Is Progress Even a Thing?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Lord of Spirits — "Is Progress Even a Thing?"

Hosts: Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick & Fr. Stephen De Young
Date: January 10, 2025
Approximate Runtime Covered: 00:00–2:08:17
Theme: Exploring "progress," time, teleology, and change in Orthodox Christianity; questioning whether history is moving toward a goal, and examining what change actually means in the Christian tradition.

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the idea of "progress" from the perspective of Orthodox Christian theology and tradition. The hosts question whether history, individual lives, or the cosmos itself are actually moving toward a goal or higher state, and whether this is compatible with the traditional Christian worldview. They examine secular and religious versions of progress and critique the tendency to retrofit modern ideas of advancement and change onto the biblical narrative. The conversation aims to clarify the Orthodox understanding of time, teleology (purpose), transformation, and the limits of language in discussing God and doctrine.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What is Progress? (07:14–14:18)

• Defining Progress:
  • Progress requires a direction and a goal, not just any change.
  • "In order to call something progress, you have to have some idea that there is a direction and a goal... that you can judge whether something is progress related to it." (Fr. Stephen, 07:16)
• Progress vs. Change:
  • Not all change is progress; progress is "change in a particular direction." (07:39)
• Continuity vs. Change:
  • Past episodes emphasized the continuity underlying historical change—tonight’s focus is on change as such.

2. Teleology, Linear & Cyclical Time (13:09–18:08)

• Teleology & Christian Thought:
  • Teleology (Greek "telos": purpose, end) means the cosmos has a goal or purpose.
• Misconceptions About "Linear" Christian Time:
  • It's often taught that Christianity introduced a "linear" view of time (history with a beginning and end) in contrast to cyclical pagan conceptions.
  • Hosts argue this simplistic division is inaccurate—having an "end" does not necessarily imply a trajectory of progress or improvement.

3. The Problems With "Progress" as a Christian Idea (20:13–28:27)

• Fullness of Time (e.g., the Incarnation):
  • Retrospective explanations (Roman roads, Greek language, etc.) for the timing of the Incarnation are questioned.
  • "We're trying to read God's mind about why was that, when the time was right, you know." (Fr. Stephen, 23:15)
• Teleology Doesn’t Equal Progress:
  • Just because there’s an expected "end" does not mean we are getting closer by our own efforts.
  • Christian eschatology sees Christ’s return as an “interruption,” not an achievement (40:20–41:27).

4. Christian History vs. the Myth of Upward Trajectory (28:01–39:58)

• Critiquing Hegelian/Modern "Progress" Models:
  • The notion that Christianity introduced "progress" into historical thought is rejected.
  • "I'm going to argue that actual Christianity, traditional Christianity, historic Christianity does not actually give you that view of history." (Fr. Stephen, 29:21)
• Secular vs. Religious Utopianism:
  • Both secular liberal and certain religious viewpoints often envision history as a gradual fulfillment or utopia realized in this world—a misunderstanding of how the Christian tradition views the “world to come.”

5. Interruptive Eschatology: Christ’s Return (40:17–42:15)

• Second Coming:
  • The Second Coming is described as an unexpected, sudden interruption, not a linear culmination (cf. thief in the night, days of Noah).
  • "It's not something that humanity achieves. It's something that God visits upon us." (Fr. Andrew, 41:21)

6. Presentism & Modern "Reactions" Against Progress (47:42–52:18)

• Presentism Explained:
  • The notion that the way things are now is the way they always have been, which is another kind of error.
• Young Earth Creationism as Modernism:
  • "Young earth creationism is a form of modernism... the Torah... is speaking to us in late 20th century scientific terms." (Fr. Stephen, 50:14)

7. The Problem of Retrojecting Modern Morality onto Scripture (53:39–59:09)

• Expecting Ancient Scriptures to Share Modern Values:
  • The frequent critique that the Bible should have abolished slavery, promoted modern sexual ethics, or equal rights is historically naive.
• God’s Condescension in Revelation:
  • God reveals Himself “in terms that the people he’s speaking to will understand” (63:01).

8. The Human Element of Scriptural Revelation (59:09–67:01)

• Scripture is Fully Human and Divine:
  • "It's written by humans who are guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit..." (Fr. Stephen, 61:56)

9. Transformation, Change, and the Church (78:07–89:17)

• Christian Abolitionism as Example:
  • Only Christian societies abolished slavery; not a result of direct command but of transformation through Christian living.
• Commandments Address How to Relate, Not Build Structures:
  • "The commandments are aimed at how humans are to act within and relate to those structures." (83:30)
• Transformation Precedes Structural Change:
  • Changes in societal structures (e.g. abolition of slavery, equality of women) come from transformed people, not from front-loaded blueprints.

10. The Re-contextualization of Teaching (70:07–72:40; 85:39–88:40)

• Preaching & Contextualization:
  • The process of taking timeless truth and finding its application in present circumstances is ongoing—"Christian ministry and teaching in every age has always involved recontextualization." (70:07)
• Societies are Changed by Transformation, Not Social Engineering

11. Defining & Clarifying Development of Doctrine (95:32–110:35)

• No "Progress" in Divine Revelation:
  • Expansion of theological vocabulary (e.g., Trinity, Christology) is to address new problems, not a deeper or better knowledge than the apostles or previous saints.
  • "Most positive descriptions... end up being circular.... But that same statement, if we understand it in a negative sense... now it’s a true statement... in a sense of distinguishing or differentiating God’s love from other things that are called love." (106:33–107:33)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Never go full Hegel." (Fr. Stephen, 02:27)
• "Is that what life in the world is like? That's what we're talking about tonight. Which of those models—is it more of a Breaking Bad, or more of a TJ Hooker?" (Fr. Stephen, 05:38)
• "If you think that all of history is going to some final form... you could be doing things now to help bring that about... But if Christ’s return is an interruption, then you don’t have a sense of, well, we’re progressing toward it..." (Fr. Stephen, 46:21)
• "Presentism... the idea that basically the world has always been the way it is now." (Fr. Stephen, 49:29)
• "God reveals himself... in terms they understand as a Bronze Age person, as an Iron Age person, as a Roman, as a medieval peasant..." (Fr. Stephen, 67:04)
• "The commandments, when we live by them... That way of life is participatory. We're participating in what God is doing in the world. And that is transformational to us." (Fr. Stephen, 85:54)
• "If a Christian is living the way St. Paul directed them... The transformation produced by that is going to cause them, eventually and collectively, to abolish slavery." (Fr. Stephen, 88:38)
• "Ideas are fundamentally tools. You create ideas to solve problems just like you create tools to solve problems." (Fr. Stephen, 68:12)
• "There is not a change that is happening there. There is a distinction that is being made... that is an idea. That idea is a tool." (Fr. Stephen, 109:48)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Opening/Setting up the Theme: 00:00–07:14
• Defining progress and teleology: 07:14–18:08
• The fullness of time, interrogating notions of progress in salvation history: 20:13–23:15
• Is Christ’s return an “end” or an “interruption”?: 40:20–42:15
• Presentism and Young Earth Creationism as Modernist Error: 47:42–52:18
• Critiquing retrojective morality and God’s condescension: 53:39–63:01
• Transformation and abolition of slavery: 78:07–89:17
• How doctrine develops: vocabulary, not essence: 95:32–110:35
• Summary and final takeaways: 112:16–127:03

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Final Takeaways & Reflections

• Transformation, Not Progress:
  • Orthodox Christianity teaches that what matters is transformation into the likeness of Christ, not collective upward progress or utopian achievement.
• Eschatological Expectation:
  • The Christian expectation is not that humans achieve the kingdom, but that God interrupts history with its fulfillment.
• Social Engineering vs Living the Commandments:
  • “At the macro level and micro level... Christianity... has been far too devoted to social engineering.” (Fr. Stephen, 119:34)
• Trust in God’s Action:
  • Vigilance in prayer and transformation of self and community is the Orthodox response, more than activism or coercion: “My charge for everyone... is going with God. Don’t be an atheist... Be with God, go in with God and believe that God is actually going to do much more of what’s needed than probably I think I can accomplish.” (Fr. Andrew, 118:16)

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This episode offers a nuanced Orthodox critique of both secular and religious narratives about progress and clarifies how authentic transformation, rather than progress or stasis, is the heart of Christian life and eschatology. The discussion explores how theological vocabulary, social transformation, and God's revelation operate in history—not as incremental advancements, but as deep changes produced by divine-human synergy and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Transcript

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

He will be a staff for the righteous with which for them to stand and not to fall. And he will be the light of the nations and the hope of those whose hearts are troubled. All who dwell on the earth will fall down and worship him. And they will praise and bless and celebrate with song the lord of spirits. First Enoch, chapter 48, verses 4 through 5. The modern world doesn't acknowledge, but is nevertheless haunted by spirits and angels, demons and saints. In our time, many yearn to break free of the prison of a flat secular materialism, to see and to know reality as it truly is. What is this spiritual reality like? How do we engage with it? Well, how do we permeate everyday life with spiritual presence? Orthodox Christian priests, Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Fr. Stephen DeYoung host this live call in show focused on enchantment in creation, faith, the union of the seen and unseen as made by God and experienced by mankind throughout history. Welcome to the Lord of Spirits.

Good evening, giant killers, dragon slayers, defeaters of the drow of the underdark. You're listening to the Lord of Spirits podcast. My co host, Father Steven DeYoung, the bane of Bob Goblins, is with me, straight from the swamp in Lafayette, Louisiana, and I'm Father Andrew Stephen Damon.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I read that as Bane of the Bogomeals. Oh, which would have been far more interesting.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Are you. Have you ever taken.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I don't know, you'd have to ask them. Oh, Bogomils.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Call in, let us know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

How do you feel about Father's Day? If you even listen?

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Are there any of those around? There must be. I mean, this is the Internet age. There's people claim to be all kinds of things. I want us to have an Eckankar listener. That's what I really want. But I am in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, perched precariously atop the arcane tower of podcasting. Hovering, hovering dozens of stories above a disused gateway to the underworld. And we are live. And if you are listening to us live, you can call us at 855-237-2346. You can talk to us. And we're going to get your calls in the second half of the show. And Matuska Trudy the Tank Richter will be taking your calls. And tonight I scarcely have any idea what monological dronings on Father Stephen has in store, but I think it's something to do with time. And so we're going full Hegelian this time around. Right. The big question, though is what is it all leading up to?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You never go full Hegel oh, okay. Never go full Hegel.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Can you ever arrive at full Hegel? Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

A little bit of. A little bit of process.

