for him okay thank you uh i want to read a statement from decithius eastern orthodox theologian patriarch of jerusalem this is from his confession decree 16 and then i'll just ask for your reaction if you agree with it or not he said we believe holy baptism to be of the highest necessity for without it none is able to be saved and therefore baptism is necessary even for infants for those that are not regenerated since they have not received the emission the remission of hereditary sin are of necessity subject to eternal punishment would you agree with the patriarch i agree with that i agree well um i'll qualify it slightly but i agree that baptism is necessary john chrysostom says that if you have ten thousand virtues you die i'm baptized because you're not born again you're still bound to death and it's bound to death you cannot be united to life um so this this is true the only qualification i'd have on that is when it talks about punished forever god judges each person according to their deeds and so we don't necessarily mean that someone who dies without baptism outside the church is necessarily punished or some sort of degree of there is a sense maybe a punishment but we've got to qualify what we think that is because that depends on the person's uh actions in life etc so an infant would not suffer in the same extent say judas would suffer um so i only qualified that in case he's a sort of a an assumption of the worst suffering for the infant um and not so be baptized okay thank you um here's a question uh for you as an eastern orthodox christian looking as an outsider on the west so suppose that you know you're someone is born in to the late medieval west and they are as a matter of conscience opposed to indulgences they feel they are conscience-bound in opposition to indulgences and they think that people should have the scriptures in their own language and they think that people should have communion in both kinds and they're not they live in constance and they saw young house burned at the stake and they're not they feel that this was wrong um what are they to do uh what should in your opinion what should they do i mean how could you expect them to even know supposing they don't even know that eastern orthodoxy exists because no one's ever told them what would what would you want for what do you think christ would have them do right again this is um um a question it's a sort of assuming and individualized sense of salvation now the as i said the salvation is physical and spiritual but it's also communal we are saved with the church in the body of the church receiving the church and it's just part of our human character our constitution that we divide in space and time across things and if the bishops do cut off from the other bishops you can and they will take their flock down with them because they are the things that are binding the churches together and the fox will for their bishops most why the bishops are condemned for their for because they need that physical connection now personally that time if they knew to seek or try to think they could travel across the world but in some ways there's not much can be done just as in the sense for nations where paul says are without hope apart from christ apart from those who pick up from the jews because they separated from cain they separated at various times from the holy nation from the ark of salvation and that is just the human condition and they're spread out all over there's not much can be done without denying them as human beings that they are born this way it's their fault of their parents etc etc but this is just a reality of being human and the reality that we need to be corporately joined together yes it's not nice but this is about what it is to be human and how we are to be saved as human beings okay thank you um here's a scenario i'd be curious for your uh interpretation of let's suppose there's a third world country that suddenly acquires uh an understanding of the gospel either through the internet or they receive a bible you know this happens actually sometimes where people come into contact without but not their people just through a document or the internet or something like this they come into contact with the gospel suppose in one village and i've heard stories like this where um there's a response to the gospel in reading the new testament there are baptisms in the name of the trinity there are professions of faith in christ and the demons in the village are cast out the witch doctors lose their power and actually there's healings miraculous healings in the village if such a thing were to happen would you how would you interpret that because i'm you know jesus said a king you know you can't cast out demons by demons how do you how would you understand that would you could there be anything that could happen like that outside of orthodoxy that would make you say that must be the holy spirit right this again is why christ is through all things god is through all things the holy spirit is through all things so when we talk about the spirit being in the church we're meaning it in a specific manner as opposed to being his general presence through all the all creation sustaining it etc and in the particular issue of the church he is there as informing establishing people as the sons of god and union with with god this that's diverse that does not mean that outside the church god does not work um that that that think miracles don't happen no events don't happen et cetera but the question is is that those miracles in themselves unificating or by uniting with christ or establishing this christ is presence of christ there they can be still witnesses that god is real and that it's affirming the faith in god but that that doesn't mean that in that that these people are coming into the union of the church into union with christ and having the spirit as a born-again sons of god so i do believe that god can work miracles etc outside the boundary church as his general presence through all creation and testify him to himself beyond those boundaries but there's a specific sense which we talk about the hospital within the church and it's in identifying and establishing people in christ in union with christ which is only to be founded within the church um so that would be thank you thank you that's helpful i think probably just have time for one last question it's about apostolic tradition irenaeus i was just reading through against heresies again he insists that jesus's post-baptismal ministry lasted between 10 and 20 years so he died as a middle-aged man and he attributes that to apostolic tradition saying quote those who were conversant in asia with john affirmed that he conveyed to them that information some of them moreover saw not only john but all the but the other apostles as well and heard the very same account from them and quote should we believe that jesus died as an older man or can there be errors in the transmission of apostolic tradition it's time there but father you can answer that question of course yeah if doctor gavin agrees yeah no i'm happy um yes um my take on that would be that while apostolic tradition itself is what is taught by the apostles as inspired by christ so it itself is it can't be contaminated what can be done is that individuals speaking on the matter may make errors they may have their own opinions some of these opinions may be such that they're contrary to faith others maybe just minor errors of idea facts or something like that and these are not because we are humans there is some scope for um variation you know we just inherently have some variation opinions etcetera and ideas so we just accept that we don't say everything must be said must be accepted and reconciled sometimes we just quietly put on the side like noah we cover over and just ignore that because it's not the general consensus of the fathers um that's why we talk about the episode consensus so individuals may say the odd thing which we don't necessarily accept now it doesn't mean that um that it falls into heresy and where again that's back to these other points yeah heresy has to be something it takes sometimes some time and then it's formally defined as as wrong and when rubber hits the road and then it's sort of condemnable to continue that afterwards even sometimes if it's condemnable before but it needs to be sort of a slightly formal definition of it as well thank you thank you both for that now we move on to closing statements and father patrick you begin five minutes closing closing statements right thank you um again return back to the church now he's let's focus a bit more on the orthodox church the orthodox church claims to be the true church and in its claim to maintain the apostolic tradition and this claim is the apostolic tradition as maintained at the first by the first economical council at the second ecumenical third fourth seventh ecumenical council and onwards and also its continuing um apostolic succession now it's other churches refused to grant in union with that with the orthodox church for one reason or another such as the oriental orthodox split off from the orthodox churches because they refuse to accept that christ has two natures and the language of two natures particularly sticking to one particular phrase of indeed a great saint but they stuck to it without the broader context and they refused to come into communion or to accept a judgment of the church and the escorters and so they remain separated to this day um the roman catholic church orthodox started to impose an idea of papacy which was foreign they they had all sorts of innovations in practice of um using unleavened bread changing from living bread and these things are historically verifiable you can look through those topics and yes they did and they changed this and that now whether it's justifiable as another matter but there is a historical claire that there was a