Sophistication of Early Church Fathers with Dr. Nathan Jacobs

[Music] [Applause] and welcome to another edition of the Hank unplug podcast this is the podcast that intentionally brings to you the most interesting informative inspirational people on the planet and before I introduce my guest for today and we're gonna have a great conversation I want to remind you that you have a great part to play and the success of the Hank unplug podcast you can go to iTunes give us a five star rating when you do that you ensure that people around the globe hear the Hank unplug podcast you can also share the podcast with family members friends people within the sphere of your influence and so many people are giving us a five star rating Haley in California says wonderful guests meaningful interviews with great depth yet laid-back I love that Haley says that because this is precisely what the Hank unplugged podcast is intended to do it is not lean-forward didactic as much as it is leaned backwards conversational but anyway Haley goes on to say it's obvious hank and his guests are having fun with these conversations you're right Haley I've learned so much a good launchpad into new areas of interest within theology devotion to Christ comparative religion history science politics I listen while doing housework while gardening while walking and even at the gym can't get enough one other five-star rating by Loren and Madeline says I've listened to Hank off and on for years I don't necessarily agree with his views on eschatology we can agree to disagree but this podcast is outstanding this is a first-rate podcast and format that really delivers and meets Hanks goal of having the most interesting guests and glad I found this two major thumbs up I recommend this podcast to the entire Christian community secular community as well great job Hank and these five star ratings they are pouring in from all over the world yeah no doubt it is because I have the most fantastic guess you can possibly imagine today an encore performance by dr. Nathan Jacobs he is a visiting scholar of philosophy at the University of Kentucky he has advanced degrees in both religion and philosophy he served as a professor in lecturer at Calvin College and Seminary at Trinity College and graduate school at the University of Kentucky his specializations include modern philosophy and Eastern patristic thought he's written over 30 articles he's got three books to his credit but he is also a painter this is part of the story that I want to talk about on the podcast today he's a filmmaker the film that really captured my attention with respect to nathan is a film titled becoming truly human and I would urge everyone listening to the sound of my voice right now if you can get your hands on a copy of becoming truly human sit down with family members and friends and watch this it is stirring it is transformational becoming truly human is a post secular experiential documentary that looks at the rise of the nuns meaning those with no particular religious affiliation it is the journey not only of exploring this moved towards no religious affiliation but actually encapsulate the journey of dr. Jacobs from religious non affiliation to Eastern Orthodoxy which is a transformational journey I particularly love the ending of becoming truly human of course you have to watch it to see the ending but we watched it many times I watched it with my own family quite a number of as well with all of that said Nathan it is really great to have another conversation with you today it's great to be here Hank it's always good to see a filmmaker a painter a theologian a philosopher how do you make it all work that's that's a tougher question on some of the other ones I thought I'd get asked it's it's quite a balancing act to try to figure out how to reconcile the two parts of myself but that's where I'm only I'm only now I think starting to get to a point where I feel like I have a road ahead for seeing how to do that and becoming truly human is one of the examples I think we've talked in the past about the fact that you know there have been times when I've worked in the commercial arts arena or fine arts arena and during those times I feel the academic side of myself you know sort of dying on the vine it's it I need to carve out time in order to write articles or to teacher to lecture and then there's been other times when I've devoted myself fully to the professorship and publishing and those are times where I feel the artistic side of myself just dying for a way to get out and becoming truly human it was the first time that I actually had an opportunity to bring those two halves of myself together and do something that had artistic integrity and depth but also had academic integrity and depth and really allowed me an opportunity to speak about philosophical and theological issues and God willing that's that's the road ahead is looking for more opportunities to bring those two things together because as I think truthfully that's that's how that's how God has made me you know he's given me those two areas of myself and and I think they converge quite nicely there and so God willing I'll have more opportunities you just that it's kind of interesting when you tell your story your trek into orthodoxy so many people listening to our voices right now might say wow you became Orthodox you went from the frying pan into the fire I mean it couldn't be worse than that first of all orthodoxy is a crass system of works/righteousness how would you respond to this well I think one of the things so I my road into orthodoxy was largely it was a philosophical road I was searching for answers and I think a lot of the religiously unaffiliated if you watch becoming truly human you find a lot of them are searching for answers that fortunately they tend to be characterized by what they are no longer right I was raised Baptist I'm not a Baptist those raised Catholic I'm not a Catholic I'm no longer religiously affiliated but really when you look at these stories one of the things you hear is just so many of them are there it's not that they're anti spiritual it's not that they're anti religious they're hungry for something something authentic something authoritative something that connects with them on the level of aesthetics beauty that has depth and makes demands of them spiritually they just don't know what that is right and so they've disconnected from something that was certainly the case with myself I was on a search for something that had depth and I wandered into a lot of strange philosophical territories and I had a I had I had a deep understanding of historical Western Christianity I devoted the majority of my studies to the thought of Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas I knew they thought quite well and medieval scholastic that but I just I had rejected all of that and so but when I encountered orthodoxy one of the things and I think this is crucial to understand what orthodoxy is when you begin to study systems of thought and I'm sure you're familiar with this Hank and that you know let's say you've been studying the differences between you know Calvinism and Arminianism or something like this you become familiar enough with those systems that when you pick up a Calvinist or a reformed thinker yeah you might find a few surprises here or there but more or less if you've mastered the system you can anticipate what they're going to say on certain topics and by the time I was in my doctoral studies which was when I first really had my encounter with Orthodoxy I already had degrees in systematics church history I was doing a dual PhD and in systematics and historical theology a degree in philosophy and and I was already familiar enough with medieval scholastic systems that if I knew if I was reading a tell miss write a Catholic thinker I couldn't anticipate what they're gonna say I knew reformed thought quite well I was studying under the foremost authority in the world at 16th 17th century reform thought so I knew if I was reading them what to expect and one of the things that was so peculiar for me was that when I first read Athanasius of Alexandria Eastern writer I was completely disoriented because he did not fit into any of the systemic boxes I had come to study and I think understanding the fact that the Eastern writers started with Athanasius that happened again when I read basil Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa and and on it went I think one of the things that that I came to realize and I think is crucial to realizing with regard to your question is just how different the East and the West is so there's a tendency because of the way the West has typically approached theology to say well here are the two options on this doctrine here are the three options on that doctrine and that's the Box you work with them so when you come to the east and you say well we're talking about no you know the Eucharist here the you know the four options we've got which one is it is it a more memorialist view as a transubstantiation you know what is and I think the key to understand is that those boxes have been created by Western discussions and so even when we approach the question like is is it a system of works/righteousness we're really asking a question that's a Reformation question there's a certain Western there's a certain Western framework of salvation that's been laid out and has developed in the medieval period and on into the Reformation that frames that question and so so in the West I mean flying you know sort of bird's-eye view here the tendency was that with agustin of Hippo you started to develop the concept merits and demerits and the assumption was that we have within ourselves within our person what's called an order of Love's right and so or order of affections and sometimes the way it's translated and the idea is that only if I do something out of a pure love for God does it have any merit before God and and this is where you know the doctrine of original sin is developed by agustin what ends up espousing is as a result of the fall we are born into the world with disordered loves and and the question is how do we fix that and and within the Pelagian dispute Pelagius actually building on the young augustine said well you know you just will it right you just will the love God above all else and so man can build his own ladder to heaven and so to speak by just willing to love God and do good works that are meritorious before God and Augustine had to respond and say no no no salvation has to be from God and God alone and so here develops the entire Western Augustinian framework where according to a Gustin these disordered loves are something were born with after the fall we're bound by that the will is in bondage as Luther would later put it and what you need is you need the Holy Spirit to step in and fix that order of Love's so that we can you know do things that are pleasing to God and in medieval Catholicism that means doing deeds that are meritorious now they'd still say it's by grace because of course the Holy Spirit fixed that order of Love's and but in the Reformation that all changed around he's still needed the Holy Spirit to step in and fix the order of laws but it's now so that you can believe unto salvation and have a genuine faith that saves well that entire discussion that entire Augustinian discussion which is really what that Reformation discussion is it's a discussion of Protestant Augustinians Reformation Augustinians versus Catholic Augustinians is entirely alien to the Eastern Church