Right.

You know, maybe a little bit of, you know, divine human integration. You know, that's okay. But no, not full Hegel.

Never.

Rookie mistake.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, wow. Someone in the comments just said, I'm not in Eckankar, but grew up in it. God bless you.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That is amazing, the sound they make.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hue.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Hugh.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hugh, Maybe we should have. Her name is McKenna, according to YouTube. Maybe we should have McKenna call in and give us a good hue for old times sake.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, she could write about the sadness of leaving the group and call it hue and cry.

[Caller or Guest]

Wow.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, man. You know, there is a whole. There is a whole genre of Ekankar, like CCM. They don't call it CCM, I'm sure, but, like, you can go on YouTube and they have songs about Mahanta, you know, it's unbelievably corny. So great.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Can you lose your salvation in Ekankar?

[Caller or Guest]

Ah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like, can someone just come up and say, hey, Hugh, get off of my cloud?

Wow.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Good thing she's a former Ek or what? I'm not sure. I know it's the Mahanta is called the Eck Master. See, we should do it. Of course, we would never get away with it, but it'd be so fun to do an episode about Eck in the car.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Now I can immediately segue into what the Ek jokes.

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There you go.

[Caller or Guest]

Nice. Nice.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

But tonight I debated briefly whether we should just spend two hours riffering on whether Dazzler should be a member of the X Men or should remain solo, but decided instead that. Yeah. As you posed there in your original question, how does it all end?

Right.

Where is everything headed? And that also started me thinking about television, because we live in an era now where television sort of has like a through line. Like television shows, like, they're kind of planned out.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

For a certain length of time, and then they have, like, an actual ending.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Like podcasts never do.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, well, this podcast, maybe.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes, exactly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Who knows where the end will come?

But.

But yeah, unlike when we were kids.

Right.

And, like, just a show went on until it got canceled.

Right.

They were just cranking out episodes. Like, the teenage kids from the show would be, like, in their 30s and they'd have, like, cousin Oliver show up to try to keep kids on the.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Show still living with mom and dad.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It became generational.

Right. And then.

Yeah. Or. And they never had an ending.

Right.

Like, they just went off the air when they got canceled.

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

They just stopped.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Just vanished. Like Chuck Cunningham, went upstairs, never was seen again.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There's no series finale.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. There's no we will never know. Yeah. So is that what life in the world is like? That's what we're talking about tonight. Which of those models is it more of a Breaking Bad or more of a TJ Hooker? Facts of Life, as it were, or Facts of Life? Well, Facts of Life kept coming back. That was the amazing thing about that show. The George Clooney shows up. And, like, Clarissa, didn't Facts of Life spin off at least one?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Speaking of ccm. But, yeah, Lisa Welchel, who played Blair, she had a brief, very brief CCM career.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hard to believe.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And then a bunch of the other stars went out to do a lot of, like, TV movies aimed at women yet featuring women getting abused, which is something I've also never understood. Why. Why do all of these movies for women's channels involve women getting abused?

Yeah.

Although sometimes they get revenge. So that makes sense.

[Caller or Guest]

There you go.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And then Kim Fields showed up on Fresh Prince of Bel Air in a late season. Anyway, none of that is the topic. The question is, right, where is everything headed? So if people saw the title of the episode, they saw that we're sort of talking about progress. But progress, the idea of progress is dependent upon some other ideas.

Right.

In order to call something progress, you have to have some idea that there is a direction and a goal, a destination that's being aimed at so that you can judge whether something is progress related to it. But progress, then is sort of a subspecies of change.

Right.

It's change in a particular direction.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And so application, things are getting better.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Progress would be positive.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In some sense, change. So we did a couple episodes the end of last year, a whole year ago.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The end of, let's say, which last year.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

20. 23. 2024.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

24. Okay. All right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So a couple months ago.

[Caller or Guest]

Okay, okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But also last year where we talked about change and we focused in those episodes on continuity. We focused on the idea that even though there's apparent change in humanity and human relations and religion in particular, and Christianity in particular particular, that there is an underlying continuity that sort of undergirds that apparent change. And so we talked about. We really stressed the idea that there's continuity, like throughout the scripture, right. From beginning to end. And we even went sort of before that, we talked about how there's a continuity, there's a religious continuity going all the way back to, you know, your Primitive hunter gatherers, like all the way back, obviously, to your first humans.

Right.

So we're focused on the continuity that tonight we're going to talk more about the change.

Right.

The things that change and how to understand that. Because we take it for granted that the idea of continuity and the idea of change are directly opposed to each other. Continuity means no change and change means a lack of continuity. And tonight we're going to argue that that's not necessarily the case. Also, in a number of past episodes here, where we're going to start, in a number of our past episodes, we've talked about, as exemplified by 19th century Germans, the idea of sort of an evolutionary progress.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The idea that, you know, and going with that in the case of the 19th century Germans and you know, fill in whoever else, 19th century folks in the British Empire, late 20th century Americans, you throw in whoever else you want with this, saw themselves as sort of the pinnacle of all human everything.

Right.

Like all human achievement.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, humans tend to do that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

Right.

Everything was leading up to that. Well, you know, I don't think that's true. See, we live in America and I think we assume this. I don't think the people who live in Liechtenstein are like, Liechtenstein is the greatest country on earth. That I'll give. But like Babylon.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Babylon saw itself as the thing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, it's. The empire at the top tends to do that.

Right.

Like, but, you know, Switzerland isn't walking around going, you know, greatest country on earth, God's favorite people, Switzerland, the Swiss. You know, I just, I don't think.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That'S their Switzerland and biblical prophecy.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Like, not their vibe. And so, you know, I think most of our listeners, and I think most serious Christians who are even vaguely traditional aren't prone to deliberately going down that road. We may get sucked into it, you know, patriotism and nationalistic fervor and things. We may get sucked into a little bit of that kind of thinking sometimes, but that's not really where we're at.

Right.

Most, most serious, even vaguely traditional Christians are not going full Hegel.

Right.

But there is sort of another version of this that we do more often fall prey to, or at least there's a much greater potential for us to fall prey to it. And that's the idea. Not so much that sort of. At least we wouldn't say we're at the pinnacle of all human history. All human history leads to us. Someone pointed out, really, if we were saying something along those lines, we'd go, well, okay, yeah, Right. But we do have this very firm idea, and this is often considered by people to be a Christian idea. I'm going to argue it's not right, but it's considered to be a Christian idea that there is to history, to time, to the existence of this world, this creation, this cosmos, that there is a teleology to it. And teleology, of course, comes from the Greek word telos, meaning purpose or end.

Right.

Which, yeah, literally means end, but means end in the sense of ends and means.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean, we use end in the same way in English, like, that's the end of my day. But also I could say, well, this was my true end, you know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right, yeah. There's the end of my day was midnight, or there's the end of my day was accomplishing all these tasks.

Right, right.

You mean the second one of those.

Right.

And this is one of. Famously one of Aristotle's four causes is the final cause, the purpose.

Right.

For which something is made.

Right.

Something's purpose. So tied in with this idea of teleology, this idea of there being a goal.

Right.

That all of history, all of time and space, this cosmos, this world, is moving toward a goal, is very much then tied in with the concept of purpose. And that purpose can often be tied in with our ideas of meaning.

Right.

That purpose, then someone might say, is what gives meaning to various things. So sometimes this is laid out when it's talked about and when it's attributed to Christianity or to quote, unquote, the Judeo Christian tradition, whatever that is, is in terms of philosophy, of history. And this is going to sound very crude, but I can show you plenty of books, history books and philosophy, history books from like the 1960s that present this exactly this way, which is that, you know, pre. Outside of Judaism and Christianity or outside of biblical religion.

Right.

They will say that ancient people had a cyclical view of time.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That time of the cosmos. The cosmos just kind of followed these cycles that repeated over and over again ad infinitum, not going anywhere, not necessarily aimed at anything. Whereas they will say Judaism and Christianity, Biblical religion argues that there is a beginning to time and history and space of the universe, and then an ending. And they will say, therefore, now we're going to quit. We're going to interrogate this a little. But they will say, therefore, they will say this is linear time, that time, space, the universe, everyone and everything in it are going from point A to point B. They're on a journey from point A to point B. And therefore there is this teleology and so then if you hold to that kind of view of history, then the idea of progress is a natural outgrowth to it, because history, time, everything has. Has this destination point it's headed toward. If you're moving toward that destination, that's progress.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

Otherwise it's regress. Right. If you're headed in the other direction right away from it. Now, it is true. It is true that in order to have a sense of teleology like this, you do kind of need to have. It's difficult to have it without having a beginning and an end.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, of course.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

If time is a flat circle, then it's very hard to argue it's progressing towards something other than just going around in a circle.

Right.

But the fact that you have a beginning and an end, and this is what we're going to be exploring more here, is the fact that there is a beginning to time into this universe, at this world and this life, and that there's an end to our life in this world and to this world itself and this age.

Right.

That does not necessarily mean that it is progressing toward a particular point.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, like the piece of paper in my hand has a beginning and an end, but that doesn't mean anything. It's just.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's a fact about it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right.

So it can mean.

Right.

Like a book. It's a decent book.

Right.

Doesn't just start at some random point and end at some random point.

Right.

There is a. There's a teleology to a book. There's a story that's being told. The narrative is progressing from point A to point B.

B. Right.

Or if it's a nonfiction book, whatever it's describing, whatever it's laying out, you start at point A and you move to point B in terms of laying out the whole case or the whole. All of the information in an orderly way. But a rock is finite, but does not in and of itself. The rock does not in and of itself.

Right.

There's not a purpose signified by the fact that this rock is 3 inches in diameter and this other rock is 4 inches in diameter.

Right.

So you can have a view of time in this world that is not cyclical, but that also isn't sort of moment by moment, day by day, step by step, making advances towards some endpoint. We're going to get into more what that means here, now, now. And this may be a hard set, like you may be hearing me say that and be going, what? Like. Of course it does.

Right.

Like we Experience time in one direction. Right, yeah, Not. Not in all directions. Right. Like, obviously, you know, like today I did xyz. That represents progress toward this goal I have.

Right. And. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, and even, like, even in Scripture, you've got, for instance, the sense of progress towards the coming of the Messiah.

