Jay Dyer Vs Rome, Protestants, Islam and More! - Jay Dyer

Summary

Jay'sAnalysis: Jay Dyer Vs Rome, Protestants, Islam and More!

Date: January 4, 2025
Host: Jay Dyer
Guests/Co-hosts: Lewis, Father Deacon Ananias, Greedo, Kai, Tony G, others via Discord

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Episode Overview

This episode of Jay’sAnalysis departs from the usual monologue format and uses a call-in/Q&A style, involving live audience members on Discord and Zoom. The core theme centers on the historical, theological, and philosophical divides and debates between Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Islam. Jay Dyer, known for his apologetics and polemical style, along with regular contributors, field wide-ranging questions on theology, church history, epistemology, metaphysics, and interfaith debates.

The tone is lively, sarcastic, sometimes combative, but consistently informative with deep dives into Orthodox theology, criticisms of other traditions, and practical guidance for inquirers and converts.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Open Debate Challenge and Discord Call-in Format

• Jay and Lewis open the floor for debates with Roman Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and others (06:10). Despite invitations, Muslim apologists do not show up, leading to humorous riffs about the difficulty of finding willing opponents.
• On the proliferation of debate stipulations:

  “If you don’t debate me on a blood moon, in Morse code, in an underground cave at 2am... I won't debate you.” – Jay (10:55)

2. Authority, Tradition, and Early Church Practices

• Extensive Q&A on praying to saints, the intercession of the dead, and the explicitness of ancient evidence:
  • Jay: "Augustine mentions intercession explicitly in multiple places... Jerome has treatises against those who question relics and saints." (14:28)
  • Jay: "If you're waiting for a 1st/2nd-century defense of every doctrine, you'd have to deny most of Christological dogma too." (15:04)

3. Orthodox Spiritual Direction & Delusion

• Father Deacon Ananias explains the Orthodox concept of a spiritual father and the danger of spiritual delusion:

  “What’s so dangerous about spiritual delusion is you don’t know you have it... That’s why we turn to an experienced spiritual father.” (21:26)

• Contrast is made with Protestantism (no mechanism for spiritual delusion) and Roman Catholicism.

4. Orthodox and Catholic Exorcism and Spiritual Warfare

• Orthodox house blessings, sacramentals, and the continuity with Catholic practice are affirmed.
  • Jay: “There's no difference between Orthodox and Catholic views of spiritual warfare... all the ascetical writing is about battling demons.” (29:24)
• Resources mentioned: Jean-Claude Larchet, Father George Okoro

5. Interaction with Islam – Debate Challenges

• Ongoing frustration with Muslim apologists refusing to debate Christian theology:

  “When is a Muslim actually going to step up and defend their theology? They never do it.” – Jay (63:04)

• Emphasis on the tendency of Muslim debaters to focus on Biblical higher criticism rather than defending their own texts/doctrines.

6. Church History, Crusades, and Schism

• Discussion on efforts at Crusader cooperation post-1054 schism, with clarifications on why East-West unity was short-lived:

  “The Latins eventually sacked Byzantium.” – Jay (34:57)

7. Orthodox-Catholic Differences

• On unification prospects:

  "There are 34 or 35 elements that would have to change for reunion—Filioque, papacy, married priests, a long list." – Jay (39:51)

8. Theology of Evil and Suffering

• Evil is consistently presented as privation, not a substance; suffering and evils in the world are seen as a result of the Fall (112:02).
• On suffering and the laws of nature after the Fall:

  “We’re told reality was changed because of the Fall. Whether we know the mechanics—nobody knows that.” – Jay (109:00)

9. Salvation and Universal Destiny

• Harrowing of Hades and fate of the unbaptized discussed—genuine ambiguity and non-dogmatism emphasized:

  “Orthodox tradition is not as interested in figuring all this stuff out... we have the injunction to preach, but we leave the mystery to God.” – Lewis (85:12)

10. Comparative Theological Questions

• Differences between Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, and other apostolic churches outlined, including canons, liturgical practices, and the doctrine of theosis.
• Pelagian, Scotist, and Western philosophies sharply critiqued; Orthodox essence-energies distinction explained.

11. Orthodox Apologetic Style & Recommended Resources

• Emphasis on “Great Books” education for atheists and converts.
• Strong criticism of atheist, Protestant, and Roman Catholic argumentation for lack of depth or knowledge of patristic sources.
• Book recommendations: Seraphim Rose, John of Damascus, Jean-Claude Larchet, Protestants and Catholics mentioned for orientation.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Scheduling Debates:
  “I require a debater’s fee of half a million dollars to appear.” – Jay (11:40)
• On Protestant Demands for Early Evidence:
  “If by 'explicit mention,' you mean it must be defended in the first century or I won't believe it, well, that's ludicrous. Nobody actually follows that.” – Jay (15:04)
• On Orthodox Wariness of Dreams:
  “Most of the holy fathers warn against following dreams, visions, omens... we're easily deceived.” – Jay (19:21)
• On Orthodox-Catholic Differences:
  “Classical Orthodox position is you have to adhere to the traditional arguments we've always made on the basis of the canons and councils.” – Jay (40:13)
• On the Uniqueness of the Presuppositional Argument (TAG):
  “The strength of TAG is that we're not arguing for a little piecemeal thing... it’s an argument for the entire paradigm.” – Jay (125:41)
• On Suffering and Providence:
  “We don't have to know the mechanics of how sin alters the world—it's believed on the basis of revelation.” – Jay (109:40)
• Advice to Converts in Hostile Families:
  “Don't argue orthodoxy with your parents. Try to acquire the spirit of orthodoxy and they'll notice a change and begin to inquire.” – Father Deacon Ananias (53:52)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 04:36 – Discord call-in format introduced, invitations to debate
• 10:44 – Frustrations with Muslims refusing debate, comedic hypotheticals
• 14:28 – Early church evidence for intercession and veneration of saints
• 21:26 – Spiritual delusion and the role of the spiritual father in Orthodoxy
• 29:24 – Orthodox practice of exorcism and spiritual warfare
• 34:05 – Crusades and Byzantine-Latin relations post-schism
• 39:51 – List of issues between Orthodox and Catholicism
• 44:25 – Tackling “sky daddy” and “why does God allow evil?” arguments
• 52:27 – Inquirer advice: evangelicals in Orthodox-curious households
• 63:03 – Muslim Christian debate challenges (and lack of reciprocation)
• 81:02 – Differences: monophysitism vs meophysitism; essence/energies
• 90:56 – Q&A: Trinity in Old Testament; progression of revelation
• 106:02 – Islam and the metaphysical “One-Many” problem
• 113:05 – Evil as a privation; consequences of the Fall in creation

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Conclusion

The episode is a dynamic, sometimes chaotic, but always intellectually robust cross-examination of Orthodox Christianity’s claims in contrast to Rome, Protestantism, and Islam. Jay Dyer balances polemic banter with extended, sometimes intricate patristic and philosophical references. Q&A participants run the gamut from interested inquirers to combative critics, but the general aim is to clarify why Orthodoxy maintains its unique positions and how it grounds its identity in contrast to other traditions—historically, scripturally, and metaphysically.

For further exploration:

• “Nihilism” by Seraphim Rose
• Catechetical lectures of St. Cyril
• Debates on YouTube: Jay Dyer vs Shabir Ali, Dyer vs Matt Dillahunty
• “The Orthodox Faith” by John of Damascus
• David’s channel: The Real MedWhite for deep dives into Oriental and Eastern Orthodox issues

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Note: Timestamps are in MM:SS format, attributed as in the original audio; inquiries, debate invitations, and polemical asides are frequent throughout.

Transcript

[Jay]

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And other limits in terms apply.

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[Jay]

Sa. Dire wave.

[Lewis]

The scientific method cannot justify the scientific method.

[Jay]

Therefore it itself is a dogmatic religion presupposition. It's a lovely man voice, not a feminine positive affirmation. Yes, thank you Jim.

[Lewis]

Welcome. We're live, I think should be good. We're here and today it's a little bit different. We're gonna have my discord with me because I'm scared.

[Jay]

I need all my backup people because I'm afraid of Ijaz and all the Muslim. I'm joking not, but we're going to.

[Lewis]

Do Q A or stomp or debate or whatever. Now if you just want to come on voice and ask questions, you can.

[Jay]

Do that through the discord. I'll put the link in in a second. If you want to come on a video debate, I have a zoom link open as well and I can send you that link.

[Lewis]

So we offered the ejaws said he was ready, he was ready to go, ready to debate. We've offered for months and months and.

[Jay]

Months to set up a debate with this guy and he won't do it.

[Lewis]

So he says, oh, I don't mean today.

[Jay]

Even though he said I'm ready to.

[Lewis]

Go anyway, we will do Q and A. We'll do Q A. Also, we have a. We have all the Discord weirdos here. What's up?

[Greedo]

Yeah, he could debate Jordan Peterson if you want. If he wants. I got him right here.

[Jay]

You got him right here. Okay.

[Greedo]

Yeah, I'm ready to debate. I can debate anyone right now. Ready to go.

[Jay]

So if you don't want to come on audio.

[Lewis]

Thank you, Jordan. You can also leave me a streamlab super chat. Question or challenge?

[Jay]

Right. It's, it's.

[Lewis]

The challenge is open. We make it really easy to debate. Like it's super easy to come debate. There's no hoops. You don't have to jump through hoops.

[Jay]

To come debate here. It's very easy.

[Lewis]

And now I've even opened it up to audio.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

So.

[Lewis]

That is the link there. If you want to join the Discord, you will have to be vetted, of course, first to.

[Jay]

To come in the Discord. You can't just. Everybody can't just read the rules. Rules answer questions and then you'll be vetted.

[Lewis]

And after you're vetted and we decide.

[Jay]

That you have the balls, we'll let you come in.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Takes.

[Jay]

Yeah. What it takes. You're not late.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Welcome.

[Lewis]

All right, we got a good crowd here. Be sure and leave a like and a thumb up. Well, that's the same thing. And then also share it.

[Jay]

Super chats.

[Lewis]

Thank you. Okay, as a mod there, he's putting the streamlab super chat there as a rough outline.

[Jay]

I'll be covering. Just because we're probably waiting for people to come in if they want to.

[Lewis]

We got a couple Roman Catholics in the, in the.

[Jay]

In the Discord right now. I don't know if they're going to come in, but we've got the emergence.

[Lewis]

Of the Catholic tradition, the excellent Yaroslav Pelican book. I'll use that as a rough outline.

[Jay]

For topics to discuss, but you can.

[Lewis]

Talk about whatever you want. If you want to ask me questions about philosophy, challenge me. This is.

[Jay]

We got.

[Lewis]

I got incense burning up in here to, to make. To set the ambiance. I saw one of them PUA guys.

[Jay]

He always lights incense before he starts his live stream, so I thought I'd rip him off and do that. So I've lit incense.

[Lewis]

We got the ambiance, we got the whiteboard here. If you're Muslim, if you're Roman Catholic, if you're set of a contest, if you're Protestant, Calvinist, you evangelical atheist, even.

[Jay]

If you're Jewish or you're welcome to.

[Lewis]

Come and Ask your questions, debate, challenge, whatever. If you want to.

[Jay]

No, I'm not smoking weed. It's just incense, bra.

[Lewis]

If you want to come into the voice chat, go to the Discord. Join the Discord.

[Jay]

There's the link at my Twitter. Let me see if I get the actual. Just the Discord link. Now, you know, you got to go to the. You got to go to the Twitter. That way. We can't have. We can't just have everybody piling in there. So you got to go to my Twitter.

[Lewis]

Catholic nonsense.

[Jay]

Somebody said in the chat.

[Lewis]

Anyway, what's up, Discord? Anybody? Is anybody in the Discord right now?

[Jay]

I know we got a full room. Does anybody want to come on the.

[Lewis]

Live stream and give us some chat material? Questions, challenges.

[Kai]

Silence.

[Lewis]

I mean, we had.

[Jay]

I know. I know. We.

[Lewis]

So we opened this up today because we had a lot of Muslims talking and, you know, making a lot of fuss. And so we opened it up. We had two or three Muslims talking smack all over Twitter. And then I said, come on, I'll even. I'll even let you on here. We'll do a live stream. We'll start up a live stream. Come on and debate, bra. Debate me, bra. And the dudes just left.

[Jay]

Well, at least the dude that was talking to smack left, so.

[Lewis]

So I thought we were gonna have some. That link is expired. No, it's not. Go to my Twitter. At the top is a unexpired link. If that link was wrong, then go.

[Jay]

To my Twitter, and then the latest link is not expired.

[Lewis]

I can't be expired. It's an hour old.

[Jay]

It's not expired.

[Lewis]

All right, let me try. Let me get another link for you guys and.

[Jay]

Okay, rest in peace. Let me get another link that shouldn't.

[Lewis]

Be expired after hour, though.

[Jay]

I don't know. But whatever. We got Father Deacon and Anais in the house. We got Lewis. We got a lot of our old, old Discord friends all here with us.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Old timers.

[Jay]

Old timers. Because, of course, we're all scared. We got to have a mob, right? We have. We have to have backup because none of us individually can handle anybody in a debate or.

[Greedo]

Yeah, finding Muslim people to debate is like trying to herd cats.

[Jay]

Right?

[Greedo]

We can't find them, Right? We. We got the Shabir Ali debate. Okay. You did great in that. I think Shabir Ali comported himself honorably, and then now suddenly, everyone's scared. Now it's no debates, no one debate Jay. And we can't find them. So it's like they accuse orthodox Christians as being scared. We offered the debate.

[Lewis]

I mean, we've done three debates with.

[Jay]

Muslims now, so how are we scared? It's just nonsense.

[Greedo]

Yeah, exactly. And then they set up conditions that they want groups for us to jump.

[Jay]

If you don't debate me on a blood moon, on a leap year in the middle of Texas in an underground cave at 2am then. And we have to debate only in Morse code. I won't debate you.

[Greedo]

And it has to be. You have to wear seal skins and it has to be Morse code, but you have to write haiku. And then you have to record that Morse code onto Slate tablets. And then you have to have a blind man readout.

[Jay]

It has to be translated into Hebrew and then written on vellum.

[Greedo]

Yeah, it's like, okay, it's like, how about. Next thing it'll be, give me $10 million and I'll debate you. That'll be the next thing.

[Jay]

I require a debater's fee of half a million dollars to appear.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

I have three goats and four calves.

[Lewis]

$1 notes, please.

[Jay]

All right.

[Greedo]

I will offer you my wife.

[Lewis]

All right, so.

[Jay]

Yeah, if. Questions as well, guys, the debate has to be done in sign language or Braille. If. If you don't do it.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Animal sacrifice.

[Jay]

If you don't do it in braille, it's because you're low iq.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Yeah.

[Lewis]

All right, so you guys just. You guys interrupt me. You guys can interrupt me if somebody.

[Jay]

Comes in if they want to do. Is there anybody who has any questions or challenges or. Or debate topics, issues? I think I shared the. The newer link, by the way. So there's the new link. If you want to come in. There will be people vetting people right now, so you guys can come in.

[Lewis]

I'm not talking any. I'm talking to you. Who am I talking to? To you in the chat, bro. You Byzantine. In the chat. In the Discord chat. You can.

[Greedo]

Come on.

[Lewis]

It's open, dude. We got open.