so to even frame the question there is off that way is already problematic for the Eastern Church the key is and this is how I would always put the the difference between eastern and western Christianity for the West salvation and the Christian faith is primarily a judicial faith right our problem is that God is a judge we find ourselves in the condition of doing things that are displeasing to that judge and we need that judge to step in and somehow remedy our condition roman catholicism it's by grace enabling us to be absolved of our past sins and do things that are pleasing to god meritorious in a protestant context it has to do with the atoning of sins and an imputed righteousness through faith whereas for the eastern church fathers the primary human condition is death and dying you know we find ourselves in a condition where the primary thing that happened was in the fall we cut ourselves off from the life of God and and that is the condition that's the primary cuman condition it's not so much a problem of you know that we face a future judgment with a God who is angry with us it's that we're dying and the Incarnation is that point at which the life of God is placed into our dying species and provides for us a lifeline so now in terms of you know framing this in terms of what is the relationship between what we do and what God does I think John Cassian offers a good a good way of thinking about it John Cassian at one point because he interacts with the West and so he's a bit familiar with this this way of thinking John Cassian asked the question let's say we have a farmer and the farmer decides to go till is his soil he plants the seed he turns you know turns it over eat he does everything that's necessary in order to grow a crop can the farmer demand that God send rain and make his crops grow and and you know shake his fist at God if God doesn't and Cassi ins answer's no God's not obligated to do those things but at the same I'm what John says is well but if God sends rain and sunshine and the farmer has not tilt the soil of planted anything can you expect a harvest and this answer is obviously not what is crucial is that he he does the tilling of the soil and the planting and God sends it needs to be cooperative in order for him to to reap a harvest and here again to the western ear this probably sounds like it's a little bit of me contributing to my salvation a little bit of God contributing to their salvation but that's not it at all it is really what it really is is an insistence that all the work we do in terms of turning to God and preparing ourselves for God is something that needs to be done because we need to as Paul puts it cleanse ourselves and make ourselves a vessel worthy of God the vessel needs to be cleaned and open to God another way of putting it might be you know if we were to use a ship metaphor right if we think of ourselves as ships there at sea and God is moving in a certain direction which is our good and our salvation all the things we do in terms of sin and resistance to God make the vessel such that it's not seaworthy it resists the current and the current won't move it along and all the things we do in terms of repentance and transforming our lives and making ourselves opening ourselves up to God are things that are meant to make the the vessel seaworthy so to speak but at the end of the day apart from some sort of union with God apart from God pouring into the vessel or God moving the ship it doesn't move in that direction and that's why from an Eastern perspective the Incarnation is so crucial because that's what Christ comes to do he comes to unite our humanity with divinity and make available to us that grace that alone saves and unless God does that all the repentance all the preparation all the prayer all the fastening it doesn't transform it doesn't save all of that is just preparing the soil so to speak for what God needs to do in order to enact our salvation kind of interesting as you're speaking I opened the Bible to Ephesians 2:8 9 in often times 10 is omitted which of course very very familiar to a lot of people listening to us where Paul says for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God not of works lest anyone should boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them and the note in the Orthodox Study Bible says this and I be interested in your reaction it says how can one get from one kingdom to the other by the unity of grace faith and works not that these are equal for grace is uncreated and infinite whereas our faith is limited and can grow good works flow out of authentic faith and then this is the operative phrase I think works cannot earn us this great treasure it is a pure gift but those who receive this gift do good we are not saved by good works but for good works yeah you know one of the one of the doctrines that I came across which was completely alien to my thinking when I first started reading these Eastern Fathers but is crucial to understanding statements like that and I think candidly I think it's crucial to understanding the New Testament Paul uses a term and idea right easily translated energies but but not always but not always yes that's the irony is that in the translations is oftentimes translated power or works work something like that but but it's a different term right ergun it's not forgotten it's not venomous right which would miss being Power Oregon being work you know energiya has a very specific history to it and that history if you look back on it the term actually originates in Aristotle doesn't exist in Greek speaking literature until Aristotle points the term and Aristotle develops this term because he's trying to come up with a way of distinguishing the sort of incomplete deeds that we do like building a building right it's something that goes through successive stages until it's complete with the way that God acts which is complete and perfect at every moment right and so Aristotle develops a distinction between Kinesis motion and energiya right and anarchy ER refers to this complete perfect operation so contrast between say building and seeing at this moment you know it doesn't go through successive stages at every moment you see fully right the act is complete well in Jewish writers this sense I picked up specifically Philo of Alexandria but we can find it in other Alexandria and Jewish writers and they begin to use the term energiya for talking about how God interacts with the world and specifically it and what emerges out of this concept is the idea that the energies of a thing specifically spirits can be communicated to another thing so the analogy sometimes used in later writers is the relationship between metal and fire if we take metal and we stick it in fire and and and we we find that the metal begins to glow many beans and to mid heat such that we can remove it from the fire we could burn things it illuminates things and that was a metaphor used in order to convey the idea of the transferred energy from one type of thing to another the energy of fire has been communicated to the metal and it's taken up residence in it well then Jewish writers begin to use this concept of energy and transferred energy to explain Demoniacs how you have humans who are still human but they've been energized by demons such that they can do things that are not typical of humans to explain profits how they are energized by God and empowered to do things that are superhuman right and one of the things that is crucial to that concept is that in Paul the whole idea of him being energized by God was pivotal to how Paul understood his ministry as well as ultimately how he understood the gospel itself it's it's very clear and Pauline literature that for example the hope of the Resurrection is a hope of putting off our corruptible human nature for in corruption and how does that how does that occur well according to Paul that occurs by partaking of the divine nature a button being energized and st. Peter says the same thing where he talks about us escaping corruption by partaking of the divine nature this whole nature of humanity being energized by God and is one of the things that I discovered was that for the eastern father's grace is not just a judicial tip of the hat that says you're okay grace is something much more ontological it's a participation in the life of God a participation in the operative power that Paul says energized him so mightily to do the things that he did it is that sort of participation in divine holiness and divine righteousness and sanctity in in corruption and ultimately in eternal life I mean this is the gospel of Jesus Christ Paul says very plainly God alone is immortal but yet Christ comes along and says he offers us immortality and in John it's very clear why does he offer some utility he offers us the life of God you know God has life in himself and he's given it to the son to have life in himself and that's the life that he offers to us that participation in God that ontological participation in God that is the sort of grace that we're talking there where we begin to commune with that and participate in that and it's because God energizes us that we're able to do good works and you see this so clearly in Paul's perspective on himself the good works he does are an extension of him being energized and participating in God who energizes him mightily I sort of want to move on but I don't want to move Minh the reason I don't is that I think we have to sort of summarize what's been said so that people aren't left wondering what exactly is being said here and and so press the point a little bit you will have so many people listening to what you just said and saying yeah but and the yeah but almost clouds out listening to everything you just said yeah but Paul says the Bible says very very clear read the book of Romans we are saved by faith alone so do you believe that we're saved by faith alone and that becomes the acid test for orthodoxy small Oh then on the other hand there are people probably listening from an Orthodox perspective saying what about what James says it seems that James is the only one says this alone idea and it's in the negative he says you see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone and the broader context of that of course is James saying show me your faith without deeds I will show you my faith by what I do and he goes on to say you foolish man do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar you see that faith and his actions were working together and his faith was made complete by what he did and the scripture was fulfilled and of course that he gives the the illustration of abraham abraham believed god it was credited to him as righteousness and he was called God's friend and then what I quoted earlier you see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone and then James goes on to say in the same way was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave launching to the spies and sent them off in a different direction as the body and I love this I mean I hope it sticks in everybody's memory trace as the body without the Spirit is dead so faith without deeds is dead so again I bring this up in terms of sort of tying a ribbon on what we're talking about the initial question I started this discussion with was you know is were that actually a crass system of works righteousness you quite evidently and expansively said no with a lot of qualifications so summarize the eastern idea where faith is not set in opposition to works nor works in opposition to faith I think maybe