Protestant vs. Orthodox: Scripture and Tradition (Gavin Ortlund + Stephen De Young)

0:00LutherCan you speak to the orthodox perspective why sola scriptura

0:04Lutheris untenable?

0:06LutherWhat makes sola scriptura untenable from the orthodox perspective?

0:10Father JonathanSo if if there is in the New Testament this affirmation of oral tradition, and there is, and I would argue that there is. How do we deal with the protestant concern of holy tradition?

0:20Gavin OrtlundHey, everyone. This is a dialogue that I had on sola scriptura and tradition with an eastern orthodox priest, the reverend doctor Stephen de Jong. You'll hear intros of both of us in a second. I won't take too long here. I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed it.

0:33Gavin OrtlundSteven de Young has a PhD and academic training. He has parish

0:38Gavin Ortlundexperience,

0:39Gavin Ortlundand interpersonally,

0:40Gavin Ortlundhe's enjoyable to talk with. So these are three things that never can be assumed and oftentimes

0:45Gavin Ortlundnot the case in sort of online apologetics type things. And so I just really appreciated

0:52Gavin Ortlundgetting to talk with him. Hope we can talk again. We had ninety minutes. That was the time frame allotted, but we got through a lot in that time frame. So let me know what you think in the comments about our conversation.

1:04Gavin OrtlundOne thing before we dive in though, this video is being sponsored by Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I always want truth unites to be supportive of the broader church and of seminaries because seminaries are so important right now, and Trinity is a fantastic institution.

1:18Gavin OrtlundYou've probably heard me talk about it. I did a postdoctoral fellowship of sorts at Ted's for a year. I loved my time there. Ted's is very academically rigorous,

1:28Gavin Ortlundhas world class faculty. They're committed to

1:31Gavin Ortlundthe inerrancy of scripture, but then within a broadly evangelical

1:35Gavin Ortlundframework, you'll also get different perspectives within that framework.

1:39Gavin OrtlundSo I'm I I mentioned this because I think a lot of people who watch my channel should consider getting theological

1:46Gavin Ortlundeducation.

1:47Gavin OrtlundIt helps you be more thoroughly equipped not just for ministry or for academics, though certainly if that's your calling, but even just for life as a as a follower of Christ.

1:56Gavin OrtlundI've never regretted the investment that I've put into formal education. It's tremendously

2:01Gavin Ortlundvaluable. You get to meet people from all over the world. You get to be part of this vibrant community, and you just learn so much. So I'm gonna share in the video description about their master of divinity program,

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2:44Gavin OrtlundSo check out trinity evangelical divinity school at tedz.edu/truthunites.

2:50Gavin OrtlundLink in the video description. Alright. Without further ado, here is the dialogue.

2:54LutherAlright. Welcome to the transfigured life. I met here with father Jonathan, and we have two special guests with us today.

3:03LutherAnd I would introduce the first. So father

3:06Lutherfather Stephen d Young,

3:08Lutherhe is

3:09Lutheran author of multiple books,

3:11Lutherhis latest being the apocrypha

3:14Lutherintroduction to the extra extra biblical

3:17Lutherextra biblical literature.

3:19LutherHe's an author,

3:20Lutherpastor

3:21Lutherat archangel

3:23LutherGabriel Orthodox Church

3:25Lutherand holds a PhD

3:26Lutherin biblical studies from

3:29LutherAmbridge

3:30LutherUniversity.

3:31LutherHow are doing?

3:32Stephen De YoungGood. Good. Good to be here. Nice. Nice. Nice.

3:37Father JonathanOutstanding. And as our other

3:40Father Jonathanguest today,

3:41Father JonathanI think for most of our viewers who are watching right now, it's almost as if the introduction need not be made because they see the faces and they know exactly

3:50Father Jonathanwho these two gentlemen are.

3:53Father JonathanDoctor Gavin Ortlund

3:55Father Jonathanserves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai in Ojai, California. He's the author of several books, including why god makes sense in a world that doesn't, the beauty of Christian theism,

4:06Father Jonathanand why Protestantism makes sense, the case for an always reforming

4:11Father Jonathanchurch. He runs the YouTube channel Truth Unites. Doctor Gavin, welcome to The Transfigured Life.

4:17Gavin OrtlundThanks for having me. Looking forward to the conversation.

4:20Father JonathanWonderful.

4:21Father JonathanAnd speaking of that,

4:23Father Jonathanwhat we're going to do so all our our viewers tuning in understand that this is not really a debate.

4:29Father JonathanLuther and I are kind of averse to debates. They we feel they really don't accomplish what we what we would like to see discussions between Christian gentlemen accomplish. So we've got some questions we're going to pose to both of our guests today.

4:44Father JonathanAnd then after we ask these questions, we're going to

4:49Father Jonathanask them to engage in a discussion with one another that Luther and I will kinda take a step back from

4:55Father Jonathanthat will complete the time we have today. So that's the format. We're gonna start with the questions,

5:02Father JonathanI guess, right now. And doctor Gavin, you get the first one.

5:06Father JonathanWhat is sola scriptura,

5:08Father Jonathanand what is it not? So the caricatures of sola scriptura and how the historic Protestant view understands it.