[Caller or Guest]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There's all these things that are kind of pointing in that direction, then finally you get there.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

Well, even there. But that's a good example.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay, yeah, well, that's why I'm offering it up. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, that's a good example because there is a certain. So, like, the fullness of time. Been around Christianity for a while. Right. We'll interpret that fullness of time to mean, like. And you'll get lists of things sometimes. Well, there's the Roman Rhodes and there's, you know, the Greek language was spread all over the place and da, da, da, da.

Right.

There'll be a list of things and it'll be like, okay, well, all each of these things.

Right.

And if you really, like, dig into that and what that entails, that entails, for example, that Alexander the Great conquering most of the known world was like, a step toward what was necessary for Jesus, the Messiah, to be born and into those things. Right, but. And I know I've said this before on the show, I would interrogate that a little bit.

Right, okay.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I'm just thinking, for example, as the kind of thing that someone might say, well, what about this? I mean, that's pretty straightforward, isn't it?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

But that's kind of an a posteriori thing.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So you're assuming there were a bunch of things that had to fall into place in order for the Messiah to be born. And then you're looking at when the Messiah was actually born and trying to figure out what those things are based on that.

Right.

But, like, sure, Roman roads allowed for travel, but if you'd waited another couple hundred years, you would have had better boat technology.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

If you waited a couple thousand more years, you'd have the Internet.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, I don't know how well that's going, but.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, but you know what I mean.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, of course, of course.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

Like, we need this technology. We need the Greek language so that the Gospel could be spread. It's like, well, you know, could have waited for duolingo, translate stuff out of Greek. Like, you could have.

Yeah, right.

Like, it sort of begs the question of like, well, but wait, could. Haven't there been things later that were even better at doing that?

Right.

Arguably, before the Bronze Age collapse. Right. Like so, yeah. When it talks about the fullness of time, when it says when the time was, basically means when the time was. Right.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And then we're trying to sort of come in and read God's mind about why was that, when the time was right, you know. But yeah, so that's not necessarily the case, right. That that can be the moment Christ chose to become incarnate. It also, see, it also implies then that if you take that view that if any of those things had gone differently, that somehow Christ couldn't have been born.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The magic hadn't, you know, the ingredients weren't all together.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And then our Calvinist friends come creeping back in over the horizon like. Yes, See, so God had to control everything.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

They rub their hands, their mustaches.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. If one thing went differently, it couldn't have been. But yeah. So the way we experience time and the way we experience our lives, we work toward goals, right. And we and our parents and our children and animals and plants.

Right.

Are sort of born and then grow to maturity or sprout and grow to maturity.

Right.

And so this is getting at what Aristotle was talking about when he talked about a final cause, right? The final cause of the acorn is the oak tree, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

This is what the will is all about.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. It's what it grows into, right? Now, of course, then you also have to take into account Aristotle then had it's on generation and corruption that after things reached that goal, it then withered and died. Because of course he had kind of a cyclical view of everything, right. It's this cycle. You go to maturity and then you decay. But maturity, the kind of maturity we're talking about, Right. Is not necessarily the same thing as we're talking about like biological maturity, Right. That's not the same thing as purpose. So if you run into a 15 year old somewhere who thinks, you know, life is meaningless and everything stinks, they're struggling to find a sense of purpose. And you say to them, well no, you're growing and your body is maturing and someday you'll be 30. That's not going to answer their fundamental questions. Yeah, about the world, Right. They're going to ignore you and go back to listening to Silver sun pickups and crying softly to themselves or whatever they do now I'm old. But to really have this sense of purpose, we have to understand what you're saying, what we're really saying. If we say that there is this sort of teleology to the world, there's this Purpose toward which the world is advancing. We're saying that all of history, all of time, has this sort of upward arc. Now it doesn't have to be a straight line.

Right.

It could look like one of those graphs, you know, which I haven't seen all that much in real life. But like every cartoon I ever watched that involved someone in a business, they would have that chart with sort of the jagged up down line.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Mostly going up.

Right.

Maybe these are third quarter profits. That someone would turn it around so it's going down and they'd be like, sad, but that you're saying that history of the world are on this upward trajectory. And yeah, there's the little dips, there's the little.

Right.

But mostly it's on its way up.

Right.

It's like bitcoin.

Right.

Wow.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So. Well, I saw currency people show up in the comments only.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, I saw. I saw somebody had posted this from what year was like 2010. Somebody had a video game tournament and like first prize was like $250 and second prize was like a hundred dollars and third prize was like $50. Four through six prize was they gave you 15 Bitcoin.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wow.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, exactly. So the guys who lost that video game tournament are now millionaires.

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

If they kept it actually got out like right before it started soaring, you.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Know, because that was back when they had like physical bitcoin. But anyway. But so that, you know, one of those charts.

Right.

And you're saying human history is that. So you can see, you start out trying to say, oh, well, no, yeah. I'm a Christian, so I think history is linear and it's leading somewhere and going somewhere. But then when you start thinking about that chart, you're like, oh, man, I'm getting perilously close to going full Hegel.

Right.

Like this isn't that dissimilar an idea.

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Apartment in the sky.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And.

Part of where the rubber meets the road on this.

Right.

Is our view of sort of. Well, we'll get put. Let me put a pin in that. We'll get into that later. But so as I said, especially in sort of mid to late 20th century sources on philosophy of history and stuff, this kind of thing is presented as a result of like, Christianity. Like, this is Christian thinking.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Over against pagan thinking.

Right.

And I'm going to argue. I don't think it actually is. I'm going to argue that actual Christianity, traditional Christianity, historic Christianity does not actually give you that view of history. That history is this long arc progressing toward this Goal where each generation is making more and more progress toward that goal. Whatever we want to call that goal. The kingdom of God on earth.

Right.

Something that has to be achieved or accomplished in order for Christ to return. Sort of in parallel to this idea that there were things that had to happen for him to be born in the first place.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Of course people got that now they're like all these conditions have to be in place, you know, especially if it hasn't do with the modern state of Israel.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I mean, I really. Yeah, yeah, it's. Yeah, that's. It will be interesting. I don't know what will happen in the rest of my life or how long the rest of my life will be, but it'll be interesting to see. There could be a great disappointment of a whole new level depending on what happens in the Middle East. There's of our dispensationalist friends. Yeah, yeah, but, yeah, and so I would argue that that's, that's not really a product of Christianity. What that is, is it's a product of what happens when you take Christianity and you strip away the religion part, you strip away the God. So instead of the kingdom of God being something that sort of intrudes into this age and this world, the kingdom of God is this goal that we achieve within this world.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean, I think like there's a kind of utopianism that exists, you know, both within the kind of secular or whatever word that means worldview that's anti religious. Explicitly anti religious. But then also, frankly, I think this, this exists within people who, who are religious on, on their face, but function as though God is not present. You know, like.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Like for instance, the, the people or.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

At least act like he doesn't intervene regularly.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Especially like the people mutual friend Dr. Jenkins refers to as God's older brother. You know, those who need to go out and fight all his toughest battles.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You know, on that count. And this is just a brief aside, but in some recent forays into reading witch hunting material of the 17th century, I discovered that there was apparently a Basque witch who the French uncovered who claimed to be God's nephew.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Nice, nice.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Which is interesting because, you know, like I thought, is this implying a kind of humility, like he's not claiming to be the son of God, he's just like God's sister's kid.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, somewhat relatedly, although much brighter, I know of at least a tradition in the Middle east where women who are infertile who go and pray to the Virgin Mary and ask for children and then miraculously have children that those children are sometimes referred to as God's brother, as Jesus's brothers and sisters. In fact, one of my. I think it's my father in law's uncles, that's how he's known, is Jesus's brother because he's the result of that sort of prayer. So there is.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Nephew is interesting though, like.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like there's a whole bunch of things implied there that. Right, right. Necessarily make sense. I don't know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I don't know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, but anyway. Yeah, yeah. As you were saying that this is something that God's older brother could fall into.

Yeah.

Yeah. And so you get Christianity sort of stripped of the divine, where God sort of doesn't intrude. And this even includes. This includes, you know, roving bands of post millennialists who, you know, even if they live in Moscow, Idaho, I still picture as sort of apocalyptic desert warlords.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Doug Wilson, what is best in life? Sorry.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But it's, it's so you can kind of strip away the divine or you could, you could go full Hegel, right. You can collapse the divine into the creation. Right, into this world and this creation.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So that God is sort of. It's not that God is completely separate from it, it's that he's completely in it all the time and sort of. He's developing too.

Right?

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And the two are coming together.

Right.

So the question sort of comes down to this is where we're kind of going to end this first half.

Right.

If you're going to say that there is an end of history, right. In the sense of purpose, what do you, what do you mean by that?

Right.

Or what is that purpose? What do. What would you. Do you posit that that is. And there are some. There have been some suggestions.

Right.

So there's a book, the End of History by Francis Fukuyama, that's kind of famous, slash, infamous, where he argued that history ended when communism collapsed, when the Soviet bloc collapsed, essentially. Because he was a Hegelian of a type. I would say he was a dialectical materialist of a sort. You know, I don't want to. I'm not saying he's a full blown Marxist, but. So his idea was that what causes history to progress and the world to progress and change is this sort of thesis antithesis thing, Right. Which is not Hegel, but a lot of Hegelian types have views that roughly worked that way. And so for him, for example, what was causing 20th century history to progress in the world he's talking about world history and move forward was this dialectical relationship between Western capitalism and Eastern bloc communism that they presented. These two in some ways opposed alternatives. Them bashing against each other was what was moving things forward. Soviet blocs collapses. Pretty much the whole world becomes, you know, late capitalist neoliberal paradise or hellscape, depending on your point of view. And so history's over. There's nowhere to go anymore. Nobody can think of any alternatives. This is just it.

Right.

So most folks I would wager, who are listeners to this show would not propose that because that's not their view of history. They're not into the whole dialectical thing. What the kind that comes into Christianity is more the idea that this world, this creation history is going to achieve some kind of final form.

Right.

This isn't even its final form, but there is one. And that could take a wide range. Right. That could be like a post millennial is that could be like the kingdom of God on earth A and some forms of religious Judaism. That's essentially their end game.

Right.

They think the Messiah comes into this world and basically just this world is transport transformed. It becomes really cool. That's sort of process wise. But this could also be completely atheistic. I mean this could be like technocratic.

Right.

