Orthodox Theology Explained: Dr David Bradshaw, Jay Dyer, Fr Dcn Ananias

father Deacon Lewis, and we're gonna ask doctor Bradshaw. We're gonna pick his brain until he is basically past out, hopefully not from the coronavirus, but just passing out from the exhaustion of our increasingly difficult questions. We're not trying to stump him, but we want to enlist his wisdom

in this in these these difficult topics. So we're gonna go from the more basic kind of questions that arise around the topics of Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Thomas Aquinas, Palamos, Energies, Aristotle, and we're gonna move into progressively maybe more complex levels of question up into some of the more tonistic scholars and their questions and responses. So I'm gonna let Lewis kind of take over as the MC, and then we're

gonna have kind of back and forth roundtables. So Lewis, if you want to, you can introduce the first question. And remember, everybody, I've got links to If you go to my website, you'll see the link to doctor David Bradshaw's book. Highly recommend this book if you are into philosophy, Tomism, or any of these topics that we've discussed. So Lewis, I'll let you take over now.

really goes back to the Vulgate in Latin. But if you look at these occurrences in Saint Paul closely, and I've written an article where I do this in some detail, I think it's pretty clear that he is talking about what we would call energy. He's talking about the activity of God as it is present and active in him or elsewhere in the church, enabling him or the church to do what it does to you, enabling his ministry to take place. So one example of that Colossians one

twenty nine. Here's a verse where he says, for this I toil striving with all the anergion, all the energy which he that is Christ is inspiring. Or it's actually a passive verb, which actually I would translate it as being which is being effectively realized an ergo menane within me. So he used to the word twice in this one verse. Once is a noun, once is a verb an erga menane.

And what he's referring to is that Christ is active and present within him and enabling him to perform his ministry, to do all that he does and that doesn't mean that he's therefore a puppet or some kind of you know, programmed robot that God is simply controlling. This is his own free activity, but now it's also God's activity, and so what he's really describing here is what people often call synergy, which is that union of human with divine activity.

And you know, if you want to try to translate the word synergy, I guess you'd have to translate at cooperation. But that really doesn't capture the full force of the idea because cooperation is typically between two independent agents, whereas synergy is where one agent, God is acting in another and thereby enabling that other, the creature in this case of Saint Paul, to be himself and to do what he was meant to do, what he was created to do.

So it's really only, properly speaking, the Creator who can do this. Now, there are passages where Saint Paul also refers to a kind of demonic an airbea as well in Second Thessalonians and others. Let's see, I could find those if you like. But it's kind of mimicking in a way this divine activity. Well, all of this was

recognized by the early Church fathers. If you go through and you look at the works of the Apostolic Fathers and then the Greek apologists in the second century, people like Justin Martyr and Athanagaris and others, what you find is they used this word group very much in a way that kind of mimics the way Saint Paul is using it, and that's a difference from the way it had been used earlier throughout prior Greek literature. So you mentioned the history of the word, so let me just

touch on that. And ergia actually is a word that was coined by Aristotle, and it literally means being at work, and then you have aragon, which is work or deed, and so he put those two together to mean the state of being at work or being active. So an

Aristotle it's often translated as activity. But the things that's kind of different in Aristotle that's a little more subtle and nuanced, is that Aristotle also, you know, as a metaphysician, he's interested in, well, what distinguishes an activity from the capacity to act, And so the difference is at least in part, that the activity is something actual and real,

whereas the capacity is just to something potential. And so an ergia also becomes a word he uses for what we would call actuality, and that's it's translated that way as well. Well anyway, that's you know, we can get back to that. But what happened in later Greek then was that it became a common term for activity, but not just of God. It was used for activity of the natural elements, of the organs of the body of

you know, a doctor who's operating on a patient. Pretty much any active agent you could speak of, that agent's anergia. It was really only within Saint Paul that he restricts it just to referring to supernatural agents, whether God or Christ, or the Holy Spirit or or else. Like I mentioned, demonic activity that's active in another, okay, and it's sort of empowering and enabling that other. And that's what the

what the early Church fathers picked up on. And so from that point in the second century on, it became almost a technical term in Patristic Greek for this idea of supernatural activity that bestows some kind of an energy or capacity to do things that one couldn't do otherwise.

And you see that, like I mentioned, a lot in the Greek apologists they use it very frequently for the activity of demons, you know, because that was that's a major theme in their work, because they considered the pagan gods to be demons and they saw that demonic activity in the world around them. And then well, later, okay, to skip ahead a little bit, in the fourth century.

It comes up very prominently in the Trinitarian controversies because Athanasius, in one of his late works, called the Letters to Serapion in the early three sixties, he has to face this question. Well, you know, he's already argued extensively by that point that the Son is of one essence homusion

with the Father. But then in this late work the issue has kind of shifted to the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and so he gives to come up with a sort of a more general argument for well, how do we know that the three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are equally divine and are all fiddly called God.

And his argument is, well, they share the same and arrogant What he means by that, as he explains, it is that anything one of them does, the others are also involved in and cooperating, and in fact are equally active in that act. So he gives the example of creation in Genesis, where God speaks and the word that he speaks, the Logos is in a sense the Son, or at least the Son, as he is active in creation. The logos is sort of the uttered word of the Father,

and the spirit of God was upon the waters. And so you see already, you know, in the first couple of verses of Genesis, you see the three persons of the Trinity already involved cooperating in the act of creation and with redemption or prophetic inspiration. You know, same kind of thing. That it's the word of God that comes to the prophet and he's moved by the spirit. Right, and when Christ becomes incarnate, it's by the will of

the Father that the Son becomes incarnate. And you know, Luke, when it describes it, it's the Holy Spirit that comes upon and overshadows the theatopahs. So his point is that because they share the same and air view. And here I think it is activity, okay, activity operation, that's fine because that's one. Therefore there who see it as one.