the best way to do it one of my favorite favorite insights ever offered from certain Eastern writers was the insight that you see a perfect checks to position between Moses and Pharaoh God interacts with Moses and Pharaoh identically in both cases he shows up he declares who he is he evidences it with miracles he makes a demand and in one of those individuals he becomes a prophet a Wonder worker and a saint which is Moses in another he hardens he cracks and is destroyed which is of course Pharaoh and yet the eastern fathers point out that God's movement towards both was identical and I think that's a perfect picture of the role that faith plays and the role that works play is that really when you're looking at this God has a singular movement toward humanity our salvation the Incarnation is the strongest proof that God desires us to be saved and that's the movement that he has toward each one of us but much like the way the Sun and here I have I mean su Etna's in the Sun this guy can cause to wither and crack or it can cause to grow with the same movement god's movement of salvation toward us if we are responsive in faith and cooperate causes us to flourish and can make us saints or we can be resistant and it causes us to harden and crack and I think that capture is perfectly the picture of why what role faith and works plays it is the movement of God that causes us to flourish if we flourish and yet it is still incumbent upon us to be good soil that responds with faith and that flourishes forth and works as it did in Moses what I love about the conversation thus far is you keep referring back to the fathers maybe some definitions are in order you know so often we talk about the patristic s' or we talk about even we use the term Pope and that's off setting or we say priest oftentimes in Protestant context that's an offsetting word as well we hear the word father and people immediately say we're not supposed to call anybody father and yet we're saying father Steve or father John or whoever those viruses don't call anybody father and that's kind of as far as the thinking so sometimes it's helpful to recognize that there's a context obviously when we're talking about father there's a context there's more to the passage then don't call anybody father the Jesus goes on to explicate that but so often when we hear these words that are off-putting because we don't understand what they mean right right yeah and so when we're talking about the church fathers I mean this is a term that recognizes the fact that I mean Paul identify is certain people as his spiritual children you know he's identifying himself as their spiritual father John when he's writing to people he identifies this you know this hierarchy of spiritual growth that some of them are little children right and others are full-grown and so one of the things that the church has you know the Orthodox Church has historically a Christian Church historically and the first millennium recognized was that there were certain people who went before us who were fully spiritually mature who received and lived out things handed down to them and they were the ones who spiritually nurtured and cared for us and we look to them as spiritual guides and spiritual fathers and so when we look at that right patristic right these terms are derived you know pod or us or powder from both Latin and Greek actually work in terms of patristic that we're referring to those Christian writers who went before us who received and lived out and handed down to the next generation those things that they received in turn which is what which which is is what you know tradition refers to that which is handed down and so when I'm referring to the church fathers what I'm referring to is those folks largely it's usually the folks in the first millennium is how the term is typically used those folks who were early Christian writers who defended core doctrines of the faith so oftentimes this is related to people at say the Council of Nicaea which received and defended and upheld against the heretics the Aryans the doctrine of the Trinity who had Constantinople defended Christology and the full humanity of Christ over against a apollon Arian heresies and and defending the doctrine that he was truly incarnate that at Ephesus over against the Nestorian heresies that he's only one person that there is only one son of God who the one who was with the father and who dwelt among us these individuals who defended the faith and hand it on to us the faith that they received those are the Church Fathers and this is one of the things that I think is sometimes misunderstood is you know in the first millennium you have ecumenical councils ecumenical referring to you know the whole house right the these councils there's only ever happened seven times in the first millennium well you know before the great schism between the Western Church in the Eastern Church you have these seven ecumenical councils and a lot of folks aren't aware that there were seven ecumenical councils so that's seven times and seven core doctrines by the church said this is the faith that was handed down to us but those are the things that form the basis those councils form the basis for what's typically called Nicene trinitarianism and calcitonin Christology these core doctrines of Trinity and Christology well one of the things that's interesting is for whatever reason the presumption is when you hear the word council that it must have been a bunch of academics or something like that or you know the ships sitting around hashing out you know what they thought was the best answer to a given question but when you look at those councils and what they have to say what's fascinating is the question is never what's the most philosophically savvy answer or you know what's what's the latest trend you know in the Academy the question is always what is the faith that we received what did the Apostles hand out and that's why the Declaration is always this is the faith of Peter right this is the faith that Cyril taught right they they always defer back to the prior generations who had received and handed down the faith so they never saw themselves as academics trying to solve riddles or come up with new and innovative creative insights the question was always what have we received that there were curators is probably the best way to put it by the way just parenthetically isn't that exactly what the Apostle Paul does in first Corinthians 15 what I received I passed on to you as a first importance absolutely and that's why you sorts others to do the same right to hold on to what's been handed down right and that's why in Jude Wright refers to the faith once given over to the Saints but this is this is crucial as they saw it staying the course in Christianity ultimately ments sticking with and protecting and being a preserver of the faith that was handed down which is why it was so crucial to the church fathers that they always looked back at what was handed down to us because that's what we're entrusted with you know this is the pearl of great price what what what has been said about it what is that pearl and it's our job to protect that it did not innovate innovate is a very innovative is a very bad word amongst the church fathers because that's the epitome of what you're not supposed to be doing and so supposed to perpetuate not innovate that's right that would be a great way of putting it and so that's one of the reasons why a lot of these issues yes I tend to go back and I I look and I say well what did the church fathers have to say on this topic what did they hand down because at the end of the day if if I'm looking at a doctrine and I can't find it advocated by the church fathers and it's you know a medieval doctrine that emerges you know I'm gonna say Anselm or something like that that's problematic it's problematic theologically because that would be just prima facie you know face value evidence that it's an innovation and it's not the faith that was handed down to us what's interesting about what you're saying is that I oftentimes say on the Bible in sermon broadcast or in public speaking that people are largely biblically illiterate means they don't read their Bible they don't know how to read the Bible in the sense of which it's intended but it occurs to me particularly in this conversation that that people are also largely historically illiterate or ignorant and that has led to so many false analogies in and talk about that with respect to the Trinity in particular I hear so often particularly in evangelical circles but more broadly than that people using analogies for the Trinity virtually every single illustration I've ever tried and I worked on some illustrations for months and months I daresay even years I remember at one time working on an illustration for the Trinity using the universe the universe meaning turning into one and the universe being space time and matter each being a Trinity of sorts but as I worked on those analogies for illustrations I found out that there was loose ends popping out all over the place but the one thing I didn't realize at the time working on these illustrations is that this has already been done this has already been tried and so there are a number of different illustrations that are given for the Trinity historically and the fathers have exploded the myths in other words they've unraveled the bad part of the analogy or the illustration so let's talk about that a little bit because still probably trips people up to this day there is the parts hole explanation which is probably the worst of all explanations here's what the fathers said about that right so so the parts hole explanation I mean let's give an example an egg is one I've heard right it's got a shell an egg yolk and an egg white so you know there you go we've got a Trinity because we've got one egg but we've got three parts I'm sure there's other examples of this I've heard other examples of this like a cherry pie sure like a cherry pie cut into three parts the problem is what happens if you cut it into four or five but but but one of the things that's interesting is of all the heresies this is one of the hardest ones to find anybody using in the ancient world because even the heretics understood well God is spirit he's not composed of parts he doesn't have parts so so most heretics resisted a parts whole approach but you do find one example that's by the Triffids so John the grammarian it's the advocate of this and actually John Damascus preserves the only in one of the chapters that we have from him advocating this but this was what was called tri the--it ISM the Triffids and essentially what John did is he thought about nature right so we have this in trinitarianism we we have these two terms that were accustomed to persons and essence or persons and substance and persons and you know whatever it may be you don't like that word person too much we can talk about that if you want you're like you can see me recoiling as I use the word person but but you know the way John thought about is he said well maybe the essence it's kind of like let's imagine it like it's a lump of clay and we we cut it into three parts and then we've got sort of three lumps and then one is given to each of the persons or subjects and and so so there we go right problem solved but the problem reaction was well that's that's really that's really you just have three and three right you have three you have three parts now and you have three subjects one each having each part so they just said you know you you have