This could be like, oh well, we use AI and computers to like re. Recreate everyone who's ever lived.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In the great computer at the end of the, you know, things. Or you could go all kinds of.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Weird robotic police force now. Everything will be great.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, Technocratic simulation theory stuff. You could do that. You can just in general say, hey, you know, just be a straight like progressive liberal type and just be like, hey, you know, more and more every day people are realizing, you know, the brotherhood of all of humanity and you know, the age of Aquarius. Finish stripping away these trappings of. Of religion and. And nationalism and all these things and someday the whole world will be one and hold hands and buy each other a Coke and live in perfect harmony.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I didn't think we were going there.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But here we are. Yeah, apparently you still have neoliberal capitalism because you still have to buy the Coke.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes, but, well, it's just not $50 a bottle like it is in. That's true.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The future too low, low price. Yeah, but it's all that there's going to be this sort of. But that final form. It's. This is different than the idea what we talk about in the church in the Nicene Creed where we talk about the world to Come.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay.

Because this is the world to come is just this world after having achieved certain things.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And that we make concrete progress day by day in changing this into that.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It graduates.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

As opposed to what is actually the traditional Christian view, which was the view of the coming of the Messiah in Second Temple Judaism, by and large, which is that for us, Christ's return where we stand now is going to be an intrusion. It's going to be an interruption.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Like a thief in the night.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like a thief in the night. Or as in the days of Noah, people will be being married and given in marriage. Focus on what that means. In the days of Noah, there was someone who got married the day before the rain started.

[Caller or Guest]

Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There was somebody who had a baby, a new baby a day before the rain started.

Right.

That. And then there is this interruption and that. That can come at any time.

Right.

That's the traditional. That's the traditional Christian.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's not something that humanity achieves. It's something that God visits upon us.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

And that's why we've talked about this a little bit before on the show, but that's why this idea that like the, the, the, the apostles all thought Jesus was going to come in their lifetimes, and then they had to sort of rearrange all their theology when he didn't.

Right.

This is where that falls apart, because they thought it was going to be an interruption.

Right.

They didn't think there were some set number of things that needed to happen. And then boom.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. After all, no man knows the day or the hour.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Right.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Or the month or the year.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We have to specify. It's definitely not even wiley people out there.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right, well, that's the first half of this episode of Lord of Spirits podcast. We'll be right back.

Father Andrew, Stephen Damick and father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of the of the Lord of Spirits. Give them a call at 855-237-2346. That's 855 AF radio.

[Announcer or Narrator]

The centuries after the Protestant Reformation brought about a radical reinterpretation of The Epistles of St. Paul, disconnected from any historical reality. But Paul operated during his entire life as a faithful Pharisee within the Roman Jewish world. In St. Paul the Pharisee, Jewish apostle to all nations, Father Stephen DeYoung surveys Paul's life and writings, interpreting them within the holy tradition of the Orthodox Church. This survey is followed by DeYoung's interpretive translation of St. Paul's epistles, which deliberately avoids overly familiar terminology. By using words and ideas grounded in 1st century Judaism, DeYoung hopes to unsettle commonly held notions and help the reader reassess St. Paul in his historical context. Available now at store.ancientfaith.com Again, that is store.ancientfaith.com we're back now with the Lord.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Of Spirits with Father Andrew, Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

Thanks, Voice of Steve. Welcome back, everybody. Second half of this episode of the Lord of Spirits podcast. We're talking about time once again. Kind of just. We keep cycling back to it because after all, this podcast isn't leading to it anywhere in particular. No, just going to someday begin.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's just going to suddenly end.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Suddenly and abruptly end.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We like to leave people on edge. On the edge of your seats. As to when exactly this podcast is going to end. We may not announce it, you know, we might announce it like suddenly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And you will.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Everyone will be talking about it and you will not have listened to the episode yet.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We may announce it after the fact. We may announce it retroactively. We may say three episodes ago was the last episode. Just to confuse you.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And then finally, I will get a lot of hate mail.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Now. You just get a little.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I get a decent amount.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They had the commercial for my book, by the way, and I have to say that that book is now battle tested. Oh, yeah, because when was it somebody brought into combat? Two nights ago. In the middle of the night. I spent three hours arguing with intelligent Jewish people about St. Paul.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, I thought you were gonna say, like in the middle of the night, you picked up your. Your author copy and had to smash a spider with it or something like that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, no, it was like 11pm to 2am.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Is this on the YouTubes with.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It is on the tubes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Our session.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's not a live stream in the middle of the night.

Yeah, I know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So the things you childless people do.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It was a good time for me. I don't know about anybody else, but.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right, so since we're not going full Hegel, but, you know, thesis, antithesis.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, so where we went in the first half was the idea that right, there is an end in the sense of ending. There is an end of this world and then there's the world to come. But that, that is an interruption, right? That is not a goal toward which Things are progressing or being accomplished in order to bring it about. And since that's not a goal towards which things are progressing or which we're doing things to bring it about, that means that there can't be progress toward it.

Right.

So if you think that all of history is going to some final form, and you think that final form is, you know, liberal utopia, then, you know, you could be doing things now to help bring that about, right?

[Caller or Guest]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

If you're a post millennialist.

Right.

You could be doing things to try to bring that about. If you're a technocratic type, you know, you could be working on the AI that's going to someday return everyone to life in the giant mainframe of the future.

Right.

You could, you could work toward that, all those. And you could have a sense of, well, there's progress toward that and then there's other things that are regressive because they're leading away from that.

Right.

But if Christ return is an interruption, then you don't have a sense of, well, we're progressing towards or not. I mean, we're progressing in the sense that like, it's a minute closer now than it was a minute ago, like de facto.

Right.

But that's not how we usually use the term progress. Right, right. Not progress toward it as a goal. Well, so that said, right. Someone can come to us and say, well, okay, yeah, I agree. You're right. There's no progress.

Right.

There's no sense of progress. The world began at a certain point, it's going to end at a certain point. That's going to be an interruption. There's no progress. In fact, you know what? I've read me some Ecclesiastes because I don't like being happy. I've been listening to Silver Sun Pickups.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wow, that's the second reference that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So, you know, I. There is as it says that there's nothing new under the sun. It's just the same old stuff.

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Vanity of vanities.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, same old stuff. And, you know, there's no new ideas. There's no new thoughts that haven't been thought. There's nothing new.

Right.

And this has produced this kind of idea or reactions against what we could call progressivism. And I'm not using progressivism here, just in the political sense. Yeah, Political progressivism is a kind of this. But you know, Hegelianism is a kind of this. Right. Any view that says that things are progressing toward a goal, reaction against that has typically been fallen into kinds of presentism. And the. What we mean Here, in this case, by these kinds of presentism are the idea that basically the world has always been the way it is now.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean, people say that. Obviously most people don't say that in the sense of like, you know, we have the same technology we've always had, but. But often that, you know, well, people have always been this way. Things are not getting worse. You know, kids have always disrespected their parents. You know, every generation thinks that the next generation is more degenerate.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You know, all that basically see the world the same way. We basically.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Neolithic hunter gatherers. We basically. Right, right, right, right. And, you know, well, obviously Father Andrew and I could sit here and phrase it in ways that no sane person would agree to.

Right.

But let's give some examples, at least one of which is not super popular amongst portions of the audience. But sorry, you get instances of things like young earth creationism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I feel like Ken Ham should be a friend of the show. Friend of the show can.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, no, no. Friend of the show means they could come on.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, oh, does it? Yes, Maybe I'm thinking of. The rest is history again, where most of the friends of the show are dead.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, no, Bart Ehrman's the only friend of the show because he's the only one who has the E ticket. He calls in. He gets on the show anytime.

All right.

At any point.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So it would be pretty funny if Ken Ham called in, though.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Young earth creationism is. Is a form of modernism.

Right, Right.

As we've said before on the show, as we said before, irritating a lot of people, but it's true. Why is it a modernism? Why is it a kind of presentism? Because the underlying assumption is that the Torah Genesis in particular is speaking to us in late 20th century scientific terms.

Right.

And this isn't just young earth creationism. People who take a quote unquote, day age view, also a modernism, also making the same assumption.

Right.

That Genesis is speaking in late 20th century scientific terms. Theist people who say that the text is teaching theistic evolution. Same thing they're saying that the text of Genesis is speaking in late 20th century scientific terms. All three of those and plenty of other related views are all forms of modernism. Because they're all making this assumption that this text from Moses back in the Bronze Age is communicating to us in 20th century scientific terms. We're going to get into this a little more deeply later. But why would it be specifically 20th century scientific terms?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Because we are the end of history.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We're the purpose of history.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Which is a certain irony.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

Because the folks who hold to this are trying to get away from the idea of progress, but have been kind of taken captive by the same idea. And this is true in general, when you're. When you take reactionary positions, you end up defining yourself by what you hate.

[Caller or Guest]

Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And falling right back into it. But also. And again, I'm not going to say who said it. Father Andrew knows. But I'm not going to say here who said it. But one of the dumbest things I've ever heard in my life. That's why I keep coming back to it. The fella at a major European conference who said that the bishops at the Council of Nicaea should have voted to abolish slavery. Insert dum, dum, dum, dum, dum. So the. As if. And we've. We've mentioned this on the show for. As if, you know, the bishops there could have just taken a democratic vote to completely transform the mode of production for the global Roman economy.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, bishops definitely have that authority.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, yes. And could conceive of something to change it over to.

Right.

We're gonna abolish slavery and we're gonna go to what? Capitalism, socialism, fascism. There you go.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Anarcho capitalism.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, anarcho. There you go. Anarcho capitalism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There'd be whole patristic texts that start.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

With, you have two cows.

Yeah.

First of all, you own your body. Yeah. Right. Like, what would they have replaced it with? What alternative economic structure did the bishops of the Church in the beginning of the 4th century have in their heads? And where did they get it and why did they write about it? That they could have voted and just installed.

Right.

This is. This is ridiculous.

Right.

This is assuming that, again, they were. They thought about things the way we did. We do.

Right.

And that they weren't living at a particular time in a particular place within an economy, within particular things. And of course, there's a. There's an extension of this. Right, which is the argument that we commonly get from atheists and skeptics and those kind of folks who will say, like, the Bible should have abolished slavery.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

Or the Bible should have taught, you know, equal rights for women. Or nowadays, Right. Not back in my day, but nowadays, Pepperidge Farm remembers. But nowadays, you know, your usual panoply of whatever the gender and sexuality nonsense is for this week. I'm looking at you, Gen Alpha. But you, gender accelerationist, have you heard.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There is now Gen Beta. Like, apparently that exists now.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, that's sad, man.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Does that imply that they're like Gen Alpha is like the dominant one?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I don't.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. I don't know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I can't keep up.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We'll have to see how that all pans out. I imagine it'll be a lot of us shaking our fists and going, kids these days.