change there was innovation in what was being said and and done in rome and it got to the extent that it became untenable to continue to remain in union the issues of something like the filioque that yes it was something said in words by latter fathers but the question of what they meant what they meant in the context of the dispute that later arose with it with that what they would mean in context of it being inserted into the creed um are different matters and though it was white you can see it reasonable numbers in the west um where it really matters is by the ninth century when the matter is discussed and then by the um 12th or 13th of council leon and then finally at florence when the exact definition of florence is expressed which wasn't what maximus could interpret that to mean or anything that he would reject it just as much as anyone else um it had to be formally condemned as heretical that that doctrine claimed by what was claimed to be an economical council was actually heretical and it was formally had to be condemned as such and it has massive effects on the way we understand the church and things like that so yeah and so again i think icons basically is the seventh ecumenical council and most protestants reject icons of veneration of icons of drawing icons painting articles and kissing them and venerating them is not done amongst protestants um and so they don't teach and hold the same faith they don't hold the um the council or the 17th communicable council um maybe little pockets of them do but then they'll reject it in other ways or they'll reject the priesthood which um in the cannons of the the church and therefore you must have a bishop to do this now oh we we don't need bishops because we think in the old new testament there's no evidence for bishops well there is reasons why you don't see that evidence but they've judged on their own opinion apart from the received tradition and the canons and the rules of the orthodox church and they set themselves up contrary to that so we can see that they're not orthodox and we can see that these things that all folks hold are consistent with the past now one might argue one thing of that but i defend his development but you can't prove that there's any inconsistency with the orthodox say you just say i think that this will establish whatever but it's not that the thing is absolutely contradictory to what the orthodox teach um and so for me the elephant church is only one both in tradition and faith which has maintained faithful to all the council's entire history and the scriptures throughout time and it's the only one to really have a true claim to be the church in the sense of that perfect unity of one mind one heart one body okay thank you for that and uh dr gavin it's your last last statement five minutes closing statements thank you john and thank you again father patrick in the 1570s several lutheran theologians wrote to jeremiah the second ecumenical patriarch of constantinople their mutual letter correspondence recognized an enormous amount of agreement on topics from the truth and it and inspiration of scripture the doctrine of god the trinity the two natures of christ the nature of evil the saving office of christ in his death and resurrection the second coming of christ etc they also shared many points over and against the western roman catholic church communion in both kinds rejection of indulgences rejection of purgatory but they disagreed on matters like the filioque free will justification the number of sacraments invocation of the saints icons relics and other matters the differences between them are very significant but they are not comparable to the disagreements in the early church between say the marxianites and the church or the gnostics in the church their lutheran theologians shared with the orthodox a common creedal foundation they recognized this when they wrote quote although we might differ in some customs because very great geographical distances separate us we on our own on our part had hoped that we were in no way innovating on the main articles concerning salvation since as far as we know we held and kept the faith which had been handed down to us by the holy apostles and prophets by the god-bearing fathers and patriarchs and by the seven ecumenical councils that were founded upon the god-given scriptures end quote in a similar spirit to these lutheran divines let me say that as a protestant christian i seek only to serve and honor the one holy catholic and apostolic church of jesus christ i would give my life to to serve this church what i wholeheartedly reject is the claim that the orthodox church is the only true church such a claim has no basis whatsoever and i'd like to summarize just a few of the ways we've seen that first of all if ecumenical councils are the standard lots of other christians accept all seven ecumenical councils therefore the orthodox church is not the only true church by that criterion is there any other criterion well we've seen there's no historical criterion most of christendom claims the same kind of apostolic succession the claim to be the one true church ultimately when you press into it is simply a claim one side says we're the one true church and you split off from us the other side says no no no we didn't split off from you were the original church and you split off from us and the only way to adjudicate those claims is by working through the doctrine now what about the doctrine icons are icons the practice of the early church look at canon 36 of the senate of elvira look at tertullian look at basically any christian anywhere before the year 300. i think it's a hard case to make that that's continuity with the earliest church is the filioque heresy again if so why was it not recognized as such until the 8th century when basically the entire west is affirming this nearly if that is heresy why didn't it get called out earlier i think the claim that the orthodox church is the one church that's maintained the apostolic doctrine is simply impossible to make the episcopate was the episcopated development i think it's very evident as is recognized by most academic scholars working on this question that you you can't take these statements about there's so many of them presbyters presiding over churches submit to the presbyters again i'll mention the shepherd of hermas first epistle of clement the didake where you're still electing your own leaders uh polycarp the entire new testament i i would say the evidence is abundantly clear and consistent see with the testimony of jerome that the bishops is an office that develops in the context of the roman empire and um therefore it lacks your ed divino it is not this conditionless perennial feature of the church we have to get a more thorough going understanding of what the church is it's not just within one set of institutional boundaries and there's a basic way that anybody can know that is just by meeting some saints you know go out and meet some saints outside of the orthodox church and tell me that their lives are not graced by the holy spirit in such a way that testifies to his work outside of those ecclesial boundaries let me conclude by quoting again from the lutheran theologians in their letter to jeremiah quote of the heavenly father in fact i'll just summarize the quote because i'm almost out of time they basically say if god brings us into unity if god brings constantinople and tubing together in the same faith they say there is no event that we should desire more and i would say those of us who share the desire of those lutheran theologians should continue to talk to each other who knows what god might do and that is why i truly am grateful for this debate and i reiterate my hope that it both honors christ and advances truth okay thank you both for that it was very interesting to listen to both and i think the audience will agree let me remind everyone for one thing before we move on to the q a and that's to be polite and nice in the discussions uh you can have a dr gavin and father patrick as examples they're debating they're disagreeing but they're not yelling and you know all of that so please i want my comment section to be clean from that uh if you're orthodox and the believer church is the only one to church uh if your actions say one thing and your mouth another thing people will point that out and it will not look good so that's uh what i will say and of course the same is for the protestants but since i am orthodox i will i will not point that out okay um we will take a quick break and we will be back soon [Music] okay so we are back um let me also uh if you i have a patreon account if you want to support this channel you can do that if you don't it's okay uh but if you want you can do that everything goes to poor children uh mine okay so we will continue now with the q a and i have gathered some questions uh beforehand but the most most of the questions were i was trying to write down as the two guests were speaking but father patrick you have a question from one from india that is orthodox and he says this you have kind of already answered this but uh i still think you can uh uh i think i still think we can ask this question what happens to people like in india who never heard of the church and their whole whole idea of the christian faith is based on the work of schismatics and protestant groups in other words is christ bound by the sacraments and the historical limitations of the church yeah the answer again is that the church is a divine human body and as a human body it does have some as it's expressed on the earth it has to conform to what it is to be human and therefore there are limits on its extent etc there are practical limits always where it's how it is expressed or was found um and so in these cases yes it's tragic that those in the past putting their own opinions about that or the unified opinions of the church decide to split off