Truth Unites - Protestant vs. Orthodox Dialogue: Gavin Ortlund and Craig Truglia

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

This is a dialogue between Gavin Ortlund and Craig Truglia from December 2021 addressing the questions "why are you Protestant?" and "why are you Orthodox?" Thanks to Craig for allowing me to reproduce it on my channel. Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

Good evening. Welcome to Orthodox Christian theology. And with me tonight is the steam guest, Dr. Gavin Ortlund, which I'm probably pronouncing wrong. How are you doing? Hey, I'm doing well. You pronounced it right. That was good. All right. Well, it says just Gavin there, and I appreciate your humility, but people don't really also appreciate the fact that you're actually a serious scholar. You're not just some random talking head on the internet that's fun, the watch per se, gets involved in these apologetic context. the contest. You are an actual scholar published by actual scholarly, you know, public presses and from mainstream presses. So I just want to say this from the onset. So people in the audience and listeners ought to show respect because it's a great honor to have someone as esteemed as Gavin here. And they should not lightly think he doesn't know what he's talking about. In fact, they'll tell you right now, he knows what he's talking about far more that I know

I'm talking about because he is a subject matter expert. So I'm humbled to be able to speak to someone, in a sense, on the same level when I'm not. So thank you so much for condescending yourself to me. I do appreciate that. Oh, that's kind of you to say. Thanks for hosting it. The way I think of it is just a good, brotherly, friendly exchange. And what I really want to be known for is just to be a charitable person and a servant of Christ. So opportunities like this, I'm always happy to do. so thanks for the opportunity. And I think that's a real good thing there. So what we'll do is we'll get right into it.

And the title of the show is, why are you Orthodox, or are you Protestant? And so you are well known for seriously engaging, not only the philosophical issues about the existence of God, but also some of the church history issues, but this is about you and why you are Protestant. So I'm going to let you take however take you want. So how about you take the time you need to discuss,

why you feel Protestantism is the most compelling form of Christianity and how that appeals to you. Yeah, sounds great. Yeah, and maybe I can say just, I actually wasn't planning on saying this, but it just popped into my brain just as an entry point of how I got into these things. I never set out thinking I would be a sort of defender of Protestantism. I started a YouTube channel a year and a half ago with the main desire to be getting into apologetics, because I was working on an apologetics book, and I want to help people, you know, understand good reasons to believe in God and in Christ.

I've sort of been pulled into this, and I'm happy to do it. I think it's important work to dialogue, to represent our traditions and so forth. But I just hope people know the animating motive for me isn't to sort of attack other traditions or something like that. Sort of something I just honestly got into because I thought, gosh,

there's a real dearth of good Protestant voices out there. So anyways, let me, yeah, So, okay, I'll try to go quick. I would just say two reasons. I'll take the time you need. They always have me. Okay. It's always more interesting to have the dialogue, too.

So I'll try to be thorough, but not take too long. I'll just give two reasons for why I'm Protestant. Okay, so the first one is I think that Protestantism is a better approximation of the truth than any other alternative. And the second is I think Protestantism is better positioned for Catholicity. And I'll kind of explain that. But so with respect to the first of those points that Protestantism, for my vantage point, is a better approximation of the truth, there's a lot of points where you and I would have some points of agreement. So I would say basically that I think Protestantism represented a genuine recovery of various truths that had been obscured or to some extent lost in the 16th century.

So the sort of long, slow creep of centralization of power in the Western Church that manifested itself in what we call the papacy, I think you and I would agree that that is not a representation of kind of how the early church functioned. Salvation, you know, just the basic gospel message. How do you get saved? I think Protestantism represented a return to various apostolic and biblical truths that had been obscured by the 16th century. century in this whole system that had accrued with this sort of transactional understanding of salvation with the treasury of merit and indulgences and penance and how all that works. And I think it's really easy to just be critical of that. But each step along the way there kind of makes sense.

But when you look at the whole cumulative development, I think it represents a series of accretions and errors in terms of the understanding of salvation. I think Protestantism was a return to the right understanding of salvation. And then lots of other things. Just honestly, a sort of pastoral concern for the laity, that the laity should have the scriptures in their own vernacular, that the laity should receive the Eucharist regularly in both kinds and various other points like that.

And a lot of those things, I think an Eastern Orthodox Christian and a Protestant Christian can, to some extent, kind of have some common sympathies. You can speak to that when you go. So basically, so part of what I mean when I say Protestantism represents a better approximation of the truth than the alternatives is I think it just recovered various truths. But that's part of it. The other part of it would be, I would say, that it's not just the particular material issues.

I would say Protestantism represents a different system, a different way of functioning as the church. I would say it's not just that Protestantism has less errors. It's that the errors that it has are less sort of fixed in cement, so to speak. So Protestantism has this principle of Semper. for Amanda, which means always reforming. And to me, this is like when you open the windows and spring cleaning and let the fresh air in, it's like if you get stuck, you can get unstuck. And so even though I think there's many errors in many Protestant context today, you can fix them. You know, you can say, look, for all the respect we have for councils, and it's a common

caricature of Protestants that were completely ahistorical or against tradition. The more accurate representation is that, well, we have great respect for tradition, great respect for councils. We think they're reformable because we think they're fallible. And so if you get stuck, you can get unstuck. And with respect to the non-protestead traditions, it's not just that we feel there are errors, it's that we feel there are obligatory errors. There are irreformable errors. There are errors you are conscience-bound to. So in the Roman Catholic system, the Marian dogmas are infallible. They are obligatory. In Eastern Orthodoxy, the veneration of icons is a necessary feature of worship. So if you're a Protestant and you think these things are erroneous, what do you do?