Right.

But. But somehow, because we now know, we know today that X, Y and Z is right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's current year.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, that. And we're right. Of course. And so that means if Bible's really from God, then Bible should have taught this.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

Now at least one of those is valid.

Right.

Like abolishing slavery. Good thing.

[Caller or Guest]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

And equal rights for women, depending on how we define that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And how the treating women like they're actual persons.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. Right. And they got how that's all worked out also.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Can be good thing. It could be taken in some other weird directions too, but.

Right.

But the fact that there's a valid point there doesn't mean that these are ideas that were thinkable at the time that these biblical texts were written.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, as we would put it now, those were not a thing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, there wasn't a way to refer to that. You know, it just wasn't. It wasn't on the table.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

It's not like they're walking around going, slavery is great. This is the best. It's. Slavery was everywhere. Slavery was ubiquitous. No one had had an idea of another way to structure a labor economy without slavery that would function.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because it's not just a question of, well, we need slave labor. It's also a question of how do you handle debt.

[Caller or Guest]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Because a lot of slavery was about debt.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

And how do you handle education and apprenticeship and like a whole. That's why, that's why I've said about the Council of Nicaea. You're talking about just abolishing slavery. You're talking about completely remaking the economy of the whole world.

Right.

Which you can't just do overnight. Now when you, when you lay that out to our atheist or skeptic friend who has advanced the previously said objections to you, they will say, well, okay, yeah. You're saying that the people who wrote the Bible couldn't conceive of those things yet.

Right.

But you say God wrote the Bible, checkmate Christian.

Right.

And so first part of the answer to that is kinda, yeah, it's a.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Divine human, you know, project.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Humans wrote the Bible. Humans wrote it. And the Holy Spirit guided and inspired what they wrote. That's what the church has always taught, basically. Because that's what St. Peter says.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's what the church has always taught.

Right.

So it's not that, you know, four Ezra aside. It's not that, you know, St. Paul went into a trance or, you know, lost 45 minutes of time. And when he came to, in front of him was the original copy of the Epistle to the Romans.

Right.

That we've never thought. That's what happened.

Right.

We never thought. Now, I think I've mentioned on the show before, and I know because the reason I'm bringing this up is not to make fun of the person I'm talking about at all, but just to point out how people from a certain background, this idea rubs them really badly the wrong way. When I was first studying Greek in my undergrad and first reading the Greek New Testament, I had a friend of mine who was from what we would now call. It wasn't really called that at the time because this was again, long ago and far away what we would now call an ifb, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist kind of background.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

King James only.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And I said, well, what's been really interesting is seeing the different writing styles of the different authors. And he got angry and insisted I was wrong, I was lying, that that wasn't true. Because for him, if that was true, then that meant the Bible wasn't written by God.

Right.

So I know when we say that.

Right.

Though the Bible was written by humans.

Right.

There's certain people from certain backgrounds who are probably going, right, that's. What are you, a liberal?

Right.

But again, that's not what Christianity historically taught. It's written by humans who are guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit in what they wrote in those particular texts, by the way.

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Not every single thing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. If we find St. Paul's grocery list, that's not inspired, we're not adding it to the Bible.

Right.

Like, there are plenty of other things that were written by some of those same authors we know for a fact that we no longer have. And they wouldn't be added to the New Testament if we found them. So, but, so there's this. This human element.

Right.

There is this human element. And yes, it is hypothetically true. It is hypothetically true that God could have explained particle physics to Moses on Mount Sinai.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

I would not say that that would be impossible for God to do.

[Caller or Guest]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He didn't. But again, we don't restrain what God could do. But he didn't do that.

Right.

Or string theory or, you know, the GERM theory of disease or. Right. There's any number of things that God could have told Moses about or could have told St. Paul about.

Right.

Or could have told, you know, St. Matthew about.

Right.

There's plenty of things.

Right.

Christ himself to his disciples could have taught them about all kinds of things science related had he wanted to.

Right.

But he didn't.

Right?

He didn't. And what he did, what God does is he condescends and he reveals himself in terms that the people he's speaking to will understand. Because there's another hidden presupposition here in this God wrote it thing.

Right.

And that's that when the skeptic or the atheist or whoever says this, what they're really saying is the missing thing, right? You say God wrote, doesn't say this, that I believe, therefore God didn't write it. That's sort of their syllogism, the missing plank there, the missing argument is God agrees with me.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, Right. Well, and also, and also this idea of perspicacity that like, it should just be immediately understandable to anyone who picks it up in translation, apparently. Right, Like. Oh, yeah, yeah, it should. Yeah. You know, which, I mean, which means that it doesn't need any. Like what we've spent the last, you know, four and a half years doing is completely unnecessary because it doesn't need to be confessional.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Don't tell them, they'll stop listening.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, sorry.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Go home, everybody.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Go home. Nothing to see here, you know that you just, just pick it up and read it. You know what, why do you need something else?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, yeah, yeah, but so they, they have this idea that.

Right.

Like, so God holds to 21st century bourgeois liberal social values.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Or ought to.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right?

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I don't want to believe in a God who doesn't agree with me.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Or God.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

What comes down to that, the way, the way things really work as God understands them is 21st century science.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Although usually it's, you know, late 19th century science as interpreted through memes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, yeah, yeah, but, but that, you know, he'd be right with us. And this falls apart on their own principles, Right. They don't have to agree with us about anything. Their own principle is what they're, they're progressives, Right. They believe in this idea of progress, that things are heading somewhere.

Right.

Well, if there's progress and if things are heading somewhere, then I would assume, according to their own view, that in the 25th century. 25th century humans will look back at 21st century humans and say, oh, look, at those ignorant savages.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, just think of how we think of, you know, 16th, 17th century humans.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They'll look at our social values and say, yeah, how primitive, how horrible, how, you know, how hateful and spiteful they were and, you know, unenlightened. Right, well, so if that's true, then, well, hey, wouldn't God agree with those 25th century people rather than us 21st century primitives?

Right.

So from their own premises, it doesn't make any sense, any sense for them to assume that God would agree with them.

Right.

God would be, in some sense in the future or represent that future that they're aspiring to. He wouldn't be sort of in lockstep with them other than in sort of the very lamest versions of open theism. William Lane Craig, anyway.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And therefore, you know, perversely, for the progressive to make that argument effectively, they'd have to stop being a progressive and just argue, we've arrived. This is the final form.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

This is. Yeah, this is, this is the moment, this is it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This is now the singularity.

Right. We're here.

Yeah. And so what we're saying to counter to that, right, is no, God reveals himself. God speaks to people. God communicates to people in terms they understand as a Bronze Age person, as an Iron Age person, as a Roman, as a medieval peasant, as a. Right, on and on and on and on and on. We could go there.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And you know, and you don't have to believe that people who lived in those earlier times and places were like, dumber. They weren't. No, they were not dumber, but their whole thought structure was clearly quite different, Right. Based on what we can see of what they said, what they built, what, you know, what they wrote.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

Because the ideas, right, Ideas are fundamentally tools. You create ideas to solve problems just like you create tools to solve problems.

Right.

You have a need. I need to smash this open to get the food inside. So I find a rock.

Right?

And maybe if I find a sharp rock, that helps. So I find ways to sharpen rocks to help me.

Right.

You know, and you develop technology, right? It's tools. Same thing with ideas, right? Same thing with ideas. You come up with an idea at some point in Lydia, right, they said, you know, we've got this great barter economy going with caravans and everything. Maybe if we had some kind of tokens, maybe metal tokens that we used as a means of exchange that would facilitate this process and make it more efficient. And lo and behold, we now have currency. The idea of currency comes up. But currency doesn't get invented in the Neolithic period because there's no need for it.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That tool isn't needed. So it's not that there was some change in humans and they got smarter so that they could come up with the idea of currency. It's that they found themselves in a new situation where they had a problem that could be resolved by this tool, and so they come up with the tool. But we now.

Right.

We're now living in a different world where we have different ideas and different tools. And the revelation of God that we have in scriptures or the church fathers or in the church councils, or on and on and on is enmeshed in all of these different historical contexts before us. And so this is why Christian ministry and teaching in every age has always involved recontextualization.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Taking what is communicated in that other context and now reapplying it to our current context. Hence preaching.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, you know, which ironically, the vast majority of Christians who believe in the perspicacity of the Bible have sermons like, why don't you just have.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They're kind of long and in depth.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Like, why don't you just have literacy classes to make sure everyone can read and then just hand out Bible.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

Rather than 45 minute.

Yeah.

Explanations of. Yeah, yeah. But this is also. This is what most of the patristic literature we have is. It's essentially homiletic.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's. It's contextual letters, applications in particular context to particular people, times and places, you know, which means that just like the scripture, it needs to be contextualized for modern applications as well. And there's good ways to do that, there's bad ways to do that, you know, which we've talked about all that continuity, you know, the continuity which is the good ways.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right.

[Caller or Guest]

You know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. St. Paul writes Galatians because in the region of Galatia, there are people showing up in churches trying to get non Jewish Christians to be circumcised.

Okay.

That's not a problem I have faced here in my parish in Lafayette, Louisiana. No one, no Jewish people have shown up in my parish trying to get people to be circumcised.

Oh, that's good.

So does that mean. Okay, well, I guess I don't have to worry about Galatians. I guess that has no relevance whatsoever to my people.

Right.

But it also doesn't mean. So you could go the other way and say, oh, okay, so that's not really what St. Paul is talking about.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, he's talking about a spiritual thing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They try to do some weird spiritualized thing. Neither of those things.

Right.

St. Paul is talking about that. He's addressing that actual problem that actually existed at that time. But I could take what he taught and how he addressed and how he approached and how he resolved that problem. And I can apply that.

Right.

I can apply that because we believe that was inspired by the Holy Spirit the way he did that. I could then apply that to different sorts of problems, ostensibly. Different sorts of problems, different things that are going on in my parish.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

And recontextualize that Right. Into this new context.

Right.

Even though this new context has this whole different set of ideas that looks very different, looks like externally at least, looks like it's changed, radically changed.

Right.

Yet these things still apply. And so when we get now into our third half, we're going to be talking about those apparent changes and what that means and what the middle way is between going full Hegel or some kind of progressivism on the one hand, and on the other, a kind of dum dummy presentism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right. With that bombshell, we're going to take our second and final break, and we'll be right back.