three and three so there was there was a great resistance to that because there's a unity just because there was an insistence there has to be a unity to the essence so whatever the three are and whatever the one is the one is truly one and remains one which was why there was a resistance to John full offenses also that's the other name he's known by John the grammarians you know three and three is try so but but there are other problems with other forms of other analogies that have come up and that's that's far from the only one that's problematic yeah another one that the fathers dealt with is the idea of several names to one subject to look at one person's we have one subject the husband the father the son right which points to a kind of modalism yeah so modalism or Sebelius ISM no easy anism this came up in a variety of ways modalism is one of the more well-known notice of smear now I had another version of this and this was always where what you really have is you just have one subject one individual you know let's say we have a man who is a he is a father to somebody and he's the son of somebody else and he's he's a husband you know to someone well see look right there you've got you know three roles right the other and this is gets us right to the person why I always chafe at the word person but it requires some definite explanation I'm sure they use the word you have to qualify right so so in terms of you know in modalism the way this was typically explained was an actor with three masks right and so the father send the Holy Spirit just faces they're just masks that the one entity we call God shows up wearing and and that's actually the reason why I always am resistant to a word face because the word in Greek for a face was crossbone right so he's got three pasaba right three faces and so the tendency to you they'd Latin equivalent is persona and and that's why I'm always resistant to using the word person because the it's it's a better equivalent it's a better translation of the term of the civilians that was actually rejected the term that the the pro night scenes used in Nicaea and more specifically in the council of constantinople was who posses the pastas just refers to an individual or a subject you know your hypothesis and I'm processes but of course in this water bottle over here is a who pastas right because it's an individual thing an individual subject and so over against the civilian that somehow these persons right are just faces it was important for them to emphasize know they are real individuals the the three is very real these are not just personas these are not just faces that are somehow put on and that's and that's the the modal list error alright the civilian area they know Ishii and error right this there's a variety of versions of it the one that I hear so often in this one with a lot of commendation is the triple boiling point of water so you have water but water can appear in different ways it can appear as steam or liquid it can appear as ice and so this seems to be the perfect analogy but the father actually spoke about this as being heretical as well yeah that's right um basil of Caesarea and one of his letters ends up describing a sort of thing where he talks about some sort of this substratum that sir percolates up into into the father to the Son and to the Holy Spirit very much like the h2o analogy ends up I believe its phrasing is something like impious blasphemous and saying something like that it's something in the ballpark of of that that is again not exactly a raving endorsement so it's probably to be cautioned against I would say that's that would be my takeaway from that letter yes again all of this is simply to say that I I think it's important to be familiar with church history because these issues have been hashed through very very carefully and completely as well I want to ask you another question just a complete our conversation so many people say the idea of eternity we can apprehend it we can't comprehend it it's beyond our Ken want to be fiercely Unitarian as opposed to Trinitarian in that regard I wrote about this in my book Muslim what you need to know about the world's fastest growing religion absent the universe a Unitarian God would be morally defective because a Unitarian God would have no one to love and therefore could not manifest the attribute of love a Trinitarian God absent the universe would would still be able to manifest the attribute of love the father can love the son and there's a witness to that love as well can you expand on that sure I mean this is one of the things that's I think rather fascinating is the the doctrine that man is in the image of God one of the things that you find and the father is this insistent that insistence that that certain what philosophers call perfections are things that you know if the only reason we have them is because he of whom were an icon as them so for example Basel I think it's in his treatise against the you know means he talks so he defends free will and he defends free will because he says this is clearly a good it's a capacity it's it's something that makes us that that makes a superior to animals who lack not just reason but freewill and he insists that unless God had free will we couldn't you know because we're I con of him and one of the things that I think is underappreciated oftentimes is relationality love and and and the very fact of not just relationality and love but even the giving of ourselves in procreation we give our nature to another we don't just love our children we produce our children you procreate they're an extension of ourselves and of our nature and and this is one of the things that comes through in the doctrine of the Trinity that the Father the very one of the things that's so fascinating is you know when it comes to you and me right as individuals how do we differentiate one person from another because you're human I'm human and yet somehow when I walk down the hall here it's the are I nobody mistakes me for you ank I've never been greeted as Hank although we have the same kind of hair we don't have any habits and well and there you have it right the nice beard that's you know those things difference and height difference in color right difference in hair or those sorts of things but what philosophers would call accidental properties things that are accidental to whether they're you know whether you're human or not is irrelevant you know me having a beard or shaving my beard doesn't affect whether inhuman these these sorts of differences are how we differentiate one another but the Church Fathers recognize God doesn't have accidents you know you don't tell the Sun from you know apart from the Spirit and the father because the Sun is blue and the father is green and the Holy Spirit is yellow or something like that you don't have those sorts of things because you know God is invisible right and so how do you differentiate the persons and they find the answer in their names what makes the father the father is that he begins a son and is a father to him what makes the spirit again this is this is a little more obscured by the language but spirit you know it's related to breath wind right we could refer to the Holy Spirit as the breathed one right that he is out breathed by the father that's what makes him who he is in relation to the father and and the very notion that somehow it is the way the the singular idiosyncratic property of each one that identifies who they are is their relation to each other what makes the Sun the Sun is that he is begotten of the father what makes the father of the father said he baguettes the son what makes the Spirit the one who proceeds from the father is the fact that he is out breathe by the father these relational properties are what make them who they are from all eternity right from all eternity these have been the relations and I think that's such a critical and crucial differentiation of the Christian God that the Holy Trinity what we see is inherently relational whereas in its it's not clear how many other theologies could possibly say that is the defining trait of who God is is that God is inherently relational and loving and yet that's the defining characteristics of the well I was nearly gonna say persons of the Trinity though a lot of people listening to what you're saying who are anti Trinitarian would immediately respond you say that the father baguettes the son that seems to indicate that the father precedes the son the father spy rates the spirit seems to indicate that the father was there before right the spirit right how do you respond well I respond that you know if that's what comes to a person's mind the first thing that should be comforting to them that is they are far from the first person in church history to ever walk I mean one of the greatest you know controversies the one that sparked the first ecumenical council was the dispute with arias the dispute between areas of Alexandria and Anthony s of Alexandria and that dispute was based on that very rationale if the father begat the son then there must be a time when he was not yet a father and then he decided to beget a son and and voila there we go and and then the son must be a creature that beginning to his insistence and so on and so forth and the didn't Nevada Kai controversy is about the same controversy about the Holy Spirit so one of the things that's so interesting and the father is in there you know they're very sophisticated on these points but one of the things yeah just just a like if you won't lose your train of thought elaborate on that on which part when you say that the fathers were very sophisticated at this point that there's this sense that we have become more sophisticated over time so with time comes added sophistication and therefore they were far more rudimentary in their thinking than we are that's a big big misnomer that is quickly we're like pygmies actually standing on the shoulders of a giant quite quite truly we are it is an enormous misnomer for the very bold and brave who might want to look up a thick academic article I wrote a lengthy lengthy piece for religious studies on the begotten not made distinction and the way the Eastern Church Fathers parse out the differences between creating and beginning inspire rating right these sorts of distinctions and that is a thick article because the sophistication that they have in terms of their understanding of creation what a creature is of beginning a spy rating of the doctrine of the Trinity all these sorts of things the nuances and depth of understanding is staggering and it really does make the rest of us look like little kids playing around in the sandbox when we're doing theology on these issues and so yes it's it's quite true what you say about standing on the shoulders of giants no doubt because they are those giants now the net-net another real issue is can you remember that's where we went on Shores tangent [Music] let's see oh yes we're talking about whether the Sun is created the Spirit is created so there a variety there a variety of dimensions to this it's not a simple small issue but one of the initial and very important starting point there's a few different things to be kept in mind here the one is the just basic assumption of whether or not causation and that is the language I mean it's uncomfortable as it is for it's not creation but it is still causation the Father causing the son and the father causing the spirit they do use that language of causation whether causation and creation are the same thing that's one