DEBATE! Protestant Justification is Nominalism? Jay Dyer Vs TheBonifaceGroup -MDD

Summary

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Jay'sAnalysis | Jay Dyer vs. TheBonifaceGroup: "Is Protestant Justification Nominalism?" (August 5, 2026)

Episode Overview

This episode features a formal debate hosted by Modern Day Debates ("Big Mike") between Jay Dyer (Eastern Orthodox apologist) and Trent from TheBonifaceGroup (Lutheran, representing the Protestant/Lutheran position). The topic centers on whether the Protestant doctrine of justification is rooted in nominalism, exploring historical, philosophical, and theological dimensions. The debate delves into Martin Luther's influences, the nature of justification, theological voluntarism, the question of alien righteousness, and fundamental differences between Orthodox and Lutheran soteriology.

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Main Themes and Structure

• Primary Theme: Is the Protestant (especially Lutheran) understanding of justification best characterized as stemming from nominalism? What are its metaphysical and scriptural underpinnings?
• Format: Opening statements, rebuttals, open dialogue, audience Q&A, and closing statements.
• Tone: Spirited, at times combative, but largely focused on doctrine and historical sources.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Framing the Debate: What is Nominalism? (05:18–07:00)

• Both debaters clarify that neither considers Protestant justification "mere" nominalism, but seek to explore the relationship between them.
• Trent: Challenges the common definition of nominalism, arguing it’s often mischaracterized and not fundamentally relevant to Reformation theology.
• Jay Dyer: Affirms the standard philosophical definition—that nominalism denies universals/essences, “all chairs have in common that they are chairs” only as linguistic classification, not ontological reality.

Notable Quotes:

• Jay Dyer: “[Nominalism is] a denial of universals… a denial of the existence of such entities in some abstract conceptual way. They could be purely conceptual and thus not actually real.” (17:26)

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2. Lutheran Opening: Luther’s Philosophy, Sources of Authority, and Soteriology (06:59–17:16)

• Trent:
  • Emphasizes he is Lutheran, not spokesperson for all Protestants.
  • Argues Luther was not a systematic philosopher, but shaped by Scripture as principium, using reason in a ministerial rather than magisterial role.
  • Asserts the debate about nominalism/realism is a "family fight among conceptualists," not a chasm directly tied to Protestant theology.
  • Claims that justification as a doctrine—believing God accounts man righteous by faith—is neither “novel” nor the result of nominalist metaphysics, but rooted in patristic theology.

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3. Orthodox Opening: Luther’s Nominalist Roots and Theological Implications (17:21–31:02)

• Jay Dyer:
  • Cites philosophical dictionaries and Protestant scholars like Heiko Oberman and Alister McGrath to link Luther’s theology to his nominalist and voluntarist intellectual context.
  • Highlights Luther’s rejection of “infused righteousness” and adoption of “alien righteousness”—a forensic, legal change based on God's declarative power, rather than transformation of the person.
  • Notes problematic implications of voluntarism (God’s omnipotence overriding any natural or moral order) and “transactional” model of atonement: Christ is “damned” in the place of sinners, a doctrine not found in earlier Christian thought.
  • Claims this results in a rupture from the patristic-philosophical consensus, especially the efficacy of God’s word/declaration: “If God declares a person righteous, they cannot still be filthy menstrual rags in their inner disposition.” (29:41)

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4. Lutheran Rebuttal: Confessions, Clarity, and Alien Righteousness (31:18–37:28)

• Trent:
  • Grounds doctrine in the Lutheran Confessions (especially Book of Concord, Small Catechism, Large Catechism, and Smalcald Articles).
  • Reads articles stating that God creates a “new and clean heart” and regards man as righteous “for Christ’s sake,” but this is accompanied by regeneration, renewal, and the demand for good works to follow faith.
  • Stresses this is “a very Pauline statement”—not a random legal fiction, but a biblical soteriology.

Notable Quotes:

• Trent: “If good works do not follow faith, faith is false and not true. … this is simply a rephrasing of Romans 4.” (36:05–37:28)

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5. Open Dialogue: Nature of Justification, Grace, and Incipient Righteousness (43:16–71:50+)

Key Questions Explored:

• Link Between Nominalism and Justification:

  • Jay presses that Luther’s view allows God to “declare” something to be what it is not—a notion foreign to patristic realism.
  • Trent counters that “alien righteousness” is Pauline (Phil 3), not a metaphysical hypothesis, and the “transactional” language is often polemical or rhetorical.

• Infused vs. Imputed Righteousness:

  • Jay: Orthodox view is that God’s declaration causes what it says—it is creative and efficacious, not merely legal.
  • Trent: Lutheranism holds that real regeneration and a new heart are given, but the “basis of declaration” is in being in Christ, not intrinsic moral purity.

  Jay Dyer: “If God declares a person righteous, they cannot still be filthy menstrual rags in their inner interior disposition.” (29:41 and repeated in dialogue)

  Trent: “We do not believe that God's declaration of not guilty just regenerates on contact. … The old Adam persists, that the flesh persists, but it's not of man's essence.” (53:19–53:24)

• Participation in Divine Life:

  • Jay probes whether Lutherans believe in uncreated grace (the Orthodox energy of God) or merely created effects; Trent affirms a "mystical union" but resists the technical framework of the essence-energies distinction.
  • When pressed, Trent agrees that “God's glory is not a creature” and that believers “partake of the divine nature,” while insisting this is left mysterious in Lutheran theology.

  Jay Dyer: “We are being glorified in this life. … Is that uncreated glory?”
  Trent: “I don't believe that God's glory is a creature, no.” (63:21–63:31)

• Historical Precedent:

  • Jay repeatedly challenges Trent to locate “imputational” or “alien” righteousness prior to Luther. Trent mentions Augustine, Ambrose, Chrysostom, but Jay notes these teach infused righteousness, not imputation.

  Jay Dyer: “Could you give an example of a person...that taught a purely legal, penal, substitutionary justification prior to Luther?”
  Trent: [Admits not in full, claims ambiguity in Father’s vocabulary, references Augustine’s antipelagian works.] (73:03–74:12)

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6. The Crucifixion, Atonement, and the "Damnation" of Christ (37:41–92:59)

• Jay highlights classic Lutheran/Reformed teaching (citing Luther specifically) that Christ was forsaken “as damned” on the cross—a doctrine he claims is both anti-Trinitarian and unprecedented before the Reformation.

• Trent nuances this as “rhetorical,” not formal doctrine: “Not that [Jesus] is damned … What the formula of Concord teaches … is what Luther taught as well.” (175:52) He urges reference to careful confessional definitions and not polemics.

• Jay: Asserts that Lutheran and Reformed confessions/many scholars do teach Christ’s damnation, generating significant theological problems.

  Jay Dyer: “So these, these are statements from Luther himself… I can give you 10 more from John Calvin, John Wycliffe, John Owen. … And it is an anti-trinitarian ridiculous doctrine. And it's really the hinge of penal substitutionary atonement.” (96:47–99:00)

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7. Authority, Scripture, and Tradition (116:13–131:37)

• Trent: Grounds ultimate authority in Christ, but specifically upholds sola scriptura as the sufficient and transparent rule—citing Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, and confessional Lutheran writings.

• Jay: Argues that patristic statements about Scripture are not evidence for sola scriptura and that tradition is equally assumed by the Fathers.

  Trent: “Scripture is the rule and norm of every doctrine. Upon that we are obliged to fix our eyes, and we approve only whatever can be brought into harmony with the intent of these writings.” (128:38–131:11)

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8. The Canon and Prayers for the Dead (116:13–124:35)

• Jay notes the universal inclusion of the deuterocanonical/apocryphal books in early canonical lists and their use for doctrine (including prayers for the dead).
• Trent affirms Lutherans kept the Deutero-canon in a secondary way and do not forbid prayers for the dead, but downplay their “major contention.”

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9. On Confessional Integrity and Doctrinal Change (124:35–126:57)

• Jay critiques the idea of centering a church around a single reformer whose doctrines changed over time, comparing it to papalism.
• Trent: Acknowledges the name “Lutheran” was not chosen by Luther and that confessions reflect controverted matters of their day, not the fullness of faith.

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10. Political Power and Religious Violence (153:32–171:21)

• Extensive, sometimes tongue-in-cheek discussion of whether Protestant/Lutheran principles (or personalities) would justify violence against "heretics" (Orthodox, Baptists, etc.).
• Jay repeatedly challenges Trent on whether such violence is justified in principle; Trent demurs, stressing weighty deliberation and historical specificity.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jay Dyer: “If God declares a person righteous, they cannot still be filthy menstrual rags in their inner interior disposition. They have to actually be righteous because God's word is efficacious...” (29:41)
• Trent: “We do not believe that God's declaration of not guilty just regenerates on contact. … The old Adam persists, that the flesh persists, but it's not of man's essence.” (53:19)
• Jay Dyer: “There is nobody prior to Martin Luther that had the notion of a purely forensic dispositional change in God's attitude solely on the basis of justification by faith alone or penal substitute atonement.” (24:59)
• Trent: “We say, besides, that if good works do not follow faith, faith is false and not true. And in speaking this, I mean, this is a very Pauline statement.” (36:05)
• Jay Dyer: “Can you ever just say yeah, just unalive. … The audience thinks that you are doing that.” (169:36)
• Trent: "Humility before one’s maker and before one’s fellow Christians … without humbleness … I don’t believe the love of God would be in a man.” (156:54)

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Important Timestamps

• Prompt clarification and intro – 05:18–06:44
• Trent's Opening Statement – 06:59–17:16
• Jay Dyer's Opening Statement – 17:21–31:02
• Key summary on alien righteousness – 37:41–41:19
• Efficacy of God's declaration, infused righteousness – 53:15–54:35
• Partaking of Divine Nature; essence/energy discussion – 59:55–66:38
• Luther on the damnation of Christ – 74:06–77:35
• Authority, Scripture, and Tradition – 116:13–131:37
• Confessional Integrity – 124:35–126:57
• Political Power and Religious Violence – 153:32–171:21
• Closing Statements – 96:47–103:06

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Key Takeaways

• Luther's Nominalism? Jay presents a strong historical-philosophical case for nominalist and voluntarist influence on Luther, linking this to forensic justification and alien righteousness. Trent contends Luther is misunderstood: his theology is Scripture-driven and the Lutheran Confessions clarify doctrine beyond the polemics of individual statements.
• Forensic vs. Infused Righteousness: Jay sees Orthodox (and historical patristic) teaching as synergistic, transformative, and rooted in real participation in God’s uncreated grace; Trent acknowledges differences but maintains Lutheranism teaches real regeneration alongside forensic justification.
• Atonement and the "Damnation" of Christ: Jay highlights this as a distinctive, problematic innovation; Trent calls for reading such statements rhetorically, emphasizing confessional clarity.
• Scripture and Tradition: Dissent persists on the source and certainty of doctrinal authority, with Orthodox insisting on the united authority of councils, tradition, and Scripture; Lutheran position remains sola scriptura but with awareness of the church’s collective discernment.
• Political Claims: Jay presses the historical consequences of Reformation schism; Trent stresses the need for prudence and historical context, ultimately distancing himself from calls for violence or suppression of dissent.

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Summary

The conversation remains deeply rooted in both historical sources and theological distinctions, with Jay emphasizing the philosophical and metaphysical problems arising from Luther’s innovations, and Trent defending the continuity of Lutheran theology with both Scripture and the Fathers—albeit with evolving articulation. Tensions remain highest around the nature of justification, the reality/effect of God’s declarative word, and how best to read both history and Scripture.

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This summary reflects the principal arguments, exchanges, and noteworthy moments from the debate, equipped with timestamps for reference, provided in the language and spirit of the event.

Transcript

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[Trent from Boniface Group]

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[Jay Dyer]

J.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

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[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, guys, welcome back to modern day debates. I'm your host, Big Mike, and we got Jay Dyer here and Trent from the Boniface Group. We are starting on time and today it's going to be obviously Eastern Orthodox versus Protestant. The prompt that we got here that These gentlemen both agreed to is. Is the Protestant doctrine of justification mere nominalism. So without further ado, I just want to.

[Jay Dyer]

Well, go ahead. That's a little bit different. So the, the prompt that I sent was justification and nominalism, Protestantism versus orthodoxy. So the only reason I'm saying.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Totally fair. Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

The only reason I'm saying that's just because I wouldn't say that his position is mere nominalism, and I don't think he would say that either. So.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay.

[Jay Dyer]

I just didn't want it to be unclear that I'm attributing him to him a position that he may not.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Sure. I'm just taking that down. You said justification anomaly. I'll get the title change.

[Jay Dyer]

I mean, we, I'm flexible. We can work it however we want.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

But my idea that framing is perfectly acceptable to me. What he just said.

[Jay Dyer]

So justification and nominalism and then a colon, Protestantism versus Orthodoxy.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

That makes it a little bit more back and forth for sure.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, so we'll get started. Jay, I'm not sure if you saw my email in regards to your typical request for the format being the same as we normally do it. Opening statement.

[Jay Dyer]

I don't care how we do it,

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

but just wanted to make sure if you were cool with us adding the 5 minute rebuttals. 2 to 5 minute rebuttals after the openings. Sure.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Cool.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, so then we'll get started. Any of you gentlemen want to take the lead on this?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I will.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay, well, we'll start your five minute. You can go five, ten. You don't need the whole ten, obviously, but that's the normal thing. Five, ten, and then I'll start it when you start talking.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

All right, sounds good. Let's see. Yeah, it's. It's an honor to be on. I'm new to the online debate format. It's a little bit out of my day to day work and hobbies, but it was an opportunity that I thought would be worthwhile. A little surprised to see a larger account show up in my mentions. I work for a small Lutheran missionary society based in Idaho and I think I have like 800 followers. So when I saw Jay show up my mentions in response to post of mine regarding recent interview on Tucker, congratulations for that. I thought, well, you know, this would probably be a worthwhile conversation. So just to use that kind of simple framing that this originated with, I, like many of our guys, enjoyed seeing Jay on Tucker Carlson's program. And I immediately though took some issue with some of the assertions made regarding justification and what is putatively the Protestant position on justification. Now I have to qualify things somewhat. I am perhaps not every Protestant's choice for their representative tonight. I am an old Lutheran. I'm not. And I can't claim to speak for mere Protestantism, nor for everything that flies under the banner of Protestantism. Lutheranism can certainly claim to be historically magisterial, in a sense, ever since the Dietish fire regarding having claimed to the name Protestant. But I don't want to go too far down that garden path. So I'll just get right down to what I found to be dubious and in fact incorrect regarding the assertions regarding Luther, his personal theology, and then also how that in fact formed a Protestant doctrine and confession of justification. It began, and I'll just quote briefly from the transcript, with the assertion on J's part that nominalism is the idea that there are only names to things and not essences. There's no human nature, there's no dog nature. When we talk about natures or classes or sets of things, we're not giving an ontological or metaphysical status under nominalism, and we're just simply classing things together linguistically in a set and predicates that Occam also goes up against this idea of universals. He says that there's no such thing as a universal class or essence of a thing. So my first contention is a relatively minor one, because I don't think it's actually entirely germane to the question, because I'd rather actually accept Jay's definition of nominalism. But for the record, it should be noted that that isn't really what nominalism is. That's what Richard Weaver and Brad Gregory say nominalism is. But that's not really the difference between nominalism and realism. The difference is not that realism affirms that universals have extra mental existence, and nominalism denies this. If that were so, like Aquinas would count as a nominalist. It would actually kind of be unclear if there's ever been a realist by that standard. Because really what you have in the nominalist versus realist debate is it's actually not a nominalist versus realist debate. It's a family fight among conceptualists. But the reason why I don't think this is particularly germane to the question of Protestantism is that even if we were to accept the so we say the popular conception of nominalism advanced by Weaver and others, that it's just a merely sort of random linguistic classing of things together, which actually have no ontological identity with one another. Even if we were to do that and use what I would claim is not a correct definition of nominalism, that does not describe what Luther believed as the arch theologian of the Reformation regarding what justification is. Nor is it really. Nor does, I think, the mere, you know, the mere declaration of God based on nothing, in fact, you know, being the thing which by which man is reckoned righteous. I'm not sure that actually describes anything any Protestant actually believes, so possibly two problems there, but I thought I looked so cute.

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[Trent from Boniface Group]

And again, I can't defend absolutely everything that every Protestant says. And perhaps that would be, you know, pointed to as evidence of, you know, an inherent disunity, a fractured nature of Protestantism per se, maybe. So I represent, obviously my own tradition. Think that much of what other Protestants believe is implicit in it. But it would bear mentioning that there's not a monolithic perspective on this, even in the east, contrary to the way it's presented in a lot of contemporary settings these days. So my challenge is simply, I mean, a minor challenge which I don't think is most pertinent to the real question, namely, that of what the essence of Reformation theology is, but is that that's not really what nominalism is. But secondly, that Luther wasn't really a nominalist. And the reason there is that Luther wasn't really a philosopher. And that isn't to say that Luther didn't understand philosophy, didn't learn philosophy, didn't learn from nominalist via moderna scholars at the University of Erfurt, because he did. But Luther was not a philosopher because he did not proceed intellectually from. From the metaphysics of. From metaphysics as his principium for the articulation of his theology. He proceeded from Scripture. It doesn't mean that a coherent metaphysics has no bearing or is not implicit in what he has to say and what he predicates, but it does mean that, well, in this sense, he's actually very patristic. When you look at the Church Fathers and the medieval teachers of the Church on their better days, you're not dealing with men who view necessarily because some of them did a fully developed system of philosophy as being prior to all biblical theology and all truly Christian theology. You're looking at men who understood reason to be something that served in a ministerial role, not a magisterial one, in the discernment of these questions applied to the principium of the Scriptures. And the Church Fathers themselves understood their work in this way. They didn't see themselves as the arbiter of the grand interpretive tradition, without which Scripture was a closed book and, you know, meant nothing. They understood themselves to be witnesses to the. To the. To the manifestly clear Scriptures in their testimony, in a matter of grammar, grammatical predication, you know, in ordinary human speech and language regarding what the righteousness of God is and on what basis God regards us as righteous and reckons us as children. So the. I don't know if I need to summarize that. I'll probably just run out of time if I try. But Occam, not really a nominalist in the sense that it was defined. He's a conceptualist via moderna, via antiqua, not really a massive sea change, kind of a family fight, not really even relevant to the question of the origins of what Luther Teaches, which is not his invention, you know, not. Not a novelty by any means. So I see the remainder of my time.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, that was eight minutes, Jay, whenever you're ready, we'll turn it over to you.