Father Andrew Stephen Damick and father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of the Lord of Spirits. Give them a call at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

[Announcer or Narrator]

People often complain that the Divine Liturgy is always the same week after week. But every ritual phrase and action in the service has meaning and purpose, drawing in worshippers with its hymns and prayers and allowing ordinary people to leave the world and enter heaven for a short time. In the new book Blessed Is the Kingdom, Father Stavros Akrotiriakis, a longtime parish priest, offers reflections on the text of the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom to help readers learn to pray the liturgy and to understand and appreciate the mystery that unfolds each time it is celebrated. Available [e-mail] Again, that is store.ancientfaith.com we're.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Back now with the Lord of Spirits with Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

Welcome back. And a happy new year to everybody. Time marches on, or does it?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

For whom? The belt, anyway. Go ahead.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. No, I would love to read a little John Donne on The podcast. I should read the Flea. That would be a good one to read. Yeah, we're talking about progress, or lack thereof. It's a little bit more of a metaphysical episode. We promise it'll be much more fleshy next time.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Earthy.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Earthy. Earthy. There we go. It'd be very earthy next time. You'll just have to wonder what that means.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, go ahead and tease them.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay. We're gonna talk about ritual impurity.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Bodily functions.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Bodily functions.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Secretions of all kinds.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Parental advisories galore.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So. But this time we're a little more head in the clouds.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Can we go back to that egghead stuff? This is getting creepy.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So where were we?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Are we. What kinds of places? You didn't know you wanted to go on this show?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

As a matter of fact, yes, I know, I know. It's the problem with live radio is you can say whatever the heck you want and I have to delete it later.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. That's why you got to listen live, because half my jokes are gone by the time they're recording.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Just don't know which half.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah.

And speaking of, since we have it, speaking of Hagel, I have to say the movie does for audio. The one thing, the only thing I think that could have made that movie even better would have been if they had just had Willem Dafoe straight up playing hagel. He's basically playing Hagel. But if they had just gone ahead and said, this is George William Frieder, Kegel would have been sort of the chef's kiss on top of the movie. But you haven't seen it, of course, so.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And you never will. I don't know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So I will not.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Despite many scenic depictions of Romanian Orthodox life.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I. I know, I know. I'm just too tender hearted.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Whereas my conscience has been seared like as by a hot iron. So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No big deal.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

People are sifting through it, trying to find the metallic parts left over.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

Blind is grit. So, yeah. So we return again to the non controversial subject of slavery.

Right.

So we talked about in the second half how expecting Bronze Age people or Jewish people living in the Roman Empire or even bishops in the Christianizing Roman Empire to just instantly abolish slavery is dumb.

Right?

But the fact is Christians eventually, and only Christians in the history of the world did abolish slavery. The only societies of the history of the world that have abolished slavery have been Christian ones.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean, I would probably add this wrinkle to that, which is a lot of non Christian societies now have. But I think it's probably under pressure from a world order that has become. Like, for instance. Like, why, for instance, is there not slavery in Japan? You know, it's not a Christian nation.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well.

They'Ve been Westernized, so they kind of had it thrust upon them.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, that's what I'm saying.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

By. By the big Protestant nation, empire. Elephant in the room.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, that's what I'm saying. Christians.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But they did not themselves abolish slavery.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay, okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All right. There was no principle within Buddhism that led to them abolishing slavery.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Or Shinto.

Right.

But we did, and we would say that's a good thing. If you're one of those wackos on Twitter who doesn't think that was a good thing, just get out. Just stop listening to this show. Weirdo. I know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Believe it. That's real. But. But here we are.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, the. But that was a good thing. That was the right thing to do.

Right.

So. Well, how do we explain that? Is that a change? Is that a development? Is that. Because there are people who would phrase that this way. They would be like. Well, Christians sort of came to understand, like, there was a development of Christian understanding where they eventually sort of figured out that they needed to abolish SL slavery.

Right.

Now, part of that, we've already talked about the flawed basis of that in that that's kind of implying that, like St. Paul could have, or the bishops at Nicaea could have, but didn't, because they didn't know they should.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And like their moral conscience, conscious conscience evolved, which we've already talked about, why that's kind of bogus. But also, we sort of have to. We have to understand, and this issue and other similar issues give us a window into sort of how this actually works. Because as we were saying at the end of the last half.

Right.

Ideas co long at particular times because of particular situations.

Right.

They arise to address those situations, sort of. What's the. How does that work? What's the process by which that happens? And so we have to start by looking at how the commandments of scripture work. And here's what I mean by that. The scriptures, even when we're talking about the Torah. So you could say the Torah is kind of establishing the whole way of life, including the government, the culture, all of these things that we now split up. The tour is kind of establishing all of that for ancient Israel.

Right.

But even in the Torah, it doesn't really describe and advocate particular structures.

Right.

Like, there's certainly based on the, the, the. We talked about this on the show way back in the long ago time in Deuteronomy. The commandments regarding the king implies that they're going to have a monarchy.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

But they're not commanded to have a monarchy and they aren't given commands as to how precisely, you know, the king's court is supposed to work. They're not giving commands about, you know, how the economy is supposed to function. Here is the economic system you shall use. Right. There's not. None of those structures are sort of laid out. There's not even a family structure that's dictated in the sense that, you know, there have been episodes in the past where we've talked about and made these contrasts and comparisons between the big, large, extended families that existed in most biblical cultures compared to now that's been whittled down to like the nuclear family, if that in our contemporary world.

Right.

But neither of those are like commanded by scripture.

Right.

There's not commandments where God says, thine uncle and thine aunt shall live with you into adulthood if they are not married. Right. There's not.

Right.

Those structures aren't like dictated by scripture. That's not what the commandments are doing. They're not establishing these social and political and economic structures. But the commandments are aimed at is how humans are to act within and relate to those structures.

Right.

So Israel is neither commanded to have slavery, nor are they commanded not to have slavery.

Right.

God, of course, knows that they will. Every culture in the world at the time did.

Right.

But there are commandments given about how slaves have to be treated.

Right.

And about their release.

Right.

Same thing is true in the New Testament when we talk about slavery.

Right.

St. Paul neither endorses slavery as a good thing nor.

Right.

Nor does he command it to be abolished. Again, as we said, that's not a thing anyway.

Right.

But he says, here's how you, if you are a person who owned slaves, here's how you have to act as a Christian. If you are someone who is a slave, here's how you have to act as a Christian who is an enslaved person.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah, Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

How do you operate within that?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And a significant piece of this is also is like the goal of the commandments that God gives are not actually. The goal is not to create a different society.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The goal is for human beings to be saved. And you can absolutely become a saint in any situation.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. An enslaved person. There are many enslaved people who became saints.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

In fact, the record tends. The record tends to show that people who have more difficult life situations are more likely to become saints. Not that we're saying we should make life difficult for other people, but that tends to be the case.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Women became saints without being socially and politically liberated.

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That doesn't mean we shouldn't.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You know, it's good. Just like, doesn't mean we shouldn't get rid of slavery, the fact that slaves became saints. Right, right, right, right. But it does mean that that doesn't stop you.

Right?

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But here's what happens, as Father Andrew was just saying, right? The commandments, when we live by them, right. When we keep them, put another way, when we follow the way of life, when we live the way God has commanded us to live.

Right?

Those commandments, that way of life is participatory. We're participating in what God is doing in the world, and that is transformational to us. So when I, in whatever situation I'm in, right. St. Paul also doesn't say, like, oh, empire is bad. The Roman Empire needs to be overthrown and replaced with some other form of government.

Right.

He talks about how to relate to the empire. But when I'm living that way, in whatever my circumstances, within whatever structures I find myself, but when I'm following Christ and living out that way, I am transformed. And as I'm transformed and other human persons around me are transformed by God, this is what we call theosis. We're all being transformed, becoming like God. We're collectively being transformed.

Right.

That transformation then causes things that were previously unthinkable to us, like abolishing slavery or women are equally human.

Right.

Those things that were previously unthinkable to us become thinkable collectively, and other things that used to be thinkable to us become unthinkable. So as the Roman Empire is transformed by Christianity, pederasty becomes unthinkable. It was a societal institution that people praised and glorified in the Greek and Roman worlds.

Right?

And by the time you get into the Christian era, they won't even use the term pederasty. They use a different Greek term that means defilers of children.

Right?

That becomes unthinkable what had been in a social institution and abolishing slavery. St. Gregory of Nyssa looking on Pascha at the people in his congregation who still own slaves and telling them, you are a Christian, you have to release your slave. That becomes thinkable, that becomes an imperative.

Right?

So, yes, St. Paul never says abolish slavery. But if a Christian is living the way St. Paul directed them, and guided them to live. The transformation produced by that is going to cause them eventually and collectively to abolish slavery.

Right.

Because there is this transformation.

Right.

And then at that point you pass a law.

Right.

At that point, the structure gets changed. And why does the structure get changed? The structure gets changed because you have to deal with the people who have not been transformed.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The people out there who haven't been transformed by Christ. We now have to change the structure so that they do not continue in the thing that is unthinkable to us now that still remains thinkable to them.

Right.

That's after the fact. And as we've talked about a lot on the show, but not recently, we haven't really talked about. I don't feel like we've. I feel like early on in the show we talked about this constantly and less so maybe now. But humans are participatory beings. You are going to. You got to serve somebody.

Right.

You're going to participate in a spirit or spirits, even if you don't believe spirits exist.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Because, you know, I'm trying to think of the best way to put it. Like, we're not naked Cartesian souls with, you know, soul bubbles around us. Like you're gonna, you're gonna be involved. Like, there's no way to not be involved. I was just thinking, I was just thinking earlier today, actually earlier this evening, about the. The spirit of Florida, man. Think of how many people participate in Florida, man.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

On everybody's birthday. There are several.

[Caller or Guest]

Right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Yeah.

And so the Holy Spirit, as we're promised by Christ, will lead us into. Into all truth. And what that means is what we're really describing tonight now in this third half.

Right.

But the Holy Spirit is not the only spirit that humans participate in.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And. And whatever spirit you participate in that's going to transform you in one direction or another, good or bad, never indifferent.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so if you're being transformed by the Holy Spirit, you're going to be led into all truth in the sense that all of the truth will become thinkable to you. It will make sense to you. I know we've used this example before on the show, but as an Orthodox priest, as a pastor of a parish, I see this happen all the time with inquirers who come from a background that's very different than, shall we say, the Orthodox Church.

Right.

