Jay Dyer FULL Orthodox Ludwell Conference Lecture

The Dyers tended the Royal Swans, which I don't know if that's something to be proud of or if that was something that's kind of of ignominious. That's true. And then my mom's side is Clan. We're Scottish, so we're Clan scott and Clan I forget the other one. But when I looked into this. It turns out that we have a castle. It's all in ruins, but the queen owns the castle, so I'm not happy about that. Car labor Locke is the name of the castle, and I want to get that back from the queen. So we've

got to figure out how to do that later. Anyway, So let's talk about something that you probably won't expect me to talk about.

abstract stuff. But what I think both my good friend father, Deacon doctor Annonius, and I have discovered, as we have spent a lot of time in philosophy, is actually that philosophy is quite worthless. I don't mean real philosophy in the sense of Christ as the wisdom of God or something like that. But I mean the secular, abstract discipline of philosophy. If we think about the logos in John one, this is not the logos of Marcos Aurelius's meditations. It's

not the logos of Hellenism. There might be some overlap, there might be some parallels, but the logos in John one is pulling from the Hebrew wisdom tradition. It's not an impersonal abstract force. It's the I am. In fact, the logos of John one we know in the Triads of Saint Gregor Palomos he talks about in Exodus three when God said I am in fourteen and fifteen. He did not say I am it, but I am He. That is the personal, relational covenantal God that Israel has

a relationship with. This is the one who can show his face to Moses. But as Jesus says in John one to eighteen, or as John says in John one eighteen, and Jesus says in John six forty six, no man sees God, no man sees the Father at any time. Yet someone saw this God in Exodus three, the same face, the same presence, the same angel is said chapters later in twenty three to remit sins he has the name of Yahweh in him. We don't find that in created beings.

Even throughout the Old Testament, in dozens of other passages, we also find that Yahweh and his angel presence face Glory Messenger, also have his spirit accompanying this presence, this manifestation. So the God of revelation, this is a personal god. This is a triad revealed throughout the scriptures, throughout divine revelation as the Father who is the source, the found the ark that eternally begets his son, and the Spirit who proceeds through that son and manifests and shines forth

through that son. In Orthodox theology and trilogy, this one cause or Arkae is the Father, the soul cause that

keeps this deity personal. Why am I talking about this, Well, One thing that we have engaged in is a lot of interactions with other religions other non religious people over the last several years, last seven or eight years, And one thing that comes to the fore is there's commonalities that I've noticed between the other religions and what they offer, what they present the deity that they discuss there might be some idea that there's a personal relationship with the

Jewish God, with the Muslim God, or something like that, but it's certainly nothing like what we offer. And so in the domain of philosophy, this is usually referred to as classical theism. Doctor ed Fezer, the famous Thomas, for example, writes about the classical theist God is the god of Aristotle, Plato, Plutinus, Mimaonides, Mohammad,

and Aquinas. Really since it was a little off there, something something's a little off, because again, to quote Saint Gregory Palamas, when God appears in Exodus three, it's not a supreme essence, it's something a supreme thing. It's I remember, didn't Biden say something like, yeah, we believe in the theme talking about God the theme? I was like, is

Biden a classical theist? What's he talking about? No, we talket we believe in a deity that is uniquely contrast did too the type of deity that we see amongst the world religions and classical theism In Orthodox triadology, this one calls this father archae that has a son and a spirit. When and I'm not this talk is not mainly about theology. Believe it or not, it's actually going to be a little more down to earth. But this

part is theological. When the son takes on the hypostatic property of the Father, what happens is we have a move towards what many theologians have called essentialism or the premissy of the divine essence, or the ussia or the one over against the starting point of theology and our relationship with God and the ordo theology and our actual relationship.