[Kai]

Can you. Can you tell people to change their avis. Their profile pictures on Discord from the default? Because we. We kind of have a rule against that. So.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[Kai]

So if you come into the icon profile pictures.

[Jay]

If you come into the Discord, you gotta do our rules, all right? So when you leave, you can go back to whatever you want, but in our Discord, please follow the rules.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Avatars are.

[Greedo]

Okay.

[Jay]

We don't really do. No Hentai avatars. No. Whatever. Here we go.

[Greedo]

No anime avatars.

[Jay]

Yeah, we don't do that.

[Tony G]

Yeah, there's a union who's playing smartass in the general.

[Jay]

Yeah, that's. That's the guy from a couple nights ago that we spent the whole night with.

[Lewis]

So he says he's going to come in here.

[Jay]

We got a uni 8 who says he'll come in, but we had this discussion for about three hours the other night. So, not being mean to the guy, I'm just saying I think I know where that chat's going to go, but if nobody's going to come in, I'll just kind of like, wait until people come and I'll talk about some of.

[Lewis]

The notes from Pelican.

[Jay]

Go ahead.

[Kai]

Yo, Jay.

[Greedo]

So I've been watching your stuff for a while.

[Kai]

It's really interesting, but I was just.

[Greedo]

Wondering if you could like, point to.

[Kai]

In the early church, any points where a father is saying that, you know, asking for the intercession of saints is okay.

[Lewis]

It gets explicitly mentioned up.

[Jay]

By the time that you're.

[Lewis]

Dealing with.

[Jay]

Augustine or with the Cappadocians, St. Cyril and the catechetical lectures, I think mentions it. I know Augustine mentions it explicitly in multiple places in his writings. So. Yeah, I mean, you can. You should be able to pretty easily Google, like church fathers intercession of the saints. Like, that's not. That's not really too controversial of a topic.

[Greedo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kai]

I mean, I guess in my own research, when I look into it, it seems kind of not like explicit, if that makes any sense.

[Jay]

Well, it is explicit when it becomes a question. Right. So by the time of Jerome, actually, Jerome talks about it explicitly when he writes multiple letters against, like, Vigilius and the other guy who questions relics and saints. And he writes this really funny treatise just making fun of the guy, telling them that he's basically possess and he actually just needs to go touch the relics to get the demon out of him. So, I mean, he makes other arguments, but. So Jerome has treatises explicitly on it. Augustine mentions it. I'm pretty sure it's in the catechetical lectures of Saint Cyril. But if by explicit mention, we can't think of it like there has to in the first century be a theological defense of every doctrine or I won't believe it, because there's all kinds of things that we wouldn't believe. Right. I mean, we don't have a 1st 2nd century mention of in hypostatized. But this becomes a crucial Christological statement by the time of St. Cyril and afterwards. So it's just. It's just kind of like a bogus criteria to argue unless I see it explicitly defended or stated, you know, in the post apostolic period. I won't believe it. Well, that's ludicrous. Nobody actually follows that. Like there's all kinds of Christological dogmas that most people believe that you wouldn't believe because it's not stated in the first, second, third century.

[Kai]

Okay, thanks. Just coming from a Protestant background.

[Jay]

Right, I understand. I mean, but, but I mean there's no. I mean I could just turn that around on a Protestant and say, where is the Protestant canon in the first, second, third century?

[Greedo]

Yeah, of course, that's.

[Kai]

That's one thing that I've been sort of struggling with and you know, looking and listening to your talks, you know, and help me out understanding it.

[Jay]

Word right.

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[Greedo]

Warren Che haul.

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[Tony G]

Thanks.

[Lewis]

No problem.

[Jay]

Yeah, so we got.

[Lewis]

You're our first caller in the pseudo live call in stream.

[Jay]

Welcome. You were my first ever. I don't really like the idea of calling streams, but whatever. I thought it'd be fun to try it out. You're on the air. I've got the documents, folks. You're on there. All right. By the way, on the intercession of the saints, I mean, that's even in scripture, right? It's even. It was even in the Jewish tradition prior to the church. Right. So I'm not saying that's true because I'm just saying there's early attestations to that.

[Lewis]

There's prayers for the dead in Maccabees.

[Jay]

The idea of the intercession of the saints just comes from the idea of the intercession of saints on earth. Read the book of Amos where he intercedes. And read, you know, when Abraham intercedes, he saves the city. Well, in the book of the Apocalypse four and five, the saints aren't dead, they're in heaven interceding. So they continue the work of salvation with us as they're in heaven.

[Greedo]

Exactly.

[Tony G]

That's also in the book of James. In the book of James, at some point, St. James, brother of the Lord, says that we have to pray for one another. And in other places, we know that people, even after they physically die, they're alive in Christ. Therefore, if you can pray for one another, you can still do it once a specifically saint person is dead. And St. James also mentions the fact that the prayer of the righteous are especially powerful.

[Jay]

Yes, exactly.

[Tony G]

So this is a real scriptural basis for all of it. And we can see it being attested in the early history of the church. And even in the Old Covenant, there's a full continuity.

[Jay]

Right. Gert for $3 says, what do you think about lucid dreams? We don't really. I mean, there are lucid dreams. I've had lucid dreams. But we don't really pay attention to dreams and visions and this kind of stuff, which is not, say, it can never be done. But you need to be under the guidance of a spiritual father to be kind of looking into that kind of stuff, because we are very prone to delusion. And so most of the holy fathers and the elders in our tradition warns against following dreams and visions and omens and this kind of stuff because we're just so easily deceived by that stuff. Father Deacon, you would agree with that?

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. It's funny because in my department up in the office, you know, it's the social Sciences building, and I was discussing with one of the professors, I think they were psychology professor, and they have this, like, reading group, and they said one of the things we do is we interpret dreams. And so this issue kind of came up from an orthodox perspective. So you have these groups of people that will interpret dreams and trying to attach meaning. And so we Orthodox shy away from.

[Greedo]

That.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Just because you can think about all kinds of crazy stuff. The conclusions that you could come up from. That's not something that we particularly would suggest is safe to do.

[Jay]

Let me ask you one quick. Go ahead.

[Greedo]

I was just gonna say, also, when, you know, when a woman talks about her dreams, you just want to shoot yourself in the head. So boring. So, like, we don't really want to encourage men to do that either.

[Jay]

Father Deacon, could you give us a brief. Because we have a lot of people, I think, in our chat, who might be new to these topics, just a brief explanation of maybe in contrast to Protestantism or Roman Catholicism, what is the spiritual father, and why is that important in Orthodoxy?

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Yeah, so one thing that. Excuse me, that we Orthodox are keenly aware of in our practice and our theology is what we call spiritual delusion. And all of us have it. And what I think so dangerous about spiritual delusion is that you don't know you have it. Whereas a temptation, it's very easy to identify that the fact that you could actually be being manipulated by demons under the guise of something holy and spiritual and pure is quite dangerous. Now, as far as I know, Protestants don't even have a concept of having spiritual delusion. They may talk about temptations and correct me if I'm wrong. In my study of Roman Catholicism, I don't think it's even addressed is a concept of something existing. And I think it's really important that not only do Protestants not have a concept of being spiritually deluded, but have no mechanism on how to cure that and treat that. And I would say this is something that's so important in Orthodoxy, why we have a spiritual father is that if we all assume I'm constantly being manipulated by demons, not only in temptations, but being spiritually deluded, thinking that, oh, this is from God or this is something holy that I should be doing, maybe I should. Maybe God's telling me to interpret people's dreams or something like that. How do you know that you're not deluded? Well, you don't if you are, the problem. And so this is what's so important about having a spiritual father is there's somebody who's experienced and has the credentials, spiritually speaking, that can have proper discernment. And the way that spiritual delusion, and the whole spiritual progress as well, is acquired through obedience and repentance with an orthodoxy. So we're really going to stress that that means we don't rely on our own abilities. In fact, we're going to admit we're incapable of healing ourselves and getting ourselves out of the muck. And so what we turn to is an advanced physician of souls who's experienced, and we make ourselves obedient. So, as we say in Orthodoxy, there is no spiritual progress. You can read all the theology books that you want, you can go to school and get all the degrees.

[Greedo]

And.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Never make any spiritual progress. So the whole point of Orthodoxy is to make spiritual progress, to heal ourselves. And you need a physician. And so you make yourself obedient. Even as hard as it may be that your spiritual father tells you something, you're like, I don't agree with that. Part of the obedience is, I'm no longer going to trust in my own abilities, and I'm going to Listen to the spiritual Father. And because the spiritual father, the priesthood is a sacrament, there is grace bestowed. So even in the faults of individual men as priests, the grace of God still comes through that sacrament and that office. And so when you rece. When you're obedient to your spiritual father.

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[Father Deacon Ananias]

You are blessed. You're blessed by God.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

And you begin to. Again, a spiritual father is somebody that's like a counselor and a doctor that knows you, knows your spiritual medical history. And this is why what you don't want to do is be jumping around from different priests and making confessions. And you need one spiritual doctor who is taking care of you and can help you in your own repentance. And so I'd say that's something unique about Orthodoxy, that not only do we have the concept that we're all spiritually deluded, we have the mechanism in place in the structure of the church over the last 2,000 years for dealing with that. So that's not something a lot of people talk about. But, Jay, I'm glad you brought that up.

[Jay]

Yeah, well, we got some questions about that because people thought that I was saying that you can't talk about a dream. No, what I said was that it's in the orthodox tradition. You have a guide. Right. Paul talks about being Timothy's spiritual father. So you have a guy that, you know, helps you sort of discern who's actually been down the road already. That's the point here. It's not that you can't talk about these things. In fact, you should talk about These things with your spiritual father. Now, it is correct that a lot of times it's hard to find a spiritual father, especially in America. So that's. That's difficult. Father Deacon, I'm not. If you're not talking, can you mute? Because there's kind of like a staticky feedback and whatnot. That's okay, but you're welcome to definitely talk. But thank you for that.

[Lewis]

So, by the way, the guys in the chat.

[Jay]

I'm not saying you can't talk about that, but. And there's Lewis and Kai and Greedo. There's a guy who's a Roman Catholic named Tony G. He says he's trying to get in the discord.

[Greedo]

Already done.

[Jay]

Oh, okay. Tony, are you there? And for those.

[Kai]

Can you hear me?

[Jay]

Yeah, hold on for the.

[Lewis]

Hold on. If you're not talking, please mute. Guys, in the YouTube chat, this is discord, all right? It's not a guest on the show.

[Jay]

If you want to come into the discord and chat, you're welcome to. As of now, it's ghetto setup, so I don't have a better way to do it. So there we go. Go ahead, guy. What's up, bro?

[Kai]

Hey, Jay.

[Roman Catholic Layman]

I'm a Roman Catholic, bit of a layman. I just had a quick question. You. You often say movies portray real life. I appreciate the work you do as far as the esoteric work. I just wanted to know the orthodoxy position on spiritual battle as far as demonic possessions, you know, demonic things that are. And live in people's houses because, you know, we always see Roman Catholic priests the forefront as far as handling this battle. I just wanted to know the orthodoxy position on that.

[Lewis]

Yeah, if you're not talking, please mute.

[Kai]

Yeah.

[Lewis]

Yeah, of course.

[Jay]

Orthodox. Orthodoxy does house blessings. The priests do this, like, once a year. They go around and do house blessings. So there's. There's no difference between the Orthodox and Catholic view of that kind of stuff, of sacramental theology. Blessing the house, blessing water, blessing rivers. I mean, this is very common in the Orthodox church. So of course we believe in the reality of spiritual warfare. I mean, all of the. The spiritual ascetic writing is about battling the demons. If you read Larche's trilogy.

[Lewis]

I mean.

[Jay]

Larche wrote this gigantic trilogy, therapy of spiritual illness. And it's all about how all of the vices, you could say, are kind of like battling demons. This is all just from the father's philokalia. So I would argue that really, orthodoxy is who continues this tradition. I mean, we have a lot of monastics In Orthodoxy, monasticism and Roman Catholicism is basically vanishing. So I would say definitely check out somebody like a father, but not father, but Jean Claude Larche, therapy of spiritual illnesses, which would answer your question.

[Roman Catholic Layman]

God bless you guys.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Also Father George Okoro is really good and he's an Orthodox priest that has a lot of experience with possessions.

[Jay]

Oh, wow.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

And exorcisms.

[Jay]

Oh, yeah. That's who you've mentioned in the past. We need to do a interview with him.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Yes, exactly.

[Jay]

Ulan says for $7, here's my attempt at roasting you. I'm late to the game. People won't debate you because you're doing brain keto roids. No, sorry, bro, that's not. That's not a good joke.

[Lewis]

It would be fair to say that 90% of your audience is happy that.

[Jay]

You did not become. I can't read the rest of that. Sorry. Hey, remember, if you. If you. If you send me a super chat on Stream Labs, I can only see one long sentence. I can't see a gigantic paragraph. But even though I appreciate the $7, Ulsan, that joke was kind of lame. Bagatelle for $10 says.

[Lewis]

What do you think about the Finnish Orthodox Church?

[Jay]

I don't have any knowledge of the. The Finnish Orthodox Church. Father Deacon, do you know anything about this?

[Father Deacon Ananias]

I think they're pretty good. I think they're technically under the ep, but as far as I've heard, I haven't heard any problems with the.

[Lewis]

He says. With my Finnish roots, I would feel.

[Jay]

Like it's more natural to join that. But people from the Russian church tend to speak against it. I don't know. I don't know The. The drama.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Well, that's because there's a. You gotta know the history between Finland and Russia.

[Greedo]

Right.

[Jay]

I don't know what is. What is that history?

[Father Deacon Ananias]

So, you know, acquiring lands and wars and stuff like that. So there. There's some sensitivity with that. That's not a theological issue. That's a cultural. A cultural issue. I don't. Personally, I imagine this person's asking in Finland because I'm trying to think, like, what other Finnish Orthodox churches there are outside of Finland.

[Jay]

I mean, it sounds like that's what he means.

[Greedo]

Yeah, Yeah. I was just gonna say I'm ethnically Finnish and our greatest hero is our greatest hero because he killed, like, a lot of Russians. Like, a lot.

[Kai]

Yeah.

[Greedo]

So you know.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

So you know what I'm talking about?

[Kai]

Yeah.

[Greedo]

So like a lot of rush. Like, he killed a lot of Russians, so. And that guy's Our national hero. So, like, Russian Finland relations are still sketchy to this day.

[Jay]

So basically, you're defending Dugan is what you're saying. You're here to defend Dugan?

[Greedo]

Yes, I am a booginist, but I get Dugan bucks.

[Lewis]

We must train. We must train American right wings to take down America.

[Greedo]

The Dug in Bitcoin. I get that. And I shill for J Diary and KGB on Twitter.

[Jay]

Anyway, is there anybody in the discord that wants to speak up?

[Roman Catholic Layman]

Yeah, I had another question, if that's okay.

[Jay]

Sure, sure.

[Roman Catholic Layman]

Bit of a layman question. During this gizm when the church is separated, I wanted to know how it worked when it came to going to battle together against, you know, Islam in the Crusades. How did all that come together? Did they, you know, get together and decide it was okay for that time when they had just separated? You know, just a little bit of clarity on that situation.

[Jay]

No, I mean business. The Byzantium was sacked. What do you mean?