You know, you are in a bad position with respect to your conscience. In Protestantism, if you think there are errors, you can deal with them. So that's, I'm just trying to explain kind of the system of, it's not just the issues. It's how you function as the church and the whole system of how we correct errors when they come in. The second thing, though, and this would be maybe even a little deeper in a sense, is Protestantism, in my view, is better positioned for Catholicity. So just to put it kind of bluntly, because there's so much that goes into this, I won't go into every particular.

But people can watch my debate with Father Patrick where I unpack it a little more. I am prepared to recognize you as my brother in Christ. I mean, I don't know you very well, but anyone who's in the, Orthodox Church who has Christ in their life, who has repented of their sins and experienced the Holy Spirit coming in, I'm prepared to recognize as a brother or sister in Christ. I don't think you would say the same for me. And the concern here that comes up, I mean, you can speak to that. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I know the historic Orthodox teaching on these things. The concern here is not emotionalism or sentimentalism. The concern is how do we discern

what is the true church? And I just think that the principle of Matthew 12 that Jesus gave us, that you discern the tree by its fruit, he gave us that because A, he assumed that we can to some extent do that, and B, he expected us to do so. He didn't just say that just as a pious principle,

but he taught us, when you see good fruit, go back to the tree. And so outside of Orthodoxy, I see good fruit. And I'd have to pluck my eyeballs out of their sockets to pretend that the advancement of the kingdom of God, the honor and glory to Jesus Christ, the advancement of his gospel, honor and glory to the Holy Trinity, and positive spiritual fruit as the Bible defines positive spiritual fruit. We'll talk about Galatians 5. I know that you'll have a case from there. It'll be interesting to press into our differences on that passage.

But love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. my view is that Satan cannot, not just does not, but cannot produce such things. He can do fake miracles, but he can't produce joy. He can't produce charity. And so in 1st Corinthians 12, 3, when Paul says, no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit, or when Jesus says a good tree cannot, not just does not, but cannot produce good fruit, I feel conscience bound to recognize the fruit and work of the Holy Spirit through the God, gospel in the West and in other Eastern traditions.

And so I think Protestantism is better positioned to recognize that reality. It's not because, so it's like, you know, from an Eastern Orthodox standpoint, the historic claim, as I understand it, is there's no exceptions. The true church is the Ark of Noah. You're not in the church. You're out. That's the Cyprianic hardline view. And I don't see any exceptions to that until the 19th.

century. So that means Lewis and Tolkien, they may have had a great conversation in 1929. We might think that God is doing something through the Holy Spirit that is salvific, but even if it's the Holy Spirit working, it's not. They're both damned to hell. And I just, it's not emotionalism. It's just, it's the principle of spiritual fruit. It's the saying, I don't think that I can, as I said, I have to pluck my eyeballs out of their sockets to say, the Holy Spirit is not working among those who affirm the Fili-Okway and in other contexts outside of the Orthodox Church. And I just find the claim, the ecclesiological way of reasoning I find unconvincing, probably as unconvincing as you would find the claim of the so-called true Orthodox who think that they,

who have severed themselves from what they call the, you know, the apostate Orthodox who've gone ecumenical and they've severed themselves and they've forfeited their canonicity and they're outside. the ark now too. You know, I find as untenable your claim is about me as you find their claim about you. And it seems to be this just completely preposterous phariseical way of thinking about what is the true church. So, you know, that's basically the two appeals. If I could just clarify one thing at the end here. The Protestant claim is not that we deny the visibility of the church. this is one of those many caricatures you hear out there. It's that we don't, we affirm a visible church.

The church is visible, okay? And we just distinguish that from the invisibility. The claim is that the church is not restricted to one institution. And I think that that, so the church is fragmented. And that's sad and that's tragic, but it's even more tragic to not recognize that it is fragmented. And I do see as sectarian this way of thinking that it's just us, everybody else is out, we're the one true church, everybody else is out just because of the institutional boundaries. So, yeah, that, you know, the essential impulse in my heart is, look, I'm not a super genius.

I appreciate your kind words. Yeah, I work my, I do my best. I work, I'm striving for truth. I'm striving to follow Christ. There's a few things I'm pretty certain of. I'm pretty certain God exists. I'm pretty certain Christ is risen from the dead. I'm seeking to follow Christ to the best of my ability, the best way that I can do that and honor my

conscience is as a Protestant for for those two reasons. So I'll stop there. All right. Well, being we have a little of the time and I might have to meet you okay because you're a microphone. We'll see if we cancels that noise. Seriously, oh, echo cancellation's not working. So I'm muted you. So anyway, I'll just get right into it, which is I believe the reason I'm Orthodox really has to do with me coming to the realization of the following, which I I'll lay out right now. I believe the scriptures are materially sufficient for salvation that either typologically or literally, everything, every doctrine, the Orthodox Church, every

doctor necessary for salvation is in those scriptures. But the Holy Spirit leads the church into all truth and must be understood how they were always understood. There is a succession of doctrine. We are deadened by sins, are hard to deceiveful. So we rely upon the grace of God to understand the scriptures. And so we look to Christians who have the Holy Spirit that have understood these scriptures. It should not change. The apostolic deposit faith was given once and for all, as it says in June. So this is something we feel that exists in the beginning and has always existed because God has preserved his people. Now, I knew this from reading history that schism is considered by all the father's a damnable sin. But let's be honest,

I'm not, I'm an American. That sounds crazy, right? My sensibilities are telling me, that's crazy. I cannot possibly believe that according to my own wisdom. And so if it was not in the scriptures, I wouldn't believe it. And so Gavin, as you anticipated, you know, my big change was for me finding out schism was a sin in Galatians 519 to 21. I presume we might get into something any gritty about it, but I was a totally happy Protestant. The smells, the bells, the history.

stuff, all that really had no appeal to me. But the issue was schism being a damnable sin, because I know the word dichotomas, like dichotomies are dissensions, and heiases, which means usually translated heresies, but it means sectarianism. These are sins that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. So when I saw that in the Greek, I realized, wait, these fathers aren't talking about something that's not there in the scriptures. It's explicitly there in scriptures. You would have to explain it away. So the simplest explanation for me was to accept that the father's found no justification for the cynicism because it was so serious.

