Jay Dyer (71:49)
Okay, well, a couple things I'd like to say before it goes any further, because I think it's already been pointed out. You know, Jake tends to want to sort of pit people against one another. And I mean, I get the rhetorical strategy there, but it really has nothing to do with the subject matter that's being debated. So I like that in this debate, Nick kept bringing it back to the topic at hand, William Lane Craig's ideas, the energies. You know, what does that have to do with whether or not what Nick argued was a consistent presentation? So I've seen the first section of the debate. I've not seen where it goes. And then I would just a couple areas of disagreement. But I want to say before I mention that, that I don't think this is not what makes a person a heretic. In the Orthodox Church, heresy is when you're obstinately, knowingly going against the orthodox or clerical teaching. And in 2018, as an example, like, I thought that Christ assumed a fallen human nature. So I was ignorant and I was incorrect in that position. And I had some clergy reach out and show me from, you know, many of the Church fathers that that was incorrect. So I had to, you know, basically to say, I got that wrong. It's not a big deal. Right. So I think maybe in the Islamic conception, if you've got something wrong, it's sort of like de facto shirk or something like that. So they sort of default to. To thinking that. But we don't think that just because somebody disagrees or they got a theological position wrong or something like that. I'm not trying to go at Nick at all. I'm just saying that it's. It doesn't work that way. So it's like, oh, because Jake made a video that dire anathematizes Nick. I would say, though, that I don't agree with Augustine's interpretation of Jacob's wrestling with the angel, because prior to Augustine, most of the Church fathers interpreted the theophanies as the person of Christ. And one thing that's important to note there is that the theophanies are a bit of a mystery. So, for example, Saint Irenaeus, if you read Bishop Irenaeus work on Saint Irenaeus, when he talks about the theophanies, he speculates that the deified flesh of Christ in the resurrection, because it becomes eternal, it's outside of time and space, it can also function kind of Back in the garden. I think that could work as a model for some of the theophanies. For example, Perhaps in Ezekiel 1 or Ezekiel 10, when you have one like the Son of Man appearing, who's described as the face of God, the glory of God. But there's other passages where we have references to theophanic presentations or manifestations that doesn't seem to work with. For example, in Leviticus 9, it talks about the glory of the Lord appearing to all of Israel. And it says the fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering. And I think if we look at the way Paul in Hebrews describes God, he says our God is a consuming fire. And I don't think there's any created fire. And in fact, if you read the debate that Palamas has with barium, the idea that there is a created element to the theophanies, he tends to argue against that. Again, you could perhaps have the opinion that. That Bishop irene has from St. Irenaeus, that maybe in some of these theophanies it's the physical resurrected flesh of Christ that's appearing even in the garden or something like that. But there's also situations where it doesn't seem to be the case. There's several theophanies in Numbers. There's a couple places again in Leviticus where it seems like the fire is called God, the cloud is called God. The cloud is referenced in the New Testament, for example, as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. And the glory cloud that's over Mary is an energetic manifestation, like the dove and like the tongues of fire at Pentecost. And when, for example, the icon council, when it decided that you could only present the Holy Spirit in his energetic manifestation of dove or fire, it is not saying that the Holy Spirit is created fire. It's not saying the Holy Spirit is a dove or a bird, is saying that it's a manifestation like that. Right? Because we don't equate God to any created thing. These are sort of analogous terms that describe the energy. So even the word fire or the word light, we only know those things from the created light of Genesis 1 compared to the uncreated light of John 1, or the uncreated fire of God, or the energy of God, the light of God, those are all kind of synonymous things. It's just the divine energy and manifestation itself versus how it appears in time and space, which I don't think is created. Now, the problem there is oftentimes people say, well, but wait a minute, how can you have a form in time? And space. Right. And again, you could go with the Bishop Irenaeus example. Excuse me, Bishop Irenaeus, Saint Irenaeus example. Or we could just simply say that this is the way Palmas argues when Barlium brings it up, is that it's a situation where God transcends the logical antinomies, that there's not a limitation on what God can do in time and space, because it's really no different than the kenosis of Philippians 2, where the second person of the Godhead willfully limits himself in time and space. So I think that the toolkit that orthodoxy has, we have these metaphysical distinctions that allow for the difference between nature, person, will, energy, and the created effect, but also the level of mode, right? And the mode in which God appears is different from the thing in itself. So the energies come to us through the mode of the persons that act. But energies are not proper to person. That would be the Monophysite position or the Apollinarian position that William Lane Craig has. Energies are proper to nature, and that's why God's nature is one. And thus there's one energy. As John Damascus says in Chapter one, but also later on in Chapter one, he says that there are many energies of God because there are many works of God. So I think everything that we talked about so far in this discussion I totally agree with. My only qualm would just be with the fact that when Augustine says that Jacob is wrestling with the sin, that is true. That's a spiritual interpretation of the passage, which is perfectly fine in our layered exegesis. But it's also the case that there is a real interacting that's going on. And for example, if we were to spiritualize that passage, we would have very other crucial, crucial passages saying Judges, Judges six, for example, where it says that when the angel of the Lord appeared, it says he stood next to Gideon and he turned his Yahweh turned his face to Gideon. So get so Yahweh has a face, right? In Ezekiel 1, Ezekiel 10, the Son of Man, one like the Son of God, one who has who is the glory of God, the appearance of God's glory, etc, all these descriptors are in some way the ability for God to be in time and space. It is a coming and a going. But there's nothing about that that makes God a creature any more than the second person of the Godhead being born in a stable right in Palestine and not in China. Right? He's willfully limiting some of his.