[Roman Catholic Layman]

I was wondering, because the schism was in 1054, correct?

[Jay]

Officially, yeah.

[Roman Catholic Layman]

And the Crusades were a little bit after that, correct?

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Yeah.

[Lewis]

There were different Crusades.

[Greedo]

Yeah.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

There were several attempts to kind of unite, and that offered what we thought would be kind of a promising lead to possibly be united in something, and it kind of backfired. As Jade pointed out, Byzantium was under attack, and we thought that we could unite and call for the help of the Latins. And it really didn't work out?

[Jay]

Well, no, the Latins eventually sacked. They sacked Byzantium eventually.

[Roman Catholic Layman]

Okay, man. Thank you, guys. I appreciate the answer, man.

[Jay]

Yeah, no problem, dude. Hey, Jay.

[Lewis]

Yes, sir?

[Greedo]

I only have a minute, but I.

[Kai]

Did want to, I guess, ask. You already know me as far as we talked for a really long time. Yesterday or the day before.

[Jay]

Huh. If you remember, you probably talked to a million people.

[Kai]

But anyway, I guess my question is.

[Greedo]

Okay, good.

[Jay]

Your question is what?

[Greedo]

Raised Latin, I guess they glitch.

[Kai]

Learned about extraordinary form, Byzantine, all that kind of stuff, as well as the Orthodox. Spent about 10 years visiting Eastern Catholic parishes, Orthodox parishes, talking to the priests.

[Jay]

Yeah, I remember the story. You don't have to. I'm not trying to be mean, but I remember you're cutting out, Brah, if you want to, like, leave the discord and then pop back in, it usually resets the settings. So maybe you won't be cutting out, but you're cutting out right now.

[Kai]

Tristan diving into possibility that she might be in the wrong, bro.

[Jay]

You.

[Tony G]

You.

[Lewis]

Hey, I didn't hear any of that.

[Jay]

You cut out for all that.

[Greedo]

Damn it.

[Jay]

So.

[Lewis]

So exit and come back.

[Greedo]

All right. All right, bye. Ah, the joys of discord. Yeah, if people want to ask a question and you don't want to hop on stream, just go. If you're in the discord, go to voice text General. I tagged everyone there. You can ask questions there and I'll feed them to Jay.

[Lewis]

This is the first Ghetto Pale attempt.

[Jay]

At a call in show. I don't even like the idea of calling shows, but we were trying to get a demo. Do you? Okay, well, we were trying to get.

[Lewis]

We were trying to get Ijaz to come to Bait, and he wouldn't do it, but.

[Jay]

What.

[Greedo]

We got a question.

[Lewis]

Okay.

[Greedo]

What's the explanation of Noah's sons and grandsons having different features and skin color?

[Kai]

Warren Qi home.

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[Jay]

Why does it need an explanation? I mean, people go into different climates and there's a symbiotic relationship between, you know, people's physiognomy and their environments. I mean, there's nothing wrong with adaptation. And, you know, yeah, people go into southerly climates, they're gonna, you know, gradually develop, you know, darker sienna or whatever. I don't see why that's even controversial.

[Greedo]

Okay, we got another one. What would you say to people who tell you the Bible is impossible because of dinosaur skeletons existing?

[Jay]

Well, there's two possible answers. I think that anything that modern science proposes that is bound up with Darwinian naturalism can be legitimately doubted, and we have a basis to be skeptical of. So there's a lot of questions about, quote, dinosaur skeletons to begin with. But even if they are real, the book of Job speaks of all kinds of things that could absolutely be dinosaurs. So there's nothing Inherently contradictory about either position is conceivably defensible.

[Greedo]

Yeah. Behemoth is a good example of what could possibly be a dinosaur. Okay, another one. Do you think that the Orthodox and Catholic Church could unite in some way in the future? Personally, I couldn't see it. I'm not sure what your take is, Jay, so I just wanted to ask and know your side.

[Jay]

No, I mean, there's our. Like, if you look at Metropolitan Seraphim Praeus, he wrote a long letter to Francis. He's a famous Greek conservative bishop. He wrote a long letter saying the 34 or 5 elements that the two churches could not unite over, that would have to change. So that's.

[Lewis]

That's the classical Orthodox position.

[Jay]

It doesn't matter what modern ecumenists say. You have to adhere to the traditional arguments that we've always made on the basis of the canons and the councils as to what the elements of change and innovation in Rome are. Right. In the Middle Ages in the east, they were called Byzantine lists. And these are the lists of the problems that we have with Rome. Things like forbidding pedo communion, forbidding married priests.

[Lewis]

Those are just one of the many.

[Kai]

Right.

[Jay]

There's a whole bunch of other ones like filioque, and that kind of stuff obviously comes first. Papacy. Those are the main issues, but there's.

[Lewis]

A bunch of other issues too.

[Greedo]

Okay, now the question. These questions are rolling in. So thanks to everyone in the discord. Can you discuss the difference in Protestant Christus Victor vs Orthodox atonement?

[Jay]

Christus Victor is an attempt to borrow elements of patristic ideas. So there's nothing inherently anti orthodox about some of the ideas of Christus Victor, because the Lutheran theologian that I think it was a Lutheran guy who went back and tried to reconstruct different theories of atonement from the patristic period. He's just borrowing from different Church fathers and different ideas. So I would actually argue that the Orthodox position has the correct elements of all the positions. So all of the positions have elements of truth. Is there a penal substitutionary aspect to it?

[Lewis]

Yes.

[Jay]

Is there a Christus Victor aspect to it? Yes. Just read book three of John Damascus, and he explains perfectly, in line with all of the Eastern fathers before him and many of the early Latin fathers as to what the orthodox doctrine of the death of Christ in the atonement is. The last part of book three is.

[Lewis]

The perfect, excellent, 100% in harmony with Christology doctrine. And the Protestants, especially Calvinists, end up.

[Jay]

As Nestorians with their doctrine. It's that easy so we don't have to go into Lutheran speculations.

[Lewis]

And as if we don't know what.

[Jay]

The doctrine of the atonement and the death of Christ and the descent into Hades is.

[Lewis]

We do know. Like it's all just academic theories up in the air.

[Jay]

Not for us. No.

[Lewis]

The harrowing of Hades is a dogma. It's nowhere in Protestantism.

[Greedo]

We have another one. Curious on your views on the Church of the East.

[Jay]

Yeah, we don't accept that as any more than any of the other churches of the east, the so called Orientals. They're just as much schism as the others.

[Greedo]

Nice short answer. I love that. In what sense would an orthodox say that Pope Leo was the archbishop of.

[Jay]

All the churches in the same way that that same phraseology is used of Constantinople? I mean these kinds of glowing terms and phrases are used often. The Alexandrian Patriarchate is sometimes referred to as the head of churches. The head of all churches. Antioch in Basil's letters, it uses that same phraseology. There's a common usage of florid. What's the term that there's a term for like the glowing phraseology that's used at times. It doesn't always necessarily mean the Vatican 1 doctrine of papal infallibility. So if you look, if you look at the way Canon look at the way.

[Lewis]

Can you mute. If you look at the way Canon.

[Jay]

28 of Chalcedon speaks of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It's Ecumenical Patriarchate, universal Patriarch.

[Lewis]

It's just a term.

[Jay]

There's. We don't necessarily read into that universal dogmas or in terms of Vatican one views.

[Lewis]

All we have to do to refute.

[Jay]

The Vatican one view is just show that it's not present in the seven Councils. And that's very easy to do. If that's the case, then Vatican I refutes itself because Vatican 1 says that its view was always true.

[Greedo]

Okay, we got another one. How do we get people over the quote sky Daddy argument and the quote if God good, why bad thing happen? Mind mud. How do we get people over that?

[Jay]

The easiest way to go about that is just to point out that to do basic precept first of all, like we're not calling God a sky Daddy, as if there's a one to one correspondence between the earthly notion of Father and a heavenly literal Father. Those are what's called analogia. Right? They're analogies between human fathers and God. The Father doesn't mean that God is identically, literally a quote guy with a long beard and a dad. He's spoken of as like a father, but he's also spoken of as like many other things.

[Lewis]

Mute.

[Jay]

Can you mute just boot that guy if he's not gonna mute?

[Lewis]

So, so, so the Sky Daddy argument.

[Jay]

Is based on a misunderstanding of what divine names are. Divine terms. So if you read Dionysius in the divine names, he will go into detail explaining how he predicated God and what sense we use these words and terms and then ironically, you know, just boot that guy.

[Lewis]

Ironically, atheists even do the same thing. They will speak of nature like it's a mother, like it's an artificer, like.

[Jay]

It'S a designer, like it's a personal.

[Lewis]

Cognizant agent able to create and make things when it's an impersonal, chaotic force. So they will do that. They will do the exact.

[Jay]

All right, come on.

[Lewis]

Booting that guy.

[Jay]

Just get him out of here.

[Greedo]

I'm just trying to find who it is.

[Kai]

Yeah, I can't see. I'll keep my eyes peeled.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

By the way, Jay, even better. Look at the personification of science.

[Jay]

Yes. We got almost 300 people, by the way. Welcome, everybody. Thank you, Father Deacon. Go ahead and finish that thought if you want to.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Well, I mean, if you notice, let's consult the oracle. Science. Science says it tells us.

[Jay]

Oh, yes, exactly. Right.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

It's personified form of deity that you go to the oral and divinize your.

[Lewis]

Yes, the science gods have spoken.

[Jay]

That Covid, you know, doesn't affect riots. Right. But it does affect anything else. Exactly.

[Lewis]

So, so Sky Daddy God. I would just do a basic precept.

[Jay]

And say that this. First of all, it's not accurate.

[Kai]

You.

[Jay]

You guys did the exact same thing with personification of nature. And then you turn around and act like nature has no qualities like this. There's no actual design actually in nature, as they all argue. But then they turn around and talk like there is telos in nature. Then I would turn around and say that. What was the next one? Oh, morals. And I would just simply say that you need something like Christianity to provide a system for a basis for objective ethics. I'm not saying that there's objective ethics just because I say Christianity is true.

[Lewis]

I'm saying that the system of Christian theology or metaphysics and ethics gives an account for how there's ethics.

[Jay]

That's different than just saying, well, it's true because we have ethics. And that's two different arguments. Right.

[Lewis]

The atheist doesn't have a basis at.

[Jay]

All to say something is wrong. Something is ethically, morally wrong.

[Lewis]

It's arbitrary.

[Jay]

That's two different arguments.

[Lewis]

So if you can make those that.

[Jay]

Argument and just say, well, now wait a minute.

[Lewis]

So Christianity is, quote, evil or bad, but you don't actually believe there is.

[Jay]

Any objective evil or bad.

[Lewis]

So you have no basis to make.

[Jay]

An argument that Christianity is bad.

[Greedo]

Okay, next question is, what advice would you give to an atheist who simply can't find it within himself to believe?

[Jay]

I mean, belief is not a like thing that you work yourself up to. I mean, you have to repent. You have to change your life to believe. There's a symbiotic relationship between the repenting and changing our ways and the acquisition of the gift of faith.

[Kai]

Right.

[Jay]

I mean, it's all grace, ultimately, in the sense that God is the one that's giving us our providential situations that lead us to believe and repent. And at the same time, grace is all. I mean, faith is also a gift. So I would ask God for faith and at the same time, you know, stop whatever degeneracy you're into. That's how it works.

[Greedo]

Okay, I'm also, I'm gonna send you a. Someone asked that you put up a screenshot of E. Jazz's tweets, so I'll send you a screenshot of mine.

[Jay]

I'm not doing that. I'm not.

[Lewis]

We're not doing stupid drama. I mean, it's an open invitation. I've invited this guy for eight months.

[Jay]

To do a debate and he just talks around it. Oh, I'll do it in six months. Oh, you.

[Lewis]

You made fun of me. I didn't make fun of you. This is all he does. He just acts, you know, it's.

[Jay]

It's just drama. I'm not doing that.

[Lewis]

I mean, we set up. We set up a debate with. We set up a debate. His teacher. If we set up a debate with his teacher, we set up a debate with. Everybody else have no problems with Stefan Molyneux, Matt Dillahunty, Adam Kokesh, all these different well known people and that. I mean, it's been months and months and months of trying to set up.

[Jay]

A debate with this guy.

[Lewis]

It's just a waste of time.

[Jay]

I'm not going to even interact with him.

[Greedo]

Okay, another question. Is there an attempt to unify the Church of the east and Orthodox Church actively going on?

[Jay]

I don't know. I don't keep up with that. I don't know.

[Lewis]

I mean, I know there's been discussions with monophysites.

[Jay]

I don't know about Syrians.

[Greedo]

I don't know, can you explain what is meant by formal distinctions in God and why orthodox reject this?

[Jay]

It doesn't matter what terms you use, because we're not Scotus.

[Lewis]

If you read Scotus's treatises, he has.

[Jay]

Two treatises on the unity of God and the existence of God. I've got the treatises right over here on my shelf. I can go.

[Lewis]

We did a whole talk on this. Go watch the talk that we did.

[Jay]

Me and Father Deacon Ananias, where we covered Anselm's ontological argument and Scotus's arguments for divine simplicity, where he equates in.

[Lewis]

A strict identity, will, knowledge, essence, unity, etc. All of the attributes of God and he predicates it all on the basis of natural theology. Okay, that's. That's not our position. We can't unite with Scotism. So formal distinction of Scotus is just a scholastic, quasi scholastic thing that's invented to try to have a closer position because he's trying to do justice to the Eastern position. It doesn't matter. We already know what the correct distinction is. It's not based on speculations of later theologians in the Middle Ages because the. The dogmatic councils have already determined what the distinction is. It's a real distinction between essence and energy, just as real as the distinction between the hypostasis. It's not even debated in our Fathers. It's very clear. I mean, Maximus has tons of passages that discuss this distinction.

[Jay]

Right.

[Lewis]

The sixth council predicates its argumentation on.

[Jay]

The essence, energy distinction being real.

[Lewis]

I mean, imagine saying that creating the world is only formally distinct from Jesus walking on water. I mean, just think how stupid that is. So formal distinction. Formal distinction is just a scholastic thing to try to have a position closer to the East. But it doesn't matter because I can go to Scotus's other works where he explicitly says things that we could never agree with.

[Greedo]

Okay, we got a question that I think if Father Deacon is there, I think this would be a good question for him. Someone asked, I'm an inquirer in a very evangelical family. They really don't like orthodoxy, and I don't want to be evangelical anymore. What do I do? I can't drive yet, and I don't know anyone orthodox around me.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

I'd say take it slow. Thank you for your question. I get a lot of these questions and, you know, consulted with my spiritual father on how to approach these sorts of things. You know, as many of you converted know, that sometimes you spend a long Time as a catechumen, many years. It can be a slow process. So I'd encourage you, if you can't get to a service that, you know, we have a catechesis program on the discourse here. And in fact, I think we. Correct me if I'm wrong, Jay and Lewis, but we have a Metropolitan Jonah aiding in that process. I'd say really start trying to.

[Jay]

You.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Know, get some good reads. We have a good book recommendation. You can always write me questions and if it's above my pay grade, any wisdom that I have, again, it comes from my spiritual father, and I'll often take questions. So I think we can help you. And we, you know, you're not, hopefully you're not going to be living with.