So it's an inference, and that becomes a really sent idea in Patristic teaching about the trinity, and from that beginning, you know, that kind of dual in beginning in a sense, I mean the pauline meaning that the kind of centers around the idea of synergy, and then the trinitarian meaning you know, later patristic thought sort of builds upon that basis, and a raga becomes one of the words that they use. It's not the only one, but it is one important word they use to describe God as he is present

and active in the world. You know, So one of the famous passages. I guess I'll just mention this or maybe read a little bit of it, and then I'll stop because I've gone on a long time. But this is a real locus classicist for the whole idea. This is Saint Basil's Epistol two thirty four. He's replying to a Eunomian. Now, Eunomians were kind of aryan. They were

denied the divinity of the sun, and uh. The the argument that he's replying to here was that, well, you you people like Basil, the Cappadocians and others who are defending Niceah, you say that the essence of God is unknowable. The Usiah. That's the word that we usually translate essence. And uh, the Eunomians ridicule that because they said, well, then how how do you know who it is that

you're worshiping if you don't know the divine essence? Okay, Well, so that's the the the argument that Basil is replying to. Now here's what Basil says. He says, we say that we know the greatness of God, his power, his wisdom, his goodness, his providence over us, and the justness of his judgment, but not his very essence or lucia. But God, this interlocutor says, is simple, and whatever attribute of Him you have reckoned as knowable is of his essence. That's

the view that he's replying to. Well, Basil says, the absurdities involved in this sophism are innumerable. When all these high attributes have been enumerated, the wisdom, the goodness, and so on, are they all names of one essence? And is there the same mutual force in his awfulness and his loving kindness, his justice and his creative power, his providence and his foreknowledge, his bestow of rewards and punishments, his majesty and his providence. In mentioning any of these

do we declare his essence. The energies and their gai are various in the essence simple, but we say that we know our God from his energies, but do not undertake to approach near to his essence. His energies come down to us, but his essence remains beyond our reach.

And so that becomes sort of the governing idea that the energies, which include things like God's power, wisdom, goodness, providence, fore knowledge, bestole of rewards and punishments, etc. Both attributes and activities, Okay, and that's sort of the way we would tend to distinguish those. But Basil does not. He considers them all to be divine energies. And the energies

come down to us. They're what we can know and share, participate in, whereas the Essence remains beyond them as their source and can never be known, not only by us but even by any creature, including the agents. And that too becomes just a fundamental teaching of the Greek fathers and all that's in the fourth century, you know, Athanasius and Basil and the other competition's fourth century, so long before later Byzantines that people sometimes assume wrongly I think

originated these ideas. They didn't. It was really in the fourth century that most of it all came together. And then later authors like you know, Saint Maximus or Pomaus, they did they kind of systemaized systematized it a little more. But the basic ideas are already there at the time of Saint Days.

the same nature. And you'll find that that line of argmentation all the way up into as you said, even Saint John Damascus will say that energy is the signifier of nature, is not identical to it, but it's the signifier of it. I'd also recommend, I know, just for the sake of the audience a lot of people out there, this comes up a lot, especially when we discuss with Roman Catholics, the topic of what is athenationis view of simplicity. And if you read the famous Florowsky paper Creation st.

Athanasians in the doction of Creation, he'll show you demonstrably, I think, beyond any shadow of a doubt doctor Bradshaw's point that Athanasius was really making this distinction between what pertains to God's counsel and will and what actions pertain to him naturally. And if you don't make that distinction, you're kind of forced into the position that the Arians had. So anyway, I just want to stress that point. But yeah,

that was great. Lewis you want to or father Deacon, you want to ask anything.

a fourth century context. You know that, and that's that's always going to be the case, that language evolves, society changes, and terms you know that made sense or that were adequate at one time no longer really resonate in a new time. And that's fine. On the other hand, you know, whenever you do that, whenever you do that active articulation, you have to make sure that you really are articulating

what's already there and not introducing something new. And that's why I think it's important with the essence and Energies, just as one can with the Trinity, you know, to show the biblical basis and to you know, that's it's very helpful that in a way, and the essence energies is in a way even more firmly grounded in scripture than those words we see an apostasis, which are not in the New Testament, at least not in the meaning that they later had, whereas an ergia is right there

in the works of Saint Paul.

and was a friend of Christ. Actually it's who it is. So maybe you could explain that, you know, this kind of goes back and then up into even the period of Filo.

the rock, and I'll pass by, and you shall see my glory and you'll see my backside. But anyways, as the text goes on, what he sees is described as God's glory, and so the Greek fathers, like Gregor the theologian is one kind of keyed in on that, and they correlated that with this distinction that's also in that passage I read from Saint Basil between the divine nature as it is in itself or in its own right, and God as he is known only to himself, okay.

And then what Greger Nancansen calls the nature that reaches down to us or another term they used is the things around God, and that they'll often identify with the divine glory from scription. So this is very important, you know, for some of the later Greek fathers, also because another revelation of the divine glory may be sort of the

climactic revelation is the transfiguration, and it's the transfiguration. The disciples see this radiant glory around Christ, and that's what the monks, you know, they're practicing the prayer of the Heart, particularly in the later era in the fourteenth century, you know, at the time of Saint Gregor Palamas, they also experienced that uncreated light and they identified it with the light that shined around Christ at the transfiguration what they call

the taborical life right table, and that was really you know, that identification they made was what sparked the whole controversy that occurred in fourteenth century. But the idea that they were using and that tradition of interpretation, you know, it does go back way way back in history if you

want to trace it back to Philo. Filo is one who does identify the divine power, if I recall correctly in the Divine Glory, and if you know, in Philo, the idea is that well, anything any name we give to God, we're always naming one of the divine powers. Both Lord curios and God fails, he says or names of different divine powers. And already in Philo, you know, before even Christianity, he already has this idea that the divine essence is something that cannot be known or named

in itself. What we can name and what we can know are the powers that come from it, and that it sort of executes. And the Greek fathers adapt that idea, but they typically they'll use the word power us, but they'll also use the word in rabia activity. And ultimately an ergea becomes sort of the more prominent term there. But it's a similar idea that that essence, it's unknowable in itself or as it is in itself, is knowable

in its revelation, in its in its manifest activity. So yeah, and that's really what you see in all the Biblical theophonies. The burning bush would be another case that we would identify, you know, as a revelation the manifestation of the uncreated light.