from the church thinking they know better or forming their own groups etc and therefore affecting all the ones following them in their division now it doesn't mean it's all hope is lost because there's no reason why such as when we have in georgia and nino showed her great faith being isolated almost there from away from the church that the king and queen saw her and call on their faith that they can't then call to the patriarch of antiochus they had an arsenal priest to come and to be sent for them and so there's no reason why someone in india today with the internet etc cannot contact final internet dress find a bishop or priest and say help help we we are we are stuck and i think there are orthodox missions in india so today especially due to the increase of ease of travel etc these issues become far less of a of a problem and we do find orthodox growing up everywhere and i've known orthodox indonesia et cetera who found the church um it's not easy um i had to find the church i had to move from about two or three different cities before i could find someone who could speak enough english to to catechize me but by the grace of god it was all possible so um yes so i think the main part is yes the church is a divine human body and in this age there are limits the way the church works you do need to have a preacher turning up at your door etc um but if it wasn't that then it would not be the church it would not be able to save humans as humans and it would be some different thing it'd be a different type of salvation it would deny humanity being what it is and i don't see how we can get around that issue dr gavin if you want to do you want to comment that also a quick response so uh yeah uh very i'll be very brief um uh i appreciate the logical consistency and the historical consistency of father patrick's answer it is uh refreshing when someone will go with the tradition on it because my observation is sometimes it seems to me that contemporary orthodox christians are unaware of the historic orthodox claim from many saints and and canonical orthodox theologians which is very restrictive as uh father patrick has mentioned it i would say uh i truly hope this response does not uh give offense to orthodox viewers it is not my intention to be mean or nasty but i would say i struggle to understand why there is not more evangelistic and missiological zeal within orthodox groups if they truly believe that because the eternal salvation of people is so important so that's you know forgive me if that gives offence and i obviously it doesn't apply equally to everyone but as a generalization okay uh there's that and i would simply say that while i understand the consistency i think jesus christ is sovereign and free to work outside of the bounds that he himself has instituted and so that's why i would uh see it a little differently not to justify that different approach but just maybe to articulate that here okay thank you now we have we didn't talk about this beforehand but do you want the questions to be that you can go back and forth many times or is it enough you know the one who gets the question answers and then the other can answer briefly is that what do you think so i think if we leave it open that we should default to that but if something we get an extra idea on a question somebody want to to leave it open so and that will usually go backwards on my hand the thing if gavin wants to do likewise i think it's all right that's fine that's that that sounds just fine okay so the next question then is for you dr gavin and so could one say that your argument tonight is basically uh from emotion that that you're that you're saying but what about you know those that didn't hurt what about the other ones and isn't then is that a valid argument when we are seeking the truth in scriptures and history thank you okay thank you for the question if someone were to reduce my argument to that i would protest that they have not carefully listened because i made a number of different appeals with regard to when the monarchical episcopal church structure develops with regard to competing claims of apostolic succession um with regard to the nature of the doctrinal significance of the filioque i mean you know lots of not just people just go back and watch and re-listen to what i've said so it's it would be deeply unfair to me i think to reduce it to an argument from emotion however part of my appeal has been to draw attention to what i regard as an unnecessarily exclusivistic and narrow understanding of salvation that is the uh historic orthodox view to my understanding i want to make very clear that not all orthodox theologians say that exactly the same way today okay so if people are reading callisto's where and so forth they're getting a little different picture perhaps but uh it's good to know the historic view especially because part of the appeal of orthodoxy it seems to me a very wonderful appeal is changelessness right in a good way we're sticking with the tradition i admire that that effort but i don't think it always but but the departure from this more rigorous view i do think is a change but um but i would just simply say that while well to the extent that i've drawn attention to that i think that's a valid thing to observe and if we have an emotional reaction to it we might do well to wonder why the thought of god damning for all eternity a baby because that baby was not baptized by the right church strikes us some of us as monstrous okay that doesn't necessarily mean that's right but you'd at least want to ask why does that strike us as monstrous so it's certainly a relevant consideration if you want to comment father patrick quick comment you can do that well yes it has been on the other side of debate i i i agree with gavin i don't think his answer can be reduced to an emotive point he did bring out a number of um different approaches to the matter um there are it is one of the issues where a particular way of thinking about reality church salvation etc um enhances these sort of arguments as being somehow unjust etc um and there and of course we all don't want anybody to be damned or go to hell i don't think anybody when their right man wants the others to go to hell the orthodox position isn't that it's trying to claim as i said in open statement something exclusive because it wants to exclude others and be and cut them off it's claiming exclusivity because it seems that's what the church is it's how the church is and we can't define it any other way without denying what it is and therefore the salvation of anybody so that is the general principle of the orthodox church this is why even some orthodox as i didn't answer this question are you damned outside well i don't want to start making that sort of judgment even though i the logic follows that through it i can say yes if you do the this is the logic of it i i love to smack because i don't want anyone to be to be damned so yeah but i i think it one needs it can be caught in an emotional matter on these things can see it as what they define as right just etc and not really think about it theologically about what is right and just who god really is what does it mean he's one pure holy um what does it mean that there's no division no separation what does it mean to be saved in body and in soul what does it mean to true unity with each other i think these things need to go through at a much deeper level than just simply oh a baby's going to hell well this is impossible so yeah i think that it's easy to do that once you step outside a deeper theological understanding of things okay so maybe the responses can be a little shorter than so we can get through many questions thank you now father patrick there is a question here for you in mark 9 38-39 we read now john answered him saying teacher we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in your name and we forbade him the apostles forbade him because he does not follow us but but jesus said do not forbid him for no one who works a miracle in my name can soon afterwards speaks evil of me so father uh could this be applied also to the protestants from your perspective yeah i think there is a way that that can be applied i mean he sees a sort of a contrary statement otherwise he doesn't give with me scatters um and each of these needs to be understood in its proper context and certainly um i don't think at all foot option is to run around saying protestants stop doing this and stop doing that and then stop doing that or all that the protestant is that is suddenly going to speak evil of christ no um we do not do that we're not denying that miracles can happen outside the church what we're denying is that the union with christ and the the present hospital in that unit and establishing sons of god in christ is possible outside of the church because that is the defining what the church is um or apart from the mysteries so that's what we're agreeing to um yeah we could apply that to those outside the the communion boundary of a church for wants of a better word i would want to state my appreciation for this very perceptive question and i would want to associate it with the scenario i envisioned earlier about demons being driven out of a village when they encounter the gospel and i would want to underscore the absoluteness of our savior's claim whoever's not against us is not just in some weird vague intermediate state whoever is not against us is for us um so uh you know i i just i think that's a well framed question okay so uh dr gavin um yes let i have many questions here so let's ask um you mentioned about uh there is no mention in the scripture of you know there is also a council of uh presbyters or priests or uh when it's i don't know exactly how you frame it maybe you want to quickly say it so i can't ask the question more correctly if you want okay sure i think what you might be referring to is my remark that there's no single