[Greedo]

Your parents forever.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

And, you know, pray. Pray that God, you know, provide the means to eventually attend a service. And I would definitely suggest, don't argue orthodoxy with your parents. Just try to acquire the spirit of orthodoxy and they'll notice a change and they'll begin to inquire, what is this new thing that you've found? That's what I'd suggest. So feel free to write any of us again. We've got a lot of great resources and you can still experience orthodoxy and learn a lot about it that way.

[Jay]

I'm not upset. I get tired of the same questions over and over and over. When we do entire streams answering those questions, and then people ask those questions over and over and over. That's. I'm not upset. I'm just saying that it's already been dealt with. We've done this a million times.

[Lewis]

And also because I know the people.

[Jay]

That will rely on these kind of bogus, you know, ways around arguments. But I'm going to read you from the philosophical writings of John Damascus.

[Lewis]

On page 56, he says that I established this knowledge and will of the.

[Jay]

First being, or, or God is the.

[Lewis]

Same as his essence. The divine essence is absolutely identical to its will.

[Jay]

Then he goes on to say, I.

[Lewis]

Have proved thus that the knowledge, the self, love and the essence are all identical. In the first being, there is no knowledge or accidental. He says, there's nothing accidental. No knowledge can be accidental. To the first essence. He goes on and explicitly states, there's nothing. But he says, act as purists. Okay, so, like, how long do we have to keep making the same responses and the same arguments? And he says it over and over and over. This is not, you know, like, one thing I'm taking out of order. He says, the love of God is.

[Jay]

Identical to the essence. Of God again.

[Lewis]

Don't you understand that that's not the.

[Jay]

Triadic Christological dogma of the first seven centuries. We don't teach that. The Councils don't teach that. John Damascus writes entire books against that.

[Greedo]

Okay, we have someone in voice chat who wants to ask a question. Yeah, can everybody hear me fine? Yep, we can hear. All right. So my question is kind of a compound question, but it's adhering to one ultimate question, if that's okay. Okay, so my question is, are you familiar with the letters written in the late 9 hundreds and early 1000s going back and forth between Roman Constantinople that led to the Great Schism? And would you. And if so, would you please explain for us the contents and refutation to the Roman Catholic argument that the Orthodox Church schisms and not the other way around?

[Jay]

Yeah, read Francis Dvornik's entire book on it. And he is one of your top uniate scholars who vindicates and admits our position. How's that?

[Greedo]

Okay, what was the name of that book again?

[Jay]

Father Francis Dvornick, the Phocian Schism. It's a famous, well known book.

[Tony G]

I think he's also referring to the Byzantine like this.

[Greedo]

Yes.

[Jay]

Okay, but I'm saying that Dvornik covers that whole period of the Phocion schism.

[Greedo]

All right, thank you. I'll look into that. Okay, thank you. Manifest. Okay, next question. Jay, how do you see the alien extraterrestrial psyop evolve in the coming year?

[Jay]

That's not really what we're here to. I mean, I mean, I. Specify. It's okay. I mean, I don't. I don't know. I mean, it's entirely possible that they could throw that kind of a thing at us after all the Karunka nonsense. I don't. I don't personally think it'll go that far, but it could. But I mean, we're here right now to talk about. I said atheism, logic, metaphysics, biblical theology, early church, Islam, Protestants, Roman Catholics. So that's what we're here to talk about today day. Not. Not UFOs, I guess. I guess that fits under metaphysics. So I guess that do aliens exist is a metaphysical question. So I guess. I guess he is within the bounds of what we're here to talk about. But anybody else, if you want to feel free to offer up a super chat question. Whatever I put into the link in.

[Lewis]

The chat here.

[Jay]

Sometimes the Discord app crashes. So Discord just crashed. Let me pull it back up. So the app. The app crashed. But if you're on the video if you're watching on YouTube. I put into the chat the link to Father Deacon and I's discussion of Duns Scotus and Anselm, where we deal with the theology of those two guys and are they compatible with the Orthodox theology So contrary to the ecumenists? They're not. We already have the, the decisions of the Palamite synods which are binding for us, which make it very clear that you can't, I mean, just read the TO of John Bekos. You can't accept Rome Catholicism if you're Orthodox. I don't know why people don't know this. It's, it's not very difficult to see what the TO of John Beckos says. It explicitly denies union on the filioque issues. It's not, it's not rocket science that we're doing here. What is the Orthodox position on. I don't know what that is. Gert says on Sestui quavi Act of 1666. I have no idea, no idea what that is. Sorry, I can't. I'm not trying to avoid it, but I don't know what that is.

[Greedo]

Okay, back to the questions.

[Lewis]

Sure.

[Greedo]

Okay. Someone asked, would you. And capturing Christianity debate. I know this has come up before. I think capturing Christianity refused to debate divinity.

[Jay]

Well, we were supposed to, I was supposed to debate inspiring philosophy. And then they said, they said that I had to agree to not make any, quote, insults, which we'd already agreed to the debate. And then they added on these new criterias that you can't say anything critical or insulting of the other person. And I said, well, that's too vague. And I said, we've already agreed to a debate and I'm going to, you.

[Lewis]

Know, if I make a mistake in the debate, you're supposed to call it out.

[Jay]

You don't change the criteria of what I can and can't say before the debate happens that you've already agreed to. So they changed the criteria of what could and couldn't be said. And so I said, I'm still willing.

[Lewis]

To debate, but you're not going to.

[Jay]

Tell me what I can and can't say. So then I said, well, why don't capture Christianity? Why don't you come debate me as well? And he wouldn't do it. So neither of them wanted to debate. This was before they were actually familiar with what I do or what I talk about. And then when IP went and looked into what I argue in my, my background, then he decided to come up with this New criteria and how to back out. So I think he backed out. If Cameron would love to. I would love to have Cameron come on because he believes with absolutely no training at all that he can destroy and refute the transcendental argument. I would love, I would, I would die to, to debate capturing Christianity on the transcendental argument and whether it's sound and valid.

[Lewis]

So please, Cameron, IP either one of you, come debate. I promise I won't be mean to you.

[Jay]

I won't hurt your feelings, I promise. But I don't think that they actually, they don't really want to debate. That's the, the root of this issue.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Hey, and Cameron, if you're listening, if you don't want, Jay, I'm always here and I'm a nice guy.

[Lewis]

Father Deacon is much nicer than me.

[Jay]

So he's, he's a better, he's a better philosopher.

[Lewis]

More, he's.

[Jay]

Well, he's more trained than I am. So feel free to also have an interaction with Father Deacon, Dr. Ananias, if you want.

[Greedo]

We got another question. What are your thoughts on the visions of Bishop Hieronymus Agathan Jolos? He prophesied the mass future conversion of Germany to orthodoxy as well as the destruction of the Papacy in World War 3, as well as a final ecumenical council to stamp out every heresy.

[Jay]

I've never heard this. New to me. I don't know anything about it.

[Greedo]

Yeah, never heard that either.

[Jay]

Sounds pretty cool, but I don't know anything about it.

[Lewis]

Would you be willing to debate efdawa? Dude, I've already debated. We had Nazam Gafour on.

[Jay]

They uploaded this to the channel. I mean.

[Lewis]

Here's a challenge. So Christianity has been on the defensive.

[Jay]

Debating their texts to the Muslims for 30 years. And you know, online audio debates, right all the way back to 20, 30 years ago.

[Greedo]

Right.

[Jay]

When is a Muslim actually going to.

[Lewis]

Step up and defend their theology? They never do it. They won't debate their theology.

[Jay]

They will only debate basing their arguments on liberal higher criticism. That's all they ever want to debate. And then because anytime it gets into.

[Lewis]

Their territory, it collapses. So I'm not going to just debate.

[Jay]

You on the Gospel of John. Just like Sam Simoon Shamoon said, we're going to debate Gospel of John and the Quran and whether it contradicts itself.

[Lewis]

Those are the. We don't just do only our texts. And you guys know that you won't.

[Jay]

Debate your text because it's difficult to defend, because it's impossible.

[Lewis]

And none of them. I'M starting to figure out that the.

[Jay]

Reason that the Muslims won't debate because.

[Lewis]

They don't have good theology, that's logical.

[Jay]

Like, they won't do logic debates. They're not good at logically debating because.

[Lewis]

They don't know typical basic fallacies. I'm not trying to be mean to those guys. I'm not saying that none of them.

[Jay]

Are good at debating.

[Lewis]

I'm saying that the most of them who talk all the smack, they don't know basic fallacies. And so they'll talk about. You use a bunch of philosophy and logic. Yeah, you can't debate without philosophy and logic. There's no such thing as a debate that doesn't have criteria of fallacies, contradictions. That's called logic. Those are called fallacies. That's philosophy. That's the domain of philosophy. It's called logic.

[Jay]

Everybody knows this, right?

[Greedo]

Anyway, okay, we got another one. We have literally, like 200 questions.

[Lewis]

No, hold on, hold on. So there's a guy in the chat saying that is false.

[Jay]

No.

[Lewis]

90 of your debates, you guys won't debate your t, your texts. Shabir Ali did not want to debate his text. I don't just mean the text itself. I'm talking about the theology of those texts, right?

[Father Deacon Ananias]

The.

[Tony G]

The.

[Lewis]

The T doctrine, the Tanzi doctrine. You don't want to debate those doctrines. That's what I'm talking about. It's not a cop, dude. What are you talking about? He says. He says I'm copping out, dude. I've been. We've invited, what, seven, six. Seven of your top scholars, and they won't debate Shabir Ali. Credit to Shabir Ali because he did so. What are you talking about? I'm not. This is what you guys do. You say cop out when we invite you on all the time. There's an open invitation to Muhammad Hijab yesterday, right? 400. 400. 400 likes on the tweet. 2, 120 retweets, and he ignores the tweet like he didn't see it. Come on, come on. Don't. Don't tell me it's a cop out when you guys won't come on and debate. I mean, imagine inviting. So this is that. We've done three public debates with Muslims. Now one of them, they're top debaters, and their reply is, you're scared and you're copping out. We've invited what, Louis? How many is it now? Six, Seven Muslim scholars now?

[Kai]

It's like seven or eight. Yeah.

[Lewis]

What are you talking about? Total Nonsense. All right, sorry.

[Jay]

Go ahead, Greedo, if you want to.

[Greedo]

Okay, so someone asked. I know that there have been critiques of the Catholic view of Mary where they almost view her as a co source of salvation. How is this different in the Orthodox Church where they ask Mary to save us.

[Lewis]

The same way that we ask.

[Jay]

Anyone else to pray for us and save us? Obviously her prayers have more efficacy because she's the highest of God's creation.

[Greedo]

Right.

[Jay]

But Paul says in doing so you.

[Lewis]

Will say, you know, he says, keep.

[Jay]

This, this, this, and in doing so you will save those around you. Right. Does Paul mean that creatures become saviors like Jesus?

[Lewis]

No, this is the, the standard, typical Protestant heretical, slipped up on words.

[Jay]

You guys get slipped up on words because just like the Muslims, you think that words only have one meaning and one sense.

[Lewis]

So it's just the word concept fallacy. It's two different senses to salvation.

[Jay]

Right.

[Lewis]

You can have a person who aids in your salvation without being the ultimate source of the salvation. Paul says we are co workers with God. Does that mean. Oh, he said a co worker with God. So Paul thinks we're equal to God. You see what, this is just silly. Nobody does this in the rest of their life and the rest of their texts, Right? You don't always squish a word. Yeah, you don't squish a word into only having one meaning in one sense. Nobody does this in the rest of their life. Right. What does Dr. Bo say? A kid. Oh, a kid always means a goat.

[Jay]

Right?

[Lewis]

So if you have a kid, you have a.

[Jami]

This is.

[Lewis]

What are you talking about? It's different senses of the word. It's just childishness.

[Jay]

Anyway, I'm getting all riled up, but just go watch Craig Trillia's videos on Mary. He has plenty of great videos on Mary and the Orthodox view. So there's your answer.

[Greedo]

Yeah, Craig truly is just great in general. Another one. Can you and Father Deacon, you'd probably want to. Can you outline an atheist starter kit for Orthodoxy? What should be the duties of an ex atheist before joining the Orthodox Church?

[Jay]

Father Deacon, while you answer that, I'm gonna go wee wee. So you feel free to take over here.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Atheist starter camp Starter kit.

[Greedo]

So like what should like an atheist person. Like what books should they read? Like what, what, what should they buy first coming into Orthodoxy?

[Kai]

Like nihilism.

[Greedo]

Yeah, Nihilism by Father Seraphim Rose is great.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

I'd also probably supplement some of the Orthodox readings with. Because I'd say a lot of the atheists you Encounter are just deficient in the rich history of kind of theism within the kind of concepts, even like Aristotle, Plato, that. And then John, I would probably. The orthodox faith, Saint John of Damascus would be good because then you're talking about the attributes of God. Let's see, You could always have him read OCFSK's Brothers Karamas off too. That's converted a lot of atheists. I'm trying to think.

[Greedo]

You know, just.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Generally, something that I notice is that most atheists that we encounter are generally deficient in the great works in literature and theology. So, you know, legitole, just take up and read. And that's what I, I mean, if you, you never want to straw man your opponent's position. So when you go into debate, you know, like us, we read as much as possible of our opponent's theology or philosophy and literature so that we're not misrepresenting it. So that when we do form a critique, the critique is a good one. You don't want to ever straw man. And I think that's something that most atheists could learn from. You know, you get these people like Lawrence Krauss, even like popular atheists, Dawkins. None of these people have studied philosophy, let alone theology yet. They're going to formulate these stupid straw man critiques. So again, I just think be a really good atheist starter kit.

[Greedo]

Great books liberal arts program.

[Jay]

There you go.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Because you're going to get the church history, the philosophy.

[Jay]

All right. Okay, I'm back and we're done.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

I was just saying that actually, you know what a good atheist starter kit would be.

[Jay]

What's up?

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Simply a great books liberal arts program for atheists.

[Jay]

What do you mean?

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Well, I'm just saying they're deficient in the literature. They don't even know, you know, what they're talking about when they're formulating these critiques. And I don't think, I think it would be beneficial not just to read up on orthodox theology, but the history of Western thought in general. Going back, you know, Greek philosophy as well.

[Greedo]

Oh, I guess I highly doubt Lawrence Krauss ever read Crime and Punishment. Okay, next question.

[Jay]

Crime and Punishment is great, by the way. I highly recommend it.

[Greedo]

Yeah, there's one of 2,000 books on my reading list. I have a book for every year that I have a book for every year that the earth has existed. It's like 2000. Roughly 2000. Okay. What significant theological differences exist between Eastern and Oriental Orthodox other than the Chalcedonian issue? I've not Been able to find a good articulation of their differences other than the Chalcedonian controversy.

[Lewis]

They're not united.

[Jay]

Snek, you could probably speak to this if you're in here. You may have gone, I don't know. But I mean, they have a lot of division among. They meet like once or twice a year and they just kind of act like they're in communion. But they have all kinds of vast divergences amongst them, from animal sacrifice to circumstances, circumcision, to all kinds of bizarre things. So I'm not trying to be mean, but I mean, the Oriental quote, unquote, Orthodox communion is not really any kind of unified thing at all. That's just in theory.

[Tony G]

It's most similar to the Anglican Communion where they will have like, no large differences. And even like within them, you will have, you know, the Armenians today, they are more Chalcedonians in terms of Christology.