And so there was a chilling quote from St. Neurneus. From the second century, he allegedly, well, he knew St. Polycarp. And Polycarp allegedly, though I'm not aware of Polycarp actually claiming this, knew the Apostle John. So anyway, and against heresies' book four, chapter 33, book seven, paragraph seven says, Satanus says, he shall also judge those who give rise to schisms, who are destitute of the love of God, no took to their own special advantage rather than to the unity of the church, and who for trifling reasons or any kind of reason, which occurs to them, cut in pieces and divide the great and glorious body of Christ.

and so far as in them lies positively destroy it. Men who pray of peace while they give rise to war and do in truth strain out a nap but to swallow a camel. For no reformation of so great importance can be affected by them as will compensate for mischief arising from their schism. So this is a very clear condemnation that was well understood early in church history. The scriptures themselves teach that apostolic doctrine is when we don't depart from the uprored, interpretations that are passed down in the church. And so, like, you could read Romans 1617. St. Paul says, look out for those who are causing the divisions and occasions for stumbling,

contrary to the doctrine which you learned and turn away from them. He's not just saying, you know, just read your Old Testament because that's all accepted, accepted before the New Testament was. And other than that, if they don't teach the Old Testament, that, you know, they're a problem. He says, no, contrary to the doctrine which you learned. So there's an interpretation. of those materially sufficient scriptures. So that's the issue.

We see the same thing in 1st Timothy 1, 3 to 8. St. Paul says, I urge you when I was going into Macedonia State Ephesus that you might command certain men not to teach a different doctrine, right? He's not saying just teach the old test, a different book of scriptures, saying don't teach a different doctrine.

It's an interpretation. And not to pay attention to myths and liturologies, cause disputes, rather than God's stewardship and faith. And he goes on and on. But he says in verse 7, they, those people, desiring to be teachers of the law. So he's speaking of teaching the scriptures, though they understand neither what they stay nor about what they strongly affirm. But we know that the law is good if a person uses it lawfully.

So the whole idea that St. Paul is saying is the scriptures, yes, are sufficient, but it must be used lawfully according to the doctrine. Not a different doctrine. So this idea that there's an apostolic interpretation of scriptures is writing the scriptures. We see this also in Titus 1-5. read verses five and nine in chapter one. I left you in Crete, Titus, for this reason that you would set in order the things that were lacking and appoint elders in every city, hold into the faithful word, which is according to the teaching that he may be able to exhort in the sound doctrine and to convict those who contradict them. So St. Paul's telling Titus that they hold to the interpretation, the doctrine, they'll be able to teach it correctly and exhort those to believe in sound doctrine.

So again, an interpretation. And so this isn't just my own private reading, the scriptures about how they understood apostolic tradition in a way that would open up the scriptures for us. This was well understood by St. Uranias in the early second century. In against heresies, book three, chapter two, paragraphs one of the two, he says, when however, they, these heretics are confuted from the scriptures, they turn around and accuse these same scriptures as if they were not correct nor of authority and assert that they are ambiguous. and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition, for they allege that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but Viva Votesi or tradition. So what is there a nearest response to this?

When we refer to them that tradition, which originates from the apostles, and which is preserved by the means of the succession of presbyters or elders in the churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser and not only then the presbyters, but even that the apostles because they have discovered the adulterated truth. So he's saying where we find this doctrine, this interpretation, the same place that St. Paul said you were going to find it in the church. We see also in book three chapter three paragraph one, and Reneas says it is within the power of all, therefore in every church

who may wish to see the truth to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to reckon up those who are by the apostles instituted bishops in the churches and to demonstrate the succession of these men who are on time, those who neither taught nor knew anything like what these heretics rave about. So he's saying, if there's

some other doctrine, other than what all the churches started by the apostles taught, you know it's wrong. So this idea that there's a consensus within an actual church is something well understood in the second century. St. Ernieus also says in chapter four, paragraphs 1 to 3 in the same book, that the church, since the apostles

like rich man, depositing his money, bank lodge in her hands most copiously all things pertaining to the truth so that every man whosoever will can draw from the water of life so again that idea that the interpretation of scriptures is in the church and it's what's taught and exhorted and passed on this is in st. and renas it's not some later understanding of tradition that grew in the church this was around since the very beginning so you hear this from roman catholics but they insincerely assert this I'm Orthodox, not Roman Catholic, because the Roman Catholics are insincere. They believe in doctrinal development or evolution, really,

and they reject St. Vincent de laurence, canon, which we could get into that it was taught everywhere since the beginning of consent, as being the sole criteria of discerning correct doctrine. They only say this to Protestants, Roman Catholics, but to the Orthodox, all of a sudden, there's doctrinal development, and St. Vincent's canon is not the only way we discern these things. We could have an infallible pope. But because I'm Orthodox, I could actually believe what was always taught by the church sincerely. And I invite others to. So let me wrap this up real quick, which would be, I have since found becoming Orthodox

that when it comes to every doctor and spiritual principle that the Orthodox Church teaches, it's always the simplest explanation of the scriptures teach and how do scriptures were always interpreted. I could simply accept the scriptures that they're word. So to me, those who try to defend orthodoxy by denigrating or cutting down the scriptures do a great disservice because the Orthodox doctrine is the simplest interpretation of those scriptures. And there's lots of the stuff that's great about orthodoxy, right? Better worship, the better prayers, better spiritual principles. But we could get into more detail about that during the conversation. So that's pretty much my spiel.