[Jay Dyer]

And what is the. Is it a 10 minute opening or what?

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Five to 10, whatever you need.

[Jay Dyer]

I'll probably do 10 because I have quite a few bits of information here, so. Okay, appreciate that. Some of that I agreed with. I certainly understand that Martin Luther was not first and foremost coming at this from some metaphysical assumption or position. However, I think it's inescapable that Luther's teaching upbringing and his influences were nominalist in their ethos. And those do affect how he came to this theology as much as Luther would, I'm sure, try to think, or Lutherans or Protestants would like to think that this is a patristic and biblical idea. Now, first point, he said that I didn't define nominalism correctly. You could look at the Stanford University or Stanford Edu Classic online philosophical reference and the way they begin the definition is exactly the way that I described it. First of all, it's a denial of universals. It's a denial of the existence of such entities in some abstract conceptual way. They could be purely conceptual and thus not actually real. So it's a universal question, a question of universals and essences, whether they have an ontological status or not. And then also the second definition listed is nominalism is also about abstract entities. So it's both of those things. You could also look at the Oxford Dictionary philosophy. It defines nominalism exactly as I said, the view that things are denominated by the same term share nothing exactly accept that fact. All chairs have in common that they are chairs. This is usually associated with the thought that everything that exists is a particular and thus there are no universals. Our common classifications are merely a breath of the voice. Nominalism was suggested by Boethius and of course was developed by William of Ockham. So I don't think anything that I said was incorrect just in terms of basic ideas of what nominalism is. Now in terms of Luther, it's interesting because modern Protestant scholars, be they Heiko Obermann of the Lutheran tradition or Alistair McGrath of the. I think he's Anglican tradition, particularly what influenced Luther as my opponent referenced, was a time period when he was at Erfurt, but particularly Gabriel Biles idea of the pact. Now Luther will eventually reject this view, but what's interesting is that the reason that he rejects Gabriel Bile's idea that God has a pact with himself that he then binds himself to to have this relationship of dispositional change in terms of righteousness, as described on page 66 of Alistair McGrath's book. This is the influence of the new meaning of righteousness here. And this is why this is really important, because it's particularly where Martin Luther will depart from all of the consensus prior to that. So whether it's the patristic period or whether it's the medieval Augustinian synthesis, the medieval doctrine justification is absolutely, as McGrath notes, dominated by the Augustinian notion of infused righteousness. Luther reproduces the key aspects of Bayle's understanding of the righteousness of God to be divine equity, which looks solely to man's merits determining the reward within this framework established by the covenant. The covenant here means God's pact with himself. As Luther's theology progresses, there are certain things that he does later on shed. He thinks eventually that the via moderna, the Occam types, the Gabriel Bile types, they were too Pelagian, they had taints of Pelagian and Semi Pelagianism. And so he wanted to go further into an Augustinian position. But I want to note that another element that I think is perhaps present is the idea of theological voluntarism, or the result of confusing and collapsing the two modes of the way that Lutherans and perhaps even other Scholastics speak of God's relationship to the created order and God's relationship within himself. So when you collapse these two modes in this schema, what you end up getting is on the one hand, a I'll read what it says. You have the potentia de absoluta, which is the absolute power of God subject to only the law of non contradiction. This leaves the actually chosen order out of consideration. This is set against the potentia de ordinata, that is the ordained power of God established by God in relation to ad extra, the created order. However, in this tradition, there is absolutely no real distinction between the ordained power and the absolute power. So because of absolute divine simplicity, another position that Martin Luther carries over from the Augustinian and Latin papal tradition, you have a multitude of problems here, one of which is not just William of Occam's ultimately Thomistic sort of, excuse me, William of Occam's absolute divine simplicity position that you can collapse, add extra attributes of God into the divine essence, and thus we don't know what divine the divine attributes actually are. That's an Occamous position. And if Luther has that same presupposition about theological volunteerism, which is why, for example, I'm going from memory here, I haven't looked at Luther in many years. But you know, Luther will say things like, well, the entire body and soul of Christ descended into Hades. And the question at that, and that's in the Lutheran Book of Concord, the question is, well, how would he take his body into Hades? It would have to be a soul because his body was in the tomb. And Luther said, well, the body can take on these attributes that are divine attributes, for example, omnipresence. You'll recall that Luther argued similarly about consubstantiation, that perhaps it's possible that the human nature of Christ takes on omnipresence and that's how consubstantiation, or the idea that his human nature is also everywhere present. So these are some oddities, but what makes Luther able to make that move? Well, it's the alchemist idea of theological voluntarism. We've probably heard of the idea that you could have in the Middle Ages, these obscure debates about how many angels could dance on the pin of a head four minutes ahead of a pin. Excuse me, say what?

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Four minutes.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, that debate isn't completely worthless, but it's actually intended to show that could God contradict certain things, like the way, the order that he set up for the natural world, could he, for example, damn all of the saints once they've been saved. Right? That's a classic alchemist style debate that was had in the Middle Ages. But none of those things really.

[Skin Queries Host]

I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a cute outfit and this girl comes up to me, just sits next to me telling me, oh, hey girl, I see your skin. I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling so just like distraught and like robbed of my time. When I finally freeze myself of that conversation. The lights were coming on and the party was over. It felt like I had a sticker on my forehead that said she has eczema.

[Skin Queries Narrator]

We've all been there, wanting to go out feeling cute, forgetting about all your problems and just existing in the present with joy. But when you live with a visible skin condition, that can be a lot harder than it needs to be. This is Skin Queries. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that make feel understood.

[Jay Dyer]

Makes sense unless we understand Luther's assumption of theological volunteerism that appears to be coming from this nominalist tradition. Luther, towards the end of his life, as far as I've understood, did still retain an overall view of nominalism. In fact, in the Gabriel Bile assessment, excuse me, in the Heiko Oberman assessment of the entire relationship of Bile to the Lutheran tradition, particularly to Lutheran, there's a direct connect between Bayle to Brassican to Melanchthon, and there's a direct connect between Jean Garcon and Bayle to Martin Luther. So we've got multiple schools and trends that influence Martin Luther. And in fact, there's an entire chapter at the end of the book. That it's not doubted that Luther was heavily influenced by nominalism doesn't mean he accepted every position, but rather that Luther was actually a mystic, very influenced by Jean Garcon, who included and combined nominalism with mysticism into one. Now, as McGrath notes in his treatise, very famous treatise on Justification, there is nobody prior to Martin Luther that had the notion of a purely forensic dispositional change in God's attitude solely on the basis of justification by faith alone or penal substitutary atonement. In fact, Luther himself in many places claimed that the real basis for this transaction was because the Father damned Christ in Christ dying on the cross. So you have this transactional model of damnation that Christ actually underwent full damnation, and that also incurred somehow in his body going into Hades, according to Luther, which is insane. But later Lutherans actually didn't accept that position, ironically. So later Lutherans actually rejected quite a bit of what Luther himself taught, double predestination, et cetera. I would also note that if we get into the Scriptures, not only is it not true that righteousness and justification are merely legal states, if this nominalist idea of something being called what it's not didn't exist in the ancient and medieval world, then it's absolutely impossible that the New Testament or the Old Testament or the Church Fathers actually taught this. For example, in Psalm 17:3 we read that David says he was righteous and did not have sin in his heart. In Psalm 18, he notes that he is righteous before God and had not done anything wrong. Now, that doesn't mean he's never sinned, but there are times when David could genuinely say, I have been righteous and I've not done anything wrong. Even in the Abrahamic covenant. We read in Genesis 17 that circumcision is necessary as part of the obedience to that Covenant. In Genesis 18 we read something very similar. Genesis 26 we read that Abraham, God says to Isaac, Abraham kept all of my statutes, my ordinances, and my commandments. So there was also obedience that was part of the covenantal structure, even of the supposed covenant of grace. I know that he's not a Calvinist. But even Lutherans would like to use the Abrahamic covenant as a model of it being one sided at certain cases, particularly in Luther himself in his commentary on Galatians. You'll notice in Luke 1:6, this is Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous before God, blameless having kept the law. John 1:47, Jesus says, Behold Nathaniel, an Israelite in whom there is no guile. So how is it the case that we have Luther on the end saying that the will of man is a. A it's enslaved to the God, to God or the devil, whoever is writing it. This radical view of the denial of free will and his work, bondage of the will, read that as well. We have, for example, obedience is better than sacrifice. 1st Samuel 15:22. So in other words, it's possible to actually obey. And even in the Old Testament, the ceremonial laws were not as important as obedience to the moral commands. And this is why we read in Galatians 5 that the only faith according to Paul, Galatians 5:6 that counts is faith working by love. That's what reconciles Paul and James. So not only is there no basis for a purely imputational, legal alien righteousness that his tradition is founded upon, that is the unique idea of Luther. According to both of the Lutheran and Protestant scholars I have with me here today. It's actually nowhere in the New Testament because when God speaks, it is efficacious. In John 5, Jesus says that when God speaks, all the dead will rise. We read elsewhere that when God spoke at the beginning, the world was created. If God declares a person righteous, they cannot still be filthy menstrual rags in their inner interior disposition. They have to actually be righteous because God's word is efficacious and he believes in baptism.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

11:15. I let you go a little over since he seated his time, if you

[Jay Dyer]

want another 30, 45 seconds. Okay, yeah, yeah. So let me, let me finish with this last point then. Since he seated that time, we know that, for example, again, the church fathers are consistent with not just baptism regeneration, which I'm sure as a Lutheran he probably agrees with, but also the idea that there were no nominalists amongst the church fathers amongst the patristic period. And what that means is that there's no possibility of a framework or structure, ideological or theologically, where you could have a person being called righteous and yet also actually in reality being wicked. This makes God into a liar. And the only way to resolve that is for a kind of a position where Luther Says something like, well, God can simply change the natures of things by declaring them to be what they are not. So if God says you are righteous and it's a dispositional change in God based on what he wills to be the case, that's the theological volunteerism based on absolute divine simplicity, then it just simply is the case. But of course, this leads to a host of other problems, namely that we can't actually know God. The persons in the triad are collapsed into the nature. We. That leads us to the modal collapse problems, the modal collapse argument. And we don't know God other than the created effects that come to us. And of course also the tradition that he's in is a created grace tradition.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, Trent, appreciate you letting him have that little bit there, but I'll give you guys the option to go straight into open dialogue. Or if you would like uninterrupted rebuttals. We'll just keep it to five minutes. Trent, you're going to be next. So I don't.

[Jay Dyer]

He can pick whatever he wants.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Okay, I'll talk for five minutes. Yeah, no, this is good. This is a fruitful opportunity. You know, a couple things come to mind. You know, Luther obviously a very prolific figure, one of the most prolific writers in the West. I mean, and honestly, he, you know, he's a very good company in that respect. And I'll just say right now, I'm not one. I don't disown Martin Luther. And so in my saying this, this is not me attempting to distance myself from, you know, comments that he makes which remains accountable for the things he says. Little trouble there is that, is that sometimes, especially with, you know, for example, the Tishradin of Luther, the so called table talk, you know, you're. Some of these things are known to be spurious. But I'm not saying this as a way of just finding something embarrassing that Luther may have said and saying, well, you know, that's, that's, that's irrelevant. It may be, but what's most important, and again, I have to speak on behalf of my own tradition here, and I think that will be at least analogous to what other Protestants are going to confess. Is it Luther when he is spitballing or Luther when he is opining or kind of riffing on a passage of Isaiah or engaged in polemic? The diatribe of Erasmus, also not a work I distanced myself from. That's one thing. And you know, Luther, as a doctor of the church, certainly we would believe that. I understand you wouldn't actually propounding public doctrine in a careful way. You know, one interprets the other. I mean just it has to. And most notably because at least our tradition, our church, we subscribe to the Lutheran Confessions and if there's ever sort of, you know, you know, doubt for what norms, what it is, it is the Lutheran Confessions, you know, norm the rest of the statements and or the heuristic for which those through which those must be read. So if you are for example and I realize I'm probably getting close to the end of my time, the Lutheran Book of Concord. Okay, thank you. The Lutheran Book of Concord is the. It's the symbol of the touchstone as it were, the summary, the delineation, although it doesn't exhaust the Lutheran doctrinal physician. And so you know, Luther's not, he's not the author of everything in there, notably not a one man show, but he is the author of some things. Small catechism, large catechism. These are confessional documents for Lutherans and all those the small called articles 1537 in preparation for the council that ends up not happening until later different location, Trento, Italy. But the small cloud articles he gives, you know, a full throated articulation of what we believe and what we believe on the basis of the Scriptures, how one is justified before God of good works and before I read it and I may I I will stump for thebookofconcord.org if people have questions want to look up things that I assert casually. There's actually a nice single page format for the control F bros. But anyway the small called articles article 13 part 3 article 13 how one is justified before God and of good works. I'm just going to read it. What I have hitherto and constantly taught concerning this I know not how to change in the least. Namely that by faith, as St. Peter says in Acts 5:15. Actually pardon me, not Acts whatever as St. Peter says, we acquire a new and clean heart.

[Skin Queries Host]

I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a cute outfit and this girl comes up to me, just sits next to me telling me, oh hey girl, I see your skin. I know what what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling so. Just like distraught and like robbed of my time. When I finally freed myself of that conversation, the lights were coming on and the party was over. It felt like I had a sticker on my forehead that said she has eczema.

[Skin Queries Narrator]

We've all been there, wanting to go out feeling cute, forgetting about all your problems and just existing in the Present with joy. But when you live with a visible skin condition, that can be a lot harder than it needs to be. This is skin Queries. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that make you feel understood.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

And God will and does account us entirely righteous and holy for the sake of Christ, our mediator. And although sin in the flesh has not yet been altogether removed or become dead, yet he will not punish or remember it. Punish in the ultimate sense. He, of course, chastens our sins. And such faith renewal and forgiveness of sins is followed by good works. And what there is still sinful or imperfect also in them, shall not be accounted as sin or defect even, and that too for Christ's sake. But the entire man, both as to his person and his works, is to be called and to be righteous and holy from pure grace and mercy shed upon us and spread over us in Christ. Therefore, we cannot boast of many merits and works if they are viewed apart from grace and mercy. But as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord, namely, that he has a gracious God, for thus all is well. And lastly, we say, besides, that if good works do not follow faith, faith is false and not true. And in speaking this, I mean, this is a very Pauline statement. Ultimately, this is simply a rephrasing of Romans 4. And Jay mentioned Romans 4, the Abrahamic covenant. Yeah, certainly this is basic to just a proper understanding of just basic biblical soteriology, what must I do to be saved stuff. You know,

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Jay, if you want to give him another 30 seconds and I'm done.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Okay, cool.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Well, then it's Jay's turn for his rebuttal. And then we'll get into the open dialogue. You guys can ask each other questions and go down different rabbit holes. Let's go when you're ready, Jay.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, to kind of flesh out a couple points I didn't get to again, so. And I appreciate his statement because it really shows kind of what I wanted to hit on, which was the idea of alien righteousness. So in his position, the new idea, really, that I think Luther stumbles upon, that doesn't exist prior, is the idea that the righteousness that makes us right before God, that changes God's disposition, is due to God's decision to sort of bind himself to accepting what he's done in a transactional way with his Son. So there's a relationship between Father and the Son. This is sort of transactional view. Luther says, for example, in many places, and I'VE got all of these sort of cited here, and I'll give just a couple examples. There's many of these, but Luther says, so then gaze at the heavenly picture of Christ who descended into hell, and for your sakes was the forsaken by God the Father as one eternally damned when he spoke, Eli, eli lama sabachthami sabakhani, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That's Luther's Works, Volume 42, page 105. Luther says elsewhere in Volume 42, pages 95 to 15, that Christ is the heavenly image, the one who was forsaken by God as damned. Luther says in Lectures on Romans, this is page 263 of the John Knox Press edition, Christ suffered damnation and underwent damnation for us. Now, in classical trinitarian models, whether you're Orthodox or Roman Catholic, if you're Latin or whatever, even if it's the Roman Catholic model that's orthodox, we disagree with, there's no sense in which the Son of God as a divine hypostasis could undergo damnation. This would mean that the Trinity is divided, would mean that the Son is cut off from the communion of the Father and the Holy Spirit. It would mean that there's a division in the essence of the Godhead if one person turns his will against the other, furthermore. So that would be blasphemous. The other route is to go in a Nestorian or Arian direction, where what's damned or the person that is damned is a human subject. And that would be dual subject Christology. That would be an historian. And so if Christ is a mere man who's damned, now you're just straight up Arian. So there's no way really to make that transactional model work in terms of what's happening at the cross. And it's all based on Luther's idea that the beginning of the Ordo Salutis, or the order of theology even, is salvation. Luther gives priority to the divine decree and the doctrine of salvation prior to the doctrine of the Trinity and Christology. But if you look at the history of the Church, it flows from Trinity to Christology. And that's what the first seven councils are dealing with. Those topics, ecclesiology, all of those other doctrines flow from Trinity and Christology. So when you have an inverted theology that begins with soteriology first, then all the trinitarian stuff that's kicked down the road ends up becoming heterodox and you end up in this bizarre, ridiculous position that one person in The Trinity ends up damned. That's precisely the way that the mystical contradictory elements that Luther doesn't have a problem adopting. And I'm not a Lutheran expert, but I did have a period when I read about six or seven Luther's works when I was in my 20s and I noticed there is this acceptance of kind of contradictory ideas that, well, Jesus and God, they could damn each other. But I'll just close with this. It's not just anti trinitarian to say that one of the persons undergoes damnation or removal from the Trinity.