[Lewis]

Yeah.

[Tony G]

Again, circumcision, cause and marriage, use of leaven and unleavened bread, animal sacrifice. All these differs between these churches. You're forgetting one of the other crucial.

[Kai]

Differences, Sinek, which is that the Ethiopians.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Have a different canon from the rest.

[Kai]

Of the Oriental Orthodox.

[Jay]

So they include Enoch.

[Tony G]

I mean, we have slight variations, the canon between the different worlds of churches. But yeah, when it comes to the Ethiopians, it's like really different. Like, they literally have changes to the New Testament, which is unheard of.

[Jay]

Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of other issues too. I mean, the, the, the. I mean, you got like the Pope Shinauda writing a whole treatise a few years ago against Theosis, which is, I mean, ludicrous, unfathomable. It reads like something James White would have written. I mean, the idea that you could be an Orthodox Pope of Alexandria, quote, unquote, they're called the Pope of Alexandria and you know, you're the successor to Athanasius and you write a whole treatise against Theosis. I mean, this is just preposterous.

[Tony G]

And by the way, some people opposed him in his church for doing this.

[Jay]

You cut out there. Can you repeat that?

[Tony G]

Yeah, there's been a lot of opposition to this inside this church. So there's Matthew the poor, who actually opposed it. He read the Fathers in Greek and he taught Theosis and he opposed Shenouda on this point. And he was one of the biggest mystics of the Coptic world.

[Jay]

Well, imagine having this stress on the union. But right. I mean, they have this over emphasis on union when it comes to who or what Christ is. And then Turning around and denying theosis. It's just. It's like. I don't know. I can't fathom how. But I mean, when you. When you read their theology and that guy's theology, or if you listen to David's debate, I mean, if you heard David's debate, it's. They're.

[Lewis]

They're like all over the place, right?

[Jay]

You start talking about energies and they don't even know. They're like. I don't know. Yeah, there's energies, but maybe there's one or two or kinda. I don't know. I mean, it's. Come on.

[Lewis]

We have a clear, precise theology when.

[Jay]

It comes to person, nature, will, essence, energy, all that stuff. It's consistent from the triad to Christology. That's the big difference there too, is that they don't see that there's a correspondence between nature, person, will, energy in the triad into Christology. They disagree with that Republic of predication. Reduplicate predication. Excuse me.

[Greedo]

Okay. What would you say to someone who claims that John 7:5:3 through 8:11 is a fabrication by the early church to push Christianity over Mosaic Law? Or just the fabrication in general?

[Jay]

We covered this in the James Snap stream. We did a whole stream on this. I don't even think it's out of accord with the Old Testament. Go listen to the James Snap stream we did on textual history. So.

[Kai]

Yeah, because in Mosaic Law you had to have the three witness man who she committed with. Yeah, exactly. That was what the issue was. Yeah.

[Jay]

I mean, in many. In many other places, Jesus absolutely upholds the continuity with the Mosaic administration. So the idea that there's not continuity is kind of ludicrous, but go ahead. Okay.

[Greedo]

This is for either you or Father Deegan. Are my prayers for others both alive and past, even. Even heard if I'm not baptized in the Orthodox Church or participating in the Eucharist? Do you have any recommended prayers for those who have died before finding Christ Orthodoxy?

[Jay]

I would answer that, yes. God can hear all prayers. Because it says God heard Cornelius prayers before he was baptized.

[Kai]

Correct? Yeah. And you can use any prayers. The only place that non orthodox aren't commemorated is at the altar in the preparation of the Eucharist and the Proscomedi. That's it. Jordanville has a really good prayer book if you want one of those. Yeah.

[Jay]

Father Deacon, did you want to comment on that? I didn't mean to cut you off.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

No, that's exactly the correct answer. Of course God hears all our prayers, but at the same time, it encourages us to go further into orthodoxy because the prayers of a righteous man availeth much. And so I try to use that.

[Kai]

As.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

You know, it's hard to motivate myself to do stuff when I just think about myself. But if I realize that other people depend on me, and I don't know how all of you feel about this, but for me, that's kind of a motivating factor. It lights a fire underneath me.

[Kai]

And.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

That'S something that we could do is that know that, you know, other people depend on us and that maybe I can't motivate myself to get, you know, further in my spiritual life. The fact that if you get further in your spiritual life, you'll be helping others is a wonderful thing.

[Jay]

Garbage man has a question for $7 that looks like it's probably intended to trap me. The position on the church is that the church is the new Israel. So that should tell you the obvious answer to that question. It shouldn't be very hard for you to figure that out. Although I do appreciate your. Appreciate your $7. There should be plenty of quotes that explain to you what our position is. Gert sends a dollar, and he says, in the future, Garden City, will we go back to being androgynous beings as described in Genesis? Were not androgynous beings. Genesis, I don't think describes androgynous beings. So if you. If you read Father Seraphim Rose in Genesis Creation early man, he actually has a section where he talks about how he. And I think he's correct, there was gender before the Fall. Some of the Eastern fathers speculated on this and speculated that maybe gender wasn't introduced after the Fall. I don't believe that, but obviously.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

By the way, Jay, I'd avoid the. What's called the Woke PC translation of the Bible, where you might actually get something like.

[Jay]

Yeah, get an orthodox study Bible. Yeah, I would say. I don't. What.

[Lewis]

But which.

[Jay]

Which one are you talking about? Like Niv or something or what you talking about?

[Father Deacon Ananias]

I'm just joking.

[Jay]

Oh, you mean like when they come out with the. Like the. The literal Woke Bible.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Exactly.

[Jay]

They will probably have, like, the Woke Study Bible. Right?

[Kai]

Okay.

[Greedo]

Yeah. It's just a prosperity gospel and liberation theology. That's it. That's your work stuff, Right.

[Kai]

Next question.

[Greedo]

Next question is what, if any, difference is there between monophysitism and meophysitism? Is there an actual difference or is it just an attempt at obfuscation by the Orientals?

[Jay]

Yeah, I mean, again, all of these have been dealt with with Hours and hours of streams with David, me and David. David has an entire lecture course on this topic. He just did a stream on my physitum. So go to David, the real Medwise channel. He did a two and a half hour stream on my Maya physitism. And yes, there is an orthodox way to understand myophysitism. Saint Cyril of Alexander, the Christological controversy. That whole book is written by father John McGuckin to explain that topic. So no, it's not all obfuscation. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just saying that one of the reasons that we do like a long two hour stream answering each one of these type, types of topics, whether it's John Duns, SCOTUS or whether it's myophysitism, is.

[Lewis]

So that we don't have to like.

[Jay]

Constantly rehearse, you know, an hour's worth of material.

[Lewis]

One reason I'm doing this is because when people come to the discord, which I'm fine with, I enjoy that, you know, every other day we're doing like five, six, seven hour talks and then.

[Jay]

This, you know, two days later the same question comes up.

[Lewis]

How is Essence Energy distinction not pal.

[Jay]

I mean not Neoplatonism?

[Lewis]

And we've already spent four hours the.

[Jay]

Day before talking about that.

[Lewis]

So there's no point in just constantly redoing the same talk. So I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just saying that If David does 20 different streams explaining that very question.

[Jay]

Go watch David's stream or read the McGuckin book.

[Lewis]

Searching for $3. I'm an atheist who finds myself unsatisfied.

[Jay]

With moral relativism and unanswered big questions.

[Lewis]

I can't seem to accept any non empirical evidence outside of my senses. How do I?

[Jay]

And then it trails off, I can't see the rest of it.

[Lewis]

So I mean just think about numbers and mathematics. Objective or, excuse me, abstract entities, they're obviously not identical to empirical stuff. So you already do believe in non empirical things. If you believe in logic, if you believe in math, geometry, you already believe concepts, those are non empirical. So I would just argue that you.

[Jay]

Already believe in non empirical evidence because.

[Lewis]

Evidence as a concept is not matter. So when you say you believe in.

[Jay]

Evidence, it's non empirical already. That's my response to that. But thank you for that.

[Kai]

If he has issues with moral relativism, he presumably believes in the existence of moral facts which are also not matter.

[Lewis]

Right?

[Jay]

So you're talking about value judgments, right? If you're making a statement about something being morally wrong or right. Well, if everything is just matter, there are no value judgments. Everything just is, you say.

[Lewis]

So saying something is wrong requires categories that are not identical to or reducible.

[Jay]

To matter or states of matter.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

It's called the naturalism fallacy.

[Jay]

Exactly.

[Lewis]

Thank you.

[Jay]

But great question there. Searching. Much appreciated.

[Greedo]

Okay, what happens to people who never heard of orthodoxy after death? For example, the pagans that died before they had contact with Christianity? How are they judged?

[Jay]

So I think we had this same question about an hour ago and then we had the same question yesterday.

[Lewis]

I'm just laughing because that's why we're.

[Jay]

Doing this, so we don't have to keep doing this. I mean, so again, we have the harrowing of Hades doctrine. Everybody that died before the coming of.

[Lewis]

Christ, we're told in the New Testament they were in Hades. Peter says the Gospel was preached to those who were dead. Jesus descended into Hades at his death to preach the Gospel. The church fathers are very clear about this. Saint Cyril of Alexander has multiple sections where he talks about this. And he says the Gospel is preached to all of the Old Testament dead.

[Jay]

That's it.

[Lewis]

Now people who nowadays die outside of hearing the Gospel, Paul says in Romans 2 that they have a light that.

[Jay]

Is given to them, the law of nature. They will be be judged by the law of nature.

[Lewis]

That doesn't mean that they're automatically saved. They still have to have some exposure to Christ to attain theosis. You can't be saved without theosis. So whether God preaches to them in some way, we don't know. We leave that up to God. The Orthodox church or the Eastern tradition is not as interested in trying to figure all this stuff out because we're simply not told. UBI Petras just did a giant florigelium of the fate of unbaptized infants.

[Jay]

Right.

[Lewis]

And so go to UBI Petras and you'll see that we have a tradition of not really trying to speculate other than to commend people to God.

[Jay]

We don't know.

[Lewis]

But we have the injunction that we.

[Jay]

Have to preach the gospel. We have to convert people. Whether God reaches them in some unknown.

[Lewis]

Way is up to God.

[Greedo]

An interesting factoid. According to tradition, Plato heard the gospel while in Hades and repented. And he actually appeared to a monk and told him to stop cursing him.

[Lewis]

Entirely possible. So I will.

[Kai]

I love these funny stories.

[Jay]

Yeah, they're funny.

[Lewis]

Here is the.

[Jay]

Here is UBI Petra's patristic list of fate of unbaptized infants. So that will kind of give you an insight into the question you're asking there. So you've got quotes from Irenaeus talking about the recapitulation that Christ's incarnation reaches to all of human nature.

[Lewis]

Gregory the theologian, Gregory Nyssa, of course.

[Jay]

Spoke often of this.

[Lewis]

Ambrose, Innocent, Zosimus, Carthage.

[Jay]

What else is on there? Gregory the Great. So that you'll see that there is a kind of a.

[Lewis]

We should know that when baptized infants die, they enjoy paradise. Those not illumined by baptism do not go to paradise nor Gehenna.

[Jay]

So that's on the Sunday of Meat fair, you see. So anyway, there's more in that, in that link.

[Lewis]

We don't speculate.

[Jay]

We don't worry about those kinds of things. We don't know. God doesn't tell us everything. So we can't like sit around and speculate and try to figure it out.

[Greedo]

Okay, we got a question, which is actually four questions from a Muslim. So we'll just go one by one. So how come the Trinity is hard to explain when the Bible says in First Corinthians 14:33 that God is not the author of confusion?

[Jay]

Okay, so just because Paul says God's not the author of confusion, if you look at the context, he's talking about people who were being rioted in the church. He's not talking about theology. Paul talks in many places about difficult theological writings.

[Lewis]

In fact, Peter even says Paul's writings are difficult. So difficult. And meat, what Hebrews calls doctrine, that's meat is not the same thing as confusion. The confusion that Corinthians is talking about is people getting drunk, people committing fornication, people not taking the Lord's Supper seriously and all manner of, you know, it sounds like a Protestant charismatic service that Paul is rebuking.

[Jay]

Right? I mean, he's saying you guys are acting like loons here, flopping around, acting.

[Lewis]

Crazy, doing all kinds of nonsense. That's the confusion. He's not saying that there's no difficult theology. Your own Muslim schools of philosophy are difficult. So that's a terrible argument.

[Kai]

I'd also say, if you're interested in. I just want to add, is check out the videos I did with Bow on the Trinity, because I think the current sort of popular egalitarian or social trinitarian view, where the divine essence is, you know, God is the problem that a lot of Muslims might end up having. So we need to reinstate the doctrine of the monarchia of the Father and the energies.

[Jay]

Absolutely.

[Kai]

Because if you go by Cappadocian theology they absolutely reject. I mean, I'm sure if you're, you're listening Muslims, you know, you'll hear that, you know. Oh yeah, well, so there's the, you know, there's the nature and that's God. And then because all the persons participate in that. Well, that's how we, we call, why we call them God. But the whole, the whole premise of the Cappadocians who did, who basically fleshed out the trinitarian theology was to just absolutely deny that you could predicate any name of the divine essence, including God or anything.

[Jay]

Okay, so that's not. Yeah, yeah, no, go ahead.

[Kai]

So just check out the, just check out the videos I did with Bo at Orthodox Jihada.

[Jay]

Just go over to my community tab on my channel right there, the community tab. And if you look at the first.

[Lewis]

One there, David has a three hour lecture on myophysite.

[Jay]

So there's the answer to the myophysite question. Scroll down a little bit. And I have a one hour talk.

[Lewis]

From two days ago with Al Fadi.

[Jay]

On the monarchy of the Father. So it's all, it's all right there.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Or you can go to my 24 hour talk hours. By the way, guys, I'm gonna, I need to, I want to say what a blessing. My prayers to you all and great questions and thank you, Jay, Lewis, Dobros.

[Jay]

Thank you, Father.

[Lewis]

Well, I'm still here.

[Jay]

We got our, we got our largest crowd yet. We're right.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Yeah, I just, I just wanted to bow out in case there are questions directed at me. Okay, I'm sure you guys will be fine to answer that.

[Lewis]

I'll put Father Deacon Ananias, I'll put.

[Jay]

Everybody'S channels below as well when the stream's done. So be sure and follow Father Deacon. And then I'll have Lewis and Kai and everybody's snacks stuff too. So David as well.

[Lewis]

Thank you, Father.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Appreciate that.

[Jay]

Absolutely, David.

[Kai]

Yeah. Oh, cool. See you, Father. God bless. Let's try. Let's keep trailblazing through these Muslim questions.

[Greedo]

Okay? Can you explain why the Trinity is not in the Old Testament and why it was only revealed during Jesus's missionary?

[Jay]

I mean, like every debate and topic that we've had on this top, on this question is arguing the Trinity from the Old Testament. So first of all, go look at all the things that we've done to date. Every time that I've had a discussion with Sam, with any, the whole list that I put up on the whiteboard, it's all the theophanies of the Old Testament. That's the Trinity. Okay? Father, Son and Spirit are all over the Old Testament. So go watch those and you'll see.

[Lewis]

Where I cover all the theophanies in Genesis. This is a personage separate from the.

[Jay]

Person of the Father, who's given worship, who's given the divine Name, who's called the Redeemer, who's called Yahweh, who's called the Lord, he's called God, he's called.