And there are other cases of the divine worry in the Old Testament as well, So all of those are also sort of contributing to this interpretation of that term in Erbia in that the divine glory from scriptures to be understood is in a way that the visible form of the divine in Eric.

the prime mover. He says that the prime mover is that his Usiah, his essence is an erga okay, and as Aristotle is using the word there and you know, as he goes on to explain this in the next chapter, and Ergia I think is both activity and actuality, okay, because what he was goes on to explain is that the activity that the prime mover performs is thought nosis, you know, And it makes this famous statement that it's

thinking is a thinking of thinking, self thinking thought. That's how some people sometimes describe the Prime Mover, and that's in a sense all that it does, all that it or he. You know, it's not really clear that we're talking about a person here, but Aristotle does use I

think of masculine pronoun all that Aristotle's God does. But that thinking, then, because of its perfect full actuality, is and also because of another key idea from Aristotle, okay that from the dayanima, that thought at the highest level of actuality is identical with its object. And I can come back to that if you want to, but just for the moment, let's just posit that. Well, because of that, the Prime Mover's thinking, the object of its thought is

in one sense, it's itself. In another sense, it's everything, the whole intelligible content of reality. And one simple way to kind of see that is that if that were not the case, then there would be something that the Prime Mover could still learn and still find out about it.

And he denies that when he says that it's Usia is in arrogant because what he also argues in that same passage is that there's nothing that the prime mover could do that it doesn't already do from all eternity, and so pure actuality, pure actuality, there's very essence is actuality.

and the intelligibility of everything else. But he doesn't ever do anything in the sense of calling things into being out of nothing, and he certainly doesn't do anything in the sense of answering prayer or performing miracles or giving a revelation. Again, that's just not the kind of being we're talking about here. We're talking about a philosophical first principle,

but not an active personal god. Well, okay, so for Aristotle, there's really not problem in saying that what the prime move does, it does eternally, continually and necessarily because you know, we're not trying to make room for anything like free will or free choice, much less for reciprocity or interaction, you know, with their creature. Well, because of that, this is not at the first glance at least a very promising idea to sort of pick up and transpose into

Christian theology. And the Church Fathers didn't do so. I mean, they were aware of Aristotle, he was a well known author in antiquity, but they make very little use, in fact, pertually no use of Aristotle's theology. They do make use of his logic, and in the fifth century, you know, to no aristateologic sort of becomes required education for anyone who's going to get involved in the Christological controversies, and they'll they'll use aristatia and terminology like form and matter,

species and genus essence. But this idea of God is pure act who has no unrealized capacities doesn't really appear in Patristic Greek Patristic theology. The place it does enter Christian thought is in the thirteenth century in the West.

And you know what's important here is that the works of Aristotle, apart from the logical works that have been translated by Believius, but most of Aristotle's Corpus was unknown in the West for most of the Middle Ages until the thirteenth century, and suddenly there was this influx of translations into Latin, and it was a little bit overwhelming, you know, because these are works of so much sophistication in such deep thought that they presented a challenge to the Christian thinkers.

of his reason? And so it became sort of the central agenda in particularly the University of Paris in the thirteenth century, to show that either they're compatible or that Aristotle can be refuted where necessary, and so people lack aquittance. But also others like Albertus Magnus and even you know, to some extent, Saint Bonaventure. We're all we're engaged in this project of sort of wrestling with Aristotle and appropriating the parts that they could and refuting the parts that

they believe no Christian could accept. Well, Aristotle was a little bit more toward the appropriating end, I guess than say Saint Bonaventure was. So he did incorporate a great deal of aristatute and theology, and including as you mentioned,

the five ways. Well, the first two of them are you know, the first one in particular, the argument from emotion is right out of Aristotle, but even the second and the third are sort of an airstatic form, a pattern of reasoning that's based on the rejection of an infinite regress. Well, so he then, coming out of the five ways, and especially the first way, draws the same conclusion that Aristotle had, namely that God is pure act

in Latin, its act as pueris. And in my opinion, that's kind of, you know, a wrench in the works from the beginning for for his whole project, because this idea that was so natural and so much at home within Aristotle's way of thinking about God. It is very hard to reconcile with the Christian understanding of God, because, you know, Christianity, God acts. He does choose to create,

He could have not created. There are many many things he could have done differently, which all looks like he has capacities to act in ways that he doesn't, okay, and so those those are unrealized capacities. And furthermore, he not only acts, he interacts. He is in some sense, and I grant you this is you know, has to be kind of worked through carefully. But you know, he's grieved over our sin, and he loves us, and he

rejoices when we repent and turned to him. And you know, this again is very scriptural, and you really can't have Christianity without embracing that reciprocity that exists between God and man.

of the fathers. So you know, if you want to call that an unrealized capacity, I think it's fine. I don't see any problem with that, as long as we realize that that's not in any way an imperfection, and it's also not any way in which see I think when.

the unmoved mover. Everything else both moves and is moved, and that being moved obviously requires some prior mover. So nothing that's potential can be realized as actual without the agency of some prior cause. All right, that's the key idea. And this is also something that's prominent in the metaphysics of Aristotle, and there he kind of refers to it as the priority of actuality. That's in book nine. Okay,

priority of actuality over dunamus or potentiality. Well, so that's why on this Aristatuti and I view, the presence of an unrealized capacity or dunamus would be a kind of imperfection, because there would have to be some external agent that's going to bring that capacity into realization. And so people sometimes think that if you say God has unrealized capacities, that you're saying, oh, so he he's imperfect because something will have to act upon him to realize that capacity.

But that's not correct. That's again, I think if anything, a kind of an aristatute and prejudice. You know, it's precisely who God is that he can act spontaneously. I mean, that's the whole idea. Whether that's what creation max Neilo is exactly, yeah, right, there's nothing that acts upon God to make him create. So I just reject that premise that that every that no capacity can be realized without the agency of some prior.

way of reading this history. But when I look at this history, I just see a lot of what occurred in the West, in the Middle Ages was sort of people were, you know, groping in the darkness because they didn't have access to all the sources. They didn't have the works of Plato, they didn't have Platinus, they didn't have any of the Middle Platonists, they didn't have most

of the works of the Greek fathers. And so when Aristotle's works were recovered in the thirteenth century, it was this enormous illumination, and people thought, this is sort of the voice of reason, and we've got to somehow incorporate it and embrace it. But if you see Aristotle in his historical cond text and as sort of part of a much larger development in ancient Greek philosophy that really culminates with Neoplatonism, I would say, especially with Platinis, well,

then you know you don't come to that conclusion. You just see him as sort of a step along the way. And that was more the position the Greek fathers were in that they had they had access to all those sources. None of these were ever lost in the East, and they always, you know, when they read philosophy, it was always sort of in light of that whole history and

never taking any one figure as the sole authority. So I just see what happened in the West is kind of a you know, a result of a lot of historical contingency that has largely to do with language, just the in the non availability of translations, as well as some differences that come in when you try to translate Greek intolabin. So I just I feel it's been a huge mistake for so much of Western theology to sort of remain fixated on the thirteenth century as if that

was the golden era, and it really wasn't. It was just a you know, it was a people were coming to terms with new information, new ideas, and it was just a step along the way.

forth from intellect. Each one of those is simple in Platinus, and he uses that term, but there are degrees or sort of levels of simplicity, and actually those three platinum hypostases are one helpful way to sort of think about that. This soul, you know, soul has hypostasis. That's not any individual soul, Okay, it's sort of soul as a as

a principle, is simple, but it is temporal. It does exist in time, and it you know, can be located space in the sense that it's present throughout the whole cosmos.