bishop over a church in the new testament okay thank you so um so maybe one question then is how you interpret let's see yeah in the revelation in the book of the revelation in chapter 2 3 and so forth it says that saint john says you write to the angel of the church to the angel of the church now there is a orthodox tradition of you know at the altar there is always always an angel but another interpretation that i've seen is that it refers to the bishop of the church uh so is would could that be a instance where actually there is one bishop in the church and he receives the letter yeah if one held the view that the angelos of revelation two and three as a bishop then that would be support i think that's a difficult case to make um the word it would be a very weird odd word choice i think and messenger you know and it'd be odd that you don't ever have them doing any bishop-like things they i think the the most common view is that they're angels and then there's a couple of other options as well so yeah that could produce good proof if you could make a case for that uh to my mind that's a difficult case to make father patrick if you want to come yeah um i i wouldn't make that as as a particular i i i can accept that i've been on north long i gotta accept that interpretation that it can be but i don't think it in itself establishes um to a proof argument that there is a a single bishop in every every church it can be supported by evidence but it's not proof as such of the case so maybe i can ask you one more question then about that why i came why i thought of that because paul in another place he speaks about you know woman wailing uh a whale where is it and it says for the angels so i was thinking maybe he speaks about the leaders and and the connection between the white robes and the angel like if if you want to make a comment about that both and we can move on to the next question i must apologize i didn't quite catch the chain of thought there with the woman the veil was it yes oh i suppose let me answer first and then you might have thank you yeah i i i find it it's an interesting way again i i um the connection that you are linking the angels with the hierarchy of the church um and so making the connection and therefore the symbol of obedience of the woman in respect to the angels is as a respect to the hierarchy of the church is to show that she is under obedience to the church um as as such and that structure there so it's an interesting depression again i don't think it necessarily means that they're not the angels but i can't i say that it's wrong and it's an interesting and feasible explanation that's um but it's not something which i would again say proves anything about the connection but yeah no it's an interesting observation so dr gavin do you want me to explain more what why what i meant maybe you should because i'd hate to give an answer yeah yeah yeah yeah so so there is a passage i have not written this down where paul says that i think it's connection with the veil that women should have veil et cetera et cetera and it says for the sake of the angels and everyone is like freaking out what does that mean and maybe simply says you know so that the the those doing the preaching you know don't get tempted or something like that you know if you know so i'm making the connection maybe the angel in some senses can mean for example the bishops and also in the sense that the angels are often portrayed as wearing white clothes and the presbyters also in the revelation are portrayed as wearing white clothes and yeah but but you know it's it's a connection i have made if you want to comment or not it's okay thank you i just briefly i think i would say i i i'm still not 100 sure of the women if you're maybe you're thinking of first corinthians 11 and the instruction about head coverings there okay so um i think i would just want to articulate a bit of pushback in the sense of let's not put too much weight on these unclear passages it feels a bit of a stretch to me um because of what i mean even if you thought that the angels are bishops in first corinthians 11 it's still not anything clear about a one bishop over the church i think you know sometimes there's this feeling of if we're looking if we're on the hunt for evidence we might find it here or there but then you have to step back and say but is it really compelling is it necessary are we is it a stretch are we pulling the evidence and the evidential burden together arbitrarily i i don't think it's very compelling or clear i just i'd say let's go with the passages where it's really clear we get like a list of adjectives of what the bishop should be like you know or or or a series of instructions about how presbyters should deal with this particular case or thing you know we have a lot of that so i guess i just want to put the focus on the clear evidence from my vantage point okay thank you uh who is now it's father patrick's time i think yes um so father patrick this is a question from um follower of my channel i think or facebook i don't remember do you think the reformers were correct to protest the roman catholic church based on indulgences and etc was there divergence on inevitable consequence of bad theology that had grown in catholicism since their divergence from orthodoxy uh yeah actually on this case i am do think the reformers have a point i think that the thinking in in the roman catholic churches did start to come out with a in a sense of different way of thinking about salvation it's different way of thinking about theology a different way of thinking about things where suddenly there's merits and the terms are used earlier but just the way that they're approaching it that the paradigm of thinking had shifted and so in this paradigm shift why we're using many things that i said before there are certain developments certain um corollaries of the logic that are following which start going off from weird and wonderful tangents um and so that these tangents happen tends to show that they've actually sort of lost touch with what we call the mind of the church or the the correct paradigm of understanding salvation um so yes i think that the reformers um properly picked up this something's gone wrong although i don't think they necessarily managed to shift back into the correct paradigm which is much harder thing to do it just sort of recognizes a problem but there's another thing to actually get your mind in the right paradigm i think i came up with another paradigm which was equally unhelpful may i may i comment on that briefly john is that okay yes of course thank you uh yeah i appreciate this question it somewhat relates to one of the questions i brought up earlier about you know what should one do if one lives in constance in the 14 teens like 14 16 14 17 that kind of thing right after john huss was burned at the stake which is my intent with that question is not so much about salvation but just you know what does one do ecclesially you know okay you're outside of the one true church can you be less out can you at least be in less error you know can you can you should you protest some of these things and uh you know i i my interpretation is that the protestant reformation recovered some things that are very good an emphasis upon the free grace of god in christ for example an emphasis a protection of the laity an elevation of the laity uh the notion of the priesthood of all believers in terms of how that played out as a foil to the hard distinction between clergy and laity that had developed in the west so again you've got laity stuck in spiritual ignorance so there's lots of other things too but i would also want to say the protestant reformation was not perfect it didn't get everything right it's not as though this is the dream this is the ideal it was a very imperfect but good effort in my opinion that would be my interpretation of it thank you so uh dr gavin then um one other question um relating related to the topic of baptism so every christian denomination or has a view of what is necessary from baptism i'm sorry for salvation it could be faith whatever and when you have a you know when you have um a criteria there is always one falling outside so could do you don't you have the same problem let's say like father patrick have with infants because if the criteria is faith obviously infants don't have faith so our infants are not infants condemned then in your view and if they are not what happened with the criteria of faith thank you okay thank you yes my criteria is actually not faith i would say faith is the normal way it happens faith and repentance as i like to say faith and repentance to ward off the caricature that faith is a merely notional ascent which is not what protestants have historically meant by faith alone so i say faith and repentance faith and repentance are two sides of one coin of how one enters into a reconciled state with respect to the creator god um and i wouldn't say that that's absolutely strictly universal so i didn't i wouldn't say it like baptism so in other words it's not analogous it's not like the an orthodox christian is saying you have to have baptism and i'm saying you have to have faith rather i'd say you normally have to have faith but i absolutely affirm there are exceptions and i would i i've done some videos on my youtube channel people could look up truth unites for them uh the one on baptism most recently where i addressed this and i make the argument that we have good reason i don't really actually make a lengthy argument for it it comes up obliquely but to not go on too long here i i do affirm that we have good reason to be hopeful in the case of all deceased infants baptized or not that's my view for a variety of considerations one would be david's expression of hope it seems to me with respect to his deceased infant and there's other considerations that come in as well so it's not analogous i don't say