[Skin Queries Host]

I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a cute outfit and this girl comes up to me, just sits next to me telling me, oh, hey girl, I see your skin. I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling so. Just like distraught and like robbed of my time. When I finally freed myself of that conversation, the lights were coming on and the party was over. It felt like I had a sticker on my forehead that said she has eczema.

[Skin Queries Narrator]

We've all been there, wanting to go out feeling cute, forgetting about all your problems and just existing in the present with joy. But when you live with a visible skin condition, that can be a lot harder than it needs to be. This is Skin Queries. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that make you feel understood, foreign.

[Jay Dyer]

It's also anti trinitarian to think that there's a transaction that occurs between two persons in the triad that doesn't include the third. And so the Holy Spirit is left out of this. It's another easy way to understand that it's anti trinitarian.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay, appreciate the rebuttals, gentlemen. We'll get into the open dialogue. We use a little bit of the time for the rebuttals, but if it goes into the full 50 minutes, I don't. I don't mind, but I'll start that timer now. Guys, in the chat, if y' all could like the video that would help both of these gentlemen get seen by more pushing us out into the algorithm, reach some new audience members hopefully. And check out debatecon9 in Orlando. I believe tickets may have already dropped and they are linked in the comments and the description. Jay is headlining that one. You can see the little placard right, right here to my right. He's going against Mr. Wood, so we'll have fun there. And I'm going to start the timer for the open dialogue as soon as you guys are starting to talk.

[Jay Dyer]

Brent, feel free to ask whatever you Want or bring it.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Whatever you want.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Thank you. Yeah. Well, a couple fruitful avenues possibly here. Yeah. Luther's concept. I mean, it wouldn't be impossible to find things that have a similarity, talking about classic things together, based on their attributes, between Luther and things that nominalist theologians say. Because on the margins, of course, it's kind of like the newspapers don't report people having a great day and buying their groceries. History, like the news is going to focus on controversies. And there's legitimate reasons for that. But as far as just the broad overlap is concerned, I think the reason why Luther's going to sound like a lot anomalous on that is because he was reading the same book. And his concept of alien righteousness, the term especially as it is later employed by academic theologians who are doing their work of academic theology and cataloging, for good or for ill, alien righteousness. It is a word that Luther uses. But the term I don't may or may not be novel, but the concept is simply what you see in Philippians 3, and I quote, yea, doubtless I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. So whatever consonants, incidentally, that may have with certain statements of the nominalists, perhaps even ones that are put into service of some dubious ideas, many of which Luther critiqued, and you did mention that which I appreciate, but Gabriel Beale, you know. Yeah, he is an influence on Luther, unquestionably. Luther went to. He went to University of Erfurt. And I'll just make a. I mean, this is moderate pii, I suppose, but I went to Hillsdale College, notorious school for the Straussian political philosophy. I'm not a Straussian. I like to think of. It's about as far away you can get from that. You know, my opinions were certainly formed and engagement with, you know, a philosophical bent that I disagreed with in many certain ways didn't really affect me that much. I was a history major. But the point is, I mean, St. Paul is a student of Gamaliel. That doesn't determine his trajectory. And I know you weren't necessarily saying that. But again, the springs of Luther's conception of the righteousness of Christ, the alien righteousness of Christ, are really the simple predicates of the apostle here. And the, you know, I said earlier that this was, that this was a, in many ways what Luther, Luther's, as the scholars say, his rediscovery of the gospel, like it or like the framing or not, is simply. It is that it is the. In some ways, it is in some ways a debate about whether what Paul is outlining in Romans, just Romans 4, to pick the sort of topical one, is, is, is that scrutable? Is that right? Is that something we can understand? Does this actually inform our knowledge? Go ahead. Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

So do you agree that just as an example, I'm not trying to get off of Scripture because I want to stay on this Philippians passage. Do you agree that St. Augustine, for example, was familiar with these passages and when he would see this discussion, do you agree that he taught infused righteousness and he probably thought and believed that these passages teach and infused righteousness?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

You know, terminologically, yes. As far as the full development of the, of the sort of dogmatic topic of what all is meant by the infused righteousness, I mean, that, that doesn't, that's not like identical.

[Jay Dyer]

I'm not talking about later. Yeah. I'm not saying disputes. I'm just saying.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

If I read, you know, grace and free will, if I read, you know, on grace, nature and grace, if I read on the grace of Christ and original sin, you know, it's pretty clear. And I've read all the antipelagian works of Augustine, very clear to me, and I don't think it's doubted. You know, you have McGrath saying that the medieval period is dominated by the Augustinian idea of an infused righteousness. So do you think that, do you think that in, in St. Augustine's mind, when he's reading those passages, say, Philippians, the passage you cited, do you think he sees that as confirmation of infused righteousness?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

He may. But you said earlier that Lutherans are in the created grace tradition and we're really not. We do not conceive of grace that way. Early Luther is still going to be speaking in these. I mean, he remains an Augustinian unquestionably. And early Luther is going to speak, he will even speak of infusion of, of righteousness. In fact, in one of his sermons in 1519, you know, and, you know, potentially and, and, and, you know, there is a formal.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, I'm just.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Development of this thought. Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

I'm just using it as an example of.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I do, I, I concede that absolutely.

[Jay Dyer]

As a person that, that you, Luther, myself, we would look back to them as, you know, a notable church Father. And we don't agree as orthodox with everything that Augustine taught. We don't believe that it created great.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

We don't agree with, as Lutherans with everything that Augustine taught.

[Jay Dyer]

Sure. But I'm saying this shows us that it's not necessarily self evident in the passage that it's an alien legal status righteousness. Because Augustine.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No, no. And by itself. And I totally grant that. Okay. This alone, this alone can't really establish everything. And, and I mean just that alone,

[Jay Dyer]

it doesn't prove alien righteousness in the sen. Well,

[Trent from Boniface Group]

it's. Well, yes, I think that that's probably a fair statement on its own as. And that is a fair criticism that on its own this does not, I suppose, dealing with the simple concept of an alien righteousness that is not, that is extra nose, that is not generated by an act of the will or by moral striving apart from grace. You're right. This could at best put you in a domain potentially for a fight between Augustinians that isn't of particular interest to the East.

[Jay Dyer]

So in other words, just one passage. And I'm not saying you were only thinking that one passage would prove the case. I'm just saying that the paradigm that we come from is how we're going to read these passages and what Paul means by justification or the righteousness of God, etc. But, but I'm curious because you mentioned created grace there. You said that we aren't in that tradition. I mean, Augustine teaches created grace. So I'm confused how you're not in that tradition.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Well, fair. Yeah. So what I mean is that, I mean, Lutherans are Augustinian, but that's kind of a big tent. What I mean by that is that our concept of grace is not going to. Is ultimately going to be rooted in the favor of God for Vortei. It's not. It's not. We don't consider, you know, grace to be, I'm choosing my words carefully here, a substance that is infused into man with which he then, you know, accomplish, you know, renders the great obedience of, you know, of meritorious works and then, you know, thus becoming sanctified enough to be rendered righteous.

[Jay Dyer]

But when God speaks, isn't it efficacious? Like doesn't he speaks? He creates.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

It is. Amen. Yes. Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

So how is it that he.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, but what occurs, right.

[Jay Dyer]

How is it that he declares a person, rice, a person righteous, but they're not actually. So

[Trent from Boniface Group]

he, he declares them righteous because they have, I mean, I don't think I would accept that framing. The basis for his declaration is that we are in Christ, is that we have the spirit of sonship that cries out, abba, Father, that we have been regenerated. I mean, we don't believe that God's declaration of not guilty.

[Skin Queries Host]

I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a cute outfit, and this girl comes up to me, just sits next to me, telling me, oh, hey, girl, I see your skin. I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling so. Just, like, distraught and, like, robbed of my time. When I finally freed myself of that conversation, the lights were coming on and the party was over. It felt like I had a. A sticker on my forehead that said, she has eczema.

[Skin Queries Narrator]

We've all been there, wanting to go out feeling cute, forgetting about all your problems and just existing in the present with joy. But when you live with a visible skin condition, that can be a lot harder than it needs to be. This is skin queries. Listen, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that make you feel understood

[Trent from Boniface Group]

that just regenerates on contact.

[Jay Dyer]

But are you still filthy rags after that?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

We would say that the old Adam persists, that the flesh persists, but it's not of man's essence. That obviously we're going to differ wildly on our understanding of original sin. But can we stand before God on the basis of our own righteousness or worthiness or purity or holiness at any point prior to the consummation of our baptism and the resurrection of our flesh? No.

[Jay Dyer]

Why couldn't I take the Augustinian position and say that the righteousness that I possess is righteousness by grace and that the good works that I do are by grace. So I really do have an inherent reality of righteousness, which is the actual divinity and power of God inside of me. Paul says, for example, in Thessalonians, that is the Dunamis, the power, the energy of God that's at work in him. He says to the Corinthians and First Corinthians that the Holy Spirit apportions his energies as he wills. So do you believe that it's an actual divine energy present in the person, or is it a created reality in the person? Because you said a clean heart. Right? New heart.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Well, we. I mean, we don't. We don't believe it. We don't believe that grace is a creative substance separate from God. We believe that God himself, that there is a mystical union between God, the Holy Trinity and the believer, that he dwells, that the Holy Trinity dwells in our hearts by faith. So we don't. We don't see that as you know. And perhaps that's a tertium quid with respect to that debate. We don't deny that there is an incipient righteousness, that we grow in grace and that we are conformed into the image of the Son, and that we are built up. And that we built up to a full man, even the stature of Christ.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Real quick, Trent, I don't mean to interrupt. I'm just getting a lot of comments asking if you could turn down about 10%. And Jay, if you could turn up about 5. Just so it's a little higher level. I can't control your level, unfortunately, but

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I could probably just try to not be so loud. But

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

now you gotta. You gotta bring it, man. Don't hold back.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I don't like it. I don't like yelling.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Yeah, you could probably go up just a little bit.

[Jay Dyer]

I've got mine all the way up.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Oh, really?

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, I can't go up anymore.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Maybe it's a filter or just get it a little closer. Either way, Trent going down would solve it, but if he can't get it, not a lot I can do about it. Oh, that's. That's a lot.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I mean, I'm quieter just because now I'm self conscious because you mentioned that, but it's not a problem.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

It's just I'm seeing a lot of comments.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I'm not. I'm not super familiar with. With. With Zoom right now, so let me see if I can.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I think it would be just over on the audio settings. I'll pause the. The time here, so don't worry about that eating into it. Hopefully you can pick it back up where you dropped it. I was just holding out for the last three to five minutes, trying not to interrupt. You guys are on a good.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Okay, play the Jeopardy. Music or something while I figure this out.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I got. I got the Cisco waiting music. Might have just removed it from the assets. Never mind.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

L. Okay, hold on. I think I can do it from my computer settings. Just give me one second here.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

It's not mean that Jay was too far from the mic. Don't say that, man.

[Jay Dyer]

I'm pretty close to it.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

No, no, it's just Red Viking talking smack input.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Loud. Is this better?

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Yeah, I mean, it sounds a little bit more equal to what Jay's got now.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Okay. I don't think that I'm tempering it personally. I turned it down on the computer settings, so maybe the chat can verify that for us.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay, well, don't want to derail too much. Wasn't sure what kind of audio setup you had, so I don't want to cause you any trouble there.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Okay. Yeah, that's fine. Well, okay, we'll just go. To go.

[Jay Dyer]

To go back to this discussion of infused righteousness. And, and you know, the New Testament term that's used many times in the, in the Greek is energia. Paul uses this terminology frequently. It's used sometimes in the Septuagint as well, which is the. It is operating power of God himself at work in us, and that is multiple times over, distinguished from the persons of the Trinity. So I'm just trying to understand, when you say the grace that's in us is the effectual working, according to Paul, you're saying that that is just the life of the Holy Spirit or the Trinity within us. It is not the power of God. Are the persons and the power identical?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Well, no, but the. See, I just don't think that those hinges. That this discussion really hinges on that. But the.

[Jay Dyer]

Well, because you said that what's in us as infused is the Trinity itself.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, I mean, the. I mean, I may not be using the, you know, that term in a theologically technical way, but that, you know, God dwells within us, you know, just. I mean, this in the sense that babes and little children who inherit the kingdom of heaven understand when we say that, you know, that, that God is present, you know, with his. With His Word, and that he. That he, you know, last chapter of revelation or toward the end of revelation, you know, that God. That God dwells in our hearts by faith, you know, and the. So what I, the distinguish that I offered regarding what, in the Lutheran tradition we're going to speak of is the mystical union. We. I mean, and I don't know, there are aspects, I think, that are probably copacetic to the way you regard some theological topics in the East. There are things we can say on the basis of Scripture and regarding the nature of that mystical union, but there are things that we can't. We can't predicate and we don't find to be, I guess, ultimately the sticking point on that question.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, so in the case of, say, the. The idea of God's uncreated glory, you know, in John 17, Jesus says that he came, that he might give his disciples a share in the glory that he had with the Father before the foundation of the world. And I would assume that you accept the Common Reformation teaching that There's a strict distinction between justification, sanctification, sanctification, glorification.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah. We would accept that basic tripartite distinction

[Jay Dyer]

in Second Corinthians 3. Why does Paul say that in this life we are already presently moving from glory to glory?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Because it's true. I don't disagree with that. There are certainly.

[Jay Dyer]

It's not the eschaton. It's in the here and the now.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

There's an incipient participation. There's a foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb. There is a. We do receive the benefits of Christ here in this life.

[Jay Dyer]

That will be constantly glorification in this life.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Not in a. Not in a terminal sense, but we. Not in a terminal sense. Not in the sense of final glorification, but yeah, our sanctification. So you don't accept the strict distinction

[Jay Dyer]

between glorification being only in the eschaton that most Reformation theology does?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Well, I think I'm satisfied with the way I've put it, which is that our sanctification, in which we do believe. Which we do believe, is synergistic after a fashion. After Walt St. Paul says in Second Corinthians 6, Workers together with him.

[Jay Dyer]

I'm asking about the distinction between sanctification,

[Trent from Boniface Group]

but I'm talking about it because it's relevant. So our sanctification, because our sanctification does entail working with God. You're. At this point, you're not dealing with dead men. You're dealing with men who have been made alive in Christ, who have.

[Jay Dyer]

You don't accept the classical Reformation idea that glorification is in the eschaton.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Look, this is like asking somebody if, you know, the three solas defined like, you know, exhaust their theology.

[Jay Dyer]

Is it unfair to ask you that? It's your. It's your tradition. Why is that unfair?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Okay, so repeat the question. I'm pretty sure I've already answered it, but I'll take another swing.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah. So glorification, participation in, I would argue uncreated glory, unless you think God's glory is a creature, is usually postponed to the eschaton. So I'm trying to figure out if, in Second Corinthians 3, Paul says that right now we are moving from glory to glory. That would mean that glorification is happening concurrent with sanctification. So you don't accept the classical Reformation ordo salutis.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I accept the doctrine that is stipulated explicitly in the Book of Concord. And I don't really traffic in, you know, vagaries like the Reformation division, especially when it's sort of framed in a way which is equivocal. When St. Paul says that we move from glory to glory.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, so you do believe then that sanctification, glorification are essentially interchangeable?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No, what I said is that there is a foretaste of the consummation of our redemption, of our final.

[Jay Dyer]

So is it a foretaste of glorification?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Sure. Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

We are being glorified in this life.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Sure.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay.

[Jay Dyer]

Is it uncreated glory?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I don't believe that God's glory is a creature, no.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, so in this life we're partaking of uncreated glory and grace.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yes.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Okay. Tell me something. Maybe this is a controversial thing. In discussions between.

[Jay Dyer]

I've never heard of a Lutheran theologian or teacher that believes in the essence, energy, distinction and uncreated grace. So I'm trying to figure out again.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Well, okay, I can't necessarily sign on to everything that is maybe behind the dichotomy that you're putting forward, but I will say the essence, energy, distinction. So what I'm saying is that many

[Jay Dyer]

of the debates, but not all I

[Trent from Boniface Group]

am talking many of the debates that you are probably used to having are debates which are intramural, particularly with Roman Catholicism, specifically 1563. Roman Catholicism. That's what I've been doing. I mean, the, the I'm asking, there are going to be.

[Jay Dyer]

Can you just answer the questions or not?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, and I'll repeat myself. Like I said, I have eight kids. I'm used to doing that. The sanctification entails. Entails what? I'm perfectly concerned.

[Jay Dyer]

So you can insult me. I'm not one of your kids. So repeating yourself.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

It was good natured. And, and I did not mean to offend.

[Jay Dyer]

I'm not offended. I'm going to get to a clear answer. So the foretaste, right. Are we partaking of uncreated glory now?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

We are. We are partaking of God's glory, his benefits, his grace. Right now. Yes.

[Jay Dyer]

Is that on? Is that glory uncreated?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I believe I have said very clearly that God's glory is not a creature. And that's not something that we.

[Jay Dyer]

Do you think the problem with God's essence. Do you think we partake of his essence?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

That's not really a frame that we use. I mean, the, the thing is there are, there are certain, there are certain theological categories which are denoted here, which, you know, there's, there's, there's a lot in back of this. So do we partake of his essence? Well, we believe that you know, we are what you would call Alexandrian in our Christology. Lutheran Christology is especially informed by Cyril of Alexandria. And yeah, we believe that the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ, as it says in Colossians. And so you're Monophysite.