These aren't abstract. These are connected. We have a movement away from God as personal to God as metaphysical, beating to study a thing, to program like an algorithm, a science project, something to look at in a test tube and try to figure out. But that's not what we read about in scripture, for example. To tie this into the South, the Bible Belt, the Bible, I grew up Protestant, and so I was, and I'm thankful for being given a lot of Biblical indoctrination and a biblical heritage, you

could say, from the South. And I'm glad that we heard Flannery O'Connor sided many times. She's one of my favorites, and she talked about the South as Christ haunted, the Christ haunt, the ghost of Christ that haunts the South, because it's not exactly fully Christian, but there's the ghost.

But if we contrast this to the Latin theology of the Middle Ages, particularly Roman, Catholic, Tomistic, and even and Sealmian theology, we get, as I said, the move away from the beginning point of the person of the Father in our theology and our relationship with God, and they moved towards a philosophical essentialism, the monad as primary, thus

subordinating the personal the existential to the metaphysical and the abstract. Thus, the philosophical God of the Hellenists, of Plato, of Aristotle, of the Pristocratics, et cetera, is a god of abstract principles, is more like a number or a force. The personal god that is Orthodox. In Orthodox Christianity is relational. He is not abstracted, he is not far off. In fact, Paul says this when he's preaching the Word is near you, even in your heart. So God, we could say, has

being as one of his divine energies. But God is not identical to pure being, as the philosophers say, the God of the philosophers. If we were to contrast this deity to our deity, and I'm speaking kind of generally here as a survey of a lot of the Greek philosophers, cannot be in time and space. In fact, doctor ed Faser himself in his book Five Proofs, in the chapter on the Neoplatonic proof of the classical theist God, quote cannot be in time and space. Well, that might be

a little problematic if you believe in the incarnation. This God is absolutely simple, undifferentiated unity, a pure monad, a purely active eternal actualizer in Aristotle impersonal thought, thinking itself eternally moving a world or the heavens. Opposite of him, this deity is cashed out in opposition to the many,

to flux and to temporality. So what's ontologically better is the one is stasis and is eternality, and he's opposite all the things that are not that this God or this deity is eternally willing itself at all times for all eternity, and is thus unchanging and supposedly pure actuality. In fact, Quinas goes so far as to say that the divine persons are only notionally or conceptually distinct from the divine essence, and so in that sense it would seem like the divine persons.

reciprocal relationship. But that is impossible for the God of the philosophers. So the God that we serve is not found in Roman Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, Unitarianism, etc. Because all of those religions and faiths explicitly want and desire a classical theist God. Now, many Roman Catholics are better than their theology. I'm not saying that they don't love God, or that they don't have degrees of grace and so forth. But the confession of system itself, the public theology that's dogmatized,

is really the root issue here. That it attempted to make the faith accessible to the world, and thus classical Theism is just simply a foreign deity. The thing that I've noticed in the last seven or eight years of interacting with all kinds of people across the board, particularly all of the top Muslims. And I'm not saying that to a brag. I didn't ever expect that that happened

totally providentially. I had no interest in Islam whatsoever. And we had some friends in the UK who became Orthodox, and one of them was for a while catechist under Bishop ere name, and he said, Jay, we've got to respond to Islam. And I said, why I live in the Bible Belt. I don't see Muslims, although now I do because this was twenty seventeen, and now when I go to Nashville, or if I drive around Jacksonville, I

see mosques suddenly everywhere. We drove to Las Vegas last year and I saw a mosque on an Indian reservation. I started to read about the Saudis and others and how this is actually going down, and they've been putting billions of dollars for many, many years into Islamic education,

the building of mosque and so forth. The point I'm saying is we will be encountering the Muslim discussion, I guarantee you in the next several years, because what we see in places like the UK, they're really just ten, fifteen, twenty years ahead of what's intended for us.