[Lewis]

All of these saints consistently.

[Jay]

Right? I've done many, many talks.

[Lewis]

I have a whole stream on that.

[Jay]

Theophan and the Trinity in the Old Testament. Just a stream on that.

[Lewis]

You can go watch that is Jesus.

[Jay]

God is the Trinity Biblical. That's whole stream against Rocking, Mr. E. And all I do is argue this point.

[Lewis]

Read Zechariah 1 there you'll see Father.

[Jay]

Redeemer, angel of the Lord and Spirit. If you read the book of Isaiah.

[Lewis]

I just did a talk on Isaiah.

[Jay]

And I talk about the many instances.

[Lewis]

Where you find the triad in Isaiah. So the doctrine of the Trinity as explicated by the Cappadocians and the nice anthropologist creed is not in the Old Testament because we believe in redemptive history.

[Jay]

That there is a period where there's.

[Lewis]

A coming of the church that completes the fulfillments of the prophecies of the Old Testament. So obviously the, the, the life of the Messiah is not going to be present in its full form prior to the coming of the Messiah. Obviously the, the prophecies of Isaiah are not going to be present prior to Isaiah. So that's like saying why isn't the.

[Jay]

Fulfillment of all these things there before the fulfillment?

[Lewis]

It doesn't make any sense because of the progression of progressive revelation, redemptive history and the fulfillment of these things when the Messiah comes. So obviously, look, that's like, look, there's not a full fledged full revelation in the sense of what Isaiah has in the time of Abraham.

[Jay]

Right?

[Lewis]

Does Isaiah, does Abraham know as much as Isaiah? No. Obviously. Would we therefore conclude from that that Isaiah is false because it's not fully revealed in Abraham's day, all the things that Isaiah said? Of course not. So in the same way, just because not everything that's fully revealed in the New Testament is not present in the Old Testament, we don't cancel it out. That's just presupposing that we're not the fulfillment, but we are the fulfillment. That's the point here.

[Jay]

Right?

[Lewis]

The New Testament is the fulfillment of what the Old Testament is looking forward to. Countless Old Testament Prophecies, how many times does it say the Gentiles will be.

[Jay]

Brought into the covenant, that they will.

[Lewis]

Be worshiping the God of Israel and that when the Gentiles begin to convert in mass, that's when you'll know the Messiah has come. And what do you know when Jesus comes? Suddenly entire Gentile nations for centuries, for millennia converting. Obviously Jesus is the Messiah. So this kind of Muslim argument just is based on ignorance about our theology and the, the notion of the completion of the Old Testament prophecies in the person of Christ.

[Kai]

Can I add to that? If Christ here, he can, he can add as well, is the. We have to really consider also that even in Islam there's a development of the theology about God over debates for centuries after the Quran. I don't know, you may not, whoever asked the question may not be familiar with this, but there ends up being a very specific formulation of the what attributes there are, what, what an attribute is, what constitutes an attribute, how they relate to creation, whether or not how they relate to the essence of God. And those things are very precise and, and they're not contained in that, in their formulation of, as part of Kalam philosophy inside the, inside the Quran, but they are still required believing for people who are part of those schools. So I don't know if you're, if you're a Salafi, but that's mainstream Sunnism anyway.

[Jay]

Yeah, but as we see every time we get into this kind of argument, it's move the goalposts, right? Oh, that's the case for you, but not for me.

[Jami]

But in all, on all fairness, if I can just.

[Jay]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jami]

Muslims in the majority, they are even just completely ignorant of their own traditions. And so they don't even know that there was this development within Islam itself. They are typically of a mindset like that Islam is, has been static for 1400 years, that it was revealed and hasn't changed one bit. And so they, they just, you're there dumbfounded when you start encountering them on this and then they'll just start making up excuses and this and that switching positions.

[Jay]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kai]

It's just important to note that, you know, if you want to, you know, we're happy to say for the sake of debate, if you're willing to accept that our scriptures hold our core doctrines, then we're happy to accept that the Quran holds the, you know, the specific like Ashari or Matari formulation for the sake of debate. But you know, if you're going to use that argument, you know that the Trinity that even the hardware or as Jay used the analogy of the gems, the or the raw or of the Trinity isn't in the biblical text, then you know, we're just gonna say that, you know, that the attributes, specific attributes theology isn't there in the Quran either.

[Jay]

Right, exactly. Yeah, excellent point. Kung pao chicken baby, $5. Can you explain the Trinity for noobs? There is a eight minute video that somebody clipped where I did a this kind of an explanation of the Trinity. I think it's on Institium Verbum website or channel, I'll post that. But basically we believe on the basis of what's in Revelation, what the Trinity is, right? So it's not sitting around and philosophically speculating primarily that gives us the doctrine of the Trinity, it's Scripture. So the Old Testament reveals God the.

[Lewis]

Father and God the Father has this.

[Jay]

Secondary person that he generates, that is the angel of the Lord, that is the messenger of the covenant, that is the angel Redeemer. In the Old Testament there's many, many, many passages. Again, I've gone over this many, many.

[Lewis]

Times and that that angel of the Lord, so to speak, is revealed to.

[Jay]

Be fully divine, right? And eventually revealed as the Son of God.

[Lewis]

We say so we say that that is Jesus, right?

[Jay]

Because Jesus, the Trinity has always been there. It's always been who God is. It didn't change or become three gods or something like this. It's always been Father, Son and Spirit.

[Lewis]

But the full revelation of that was progressive. Now even in Judaism there's progressive revelation.

[Jay]

Again, they don't believe that Isaiah, or excuse me, that in the time of.

[Lewis]

Abraham, that you know, Abraham knew as much as Isaiah would know or Malachi or any of the later prophets, right? Because there's more revelation that comes via.

[Jay]

The Spirit of God speaking through the Old Testament prophets.

[Lewis]

So this revelation is progressive. It never contradicts previous revelation. But it's very clear in again, dozens and dozens and dozens of passages in.

[Jay]

The Old Testament that it's not just a strict Father God. There's also this angel of the Lord.

[Lewis]

This theophanic manifestation that wrestles with Jacob.

[Jay]

That speaks to Manoah's parents, that goes to battle for the Israelites, that's present in the burning bush that appears to David even in the historical books, that appears over the altar of Israel, the cloud, the pillar, over and over and over. We see this stuff throughout the Old Testament.

[Lewis]

Ezekiel sees in Ezekiel 1 and Ezekiel.

[Jay]

10, Ezekiel 1 and Ezekiel 9 and.

[Lewis]

10, this wheel and then in the midst of this chariot that he sees is one like the Son of man. That's the same one like a son.

[Jay]

Of man that Daniel sees right in his vision in Daniel 7.

[Lewis]

It's the same. That's what we're saying. That's all we're saying. Now. That's Father, that's Son and Spirit. Spirit is mentioned many times, right? It's mentioned in Genesis, it's mentioned in Zechariah 1, it's mentioned in Isaiah, like so we consistently see in many, even in many chapters of Isaiah this triadic manifestation of Father, angel of the Lord, messenger, son, and the Spirit of the Lord. The Spirit of the Lord does this. So how is the Spirit of the Lord doing this and that and yet also being distinguished from Father and messenger.

[Jay]

Angel of the Lord Logos? Well, because there's three persons.

[Lewis]

And when we get to the New Testament, which again we're saying is the fulfillment, the full explanation and explication of the Old Testament is not, there's not a discontinuity, it's continuity, right? When we see Jesus in the book of John, especially not just the book of John, but in the Book of John, right? 14, 16, 17, he goes into lengthy explanations of the relationship between him and the Father and the Spirit who he will send. So it's imperfect. When you are really fluent in the Old Testament, you see it everywhere. It's, it's like, it's a no brainer. It's like, well, yeah, this is everywhere.

[Jay]

In the Old Testament. What are you talking about?

[Lewis]

So the fact that modern day Jews.

[Jay]

Debate over this, it's really irrelevant to our position.

[Lewis]

It doesn't mean anything.

[Jay]

I mean, it's relevant in the sense that it's like an academic dispute or whatever.

[Lewis]

But to our theology it doesn't matter because we don't have the same theology.

[Jay]

As modern Judaism, obviously.

[Lewis]

I mean, you see rabbinical debates after the first century, when Judaism and Christianity.

[Jay]

Part ways, when you get eventually the.

[Lewis]

Different Talmuds that are, that are put together, you see debates amongst rabbis over what these theophanies are. You know, is it the essence of God? Is it a second manifestation of God? Is it an emanation? Is it some sort of angelic Metatron being?

[Jay]

Is it this?

[Lewis]

Is it that? Is it a hologram, an angel?

[Jay]

Right.

[Lewis]

So they have the same debates, right, going on that we will see when we bring this topic up.

[Jay]

Right?

[Lewis]

It's an echo of the debate that, that Justin Martyr has with Trifo. What does Justin Martyr keep going to.

[Jay]

The angel of the Lord, right?

[Lewis]

Why is the end of the Lord given?

[Jay]

Worship.

[Lewis]

Only God can be worshiped.

[Jay]

Anyway.

[Lewis]

So the easiest way to start with the Trinity is.

[Jay]

I got lost in that explanation.

[Lewis]

But the easiest way to start with the Trinity is to start with the Bible, right? So we're not, because we're not basing this on philosophy like oh, the, you know, I sat around and I read a bunch of play doh. And I figured out, you know, based on number theory, that now there are analogies that you can make to numbers.

[Jay]

And this kind of stuff.

[Lewis]

Think about one to the third power, right? That's one thing and three things at the same time.

[Jay]

Think about the number three.

[Lewis]

It's singular and it's also triadic at once, right? I mean there's all kinds of things in the world that do have a one and many aspect to them that the church fathers frequently make usage of.

[Jay]

To demonstrate a one many relationship that's analogous to God.

[Lewis]

Not a one to one correspondence, but an analogy. They do it all the time.

[Jay]

They do mind, will and soul, right.

[Lewis]

Or spirit as an analogy, on and on and on. So there's all kinds of things that.

[Jay]

Are analogous to something being one in many. But there's no perfect creaturely analog or one to one correspondence to God because God made the creatures. And so by definition God being infinite, being omniscient, it's, etc.

[Lewis]

Etc.

[Jay]

There's never going to be anything that perfectly matches up to God. So that's why we're talking about on one level, a revelation for us that is kind of the final authority. But that doesn't mean that it's out of accord with logic or reasoning or these kinds of things. Because the created world and the logic and the principles of logic, numbers, math.

[Lewis]

Whatever that God has put into place in the created order, they do bear certain, some correspondence to the mind of God. And so there can be at one, at a certain level, an analogia, analogies that are made.

[Jay]

But we don't do a one to one correspondence as if the number one is equal to God's unity. Right? God's unity is not identical to the number one. The number one is a created concept.

[Kai]

Next wisdom question.

[Greedo]

Okay, so this is all from the same guy. The next mind numbing, boring questions. So do you believe the Bible is preserved or even a trustworthy document about the life of Jesus and his teachings?

[Jay]

Absolutely. We have to believe that. I mean the doctrine of the inspiration of Scriptures is part of our dogmatic theology. There's no Church Father who denies that.

[Greedo]

Yeah, the next part. And then, thank God, we can move on he says if you have. Okay, so he's posing a hypothesis.

[Kai]

That's only if the Bible, if we believe it's not preserved. You don't need to. We don't need to answer that one.

[Greedo]

Yeah, I think we'll just skip that. I mean, that's dumb.

[Kai]

He said, he said. He said, if you accept the Bible is not preserved for question four, but we accept it's preserved. I mean, there's.

[Jay]

Yeah, we don't accept that premise.

[Greedo]

So, yeah, it's dumb. Okay, next. It's like saying, can you imagine.

[Lewis]

Could you imagine a world where there. Imagine a universe where there is a planet with a computer and no gun.

[Greedo]

The quantaloup. If you have the machine elves, maybe they can teach you infinity. Okay, next is. Is there any good orthodox books that deal with Buddhism or Eastern religion? Does St Nicholas of Japan have any books on this subject?

[Jay]

Yep. Orthodoxy and the religion. The future deals with the Far Eastern religions. The Tao of Christ deals with the Eastern religions.

[Greedo]

Yeah, Christ the Eternal Dao.

[Jay]

That's what I meant.

[Greedo]

Father Seraphim Rose's biography has some good stuff in that as well.

[Jay]

The easiest response is just orthodox in that religion of the future, because he's. He's talking about Hinduism, but I mean, that's kind of encompasses all them, really.

[Greedo]

Okay.

[Kai]

The guru, the young man and elder paisios. Right.

[Tony G]

Church of the Eternal Logos.

[Jay]

Yes.

[Greedo]

Does Islam have a one and many problem? For example, if truth is one in many, how can the Islamic God be the metaphysical. Metaphysical condition for the multiplicity of unity of truth itself when Allah is without multiplicity in his being?

[Jay]

Yes, exactly. I mean, that's an argument I've been making.

[Greedo]

Sure.

[Jay]

Well stated.

[Kai]

The. The mainstream Sunni position has more multiplicity in God than the Matazala ads position that was rejected by mainstream Sunniism.

[Jay]

Yeah. And I mean, even though there's all these different schools because of the, you know, emphasis on the transcendence of God in Islam, I don't think you're going to ever get a really sufficient coherent answer to that problem. So there's always going to be the assumption of unicity as metaphysically and ontologically prior or primary or superior. So they can't really do justice to distinctions or multiplicity. And by the way, it doesn't matter if they admit that.

[Lewis]

They say, well, but we don't have three persons.

[Jay]

And so therefore the same problem arises with the attributes or the actions of Allah. The same problem is still there.

[Greedo]

Okay, next.

[Kai]

Yeah, that was one of the Jewish and Matazala critiques. Of the Ashari and maturity person position was that it was too Christian because you believed in like they believed in, you know, subsistent attributes that weren't Allah.

[Jay]

What's the problem that Muslims are very.

[Tony G]

Strict about that God has to be absolute.

[Jay]

We, we can't hear you. You have to speak up. Yeah, you're really low. God has to be absolutely unique. Which makes it difficult when you posit attributes of God such as life and being that are also in some ways shared by creatures. So this is where the. Yeah, there's no analogia in that position. Yeah, the one of the many problem.

[Greedo]

Manifests very clearly in this point. Okay, next question. I am confused about the Christian explanation of suffering and I'm hopeful that the orthodox view can offer a more compelling explanation than the Protestant one. How did sin have the effect of changing the fabric of reality from the perfect pre fall state to the current state after the fall so as to introduce suffering to the world? It seems like the laws of physics themselves are inhospitable to human life and cause suffering. Example, a rock can fall on one's head while walking under a cliff. And this seems to be entirely causally disconnected from man's sinful nature. How is sin connected with altering the laws of physics post fall?

[Jay]

Well, if you want. If you're asking how in the sense of the mechanics, nobody knows that. If you're asking how in the sense of theological revelation. Well, we're told that that's the case because the entire.

[Lewis]

It's not like all of the fabric.

[Jay]

Of reality was changed. I mean man's body, we have animalistic bodies because of the fall. Right. We don't know what the pre fall state of man's body was like. We don't know what Eden was like. But all of the way the normal course of things function did not have, for example, the presence of decay, the presence of death, all those things were.

[Lewis]

Foreign to Eden and we believe it.