i don't elevate faith as a as an alternative parallel to baptism well patrick if you have a comment you can say it um yeah it's it's a sort of a tricky one um i it's sort of hard to i orthodox again it's faith and baptism are combined we baptize in faith you're you're martyred in faith you're not marked simply for uh if you if you're affirming heresy for example when you die from a heresy that's not master madam has to be in faith so when we talk about faith we're talking about acknowledgement of the the faithful the creed the the the belief of the church um and yeah well we can say infants and say through the baptism because the we can talk about most infants will grow up following their parents until about the age of 11 12. that's pretty obvious when you look at sort of the growth of young human beings they follow their parents and so if you've got they're baptized in the context of their parents having faith and a god parent looking after faith you can know that that data effectively are baptized in the faith and will grow in that faith that means that they may choose to walk away when they're older but nevertheless they are going to grow in in the context of faith so baptism is not disconnected from faith and i do think that is an interesting critique of the protestant position as how do does one and i'd love to see gavin's responsibility we haven't got time for it now of of justifying a baby who cannot express that has no faith um is saved because then the criteria would have to be and and if it's not by baptism per se whether he's talking about you can be alternative that um as a solution or um i think he would affirm that even without either baptism all of its own in fact it'd still be saved for some reason then i i'm starting to think well where does that go that means it's based on their individual actions their individual holiness their individual innocence um and that starts asking questions about how we talk about faith how we talk about other matters of of salvation therefore would that also be true for buddhist children hindu children atheists etc and therefore should we kill everybody when they're newly born so that they all go to heaven there's also some weird questions that can be asked and i think that's an interesting critique but it's sorry for laughing for that um yeah i don't know do you want there was some questions there so i guess if you want to answer you can do that okay thank you uh you know i would just say the basis of my position is god is just god is kind and good if the gospel teaches us anything it is that also god is sovereign and free in the distribution of his mercy it's not as though faith is how we earn god's mercy it's not as though god says you got to have enough faith faith is simply the reception of that and so because so of course there can be exceptions to that also for those who suffer from some sort of mental disability god is good to such persons and um he treats them according to his goodness and i you know questions of why not kill everyone i mean we kind of smirk at that because but there's lots of answers to that one is of course that would be unethical another is we don't know for sure but the um the basic idea here is i think this is a hope that is reasonable but i don't teach it as a dogmatic teaching i am not sure i don't know god's going to do what god's going to do all i leave room for is that there is a reason to be hopeful based upon the character of god as it is revealed to us in the gospel of jesus christ and i'd say that for you know god god part of goodness is you treat people based upon who they are and an infant is not capable of articulating faith so uh god is perfectly if god should choose to apply the merits of jesus christ to that infant who could say he can't do that and why who how could any of us suggest that he's bound such that he could not i just if you don't mind i just add on i've had we're actually a lot of agreement on those points i think um regarding the whatever happens to the infant god is just he judges infant on what he does and we're both on the same point that faith is not an actual do you earn your salvation voice of faith it's an issue of a willingness to accept what god has given you um it's it's a it's a sort of a statement of belief um where the human consents to the reality of who god is now that consent is in the context of the state of the human ability to accept that so someone um we've mental handicap or something of that nature or infant they are only required to receive as as they can um as i think the orthodox church will talk about the necessity of baptism but that applies to everybody including influence so we're not raising just a faith issue but um yeah i i just want to point out that i think those points is there's quite a lot of commonality in the way we're thinking okay so father patrick one question that many have is when today you know the ecumenical patriarchate the i think the russian church and um i think many other uh churches uh also churches patriarchate recognizes that if you're baptized in the name of the father son holy spirit it's a valid baptism and now many don't agree with that but it's like the general view from from the top let's say so how does that uh what do you think yeah what do you think of that and how does it align with uh what you have said tonight right well it depends what we mean by valid baptism there's two ways we can think about that we can think about that the baptism regenerated somebody as a son of god and brought them and clothed them in christ and brought them into union with christ or we can talk about the verbility of the form of baptism whether that the form was in the name of a triple immersion a triple application of water in the name of the father son and holy spirit the right formula the right ritual um of the the baptism so what i understand to be bad and the history of a church is clear that the church can accept that the ritual having been done by those outside the hierarchical communion of the church can be received without repetition in other words they receive it as a sort of a valid form of um baptism and they don't repeat it and so i i take and or interpret any sense that when they're talking about the validity of baptism outside the meaning that the form is a valid form in these other communions as opposed to being regenerative now some might be taking its mean regenerative outside um that's a different matter but i i can and interpret it and refer simply statement that that there is some valid ritual form of the baptism in these other communions i would make a more general remark on this topic uh regarding say i think it came up that uh you know schism between constantinople and moscow um the position has been advanced in this debate that there's different kinds of schism some are more mild and within the church others are more severe i would certainly agree with that that's part of my case today but i have to express my lack of awareness that that is the historic orthodox view maybe i mean my knowledge is not encyclopedic maybe there's something i'm not aware of but when i read the old orthodox theologians on the unity of the church i've just been s pouring through a lot of the literature this past week and a half they seem to speak rather absolutely about the unity of the church uh i mean just pushing the pedal down to the floor with respect to there can be no schism any more than there can be disunity in the body of christ so i guess i would just register a concern there with respect to his this distinction of different kinds of schism uh authentic to the tradition the orthodox tradition and uh to my mind the the what the division between moscow and constantinople is a real problem because it sort of undermines the the appeal of unity and um you know how do you know you're really a part of the church when there's a division it to my mind someone undermines that appeal okay uh so for the gavin uh yes so we can move on on the same lines here what the view you articulated here today do you think it's it's a it's present let's say in the first millennia or the council's church father fathers that you can point us to that express i don't know if you subscribe to the branch theory but i think it was basically what you are arguing for and if i'm wrong please correct me so are they any church fathers or counsels or uh yeah you can use whatever evidence you want that teaches actually teaches this in the first millennia okay fair question uh i i would not label my view the branch theory that's a more particular expression of the more general principles in my view which i would leave more open as just the affirmation that the one true church is fragmented sadly tragically the one true church is fragmented she does not exist and cohere only within one set of institutional bounds church father support well people could go back and listen to some of the appeals that i made the biggest one is that of course there's a different context in the first millennium because you didn't have a split like the split of 1054 at that time the split of 1054 as i mentioned seems to me to be more institutional uh and local originally and then it sort of spreads and um i don't think there's anything quite like that the church fathers are addressing now we could ask what are the principles in the father's thought and i tried to draw some of that out by saying number one there's development in the way the episcopate is functioning and number two there's the articulation of why the episcopate is there uh gregory nazianzis ambrose and augustine were the three that i quoted in my opening speech to the effect that there's there the bishops are serving a larger end that is the real determiner of the true church so those principles are relevant to that question but it seems to me that we're simply living and then of course i you know there's on other particular points i drew from the fathers you think