And so it's not perfectly simple in the highest way, but it is simple, and that it's in material doesn't have material parts and doesn't a should I put this well, Okay, let's just leave that in for soul, because when you get to intellect, which is the second Platinium hypostasis, you get a higher kind of simplicity because intellect is not temporal. Platinus says that the life of soul is time. Time is the life of soul, whereas the life of intellect

is eternity. Okay, intellect is all that, It is all that once. It doesn't do different things at different times. In fact, intellect and Platinus is essentially his version of what Aristotle had said about the prime over. It thinks everything, all intelligible content, all at once in a single, unified act. Well, so it's simple in a much higher way than soul because you can't draw temporal distinctions within its activity or

its being. But it's not the simplest in the in the very highest way, and in this splutonium system, because the first hypostasis is the one, and he says the one is beyond both time and eternity. And that's because eternity being the life of intellect, Well, the one is itself beyond intellect. It's not an object of intellect. It's

not something that intellect can apprehend. And the reason being that it doesn't have any form or any distinct intelligible Well, so you know, what can you say about the One? And a lot of what he says is what the One is, not as I just did, but it is also you know, and this is something he would affirm that it is the source of all other things, the ultimate ArKade, the ultimate, first principle, the ultimate, It on

the ultimate cause, and from it it comes intellect. And also the other thing you can say is that it's the good yet advice, the one and the good. It's that to which all things seek and to which they return. So you have in Neoplatonism what's called precession in return. Well, anyway, so there's an even higher kind of simplicity in the One than there is an intellect, because whereas the intellect embraces all intelligible content in a single eternal act, the

One is beyondtinct intelligible content and beyond eternity. So it has the kind of simplicity that consists in having no form all.

So I think you find both of those higher forms of simplicity in the way that the fathers understand God, in the sense that the divine essence as they understand it, they'll use a lot of the same terms the Platinus used in describing the one that it has no name, that it's beyond intellect, it's beyond being, it has no form,

but is the source of all forms, all right. And then a lot of what Platinas says about intellect, they'll use that kind of language in describing the divine energies as being the way in which that transcendent, unknowable divine Essence is manifest and can be known and participated and named.

All right. So in a sense, you know, they'll never just adopt the idea of forms per se from grateful and in a sense, a lot of what Platinists would say about the forms that are the objects of thought of intellect, they would say about the divine energies, that they're the names that the intelligible objects that we can apprehend and seeking to know their transcendent source. Well, okay,

so the point being that simplicity itself is complex. There are different ways being simple, and you know, you know, it's so people talk about the doctrine of divine simplicity. Uh, there are different doctrines of divine simplicity, and you've got to be careful which one you have in mind. And I think the fathers, the Greek Fathers, definitely do believe in divine simplicity, but they don't articulate that the same way that it comes to be articulated in the wayst.

that are not identical to the divine essence. That's I think the first departure point that we would we would notice between Saint Maximus's conception of logi and what you get in the West from Augustine up into Quitas, because really, again, this would be another way of compromising the doctrine of

God's free creation. If creation is patterned on archetypes and exemplars that are in the divine essence, then if they're real, then creation is just as necessary and just as willed necessarily as God's essence and as the Since they're in

the essence, they are the essence. Right, So creation, I would say, then kind of becomes more of a patterned, determined emanation rather than a free action, which is why, as you point out in the book, Saint Maximus does not equate the logie with the eternal energies or attributes of God. They are only in reference to the created order.

choose to in stand shiate that one. So yeah, it's you know, it does take you back to the whole issue of divine freedom, which I do think is problematic on that kind of a view. So this this issue, I think, you know, it's not posed the same way, and the same problem doesn't arise for the Greek fathers because they just take from the beginning that, yeah, the logi are acts of will. They're not forms of divine self understanding there, they're dynas part of me thought will. Yeah,

thought wills. I think that's the term the Saint John Damascus uses, uh Dinysius calls him divine and good acts and will the laymantagh and Maximus uses that as well. He quotes that from Dionysius, And so it's really just

taken for granted that and union. The other thing that's interesting is that there there's a distinct act of will for every individual creature, you know, so you have your own logos and I have mine as well as there's one universal logos for for humanity and a higher level one for an animality, right, yeah, so they're both generic

and specific and individual. And the other thing that's a very important difference between the logo and the divine exemplars and aquinas is that we as free creatures have a kind of a calling to realize, and you know, the extent to which our logos is actually realized in time and space and time is of us. That's where they that synergy comes back into it, right, and synergy is is it does require our human co operation. So they're

not simply the exemplars by any stretch. They're more like, yeah, they're individual creative acts that call us into being the define who we are with our native capacities and what we're meant to be. But then we have to realize, you know, we as free creatures, we have to realize the logos.

correct me if i'm not. But there's a difference, a very fine point distinction in say, Maximus that even universals are liable to perish, which if they were ultimately located in God, they wouldn't be liable to perish, and so it seems that even the universals themselves are part of the created order that big forty two he speaks of

Christ recapitulating. That's, of course one of the most of the difficult of the ambiguous, but understanding as I read it, and again I want you to correct me if I'm wrong, it seems that Christ's a recapitulation of the created order, gathering so to speak, the logi back into the logos that the Fall in a way had kind of like jolted, I'm speaking of the created aspect of things that partaking

a corruption. As you pointed out, it's our duty to recapitulate the virtues themselves in ourselves, and that's kind of us getting realigned with the tilos, the logi purpose that Christ had for us all along, and so we have to participate in Christ and Theosis to recapitulate those virtues so that in the Escaton we will experience ever well being instead of ever ill being, because even the unrighteous will have their natures restored in the Escaton, but because

they haven't recapitulated the virtues, their experience will be ever ill being.