I'm going to put Gavin back on. and hey, pick me apart. Have that it. Well, I won't try to pick you apart, but maybe a few clarifying questions to start off with, and then I'll give a few responses. First, just, you know, in my opening comments, I represented kind of what I have understood to be the historic Orthodox view on various things, particularly with respect to salvation. I guess I'd be curious for your take on that.

I don't want to put words in your mouth or misrepresent your position, but so do you think I'm damned to hell? Do you think C.S. Lewis is in hell? Do you think Tolkien is in hell? I mean, you know, do you hold to the historic hardline Cyprionic Orthodox view? Absolutely. That's, that was the main reason my wife and I converted the orthodoxy. Because.

Avoid going to hell. Well, yes, actually. And that may not be good, right? It's better to be motivated by love than fear. But that's what initially got us on that road. Yeah, that'd be the truth. Yeah. Let me say my thank you for the clarity of your answer because it is frustrating when someone

has a really clear belief, but then they beat around the bush when you ask. So I actually truly admire and appreciate the fact that you just give me a straight up answer to that. I'll come back to that. And it's nothing bad about you. I'm just saying that's the doctrine of the church. I understand. And I don't take it personally. I just appreciate the clarity because I want.

I would hope to be wrong. Yeah, yeah. Me, me. Okay, I'll come back to that point in a second. Here's another just clarifying question. At the beginning, I said, I presume that we probably agree or have some level, to some extent, some overlap of sympathies on some of those initial points I mentioned about the expansion of the papacy, the more transactional system of salvation, and so forth.

Again, just out of the interest of not kind of putting something on you, if you would, I'm curious, do we have some common concerns about medieval developments in the Western Church? Absolutely. My opinion will be extremely succinct is that the Eastern doctrine of salvation being a participation in union with Christ, like you'd read in Roman 6, in the West historically had the language of merits. but I believe was understood according to Eastern sense. But as time went on, merits become almost transactional that you're earning your way to heaven. And one can absolutely not earn their way to heaven. And so the Protestant Reformation was this reaction

against the just horrible excesses within Roman Catholicism. People pretend indulgences and exist all this nonsense. But again, it was divorced from the Orthodox Church. So you kind of go off in this anti-Roman Catholic, but really it's not towards the Orthodox direction. It's in this third direction is how we would understand it. Right. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. Good. Okay. Well, tell you what, how about I give sort of two responses to your comments and then I'll pause and let you interact with that? Does that sound okay?

Sure. Go right ahead. Okay. With regard to the comments you've made about schism and factions and being outside of the true church and that kind of thing, I guess my basic response is sort of simple in a way, but it's twofold. The first is, I think it needs to be established that the Orthodox Church is the true church and the two billion of us in the West and the other Eastern traditions are all the

sex. This is the mothership and those are the offshoots rather than vice versa. That's the whole claim because you got a lot of different churches making that claim. All the old institutional churches say it's just us and not you and you got all these anathemas. And so the historical appeals, they're all going to have similar historical appeals to apostolic accession. So it comes down to the doctrine. And I probably is going to be too much for us to sift through every point in this dialogue. I guess I could state my big picture concern that I don't accept that the Orthodox claim is compelling to be the church that has maintained true apostolic doctrine. And I think issues like the filiocque and the veneration of icons would be examples of where I don't think the Orthodox are right to say,

we're the mothership and they left us. I think things like the veneration of icons, gosh, I need to put it as strongest. I think all the evidence in the first 300 years of church history goes through use of religious imagery, but not veneration. And so that's the first point is we have to say, who is, you know, who's right and who's wrong when there's a split? Who's the true church and who's left the true church?

And that's a whole knotty area we need to walk through. I mean, I'm not trying to resolve that right now. I'm just trying to kind of flag that right now. The second comment, though, is where I really want to press things, and this is where I would probably most strongly feel a concern about what I regard is kind of too black and white or to all or nothing thinking about the nature of schism. And so what I would say is going from Galatians 5,

which I know is a passage that's important to you about the Greek word heresies or factions, okay, or however you want to translate that. there's one other occurrence of that in Paul's writings in 1 Corinthians 11 where he references the factions in the church in Corinth. And he nowhere suggests that one of these factions is the true church and the others are not. Rather, he refers to them all as a part of the church in Corinth. They also have other splits or divisions or separations, formal separations in the New Testament that don't result in. You've got now one side is the church and the other side isn't the church.

Paul himself. There's a sharp disagreement with Barnabas in Acts 15, and they split up, and yet it doesn't mean necessarily that Paul's in the church and Barnabas is out. Within orthodoxy itself, there's lots of divisions. Most outstandingly, the Moscow Counts the Noble split, but also what I referenced earlier, that you got lots of people who make the exact same argument against you that you make against me, the true Orthodox, who say you're outside of the canonical boundaries. And so what I'm trying to say is there's different kinds of faction. There's different kinds of schism, not every schism. And I've read the old Orthodox ecclesiologists who want to say the church is ontologically united such that any schism is schism from the church,

not a schism within the church. And I just don't buy it. It's too all or nothing. It's too black and white. Obviously, there can be splits that don't rise to the same level as a different split. And that same mentality is what I see in the true Orthodox against you. Now, let me just give an example from Cyprian. So Cyprian is probably one of the most hard-line people that people can appeal to and the fathers who are making this argument of, if you're outside the church, you're out, and so forth. What I would want to say is the church fathers are functioning in a context where the splits they're talking about are not the same as a 10-54 split between the east and the west or the various other splits. I'd even say the fifth century splits. Cyprian is talking about,

so for example, in his famous statement that you can't have God as your father, without the church as your mother. That's in chapter six of on the unity of the church. This is a book addressed to novation. He's in the context of that. He's talking about people who are scattering the church, who are committing spiritual adultery. The kind of people he's thinking of when Cyprian is writing this is not like, oh, Lewis and Tolkien are one's Anglican, the one is Catholic. It's a different context. At the time Cyprian wrote that, there's one million Christians total. The entire church is 1 million people. Today we got over 2 billion people claiming the name of Christ.