[Jay Dyer]

You think that you partake of the divine essence.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No, we're, we're not Monophysite. No, we don't, we don't believe that.

[Jay Dyer]

So you don't particular the divine essence?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I don't know what you think. This, this. I mean, you reference, you reference the relevance of this.

[Jay Dyer]

Cyril teaches in the two letters to six census, the essence, energy, sanction.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Very clearly.

[Jay Dyer]

He says in the two letters to six census that we do not partake, for example, in the Eucharist of the divine essence, we partake of his uncreated grace and immortality. So that's the essence energy distinction. So I'm just trying to get you to, to flesh out what the grace is taking up because.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Okay, right.

[Jay Dyer]

That's going to define what the infused inherent righteousness is. I'm just using infused because that's Western terminology. I wouldn't, I don't think that it's a substance.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

This is, this is, this is already, this is already kind of going in a direction that is not really relevant to the question. Of course it is.

[Jay Dyer]

The debate is about whether it's what Luther's understand real justification. So what are you talking about? It's not relevant. It's the heart of what we believe. Of course it's relevant.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No, no, it's not. Because. Because ultimately you are.

[Jay Dyer]

You are.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No, no, you are. You are. The pattern of words that we are, you are hewing to here.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Let's give him a chance to explain himself.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

And then we've, we've, we've been, we've been going, you know, back and forth specifically on Philippians.

[Jay Dyer]

You can't tell me where you participate.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I partake of the body and blood of Christ.

[Jay Dyer]

No, the divine essence. Is it yay or nay? I can answer you clearly. We know. We don't.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I. We. We participate in.

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[Skin Queries Narrator]

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[Trent from Boniface Group]

We are partakers of the divine nature, as St. Peter says.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay. Is that the divine essence? The fusis.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

You know, I'm not.

[Jay Dyer]

Because now you're becoming monopolist.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No, I, No, I mean we, no, we, we very, we very clearly reject monopotism.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, then you can't.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Physicism.

[Jay Dyer]

You disagree with Cyril because Cyril says we don't particular divine essence in the two letter statistic census.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No, I mean, I mean, here's the thing. We, you know, we don't find. We don't find. No. Well, you don't know.

[Jay Dyer]

You can say it.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I don't. I. Look, it's, it's fair. This is, this is not, this is not a. This is not a frame of discourse that I'm used to discussing. And I probably should, you know, I should probably, you know, read more of kind of how this informs the concept of justification in the east that I will grant. And so, you know. Yeah, and when I say that, you know, Cyril is influential on us, is that he's a notable theologian, you know, for our church. I'm not making an argument necessarily for, you know, the whole of his theology, but I mean, let's get back to.

[Jay Dyer]

Well, the line of questioning was simply to get you to admit that there is a righteousness that's in us. And for us it's the actual power, presence and uncreated energy of God that's in us. And that's because when he declares us that it's. That declarative speech is efficacious. Right. So it's actually in us. Because he's in us. Right. So there is a real righteousness. You could say it's alien in the sense that I didn't create it. I participated in that. Paul says that he worketh together as a co worker with Christ. Right. So we think, we think there's a synergy. I'm just pointing out that there's not any way that I could see that justification is somehow some unique term that is the gospel hinge, that all of the gospel hinges on that. Because you said, and I don't know if you agree or disagree with the comment you Said the quote, rediscovery of the gospel. Do you think that Luther did rediscover it or.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No, I mentioned that I use that term because this is the popular conception of Luther. While I do believe that he was notable. I mean, to understate the matter as a teacher of the church and his articulation of the gospel, I don't believe in some, you know, trough theory or whatever they call it, of history where, you know, everything is just arriving, darkness between, you know, pick your point in time in the first thousand years and then, you know, Luther strolling onto the scene in 1517. So I don't, I don't. I guess I was making a nod to the fact that this is, this is a bit of. This is a meme, unfortunately. It's a meme that I think Protestants, in fairness, sometimes lean. Lean into in an errant fashion. But no, I don't think that that's. I, I see that. That that proposition is as largely irrelevant to his work as a reformer.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, could you give an example of a person that you believe taught a purely legal, penal, substitutionary type of justification prior to Luther?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I mean, I mean, not. I don't know why.

[Jay Dyer]

I know you think the new.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, I, I could. I mean, we. I, I suppose I could do that, but purely, you know. Hold on. Could you describe what you want presented once again? Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

Luther's doctrine of justification. Who, who taught that before Luther? Because it's not Augustine.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, well. What. No, I was, I was just, I was just wanting you to repeat, you know, specifically, purely,

[Jay Dyer]

what justifies the believer is the alien imputational righteousness of Christ and a dispositional change that God has towards you on the basis of that legal change.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

That is not really an accurate definition of justification from a Lutheran perspective.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, where is that wrong? Because I've got, I mean, the Lutheran sources I have define it that way, so feel free to correct me.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah. Justification. You know, God's verdict of righteousness is, you know, this is, this is not a. Just, not, not an abstract declaration. The basis of his being reconciled to mankind is the propitiation that is offered by Christ on the cross. And on the basis of the atonement, God is propitious. And the gospel, the news, the proclamation that God is in fact propitious toward us, that he remembers our sins no more, that he has vindicated the Son in his resurrection. We could talk about. Luther doesn't believe that Jesus is damned, or that the Son suffers damnation in the sense of being removed from The Godhead.

[Jay Dyer]

Well, what does it mean to be actually very God and damned? I mean, he says that. Yeah, the sources Again.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Again. I mean, what is normative?

[Jay Dyer]

When I was reading Luther, I would use this argument all the time. And by the way, I said penal substitutionary atonement, so I'm not sure what. I didn't mention Christus. Victor, I know you guys believe that, but I'm saying. Where, though? What's. What am I saying that's incorrect. I'm not trying to misattribute the positions to you. Luther says, quote, gaze upon the heavenly picture of Christ who descended into Hades or hell for your sake. He was forsaken by God as one eternally damned, and then later one who was forsaken by God as damned. That's Luther's Works, Volume 42. Is that not part of it?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I mean, this is. This is.

[Jay Dyer]

Is that not the transaction?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I mean, look, if you will accept that when the fathers speak in this way. Of course they do.

[Jay Dyer]

No, they don't. No fathers teach that the Son was damned.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No, Luther doesn't teach that the Son was damned in the sense of being eternally separate. This is silly.

[Jay Dyer]

I didn't say eternal time on the cross. He suffered the equivalence of damnation. I'll give you another quote. Christ, but he suffered damnation.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

Lectures on Romans.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah. I mean, as. As. As a. Yeah, I mean, as a. As a. You know what Christ says? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Yeah. That he was stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, and that he was.

[Jay Dyer]

Is he suffering the equivalent of eternal damnation?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No, I mean, what is the equivalent of eternal damnation? Well, probably rhetorical.

[Jay Dyer]

Probably. Probably like it's right here.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

What you're. You're doing is you're. You're fixating on. This is exactly what I opening.

[Jay Dyer]

You understand? It's not. This is also other Reformation theologians. See, John Calvin teaches this. John Packard and maybe.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Okay, yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

So it's not just me picking a couple things out of Luther. I. I used to hinge my PSA arguments on this. This when I was Protestant.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

So you're saying he doesn't teach us.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Let's pause this. Okay. I'm going to read you a few statements from Chrysostom, and then you're gonna.

[Jay Dyer]

And then.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

And then from homilies on Colossians. Okay, okay. He himself, though suffering punishment, did away with both the sin and punishment. He was damnation on the cross.

[Jay Dyer]

You know what the other. What he says the Punishment is same as what Damascus says.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I mean, we have more.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, do you know what they say the punishment is? Because I've read them at length. They say the punishment is the severing of the human soul from the human body. It's death. It's not spiritual death. It's death in the body. That's John Damascus, book three.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Well, then what does the forsakeness mean, if not simply what he says? My God. My God. I agree with that. I agree with that.

[Jay Dyer]

No, you don't. Because appropriation means that he was not damned. Appropriation means that it was as if he was one. He was treated as if. Or seen as if he was one. Damned from human beings. And you. And you don't.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

You. You. You. You don't think that. That he. You don't think that he received divine wrath, that he suffered God's wrath?

[Jay Dyer]

He is a divine hypostasis. There's not possible.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

The wrath he appeased by his death and hath made us meet for the Father.

[Jay Dyer]

Just assuming that you're the.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

The St. John Chris.

[Jay Dyer]

Punishment of death is not from the Father to the Son. He willingly assumed human nature to undergo death

[Trent from Boniface Group]

and. Yes, and receive the penalty due to

[Jay Dyer]

sin, which is physical death. Severance of human.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Why does Chris explicitly stipulate the wrath of God?

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, but that. How does that tell you whether it's just death or whether it's damnation? You're assuming that it means spiritual death and damnation, just like Luther.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

All I need is I just want to have a constant talk about wrath and that. And that. Because Luther is not.

[Jay Dyer]

Doesn't tell you whether it's spiritual damnation or physical death.

[Skin Queries Host]

I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a cute outfit, and this girl comes up to me, just sits next to me, telling me, oh, hey, girl, I see your skin. I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling so. Just, like, distraught and, like, robbed of my time. When I finally freed myself of that conversation, the lights were coming on and the party was over. It felt like I had a sticker on my forehead that said, she has eczema.

[Skin Queries Narrator]

We've all been there, wanting to go out feeling cute, forgetting about all your problems and just existing in the present with joy. But when you live with a visible skin condition, that can be a lot harder than it needs to be. This is skin Queries. Listen, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that make you feel understood.

[Jay Dyer]

You're just assuming that. Yeah, and I'm telling you why it can't be that.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Here's. Here's what?

[Jay Dyer]

Here's a trinitarian possibility.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Okay, well, luckily for us, what is truly normative for churches which are confessionally Lutheran are the Lutheran confessions. And there are certain statements of Luther that are cited explicitly in support of certain doctrinal positions. And so there is an article in the Formula of Concord which entitled on the Descent into Hell, and it cites one of Luther's sermons on the topic from 50:37. Okay, so a logomache regarding, you know, different definitions, you know, of these terms. I don't think he's getting us any nearer, you know, to the question of whether Luther's doctrine. I guess this is maybe still the principal question of whether it is a novelty, you know, nowhere seen, you know, where do you set aside the question

[Jay Dyer]

of where do you see the damnation? Can you find me a church, Father, that specifies that it's a damnation on the part of the Father to the Son? Because that's what Luther's arguing.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No, that's, that's, that's what, you know, I don't have what you, what you have in front of you. And so I'm not, you know, doing a, doing a close reading on, on a certain statement.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, but as I. Luther, I mean, does. Do you think that, do you think that the exchange between God and man in terms of divine justice required that the Son to propitiate the Father's wrath, undergo. The equivalence.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

The equivalence. Well, you see, that's that God, that the Son, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him. I mean, this is. Weren't we. These are not. We're due.

[Jay Dyer]

Damn.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

What's that?

[Jay Dyer]

We were due. Damnation is our due. Right.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Wages of sin is death and is the gift of God. Yes, ultimately.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, so. So in your separation, that's what was due in the transaction. For Christ to fulfill it, he had to undergo the punishment. Right. Which is damnation.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yes.

[Jay Dyer]

And okay, so 20 minutes to get.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No, he wasn't. No, no, no, because here's the thing. Christ is, well, death, because he is Christ, because he's not a mere man, because. Because death cannot hold him.

[Jay Dyer]

But you decided when you were arguing from Chrysostom that you think that he's arguing that he was damned. So which one is it?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Well, I think it would, I think a helpful reframe potentially would be to go back to Philippians.

[Jay Dyer]

Real quick.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I just want to let you guys know we got about 10 to 12 minutes left in the open dialogue, and then we'll go ahead and get into the super chats.

[Jay Dyer]

Are we doing closing statements or no?

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Yeah, we can do the closings.

[Jay Dyer]

Five minute Four. Four or five minute close. Okay. Philippians. What now?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah. Well, Christ being perfect God and perfect men, the Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, and also the Son of Mary, born in the fullness of time, made. You know, made in fashion as a man, he can do what we ourselves cannot. So in there is perhaps a figure of speech to describe what Christ experiences in literally a temporal manner, because he is. Dies on Friday and, you know, is raised from the dead. What he makes. There is certainly a mystery here how God. How Christ, being both God and man, can experience what man would experience eternally in a temporal and finite way. But this is, of course, why he did what we cannot do. And what the mercy of God does consists in.

[Jay Dyer]

That's.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

That's Luther's position in that.

[Jay Dyer]

In that time on the cross and then in the death, in that compacted time, he under.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

In a mysterious way. Yes. Yeah. But not that he is. Not that he is. But I don't care what damned.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, well, whether it's eternal or whether it's impacted into.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Well, it's not because he's in heaven now, so, you know, it's clearly not eternal.

[Jay Dyer]

I'm saying that the argument that I make. It doesn't matter however you frame it, because he's a divine person, and you can never split the Trinity. And to say that one of the persons undergoes damnation means that the Father turns away from a person that he indwells. You familiar with parachoresis, which is the divine indwelling? Did the Father cease to indwell the sun?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Philippians 2? Yeah. Pardon? What was the question?

[Jay Dyer]

Did the Father cease to indwell the Son when He turned against him and underwent this compacted damnation?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Compacted damnation? We don't believe that the Father suffered on the cross.

[Jay Dyer]

No. Did he turn from the Son and cease to indwell the Son?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I cease to indwell the Son. What do you mean, indwell the Son?

[Jay Dyer]

If the Son is damned, then parakoresis ends. The Father no longer indwells him.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Okay, so what do you mean by. What do you mean by the Father indwelling the Son?

[Jay Dyer]

Parachoresis is the doctrine that each of the persons fully indwell the other persons.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Okay. Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

So is parakoresis no longer true when the sun is being damned? Does the Spirit no longer indwell the sun?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Jay, what I've already said is that how Right. It is a different argument. But no, the relevance. The relevance is still here. Or rather the irrelevance.

[Jay Dyer]

How is it. This is propitiation.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

What I have said is that. What I have said is that it is. It is a great mystery how Christ. How Christ experiences what is clearly predicated of him.

[Jay Dyer]

No.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yes. Okay, well, the predication itself is clear that he was forsaken on the cross. Yeah, but what does that mean?

[Jay Dyer]

You're assuming that it means a form of spiritual damnation, and that's what I'm calling into question.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No, no, I'm not. This is. This is what you keep bringing in.

[Jay Dyer]

You said it is a form of damnation.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

You.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

If I said it was a form. No, I don't think I said it was a form of damnation. What I said.

[Jay Dyer]

What are you talking. You said in a mysterious way, he's able to undergo that because he's. He's a, you know, hypothetic union, unique subject.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

For Christ to experience the wrath of God against sin. It is not. And which is something we do assert. It is not necessary to assert that he was damned. And you.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

You.

[Jay Dyer]

You.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

You keep alluding to this wrong in that.

[Jay Dyer]

Right, so first of all, Luther's wrong.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Okay, you keep alluding to the statement of Luther.

[Jay Dyer]

Three statements of Luther. Not three, not one.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Right. Okay. An imprecise and rhetorical use of terms is not really the basis on which our confession is built.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, but. So it's not an equivalent. So God's justice doesn't mete out. What's the equivalence? So even though we are due eternal damnation, Christ underwent, quote, wrath. Which means what? Not spiritual punishment. Is there spiritual punishment on Christ? And what does that mean?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I mean, that's what it means, is that. What it means is that. Is that the punishment which is due to sin, separation from God, the destruction of communion, the way in which Christ is able to. Well, what is damnation?

[Jay Dyer]

Separation from God.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Separation from God? Yeah. I mean.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, so now it is in a certain person being. So he's no longer in the Trinity. Is the Holy Spirit. No. From the song too.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No. Does the Holy Spirit turn from that? I'm not answering that question. I'm trying to get at what you're. What you're saying.

[Jay Dyer]

It's the same argument with the person of the Father. I mean, it's trinitarian. So if the Father rejects the Son, does the Holy Spirit reject the Son? Do you see why this leads to so many absurdities, this stupid doctrine? I'm not being mean to you. I'm saying the doctrine of Reformation.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No, you're. No, I don't. Because. Because you're not. You're not actually presenting, you know, you're not presenting.

[Jay Dyer]

You on your position, the argument in. What do you mean?

[Skin Queries Host]

I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a cute outfit, and this girl comes up to me, just sits to next to me, telling me, oh, hey, girl, I see your skin. I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling so. Just, like, distraught and, like, robbed of my time. When I finally freed myself of that conversation, the lights were coming on and the party was over. It felt like I had a sticker on my forehead that said, she has eczema.

[Skin Queries Narrator]

We've all been there, wanting to go out feeling cute, forgetting about all your problems and just existing in the present with joy. But when you live with a visible skin condition, that can be a lot harder than it needs to be. This is Skin Queries. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that make you feel understood.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah,

[Jay Dyer]

It is.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

To hue closely to the statements made by the apostles and to affirm that Christ suffered the wrath of God in making propitiation for our sins, and that those whose hearts are regenerated unto faith in this promised redemption and in the forgiveness of sins are blessed is perhaps the most simple way to put it. Your question regarding what exactly the wrath of God consists in and how it is that Christ. Experiences the wrath of God against sin is not ultimately answerable. That he does is what we confess.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay.