because of the fall, we failed in that vocation. And so Christ, becoming man, does what we were meant to do, and he overcomes and reconciles those five divisions. And now you know, by being in Christ, we too partake of his salvafic work, you know. And and there's the adoption of sons, I guess as one of the Pauline terms. Exactly there on Lewis.

a garment that the Logos is wearing. So to speak. This, in my understanding, is what led Father Stanneloy in Orthodox Dogmatics, and say Saint Justin Popovich in his book Orthodox Faith in Life in Christ, where he analyzes Saint Isaac the Syrian's view of mystical union and the Logi, to point out that there's there's not, really, strictly speaking, in the Orthodox conception natural law and natural theology in the tonistic sense. So it's fine to use that word and that terminology.

We're not getting hung up on the on words. But the way that the Tomistic conception will have a actual content of natural theology is in no way different. Ultimately, I think then the way that we get it in Saint Maximus, where you ultimately the content of nature and natural law is the logi, that's the meaning of nature.

And this is why Father Stanieloid can say that in the Orthodox conception there's not strictly speaking a Tomistic natural law theory, because what's in script The truths of Scripture are the logi, the truths of nature are the logi. The difference is rather not so much the it's it's it's the way that the information comes to us. Right. The rocks and trees are different from written text, but Saint Maximus says in a way that the whole whole of reality is a kind of text of the logos.

So it's not so much this two tiered system of nature and grace. There is a distinction between nature and grace, but the idea and tonism of like natural truths, natural law, and then you stack on top of that the supernatural truths and supernatural revelation. We don't see that kind of

a division in Saint Maximus. We see more of a unified view, and rather it's two different ways or the content is the logos of both, but the ways, of the means of the mode by which that information comes to us is obviously different between written scripture and the natural world.

That's that's a setic practice, and that you know, it's basic, but it's not something you ever get beyond any any Christian and certainly any Monk is going to be always until the end and engaged in that sort of ascetic discipline that teaches us to view natural things rightly, not as objects of appetite or possession and pleasure, but as creatures made by God that are there to glorify God.

And by the way, liturgy also, you know, has this same sort of meaning embedded or transmitted that you learn what our bodies are meant for. You know, they're meant for bowing, for prostrating and kissing and and and so, you know, there's a sort of ascetic liturgical education that we have to undergo. And according to Maximus, you know, as one does, so, your senses are He uses this

interesting term that they're rendered rational. They're made to be rational, They're made to be able to see things as they really are. And that's the stage, the second stage of contemplation physically, the natural contemplation, uh that does perceive the

logoi that are in nature. And as you mentioned, you know, that's what he says are analogous to Christ's radiant garments and so but that in turn is a stage toward the highest level, uh theologia, which is, you know, pure prayer and that that he says is analogous to the vision of Christ's face. Yeah, so anyway, that's yeah. They they use the term natural law, and I don't think they would, you know, object to a lot of what

the West has to say about natural law. But if you don't have that basic idea, then nature can only be under known properly through ascetic and liturgical transformation, then you're going to end up creating what is just a human philosophy, you know, and that is unfortunately, I think what what did occur? Mm hmm, yeah, hm hmm.

that world. And you know, real spontaneity, I think kind of enters philosophical thought through Christianity, because we understand man to be made in the image of God, and God is spontaneous in the sense that there is no external cause and he acts out of the abundance of his own goodness, and you know, that is sort of the paradigm the archetype that we're made as an image of.

And the Greek fathers when they talk about what they call out exusion, you know, self determination or sometimes that's translated to free will, that's what they say is that that's part of our being made in the image of God, that we have that out exusia, that self determining capacity. So partly for that reason, partly because I just did the mismatch with modern physics, I think, or even Newtonian

physics for that matter, I don't. I don't think that air Strateian understanding of motion is is really inadequate one and because of that, I've never seen much power in the in the first way, and the other, you know, the other has a reason, I would. I also don't like the conclusion, right, I think that when you end up drawing that conclusion that God is pure us, that just loaded yourself with a bunch of unnecessary problems.

creator and we can learn that from nature. But now and we and we we have good grounds to believe that Creator is good, being good? Wouldn't he give us a revelation?

the triads that are in nature back into God. But there is I think a valid move in Saint Maximus too at times notice that the creative world does have a triadic feature. He does this in multiple different places, but in Questions and Doubts he even considers the possibility in question one thirty six of a natural proof of the Holy Trinity, where he talks about the logos of beings and then the wisdom and the Spirit, that the origin, the logos, and then the place of the Holy Spirit.

In terms of things being hyposthetized, that he seems to think that this relates to the Trinity. I mean, it's not that long. I'm not going to read the whole thing. But he says that all beings are believed to exist in three modes essence, difference, in life. And we believe on the one hand that there is some essential being from the logos of the essence of beings, who is the Father. And on the other hand, there is some essential being from the difference of beings, that is wisdom,

that is the Son. For from the wisdom of the imparting to each nature of an offered selfhood takes place, and it's wisdom manifests each thing that exists as both distinct and unconfused, both towards his self into the rest. And there is some essential being from that that is the Holy Spirit. But in the case of God, these

things are in high postatized as such. So each one of these, this this triad of principles that he sees in nature, he says, actually in God are in hypostatize, which is where he has improved upon the sort of Plotinian arguments. Right, just like with the logi, the logie are not impersonal. Maximus takes them and makes them in hypostatize, and he does the same thing with these these principles

here in nature. And I would think that really that would be completely foreign to any kind of natural theology Tomistic conceptions. Whereas you do have some medieval Latin theologians you think there might be little trinities in nature. In the Tomistic scheme, that would be impossible.