We know that, of course Judaism is actually temutic. We know that Islam is actually based on copy paste weird things out of the scriptures, out of gnostic texts, and that Islam itself actually borrows from the Talmud. Many people don't know this, but there's quite a bit of tumutic

influence on Islam as well. So what this gives us is this unknowable, unreachable Unitarian deity that's pretty much the same deity as the philosophers, the classical feist God, the god of pure act, who cannot be in time and space, cannot manifest. And when you debate with the more scholarly people from these religions, well Christianity and christ and the Trinity,

it's all illogical, it's irrational, doesn't make any sense. And so Allah or Hushim or God or the thing the one has to be this perfect thing and perfection is a presupposition based on what they believe metaphysics dictates. But as we've seen tonight or today in the previous talks, again providentially, it fits perfectly with what I want to discuss.

This deity is not that data. We do not put metaphysics, the arbitrary dogmas of Aristotle and Plato and Aquitness or whoever else before divine revelation doesn't mean that philosophy can't be a helpful tool. Certainly, the Cappadocians made heavy use of various Neoplatonic philosophical ideas, terminology, and so forth, say Maximus utilize both Neoplatonic and Aristotilian ideas and categories. But it's never, at least at least the intention is it.

Maybe sometimes even some of the saints and fathers were too philosophical, but the intention was never to have philosophy dictate and confine divine revelation. And so though all way it goes so far as to say that in a strict sense God contradicts himself. Many Orthodox theologians have talked about God transcending logical categories and transcending the antinomies, or what we think from the humane vantage point, are oppositions or contradictions. The Trinity is a mystery. It transcends created

logical categories, but it's not crazy or incoherent. Fact, it is itself foult all throughout divine revelation. The strongest case I've seen against Islam and Judaism has been in fact that the Old Testament teaches the Trinity everywhere, and if you really pay attention, with divine illumination, these Theophanes are quite often, almost usually Christophanes. So the Christophanes the long ago have refuted the unitarian deity of the philosophers and

the Jews and the Muslims. And that's because our deity is much like the deity that appears to Jacob. In Genesis twenty eight, we read Jacob went out from the well of Oath towards Heran. He came to a certain place and stayed there all night because the sun had set. He took one of the stones of that place that has put it at his head, and he lay on that place to sleep. When he dreamed, behold he saw a ladder, and it was set up on the earth. Its top reached to heaven, and there the angels of

God were ascending and descending upon it. Behold, the Lord stood above it. So the Lord is standing. And we find this many many times in the Theophanes that God comes down and he stands there, which is a bodily reference, even though Christ doesn't incarnate yet. The Lord stood and said, I am the Lord, God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. Do not fear. I will give you this land and you will be a great nation, etc.

So again reiterating the promise to Abraham. And then in Genesis thirty one we have another Theophany, another appearance of Christ to Jacob. The angel Lord spoke to me in a dream, Jacob, here I am, lift up your eyes, see the male goats and the rams, etc. I am the God who appeared to you at Bethel. So an appearance, a manifestation of theophany where you anointed the pillar and made a vow I will be with you. And then we read. Then Jacob asked, this is Genesis thirty two.

Tell me your name. He said, why do you ask my name? Very similar to what is said to Samson's parents. Why do you ask my name? Seeing as it is wonderful? So we know it's the same speaker that spoke to Manoah. Why do you ask my name? It is wonderful? He blessed him there. Jacob called that place the form of God. For I saw God's face. I saw God face to face, much like Moses is said to see God face to face. And thus my soul was saved when the form of God passed by the sun rose on him, but he

limped on his hip. This is, of course, after the wrestling with the Lord. This makes no sense according to classical theism. This deity doesn't appear. He certainly doesn't wrestle with Jacob. He's not called the form in the face of God in time and space. That's just not philosophically possible. And yet once again, what do we read in Leviticus

Leviticus nine, we have a very similar situation. But I really like this passage because problematic for any position that again wants to restrict what God can and can't do based on arbitrary categories of human created or created human logic. I know, saying God didn't create logic, but just calling it created categories. Aaron lifted up his hand towards the people.