[Jay Dyer]

I mean, Luther answers that it's not answerable because it causes a problem for the Trinity. And that's why I think you went with that line of argumentation. So I'll leave it there. We can do that.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Well, it's. It's certainly legitimate to, you know, pull on this line of inquiry and, you know, not having. It's legitimate to raise these questions, you know, not having the same works in front of me, knowing how he's contextualizing his own use of these terms and, you know, and again, the norm for the understanding of Luther's personal theology is ultimately his confessional theology. You know, where he is, I guess, making sure not to speak with imprecision, not. Not speaking in any, you know, figures of speech. You know, one thing he says in a particular sermon on this topic, on the topic of Christ's descent into hell, is the importance of not straying into speculation regarding how all of this is accomplished, because there are apparent problems for us from our vantage point. But he says thus also, one finds it often painted on the walls how Christ descended with a choir cape and with a banner in his hand, he comes before hell and strikes and slays the devil. With the banner, he storms hell and brings out his own. This is how they depict it when they put on a drama for the children at Christmas Eve or Easter Eve. It pleases me greatly when they depict Christ descent in this way. For the simple when they play or sing or recite, we should let it remain just this simple and not trouble ourselves so much with high and lofty thoughts about how it might have taken place, since indeed, it did not happen bodily, as Christ surely remained in the grave for the three days. Now, it's interesting because not all Lutheran opinions, actually, not all Lutheran theologians share the opinion that it was a. You know, some are going to propound a further mystery of, you know, how Christ descended into hell, but not to suffer. There's no tradition within Lutheranism about Christ's suffering continuing in hell. It's entirely as a declaration of his victory and really a proclamation of the defeat of death and the forgiveness of sins. So it's not

[Skin Queries Host]

all.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

That is to say, you know, I can't. And I'm not, you know, interested in doing like, you know, textual criticism of Luther's passing comments on this, although they're interesting topics in those statements, which are not themselves, you know, normative for my tradition as a Lutheran or really necessarily, you know, Protestantism in general, even though they are not necessarily, you know, normed by any of Luther's theology, confessional or otherwise, in the same manner that mine is. So I don't see that as, you know, I don't see that as a grave problem. You know, maybe. Maybe. Yeah. And it isn't. I don't think it has the import that you are. That you are asserting regarding it. But go ahead. I don't know if we're still connected.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, I'm here.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

All right.

[Jay Dyer]

Are we gonna do closing.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Yeah, I was gonna say, Jay, he opened first. So if you want to respond to his statement, and then I'll let him start his closing statement, you know, two, five minutes max, and then we'll let you end it.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah. So I want to point out that again, the reason I went to this doctrine is that it's not a speculative doctrine. It's pretty clearly stated by not just Lutherans, but many people in the Reformation tradition, many people that I used to belong to, not just older Lutherans or Calvinists. For example, John Piper has recently said, Christ was damned in our place. This is his Desiring God blog. I can give you these links if you want them. We have, for example, Lorraine Bettner pointing out that the Son underwent separation from God. His suffering was the equivalent of all of his people suffering in hell for all of eternity. John MacArthur says that the essence of this punishment was the outpouring of God's wrath against sinners poured out upon the Son. That's Murder of Jesus, page 219. We have statements, for example, from Again, I want to read Luther's again, because they're brief. The curse and the damnation is very clear here. He says, quote, for even Christ suffered a damnation and dereliction to a degree greater than all of the saints. His sufferings were not, as some imagine, easy, for he really and truly offered himself for us to eternal damnation to God the Father. Luther says that he is the image of the grace of God against sin, which he assumed and overcame by his perfect obedience. He is the heavenly image, the one that was forsaken by God as damned. That is spiritual damnation. That has a very explicit terminology. When Luther explains Eli Elay Lama Sabakthani, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He says, for your sake, he was forsaken by God as one damned. So these, these are statements from Luther himself. I can give you 10 more from John Calvin, John Wycliffe, so very well known, John Owen. Many of the Reformation divines across the classical magisterial Reformation tradition affirm this doctrine. And it is an anti trinitarian ridiculous doctrine. And it's really the hinge of penal substitutionary atonement in any of the traditions. So I would say that that alone is a kill shot for this position. And I would hope that there would be a poll for this debate as well.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Yeah, I'm going to put it up the moment that we enter the Q and A. But go ahead, Trent, if you want to respond to that and kind of work it into maybe a closing statement, it's okay. If it's not right up to five minutes, you can just respond. And also quick statement if you want to do that. Totally up to you. And then Jay will give his very last unless.

[Jay Dyer]

Oh, I thought that was the final statement.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

But okay, little misunderstanding, that's fine.

[Jay Dyer]

I'll end it there. I'll end. That could be my final statement. Statements.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Cool. Then we'll give you the final word.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Sure. The. There is certainly. In the citation of various Reformed and Protestant theologians generally that Jay just read, there are certainly statements that I don't agree with, or that were uncareful in the way they formulate this. Luther perhaps was uncareful. I don't have it in front of me, but not so much necessarily uncareful as there's a certain reality of an equivocation in terms in the use of simile and certain rhetorical devices when articulating theology. It's a peril, of course, for a man's sermons to be recorded, often by stenography, and which is why the more sure guide for theology for reading of man's clear theological positions is to be found in the more careful formulations of, for example, the Book of Concord, which even if Luther is not the author of all the documents in there, and he certainly is not, it is representative of the doctrine that he taught both those documents that he wrote and those which are authored by others. When describing the mystery of our salvation and the manner in which Christ was forsaken, we are dealing with an ineffable mystery. But we should be wise not to be led away from the core of the matter, which is not how, but that Christ suffered the wrath of the Father in our place, which is itself not a novel proposition and when it is in fact explored further in the statements of the early Fathers, notably Chrysostom, the Cappadocians, Augustine, Ambrose, and others. You do find the doctrine of. Well, you do find Luther's doctrine, if we would call it that, because it isn't Luther's doctrine. It is simply a misrepresentation to say that no one had ever taught regarding the sufficiency of that salvation, that justification is by grace alone, through faith alone. Again with the whether the phrase or simply the grammar of that sense is in mind there that this is a novelty nowhere before seen until Luther.

[Skin Queries Host]

I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a cute outfit and this girl comes up to me, just sits next to me, telling me, oh, hey girl, I see your skin. I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling so. Just like, distraught and like, robbed of my time. When I finally freed myself of that conversation, the lights were coming on and the party was over. It felt like I had had a sticker on my forehead that said she has eczema.

[Skin Queries Narrator]

We've all been there, wanting to go out feeling cute, forgetting about all your problems and just existing in the present with joy. But when you live with a visible skin condition, that can be a lot harder than it needs to be. This is Skin Queries. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that make you feel understood.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Certainly what Luther asserts is that even if it were the case, that the articulation of this did not match his, that the Scriptures themselves are clear and that they are indeed fully sufficient for the proclamation of this truth, and that that the statements of our Lord, the statements of the apostles, do in fact, under examination and with the witness of the Fathers, affirm that salvation is by grace, through faith. And certainly the various definitions of these terms have given to much wrangling and we can't. Weren't able to, you know, map all of that here. Would love to maybe come on again for another discussion since certainly any number of rabbit trails suggested themselves as we were talking. And ultimately I have. I have no. I have nothing to add to that.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay. Well, I appreciate you for giving your closing statement. Ju as well. If you gentlemen would like to take a quick bathroom break before the Q and A. So you're welcome to do that. Get some coffee and then I'll start reading those here in just a second. Just want to do a quick shout out to Farm Easy Bank. These guys are sponsoring a bunch of our live online stream debates. They're big fans and they would like to let you know that you can get your prescriptions, whatever they might be, in the categories that they provide, which is pretty wide, such as ivermectin, fenbendazole, fildina, and tons of different weight loss products, even like semaglutide is one that they specifically provide. And they use fast, secure shipping directly to your doorstep. And James can vouch for them, as he would like me to say, because he does get any of his medications that he needs, you know, when he's sick, antibiotics, whatever they provide that he has the need for.

[Jay Dyer]

You are going to put a poll up?

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I am straight. Straight to his door. And you can get discounts right on the QR code there. So appreciate y'.

[Jay Dyer]

All.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Let me read that real quick. And for the Farm Easy bank for supporting the channel, we are going to get into the Q and A as soon as Jay comes back. Get your super chats in. We got a lot to read here. The poll is going up soon as I get this browser open. One second. All right, Chad, get off my back. It's up. It's up. Pole maxing. That's funny,

[Jay Dyer]

By the way. I didn't mean to cut you off. I just had to pee really bad. Apologize.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

It's all good. The chat's saying you're pole maxing. Collect.

[Jay Dyer]

What happens when I whip it out to go to the bathroom. The poll. The poll is maxing.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

That's a poll fallacy, Jay. All right, yeah, as soon as he comes back, we'll read the first one here. I got them mostly organized by amount, so we can hit those big ones first. They paid for your time, so get those knocked out. Then we'll hit the tens. We'll hit the fives. You guys, who sent the twos? Gotta do better. Gotta do better. You know, these are busy men. Guy has eight kids. I didn't bring that up.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

He did,

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

But good for him, honestly. Now, I super. Don't blame him for not knowing how Zoom works, knowing that it's a lot. I got one, and she's a handful of. All right, guys, I know what you

[Jay Dyer]

want,

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

and it's up, so stop asking. Let me see if one of these is aimed directly at. Oh, quit sending the UNC alerts, guys. That takes up, like, my whole screen. Do they do that? They send you those UNCLE alerts on your channel, Jay. I imagine ten times more, probably. Okay, that's not. Trent. This is the first time that's ever happened, But this one isn't to anyone specifically, so I get, I mean, if he wants to answer it too, but I don't even think it's a question, so I'll just go ahead and read it. Francis Dasa sent 20, and he says Thomistic simplicity ads leads to Scotism then, or Scotism then Occam's volunteeristic nominalism leading to Protestant autonomous epistemic humanism, enlightenment, deism, pantheism, and as Saint Palamas warn John Milseers, antheism or atheism look like an in. Zoom in on this. I think this guy's trying to educate me on how to say these words, But, yeah, they didn't necessarily call for a response, so thank you for the 20. France. Francois Dasa. You're muted, Trent, stand in. I, I didn't mute you, but it's internal on his computer or microphone. All right, is, is everything all right with Trent? You give me a nod.

[Jay Dyer]

I think this dude showed up and killed him and took his place.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right. I hope that's not the case.

[Jay Dyer]

This psycho showed up and killed him and took his place. It doesn't know how to work a microphone.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Chat's saying it's a very orthodox beard, though. I, I, I don't know how his setup works, so I'm not sure what to press for you. I can't unmute you on my end. It's not, it's not in the zoom, so I would imagine it's the system panels. Yeah. Someone get Mike some hydroxychloroquine. Thank you, Steve. 2520. All right. Not a massage agent for 20, says Jay. Thank you. As a new catechumen, you have helped me unlearn false assumptions and grow in faith. Mdd. Thank you for debates like this as they have played a part in my journey into the fullness of the body of Christ.

[Jay Dyer]

Awesome.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

Many years.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, so this next 20 is for Trent, so hope he's okay.

[Jay Dyer]

I mean, he's brought another Lutheran debater in, which is, like, not the policy of how we do here.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Right?

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Yeah, that's typically.

[Jay Dyer]

I mean, if I bring in other orthodox people to debate for me. Can you hear me or can you not?

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Because now we can.

[Jay Dyer]

Audio is working on my.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Yeah, this is the first time we've been able to hear you.

[Jay Dyer]

We were having a fight between a pair of AirPods and a pair of JBL. So, you know, tech is what it is.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Is. Okay.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

What I said before I realized I

[Jay Dyer]

was muted is may I purchase, as it were, two minutes from the chair just to make an important point here?

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I don't.

[Jay Dyer]

That is fine with.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I don't think that's how it works, unfortunately.

[Jay Dyer]

No, I'm not here to debate you.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Well, that's fine with the other.

[Jay Dyer]

I'm not interacting.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We would. We would need Trent back because these super chats are directed at him.

[Jay Dyer]

Trent's just taking a brief break. He actually undersold himself.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

He has nine children.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay. Because we do count pregnancies as children in Christianity, we don't consider them not to be persons. And so he actually has nine. And so he is dealing with his wife because she is dealing with the children.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

So he's trying to help.

[Jay Dyer]

So I've subbed in for him.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Understood.

[Jay Dyer]

I am a Lutheran as well, but Lutheran.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I. I wouldn't. I wouldn't. Yeah.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I wouldn't be able to allow that.

[Jay Dyer]

I'm not interacting with this sorry brother. Acts like a fed, so I'm not doing it.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I appreciate.

[Jay Dyer]

I think that counts. This is the guy who calls for. He calls. What are you doing in my chair? I've got him back, if you'd like, six times.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

So.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Yes. Mr. Mr. Trent, if you could rejoin us. Apologies. Apologies. It doesn't work that way.

[Jay Dyer]

I gotta get his headphones working. Yeah, he's gonna need his butt buddy to leave because I'm only debating one dude today.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right. I do have chats for Chat whenever

[Jay Dyer]

you're ready is acting in an anti Christian manner.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

And so now I would like to

[Jay Dyer]

have two minutes to respond. You're the one that call for our.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Yeah, no, I gotta. I gotta ask you to. To just hold, hold it, man. I. I gotta finish this up with Trent. Per the agreement I have personally, I don't want to have to end this debate before I get to. To read these chats for Trent. Specifically, these people did pay to interact with him, not you.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

That is fine.

[Jay Dyer]

Well, actually, you.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

You may be surprised if you check

[Jay Dyer]

your chats with whom they wanted to interact. That aside, I will get Trent back with his audio working as long as the record reflects that Jay Dyer has now run away from a debate he offered.

[Skin Queries Host]

I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a cute outfit and this girl comes up to me, just sits next to me telling me, oh, hey girl, I see your skin. I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling so. Just like distraught and like raw robbed of my time. When I finally freed myself of that conversation, the lights were coming on and the party was over. It felt like I had a sticker on my forehead that said she has eczema.

[Skin Queries Narrator]

We've all been there, wanting to go out feeling cute, forgetting about all your problems and just existing in the present with joy. But when you live with a visible skin condition, that can be a lot harder than any needs to be. This is skin queries. Listen, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever, you get the stories that make you feel understood.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Three times.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

This is. Yeah, this is just already an agreed upon time slot, man.

[Jay Dyer]

Nobody cares about you and your fed speak. You call for the death of orthodox people like six times in a row. Get out of here, you fat. Go back to the lemon meringue in the kitchen. Get out of here.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right. I gonna have a firestorm in the chats, aren't I? Yes, I am. Okay, great. That's funny. But as soon as Trent's back on, I just asked him to unmute. My man smokes in the house.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

All right. Sorry, had to take a break. Use the bathroom.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Understood. I probably could have been a little bit more clear on maybe like a good time to try to keep it too, but. But I appreciate your family, man. Just next time, I can't really have anyone else pop in here unaccounted for or unagreed upon. So sorry for that.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Understood.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Now, if there is a question directed at you and you want to field the question just for a quick like, tell you, but not him. Tell us. I mean, I can't control who's in your room, man, so that's on you. But we do want to hear from you specifically. These chats are directed at you. And now that you're back, I'm going to read this one for you and we'll get this, this train back on the tracks. Jmar2685 20boniface what is your justification for determining who gets to decide what books go in the Bible?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

My justification for that is that it's often made out to be a much more ornate process for forming the canon than in reality it actually was. One thing that I like, the fact that J mentioned in his interview with Tucker, is that the liturgical use of these books really from the sub apostolic age of the apostolic age itself, of course, the continuous use, the actual firsthand knowledge that these were, you know, from the hand of the apostles, that these were apostolic, that they had the sanction not just, not just of the teachers of the church, but of the entire believing congregation, the disciples, as they grew in number. This was known. This was not a secret matter, you know, it wasn't a cryptic matter. So what was the continuous use and attestation by, you know, ordinary human standards, I mean, of this text? Every church, every congregation has had a copy of this since before the Apostle John. The test of apostolicity is not, again, not esoteric. It doesn't require extra verification for a, you know, the fact that the church, you know, represented through its bishops, convening together and reaffirming, which is what it was, and confessing, bearing witness to the fact that these are indeed the apostolic books. And of course, historically, we can't get away from the there is the homologumina, about which there was never any question, never any question among whom, you know, not just the bishops, but certainly the bishops as they represented all of the believers in Christ who hear and know the voice of their shepherd and of his apostles. You know, the witness of the councils does not add something that was lacking. It affirms, it reinforces. You know, what is, what has been known, what was known and accepted in perpetuity from the beginning by the churches of God.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, Jay, you want to give a quick response to that?

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, I think that you can just simply look at the canon that was accepted universally in the Apsali canons in the 4th century in the east and the Council of Rome under Pope Damasus in the west in the 4th century. And both of those canonical normative lists included the Deuterocanonical texts as normative part of Scripture. It's a secondary canon, but it is useful for instruction and for theology. And that would undercut the Lutheran argumentation that they shouldn't be included because according to Luther, they don't quote, preach the word of God. So as you see, you're following a sectarian and not the traditional sectarian first 1500 years of the church.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Well, I'm glad you mentioned that because Luther actually, the Lutherans did retain the Deuterocanon, you know, not, not absolutely every, everything in the Deuterocanon, but similar, I would say, similarly to how the anti Legomena were received. And in fact, you do have Lutheran theologians such as Chemnitz, who explicitly, he makes that distinction. He says that, you know, in the same way that the prophets and the law and the prophets together, which, you know, includes the psalms and the wisdom literature, as well as being inspired as being words of prophecy, that those, as it, I mean, even the term the Deuterocanon, you know, attests its, you know, a secondary status. Not in the sense that it is not. I, I don't even know if they would say it is not Scripture. And, and for example, Luther himself preaches. He preaches on, on the Apocrypha, on the Deuterocanon.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, but Luther is the necessity of good works or prayers for the dead. Luther does not accept those.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I mean, the necessity of good works. He absolutely accepts that necessity of good works.

[Jay Dyer]

He specifically rejects passages in Siric and other places that require works for salvation. And he rejects things like, well, depending

[Trent from Boniface Group]

on what you mean, you know, the necessity of good works is certainly something we affirm.

[Jay Dyer]

Did he include the Durocanon in his.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yes.