not part of natural theology. So, and this is why the Tomaistic tradition has pretty consistently said that natural reason and natural theology has to operate autonomously, like the reasoning. I'm speaking epistemically, I realized that Atomas would not say that metaphysically speaking, man's natural reason is autonomous, But in terms of epistemology, they do affirm that man's reasoning is

autonomous and apart from any revelation. So in other words, they wouldn't say that you need revelation to interpret the natural world. But the natural world has fallen, right, the world as it is has fallen, and if it is fallen, I'm not going to be able to properly interpret it

without a doctrine of the fall. Hence why a lot of times in saying the Enlightenment period you get people reacting to classical pologetic arguments by pointing out that you know, you see, you see people like Nildergrass Tyson, you know, the atheists. They'll still make these arguments. Now, well, they'll say, when I look out at the natural world, I mean it looks to me like it's created by a psychopath, because who would have designed a world where, you know,

parasites feed on parasites. So, in other words, they because they're not taken into account the doctrine of the fall, which is a doctrine that's revealed. What I'm saying is that in the Tomistic epistemology you have this division between revealed theology and natural theology, and they don't recognize that you need revealed theology to properly interpret the natural world.

to revelation. That again is a largely an artifact. I think of the way Aristotle was recovered, so the West had already made this distinction even before that, but it really, you know, becomes really kind of a structure that structures the whole way they think about things in the thirteenth century when they identify Aristotle as the voice of natural reason, you know, than the Bible we have that gives us the revelation, and the Greek fathers thought that, well, reason,

the reason is a form of revelation, you know. Reason, the reason we have is our participation in the divine logos. Yeah, and so when we know things, we are sharing in that divine understanding, and so there's not really a line, a sharp line that one would draw. They typically don't.

knowing him the way you know your own activity. And so that's the kind of knowledge I think Saint Paul, you know, and some of those passages I mentioned is sort of speaking from you might say. And so there's there's a tendency to sort of pigeonhole wasting knowing God that I think can be very constricting. And in the New Testament there are not those pigeonholes. You know, God is present everywhere in all things, including in us, and and including in our activity.

even though they're not different parts. So here's some examples, something like let's see, well this may not be totally clear, but let's just try it. The soul and its faculties. I believe he says that those are formally distinct, So say, the soul and the capacity of reason, or the nutritive capacity and the faculty of sensation. That may not be a perfect example, because sometimes you know, some souls exist they don't have reason, right, their souls animal and vegetables soul.

But at least in the case of a human being, you can't have the soul without all those faculties. And at the same time, the faculties don't exist without the soul. But they're defined totally in a way that totally distinct. Another example that he gives is being and other transcendentals like unity, truth, and goodness, which none of which can exist without the others, but they're all defined all right. So anyway, that's that's the idea in Scotus of what

he calls a formal distinction. And I think there's a grain of truth to the idea that some of the energies you could see as being formally distinct from the divine essence, namely the ones that are eternal and necessary divine attributes like goodness and wisdom and power and so forth. A guy named Mark Spencer are all familiar with his work. He's a philosopher at the University of Saint Thomas, and he wrote a paper a couple of years ago in

International Philosophic Quarterly that was arguing this. He's a he calls himself a Thomas. He's a very broad minded Thomas. And he said, well that that you really need the statistic formal distinction and you need the essence energy distinction. I'm sorry, he wasn't really arguing that the formal distinction ession. He wasn't arguing that the essence energy's distinction is a form of the formal distinction, just that you need them both. Well,

let's see, So what do I think about that? As I said, it's not totally mistaken in that limited case. But you have to always bear in mind that there are many forms of the divine energy. They're the gifts of the spirit, you know, the Saint Paul talks about one Corinthians twelve. Those are and the fathers often called energies of the spirit. There are the divine logi that we were just talking about, the good divine and good acts of will by which God creates. There's the date

and light. So sometimes people want to kind of shoehorn the essence energies distinction into this western issue or category of the divine essence and attributes. That's not what it's about. That's you know, some of the some of the energies are what we would call attributes, yes, but by no

means all of them. And so what happens then is if you try to uh, kind of break off the ones that we call attributes and say, oh, those are formally distinct from the divine essence, well, then you've lost the unity of the concept the fact that the fathers refer to all of this broader class as divine energies, and you know that's important for them. You're what you're losing is that active dimension where what we call attributes

actually are forms of self manifestation. And so I think it's it's not so much wrong as it is sort of a small minded, you know, way of thinking that the misses out on the real point that they're making the attributes.

by the spirit. Or they'll they'll have different ways of putting that, but they're they're kind of restating that point that Affamation Affinacious had made that every work of the of the Trinity is a joint work, and so there's synergy, you know, within the Trinity as well. And so anyway, the reason I mentioned that is because you can't ever look at one of the energies and say this is

just the energy of the spirit. Not right. We call some of them energies of the spirit because that's biblical language, but we don't mean that the Father is not giving that gift. Of course he is. So that's the That's the only caution I would have about saying that their hype that they are sort of revealed the hypostasies. I don't think they reveal the distinction of the hypostasies per se, although all three of the hypostases are always active in any right, Well, let.

But most of the time it's not there because the docrine of eternal manifestation is part and parcel with the idea of the essence energy sinction and a distinction between different types of you know, the eternal energies or attributes and the attributes that apply to the created order. So likewise, if you have that understanding, you could then see how it's possible that some of the energies manifest from all eternity, from the Father through the Son, in the spirit as well.

But at the same time there's different types of actions that also manifesto tritic way, but only relate to the created order. And this is always a big hang up when you're arguing with the Roman Catholic because they don't make that energetic manifestation distinction. But that's necessary to not confuse something like the action of love with a hypostasis.

So all I was trying to say is that every energy is triadically manifested in a personal way, but we have to say that for example, Singragya Palmos, when he explains how there is a sense in which we can call the spirit the love between the father and the son, he says that only applies at the level of energetic manifestation. In no way does it identify that the energy of love which is common to father, son and spirit with the spirit. He's only speaking in the sense of eternal manifestation.