And so things like going and kissing an icon is like big time heebie jeebies.

Right.

Like, that's weird. That's, you know, borderline idolatrous. Whatever they may think. Or the things about the Theotokos. Oh, I don't know about that.

Right.

Or asking the saints for their prayers. Weird. Don't know about that. But as they come and inquire and come to the church and begin to worship with us and begin to kind of live an orthodox way of life, at some point it just clicks. At some point it just makes sense. And that's because of this.

Right?

That's. That's the very practical expression of what we're talking about right now.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Where these ideas, these things start to make sense, start to become thinkable through this. This process of transformation. But unfortunately, the opposite is true.

Right.

So a lot of things that became unthinkable within, quote, unquote, Christendom. Now that Christendom is dead and gone. Sorry, Deus. Fault, guys. Is done gone. I mean, Kierkegaard realized it was done gone. That was like 200 years ago. Now some of these things that had become unthinkable are becoming thinkable again. And we see them reintruding into our society. And we don't understand how anyone could support. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, well, transformation happens, right. And this is a. This is a transformation of the mind, Right. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Remember that. Well, this is in the other direction.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Because, I mean, I think. I think if we conceive of societal transformation not as moving either forward or backward.

[Caller or Guest]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Because, you know, which. Which implies this progressivist or however you want to understand it, you know, but that implies that kind of linearity. Then it makes more sense. Like, okay, we can move in this direction or that. Direct, you know, east, west, north, south, you know, up, down, whatever. Like, there's all kinds of directions society can move in.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

So that's. That's one kind of right change, Right.

Where we.

Like something like, where, you know, change in terms of what's perceived as a change in the Church's teaching based on the fact that there's been some societal change, some change to societal structures, which the Church is now addressing or is addressing differently than it did at another time period, that's this transformational element, Right. Is what's really behind that. And so, again, it's not a change. It's the natural result of.

Right.

So it's not a change from St. Paul's teaching on slavery to abolish slavery. It is the transformational natural result of St. Paul's teaching that produces the abolition of slavery.

Right.

So that's not a change. But the other the other place where people often will want to say, well, here's your incontrovertible example of things changing.

Right.

In the Church, the Orthodox Church in particular. Just the Church or Christianity. And that is, well, theology. And what they really mean by that is theological vocabulary.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

Particularly sort of vocabulary surrounding the Holy Trinity or theological vocabulary surrounding Christology.

Right.

Who Christ is. They'll say, well, see, this is clearly a change or a development.

Right.

You have gone from simple to more complex, or you have.

Right.

In some sense there's been some progress here in understanding.

Right.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And there's even like, theories of the development of doctrine which actually will say that, you know, the church fathers understood doctrine more deeply under, you know, than the apostles, and then like the scholastics understood better than the Church, you know, and so this idea that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Now, be careful. We've got a sensitive portion of our listeners who might realize you're maybe talking about them.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I know, but I'm just saying that that's the idea is that that understanding deepens.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, over time. And what's brought out as evidence for this is, as you said, this development of vocabulary and this sort of stuff.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And it's really back. It's really backdoor Hegel, by the way. That is backdoor Hagel. See, here's what you're really doing.

Right.

Here's what you're really doing. God is progressively revealing himself to humanity, and in a way that.

Right.

In such a way that eventually there's sort of a merger.

Right. So.

I mean, let's not play pretend. I. I don't think Cardinal Newman was a Hegelian.

No.

Right. I think, in fact, quite the opposite. I. I think he. He opposed those kind of views and it. Opposing them fell. Kind of fell into the same kind of ideas accidentally, but ultimately.

Right.

If there's progress, that's progress towards a.

Goal.

What is that goal? Some kind of ultimate full knowledge of God. But if that progress is taking place in this world, in this life, then so does that fullness of the knowledge of God.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

What.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

What about the next life? Which is.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The goal.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so I say that. That's why I say it's backdoor Hegelianism. You're on your way to collapsing the divine into history, even though that's the. Maybe the opposite of what you set out to do.

Right.

Well, so we. We can't argue that. And no one would argue that. No. The Church has never created new theological vocabulary.

Right.

Obviously the Church has.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Obviously.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

I mean, that's just yeah, Blatantly obvious new vocabulary. But the question is, does that new vocabulary, the development of new vocabulary, necessitate or reveal or is it in and of itself a change?

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I think the best way to understand it is that it was developed for its time and place, to apply things for those people in that time and place. That doesn't mean it doesn't get carried forward in new times and places where it can be applied. But it's not like the Cappadocians are going, wait a second, there's something that the gospel writers left out, which we've got it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, now we know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if we go into sort of how language functions, we can get at a little more of that. Like, what are you doing when you create new theological vocabulary? Like, what are you actually doing? Because as you just said, we're not saying that what they were doing was eureka. I now understand God in a way that no one before me has.

Right.

No, that's not what they're doing.

Right.

What are they doing?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It makes it so that you know, it. Like, I'll give an example from, from my own experience. Boy, this is a long time ago now, probably 30 years ago, when I first got to university as an undergraduate, I went and got a job at the local theater, as you know full well, Father Stephen, that I did that. And I was asked right when I was ready to work my first call. And when I say theater, by the way, boys and girls, I mean theater. Not movie theater. How dare you.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In fact, cinema.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The cinema, yes. You walk to the board, sir. And I began working my first call. And one of the supervisors on the call said, have you done this kind of work before? And I had done it in high school. I had done community theater. And so I thought, yeah, of course I know what I'm doing here. And so he said, okay, great. Could you just do this, this, this, this, this? And I didn't catch 80% of what he said. And so I had no idea how to interact with all the equipment that was around me based on what he said. And then, and then he could see the look on my face that I was, you know, some 18, 19 year old git who thought he knew more than he did. He said, okay. And then he, you know, began teaching me the vocabulary that he was using. And then I was able then to interact with this 3D world of theatrical equipment and experience it in a way that wasn't. That was. I could immediately grasp it. Right. Like the language bridged that gap for me. So that I could make use of it, interact with it, and then, you know, make things with it. And that's what allowed. It's not that that 3D world suddenly became different, but I saw it differently and I thought about it differently and I interacted with it differently. You know, I didn't just see it any longer as, okay, there's a series of things hanging from that. I knew what each one of them was and how they functioned and how to use them and all that kind of stuff, you know, and so that's what the. Developing the language. Now, it wasn't new vocabulary at that moment, but it was new for me. It was new for me, you know, and we've all had experiences like this where, like, you. You gain a set of vocabulary and you're able to connect with something in a way that you didn't before.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right, right.

And, yeah, and that's because as we've. As we've talked before, and again, this was more probably early on in the show about the different.

The.

The elements that influence sort of the phenomenological world, the world that we live in.

Right.

The world of our experience being language, music, art and ritual.

Right.

Language is one of those.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Just one.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

But so language is one of those, though. So when we're dealing with language, language is shaping the way we experience and interact with the world around us.

Right.

It can't change. Actually change the world. Sorry, Modern progressive Americans. Language.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Just because he used different nouns or pronouns or whatever doesn't alter the thing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. I could call this wall a hallway. I still can't walk through it.

Yeah, right.

I can. Right, That's. It doesn't. You can't change the underlying reality. You also can't change other agents in the world. By agents, I mean humans, animals, spirits, God himself, obviously is the ultimate agent. By me calling someone something else or referring to them in a certain way or describing them in a certain way, that does not somehow enslave them to my description or to my language.

[Caller or Guest]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It affects how I see them and how I interact with them.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

But they remain free.

Right.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I think, you know, I think sometimes that we. That we believe in magic. Almost like if you say the right words, that will alter reality.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, I mean, if you're Kenneth Copeland or Oprah.

[Caller or Guest]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's been a while since we took a shot at any word faith people, that we need to do that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Now, it can alter. Again, it can alter your experience of the world.

World. Right.

The experiential world in which you live. It can change that.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Radically.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You can feel deeply different and even see things differently.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

You know, but the objective, the objectivity of the world itself and the freedom of other agents in the world is unaffected by it.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You can fantasize all you want that your favorite celebrity is in love with you. They're not. They'll have you arrested.

Right.

That's right. So you must participate in my morning of all of our listeners in advance.

[Caller or Guest]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

For those of you who recently saw Steve Gutenberg on television and, you know, relived a lot of those 1980s admirations or whatever you had for him, he's not into you. He's just not.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. No matter how many times you show up at Dave Letterman's house, you are not his wife. Yeah. So that's not right. And the way that language. We're going to call you back. We have this idea that language can be used both positively and negatively. But really most positive descriptions in language, and this is especially true applied to God. But true in general. But especially true it applied to God, most positive descriptions end up being circular.

Right.

Well, here's what I mean by that. So if I say, okay, God is all loving, that's a positive description. I'm describing a quality he possesses.

Right.

But then you say to me, well, what does it mean to be all loving? What does it mean to truly be all loving? The only answer I'm ever going to really be able to give is, well, that means to be like God.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So if I say God is all loving and to be all loving means to be like God, that's a circle. We're not actually saying anything.

Right, Right.

But. But that same statement, if we understand it in a negative sense.

Right.

Meaning God is all loving. And I mean that in the sense that.

Right.

He doesn't hate.

Right.

That his love is not weak and fickle like human love.

Right.

In those negative senses. Now, it's a true statement and it's substantively saying something.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But that's in a negative sense. And most importantly, it's in a sense of distinguishing or differentiating God's love from other things that are called love. Or distinguishing God from other things.

Right.

Or distinguishing God from things properly. Since God is not a thing, he's not a thing in the world. And so these words and new vocabulary is a way of making new distinctions.

Right.

And those distinctions can be important. Those distinctions can rule things out. They can separate the truth of who God is from other lies about who God is, truth about who Christ is from other False conceptions of who God is by making these distinctions.

Right.

But the distinctions don't change who God is. They don't redefine who God is.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

God is Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Now, they can affect your experience of God.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Absolutely. Which is why heresy is bad for.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You, is bad, and why we try to rule it out. Because it will affect your experience of God, meaning it can affect the world you live in. It can affect your pursuit of salvation as a person.

Right.

Doesn't change who God is, though.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so the purpose of the. Of the language there is being used to make a distinction. And a distinction that is important to you and your experience of God, you and your relationship to God, you and the working out of your salvation.

Right.

But it is not a definition or redefinition of who God is. And even if it were, it would have no effect on him.

Right.

On the actual God who exists. And so there is not a change that is happening there. There is a distinction that is being made, a different distinction that is being made. And that distinction is an idea. That idea is a tool.