of jerome from my point about the development of the three offices and that kind of thing but um the the main thing to say is you know we're simply facing a different world it's it's kind of like asking are there any church fathers who deny the importance of the emperor it's like well you got some church fathers who say he's the guardian of the unity of the priesthood but you don't really have anyone denying it because that's the world they live in i mean there's a scene in the book my favorite book uh that hideous strength where merlin is transported through time travel to the mod to modern england and c.s lewis describes his inability to countenance a world without the emperor and he just can't it's it and it says it was as if he you know it was as if you have a world without the sun rising so um i think we have to appreciate the context in which the early church is developing but i do think the principles are favorable to the idea that as well as the historical data about the development of the early church government are favorable to the idea that this particular institution is not necessary to the church um my take on that is that my issue with the position that gavin's supporting is that though we can find fragments of information you can find a father who says there's a father who says that a bit of that we can interpret the script such as to mean this and that that it's not a consistent universal sense of of um of what happens if there's not the the general consensus and the orthodox would say look what we hold you can go back through all the centuries and you can see it wide spread held yeah yes individuals may say something different here and there but the the position which we hold you can see amongst pretty generally across many bishops many places throughout all the centuries and it's not inconsistent with any of the material that has gone before and so there's a much greater sense of wholeness or consistency and i do find in modern times many people when they're sort of arguing for one and all let's change this away because i can see evidence here and here and find fragments of information oh i see a spot here to spot here therefore i can justify my opinion and i think well no no the orthodox churches will um aaron um vincent there is it's much closer to this you've got to establish it as a general opinion through all time and places to say this is the orthodox way of doing things this is a true way of doing this apostolic way because i can see it generation after generation place after place this is the way they've done it um this wealth of over historical evidence is in support of it um as opposed to oh someone says that and framing a little story on fragments and so this is my one of my critiques of those products is that they their position is a little bit based on fragmentary rather than a whole wow look you just look at history this is like a yes there's oddities and variations and exceptions but but it is a general pattern you can see it quite clearly through history so that's my sort of take on could i just respond very of course thank you i think father patrick has raised a very valid concern father uh protestants often do cherry pick and of course anyone can do that just pick here and there and that's true that that's not i just want to say first i think the principle that the episcopate is penultimate and serving a larger end is not just i wouldn't say it's consensus because that's too strong but i would say it's pretty it's a lot there's a lot out there to that effect so i wouldn't say that that's just here or there and secondly i'd want to say i don't want to i just want to register my disagreement that i don't think the orthodox view is the consensus i mentioned the filioque widely attested that this spirit proceeds from the sun as well throughout the early west and cyril of alexandria on the east so i just would want to register my concern that i don't agree that there is that sort of consensus father patrick maybe that can be the next question how do you answer to the question that the philippi or maybe some other uh theological opinions or how you wherever you how you frame it they were present for many many years and there is the argument is there is no combat so how can it be such a big thing now and it deserves a schism and if you believe it you're not saved but you know uh for hundreds of years people did believe it and no one seems to object how do you answer that well there's there's multiple levels of things what exactly though you might say proceeds from the father and the son there's a question of exactly what they mean by saying that so there's a whole debate about what a particular father says that so so you can see that that it is an expression used in certain writings it's a whole different game about saying what it means and so especially by the time you get to florence um it is taken to mean that some specific thing theologically and at that stage what is taken to mean at the council flaws what it defines as meaning is something considered a heretical in the um in the east now even prior to that there's also the other issue of it's been added into the creed that you know actually by some churches in the in the west now if it was just again an opinion of some of the fathers in the writings that's one thing but when it's inserted in the creed and this wasn't really noticed by eastern churches because they simply didn't meet the creed because they had no need to until the mission started clashing in the balkans in the 9th century and when suddenly it became an issue but even you could see with maximus's to think that when they did meet it even prior to that there were questions being raised um but it was not until it sort of became part of the creed that a statement of the faith of the church where the the river issue really comes to the forefront and then it starts getting disputed um and there may have taken a while before it sort of settles into something which is officially condemned um and we don't necessarily when we should immediately a moment someone says that that then they have their heretic it can take time of argument dispute and things like that and so the way i would say that is yes there are different customs etc which are in the west which come from very early but you can see they're just specific to the west they're not across all the churches and all places so when i'm talking about universal i'm not saying everyone has to have to do everything everywhere or sometimes i'm just saying is that you if it's a disagreement you can see it's only really found here it's not found across all the fathers and all the churches it's unique to a region a place um and whether or not the other churches react to it i don't know i can't judge for that but there are cases like when it's added to the creed when it's been clash of missions and when it's been interpreted in later days to mean something else which may not be how the early fathers were using it they might have been something different then um it can become a problem even if it is said so it's not just something that's saying it is what you mean by it which is part of the context of the argument briefly uh it seems to me that the the historical record is not so vague um i mean it you know the simple language of the holy spirit proceeds from the father and the son okay that is stated many times in many places by western fathers and by cyril this generosity of saying well what do they mean by that no one's extending that generosity after the 9th century so i think that this claim and you have maximus saying very clearly don't judge the romans for the filioque don't judge the romans for that for they have a consensus so and that's in the 7th century so i don't i i would just register again my discomfort with this idea that the orthodox view on this is sort of a patristic consensus i i just don't see it all right uh how long about do you want to continue do you want to continue for 15 minutes 10 minutes five minutes uh um probably no more than about 20. that's on the shorter side yes yeah i i think i'm still getting a bit tired now so yes yes yeah all right so let's do like two more questions and uh um i think it's for you dr kevin i want to ask you about in galatians you you mentioned galatians so in galatians 5 20-21 it says that those creating heresies and in though in that time it means really sects so it's not simply you're having another opinion but you're actually going you know going outside the main body and creating a sect uh will not inherit the kingdom of god it says would then this mean that creating denominations is condemned in the bible ah okay i've just got the verse open here yeah this is the of course the list of the works of the flesh yes 5 20 21. yes and the word schismata is used here for for dissensions or divisions i believe it's it's strange hair is i think well that that may be your translation my translation here i'm using the english standard version has divisions uh this is one of two occurrences of the greek word schizmata in the new testament the other i referenced earlier in first corinthians 11. uh to my knowledge i don't think there's a third uh i might be wrong um yeah i mean i think this passage is simply talking about saying those who do evil these evil practices are uh don't inherit the kingdom of god which i don't really see is a problem for the protestant the case would need to be made that denominations are schismata and i would say that that's really actually a difficult case to make i mean denominations are just what you get when you have a separation between the church and the state and then you're trying to do theological triage and follow your conscience on your convictions even while you recognize another church may be a part of the one true church to be a protestant allows you to have a more generous posture toward other christians it seems to me because you can recognize that