This is Liviticus not and he blessed them and came down from the sin offering, and they'll burnt offerings and the peace offerings After this, Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle, and they came out and blessed all the people, and the glory of God appeared to all the people. How do all the people see the glory of God? Well, we know about the glory cloud in the Old Testament, and we know again in numbers twelve we're told that the Lord came down in the cloud, descended in the pillar,

and stood at the door of the tabernacle. So again bodily movement standing there at the tabernacle. For example, when he appears to Gideon and Judges, I think it's a Judge six it says Yahweh turned his face to get in. The God of the philosophers doesn't have a face, he doesn't have a form, he doesn't manifest in time of space.

He's not a Theophanic deity. Thus this is so key and so simple actually for those that are biblically literate in terms of combating and refuting other world religions that also lay claim to these same passages and texts.

Well again, Philippians, too, we read that Christ, who was in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but humble himself and took on our form. This is the famous Kenosis passage where we know that God willingly got the son, willingly limited himself in time and space. He didn't lose any in his powers, but in a sense, he didn't exercise every power,

every dunamus that he had when he became incarnate. When he was walking around in Jerusalem, he was not doing the conflagration.

kind of worthless. And I'm speaking here of worldly philosophy. Certainly we have Saint Justin, Martyr of the Philosopher, but even perhaps Justin at times might have been a little too philosophical. And certainly many of the disciples Tation and others who were known as the logos apologists made this mistake of putting philosophy in metaphysics before what we're actually taught in divine revelation. We read in Saint Justin Popovich Orthodox Faith in Life in Christ an excellent section where

he talks about perfection. And you notice the idea of perfection in the classical theist tradition or the world religions is this metaphysical thing. It's the one that's got to be no distinctions, and it's out there. It's not in time and space, and it's totally abstract. It's this and that.

And Saint Josephovich says, was Plato perhaps the perfect man? Well, why did Plato want to leave this world to get back to the ideas, the eternal ideas? If he was the perfect man. What about Buddha, Well, Buddha wanted to escape and achieve nirvana, so he wasn't perfect. What about Moses, Well, Moses continued to seek help from heaven. Moses made his own mistakes. What about Mohammed, Well, Mohammad was a bloodthirsty warlord and he offered a sensual paradise after destroying the infidels,

so it doesn't seem very perfect. What about Kant and the philosophy of German idealism? Now the meta rationalistic being on zick the world of the beyond that we can never know really.

philosophical being, but not abstract philosophy. It's a lived, practical, experiential philosophy. He says, the one who has the fullness of mystery, the wondrous god Man, in a divine way, perfect and humanly real. His human goodness is divinely perfect and complete. His human love is divinely perfect and complete. So is his righteousness, his mercy, and his compassion, his eternality, and his beauty all are humanly real, but also divinely

perfect and complete. Nothing is miraculous because he has transformed all things human to divine. He has completed and perfected everything by the divine. In one word, the whole man in him is divinely perfected and divinely completed. So he is the god Man. And I think that's really the key differentiation here is that at the end of the day, all this philosophical stuff, all these world religions, in the classical theist God, it's just missing the incarnation.

of metaphysical categories. But I agree with you that if you're talking with the philosophy guy, that's when I would say, how do we know that that's what perfection is? For example, they'll say something like, well, absolute unity is real true perfection. Well, I thought God was a triad, and the Cave Docians say that he's equally triad as much as he is Monat. He's not more one than he is three, or more three than he is one. So there's an equal ultimacy

in the trinity. And so Thomas or Romancalock has an example or a Muslim, they're going to start their assumption about what perfection is with their system. Well, we know what perfection is because Allah is perfect, and to be perfect is to be purely one and to not be many. But then you say, well, well wait a minute, Alla has ninety nine attributes and most soon hees think they're really distinct. So now you're in a you know, a bind.

So that's what I would do, and just say, how do we know what perfection is?

about critiquing the word and the presuppositions. But if you're speaking to a philosophical guy, you might want to say, how do we know what perfection is? And says who where did you get that arbitrary standard? It's a question back.

all we need. We also need divine love and to meld with and to blend with, as the Capadocians say, not that we lose our created properties, but to really participate in uncreated love.