issue and then another issue is just this question of whether or not causation requires the sort of temporal sequence that arias presumed right in order for causation I need to be pre caused and now I'm causing and now we're post caused right that sort of thing there's a well I don't often refer to scholastics you know for help in these areas there is a distinction in two types of cause that the medieval scholastics use that I think is helpful here the medieval scholastics distinguish what they call per se causation from per accidents causation Soper exit ends causation would be something like I roll this billiard ball it bumps into another billiard ball it moves along it bumps into another billiard ball it's that sequential one thing happens then another thing happens and another things happens per se causation on the other hand is a type of causation that is coterminous right the cause and the effect extend out together so here's a simple example as opposed to our billiard ball I'm grabbing a little bottle of water here and now that anybody can see it because we're on a podcast but I assure you I have a bottle of water in my hands right now okay so I've set this actually looks like a beer well I I so I've set this this bottle on the desk right and right now the effect that I'm looking at is that the bottle is suspended that is in effect and the cause of that is the top of the desk it's standing on that and and that causes actually that effect is actually that has its own cause right so the the top is sustained by the legs and then those legs are sustained by the floor so what you have is a stack of causes and all of these right now are extending through time they're they're coterminous they're all happening simultaneously there is no sequence to the causation right it's suspended because this is suspended because that's suspended and if all of a sudden we just knocked the legs out the water bottle would fall because it's not independent of its cause the effect continues on with it's caused and when the Church Fathers talk about the father causing the son that's the type of causation they mean that the son and the holy spirit it's not that there was a time you know way back in eternity at one o'clock you know that the father decided to cause the Son and the spirit and now he's done causing them in fact we can't even talk about time right we can't talk about those sorts of sequences because God's not subject to those sorts of mutated sequences instead what it is is it's more like this where the Son and the Holy Spirit have the divine nature from the father perpetually coterminous Lee with God CS Lewis actually uses this analogy in mere christianity he talks about a stack of books and he tells this reader to imagine these you know three books sitting on top of each other and the bottom one he's imagining as the father who gives rise to the Son and to the Holy Spirit but rather than it being something that's like our billiard balls would happen here and now it's done you know it's it's a coterminous thing and that's peculiar for us to think of because of course beginning in a human context is sequential I have a son David he's begotten of me and he was begotten at a point in time and if I had dropped dead of a heart attack immediately after that he would continue on do exist without that's we have per accidents be getting relationships as creatures whereas that is not the type of relationship you have with the father and so I think one of the another helpful illustration to use is that sometimes the church fathers will use you know let's imagine you know Aristotle didn't think the world came into being here still thought the world was eternal it was always there everlasting so let's just pretend for a second we know that's not correct but let's just pretend for a second that that's correct and the son s UN had just always existed you know would its rays and its heat always exist and the answer is yes it would always be generating light and heat for all eternity and yet is the light and heat dependent upon the Sun yes it is and that's another analogy that you find in the church fathers where they say the father the nature of the father is to be generative to beget and despite the spirit perpetually because that's who he is and who he has always been and who he always will be talk about why the fathers would have had a linguistic advantage over later medieval scholars one of the examples might be the confusion that you have in Latin between Gehenna and Hades between hell and Hades there's a confusion there that confusion would not have existed for the fathers that's right well yeah I mean there's a couple of reasons for the one is obviously that you know when you're talking about eastern fathers you're talking about Native Greek speakers there you know when you're talking about the places that they're referring to the cultures are referring to you the languages they're using I mean they live in those areas I mean it's it's native to them so they have a natural understanding of the language but it's not just the language I think it's interesting that for example certain things that we have to literally dig around in the dirt to figure out and they already know so for example I'd mentioned that they had a very sophisticated understanding of creatures right well there's this phrase that Paul uses in Romans where he talks about who calls the non-being as being right and that probably just sounds very cryptic and odd to us you know the may onus on you know or he the the the I I think it's I think he uses maeín a as tiny name it's something like that I but that phrase right this this non being as being you know once we dig around we come to discover error okay there's some Aristotelian physics here again picked up by Alexandrian Jews and we begin to find in Philo's commentaries on creation this phrase and it's a very sophisticated nuanced understanding of what's going on in terms of the making of creatures and Paul tosses it out there as if oh yeah everybody knows this and for people like Athanasius of Alexandria he does know it and it's because he's in Alexandria he's familiar with the texts and the things that Paul's referring to here but we're not we need you know we have scholars digging around and dedicating their lives to trying to figure out some of these things whereas the Church Fathers so many of those sorts of things they just knew I mentioned energiya right there's quite truly that is lost in translation I mean one of the reasons that the entire doctrine of the energies and the distinction between God's essence and his energies which the Jews use to expose it Alexandrian Jews used to expose that the difference between God's face which we can't see in his back that's what they discuss right who God is in his essence no man can bear no man can see it's beyond our comprehension beyond her gaze but his operative powers or his energies come down to us and that's what Moses saw and that's what caused the world to be that's what we can participate in and through Christ those sorts of distinctions again these Greek writers Greek readers they understood those that's why it's so natural for them to see those things in the biblical text but then when you get to Latin there's quite literally no translation for the word energiya and the entire doctrine falls out falls out of its entire consciousness theologically there's no doctrine of the divine energies in the Latin West and similarly you mentioned Hades right the eastern fathers have a very clear understanding of the distinction between you know Hades and Gehenna between the realm of the Dead and Hell and yet in Latin we find Inferno ends up used interchangeably for both and so this is where you begin to have a great deal of confusion you see it that the distinction between the two terms begins to dissolve in the West and and we see these things come through in our translations as well I mean it's it's ingrained in me to refer to three persons when I talk about the Trinity even though that's clearly straight out of the Latin persona and not really the best translation of hypothesis we tend to talk about the imago Dei right the image of God what were using okay why are we using the Latin as icon right if you're going to use the Greek terminology for it now I suppose we could criticize using the Septuagint language but it's icon right but we still we go to the Latin translation and even when we find in modern translations of homilies of prayers of Psalms right there's a tendency to have translators refer to translate what is plainly Hades as hell right and in ironic places you know John Chrysostom's Easter homily it's all about the ransacking of Hades right and yet somehow often times you'll find translators who talk about Hell hello and it's just plainly not so those sorts of linguistic ambiguities demonstrate a sort of a disadvantage for the Latin readers that ends up having major consequences I mentioned dedicated a great deal of time to Augustine of Hippo one of the things that I think is very telling is that in a guest and his treatise on the Trinity he says and I commend him for his honesty on us but it's an alarming passage he explains I am sure you could find whatever answer you want to any question of the Trinity and the Greek writers but most of us here in the West myself included don't read Greek well enough to know what on earth they're saying so I'm just gonna have to wing this and glow in God and that's that's the setup for his treatise on the Trinity I mean that's an alarming statement to realize that level of linguistic disconnect to that Augustine on the one hand is doing a tip of the hat to what is ecumenical dogma about the Trinity and yet is admitting he can't really go terribly deep into the doctrine because he doesn't know what the Greek writers have said I find that counterintuitive on a lot of different levels and I don't even really know how to posit this part of the discussion but so often when you think about the eastern father she think about mysteries we're living in the land of antinomy i mean think of the western church you think about snarling logic allottee and yet listening to this discussion there's some deep theological packages being unwrapped here sure how do you parse that well I think you know I think when you're talking about the road between you know rationality and mystery there's a ditch on either side of the road and they're both dangerous the one ditch is to give reason too much credit and suggest that it really can schematize every mystery and and that's legitimately a critique that's often been leveled against Western writers on the other side is the ditch of punting to mystery to quick which becomes really just sloppy theology because you know we haven't really grappled with with what's there and I think the balancing act middle road which I see the eastern and fathers doing consistently is a road of expositing the doctrine to the point that you've been brought up to the threshold of mystery and you now know that if you take the next step you've reached the limits of reason and you know why you've reached the limits of reason but your mind is able to embrace that because there's been a very clear understanding of why this is where three begins and reason ends and that's what you begin to enter into so I think the key there is to understand that even though there is a great deal of mystery in the church fathers because they understand that God is he's referred to you know Piper who see us right he's above all nature's but above all essences and essences are the