even amidst institutional differences there's another church my church partners together with about six of those churches in our valley and we do a worship service together once a year on good friday that's an example of where we can recognize we are brothers and sisters in christ even though we are not part of the same church so no i don't i think it'd be a a difficult stretch to stretch from skismata as a work of the flesh to denominations can i so i have them just to be clear i have the novel testament the gracia and the 28th and it says in the verse 20 says eresis but i am looking here and there is a variant there eris and but this reading here is then it's from sanaticus vaticanus all the old oldest manuscripts so so it seems um if you want to you already gave your answer but i think it's uh yeah that's fine i mean i i i'm not really sure i'm following the point um heresies and schisms are i don't i'm not i don't yeah yeah the question is uh because i am asking this because i uh i have done another interview where a person actually became orthodox on this verse that paul condemns people going outside the body creating a sect and i don't think sect has the bad connotation it has today you know of crazy people but simply um going outside uh the main let's say church body uh so what's your view of that question okay well again whatever whatever label whatever english translation we use the greek word is used in one other passage in the new testament right so be very helpful to cross-reference and under better understand its usage here by seeing its usage in first corinthians 11 18 there paul refers to schizmata and the church in corinth and it does not mean you know leaving the one true church because these different schisms are all part of the church of corinth so i would argue that schisms there are this supports my case there are different kinds of schisms all schisms are sin but they are of different ranks not all of them are such that make you not a part of the one true church such as happens with first corinthians 11. right um yeah for an orthodox take on that um i think that this comes down to gavin's sense of what is the communion of the churches and how close that is so when you have it in the orthodox sense it is the bishops and there are all those churches that are united together andrew and it's important part of the rock's faith you must stay within the communion of the higher acts you must the bishop must presbyter mustang of his bishop the bishop must stay with his metropolitan metropolitan must stay at their patriarchs and continue the unity the sort of physical bonded unity of the hierarchy of the church and therefore heresies and stuff are those things which if you go and set yourself out for whatever reason that is with a schematic or heresy you are cutting yourself from the unity of a church um and that is really bad um and in some ways the orthodox particulars will let the protestants almost deny this sort of body in a sense um as unity of the body and almost by definition in some ways they ask each one is going my opinion is we do it like this my opinion is we do it like this we might and they're all just separate opinions the separate heresies of um defining what they think is the church i think and they split themselves into separate communions in in so doing and and for one authorized by their well that's just the absolute clarity that they have lost all sense what the church is um but of course the government wouldn't understand because he's talking about the paradigm but you can see from the orthodox paradigm that this yeah this is a lot more punch to it in a sense right so i have some questions that this for both of you and one is the classic you know what's uh what's the strongest and the weakest argument you think of your opponent today tonight in this debate and you know why do you agree and don't agree so uh i don't know father patrick maybe you can start sorry could you just remind me yes what's what's uh from this debate what's uh father gavin's uh uh strongest argument and weakest argument in your opinion and why don't you you know why don't you become baptist or protestant why why why why are you not persuaded um i think oh sorry no that's right the strongest argument from um dr gavin puts across um is that we can find exceptional opinions and stuff among the fathers um and so like jerome is his opinion and suddenly that sort of undermines the sort of uniformity of a case or that um issues such as expression of disease from the father and the son is found commonly in the west but not probably as commonly as i'd say he makes out but i but nevertheless it's still i agree and this tends to undermine a sort of sense of everybody saying the same thing and stuff and if it doesn't why why there's no reaction to that um so and there are cases too of as he talks about the villages and what happens in there um it raises a serious and interesting challenge to the sense of the holy spirit being in the church i think it's it's a legitimate and valid point um though in in the point where i would not be accepted that as though though he may find some of my solutions to that seem to be a little bit weak um i find that the general consistency of a theological opinion this sense of union the sense of what theosis is the salvation is i became protest orthodox because what how do we find what a christian is and it's because of the creed and that you have a definite sense of the councils etcetera and that and who's decided that well that was a testimony of the churches well whoever churches those bishops etc are coming together through through history so you come part of that organization um and i think i don't see his position it really has much it's just all my opinion i i think you know defining what's what there's a there's a whole institutional consistent institutional orthodoxy about this is what we believe is only part of us you accept this this and this and um and that's i think it gives it a bit more gravitas to what your opinion you're sharing something with a multitude of others you're not just simply making it into small groups and and you're coming into a sort of a deep unity with them and uh yes the other was just the whole issue of what theosis means i don't think and what means to salvation i don't think the the protestant doctrine of salvation or anything really has got into a grasp in what theosis is and how that is expressed through salvation through the church and through through union um so that would be why i wouldn't go down that path i think it's just the deeper levels but it he raises some interesting challenges and i think they're reasonable and what do you think is the weakest argument also part two the weakest argument of from the debate today from dr gavin um i can't quickly put my finger on one of them i i just think um as i say i'm not getting a set up and complete coherent alternative view of understanding what the church and stuff is so i'm getting critiques coming out of the button here but i'm not getting hey look this is what the church really is it's this this and this this is why it's this system this is how it fits theology theologically this business and this this is why the father's taught it here here here here here here and your opinion is is off track because it's this that and the next thing i'm not getting that full sense and i think that is a weakness of it whereas he has said much as at least i presented this which he can go back and look in the history and go yeah that's what they were saying there and he's going all these orthodox may not be speaking the same thing but but he can see there is a logic and a consistency with the position he may not agree with it but at least there is that sense of there is a model here is the framework this is expression and um yeah that's what i hope at least thank you so dr gavin weakest and strongest argument from father patrick tonight okay thank you very much uh just a brief observation too on uh i would just love to register the issue of theosis as something to be good to talk about more in some context it seems to me i'll just throw this out there that uh actually um the basic idea there you can find a lot in the west too so i would like to propose that um that's not necessarily a divider between us so i acknowledge it isn't how it plays out in the details and so forth um uh and if i just may reiterate to uh it's a fair observation that father patrick made that i'm not being as specific as he is with my alternative that is true i don't actually think that was my task in in with respect to the proposition of this debate but i did say the true church is found wherever christ is present in word and sacrament but i acknowledge that there's fuzzy edges and i would adhere to the idea you can tell more easily where it is than where it isn't i'm sympathetic to that way of thinking so just a comment there um father patrick has made many wonderful arguments i won't really say much about weak arguments because i don't really none of them really stood out to me as particularly weak um i think the strongest arguments he has on his side and this is a great exercise to steal man the other position so what i appreciate you asking about this john would be from the church fathers who emphasized the necessity of the bishops particularly ignatius and cyprian that's a very powerful appeal and then with that the more general appeal that often is made from orthodox to protestant and many protestants are knocked off balanced by it namely you're going by your opinion we hang with the church fathers that's kind of the ethos that's kind of the feeling and um i actually don't think that's totally fair uh it may be there may be something to that but i mean it seems to me again you know ever even in the orthodox church you have to choose is moscow or constantinople right and then you have to choose well should i become orthodox or should i stay