[Jay Dyer]

And, and you're saying he believes in prayers for the dead.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

You know, the topic of prayers for the dead. It's interesting because in the, in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, probably the most exhaustive statement in the Lutheran Book of Concord, it actually, the topic is mentioned very briefly and it's only to say, which we do not forbid. And so there's a cognizance of the piety which animates intercession for loved ones who have died. I don't think you see the same repetitious prayers for the dead there was even in well into the 19th century. You see something in like Stark's prayer book, you know.

[Jay Dyer]

But isn't it the case that Luther, confirmation of Luther said they were not useful for theology? Right.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I mean, he, he, he may have said that. I mean, they continue to have use Within. Within the Lutheran churches for quite a long time. I mean, we. We use them as a, you know, our churches use them. They read them.

[Jay Dyer]

Could they be used to prove prayers for the dead?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Proof. What about prayers for the dead?

[Jay Dyer]

That it's an acceptable practice to pray for the dead?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I think so. And again, like, we. That that's not actually a made. I mean, sort of, simply put, that's not a major contention that this. That this is, you know, and this actually would. This would incur for us the accusation that we're not Protestant enough. I mean, this is sometimes something that Lutherans get. You know, Catholics don't like us because we started the whole thing, and some of the other Protestants don't like us because they don't think we finished. But that's not a major bone of contention in the details. In the details of what exactly those prayers accomplish, why they're offered. You know, whether, as, you know, simple commendation of the dying of the dead. In fact, these are. These are prayers that we pray. Probably not, you know, and they don't. Probably. They don't occupy the same place in. In our piety. But it's not, it's never. It's not as much. It's not the bone of contention that it is made out to be, I would say.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, Jay, one more response, if you like. I do. I did want to give a little bit more time to those $20 super chats. So as we get into the tens.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah. What's interesting is that. And we've seen this in the debate, you know, Luther changed his positions over time, and many individual church fathers change their positions over time. Augustine changes positions over time. So I think that the idea that we'll start a church around a guy and that he's the guy that kind of reforms the church back to what it's supposed to be itself, I think, is. Is kind of preposterous because, I mean, do I go with early Luther, which was still very Roman Catholic, or the more mature Martin Luther that was less papal? We could say that's the thing is, like, if we're hinging it on one dude, it's really not that different than Papism. Papism is hinged on one guy in Rome. This is hinged on one guy, supposedly. But it really depends on which era you want to choose. And then actually, by the time of the later Lutheran Confessions, they reject several things that Luther himself taught. So we're in an ongoing, evolving tradition, and it's not their tradition of the first thousand years.

[Skin Queries Host]

I Thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a cute outfit, and this girl comes up to me, just sits next to me, telling me, oh, hey, girl, I see your skin. I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling so. Just like, distraught and, like, robbed of my time. When I finally freed myself of that conversation, the lights were coming on and the party was over. It felt like I had a sticker on my forehead that said, she has eczema.

[Skin Queries Narrator]

We've all been there, wanting to go out feeling cute, forgetting about all your problems and just existing in the present with joy. But when you live with a visible skin condition, that can be a lot harder than it needs to be. This is skin queries. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that make you feel understood.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, if I could respond to that just a little bit. I mean, it is true to look at the full arc of a theologian, and it would be a mistake and fairly. It's one that I think some Lutherans and some Protestants do commit to see Luther as so central or even what you said there, that he started a church in this. Certainly he didn't understand his own work that way.

[Jay Dyer]

I mean, isn't your church named after the dude?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, I mean, he didn't like that, of course, but you don't. You don't get to pick these things. Early on, they were the kind of evangelation. Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

I mean, a sectarian. Sectarians can't avoid it. So there you go.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah. I mean, if you. You probably didn't choose the name Eastern Orthodoxy. Right. The preferred term is we are the Orthodox Church, you know, and. Of course. Yeah, yeah, sure. So the.

[Jay Dyer]

We're not named as far as. So.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, yeah, no, it's. And it kind of is what it is as far as that goes. You know, the. The. The description of the. You know, the name. The name is. Is what it is. But, you know, early Luther or.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

We do got to move on. We went from justification for determining books in the Bible to wherever we're at now. So my job. Just keep it going here so we can get as many of these read as possible. All right, thanks.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah. Not used to this format, so thanks for holding me out.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Yeah, that's. I just got to kind of do it when I do it. But. So those were 20, so I allotted a little more time in these tens. Probably like a third of that time since we're kind of breaking into it. And then when we get to the fives, definitely more like two minute Tops.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

All right.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

We can get through all of them because people are still sending them with very relevant things to what we were just talking about. All right, so Hoffn 755 sends 10. He says, what's the ultimate authority for your church? And how do you know that? I'll let you both answer this. Whoever wants to go first?

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah. The ultimate authority for the Orthodox Church is Christ himself, obviously, but also the. We would say that Christ himself appointed apostles and their successors. So when Christ said that, he who hears you, hears me. And then we look at the letters to Timothy, Paul ordains successors. He lays hands on Timothy. He says, don't hastily lay hands on anyone after you, because through the laying on of hands is the transfer of the gift of the Holy Spirit. So for us, that's absolute succession. And one example that mirrors numbers 11, for example, in the Old Testament, of laying on of hands. And that's a historical reality. And so churches that lack that, that sever themselves in significant ways, like Calvinists or Lutherans, they no longer have the four marks of the Church. And the four marks of the Church are one holy, Catholic, apostolic. And they have to be understood in the same way that was understood at the Niceno Constantopolitan Creed's creation at Constantinople 1. So for us, those are the authorities, the ecumenical councils, the apostolic teaching in Christ himself.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, go ahead, Trent.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah. We affirm that Christ is the Church's head and he is the Lord of the Church. He is the Church's head. Where we would differ certainly is the place of Scripture. This is not something that is particularly the sufficiency of Scripture to serve in this manner and its transparency, its clarity, as the living and active word of God which makes one wise unto salvation, is very clearly affirmed in the early Fathers. I take, for example, Saint Athanasius. The holy and inspired scriptures are fully sufficient for the proclamation of truth. St. Gregory of Nyssa. We are not entitled to such license, namely, of affirming whatever we please. For we make sacred Scripture the rule and norm of every doctrine. Upon that we are obliged to fix our eyes, and we approve only whatever can be brought into harmony with the intent of these writings. And this is something that St. Paul himself is going to affirm when he exhorts Christians to test spirits, test them against what? Against what is, what can be certainly affirmed to be the words of the apostles. You can't have two principal norms. There can only be one. Highlander was right about that. But the idea that apostolic succession entails the sort of necessary Second, interpretive tradition, without which Scripture is a dead letter, cannot be known, cannot make one wise. Salvation leaves one blind and in the dark. Certainly we believe that there are in a certain sense successors of the apostles. The ministry continues. The ordination of teachers and bishops in the New Testament sense of that term, as those who oversee the flock of Christ and preach the Gospel in season and out. You know, we would see that as not being a separate and elevated distinct office that's different from a presbyter. But when you speak of apostolic succession, we don't think, we don't believe that what is, you know, sort of fully propounded under that term in later generations of the Church, especially in Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, is what you really find in the Fathers when they talk about the necessity of tradition and what its role is in relation to Scripture. Rather you find again these very clear statements of the full sufficiency of Scripture as the norm and touchstone for doctrine.

[Jay Dyer]

Can we have like a time limit? We can have sermons for every question.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Please interrupt me. I'm sorry, if you need to interrupt me, then, then do so.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

On the, on the 10 ones, I was going a lot for a max of three minutes which included a back and forth, but we didn't, we didn't get there. We were at 2:45, 2:30 ish. So we'll, we'll call it there. If Jay wants to respond, he can. Otherwise we'll just hit the next 10.

[Jay Dyer]

I'll just say that. I mean, in a lot of statements where the Church Fathers are speaking of sufficiency or proficiency etc, or the necessity of using the Scriptures, the same Church Fathers also have similar statements about tradition, oral tradition, etc, so it's not a proof of solar scripture or something like that. We also agree that the Scriptures are absolutely necessary.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay, thank you Hoffnung for that. Gnostic Academy. Since 10. He says English speaking Orthodox mainly read from the KJV, a Protestant translated Bible. If Prots don't have apostolic authority, then why do Orthos read from a prod translation? Okay, I'm assuming that's going towards you first. J. Go ahead.

[Jay Dyer]

Because the King James Version used the received text, the Textus Receptus, which is the patriarchal orthodox text.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay, you wanna.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, I, I actually don't. There's not a great deal of disagreement there. I mean, we, we, we're also. I mean, I don't want to talk, you know, take too much of a, of a. I want to make myself the spokesman too much. I, I myself prefer Luther preferred the received Text. And I don't, I don't necessarily see that as a mark against orthodoxy myself.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay, next super chat is from T or FPV flight 74214 10. He says, when did ancient church have its lampstand removed? If Luther taught a different gospel than the early patristics, isn't that a system level Defeated in Galatians 1:6 through 9 is the very last thing you put in parentheses.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I, I mean, I don't believe that the ancient church as a whole had its lampstand removed. So I don't, I wouldn't accept that frame.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Do you have any ideas on that one?

[Jay Dyer]

I would, I mean, I don't know if he's done or not, but I would say that. But I think that is a strong argument because if they didn't teach what is the gospel according to Martin Luther, then the church lost the gospel.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah. Well, what's the format?

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Do I, you can, yeah, you can go back and forth if it goes on too long or you're not kind of answering a little.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

So Luther doesn't believe that the church is ever, you know, without the gospel in the sense that there are that the word of. Because specifically because he believes that in the liturgy of the church and the scriptures themselves, however much they are accessible, and that varies of course, over the centuries, that the people still are hearing the gospel and the words of scripture, that there is in fact, and this is a term of art that's especially used in Lutheranism, but that there is in every generation of the church even now, a felicitous inconsistency, which is to say in the formal expressions of doctrine, people may err through a certain simplicity of mind, but that is not in itself an indication that they do not trust that Jesus Christ has made atonement for their sins, that he is their Savior. They very likely, many people do not have that fully worked out as to exactly how that is, but that it is, is something that they, that they believe, faith being a gift and, and something worked in them, you know, not something that, that relies on a perfect understanding again, as little children.

[Jay Dyer]

So was there, was there a church father or a person in the first 1500 years that believed in something equivalent to the Lutheran view of justification by faith alone.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Always spent a lot of time debating that. You know, I, I, this is, this is where I'm going to say yes, the, the, as far as the, you know, the at length demonstration, that's certainly something I'm very interested in doing. It's, it's part of My. It's part of my work.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, well, we can do a separate day. I mean, who are a couple of people that you think taught that or. And where.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, well, I. You see, I'm not gonna claim that

[Skin Queries Host]

I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a cute outfit and this girl comes up to me, just sits next to me, telling me, oh, hey, girl, I see your skin. I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling so. Just like, distraught and like, robbed of my time. When I finally freed me myself of that conversation, the lights were coming on and the party was over. It felt like I had a sticker on my forehead that said she has eczema.

[Skin Queries Narrator]

We've all been there, wanting to go out feeling cute, forgetting about all your problems and just existing in the present with joy. But when you live with a visible skin condition, that can be a lot harder than it needs to be. This is skin queries. Listen, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that make you feel understood

[Trent from Boniface Group]

that, you know, in all of its, you know, formal articulation.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, who comes?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Oh, Ambrose, Augustine, Chrysostom Gregory and the other Gregory.

[Jay Dyer]

Which work of Augustine comes close to Luther's justification by faith alone,

[Trent from Boniface Group]

grace and free will against plagias? I mean, quite a lot. I mean, I mean, you don't really want me to sit here and read full quotes.

[Jay Dyer]

I've read those. Those all teach infused righteousness. So how is that anywhere?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's going to be, that's going to be qualified quite a bit.

[Jay Dyer]

Well, that's not, that's how Rome rejects the Lutheran view by saying, we reject Luther's view because we affirm infused righteousness. So that's a key point of departure.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, right.

[Jay Dyer]

And, you know, so you, you, you,

[Trent from Boniface Group]

you said, truly that last, last point here. Yeah. So there is not a, you know, ultimately, you know, Luther's going to affirm and correctly that what is clearly taught in the Scriptures is often clearly witnessed to by the Fathers. A lot of what they said, you know, is going to depend on the exact nature of the controversy that they're engaged in at the time.

[Jay Dyer]

You name two works infuse righteousness, though, so that's not Lutheran at all.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

It depends on what you mean by it. I mean, this is, this is qualified endlessly on both sides of the debate.

[Jay Dyer]

No, there's nobody that Augustine teaches infused righteousness. There's literally no one else said.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Well, sure, but what I'm saying is that the Term itself does not actually have an entirely stable definition. We're going to have to leave it

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

right there or else we are going to run out of time. Gentlemen. Nick at night since 10 bucks and says atheists are more coherent than Protestants. Very quick, pithy response from you both, if you would,

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Sometimes. No.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, moving on.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Actually, I agree sometimes. And the same can be said of the Orthodox and the Roman Catholics.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

You're being fair to all of them. That always tracks. We got Green Emperor 3022 for 10 says Boniface. Are you aware of the last 10 to 5 years of scholarship that has gone against forensic justification like Jason Staples, Paul and the Resurrection of Israel and John Barclay, Paul and the Gift?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yes, I disagree with it.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Right, well, that was to you specifically, Jay, if you want to just say, yeah, I know about that.

[Jay Dyer]

I don't have any comment.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right. Alchemist since 10 and he says without tone policing by calling them a psycho or making fun of their sweater. Is there any reason you won't debate men like Corey Mahler, James White or Peter diamond on topic, defending EO position questions?

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, I've stated many times. Number one, James White didn't offer a actual debate. What he said was, I'll debate you on a separate topic. From what. From what I originally offered years later, years earlier. And he would only do it if I was in a driving distance of his rv. So it wasn't actually a debate. It was a separate debate if I was in driving distance. I don't even know where he lives, nor do I care. Corey Mahler explicitly has said about five or six times that Orthodox people should be put to death.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Death.

[Jay Dyer]

I'm not going to interact with people like that. And I think the Diamond Brothers are a cult and they make legal threats all the time when people debate them. So no, these are people that are not going to ever interact with me.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

You did not mention a sweater. Thank you, eider. Bolas sends 10 and he says Jay is way too hung up on the word damned. He's playing semantics.

[Jay Dyer]

I'm using Luther's terminology. And we saw that, that when we asked what the equivalence for propitiation was and what was due to us, he agreed initially that what was due to us was damnation. And that's a spiritual damnation. And that is not what Chrysostom nor any of the church fathers teach you. Look at John Damascus's only orthodox faith. Book three. Go down to chapter 15, and he begins to explain what happens at the death of Christ. That's the normative position of all the church fathers across the board, it's the severing of the human soul from the human body. No, Church fathers teach that Jesus was damned by the Father because it obviously results in anti trinitarian nonsense.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, that's a topic that I think would take more time to flesh out fully. It's one in which there are different senses of words being employed in different contexts and that can lead to misunderstanding, especially if in an alien context. Legitimately, that's the topic on. On the table. Which is why, from a confessional Lutheran, Protestant standpoint, I would say that in those events where there is clarity lacking in that sense, you know, we assiduously are going to insist on.

[Skin Queries Host]

I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a cute outfit and this girl comes up to me, just sits next to me, telling me, oh, hey girl, I saw. I see your skin. I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling so. Just like distraught and like robbed of my time. When I finally freed myself of that conversation, the lights were coming on and the party was over. It felt like I had a sticker on my forehead that said she has eczema.

[Skin Queries Narrator]

We've all been there, wanting to go out feeling cute, forgetting about all your problems and just existing in the present with joy. But when you live with a visible skin condition, that can be a lot harder than it needs to be. This is Skin Queries. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that make you feel understood.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Our written confessions being the norm, you know, through which. Through which those things are interpreted.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Alrighty, thank you. This next super chat from Jim Burns Jr. For 10 is kind of related to that one. He said Jesus was not damned. The word damned means to be damned up from receiving the water of life, the truth. When one is blinded by desire, he is removed from seeking the rest of the truth. Damned.

[Jay Dyer]

That is not what the word damned means. Does not mean to be damned up from receiving the water of life. That's concept fellowship.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Jay is entirely correct.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

So they're not talking about beavers. Got it. All right, we have a couple more tens that came in. And 120. And we'll start with this 10 because it doesn't require any response. Square is best for 10 says, what a plot twist. I think we all know what that was referencing.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I missed something.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I don't. Maybe. That is how you say it. For 10 says, why is Corey at your house while you debate Jay? Is he sitting in the corner chair now?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No. Well, why is he, because he was visiting. He's a friend.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay. And I can't do this, but I, I do want to read the, the chat Nikas, I think is his. Yeah, Nikos 4931 said for 100 bucks. Thank you for that. He said, give Corey two minutes. It does not work that way, unfortunately. You know, sorry if you're disappointed with your purchase. I'm not in charge of the.

[Jay Dyer]

I mean, we had a similar situation with the, with the Muslim. Muslim guy wanted to do a debate on Sneako's channel. We were going to set that up and then it turns out this is a guy who regularly doxes people. So no, I do have, you know, lines that I draw with who interact with.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

And that's totally fair. I mean, you don't go on to a channel to agree to debate one person and then kind of get ambushed by another one without any plan, which, I mean, if it was totally different context, I would have no control.

[Jay Dyer]

I do want. We just did a one on five for mdd. So.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Yeah, yeah. So sorry, Nick, or Niche, however you pronounce it. But I do appreciate that if you don't ask for a refund. Nathaniel Lowe, 1215 for 20 says, Trent, did Corey make a special trip up to your house for that little ploy, only for him to fumble the trade off and embarrass himself also. What is Corey doing now? Eating cookies and fuming?

[Skin Queries Host]

No.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

And, and no fair.