[Jay]

On the basis of what's revealed. Right.

[Lewis]

So we don't have to have an.

[Jay]

Explanation of the mechanics of exactly what the chemical reactions that occurred when the fall happened. I mean, nobody's ever going to know that. So. But whether there is a connection between death and events in the natural world and man's sin, we believe it on the basis of revelation.

[Greedo]

Yeah, I also like that. That is a very high IQ way of asking the question if God real why bad thing happened.

[Jay]

It was.

[Greedo]

That's a good one. Yeah, very high IQ. But same question though.

[Jay]

Chris says for $13.09 God bless you for your work. Well, thank you, Chris. Much appreciated for that.

[Greedo]

Okay, trying to find guys, please don't clutter it with your, like Jay's answering questions, not you guys. So please don't clutter with your answers. Okay. Where can someone from a schismatic apostolic church find out where they differ, specifically, as in the reason why they are considered outside of the church?

[Jay]

I mean, I guess that would depend on what schismatic apostolic church you're talking about. I mean, you're asking me where to find out how your church differs. I don't understand the question.

[Greedo]

Yeah, so let's see. Very anti Chalcedonian.

[Kai]

So.

[Jay]

I don't know. It's a bizarre question. I mean, again, go watch David's videos if you're looking for where we say we disagree with you.

[Greedo]

Yeah, David's videos are really good. The Orientals are just scared of him. So, yeah. Okay, let's see. If God is the infinite source of all being from which everything ultimately emerges, how can it be that evil things are not from God? I want to believe that God is good, but it seems like I can't reconcile this with the notion of God being the source of all that exists.

[Jay]

So evil has no being and no subsistent ontological status. Evil is not a metaphysical reality. It's a negation, it's a privation. It's a movement of the will away from the good. So you'll find that from the earliest days of the church up until the present day, we have always explained what evil is in this way. So we differ from pagan religions, from dualistic religions, Manicheanisms, Zoroastrianism, that we do not predicate any real existence to evil. That does not mean that we're not saying there's no evil. We're not saying there's no evil. We're saying that there's no metaphysical ontological.

[Lewis]

Status or substance to evil. Because when God created the world, all that was created, he said, was good. So being is inherently good. Being manifests the quality of goodness because.

[Jay]

It'S made in the image of and. And on the basis of God's being, which is good. God is good. His creation is good. It shares in a participatory relationship with the goodness of God.

[Lewis]

So in that way, nothing that exists or has being can be evil.

[Jay]

So what is evil? Well, evil is only a privation. It is only a negation. It is only a movement of the will away from the good.

[Lewis]

If we want to use an analogy.

[Jay]

We could think of something like numbers, right? Negative numbers. Do they have an existence?

[Lewis]

Not really.

[Jay]

I mean they're a movement away from one. Right. And so in the same way analogies to evil are things like darkness, you know, non existence, non being. Those are the many types of analogies that are used for moral evil. So it's not so much a metaphysical thing as it is a real moral thing.

[Father Deacon Ananias]

Would you, would you agree with the.

[Kai]

Statement like something like the lion increases in being and the zebra decreases in being?

[Jay]

No, that's like when the lion kills.

[Kai]

Like when the lion kills the zebra.

[Jay]

Sounds ludicrous. What do you.

[Kai]

I mean, cuz that's just, that's to mystic. Like it's cuz the lion. Cuz the lion is for its own good. The lion is seeking its own good and fulfilling its own good. But the zebra, obviously what's going on for the zebra is bad. So.

[Jay]

But that wouldn't have anything to do with their, their status in terms of existence itself.

[Kai]

Yeah, but I mean in terms of just like good and evil, the zebra is being privated of its good.

[Jay]

Oh well that's. So even the Western church makes the Latins even make a distinction between different types of the senses of evil. So there's a, the privatory sense is an analogy for the moral sense. So if we say that there's, you know, if I lack sight, that's not the same thing as a moral evil. It's a privation. I lack the faculty of eyesight. So it's a, it's a negation. But that's even distinguished from moral evil, which is, you know, when I intentionally move my will away from the good to do something evil. So even the Latins will distinguish that.

[Jami]

If I could just add on to that. There's one exegesis of Genesis that I really like in terms of connecting this kind of question is if you notice day two of creation is not followed by and it was good or God identifying it as good. And the one thing that you can notice here is this is in creation where you start seeing a separation. And so then the separation would be analogous to this kind of privation or moving away from God. And if you're moving away from God, that is what is not good. That is analogous to the sin.

[Lewis]

Yeah, I mean the, the darkness of.

[Jay]

Genesis 1 is not evil. Right? It's. It's some sort of, you know, potentiality within creation for, for God organizing the creative world, the original abyss, whatever that is, it's not inherently evil. And again, darkness, just like darkness isn't evil. Right? I mean Scripture says, you made the day, you made the night. There's nothing wrong with nighttime, okay? Those are just analogies to moral movement away. Like when we say you are far from God, it's not a spatial temporal relationship. It's, say, spiritual, moral relationship. But that's a good point. Kai.

[Lewis]

Kung pao chicken.

[Jay]

Wait.

[Lewis]

Searching for a dollar says.

[Jay]

Searching for $1 says.

[Lewis]

Is the evidence for logic working equivalent.

[Jay]

To the evidence for God's existence? No, because I would say that in order to ground logic itself, you need the type of God that we argue for. So I'm not equating God to logic.

[Lewis]

How should I start my journey to believe? Voice.

[Jay]

How do I know? Voices, Voices in my head are not the general God.

[Lewis]

So we don't go from those kinds.

[Jay]

Of, like, you know, personal mystical experiences.

[Lewis]

You might have a mystical experience, but that's not how we go by knowing.

[Jay]

God or knowing these religious truths. Again, scripture is where we start. Scripture is the primary source of revealed theology. There's other sources that comes through tradition. And you read the Fathers and this kind of stuff too.

[Lewis]

But, like, it starts in Scripture and.

[Jay]

Nobody denies this, right? So you're not going to be listening to.

[Lewis]

And this is a temptation, I think.

[Jay]

For a lot of people who are maybe new to Christianity or whatever. They.

[Lewis]

They start thinking, oh, it's God telling me to not go to this, to.

[Jay]

Work at this place anymore.

[Lewis]

Oh, God's telling me not to. You need to first and foremost learn what God's telling you from Scripture, not from what you think you feel at.

[Jay]

This and that time. So put that away. Don't worry about it.

[Lewis]

You need to be catechized in scripture.

[Jay]

And in the church.

[Lewis]

Then you can make the accurate judgment.

[Jay]

Calls as to, well, God was telling.

[Lewis]

Me that I need to move to this city. God's telling me I need to date this person or not date that person different. God's telling you what's in scripture first of all, and then you're making your life decisions on being in accordance with what's in scripture, right? So don't listen to this like the charismatic gibberish nonsense, right? If you want to be married, God gives you the freedom to make that choice. If you want to be single and enter a monastery, God gives you that.

[Jay]

Freedom if you want to make that choice, right?

[Lewis]

But so often people are, like, worried about God's will for their life or what God's will is in Scripture.

[Jay]

He tells you what to do, right?

[Lewis]

I'm not saying you can't have like a providential event that helps you make decisions. But people are so like obsessed with like this. I can't wait for the dreams and the visions and this kind of stuff. No, don't even worry about that. God has told you what is good. Scripture says so you don't, you don't have to go through that bunch of nonsense you are.

[Jay]

We already know what the will of God is. It's revealed in scripture and in tradition in the church. All right, it cut out there. Sometimes discord crashes, but. Are you guys still there?

[Greedo]

Yeah, I'm here. Can you hear me?

[Jay]

Yes, sir.

[Greedo]

Very good. I literally just lost my place. Like, give me a second to see if it's okay.

[Lewis]

He has shown you.

[Jay]

Oh man. What is good to do. Justice, love, righteousness, you know, etc.

[Lewis]

Scripture says this.

[Jay]

You don't have to be hunkered over in a corner, flopping around the ground, speaking gibberish, waiting for some so called prophet in the charismatic church to tell you what God's will is.

[Lewis]

It's in scripture.

[Jay]

Dude.

[Greedo]

We have a historical question. Do you believe that the Shroud of Turin was housed in Constantinople?

[Jay]

I don't have any opinion on it. I don't know. I'm not opposed to this.

[Greedo]

It was.

[Kai]

Isn't that historical?

[Jay]

I don't know.

[Kai]

I mean, I mean, how can you have an opinion on a historical fact?

[Jay]

Well, I suppose some people can doubt what's believed to be historical fact. I mean, it happens in academia.

[Kai]

Well, I thought the Crusaders took it from Constantinople back to menace. That's what I understood.

[Jay]

I don't. Again, I don't have any, any pro or con opinion of the Shroud. I'm fine with it being Jesus and a real relic or not. I don't have any opinion on it.

[Greedo]

The next question is, would you, Father Deacon or another orthodox apologist in the circle consider writing a big book addressing frequently asked questions about orthodoxy? There's probably a book for it already.

[Jay]

No, probably not. Yeah, I mean, I think we have plenty of those already. So.

[Greedo]

Yeah, like we have plenty of catechism.

[Jay]

So, like, I'm not a catechist. Right.

[Lewis]

If you want to come to the.

[Jay]

Discord and you know, there's plenty of people who can do catechesis. That's. I'm not here to do that. So anyway, yeah, the admins here can.

[Kai]

Do basic catechesis or the baptized ones anyway. Easy.

[Jay]

There's plenty of resources for that. So.

[Greedo]

What is your view on divine command theory?

[Jay]

We have an aspect of divine command theory, but we also have aspects of the other Views. I mean, if you're talking about moral justification, like euthyphro dilemma, is that what, is that what they're getting at?

[Greedo]

That was just the question. What was your view of it?

[Jay]

Right. So if you're talking about the euthyphro dilemma, I mean, I've answered this this many, many times. We did Collopean club. We had two different hour long discussions and two different discord AMAs where we argued over this question. And I tried to explain that we don't equate the command of God with.

[Lewis]

So God doesn't have to submit to.

[Jay]

A rule that's higher than him. And every time this question is framed in the youth row dilemma, they say, well then therefore God can just will the good to be something opposite to itself.

[Lewis]

We don't believe that because we have a different conception of God and the essence energy distinction.

[Jay]

Right.

[Lewis]

God's commands, God's actions.

[Jay]

What comes from God is on the.

[Lewis]

Basis of his character, but it's not.

[Jay]

Identical to his character.

[Lewis]

So we don't identify God's will with his essence sense.

[Kai]

Rip.

[Jay]

Onward. As Theovon says, onward.

[Greedo]

Okay, now we're back, I think.

[Kai]

Yeah, Next question.

[Greedo]

Okay, so next question is, what was the limit of the Byzantine Emperor's powers in the Church? Could he appoint and remove bishops?

[Lewis]

He's not supposed to.

[Jay]

He probably was involved in, you know, those kinds of ceremonies or whatever. The emperor can go behind the iconostasis, so he's almost given a quasi diaconate role because Paul describes the emperor as a Diaconos of God.

[Lewis]

But anytime the emperor has tried to.

[Jay]

Do this, this was seen as a violation. I mean, you have many heretical, heretic emperors who tried to do this and tried to run the church and it never worked. So. But no, I don't think the emperors like took over the Church. If they ran the Church and subverted it, then we wouldn't have Orthodoxy.

[Kai]

Right.

[Jay]

The, the heretic emperors would have been condemned. But none of the heretic emperors ever ended up victorious.

[Greedo]

Okay.

[Kai]

Appointed popes and stuff sometimes as well.

[Jay]

Well, that's a good point.

[Jami]

Yeah.

[Jay]

In the e, in the, in the west, same problems, right? I mean the, the papacy as we just did that stream with Snack, I mean the papacy, he becomes a tool of the Franks. And that's not even in question in terms of history.

[Greedo]

Okay, next question is. This is a really weird one. I just feel like banning the guy for asking it. But what's the rationale behind the Church? Prohibiting first cousin marriages. It's practiced throughout the world. And it's not prohibited in the Old Testament. Also, the genetic defects that result from it are exaggerated. Yeah, okay, but I don't want to marry my cousin. I'm just curious.

[Jay]

Okay, dude, I don't, I don't know. Asking for a friend, asking for a friend. Why can't I marry my cousin?

[Greedo]

I don't know.

[Jami]

You look at the, you look at the Arab world and then you say that the genetic defects is exaggerated. It's not exaggerated.

[Lewis]

Bounteous.

[Jay]

$5. Couldn't a God of another faith system have revealed himself to be similar in an essence, in counter argument to tag? No, because the tag argument is not just a rational argument for our view or an abstract argument. The tag argument is the entire Christian paradigm. That's the point.

[Lewis]

That's the strength of tag, is that we're not arguing for a little piecemeal thing. We might have to argue on the basis of one area of the worldview at a time.

[Jay]

Just because of the limitations of, of us as humans. We can only talk about one thing at a time.

[Lewis]

But the argument, the tag argument isn't just an argument for God. If I'm arguing for the triune God, then I'm also arguing for that whole paradigm.

[Jay]

The God who didn't the triune God create the world?

[Lewis]

Didn't he have providence? Doesn't he have, you know, an incarnation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it's an argument for the whole paradigm, not just for ab.

[Jay]

An abstraction of logical argumentations or mental structures or something like this.

[Lewis]

So even if I start arguing on.

[Jay]

The basis of logic or the metaphysical.

[Lewis]

Status of logical entities or whatever, I'm just picking that as a place to argue the entire paradigm.

[Jay]

That's the point here.

[Lewis]

I'm not saying it's true because I'm arguing for an entire paradigm. I'm saying that that is the argument. The argument isn't just for the Trinity, it's for the entire paradigm. You see, that's why the argument is.

[Commercial Announcer]

Unique.

[Lewis]

Because I can't argue piecemeal and be consistent. If I, I can't just argue for the Trinity without the rest of the.

[Jay]

Of the revelation of the Trinity, right?

[Lewis]

The revelation is holistic. It's not just the Trinity, it's all.

[Jay]

The other dogmas that go along with the Trinity.

[Lewis]

It's a whole system that I'm arguing for.

[Jay]

That's the point. So, no, you can't come up with a ripoff version. That's like the two God system or the four God system.

[Lewis]

That's all the things in your system.

[Jay]

But mine's for Gods.

[Lewis]

Dude, that's actually just a ripoff. And our argument is not divorced from history. Our argument includes a God incarnate. That's not going to be what you argue for.

[Jay]

Like, I mean, would you argue that.

[Lewis]

The four person God become incarnate?

[Jay]

Really?

[Lewis]

Oh well, guess what, dude, that's from us. Like you're ripping off us, right?

[Jay]

You see what I'm saying?

[Lewis]

I mean, our whole system is already a 2000 year old into history system based on 4000 year prior to that Old Testament revelation. It's an entire system that we're arguing for the whole thing, including history, including the church, including the incarnation. It's all part of the argument.

[Jay]

So no, you can't consistently just say, well, I have a, you know, trinity.

[Lewis]

In my head that I've come up.

[Jay]

With that solves all the epistemic dilemmas of your trinity system. And therefore, why can't I just post mine?

[Lewis]

Because my argument is the entire Christian paradigm, all of it, Ten Commandments, Jesus in history, all that stuff.