things that the mind lays hold of right we think in terms of finite natures circles squares lines colors things like that and none of those things apply to God so they insist that God is above those things and yet they're able to expose it why once you cross that line and you move into something that no longer has line number color why the mind is going to run aground but they don't punt to that too early and so since we've talked about the training let's use that as an example because I think it's a great one there may be a tendency in reaction to the earlier part of this conversation where we talk about analogies breaking down to say you know what every analogy breaks down what's the point let's just acknowledge it's a mystery we don't even talk about and we move on you know that's a disservice to the fathers who had their tongues ripped out or their eyes gouged out or their hands cut off in defense of these doctrines civilian ism modalism no easy anism it's an analogy when you say that God is like an actor who wears three masts you've said something analogical you've used some sort of a metaphor you've compared God to an actor and yet the fathers are insistent that that is a false analogy it's also a comparative analogical if we say that the Lord is my shepherd but that's a true analogy and and so this is where I think what we need to be very careful of is the tendency to say well because at some point these comparisons these and this analogical way of talking about God begins to break down and we reach mystery that we toss out all effort to speak intelligibly about God and it's that balancing act of realizing that not all analogies are created equally is crucial because we do need to offer the mind as much as it can be offered up to the point that we reach mystery and then we move into our you know embrace of God who is beyond our comprehension so we can speak about God analogically but we have to be very careful you need to make proper qualifications that's right let me give you the example of repentance you've got repents yeah if you understand that purely on a human level you run into some real roadblocks right well right and so you know so the key is to to remove from the analogy everything that's false right so if we associate repentance with sin right doing something wrong if we associate repentance with foolishness or folly lack of wisdom or something like that obviously those are all things that have to be removed from the analogy but obviously scripture uses it so there's something true about it and the key is what is true and what is false in the case of the doctrine of the Trinity for example there's an insistence that God is three who posses right three individuals or subjects who share a common lúcia right a nature or an essence and you know you Hank or who Passos I'm a who pasta sis you know Steve over over they're easy the process to know about students well maybe well that that's going to prove a challenge to the next part which is that we also are all human you know this but let's give Steve the benefit of the body two shears that you see a human I think so all things see it seems to be in the right fate of thing but right here if we take the three of us right we've actually identified the precise analogy that that the fathers use at Constantinople the Council of Constantinople which authored the Nicene Creed that we say today you have three individuals or three who posses three subjects we share one nature which is human but of course the fathers would say that's true all right the father is a subject the son as a subject the spirit is a subject they're not just faces they share a common nature that nature is God divinity but of course there are all sorts of things that need to be qualified just like when we say God repents right you and I are and Steve are differentiated by space right now there's spatial you know divided between us because we're finite bodies well God's not a body right the persons are not divided by some sort of you know finite spatial relationship you know we're differentiated because we have accidents of you know color in size and shape and things like that well you know we already said that that's not how they're differentiated the persons of the Trinity are differentiated because of the fact that the father is the father to the son and all that that we we already went through so those sorts of things and there's a whole host of qualifications that need to be added which go to the differences between God and creatures but that's the crucial part to understand and what's going to happen is when you add those qualifications of course reason begins to struggle because what reason does is it gets in mind a picture of something I can say circle you imagine a circle there it is we have it in our mind and so once we start to add what's called apathetic these negative statements right we've given a positive statement that the mind in Grasse three individuals one essence okay right Hank Steve Nathan okay got it and one nature human human human okay okay that's something the mind can grasp but then when we begin to add those qualifications we begin to dismantle what reason is laid hold of and that's where it struggles because it is well what do I imagine I imagine colors you know I imagine bodily you know spatial divides you know what am I supposed to imagine and the answer is that's where you move into the realm of mystery because now you've begun to see that the one you're talking about defies comprehension and the true sense of comprehension of the mind circumscribing a I mean the phrase to wrap your mind around is it's pretty good comprehension you know Greek would be paragraph though so you can circumscribe it you can draw our line around it well you can't do that with God which is why reason ends up so befuddled once you begin to add all the necessary qualifications let's apply that to the Eucharist you have Lutheran's saying with respect to the Eucharist Christ is in with and under the elements of Roman Catholics speaking of transubstantiation the Orthodox don't really explain the Eucharist they simply say that's a mystery this is the body and blood of Jesus Christ but how that can be we don't know and in fairness to Luther himself Luther appealed to the Church Fathers for his view on the Eucharist when he was accused by Zwingli of bread worship and swingley said to him how in the world can this really be the body and blood of Jesus Christ Luther said if you can explain to me how Christ can be one person with two natures I'll explain to you how Christ can really be present so there is a land of antinomy that the Eastern Church goes to when it comes to the Eucharist we believe very very firmly in the real presence of Christ in fact just for personal disclosure this was the motivating factor for me becoming with the docs I believed in the real presence of Christ of the Eucharist I believed in that because in my study of church history you find unanimity on this point there's no argumentation whatsoever before the body of Christ became divided at the table everybody believed in fact even after that up until the time of the Reformation and even after the time of the Reformation up in time swing every believed in the real presence of Christ and therefore Who am I in the 21st century to say this is merely Memorial yeah fair enough yeah there's a Lutheran theologian this is just an aside but I remember chuckling the first time I read Francis paper he was whose he said the difference between the reformed and the Lutheran's on the Eucharist is that the Lutheran's believe the Bible sure no reform listener would be pleased with but but nonetheless I admit it made me laugh but you know this is a good example in terms of you know what what defines I was asked recently there's this I periodically get theological emails I'm sure you need to try to answer whatever comes my way and one of the questions I was being asked about was pain and it's talking about pain and in a pre fallen world pain in a fully redeemed world and the person was talking about specifically just how they have much trouble they have getting their mind around the idea that you would ever have a world without pain and they went through all the you know all the important the important part that pain plays in the life of an organism right and and one of the things that I went through with them in order to answer the question I and this will be a long prelude to my answer on the Eucharist but one of the things I walked them through was I began to talk to them about this idea of metamorphosis the metamorphosis of humanity by partaking in the divine nature and of course Christ is the clearest example you get at this you know in his person you see divine life and power go out from him and it heals sick and it raises the dead you see him to five physical laws by walking on water he's you know transfigured and he beans - you know shine you know brighter than you know brighter than the Sun right here his clothes brighter than you know anyone can bleach them right those sorts of things these and and then of course post resurrection things even get weirder if that's possible where you know he can conceal his appearance you know he can open their eyes and they see who he is he disappears apparently you know finds his way into rooms that are locked you know this thinkin's be seated at the right hand of the Father stand next Paul in prison you know these very bizarre bizarre things and with this individual I also went through a number of stories of certain Saints who seemed to in their participation in the life of God display equally odd and peculiar things and the stories are too numerous to count to be honest and they go all the way up to the present but one of the reasons I raised that is I got to the point of asking a question of saying so what role does pain begin to play in the life of somebody who has put off corruption for in corruption who has put on immortality and put off death in its entirety who is no longer fully subject to physical laws you know etc so I give this whole list of questions and I asked this question submitted freely I have no idea and I have no idea because essentially what the question is asking is what role do physical laws play in the life of a person who has transcended physical laws I I don't know that transcends my erudition I have to admit and and that's where you begin to get into these areas where again because you're talking about divinity transforming humanity what are the boundary lines of that what are the laws of that if you can even use those kinds of terms anymore and I don't know but clearly that's what you're dealing with when you're dealing with the universe because you're talking about you know the son of God who has taken on our humanity and remade it and deified it and transformed it in such a way that it defies our understanding and he's telling you that he can somehow offer himself to you in the Eucharist how does he do that how does that function what does that look like I have no idea but that he can't well given other things that he's been able to do I suppose why not love it I'm wondering as you're speaking how you were able to teach in Protestant colleges like Trinity Kelvin how'd that work out how how is that possible how well that seems to be afraid nurse well you could even ask how I managed to you know teach at a place like University of Kentucky to you know my goal in whenever I taught at in Protestant schools and really whatever I teach anytime and here of course I'm showing my cards much more than I would