You know, I read the passage from Basil Epistle two thirty four Essence and energy Dinysius, it's more often sort of the cooper ussios Ussia the essence beyond essence and then the divine processions. Okay, so he uses that word procession protos that is not there in earlier others. But what he says about or what he uses that word

to say, turns out to be very similar. And so you know, I've written a lot about this sort of what's what each one of these fathers is sort of adding in the sense of sort of taking a given idea, carrying it a little further, adding more unity, more comprehensiveness to the to the vocabulary. Dinasius is really just one further step in that process. But he's by no means

a sort of a radical break. The more you read the cap of Oceans, you more they realize that, well, a lot of those so called neoplatonic ideas are really already there. So you know, that's my short answer, I think a long answer. You just have to read these texts, these primary texts, in chronological order for yourself, you know, and you'll see that gradual unfolding take place.

of experience over many years. But they require a personal instruction, and I think he'd be the first to agree that they could be dangerous if practice the wrong way. And

you know, Barlin apparently had talked to some monks. I don't think he ever actually visited Mount Athos, but he's he talked to some monks who are from Anautos and heard them talking about different colors of light, and apparently some colors of light, as he understood what they were saying, or sort of indicate the divine light, and some were demonic, and he ridicules this. Palamas, I don't I don't recall it.

Palamus talks about it directly, but he doesn't, you know, he doesn't go into that because those are matters for personal knowledge and experience. Uh, sort of the kind of thing that's passed down from an older monk to a disciple, and by no means meant to be sort of universally

practiced by all Christians because they're just too dangerous. And you know, even some of the later Heseikus in Russia will tell you that, And so anyway, I hope that's That's kind of what I would say is, well, he's not saying, therefore go do this.

spiritual discernment, gift of healing. Those are our energies of the spirit. And and if you look first Corinthians twelve, Saint Paul uses the word and entergamental. You know that that's that's why the fathers come to call them that way. Another example that they use, the Briga palamask uses is the act of creation itself. That isn't a divine energy. It's something God does that manifests his character is nature.

But clearly it's not eternal because you know, you read Genesis and God rested on the seventh day, so it began and it ended. And now of course God maintains creation in existence. That's true as well, but that's not the same as the act of creating its described in Genesis. So that's why not everything that is not everything uncreated has to be eternal, right?

and violence. God's im mutability.

at the same time he transcends change. I mean, every every incarnate action of Christ would be negated if there could be no temporal specific actions of God. I mean Christ manifested the divine energy and his divine power when he changed water to wine. Right, walking on water is an action specific to time and space. That is clearly I mean, Sir John Mascus says that signifies his divinity.

So if we if we negate these tim poral actions, which are uncreated because they're actions of God, but they are specific to time and space, then we really remove the possibility of incarnation and God acting and within time and space at all.

if anything, Colamus kind of tones it down. But you have in Maximus in the you know, the Theological Chapters on Theology and Economy, book one, section forty eight to fifty, there's a really key discussion of what Maximus calls the uncreated works of God. And they're what we would call divine attributes of things like goodness and power and wisdom. But he calls them works of God that were not created, and he says that God infinitely transcends them, okay, and

even he calls God their creator, their demi ourgos. And so that's where Paula Musk, you know, takes that phrase because what Maximus is referring to as these uncreated works of God he identifies as among the divine energies. And you know, there's a as I mentioned, there are a number of different terms the Greek fathers will use things around. God is one of them, and and that's essentially what

what Maximus is talking about in that passage. Well, okay, and then Dionysius also, he's the one he uses the word theot's divinity as a name of a divine procession, and Palamas again is identifying the processions as among the energies. Well, so, anyway, I've written about this. I have an article that's forthcoming goes into all the textual detail, but a kind of nose is just frankly, he was kind of thick headed

or else just you know, so stubborn. It's just unbelievable because he kept coming back to this and Palomas had to explain it over and over and over. You know, that's not what I said. That's not what I said, that's not what I said. So anyway, but again, it's one of those things that if you read these sources in chronological orders. As I mentioned, Dionysi the Cappadocians Dinysius Maximus Palomas. You'll see that everything Palamas says is just following in the division exactly.

realize its form in some way. That includes both the growth of living things, you know, the acorn growing of the ooak and also the motion of the of the of the four elements, because when earth fault moves toward the center of the cosmos is seeking to real lies. It's Tellos being at the center. So you know, if you sort of incorporate all that, then you can see how it's at least plausible or makes sense in the air staty in worldview that yes, the prime mover is

self thinking thought causes all natural motion. I do think there's an issue even in Aristotle, well, what about human free choice or what Aristotle call rational potencies, which are in the ability to do a or not a what causes one or the other? You know, this is the sort of thing that the liveness it's you know, gotten right well, and Aristotle really just doesn't ever address that question other than just to say what we do or it's our choice, which is fine, But then isn't there

a kind of motion that isn't caused by the first member? Right?

any external prior cause, that's really fundamental. And Aristotle just doesn't have that kind of a view of who we are, and certainly not of our relation to God. And for that matter, it doesn't have that view of God, right, the Prime Mover doesn't have that kind of spontaneity of free choice. So that's why I think he's just kind of not alive or or awake to these issues in the way that we are.

forms the good can take. And you know, they're thinking largely, I think, in platonic terms, where you have the form of the good, and then just think of all the vast array of images of that form, the things that participate in the form, the different you know, finite forms of good, how different they are. Right, And God is free in that he can realize, you know, this infinite array of different kinds of good things, and there are all ways in which He expresses and manifests his own

goodness and a lot of that. I think all of that the Thomas would agree, and I think we have common ground. The difficulties arise because again it's as you mentioned earlier, you know, identifying then the divine will and the divine operation with the divine essence, you you kind of end up locked into a box where the essence can't be different, right, So how can the will be different? How can the operation different?

the divine nature. They are instantiations of the divine nature. But there really is something unique about the you know, hypostasis of the sun that in some way transcends just merely an instantiation of nature. Which is why, as some people have argued, I would say, you know, our I think just surfrom Hamilton has a good point about this that you know, if it was just a participation in divine nature that we were experiencing or looking for here,

then we wouldn't be called sons. But the fact that we are called sons means that we are participating in a relationship that is hypostatic. Right, It's the logos the person, second person that God had that adopts us, and so therefore we are made sons, and therefore it's a personal participation.

It's not just an essentialist participation. And so therefore a person is more than just an instantiation of nature, even if we can't give like a perfect, you know, sort of philosophical scientific definition of what a hypostasis is.

one and done sort of thing. You're always engaged in this dialogue with God in which your free acts are responding to the good that He presents to you. And even when you refuse that good, he is still He's going to present to you another form of the good, right, And that's sort of just his way of presenting this fact that we're always called to repent, we're always called to seek God, are closer to Him no matter where

we are in our lives. So there's this continual dialogue between each person in God, and that's what constitutes us as persons.