[Skin Queries Host]

All right.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I don't, I didn't see any cookies.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I'm not gonna press you on seeing fumes though, so leave it at that.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I don't see any films.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

You did light a cigarette right afterwards though, so we got those fumes. All right, so we just finished the tens, twenties and that 100. Appreciate all you guys going big and we're going to bust through these $5 real quick. So Trent, appreciate you kind of being flexible with how it changes up a little bit according to the amount here. So these guys just real.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

It's like a minute and that's like,

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

if we're going back and forth just because. Yeah, we can't waste the rest of the time. We got on one $5 super chat that. But if we get through all of them and you guys have a little bit to say, like, I'll let you, I'll let you cook. I don't have anything going on right now. This is, this is what I do. All right. 1313, Maryland says for five you both serve an idol worshiping death cult and Jesus would be appalled. Got the Copy paste on that one.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Thank you, Marilyn.

[Jay Dyer]

Marilyn is an insane person who thinks that everyone is God. So

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I. Sounds like. Sounds like Jay has him sized up. I don't know who he is.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

She's a regular.

[Jay Dyer]

It's a, it's a wine mom.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

She's a regular. Appreciate the super chat, Marilyn. Nick at night for five. He says the Protestant dilemma is refusing to take a hard stance on anything.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I mean, I, I, our hard stances are, are our written confessions.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

The.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

And again, I, for good or for ill, annoyingly or not, I can't claim to represent all of Protestantism. I don't know if Jay would claim to be representing the Orthodox consensus. I think he probably would. You know, there is

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

these.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I think it's much less monolithic than it has certainly been made out to be. There are certainly divisions within those who claim to be exponents of Eastern Orthodoxy. As we've recently seen, there's huge divisions within Roman Catholicism. I don't think they would disagree from their various sides of that division, but I think it's certainly something that the Orthodox and the Protestants would both of air regarding. Regarding Rome, but.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, Jay, if you want to do a quick response, I don't have any comment. All right, moving on. Busting through these daughters. Galatians 84 since 5 and says Jay would be a better apologist if he wasn't such a pig of a man to others.

[Jay Dyer]

A pig. I don't know how I was a pig. I mean, aggressive debating is what every normal dude does when they debate. So there you go, picking out baby fair Jamari.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I will read your 10. I'm pretty sure I, I got it. Let me see after this one. I'll find it while. While they're responding. Okay, so we just got through daughter's Galatians. Oh, Marilyn sent another one and said to require anyone to show loyalty to one over another is basic control and manipulation. Witchcraft. If you sound like God, you won't argue with God.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, but isn't Marilyn wanting us to be loyal to what she's arguing? So she's doing the very thing that she says is witchcraft.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Don't be a hypocrite, Marilyn. Come on. Nick at Knight for five says TBG will be Orthodox by the end of this debate.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Guess we have some time left.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

But there's, there's a bit of time. Orthodox for nieces for five says Boniface is Jay's doppelganger. Boniface begome Orthodox.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Tough. Say that's not very nice, but I've been Told I have a great face for radio, but I think I know what's meant by that.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I saw someone say there's a poly market for you narrating audiobooks by 2027.

[Jay Dyer]

I don't know. I have a black queen face. I wouldn't know what it's like to be unattractive. I'm a ediva.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

So. Let's see.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Trans debate. Okay, we got another 10 from Justin Smith 6766. Jay, how exactly does the essence energies distinction, considering the argument against created grace grace reconcile the quote, my soul doth magnify the Lord. What kind of grace was Theotokos full of? This one I will give up to 2 minutes.

[Jay Dyer]

The only type of grace that we as orthodox believe in is uncreated grace. There's also saying as created grace. Unless you in the loose sense think that everything that God created was done so from a kind of grace in that sense there's a, you know, grace behind every creature. But, but when we mean grace in the orthodox conception, it's always the uncreated operations, energies, power dunamis in the New Testament that Paul uses of God that we participate in. So absolutely, when the Holy Spirit overshadowed the Theotokos and for the rest of her life we believe that she was full of uncreated grace.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, you want to respond at all, Trent, to that?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay, thank you Justin, for that super chat to Gooch sent another 10 and he said, do you share the beliefs of your friend to off Orthodox? Are they traitors too?

[Jay Dyer]

Off Orthodox.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

That's the trend as a verb.

[Jay Dyer]

Oh yeah.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

You know what, what, what Corey says and in the mode of his, of his Twitter rhetoric and positing the existence of certain status crimes under hypothetical conditions and you know, the carrying out of those things in the interest of a Christian realm under a Christian prince, you know, very often are designed to be abrasive and to get people to think of the way in which the Church has in fact operated. You know, and I won't say brutally, but at least perhaps draconianly in certain circumstances. And I won't claim to know the full development of what he believes by that. He doesn't want to kill Jay Dyer. He doesn't want to round up the Orthodox off the streets and be a vigilante. Do I believe in, in the existence of status crimes that, let's just say hypothetically that the Christian prince has a duty to go to the utmost to suppress blasphemy and false doctrine in the land, as did Josiah, as did hezekiah as did David and Solomon at times

[Skin Queries Host]

when they were I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a cute outfit and this girl comes up to me, just sits next to me, telling me, oh, hey girl, I see your skin. I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling so, just like distraught and like, robbed of my time. When I finally freed myself of that conversation, the lights were coming on and the party was over. It felt like I had a sticker on my forehead that said, she has eczema.

[Skin Queries Narrator]

We've all been there, wanting to go out feeling cute, forgetting about all your problems and just existing in the present with joy. But when you live with a visible skin condition, that can be a lot harder than it needs to be. This is Skin Queries. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that make you feel understood.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Walking righteously. I do believe that is the prerogative of a Christian. Okay.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, I mean, the comments called for the unaliving of the Orthodox due to, quote, treason and other crimes of state, which you don't have any evidence that Orthodox people are treasonous. Unless you're just going to go with the standard Zio slop news which says that Putin runs everything in America. Putin got Trump elected. Which is ironically something I don't. It's irony if you do that because, you know, you guys, I don't think believe the mainstream media unless it happens to be advantageous to say that that Orthodox are somehow a bunch of Putin stooges. And that was the context at least in one or two of his unaliving comments. So, yeah, feel free to present the evidence that you have that we, we're Russian agents.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, I, I, I can't comment on that specific claim. Nor do I, I would say just in general believe that, especially since plenty of Orthodox aren't actually submitted to the Russian patriarch. Anyway, as far as what is arguable regarding crimes in the temporal realm and what the measure of treason is, I could say that it's arguable. I'm not making the argument, nor do I know the argument in its details. Happy to find out and hear it. I mean, it certainly wouldn't be historically unprecedented, you know, for, for again, the Christian prince to take such actions in the expert in the extirpation of, of heresy, you know, according to his lights in his realm.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

But that is.

[Jay Dyer]

So now treason is a religious crime?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No, I don't think it would be a religious crime. No.

[Skin Queries Host]

Okay.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, we got to wrap it up there. Glad we cleared that up. This one is 10 from Jamari that I missed a second ago. This is for Trent. Can you or do you admit you are wrong or mistaken or uninformed about your own doctrine? Humility goes a long way otherwise. Props for stepping into the ring with the Bipoc Queen. Thank you, Jamari.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I. Am I capable of erring even in respect to articulating theological tradition that I'm part of? Certainly. Did I speak erroneously in representing specifically what Lutherans believe? No, I don't think I did. I may have faltered in areas where I wasn't certain about how it would articulate something in the moment. The exhortation to humility is well taken. God resisteth the proud and gives grace to the humble. And that is without humbleness, without humility before one's maker and before one's fellow Christians. I don't believe that the love of God would be in a man. And so pray for me that I would more readily manifest that fruit of the Spirit.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, thank you. I think that's all the tens for now. So we'll get back to the fives. Blast through these. Last one we read was the become Orthodox, so Nick at night sent another five. Nick, thank you for the generous super chatting tonight. He said this is the tipping point for the Protestant. That's optimistic, optimistic, positive comment there. Opposed to the rest of accusations that. I'm not going to read every one of these $2 ones, guys. So don't send $2 to just insult either debater, please. Noetics, keep it substantive. Noetic Samurai for five says. Bonnie, can you explain the difference between PSA and satisfactionary atonement? Jay, do you find both models incompatible with ortho recapitulation?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

How long do I have to.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

To answer that as quick as you can would be ideal.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Can you please read it again? Read the question again.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Explain the difference between PSA and satisfactionary atonement.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I don't know that I can right now. I mean, as concepts, they're certainly going to have. They're going to be mutually. They're going to be related. It is more within the Lutheran modus loquendi way of speaking to discuss Christ's vicarious satisfaction, referring not only to his suffering of God's wrath on the cross, but also to his entire life of obedience to the utmost, submitting, even to death, death on a cross. So I would say that the concept of the vicarious satisfaction of Christ as our substitute is broader certainly than penal substitutionary atonement. But it would entail things that come under that heading.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay, and then real quick, Jay, do you find both models incompatible with orthorecapitulation?

[Jay Dyer]

Well, I mean, even aside from the doctrine of recapitulation, I mean it might relate to that indirectly. They're just not compatible with orthodox trinitarian theology or soteriology and some satisfaction theory, just for example, as I referenced earlier in the debate, only makes reference to two Persons in the Trinity. The satisfaction of the infinitely offended, holiness and dignity of the Father is satisfied by the infinity of the merits of the Son to the Father. And we would say that that's not even trinitarian because it leaves out the Holy Spirit. You can't have anything in the triad that that's two and not all three of the persons in some common action or operation. So and then PSA is literally comes out of the Reformation and no, of course Reformation is incompatible with orthodoxy.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Thank you. Gotta move it on here, psa. I actually do have to give a PSA shout out to PS2 Chirper112 who sent in some gift memberships. I appreciate you dude. You always drop in and do that for people. That helps out a lot. Especially when Jay and other people go and do these in person debates. You can watch those live first weeks and weeks in advance if you have a membership. So if you don't have one, get one. All right, next one's for from an honest doubter for five for J. You have a burden to actually produce your claimed impossibility of the contrary of every other private and public worldview for

[Jay Dyer]

tech when yeah, address as many times. The reason that that's easy to do is that every worldview boils down to some fundamental either or types of questions. So for example, either there is an external world with objective meaning or there's not. Either there is objective morality that is not subject to change, or there's not. So if you you boil it down to some of those basic metaphysical ontological epistemic questions, you find out that there's not actually an infinite number of worldviews because by necessity all possible worldviews would have to begin with some basic either or questions that would force them into entailments.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Thank you, Trent. Would you like to respond real quick?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, it could be that easy. Sometimes we'll just go right on. There's quite a bit to get through and we're making good time for the most part. Captain swish for 10 he says. Jay. Trent, great debate. Thanks MDD for hosting and keeping proper etiquette. Trent, would you Consider attending a liturgy.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I have. I was at one time, I want to say 17 years ago, I was an Orthodox inquirer. So I have attended and appreciate many things about it. There's certainly some overlap between the older Lutheran liturgical tradition and the Eastern rite. And like I said, I do appreciate a lot about it. Thank you.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, another 20 came in from Nathaniel Lowe. 12:15. He says Trent's Christian prince Mahler exercised his princely authority over Trent and unilaterally stole the debate seat from Trent without his permission. Now Corey is raiding Trent's fridge. Trent, take back your home. That was some good fan fiction there.

[Jay Dyer]

I don't know about, you know, infused righteousness, but I guarantee he's in there infusing some of that lemon meringue into his tummy.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

That's a good pie.

[Jay Dyer]

It is good.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right. Christopher Scott for ten says Mahler calls EO wolves who should be unalive. Sounds pretty explicit to me. I don't know anything about this personally, so. Just getting through these. All right, that was all the new big ones. We're. We're caught up. We're going back real quick. For Nick at Knight, who has been killing it, he says TBG is questioning his entire worldview. This might be the most effective internal critique Jay has ever done. Can you confirm or deny it's.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

It's been. It's been profitable. It's been a profitable engagement. I. It's given direction. To what? To what? Certainly my. My.

[Skin Queries Host]

I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a cute outfit, and this girl comes up to me, just sits next to me, telling me, oh, hey, girl, I see your skin. I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling so. Just, like, distraught and, like, robbed of my time. When I finally freed myself of that conversation, the lights were coming on and the party was over. It felt like I had a sticker on my forehead that said she has eczema.

[Skin Queries Narrator]

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[Trent from Boniface Group]

My studies will be informed by. And, yeah, I mean, we all have much to learn from the holy and inspired words of the apostles of our Lord, his prophets. And it is something that is ongoing and never complete. And I can say from my part that it certainly has been profitable.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, I've enjoyed it. I would like to comment. And they say exactly what your bff, their body said in his tweets. If Orthodox were just a weird group in the corner with rights and bad aesthetics, they could be ignored. In reality, they're a cancer, a predatory corruption. They must be exterminated. I accept that you are an enemy that must be destroyed. You are insufferable. I will not regret for a second that you might be treated as enemies. You be eradicated like vermin. I will purge all of you as demons. You're just like the Jews that fund you. So there's your, your pious buddy claiming that he's got Christian conduct that I don't have. This is ridiculous, dude. This is ridiculous.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, it sounds like a heated argument. The.

[Jay Dyer]

It's not a heated argument. It's not a heated. Can you imagine if I said this stuff? How do you think the Internet would treat me if I said that stuff?

[Skin Queries Host]

Stuff?

[Jay Dyer]

Would you guys just say, hey, man, it's rhetoric. Heated argument. If I make a fat joke, I'm not Christ like, but if I call for unaliving, oh, it's just rhetoric and heated argument. That's why it's just ridiculous, man. It's ridiculous.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Well, I would, you know, refer back to my, my earlier comment, both that was a heated engagement. And I, I don't have, I, I, I don't witness all of these things. I'm, I'm more of a casual X user, which is what I was.

[Jay Dyer]

I mean, these are engagements with multiple people. These are, there's more. These are just random multiple engagements. So I, I believe you.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, the, and again, the. I would say that this again, would not be historically unprecedented, really, from either side of the aisle. And, and if you, if you're to separate the tone from the substance, the contention is, I mean, certainly strongly articulated that there does exist that an alien confession can subvert the faith and morals of a people within the bounds of their habitation, and that the Prince, per his office, has a duty to go to the utmost, whatever that may entail, to keep his realm free of such influences. Obviously, we're going to disagree regarding who is what in that situation, but that it has occurred even within the pages of sacred history itself. Again, I don't view the actions of Israel's kings, Judah's righteous kings, as unrighteous or unchristian in what they did, but certainly the entire disagreement is over who truly represents the Christian faith and what is.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, let me ask you this because, you know, historically Lutherans and Calvinists killed each other over minor theological differences. Would you also affirm that it's still a princely duty to kill Calvinists or Baptists?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

You know, when you, when you posit, you know, hypotheticals, there is certainly a greater affinity. Lutherans are probably going to disown me over this. There's a greater affinity between Lutherans and Protestants in the. And I want to say just the, the simple propositions regard that we would aver to be the, the core of, of the Chris. Of the Christian faith.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, but Orthodox should. Should die, but not Baptist. Even though historically Lutherans also kill Baptist.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

You know, the circumstances under which an action in extremis literally and legally would be undertaken, I would say would need to very, very, very, extremely, very widely. I mean, outside of the realm of hypothetical, I mean, you're referring to real historical circumstances that I'm familiar with in the confessional states and the wars that, you know, that followed. 30 years war comes to mind. But there the Protestants were largely aligned with one another. The. I don't, you know, I, as far

[Jay Dyer]

as my own answers, like, can you ever just say yeah, just on a live. It's just. Yeah, I mean, around it, like, just

[Trent from Boniface Group]

answer straight, dude, I don't think I'm doing that. But.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, well, not. The audience thinks that you are doing that. So you can think that, but you didn't convince the audience that you're not doing that.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Oh, well, I guess I failed on that. But the. I don't believe that in freedom of religion ultimately that pluralism is godly. And I believe that when orthodox magistrates, Roman Catholic magistrates undertook what they were constrained by their consciences to do on behalf of their people, I disagree strongly. I think they were wrong, but I don't doubt that they had the full conviction of Christian zeal in doing what they did.

[Jay Dyer]

You know, but you're calling the Baptist Christians and these other Christians. Are you only referring to Lutherans or the Baptist also subverters?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Well, I mean, as far as the public, you know, doctrinal position of certain things of, you know, the Orthodox versus versus the Baptist. I mean, I mean, a magistrate certainly is going to differentiate between what is the more credible and real threat to peace and orthodoxy in his realm.

[Jay Dyer]

Okay, so you're the prince.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

This gotta be the Prince.

[Jay Dyer]

Trent gonna kill the Baptist.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Last question here, and then we're gonna move on.

[Jay Dyer]

Is Prince Trent gonna kill the Baptist or just the Orthodox?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Prince Trent must deliberate the matter at length in his mind and seek the wisdom of many counselors who would not undertake such a decision lightly.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, thank you for that exchange. I think that was fruitful. I let it go on a little too long, but I appreciate where it's coming from. Adam Jefford, 8430 or 8489 since 1399. He says, Boniface, the Protestant tradition is only founded in its opposition to Romanism. How strange is it for orthodoxy to be so prominent in your theological discernment. J may be a sultry black stud derailed that comment.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I don't believe that Protestantism per se is formed. I mean, historically, it, you know, what is named as the Protestant Reformation, the protest, which incidentally is not just a generic protest against the pope. If you look at the origin of that term, it's not merely formed in opposition to Roman Catholicism. Part of what is misunderstood, even by, I would submit many Lutherans, is the nature of our own faith. The content of it is not exhausted by the Lutheran confessions. They don't articulate regarding everything that a Christian ought to believe on the basis of the scriptures. It's limited to controverted articles, you know, in that sense. So in those controversies, it is formed in opposition to the errors of that day. But that does not exhaust the content of our faith, of our position.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, I won't make you comment on the last sentence of that. Super chat.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

J, he looks really. He looks white to me. So I, you know, I'm on the outside of an inside joke. But he called himself, you know, bipoc Queen or something, and he owns it, you know, so indeed, doubling down. Good for. Good for him.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All out. Quick response, Jay. We got a couple more tens that came in. Octavian's in the chat. Hello, sir.