[Greedo]

Okay, next question. I was wondering if Jay can give a short elaboration of theosis. Divination. We'll just say theosis. I don't know what it meant by divination. Yeah, I mean how it differs from the Mormon view.

[Lewis]

Well, so our, our view is not.

[Jay]

That you become a God of your own planet, right? Our view is not that God the Father impregnated Mary. I mean, we don't bear any similarity to the Mormon view. Our view is what the church always taught, which is not the Mormon view, obviously. It's a participation in the uncreated energies of God. Which is not what Mormons teach. We don't teach that the triad is a literal father with a body who impregnated Mary. All this goofy crazy that we don't teach that. Dude, come on. So there's absolutely no similarity to the Mormon view.

[Lewis]

Because the Mormon view is like a.

[Jay]

Space opera, you know, like you're gonna be God of your own planet and have celestial sex and space babies and that.

[Lewis]

What are you talking about, dude? That's what, that's not what we're talking about.

[Greedo]

Okay, next one is when God cursed the serpent to eat dust all the days of your life. Could that have been a, a reference back to Adam being formed from and returning to dust? Was God telling the serpent that it would feed on dead matter and thus death itself?

[Lewis]

Yeah, I mean, I don't think that.

[Jay]

Satan or the serpent literally feeds on dead matter. But there is a connection between the dust of the earth and the curse pretty consistently throughout scripture. Absolutely. Just like thorns and briars and thistles will come up.

[Lewis]

That's an image that's used throughout the.

[Jay]

Old Testament of the curse of the fall. So yes, in a certain symbolic sense, but not like snakes are literally eating dead things or something like that.

[Greedo]

Okay, next question is this is from someone seeking advice. He says, how should I deal with the fact that most of the priests in my area are gambling drunkard, divorce a divorcees, gallivanting with women of the night.

[Kai]

How.

[Greedo]

So the question I guess is how do you deal with the fact that you have bad priests in your area?

[Jay]

Yeah, well, first of all, I mean, I'm not convinced that gambling itself is inherently always wrong. There's a little, this is ambiguous territory. I mean, if I have a business venture and I take out a loan or whatever to, I mean, that's a gamble. So. So I mean, at what point exactly gambling is, this is, you know, we're not puritan Protestants here with, you know, this kind of stuff. But I mean there, there's really no church that's immune to corrupt leadership. Right? That's in Protestants, that's in Roman Catholics, it's orthodox. I mean, this is, this is just a problem of the human domain. So I don't have any easy answers to what you can do other than to try to find the best that you can that's not corrupt. I mean, can you go to a different city that's nearby if it's a little bit longer? I mean, I've had to drive 1, 2, 3 hours before to go to church. And if you, if you've got a.

[Lewis]

Long drive and it's, you can't do.

[Jay]

It every Sunday, then plan, you know, like once a month to do, you know, your one month trip to the church that's two hours away or whatever. I had to do that for a long time before I had something closer to me. So it's just, you know, I don't have any easy answer for that kind of stuff. But it is unfortunate. There are a lot of corrupt clergy out there. No doubt about that.

[Greedo]

Next question is, if the Creator is separate from this cosmos in a manner opposed to pantheism and panentheism, wouldn't the totality comprised of creating creator plus his creation be more encompassing than the creator by himself, such that the aggregate of creator and creation then comprise a greater entity than the Creator by himself? And wouldn't this mean that the aggregate totality would then Benefit the characteristics of the absolute or God, then would the Creator alone. I have heard in places that orthodoxy is panentheistic, but I'm not sure if most orthodox would what it confirmed.

[Jay]

Well, this is equivocation on the notion of what is greater or not greater. I mean, on what basis are you saying that because there is God and creation that's somehow greater. Now we would say with Dionysius in the divine names that the fact that God creates, he did intend to create.

[Lewis]

To express and to share his goodness.

[Jay]

He wanted to share himself and his goodness with creatures, creatures.

[Lewis]

So that is in a sense greater.

[Jay]

But that doesn't mean that it adds greater to God himself. Right, because God did not lack anything.

[Lewis]

And Maximus himself deals with this question.

[Jay]

Many places in the Ambigua where it comes up with, well, if you read Tolos and his dissertation on Maximus covers this, this question about, well, why did God choose to create?

[Lewis]

And Maximus says we, we can't say.

[Jay]

Other than out of his own goodness. But his goodness doesn't add to being like, oh, God lacked, He was lonely or something like that. And so he created because he was lonely and needed more, you know.

[Lewis]

No, it's just out of pure overflowing.

[Jay]

Goodness and love is what Maximus says. So no, it doesn't add to his being. And there's no, there's no, there's no aggregate goodness that like trumps the goodness that God has because the goodness that creation possesses is a participatory goodness that God has. And by the way, panentheism is kind of orthodox, so I'm confused as to what that person is talking about. We don't believe in pantheism, but we do believe that God permeates the created order. Sure.

[Greedo]

Okay, cool. It seems as if we actually got through the questions.

[Lewis]

Awesome, cool.

[Jay]

Well, we, we've been going for two hours, so let me see if there's any more of the Super Chat questions. There's a couple here.

[Greedo]

It says we also got another one.

[Jay]

Okay, now there's a few here. Let's let me go back to where I missed a bunch of these. Well, there's a whole bunch.

[Lewis]

Kung pao for $10. Why was the Virgin Mary necessary?

[Jay]

Could God create, recreate without her? Sure, but God always chooses to use.

[Lewis]

And have humans participate with him in redemption.

[Jay]

God just wanted to do it that way because again, like I said before, creation occurred out of the goodness of God, not because God needed or had lack. And this is precisely one of the reasons why we don't have a bear strict Monotheism of a self existent person from all eternity.

[Lewis]

God always had a ever flowing, overflowing.

[Jay]

Love from the Father to the Son and in the Spirit.

[Lewis]

So there is that triadic love and.

[Jay]

Communion from all eternity. And so God didn't create the world as a reflection of himself because he was lonely or because, because he needed some way to be Lord. He was always Lord, right? The Father was always Lord. He was always the cause in Arche and always had the Son.

[Lewis]

So there was always that perfect triadic relationship in the creation of the world, therefore is not out of necessity. It's not an emanation. It's not a determined thing on the basis of eternal forms in the essence of God or Platonism or anything like that. It's purely out of goodwill. This is what makes Christianity unique, is that the created world is a willful.

[Jay]

Expression of God's love and goodness and being and not any kind of necessary emanation or determined process. That's the chief argument that Maximus makes against Origen and Plotinus and all these.

[Lewis]

Weirdos and creeps is that no, it's not a necessary emanation or creation is.

[Jay]

Not an eternal generation from God or anything like that, like the Platonist thought.

[Lewis]

So that's, that's what makes it unique. And therefore when we read Genesis and we see that Mary, when we see.

[Jay]

That Eve is the mother of all.

[Lewis]

Now we start to see how Mary.

[Jay]

Is the new Eve. You see, it's a common comparison.

[Lewis]

Mary is the Ark of the Covenant. Mary is the answer to the destruction that Eve brought. So that's why Mary was necessary in a secondary sense.

[Jay]

Not that God needed her, but that.

[Lewis]

He chose and willed to have humans or someone like Mary be necessary in.

[Jay]

The economy of salvation.

[Lewis]

So that's the answer to that question. But thank you for that Kung Pao bounteous.

[Jay]

Go ahead.

[Kai]

Can I add to that?

[Jay]

Yeah, sure.

[Kai]

I think a lot of people sometimes, especially Muslim critics, forget the whole concept of like divine drama and stuff like that. Like how you talk about, and Athanasius talks about how the Crucifixion had to be a particularly kind of violent and kind of obvious thing so that people would know about it and the economy and the, you know, like the divine council and stuff like that. Like God doesn't need to consult with his divine counsel to make decisions, but he does.

[Jay]

And right, that's kind of like a.

[Kai]

Divine, a divine fittingness to all these things, to this order, because it's, it's pedagogical as well. For us. It teaches Us things.

[Jay]

Yeah, I mean, God didn't need Abraham to intercede for Sodom and Gora, but he knew that he would and he chose to operate through creaturely co operators. As Paul says, we are, we are God's creation co workers. God didn't need Amos to intercede, but he wanted Amos to intercede.

[Kai]

Yeah, says all that too. He's like, God didn't need, like he didn't need Moses to raise his staff to split the sea or anything. Like he, he didn't need all these human, specific human involvements to do a lot of the things he does.

[Jay]

Well, the incarnation is thus a affirmation of the goodness of creation and God's will to use the created order because it was always his intent to become incarnate and always his intent to use the created order. That's key. Creation itself presupposes incarnation. That's what's unique to orthodoxy. Let's see.

[Lewis]

Bounteous for $5, could God create.

[Jay]

Wait, no, that's the one I already answered.

[Lewis]

Peak brain capacity.

[Jay]

A dollar. If the world we are living in.

[Lewis]

Is not operating the same way as.

[Jay]

Described in Genesis because of the Fall, then evolutionary theory could be regarded as balanced science on the basis of pure empirical evidence. Well, there's no such thing as pure empirical science or evidence. All data is theory laden. All empirical experience is theory laden. Go listen to the Stefan Molyneux debate. I outline the four problems of basic.

[Lewis]

Empiricism that nobody in an empiricist tradition can answer.

[Jay]

They're basic, well known classical problems of raw naive empiricism that have been asked.

[Lewis]

For centuries now, ever since David Hume, Willard Sellers up in the present day.

[Jay]

William Van Orman Quine.

[Lewis]

Those are the, those are the basic.

[Jay]

Problems that empiricism can't answer.

[Lewis]

So you're wrong about the idea that.

[Jay]

There is such a thing as a pure empirical data or science or whatever.

[Lewis]

I can't see the rest of your.

[Jay]

Question, but that looks like where you're going.

[Lewis]

And if you mean by evolution adaptation, nobody denies that species adapt.

[Jay]

But if you mean by evolution this grand theory of death being natural and aons of time to produce Adam and Eve out of Geico cavemen or some.

[Lewis]

Of this nonsense, then no, Vichez, wait.

[Jay]

Searching. $1.

[Lewis]

Okay, I read the scripture, but I.

[Jay]

Can'T overcome my skepticism.

[Lewis]

Well, that was pretty quick, dude. That was like an hour ago.

[Jay]

So, so you went, you read the Bible in an hour again.

[Lewis]

So it could be just a book. Well, how can just a book predict.

[Jay]

The birth of Christ? How can just a book predict all.

[Lewis]

Of these messianic specifics that one guy comes and fulfills? How is that just a book? When you pray, does God speak to you? No, it's again, it's not audible voices, right? So Jesus answers this very question by saying, go to the Scriptures and study.

[Jay]

Them and you will see that they.

[Lewis]

Have all kinds of things that show them to be miraculous.

[Jami]

Right?

[Lewis]

They predict the coming of the Messiah. Look up the messianic prophecy, start there. And then you'll start to see that the book itself is of divine inspiration. That's the visible proof argument that Jesus uses, Right? He has no problem just saying, look, if people rise from the dead, that's.

[Jay]

Not going to convince somebody.

[Lewis]

If they're not going to be convinced by the predictions of the law and the prophets, they're not going to be convinced by anything. So what I'm saying is go and look at the messianic prophecies.

[Jay]

I mean, you responded by saying, well.

[Lewis]

Okay, I went and read Scriptures, but.

[Jay]

I don't see it.

[Lewis]

Do you even know what you're reading? That's what I'm saying. Like, you have to understand what you're reading, right? I'm not saying just look at this verse and like read the thing and understand that there are prophecies of when the Messiah will come, what he will do. Right? The book of Isaiah. Start there.

[Jay]

So, man, that light is bright.

[Lewis]

Lucius, for $3, what is the orthodox position on why people are born with incapacitating illnesses?

[Jay]

Well, because of the fall. I mean, all illnesses, all death, all.

[Lewis]

Decay, all of that comes as a.

[Jay]

Result of Adam's fall. I don't know how else to answer that. That's just another problem of evil question. But thank you for that.

[Lewis]

Lucius Militaris 353. What is the Seraphim Rose book on Genesis? Increase Creation.

[Jay]

Genesis, creation, early man.

[Lewis]

And I'm sorry, it does appear to be out of print.

[Jay]

I was looking the other day at a lot of different places and sites as to where it might be purchased, and I, I couldn't find any. So I'm sorry to. To say that that book appears to be gone. I mean, not gone, but I don't. I mean, you can't get it for like under $900.

[Lewis]

Every place has that book for sale for 900. There may be a PDF floating around, but physical copies apparently are sparse because.

[Jay]

It'S out of print.

[Lewis]

But maybe if you drove to a monastery or a bookstore somewhere, you could find it.

[Kai]

What book are you talking about?

[Lewis]

Genesis, Creation, Early.

[Jami]

I think he's talking about Father S. Genesis, creation.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[Lewis]

Anyway, so I am going to continue this talk. I think we'll close up the Q.

[Jay]

And A. I'm going to keep. Keep going because I did say I would do this. And it is time to finally do the Pelican book. So I'm not gonna end the stream.

[Lewis]

I think we'll close up the Q.

[Jay]

A part and then if anybody wants to continue with me here on. On YouTube, I'll just continue doing this, the stream, but I'm not going to keep doing the Q A part. I want to get into early church, the development of the. The Patristic tradition from Pelikon's book, because I did say months ago I would do this. And Church of the Eternal Logos.

[Lewis]

And I will do our part two in the next few days.

[Jay]

Jamie and I will do our part.

[Lewis]

Two in the next few days.

[Jay]

And thank you to all you guys on the Discord for chipping in. And I'll put everybody's links and whatnot.

[Jami]

Jay, before you cut off, if I could ask, did you want to maybe make an announcement with regards to what Zemin's Metropolitan Jonah has planned for the server?

[Jay]

Sure, if you want. Do you want to go ahead and announce it? Go ahead.

[Jami]

Yeah, I can just announce it.

[Jay]

So we're.

[Jami]

We're waiting on some more information, hopefully forthcoming next week sometime. But his Eminence, Metropolitan Jonah has offered to start up a weekly kadashetical lecture series right here on Jay's Day, Discord. So stay tuned for that. We'll make some more prominent announcements as we get more information. But hopefully next week we'll. We'll have a set time and date when all this stuff is going to happen.

[Jay]

Cool, man.

[Greedo]

And a reminder to everyone watching the stream, if you want, please do come to the Discord. I'll greet you personally myself. We'll ask all your dumb questions, blah, blah, blah, blah. Love all of you. Jay, make sure to put my Twitter down there because I want that Internet clout, you know?

[Jay]

I know. I will do that for all of you.

[Kai]

By the way, hop over to Sam Shamoon Shamunian's channel. He did an interview with Craig on the orthodox view of salvation, and I listened to as much of it as I could, and it was actually really, really, really good. So.

[Jami]

Go and watch it after Jay's finished.

[Jay]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Greedo]

After.

[Jay]

Guys, am I going to be cutting into a lot of people's streams? Is Kotel doing one?

[Lewis]

I don't know.

[Jay]

It's okay. I mean, everybody can eventually watch come.

[Kai]

Back and watch them again.

[Jay]

It's not a big deal how many people watching live. But I am going to cover because I've got so many notes on on Pelican, I took hundreds of pages of notes, and I also have hundreds of pages of notes. Well, about 100 pages of notes on the medieval heresy book, which I.