Right.

And so the church fathers at various points, right. Experience, hey, there is this problem. There are people who think of God as XYZ or who think of Christ as xyz, and maybe we're even teaching that to other people. This is having a deleterious effect on them finding salvation, because it's not true. It's not who God is. And therefore we will now come up with this idea. We will create this tool, this distinction, which we will use to fix that problem, which we will use to correct that misapprehension and remove this obstacle to people working out their salvation.

Right.

To people coming to know God more deeply. We remove it by using this idea and this tool. And so the idea, the tool comes about when the need for the tool arises, the need for the distinction arises. But again, the new distinction, the new tool doesn't change reality, does it? Change who God was, Doesn't change how salvation works, doesn't change how you as what you as a human person are, but affects experience.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And final note, since we started out talking a little bit about this idea of the development of doctrine, this again, I mean, really on this, the ultimate answer this is refer back to the previous two episodes that we started out reviewing Continuity, that if you think that, say, Isaiah knew God more deeply than Moses and Saint Ignatius of Antioch knew God more deeply than Isaiah and St. John of Damascus knew God more deeply than St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. John of Kronstadt knew God More deeply than any of them, because there was this progress over time. You have fun. Fundamentally misunderstood who God is and how he works. But go back to those episodes about the continuity for more on that.

[Caller or Guest]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, to wrap up here. And I know a lot of people are like, wow, this is really short. Yes, it is. I get to go. Go to bed a little bit earlier tonight.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's dense is what.

[Caller or Guest]

Yay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But, you know, one of the things that I wanted to kind of reconnect with is this idea of what, you know, functional atheism, you know, that any kind of progressive view, whether it's, you know, whether you're attaching politics to it or, you know, theology or whatever, it implies that God is not involved. Or as you said, Father, it kind of collapses God into history. History itself becomes divine. And I made a brief comment about those who like to function as God's older brother, that they feel that God needs to be defended all the time. And why I describe that as functional atheism is that there's no apparent trust that God is acting in this world for the salvation of the people involved. Right. So that's why, for instance.

[Caller or Guest]

You know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

If you're arguing about theology on the Internet, you have to win. And because what's at stake if you don't? That's always a good question. If you're arguing with somebody or you're going to confront somebody is like, what exactly is your plan here to win, and what happens if you don't? And why is it that you need to win this one? You know, And I know some people might say, oh, well, I'm doing it. You know, I'm doing it for the children, basically. Well, you know, the person I'm talking with, they're hopeless, probably, but all the people looking on, I'm doing this for them. But, I mean, that's not the only context in which this kind of thing functions.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I had a priest one time tell me, an experienced priest, a good holy man, he said that a saint one time told him, because this particular priest, actually, I'll just tell you if you check out my Orthodox engagement podcast and check out the interview I did with Father Nicholas Paulis, he met multiple canonized saints. So worth listening to that conversation because of all the things he has to say. But one of the saints that he met, I can't remember which one it was now, he told him that he needed to spend a lot more time praying, that his emphasis when people around him were not doing what they should be doing should be prayer and not pressure, which that's super hard. Although in some ways actually way easier. But it's hard, I'll say, like as a parent, it's hard, you know, if your children aren't going the right direction or doesn't look like they're going the right direction, it's hard not to pressure them, like do what you're supposed to do. It's hard to pray for them, really, Seriously. That doesn't mean you shouldn't instruct them, you shouldn't correct them, but if all you do is pressure them, then you have a problem. And I think there's so much of our modern world because of the way that we misunderstand what language is for, that we think language like, like alters the world. Like it's magical, you know, like there's a reason that word faith theology has become big, especially in the last several decades, I think, is because the way that we understand language now.

[Caller or Guest]

If, if.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, if we can pressure people, shout people down, cancel people, whatever, then I don't know what then what, some kind of utopia is going to arrive, or maybe I'll just feel better about myself because I shouted down the bad guys or whatever, I don't know. But again, it's functional atheism. God is not involved. So I. It's on me. I'm the one. I'm the chosen one, I'm the Messiah. But I'm not and you're not. And if there are things that God has told us to do, but if we're not accompanying it with prayer, then we're not doing it right. Because one of the greatest commandments is to pray without ceasing. And so whatever situation we're entering into, particularly ones where people around us are not doing what they should be doing, which, by the way, that's me too. Each one of us is not doing what we should be doing. But one of the hardest things in the modern world is to be surrounded by people who have. Are not doing what we want them to do, which of course in our minds is what they should be doing. We have to really learn to pray for them and believe that God is at work in the midst of all these situations. We have to, because if we don't, then we really are kind of functioning like atheists. And an atheist is not necessarily someone who doesn't believe in God. Actually, there's a lot of people who believed in God over the history of humanity that have been called by, by saints atheists. And they didn't mean that they don't believe In God, they mean they're without God. They're functioning without God because that's what the word in its most literal and original sense means as someone who's without God. And so my, you know, my, my charge for everyone, especially myself, because I'm lacking in this absolutely is, is going with God. Don't be an atheist. Be a, I don't know, metatheist. I don't know what that might mean, but yeah, I'm using it very literally. Be with God, go in with God and believe that God is actually going to do much more of what's needed than probably, I think I can accomplish what's needed. That doesn't mean I'm not supposed to act. I have to follow the Commandments, but it's not on me. I'm not the one who's going to bring about a utopian world. And in fact, bringing about a utopian world is not the goal of the Christian to begin with. Doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to transform ourselves, our families, our communities and so forth. But we do it by living the commandments and by doing what has been given into our responsibility to do so. That's one of my takeaways from this evening's conversation.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You heard it here first, folks. Father Andrew has created metatheism. You may have come up with a new one. You may get that heresiarc thing going.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's a pretty simple term.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Someone must have come up with that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Word before me, I'm sure. And meant something else by it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, who knows what they meant by it?

Yeah, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. But yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So really dove. Dovetailing off of where you ended up? Yeah. Christianity at the macro level and the micro level throughout, especially the latter part of the 20th century, in the beginning of the 21st, has been far too devoted to social engineering. At the macro level. I'm talking about political involvement. The idea that we need to create these external structures of force that will compel people into certain ways of living or not doing certain things or doing things in a certain way, some of which are legitimately Christian and some of which are not. They're cultural and other things. And we're confused at the micro level. That's like the example Father Andrew gave, you know, I mean, to make sure at all costs that my kid, you know, makes it through high school and probably college without having sex with anybody, doing any drugs or drinking alcohol.

And.

When those things are approached at that micro level, and there's plenty of other micro level examples too, in terms of how we want our family life to be and how we want our parish life to be, and then political life, how we conceive of the place where we live at all of those, we address it at the level of social engineering.

Right?

There is an end. There is a purpose we have, right? And now, you know, the means are kind of highly negotiable. You know, if to keep my kid from sleeping with their girlfriend or boyfriend in high school, I have to tell them that they'll get 23 venereal diseases and, you know, XYZ. Other things that I mean technically aren't true, but that are really scary. If that's what works, let's do it, right? And if we have to, you know, tread over a few people's souls and drive people away from hearing the gospel from the church in order to force their external compliance with certain elements of Christian morality at the political level, so be it. The number one problem with that is how's that working out for you? Which is badly. It doesn't work. But then secondly, even if it did, it's not really accomplishing what we really want to accomplish. Because what we really want to accomplish is, you know, if you're a parent of kids, you want your kids to know Christ throughout their lives. That's what you really want. Those other things are actually secondary to that. And you want your parish to be a godly thriving parish, and you want your family to be a godly thriving family. And you want to live in a place surrounded by other people who are following Christ, right? Or that at least, you know, makes it conducive for you to follow Christ or at least leaves you free to follow Christ, right? That's what we really want. And you don't get that by this kind of external social engineering, by trying to force it or cajole it or use language to redefine it, or salesmanship with slogans or using people's angers or baser impulses, inciting those and exciting those to get them on your side. The only way you get there is day by day following Christ, following the commandments, as Father Andrew talked about, day by day being transformed yourself. And when you do that, and you do that while getting around other people who are doing the same thing as we said, that that forms out from you into a community that's being transformed. And then at a larger and larger level, right, it would be better to live in a culture where abortion is unthinkable than to live in a culture where abortion is outlawed, where there's no abortion because nobody wants one. Not one where there's no abortion because there are draconian punishments for having one. Pick your social issue, pick your cultural issue. Or we can go down to the micro level, right? It would be better to have your kid not sleep with their boyfriend or girlfriend in high school because they understand what love is and they understand human sexuality as God created it, and so they wouldn't do that. It's better to have them not do it for that reason than to have them not do it because they're scared they're going to get a disease.

Or.

They'Re scared of teenage pregnancy. Love better than fear 100% of the time. Sorry, Machiavelli. So that's really what I think comes out of this and is the purpose of what we were talking about about tonight. Our purpose in the world is not to make progress, is not to build something and then have that thing we built last past our death. Our purpose in this world is to be transformed and to grow in the likeness of Christ and to live in God's love, not all alone, but with other people around us. And when we do that, all of the things we're scared of, all of the things that we're worried about, all of the things that we're tempted to try to engineer by force, those things all end up getting taken care of. Turns out when you seek the kingdom of God, first these other things get added unto you about that. Yeah, somebody told us that would happen.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

So that's. That's where I think, or at least I hope that that leaves us.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Amen. All right, well, thank you very much for listening, everyone. That's our show for tonight. If you didn't happen to call us tonight, it was kind of a heady one, so probably. Why didn't we have too many calls? We'd still like to hear from you. You can email [e-mail] you can message us our Facebook page. You can leave us a [e-mail] Lord of Spirits. And if you have basic questions about Orthodox Christianity or you need help to find a parish to do all that 3D stuff, head over to orthodoxintro.org and.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Join us for our live broadcasts on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month at 7pm Eastern, 4 Pacific. I watch the ripples change their size but never leave the stream of warm impermanence.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

If you're on Facebook, you can follow our page, you can join our discussion group, leave reviews and ratings and all the places, places and Please share this show with one of your friends.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And finally, be sure to go to ancient faith.com support and help make sure we and lots of other AFR podcasters stay on the air. So the days float through my eyes, but still the days seem the same.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Thank you, good night and may God bless you always.

You've been listening to the Lord of Spirits with Orthodox Christian priests, Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung, a listener supported presentation of Ancient Faith Radio. And I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and Blessing. Revelation, chapter 5, verses 11 through 12.