We're in a different context. In his other statements, you know, when he says outside the church, there is no salvation. Okay, what does Cyprian mean by that? Who is he talking about? Who was he thinking about? Well, that's in his epistle to Jubianus, and he's talking about the baptism of heretics, and he's talking about Marcianites and other various Gnostic groups. Okay, Marcian rejected the Old Testament God.

He had a dacist's view of salvation. He elevated Paul over the other. There are all kinds of problems with Marcia. That's the kind of person he's thinking of when he says outside the church there is no salvation. I want to make a plea for caution in extending these third century statements or second century statements, Ironaeus and others, which are functioning in one context, where you've got one kind of system where it's like, this is the true church and that's the false church, and they're talking like that. Beyond out into this world they never could have envisioned, the post-10, 15,

world, even a post-5th century world, to be honest, where you've got splits and schisms and divisions that are of a different ilk. Not every split is the same. And it's this, to me, this all or nothing, black and white thinking about schism, like any schism is a schism from the church. There's never any schisms that are in the church that I think is very problematic, and it results in what I regard as a very harsh, harsh system. So let me pause there and let you interact with that if you'd like to. Yes, there's a lot there, and I might have to meet you again. My apologies.

But there's a lot there. And my contention is orthodoxy exists in the details, not overarching narratives. You're academic and you're aware that narratives are often socially conditioned. And so there's an easy appeal to a narrative because it already is accepted culturally. All right. And it speaks to a culture that's been shaped by really Western. religion, which is very foreign from orthodoxy. So in responding to you, I will focus on a couple details and then challenge you in the audience that if these sad details rightly understood are

inconsistent with this overarching narrative, then one has to question the narrative entirely, because I can't possibly go over every single detail. Neither of us have prepared to be able to do that for this evening. So it's only a tiny little taste of that. And so as for your first, point, you speak of, well, orthodoxy needs to really have what was clearly the original doctrine, the scriptures and epistolic doctrine. And my contention is orthodoxy actually has what the scriptures teach more plainly. It's interpretations which say, well, can't be really saying that. They can't really be venerating the whitewashed tombs. Why are they washing them? They can't really be venerating relics. They know where David's tom.

was, they knew where all these holy sites were with piles of stone. They were given very specific geographical markers. They were just doing it for the fun of it, I suppose, not for the very obvious reason that they were venerating these things. And as second century and third century rabbinic sources show, that's how Jews understood these things. So any, I think serious historian that's taken a cross-disciplinary approach and say, well, clearly the scriptures align with every source that says this is how these things were used, not that they weren't use this way just because. historically makes no sense. But let's just stick with an iconism within the first three centuries because that's what you posted with. There's no iconodulia in the first three centuries. And I would

actually wager you this. The only explicit evidence we do have is that they were actually venerated in the first three centuries. So for example, Tertullian complains about idol makers and whatnot making images. But he also makes the complaint that there's a And it's a, I forget the passage, because again, this is not like a formal debate. We have all our sources. But he complains when he's talking about the shepherd of Hermas that they will put a shepherd figure representing Christ on the chalice and he considers that an idol, and he says that they're being horrors and adulterers for doing such a thing. But what we're seeing is he's considered idolatry the fact that they are actually using the image of Christ on the most sacred for religious objects. And so this is consistent in that kind of dula.

The only archaeological evidence we have of an icon that's that early is the grotto in Jerusalem. And it explicitly says that under this image, we venerate M. And so it actually explicitly details how the image was used for veneration. We have Eusebius Cessaria, who's not a saint, who talks about a statue that was alleged to be made by, I think, the hemorrhaging women. And these gourds grew and they work miracles. It's a kind of odd story. But he speaks that the image was venerated. And so even that we have some sources that are actually contrary to the practice,

if we listen to what they literally say, they're saying these things were used for veneration. You have, for example, St. Epiphanius, who's usually used as evidence that the early church did not venerate icons, but the quote St. Epiphanius, he said that in his resistance icons that no one listened to him, in fact, only a few. And then he actually gives the explanation they gave for venerate icons that they don't worship them, but they venerate them. in their honor. And so we actually see iconodulia to be the explicit teaching of what the majority Christians believe if we just go by historical sources. And so to say, well, those sources don't convince me enough.

Fair enough, you could be skeptic, I suppose, but they're the only explicit evidence we have. And so if we've got to put a gunter ahead and guess based on the only evidence we have, it's in favor of Akhanodulia, not an iconism. So that would be my response to point number one. Point number two, the meaning of sect is, I think, a very interesting word study. And we could disagree and go back and forth. I feel that we see how the word sect is used particularly in Acts, the Apostles. It's always used as a term of a, in Miami-Intyreth, the word erasism in Greek,

is used as a term meaning sect or sectarian. And so like when St. Paul is being interrogated, he's asked, you know, that, that you're part of the sect of the Christians, and he says what you call a sect, we are actually the Israel God or something like that. It's in like Acts chapter 22 or whatever. The point is he denies being a sect because being a sect is something damnable. Christians are not a sect. There's no denominations.