But the term is not that these terms like hypostasis and prosiphon, they have distinct meanings, you know, and we have to have to be careful to respect what they actually meant within a given context, and which not all the burden of sort of the concept of person who had asked to what rest on any yeah, individual term?

the image of God. And so I think granted that there's not any additional problem, you know, with understanding some of the divide energies to be free. That's simply sort of given in and understanding God to be free. So I mean there's something I'm missing.

That gives us, I think, a much more robust freedom to be able to articulate what's been received in divine revelation without getting into these kind of apparreas and problems.

energies and actions, those are in relation to creation. So they are beyond us in the sense of that even those are divine and actions uncreated. But they're also in a sense knowable and interactable others. We can participate in those things. So I would not say that that the energies themselves are beyond energies. I would say that that doesn't make any sense. Although there are energies and works that we don't even know about. Some of the fathers do say that, I don't know if anybody has any

other question, any statements on that. Yeah, Jeff Jablonski, what's up five bucks? What's the difference between Ussia and Fusis? That would have been a great question for Broadshaw, since he has sort of the technical specifications when it comes to the linguistic differences. I would just simply say that as the theology crystallizes in the east nothing, it eventually is not distinguished.

Peter one four? But the ushi remains transcendent. Remember that the actualization is always brought into actualization by persons, right, So it's not just an essence that's actualizing. It's a person with an essence actualizing. That's the key thing here. And that's why we always say that the actions of God are in hypostatized. So I would say that that's the first answer there, and then the part about second Peter one four Are we partakers of the divine nature? Yes,

through the divine energies, but not directly God's essence. So yes and no. You know, one comments on that. There's a great book on that. By the way, The Deification of Man touches on that, if you want to read the classic Father manser Rites. That's what I was holding up during the interview. He he touches on all that in not too long of a treatise. Jeff again five bucks. Does the Osis relate to Saint Maximus's appeal to Aristotle dividing Fusis into ushia and potentiality and actuality? Again, I

don't think that eventually. I don't think that. So maybe Father Deacon he's talking about Aristotle divides Fusis into usia, potentiality, actuality.

since we don't so? And he actually addresses that very sense in which God is first cause and not first cause, first principle and not first principal. Russian Anime bought five dollars. Here is some Dugan dollar for comrad bless blessings from Putin and Dugan to you. Russian Anime book Palmer, Eric, Palmer l Rick fifteen dollars, Great talk, guests, Thank you, gentlemen, Thank you very much, Palmer el Rick. Who's next? Nicodemus the Pharisee? Five dollars? Can you expand on the Theophanes?

Are they uncreated divine forms?

are intimations of the incarnation. They pre signify and prepare mankind for the incarnation because they are the pre incarnate logos. They're not angelic holograms. They're worshiped. You can't worship angels or creatures. You can only worship God. They are worshiped. They are the logos. There's no question in the Eastern Fathers about that consistently, so the Theophanes again ahead, Yeah.

created world. They're not identical to the essential eternal attributes of God. They only relate to the created order. They are uncreated, they're divine ideas. It is a form of divine conceptualism. It is a form of exemplarism, but not the same as the Western view, which sticks them in the divine essence. Sat Maximus makes them personal, It makes them relate to the Logos who brings them into being.

Right again, as we heard from doctor Bradshaw, from the Father through the Son in the spirit, as you've heard me say consistently, and so the Logos has the role of bringing them into being. If you want the biblical sense for this, look at what Paul's talking about Colossians. The lug doctrine, the Logi doctrine is not some philosophy. It's in Paul. Paul says that everything came to be, and it's sustained in being and is being brought to being by the Logos. So you have the creating of

the creative world on the pattern of the Logi. You have the sustaining of being to the Logos brought to perspection in the spirit.

They're just the patterns, principles, archetypes, predeterminations, divine ideas, thought, wills of the created order, and God didn't have to bring them to be so for the number seven or any other kind of universal or whatever principle or me or you, there's an individual logi for each one of those things. Universals also have it logi. But universals are created. We are created, right, and we're created on the pattern

of uncreated patterns, you see, So hopefully that's helpful. Scandinavian sunset twenty dollars ninety nine in California Bucks or Canadian Bucks. Thank you, Thank you for your work. Jay. With the anaphora of Adi and Mari, I guess you're talking to the stream that we did with David, where we talked about the David the real metright, some of the problems in the uniate system where they will do they will reference Nestorian and these kinds of anaphras which don't really

make sense. So yeah, that's probably I guess that's what you're talking about Scandinavian sunset. I'm not sure, Nicodemus the pharisee two dollars. Due created energies exist before they began. They didn't have a beginning. They are uncreated, right, So uncreated things are not the logie, do not exist. They're always in the mind of God, but they're not brought into reality unless God decides to create.

Is there an official Orthodox position on the composition of human nature? Is it bipartit or tripartite? Saint Paul seems to be clear on the matter. Saint John Damascus in many places favor as the former. It's tripartite, but when you understand that the news is actually the integration of the mind into the heart. The news, it's not a third thing on top of it's the mind being reintegrated into the heart. So the mental, intellectual faculty and the

heart are just different aspects of the soul. So John Damascus does mention the news. In fact, he's not a So that's how you reconcile these two positions, because there's the news, is the mind functioning in unison and synergy with the heart, So it's not a third other thing, you see. So that's how those two positions are reconciled. And John Demascus does mention the news, but he mentions it as the intellect. But the intellect in terms of the way Saint Gregor Palomas conceives of is that the

intellect is reintegrated into the heart. You see, this is something that happens after the fall. I would say that if you read the Saint Justin Popovich s on Isaac the Syrian, his theory of Knowledge, where he talks about the Logi and the noose, that will resolve this question. But good question. I've had that same We had that question in the discord actually the other day Lewis raised it justin s Dan ten dollars, catching the tail end of this off topic. Can you speak on the life

confession before baptism. I don't know what that means.

Adam as intimating the incarnation. But Jesus did not have a human nature yet, because he took that from Adam. So I don't think there would be any sense in saying that Jesus had a human image when he appeared as the Logos. Those were Theophanes. Theophanes are somewhat mysterious, but yet nevertheless they occurred, and we believe it on the basis of revelation. So when the Logos appeared within time and space, he wrestled with with Jacob. Right, So how'd that happened, I don't know, but it did.