[Jay Dyer]

No, I'm about to affirm the Yberg confession.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Mr. Octavian 33 says for 10J. If Orthodoxy true, why did Luther publish the fiery and merciless pamphlet against the murderous, thieving hordes of peasants urging nobility to stab smite ch.

[Skin Queries Host]

Joke.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

The rebels like mad dogs.

[Jay Dyer]

I mean, I believe you're referring to the Anabaptists. Right. And the radical Reformation. I mean, I think I'm going from memory. I haven't. I haven't read luther in probably 15 years, but I'm assuming that or recalling that that's about the. The Baptists of his time. So that's kind of the point I was getting at.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay, if. If you want to say something on this one, Trent, we just gotta be a little quicker.

[Jay Dyer]

Go ahead.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay. All right. That's all those tins that I'm caught up. So last one was From Nick at night, we got the iconic hoarder saying, I commend TBG for doing this and not quitting. To put his worldview out there in front of thousands despite the blue screen moments takes courage. Okay, thanks.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I, I, I've enjoyed it and I appreciate it. I'm glad that the opportunity came.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Appreciate you being here. Black Sheep for five says the Lutheran l was unconditionally predestined.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Okay.

[Jay Dyer]

Do you believe in, I'm just curious. Do you affirm the double predestination position of Luther or do you have a different position?

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I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a cute outfit and this girl comes up to me, just sits next to me telling me, oh, hey girl, I see your skin. I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling so, just like distraught and like robbed of my time. When I finally freed myself of that conversation, the lights were coming on and the party was over. It felt like I had a sticker on my forehead that said she has eczema.

[Skin Queries Narrator]

We've all been there. One wanting to go out feeling cute, forgetting about all your problems and just existing in the present with joy. But when you live with a visible skin condition, that can be a lot harder than it needs to be. This is Skin Queries. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that make you feel understood.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No, we, we don't believe double predestination and we also don't think that ultimately that's what Luther teaches. We are going to argue, and this is a large topic, a good one, I think, a neglected one in some ways because things get bifurcated within Protestantism, between Calvinism and Arminianism. These, these become very vastly, broadly applied terms. But anyway, all this is to say in, in the Lutheran Confession, specifically in the Formula of Concord, Article 9, or, pardon me, Article 11 on election on that entire topic, that entire locus. Short answer is that's what Luther teaches in the bondage of the will in a different setting, in an extended format, in a very lengthy polemical setting that touches on ancillary topics. But what the formula of Concord teaches in Article 9 is what Luther taught as well. Article 11. Pardon me.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Hey, we can't do any follow up questions on that one, unfortunately, Jay, but we are busting through these. I think you'll have time for a couple if you'd like. Kyle rode the dinosaur for five says, how do you talk to giants? Use big words. Good one, Kyle. Okay, Samuel Miller 5517 for 5 says Ortho Bros, scripture, tradition, and whatever Jay uploaded this week.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Week.

[Jay Dyer]

That's not true. I have plenty of clergy that support and agree with the theological positions that I talk about, because most of what I talk about is just repeating what's in standard orthodox theological text.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

For some of these fives. Yeah, I'm just going to bust through to the next one, Trent, if you don't mind. And if it's referencing you, go right ahead. I'll do the same thing after you respond, just so we can get through them. And then if a couple tens or twenties come in, we could take like two or three minutes on those. But I just. I do want to be fair to these people. Psyops or Darth grumpy dad for 7612 for 5 says please come to liturgy. So I'm getting asked again now. I did, I did have to remove this guy from the chat because he was spamming really hard. But I'll read his five real quick. It's not crazy, but he said psyop Science for five says there's no way you thin that Jesus actually existed if you have read any of the source material. You can't be serious, right?

[Jay Dyer]

That's a really good argument.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

You want to come on the channel, bro? We need debaters like you. Okay. Adam Slosser for five says, Trent, you voice mogged, and that's all that matters in my eyes.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Whatever.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

You could thank him. That was. That was a compliment, bro.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, yeah, thanks.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I'm just messing with you. Dokuju for five says Trent is a really nice guy. Not prepared for the wigs. Antian queen, though. And then Nick at Night for five again says, prove Trent is alive at this point. Oh, that's not. That's. That's mean. Oh. Psyops in another five said, Christ is like a brand new Ferrari. Right? Am I right? Okay, he's. He might have some questions about.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I. I don't.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

About some things. It's on paper. Has been a member for two months at the final word level. Thank you so much. Appreciate you. And square is best. I read yours. Okay, we're almost done here, guys. Almir Pred Prelaz. Unique Jay Dyer reached a new power level this day. Oh, he. That was sent for nine. Eleven. Oh, he's trying to send secret messages. Thank you. Nine dollars and eleven cents.

[Jay Dyer]

Almir, just get those left in the chat.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Now we see you in the filth for five. This gentleman already clipping up this debate like a wizard. $5. He says Trent and Mahler's attempt ambush is absolutely embarrassing. You people are snakes. I wouldn't be surprised if Mahler was feeding Trent answers. Confirm or deny, Trent?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

He's not.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay, cool. That would not be fair. Elk. Elks, Jag for two. No, we're not on the twos yet. Sorry. Alex shepherd, sheep herder for five says, bro, why won't you engage with the fed plant who has openly called for the underliving of you and your people? You scared Christians.

[Jay Dyer]

Same reason I wouldn't interact with the Muslim dude that doxes people.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Fair. Vess 1824 for five. How's it going, Vess? He said, trent, act in good faith.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Faith.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Then pulling that WWE plot twist and coming back with a Sig inside the house was MGD's best mask off moment. It's quality content. I'm not gonna lie. All right, jmar, Sorry, do you want to say something?

[Jay Dyer]

No.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Okay.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I thought I was interrupting. All right, Jmar, 26.85 for five. He knows this audience like sigs. His poll went from 11 to 12% once he pulled it out. I wasn't watching it. That close. Jmar. Refurbished.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Is this illegal if I. Nah.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I mean, I'm not getting paid for it, but be nice.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I also see what that does. Prefer that I want 13%

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

refurbished. Yeah, it's correlative. Refurbished says for five. I previously said the prot guy seemed chill, but after the fat hertic tried ambushing Jay. I take it back. Back spelled heretic wrong. Nick at Night for five says TBG doing some of the most polite filibustering I've heard. Not a fan of his wife's boyfriend, though. Nick. All those super chats. Very thankful. Don't be so mean. You know he wouldn't like that. But I mean, that was not against TOS. So I read it. Alchemist for 5 says Jay won't debate Corey because he's an overweight federal agent psycho and won't debate James White because his sweater is ugly. Peter Diamond, One rebuttal.

[Jay Dyer]

No, the sweater is a Cosby sweater.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

That's fine.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I'm not going to ask what you have against those sweaters, Jay.

[Jay Dyer]

I never even said it was ugly. I just said it's a Cosby sweater.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

That's fair, neutral, 80s. But J, Norm 888 for 5 says both Luther and Melkathon made statements about the gospel being lost.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Yeah, I, I, I and I don't. They didn't mean in an absolute sense. I mean, they're. They're going to be referring to it Being obscure by certain traditions of men. But not, certainly never absolutely absent. They would say that's impossible.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Jay, any comment on that?

[Jay Dyer]

No comment.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Okay,

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

There's a couple more that just came in that are tens alchemist says for 10J. As a former co host of Andy Warski Live Keynote Casino. How can you tone Police Mahler and run from a debate with him, James White and Peter Diamond, Piety Signaler.

[Jay Dyer]

I'm not party signaling. It has nothing to do with piety. Has to do with my lines in the Santa who I do and don't want to interact with. And I never hosted Kino Casino. I only hosted five, I think five episodes of Warski. What does that do with anything?

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I don't know. Does Keno Casino have anything to do with. With like gambling or.

[Jay Dyer]

No, it's just what Worsky hosts now. So I don't know.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Thank you for the 10 Alchemist. Nathaniel Lowe for 10 says. Trent, why are you lying that you didn't let Mahler take the debate seat? It's so obvious to everyone and your countenance knows you got caught in lies and deception. Lying like a Muslim. That was Nathan Lowe saying that.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

No comment.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Bird Fernando Tamicule. Jay, you destroyed. And then Jacob Morin for five. Trent, what do you make of theosis and mysticism?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I'll take a quick stab

[Jay Dyer]

their.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

You know, mysticism, broad term. Jay said earlier that Luther was influenced by a certain mystical tradition in theology. Tauler Gerson. The Theologica Germanica was a very. Was a well beloved text for Luther and others. There are ways. I'll be. Just hear what I'm. I'm making a limited statement here. There are ways in which we would affirm some of what is propounded under the Eastern formulation of theosis. We're going to depart on others. But when I mentioned earlier the category of the mystical union of Christ and Christian. We believe Christ is not a God afar off. He is a God at hand.

[Skin Queries Host]

I thought I looked so cute. I pieced together a cute outfit and this girl comes up to me, just sits next to me telling me, oh, hey girl, I see your skin. I know what you're suffering with. I just remember feeling so. Just like distraught and like robbed of my time. When I finally freed myself of that conversation, the lights were coming on and the party was over. It felt like I had had a sticker on my forehead that said she has eczema.

[Skin Queries Narrator]

We've all been there, wanting to go out feeling cute, forgetting about all your problems and just existing in the present with joy. But when you live with a visible skin condition, that can be a lot harder than it needs to be. This is Skin Queries. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that make you feel understood.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

And that where he is present with his grace, he himself is present. Luther famously says in his Galatians commentary, Christ himself is present in faith. Not a direct quote, but in ipsa fide Christus adest Christ is himself present in faith. So it is not a mere notional relationality, faith. But faith is, is a living, a living thing because we are in fact grafted into Christ. And so if that is a topic of interest, and you want to know what Lutherans believe regarding that, the mystical union is the heading under which that's addressed.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Thank you. I'll offer a response. Jay,

[Jay Dyer]

no.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay, yeah, we're reaching the the end here, guys. So I would say this probably Jersey Shore Realtor here. Don't send any more after his just so I can let these gentlemen enjoy the rest of their nights. We have, we have been killing it here. Very large activity in the chat zone. So we're going to wrap this up up get a couple of these out of the way. Jamari 2 for 5 says, Trent, I have a hard time following your answers. Are you a lawyer or a politician? And I have a college degree. Maybe I'm dumb.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Well, I'm new to this format and I'm not a lawyer and I'm not a politician. But for the circumlocution that I have engaged in, perhaps at some times it would be better simply to sit silently and think. But as I said, this is not a medium that I often engage in. It's new to me. And it's new to me.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I offer up the Teddy Roosevelt quote about the man in the arena. So respect to you, man. Okay, we got Sisyphus. Ignatius for five says demiurge worshipers with their appeal to authority indoctrinations and no true Scotsmans.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Sorry, I blanked out. Want to read that again?

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Yeah, I'm not sure who he's talking about exactly. Maybe Jay. Demiurge worshippers with their appeal to authority indoctrinations and no true Scotsmans.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Whatever.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Orthodox Fornesis for five says, why do prods talk like they're playing dnd?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I've never played dnd. I was deprived as a child. I learned to type on a MacBook with an 8 inch screen. Didn't even have color Uphill in the snow, both ways. I've never played D and D. I mean, salute. I love you guys. Seems like. Seems like it had some fringe benefits.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, Rachel Wilson, who's been a member for eight months and just debated at debatecon 8, she said, looks like we are only down to people who are willing to try to cheat or pull funny business in order to win against Jay Dyer. Thanks for the chat, Rachel. Okay, we're just about done. Just getting these last couple ones queued up. Appreciate both of you guys hanging out. Jersey shore realtor for 10 says Big Mike set up this debate. Jay Dyer versus the real Mahler. Hashtag Truth Cartel. Hashtag bingo.

[Jay Dyer]

No, I'll never debate those guys. They're too dumb.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Yeah. Also, James is the. The debate matchup wizard behind the scenes, Trying to make sure I didn't miss any of these tens. I lose sleep at night knowing I'm taking from your family. Okay, I think we got. We got all those. Just maybe one or two fives. Let me double check. If not, I will go ahead and wrap this up. Samuel. Not the profit for 50 pesos. Come on, Sam. Can't believe this. Christian cannot disqualify Lutheran state persecution with a simple note. Just like the Dawa guys.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I don't know who the Dawa guys are.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Muslims, I think the specific sect of Muslims. Right, Jay? I'm not sure.

[Jay Dyer]

That's just their online and then in public apologetics group. So that's. That's Muslim apologetics is oftentimes called Dawah. Got it.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Thanks for clearing that up for the chat.

[Jay Dyer]

The Tatooine apologetics is called Jawa.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Yes, Square is best. This is the Cholo chat. Oh, they're asking when that is going to drop, Jay.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

When?

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

What if the Cholo cheater video.

[Jay Dyer]

Oh, I don't know.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

They keep referencing.

[Jay Dyer]

You guys said two weeks. I don't know.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Okay. I wasn't about a week informed on that. Five years.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I don't know.

[Jay Dyer]

James. James has up. How's that going?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I don't know.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Cool. I'll. I'll ask him. Let you guys know tomorrow. I think I might host the Jim Bob one tomorrow. Should be fun.

[Jay Dyer]

Is he doing a one on five or something different?

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

He's going one on one. I don't know the topic yet. I. I could look it up here in just a second. Let me double check. Yearning learning did send 10 just now. I asked him not to, but. Thank you, Yearning. I'll read it before we go. Jay, are you getting sick of the fact that the Protestant induction is so weak and logical and depends upon delusion? For it to continue. Why defend a doctrine that's born for falsehood? You're welcome to comment on this. After him. Trent.

[Jay Dyer]

We haven't had a lot of process debates actually, so. No, I'm. I'm actually happy to have Trent come and debate. I enjoyed it. It was civil, but it was also heated at times. So I appreciate that. That I'm trying to. I can't even remember the last time we did a Protestant debate. I'm usually looking for, you know, level headed civil Protestants to debate, so. No, I'm glad. I'm glad we did it. I want to see more Protestant debates.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I tried hard to contain a laugh. Sovereign 9456 free. UNK. Let him sleep. Okay. I am an uncle. I'm 33 years old. Chat. Okay.

[Jay Dyer]

You're an uncle.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

My uncle, yeah.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All my brothers and sisters got kids. All right, we're. I think we're. We're done here. Guys. I'm sorry if I missed anybody. I'll quit sending the unclerts. I shouldn't even said that. Takes up my whole. Guys. All right. I'm not even gonna look at the. The chats anymore, so don't send any more. Thank you. All the people who've been sending the gifts, there's too many random things on there to ever call them out. So just know that I see them. Other than unclert, which is probably the funniest one. You guys, both debaters, I appreciate y' all making the time, sticking through it. Trent, you are definitely a trooper coming out and doing your. Your first MDD debate here with Jay. I've had the honor of hosting two people's first debates on MDD with Jay, and both of them handled it like champs, I would say. And then we got just a quick reminder for DebateCon 9 coming up in Orlando. That is going to be a ton of fun. Guys, get your tickets early. We had a lot of people get some cool perks with the. The early access tickets. So some of the people who paid for VIP and all that stuff, people who just bought their tickets early at one of the lower tiers, got some great perks just for being early. And then debatecon 10 is going to be announced specific location soon. It was unveiled at the DEBATECON 8 conference in Dallas that it will be in Austin. We're just kind of nailing down the venues. There's two venues fighting for the right to have us there. We got them pitted against each other. Just kidding. I don't know what the actual issues are or determination. So, guys, thank you so much. Shout out your channels. Jay, go first, real quick. And. And then, Trent, you'll follow. Tell anyone who doesn't know Jay Dyer on Twitter.

[Jay Dyer]

Jay Dyer on YouTube, Jay's analysis website. Jay on. Jay's analysis on Instagram.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Trent, where can they find you?

[Trent from Boniface Group]

I'm on. I'm on X at Boniface Group. And, uh, also our website is Boniface dot group. I should also say that. Well, I. I respect the guy. I don't know him personally. The choice of thumbnail that I sent for the PfP, I think led a number of people to believe that I was a slighter version of Andrew Isker. Andrew is a great guy. I don't know him. And we're not actually affiliated. We both like St. Boniface of Mainz. I have a habit of naming things after other church fathers and saints, notably my children. But in case the association wouldn't be wanted on his end, I should clarify that we're not affiliated. But Boniface Group and on X at Boniface Group.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

All right, thanks, guys. Please, like the video if you haven't already let this fly out into the algorithms. And then we do have. Just so everybody knows, we got us a. A rumble now. It's amazing. We got us a Facebook or that's a tick tock. Sorry, I'm on the edge of boomerdom. We got a Facebook for the true boomers. That's what James likes to say is. That's why he set it up, because he's a boomer. And then we also have Yonaguni. Shout out. Bob, I know you're watching. He's our coordinator. This is his restaurant. If you're in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, check it out. It's awesome. Asian Latin fusion cuisine. You know you want it. And then last but not least, big shout out to the chat. Thanks, guys, for being engaged. Everyone who's hanging out from Jay's channel, Trent's channel. Thank you, guys. Have a good night. We're gonna wrap it up. Yeah. Sing in the street there's nothing left

[Jay Dyer]

to eat we're on our winning streak

[Skin Queries Narrator]

Going out in style.

[Jay Dyer]

Go.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

Yeah,

[Skin Queries Narrator]

I am.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

I'm not dead yet. Get out of here.

[Skin Queries Narrator]

Break out the hand grenades.

[Big Mike (Moderator)]

You know it's time to play Explosions

[Skin Queries Host]

to the rain Going out in the wow.

[Trent from Boniface Group]

Sa. Wait.