There's a church and there's those outside the church. That's what's implicit in that statement. And so to say, well, how about in 1st 15th, 11th, we have this issue where it mentions sex and, you know, in your interpretation, you infer that, well, no, it's not different denominations. I would not be so sure. Third John has someone cut off from the church. Acts chapter 15 speaks of people from James who are not really from us. And so what we see, these super apostles, as St. Paul says, more explicitly in 2 Corinthians,

were people that set themselves, I think, outside the church, outside the community of the apostles, over against the teaching of the council of Jerusalem, over and against the teachings of St. Paul. And so, yes, could people in the church have divisions, could even, let's say, two churches or even two apostles, not be in good terms, but they be in good terms the rest of themselves? Yes, you get localized schisms, which are not capitalist schism per se, but to say that there's no sectarianism even in the scriptures,

let alone how every single church father after that interprets sectarianism, starting with St. Ignatius, who says those who follow those who are, to go into schism will not inherit the kingdom of God, that I think the all or nothing approach, which I agree with you, is so against just our cultural sensibilities is actually what we really see in the scriptures and what we actually see in every historical source starting the early second century henceforward. And so while you could say, well, let's go back and forth, I don't agree the interpretation. Let's just say it's a 50-50 chance. Do you want to take a 50-50 chance

are wrong about this very important point where all the fathers were disagreed, that the Holy Spirit forfeited the whole church on this important issue, you would have essentially be no different than the Jehovah's Witness or the Mormon that says it was a great apostasy. And pretty much the whole Christian religion went off the rails right away when really some people who would have still saw Jesus Christ would have been alive, right? There would have been children alive in 30 AD that were like 85 years old and 100, 100, 205 AD. You know, they've been old, but it's not like they have not existed anymore.

So it just, it seems to me to be theoretically possible, the Protestant case, but morally hazardous and less likely historically, according to the text, without taking a Protestant tradition, a cultural way of looking at these things and opposing upon the plain meeting of the text. So that'd be my challenge to you in the audience would be, don't read these things according to the cultural inferences. you'll draw from your own traditions. What do these things literally say?

How did everyone understand what these things literally say? And then when you do that, you start finding opposing the Orthodox doctrine becomes very morally hazardous. And so I'm sure you take much issue of that, but that's all my point. So I'm taking the, if you figure out a way to make that stang thing go out, I'll just keep your microphone on. So I'm sorry about that. None a problem at all. And I can try to remember to mute myself to. I don't know what's good.

Yeah, if you do it, that way you can interject whenever you please. Okay, great. Okay, sounds good. Yeah, I'll just brief, three brief responses. First of all, I want to clarify a few points where I wasn't, couldn't tell if you were describing my view or not, but if you were, I want to clarify areas where I think it was a misrepresentation. The idea, at some point in there, you mentioned like, no, the idea that there's not a full-sale schism conception of that in the New Testament. I don't affirm that. I'm not saying it's never a schism from the church. I'm just saying it's not always a schism from the church. Secondly, just there was some language about the Holy Spirit forfeiting the church or the church going off the rails. I want to continue to belabor this point that that is not. I'm not saying you were describing that to me, but just in case someone hears that, just to clarify and be totally clear on this, it is emphatically not my position or that of any magisterial reformer or major mainstream Protestant tradition that the Holy Spirit left the building, the lights went out, the church fell off the rails. any kind of wholesale idea like that is a caricature. All Protestants maintain is that there are degrees of error,

which is, I think, just common sense. Not every sin is of the same rank. Not every theological errors of the same rank. And errors came into the picture. It doesn't mean the true church ever vanished. I believe the true church persisted for every nanosecond between the first century and the 16th century. So any thought of the church falling away or something like that,

I just want to clarify that is emphatically not my position. I'll speak to icons and then I'll speak to 1st Corinthians. Icons, there's probably too much for us to parse all of this, but I would just state summatively my disagreement that there's a good case for icons among the early fathers. If people want to look into this, Paul Alexander has a good book where he reviews, especially the second century sources, but also first century, third century. And I would just summatively say in origin and lactantius, even later people, later on, it's not only the case that the early Christians are against the veneration of icons,

some of them are against any use of icons, it's seen to be a distinctive hallmark way you tell Christian worship from pagan worship. And I think the historical record is very clear on that point. On schisms in the New Testament, I would say, I find less relevant to determining the meaning of the term in Galatians 5, reference to Jewish sex in the book of Acts or other things that Luke will write about and more relevant Paul's use of the same term because he's the same author writing in First Corinthians. And I just think it's not the case that in First Corinthians 1 and 1st Corinthians 11,

the factions in the Church of Corinth mean that only one of the groups is the church and the others are out of the church. Let me just read what he says in 1st Corinthians 1 starting at verse 10. I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all, all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Seifus, or I follow Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul?

it just sounds to me like he's talking about people who are all part of the church who need to agree with each other. He calls them brothers. He says Christ was crucified for them. And he says to agree. And he doesn't seem to indicate that one of these factions is right and the others are out of the church. So it seems to me just, but honestly, the point I'm trying to make right now to me also just seems common sense. Not every schism is of the same rank. Christians can be united in the Orthodox Church.

There's a lot of schism. There's a lot of disagreement. There's a lot of formal separation. as I've referenced with the true orthodox, and then there's other things as well that people frequently speak of. So that would just be my pushback, especially on the idea of schism. I just think the all or nothing definition of schism just doesn't work by common sense or by scripture. All right.

So I'll give very brief response to maybe the conversation going to a different direction. But I feel that not saying you were attending to do this, but what you said sounded like an appeal to authority. I think when we really read origin in sufficient detail and others, what we're not seeing is them saying the difference between Christians and everyone else is, for example, that everyone else worships these images and venerates these images and Christians don't. To use origin as an example, origin says Christians don't have altars and images, right?