orthodox or not we all so in one sense in a basic sense it seems to me that private judgment is totally unavoidable we've got to make a decision do i want to be orthodox or not so the difference there is not absolute so in terms of why i'm not swayed by the argument from cyprian and uh ignatius it would just be what i've said the eccentricities in ignatius's definition of the bishop and understanding of the bishop you know not believing in apostolic succession seemingly not believing and really a bishop is over a region but really the bishops for him are congregational um and then other evidence early on for the development and then with cyprian just thinking that again his comments are within the roman empire a smaller church uh being united over and against these heretical groups popping up that just seems to me to not uh warrant taking that restriction without qualification into a different context namely the post 1054 world and i would just stick to my guns on saying i don't think the filioque way rises as high as aryanism or something like that in terms of importance but we've already hashed all that out i really don't think i can identify a weak argument um i don't know i'd have to think about that i mean if you really want me to john i'll keep scratching my brain [Laughter] i'm rather tired though too yeah yeah it's probably that paul patrick do you have do you want to comment anything or should we um yeah oh not not too much more i think we've covered most things i i have a niggling thing i want to talk about a little bit about the the necessity again of the of the bishops and that and just pointing out that syndrome christian was reading all the same evidence and he was convicted he had no problem with the that that this was the bishops were in place that there's no question and that there was many anything meaning or anything other than the bishops um i think you can see even in the new testament that the way that the play between and timothy goes for singular he talks about if you want to be a bishop there's nothing about if you ever want to be one of the the presbyters or any other presbyters need to be he does it in a singular way you've got james as well whose actions the way he works in jerusalem is clearly as a single singularity among them but i think again the whole issue comes down to um you can reconcile all these things by a sense that there is a synod of bishop and presbyters in the place they're all equal as priests the roman uh the byzantine liturgy for example then the bishops properly meant to be doing the offering he takes off all his episcopal insignia and he offers as a priest among priests he's the first priest he only puts on his episcopal sick insignia when he's ordaining or doing an episcopal task as the first so i think um there has been an idea of as a monarch or bishops and stuff and separate which is actually foreign to the tradition of a church um that's like and then people are reading trying to read that back into the um new testament and yeah you're not going to see that but it doesn't mean that there wasn't a structure of singularity of a bishop in that so that's about the only thing i would like to say um otherwise yes it was interesting thank you i have so many questions more but maybe for for another time um so this is really this is like a half question do you think there is a path for unity or you know it's do you think or what do you think needs to happen i mean the orthodox position may be you know come to us you know but you know what do you think about the guy that dr gavin and what do you think about that father patrick i would say that in the present circumstance the pathway to unity is not visible i can't see it but the walls of division as one has put it don't rise so high as the heaven so it is not impossible and so i would say what do we do a lot of hard work a lot of talking and a lot of humility and that's the only way to make progress it seems to me and in the context of doing those things we simply ask the lord to do miracles i don't know how else to approach it yeah and the author of church again yeah the argument is a hope that those outside will come into the community of orthodox church take on um settle into the the structure of bishops and presbyters etc and it's um and come into the unity and but i think the orthodox churches uh there are some barriers which are sort of sociological barriers which are which are an interesting problem that they need to um overcome as sort of some of the nationalism etc and and their own testimony and faithfulness to what they're teaching and um and working harder on avoiding that these horrible schisms between constantinople and moscow which actually littered with tradition of the church in this way for a long time i mean lots of these things so hopefully it'll blow over not too soon the danger of schisms is that what happens to justify it there are interesting and weird mental teachings is coming out um which is a greater problem than the actual split moment hopefully momentarily in itself um as i said it's not a complete shattering at the store something can process um so but yeah uh the awful lot of stretches admission and all the rest there is a lot of orthodox mission there they they're working very hard at admission but um there's some interesting critiques of that or forced to be a bit closed in on themselves and they need to spread it out but they they are but i in the end ultimately for our solution is everyone becomes orthodox comes into unity of the orthodox churches um but hopefully be able to express themselves their own in their own cultural con language and their own um cultural traditions and stuff so the church is truly sort of um takes sort of federalize it the right is a church for way of russians and then the us is a sort of an american whatever that means expression of orthodoxy um so it can take some local ownership as well which i have so it's no longer foreigners imposing their way of thinking on it but it's become a truly localized church in the u.s or the uk et cetera so that's what i hope all folks work towards but yeah we have no other solution but then coming to us and coming into uni okay is it anything you want to mention before we close that i you want to mention maybe something about uh dr gavin you can say something about your channel uh point people to that and also your father patrick if there is anything uh yes people could uh find out more about me on my youtube channel which is called truth unites and it's a channel devoted to both apologetics and theology in an irenic spirit that's my uh effort there and that's it other than that i would just say thank you again to father patrick and thank you again to you john i thoroughly enjoyed this and uh i think these are very productive so thank you both for the opportunity yeah thank you for accepting the invitation for the patrick do you have anything um i have a blog sacred traditions if you want to when or when will you create your youtube channel and i don't i actually not into creating my own channel i i i'm happy to come by invitation i i i've been i was invited onto the roman catholic channel reason and theology you'll see me pop up from there so if if you want me to answer a question or talk you feel free to uh contact me through one of the channels or um from sacred traditions is my blog as such or facebook um i've got a secular name john ramsey which will go because my facebook's basically my particular friends and family it's not really a church but i get involved in discussions on people um the paper see and affiliate doctrine is where i usually hang out if you find me there um yes so feel free but yes i i don't want to set up my own channel as such um and i enjoyed this very interesting discussion um yeah no it's i always enjoy these discussions it's a matter of i've gone through a lot of these questions and issues in the in the past and it's good to reflect on my own thinking and um to bounce off other people's and challenges to it and to you know it always makes help to improve one's overall understanding of reality and truth and um yeah i was much appreciated in a good civil manner you can actually talk at a reasonable reason so that that's all great yeah i can't imagine any of you be angry so you're so calm and dr gavin you're actually i think very brilliant and that's why i wanted you to debate this topic because you can articulate yourself and explain the protestant case maybe you don't believe me but i think you you're one of the people that does it best i think from your perspective so it's i thought it would be very interesting for the orthodox to engage that and also of course father patrick you know what you're talking about you've studied this on a academic level so this exchange would is has been very interesting for me to listen to um again if you want to share this you can do that you can like and subscribe and of course you can also visit my patreon account if you want so uh thank you everyone for listening and i hope you see you soon again in the channel please leave a comment uh tell me what you thought of the debate um but please be civil it's uh it's uh yeah i think we all agree about that and you know as jeremiah the patriarch jeremiah the second said i think in his third letter was you know we don't agree in dogma but let's at least not be let's be friends at least you know okay thank you everyone for listening and goodbye

Channel: According to John

Views: 36,539

Keywords: orthodox vs protestant, debate, Father Patrick Ramsey, Dr. Gavin Ortlund, Byzantine Debates, Ecclesiology, One True Church, orthodoxy, church history, baptist, fr. patrick, gavin ortlund, patrick ramsey, one true church, true church, orthodox, orthodox christianity, orthodoxy in america, orthodox church, orthodox priest, one holy catholic and apostolic church

Id: hA9Rdo6jwxg

Length: 173min 46sec (10426 seconds)

Published: Sat May 29 2021