in academic context like that my goal was always to be as objective as possible so when I would teach history of Christian thought or history of Christian dogma or something like that I would you know I would parse at the time based on church history itself the first half of the semester was devoted entirely to the first half of church history which is all pre Great Schism theology and then the second half was devoted to post Great Schism and I really at the end of the day tried to give as objective and clear an analytic and non passionate non editorial exposition of the different doctrines as possible so it didn't matter whether it was somebody that I greatly disagreed with like a guest or somebody that I greatly agree with like Gregory of Nyssa or something like that I tried to merely give the best version of the doctrine as possible make it as intelligible as possible inevitably students start to have biases towards certain things so they attack I would try to defend it against the student attacks as much as possible but inevitably what would start to emerge when I do this historical objective treatment is I would have students who begin to go into self-examination about their own theology because now for the first time they invoke for most of them you know in terms of Eastern doctrines that's the first time they've ever heard of them in terms of Catholic doctrines this is the the most intelligible you know exposition of it they've ever seen they've always heard that Catholics believe in works/righteousness but that's pretty much all they know and so they're now seeing a fully exposited system and they get the rationale for it they're seeing the Reformation in context of its Roman Catholic backdrop and so for a lot of them they would begin to scratch their head and say you know I didn't know where i stand theologically then I would have numerous numerous students come to me and say dr. Jacobs what do you think and when that happened honestly my response was always well you know well why do you care what I think and look to people who are greater than me you know go go read Thomas Aquinas for yourself and see what you think go read gregory of nyssa and see what you think but another thing that I would also do is that I would offer them a decision tree you know I would look at okay the great divide between the east and the West is you know this judicial framework courses let's call it a therapeutic framework right the emphasis on gilt and merits and future judgments and the need to remedy that versus the emphasis on death and life and the partaking of divine life and so that's the initial east-west divide you know where did where your leanings do you lean more east or west well let's say they lean east then obviously the the decision at that point is pretty clear you might want to check out orthodoxy but you know if they say Wes then it couldn't becomes the question of well okay so in terms of you know merits and demerits and the order of affections what is it right II need more Roman Catholic do you lean more Protestant okay if it's Protestant okay do you lean more Lutheran reformed or many and it remonstrants you know those sorts of things and and I would really just try to rather than tell them what they should think I would just try to give them as objective and analysis of the history of Christian doctrine as possible and let them tell me where their theological Inklings were and I would just tell them where that puts them on on the tree of you know in doctrine and let them go from there the people when they think about Roman Catholicism or maybe I should say more accurately when they think of what the doxy they think of Roman Catholicism in fact I was talking to a the son of a deacon in the Orthodox Church and I asked him why he wasn't more involved in the Orthodox Church and his response to me was very very interesting he said well you know I think if I was going to be involved in anything I'd be involved in in Roman Catholicism because really orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism very very similar I would call orthodoxy Roman Catholic light alright so that was his perception and I thought as I was listening to him that he really had no sense of the big divide between Roman Catholicism and orthodoxy is sometimes thought of as two lungs one body and the fact that perhaps there's a whole lot more correlation between Rome and Reformation than there is between Roman orthodoxy yeah I'm from a long line and the German Lutheran's who kind of sense that about well I do I will say you know to the credit of my my ancestors melanchthon right the student of Luther did try to find sanction under the Eastern bishops so had he succeeded I may have been raised german orthodox have been my story you know it would be much more boring yes but I tease my mom from time to time who will periodically dare to ask me about orthodoxy to her chagrin two of her sons had become Orthodox but all they always assured you know mom you're far more Catholic than I am which to the Lutheran I mean but there is real truth to the fact that if you really understand and I know that in some ways the the very contemporary simplified version of well Catholics believe in workers righteousness and we believe in salvation by grace through faith you know that sort of thing it tends to create a very simplistic polar divide between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism but really when you look at it in Luther's context I mean Luther is a medieval Catholic that's what he is and even though obviously he ends up espousing what you know Rome would consider a theological innovation it's still speaking the language of the Roman Church so when you look at Augustine's system right this idea that we have these inward orders of affections in the order of those affections or our love of God determine whether our deeds are meritorious before God or whether they lack merit Ardi meritorious the fact that that is a condition in which we find ourselves trapped and we need this in breaking of grace and what grace means is a fixing of our order of affections and that fixing allows us to you know do some sort of meritorious deed before God and that you know salvation has to do with the wiping away of the D merits and this accumulation of merits and things like that Luther's proposal is a hundred percent working within that framework Luther is on board with the Augustinian notion that you have these merits demerits you know order of affections he's on board with the fact that you know posts fall after the fall the will is bound it it has these inverted order of affections and it can't fix that he's on board with the idea that what you need is this prior you know it would be called prevenient grace coming in in order to fix that order of affections the proposal shifts he's even on board with the idea that there are merits and demerits and transferred merits and all that which transferred merits and all that is the basis for the system of indulgences which Luther is opposing but Luther's innovation theological innovation as far as we're almost concerned had to do with the fact that Luther insisted that even with prevenient grace we can't do meritorious deeds before God into salvation so that was a key strike against Rome that the merit that comes to us is Christ's merit imputed to us and that that the fixing of the orders affections has to do with faith in Christ as opposed to performing meritorious deeds but when you still look at the entire way the system is framed and what the discussion is it is a medieval Catholic discussion it is a thoroughly Roman Catholic discussion it's a Western discussion and that entire Augustinian framework that I just described whether you're talking about the medieval version or you're talking about Luther's you know adjustments to that or changes to that system that entire system is worn to the east and that's what's so strange is that I even though it raises my mom to tell her that she's more Catholic than I am there really is truth to that all of her assumptions about the fall about original sin about praveen Yin Grace and the work of the Holy Spirit about salvation about Christ's merits and our D merits are far more Catholic than anything that exists in my system of theology and I think that's that's the thing that is the biggest challenge to east-west dialogue is that the difficulty is that that Augustinian system those lenses are so thick and they're so second nature to folks who have been raised within a Western context they don't even know they're there and so to have a real dialogue requires digging beneath those and exposing that those lenses are on which is a very difficult thing I mean I'm sure Hank you've probably experienced it that maybe people come up to you and say so Hank your Orthodox so which of these four views is the Orthodox view drop is all four views are an outgrowth of you know Western augustinianism yeah you know that raises another issue I keep this conversation going on forever I mean it really raises the issue of paradigms the fact that paradigms only allow you to see what the particular paradigm you're ensconced in allows you to see and the fact that we don't think as much about our paradigms as we think with our paradigms and and how do you break through that logjam I mean I have people coming into me all the time I just participated in memorial for the editor-in-chief of the Christian research journal Eliot Miller who died April 11th this year 2018 and you know at that memorial I had people coming up to me and saying you know how can you be Orthodox or that actually Belize the minute they were positing their questions I knew that they were ensconce in a linguistic Hall of Mirrors or a psycho epistemological cocoon and I couldn't get them out of that cocoon in any effective way at least not very quickly without having a very very in-depth discussion and so I just had to sort of deflect the question that simply wasn't time it wasn't the time or the place it wasn't that I didn't want to discuss this it's just that I couldn't in that particular context but how do you break through those barriers it seems so difficult I've certainly encountered that since being chris mated myself well I do think it's very difficult in our sound by culture alright it's not conducive to sound bites to deal with with those sorts of issues by the way I used to love doing secular television you know Larry King or or Peter Jennings sort because you could have an hour to explicate something a particular subject now it's two minutes and you're onto something else yeah you never really get a chance to ponder something yeah yeah if you haven't guessed and probably I'm not the right guy for uh for thirty Seconds to my shave right there's an art to that and and I am NOT an artist in that sense but but how I've typically broken through that paradigm issue is first of all you have to acknowledge this is a big issue right this is not a sound bite culture if you what you're looking for is you know you know we hold to view a out of you know a through D in your for views book right you know that's not it and I think the approach I've always gone is church history is so by x+ you know Eastern Christianity developed in these ways and these were the key markers that were placed in terms of its doctrinal commitments and these are the key assumptions and all that and just letting that be a historical fact and then introducing the evolution of the Western doctrines it's almost as if that begins to illuminate the lenses and I think that's a crucial way