Now, if we took that literally as the an iconist view would demand, then that mean there were actually no altars in churches, which would actually not only contradict first century archaeological evidence, we actually have in Pompea, a Christian altar, but it would contradict the word altar being used by St. Ignatius, the word altar in Hebrews chapter 13. I don't think any historian seriously argues that we're not Christian altars. And so if we already know what origin was saying was not,

well, he didn't mean literally Christians don't have altars. He just means they don't have pagan altars for pagan deities. Well, then in the same breath, these same images, he's not saying there's no images venerated. They said they don't venerate foreign gods. And so I really feel if we take what's explicit, what we actually go with the explicit evidence in the first three centuries,

all we have is actual veneration of icons. And this is, I think, very damaging to the an iconist inference because they take an inference and place it above the explicit, documented, and archaeological evidence that we have historically. As for the issue of schism in 1 Corinthians 1, that's not the word erosite is being used there

if I remember, right, it's the word schismata, which literally is the word schism, but he's not talking about sectarianism. If we go by First Corinthians chapter 4, St. Paul says, I apply figuratively these things between myself and Apollo's. Right. So it appears to me in First Corinthians 1, so it's not to overly shame the Corinthian Christians. He's not saying literally there's sects of Peterites and Paulites and Christites and Apolloites. he's saying it's because he doesn't want to name the super apostles he refuses to all right so obviously

this is the same controversy that's going between both letters and this is not something that chronologically doesn't make sense because the person that st paul says to excommunicate in first corinthians chapter five i think right the the person who's with his stepmother well he says oh well bring him back in second corinthians so there's not a whole ton of time between these two letters and the situation he's right against, I don't believe is very different. And so you can say, well, I don't agree that interpretation, but then and again, two dualing interpretations, which interpretation is more morally safe for the Christian take, the one which everyone right off the bat agreed with, this institutional view of the church,

which, by the way, is consistent to the fact that Christ is a real human body, came really in the flesh, he's not divided in different pieces. There's one actual physical body, canonical boundaries of the church. I just think being that we have no other alternative among the early church other than Tyconius in the late fourth or early fifth century, who was a schismatic from even the nonatest. So he wasn't even commune with them. That we have no one taken that view until the fifth century with Tyconius, with Carthage. I think it's very morally dangerous to go down that road.

If you would like to respond to that, by all means, if you would like to take this other. direction. Let's do that, or we can even take audience questions because we're running out of time. So your call, Gavin. All right. Just a quick comment. And then if one of the things we had talked about in our email interchange getting up to this was the video you put out responding to Josh Schupeing and the interview I did with him. So if we want to touch on that at the end, too, that might be good. I'd love to say there's one thing about that if you're open to that. Sure. I want to give you the time for that. So please do that. Okay. Just my brief summative comments are, I'll leave off responding out about icons right now, but I just think it's problematic

to see the issues of factions in 1st Corinthians 11, or the word heresies is used as a different thing than what he's talking about in 1st Corinthians 1. At the end of the day, you've got factions in the church in Corinth, and yet Paul still thinks they're all part of the church. And it just seems to me to be consistent with that as well as with common sense, that not every division between Christians rises to the same level as every other division. I'd also push back against the idea that there's a patristic consensus about any of this. I think these same statements are often overstated. I found passages in Augustine's letters where he will say that there can be true Christians among the heretic groups. He'll say there are people of good sincerity and so forth.

And so even if you're talking about the top level kind of schism, I don't accept it. the father's all thought in just like Cyprian about that or something like that. Well, just interject real quick, though, St. Augustine quoted St. Cyprian on there being of salvation inside the Catholic Church. So the existence of Christians, I wouldn't say Protestants are not Christian at all, but they wouldn't be properly or kinetically Christians in the church. And so we would have to take to account that we'd have to understand St. Augustine that way.

But you've done more primary resource research on him self than I have. So I'd give you the last word on that, but that'd be my view of that. Okay. Yeah, I mean, he does quote Cyprian, but he also says there can be people among the heretical groups who are saved. So there is some, there are different views on first kind of what does it mean if you're in one of the heretical groups? And then second, again, just the differences between what the context the church is in, like second century and third century especially, with persecution, with so much heresy going on. I just have a concern that we not extend these statements from certain fathers into the post-1054 world as though they apply without any change because we're in a different context today than they were in when they were making those various statements. So that's my only final comment on that. And then I just wanted to say briefly before we went out of time on the Josh Shooping response video, is that okay if I make a few comments on that toward the end here?

Yeah. And if you like, I won't even respond because I had two and a half hours. make my case, you don't have a lot of time. So take your time, please. That's very kind of you. And I don't mind at all if you do respond. But a few things of just where I have a burden for my perception, the way I approach things is I think that all of us lose when Christians speak to one another in a way that is uncharitable. In other words, we all stand to gain from charitable disagreement. And I feel like this conversation has been like that. So thanks, it's been a really tremendous back and forth and good. So charitable doesn't mean, you know, we don't hash it out,

but it means that we do so by focusing on the arguments and not going ad homonym, not speaking to questions of motive, not assuming knowledge of another person's thought process, not speaking to speculation about circumstances, personal circumstances. And some of the responses that I saw to the interview that I did with Josh Schuping, I would like to speak to the Orthodox community and express my sadness at the hatefulness of some of them. I deleted the worst of them. I rarely delete comments on my YouTube channel, only if it passes a boundary into like personally demeaning or overtly racist. There wasn't that specifically on this video, but I'm just giving examples of the kind of thing I would delete. there were some pretty, it was pretty, I mean, I had low expectations, and it was still pretty shocking, how hateful, just enraged.

Some of the comments were, and they did very frequently go outside of charitable argumentation about the positions and into the realm of motive, personally demeaning things, just stuff that, you know, speaking of Galatians 5, not the fruits of the spirit. Okay. So I guess I just wanted to articulate my concern about that. What I could say is that there's 300 million or maybe a little more Orthodox Christians. There's 900 million or Protestants. You know, it's not debate the numbers, give or take. There's a lot. Okay. People are going to do this. People are going to switch from one tradition to the other. It's not actually rare. People do it all the time. We've got to learn how when that happens to communicate in a way that's productive so that we're not just attacking. the person. And, you know, we've all got to have this mentality of if we're going to celebrate those who come into our tradition, we should allow, we should not be surprised when the other tradition does the same thing. Otherwise, we have a mentality of like, we can celebrate when people join our tradition, but you can't celebrate when people join your tradition. And that, to me, smacks of hubris. And I would just say, I think the best way going forward will be when this happens and someone leaves orthodoxy to come to Protestantism or leaves Protestantism to come to orthodoxy,

my hope is that we'll find ways where we can, with absolute rigor, express and advocate for our position. As you have done in this, as I have done, lay it all out there. Don't hold back on arguing for your position. Say, I think this is wrong and here is why. But we should stay away from the personal. We should stay away from the hateful, the spiteful, the demeaning. All of that makes us all lose. And my final comment is, I do regard our interchanges to be touching into the realm of spiritual warfare,

not because one side is the angels and the other side is the demons. I don't believe that. But because Satan stands to gain when we hate each other. And when we communicate charitably with each other, that is part of our commending the gospel to those who are watching. And so that's an appeal I would like to. And what I'm saying now does not touch every Orthodox commenter. Many were very, very charitable. It's a general comment about what I saw in greater frequency from Orthodox Christians than I see from other traditions in similar circumstances, unfortunately.

So I want to articulate that appeal that we do better at that. Well, instead of, let me say, comments that would concur in some way. And before I forget, I would appreciate the citation or citations to Augustine. I just don't remember seeing that in any of your videos, but. We're both very busy men. That'd be a cool thing to have. But anyway, it's, I agree with you. In fact, I got flack for quoting a saint's life today on my YouTube community page

because the point of the story of the saint was that he took in his brother's murder and protected him. And I said, if we could love our enemies like this, apologetics has to get much more loving of their enemies. Right. Here's a saint that protected the murder of his brother. And I got flack for bringing that up. Like somehow I'm bad because I'm teaching the example of the saints. And so, yes, that's a real issue.

Not so much if you go to a real Orthodox parish, but it's sort of overrepresented among the Orthodox community online. And it's something that I do an imperfect job fighting against because I'm very sinful myself, right? I would say this with the Joshua Shoupin video. I struggled with that video. And what I struggled was, how do I present this issue, being that lot of the presentation he gave was personal,

and I consider myself good terms with Joshua. But to be perfectly honest, I've listened to that video two or three times, trying to say, did I go too far, hear this or that? I think some people even misunderstand my comments. Like, we spoke about a certain comment that was made about eating pizza in the middle night. And I could see why most people would see that as a nasty comment.

But let me say this to my own defense, which is why we can't read into things. The professor that turns me on to Christianity's Dr. Bill Cook, you might know him he's a medievalist. He wrote The Medieval World View with Dr. Ronald Hartsman. It's Oxford University Press. And in his greater courses class on Augustine, he talks about Augustine having epiphany that wasn't quite a real epiphany. calls it eating pizza in the middle night, this and that. So I was using something I learned from him and just saying that expression without like it actually being attended as an insult. And so because there's so many emotions riding on this for so many people, which I think

betrays how the lack of confidence in their position, people get angry when they're not confident. It's to compensate for the fact that they feel that they like feel less secure. And so it's difficult. That's why I really wanted Joshua to come on. So that way, like it's easier for me mean you to disagree, but in a nice way when I don't have to guess what you're going to say, you're right there. Right. So it's maybe something that will happen long in the future. Who knows? It's a real struggle and we all fall short. And I think the Orthodox Christians should have the humility to go that they're not making a good name for themselves. And they fall short and we need to repent and we always sin. And just because they have the truth,

doesn't mean you can't sin and do the wrong thing. So we have to have that humility. So before we run out of time, could you please plug your projects what you're up to and your channel and any other closing comments? Yeah, thanks, Craig, for having me on. I really enjoyed it. It was great discussion. So I really appreciate it. I hope we can keep talking. Yeah, people could find out more about me and my YouTube channel, Truth Unites. I do one video per week doing lots of different things. I just planned out 2022 the other day and I'm planning on kind of going into a little bit more of apologetics terrain simply because of the book I have that's out in that space and then some opportunities there so that my YouTube channel will still touch upon ecumenical dialogue,

but maybe just one slight reducing of that focus, a slight uptick on apologetics, Christian apologetics in general. Yeah, or people could find, I think in this video description there's a link to some of my books too if people want to check that out. Yeah, guys, click on the link. These books are from popular publishers, and I think Catholic University of America Press for your book on Anselm. And so Gavin's a serious scholar and should be treated as such by some of these YouTubers. He should not be treated like he's a schmuck because he's not a schmuck, to say the least.

That being said, here's my plug, which is, if this is blessed you, please bless someone else. this is a tough time of year for giving for the Orthodox churches in Cambodia. Give a Christmas gift to the parishes in Cambodia. Now, this church here, by the way, is in Thailand, but it's color of Christmas. So that's why I'm showing it. We have here, I'm sharing the screen, that we have tracks that we're making. We're looking for donors so we can print 100 copies or more of these tracks. So the Nativity of Christ for $160, we'll get in the hands of Cambodians 100,

copies of this track. A track on faith, of course, he's a translated Kamaai language, $180, is more of this in Orthodox Christiantheology.com slash donate, which is scrolling on the bottom. And again, put your money where your mouth is, but it doesn't have to be with here. It just has to be with spreading the gospel and blessing others, and God will bless you. Maybe not financially, but he will draw you closer to himself. And just on this note of evangelism, tune in next month. We'll have a show on the way of the master and comparing that to Father Daniel Sezoiav's missionary efforts in Russia. So we'll be getting to how to communicate the gospel in a way that is easy to communicate, not this esoteric way.

So check that. Check that out next month. So Gavin, looks like we're going to run overtime. So any last words? And I'll let you go. No last words except thanks again. And let's do this again sometime. Sounds good, and I appreciate you coming on.

It's been great. And I'll end this show and all my shows by quoting Jesus to Rock, saying, Fight to Death for the Truth. The Lord God will fight for you. God bless you all. Have a good night.