of doing it because the fact of the matter is the lenses can be so thick the paradigm can be so pervasive that it's a presumption that what I see in this passage in the Bible just is what it says and you must be blind if you don't see it not ever realizing that I might carry you know Augustine is reading this with me right and I've done that with you know whenever I've been in classes that I'm about to introduce Augustine of Hippo I always explain to my students I say look you have been influenced by a Gustin whether you know it or not he is somewhere sitting there in the back of your mind he has had an impact on you and it's inevitable and that's why I think the the historical you know expositing of doctrinal development is key because without doing that and you're not really getting to the real issue you're letting the paradigm just sit there you're letting the lenses sit there and and you're not bringing them to light and the way they're coloring the conversation so I had about two or three pages in mind of questions that I wanted to discuss with you and I haven't even gotten to those so and at this point we've already been talking for a hundred minutes but I have to talk about one more thing before we wrap this up and yeah well hopefully hopefully we'll get many more opportunities to do this but look the spiritual gymnasium I want close with the importance of the church not me and my Bible not rugged individualism but the fact that it is in the context of the church and I prefer calling the church of spiritual gymnasium where you receive the graces whereby we can become by grace what God is by nature we can't become what God is by nature but we can receive the graces by which we can become partakers of the divine nature as Peter put it that spiritual gymnasium has become axiomatic in my life and I have to confess as a Christian leader for many many years you can get lifted out of the real Christian world and think you're above it all and maybe I know more than the pastor does and therefore what's the sense in me going to church where as an orthodoxy it is absolutely crucial that I am in church every single Lord's Day because I'm receiving the Eucharist it is because it's within the context of the church you give alms it is within the context of the church that I make confession it is within the context of the church that I am receiving graces by which I am progressively being transformed and I can't do it outside the context of the church yeah well can I speak in an overtly Orthodox manner and answer that question because though you weren't good as if I weren't already doing that I suppose so let me say a word just about anthropology right what we are so humanity one of the things you find in the Eastern Fathers is they agree with eres no man is a rational animal that's what we are right we have an animal nature but we also have this rational spirit which is this icon of God right reason freewill that differentiates us from the rest of the animal kingdom and in that the presumption they have is that that icon of God the fact that we are an icon of God is what makes it possible to for us to participate in God in a way that a dog can't in a way that a plant can't in a way that a rock can't and yet in the fall of humanity what happened was that icon was subjugated to the animal nature it was was made subordinate to it the higher thing was subjugated to the lower things and that's what we experienced death into the world so that we become subject to the roughness of animal life to death and to dying to decay and mortality that is not supposed to befall humanity because we're made for more than that and and the question becomes you know gregory of nyssa when he expose it's the the lost coin you know there's the lost sheep and then there's this lost coin gregory of nyssa just identifies that parable with the lost coin where the coin gets lost in the house and and the woman cleans the house and she discovers the coin and she celebrates her that coin he he sees as humanity is the house and that coin is the icon of God that's been buried under the animal nature and the passions to which they have been subjugated and that Christianity and the entire life of faith is the cleaning of the house and the recovery of that coin and this is where there are a couple of questions the one is how do we clean the house and unearth that coin how do we put things back right you know if if the icon of God has been subjugated to the lower animal nature and subject death and dying how do we begin to address that and then the second question is how do we raise that icon back to its archetype to God and there are really three components of this according to the eastern fathers the cleaning of the house is what we do when the Spirit of God teaches us to say no to the passions right that's what Paul tells us the Spirit of God does and these animal passions are anything from you no less you know disagreed governance wrath all these sorts of things they declined us to any number of things but the eastern fathers suggest that wouldn't be fast when we put to practice these these exercises spiritual escy --ss as they use which is exercise right it's a greek for exercise when we do spiritual exercises practicing saying no to the passions which fasting is one good example of doing that but in any number of ways in which we put to death the flesh that is the cleaning of the house it gives the icon of God a chance to shine forth that's the preparatory work that's the cleansing of the vessel to make you worthy of God and then how do you raise that icon up to God well you do it through prayer that prayer is the point at which the mind the rational spirit begins to lift itself up out of worldly concerns to its archetype and set itself on that and the third component is of course the life-giving sacraments so it is through our union with Christ and the imbibe Avene life that is made available to us through him and through His Holy Spirit and that the lifting up of our mind to God begins to have the effect of allowing us to participate and partake in the divine nature and be energized by him the other way I mentioned confession confession is a sacrament within orthodoxy in much of the evangelical community maybe I need to qualify that I don't know how much but there certainly is a big move within evangelicalism apologists popular TV preachers radio preachers that said to talk about the fact that we ought not to confess that God has already forgiven us and to confess our sins is tantamount to spitting in the eye of God and if you bring up the Lord's Prayer with expected confessions well that's all covenant in orthodoxy confession is a sacrament it is a sacred sacrament that you participate in and it's not confessing maybe autumn contextualizes is not confessing to a priest but a priest is a witness of that confession and there's a therapeutic aspect to this sacrament yes absolutely in fact the words of the priests are I am a lowly and unworthy servant right like you know he tells you to confess to God and tells he's you know just a lowly unworthy witness of your confession and so even though he pronounces the forgiveness of God continue and talks about your sins being carried away and he's using biblical language and all this he is very clearly identifying himself not as the one to whom you are confessing it is it is God himself to him you're confessing and this is where I can't help but think of first job right where we're we're assured of forgiveness with with the confession of our sins and of course you mentioned the Lord's Prayer as well and the Lord's Prayer is very clearly uninsurance well I should say that the Lord's Prayer is more strongly a reminder that we are to not just request forgiveness but also forgive our own debtors and of course it comes with a very sobering story about the unmerciful servant but indeed you know that I don't know how your experience with confession has been you know but my own experience is that this is this is an extremely liberating thing to be able to actually go and confess your sins with an appointed witness there who pronounces the forgiveness of God and the carrying away of your sins is something that I would never want that to be exercised for my life yes not as liberating was transformational the Christian researcher journal an award-winning magazine I don't any Christian home should be without Nathan has written an article for the current edition of the Christian research journal and you can subscribe to the Christian research journal on the web equipped or you can write me at box 8500 Charlotte North Carolina a zip code to a 271 the article understanding Nicene trinitarianism I can't get into the details but I will tell you it is one of the most exquisite articles we have ever presented in the Christian research journal I absolutely loved reading this article I know that it will be transformational for you as well subscribe to the Christian research journal you can do that on the web again at equipped org and as I said at the opening of this podcast you can have a part in making sure that these kinds of discussions which are becoming more and more rare in the Christian world are heard by people all over the globe and you can do that by going to iTunes and giving us a 5 star rating obviously you have to feel led to give a 5 star rating it's a great commendation but many many people are doing and they're doing that because Hank unplug is truly bringing some of the most interesting inspirational informative people on the planet directly to your ears to your earbuds so again go to iTunes give us a five star rating but also as you listen to these conversations and as you are equipped transform by the conversations as you put the conversations into practice in your own life tell people about the Hank unplug podcast and you'll be making a difference in that way as well as the the feathers from the pillow spread all over the world and make a difference in the lives of people not just for time but for eternity as you stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us in the battle for life and truth we're at the end of this podcast and I just scratched the surface and quite frankly I was so intrigued with the conversation myself that I wanted to go on and on and on but I also have to do a Bible answer in broadcast in a few moments so we're gonna wrap up this podcast again my thanks Nathan for just the quiet spirit in which you answer the questions and also the years and years of study that have facilitated your being able to give us these quality answers thank you thank you thank you and again the Hank unplugged podcast it is available in many many different episodes you can find them on the web but equipped org thanks for tuning in thanks for being a fly on the wall for this discussion we'll have many many more as the years continue and that by might nor by power but by his spirit again thanks for tuning in look forward to seeing you next time on hank unplugged [Applause]

Channel: Bible Answer Man

Views: 9,436

Rating: 4.8666668 out of 5

Keywords: Podcast, Apologetics, Hank Unplugged Podcast, Bible Answer Man, Bible, Christian Research Institute, CRI, Hank Hanegraaff, Christ, Christian, Christianity, God, Gospel, Jesus, Scripture, Truth, Nathan Jacobs, Eastern Orthodox, Orthodoxy, Theology, Church History, Early Church Fathers, Ecumenical Councils, Trinity, Trinitarianism, Creation, Causation, Mystery, Eucharist, Academics, Philosophy

Id: oJHCg8xt_l8

Length: 108min 52sec (6532 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 10 2018