5:16Gavin OrtlundOkay. Thanks for starting with this question because I think this is really important. There are a lot of caricatures.

5:22Gavin OrtlundIf you read historic protestants, you find out this is a very nuanced idea. To to me, it's a very modest claim and a very reasonable claim and a very important claim.

5:33Gavin OrtlundSo maybe some of the caricatures we could ward off, I often think of these two.

5:37Gavin OrtlundOne is that everything you have to,

5:40Gavin Ortlundeverything you believe has to be explicit in the scripture.

5:44Gavin OrtlundThat is not what sola scriptura means, but we hear this a lot. You'll hear people say,

5:48Gavin Ortlundwell, sola scriptura says everything has to be in the bible. It's not in the bible. Therefore, it is self defeating. You hear this a lot. But, even the strongest articulations of the related doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture

6:01Gavin Ortlundallow for doctrines to be inferred from scripture, deduced from scripture.

6:06Gavin OrtlundMany articulations of that doctrine are only speaking about what is necessary for salvation.

6:11Gavin OrtlundThere there really isn't a a mainstream historic protestant view that says you have to have a chapter and verse for everything. So that's not the target. Another caricature is the idea that the bible is the only authority

6:22Gavin Ortlundas though we're just sort of generally rejecting,

6:25Gavin Ortlundchurch history, church councils, church offices,

6:28Gavin Ortlundtradition in a general sense.

6:31Gavin OrtlundAll of those things are tremendously valuable. Sola scriptura simply means they're fallible.

6:36Gavin OrtlundSo the intention of sola scriptura

6:39Gavin Ortlundis not a rejection of the church, not a rejection of tradition, but a measuring of them by the superior standard of scripture.

6:47Gavin OrtlundFrancis Turretin, the reformed theologian, talks a lot about this. He basically says the the issue of sola scriptura does not have to do with whether there is any judgment that belongs to the church in controversies of faith. It's about what is that supreme north star by which everything else must be adjudicated.

7:06Gavin OrtlundSo that so that's what sola scriptura is is the scripture

7:10Gavin Ortlundis the only infallible rule for the church. In other words, after the apostles die,

7:16Gavin Ortlundokay,

7:17Gavin Ortlundthe the period of public divine revelation is over.

7:21Gavin OrtlundThere do not persist

7:23Gavin Ortlundongoing

7:24Gavin Ortlundmechanisms of infallibility

7:26Gavin Ortlundin the church. Infallibility meaning being preserved from error in some way.

7:31Gavin OrtlundSo,

7:33Gavin Ortlundin other words, the church in the post apostolic era

7:37Gavin Ortlundmust measure herself according to scripture, and her pronouncements are fallible. They they they can That doesn't mean they always will but they can They're not preserved from error. So

7:47Gavin Ortlundthe,

7:48Gavin Ortlundthe conviction that basically undergirds that is just our view of revelation. We would say, you know, in Galatians one eight, Paul says,

7:55Gavin Ortlundeven if an angel preaches a gospel contrary to the one that we have preached, let the angel be accursed. The idea is we wanna be tethered to the apostolic deposit. And I know we all want that in principle.

8:06Gavin OrtlundBut we would say the

8:09Gavin Ortlundbest way to know what is Christianity

8:12Gavin Ortlundis to recognize there is something unique about scripture.

8:15Gavin OrtlundIn

8:16Gavin Ortlundmy debate I did about a year ago now on this, I talked about scripture being ontologically unique when we use the adjective inspired

8:23Gavin Ortlundto refer to the word of god. So the inspired word of god. We're trying to highlight a unique status that scripture has in what it is.

8:34Gavin OrtlundSecond Timothy three sixteen, god breathed.

8:36Gavin OrtlundSecond Peter one twenty one, carried by the holy spirit.

8:40Gavin OrtlundJesus quotes Old Testament scripture as god speaking.

8:45Gavin OrtlundRomans three two refers to the Old Testament scriptures as the oracles of god or you could just translate that the words of god. So we would say scripture is the speech of god, and it is unique, and it is paramount. Just like in other religions, you have a a sort of paramount

8:59Gavin Ortlundset of texts at the founding of the religion

9:03Gavin Ortlundthat then subsequent

9:04Gavin Ortlundmembers of that religion

9:06Gavin Ortlundmust look to as a kind of unique litmus test or standard.

9:11Gavin OrtlundAnd, basically, we just wanna measure ourselves by the speech of god, because it is superior to all post apostolic functions of the church. That's

9:20Gavin Ortlundtrying to be brief this so we have time to go back. That's a brief summation of,

9:25Gavin Ortlundwhat historically

9:26Gavin Ortlundsola scriptura has been understood to be.

9:30LutherNo. I appreciate that doc doctor Gavin. One thing I I always appreciate about you, you do a really good job of explaining

9:38Lutheryour position, and and it's it's clear and it makes sense. So so thank you for that.

9:42LutherFather

9:44LutherSteven Young, if I may ask you,

9:46Lutherwhat is holy tradition in the orthodox faith? I know that's probably where sola scriptura and, you know, holy traditions you know, sometimes the views look a little different. But from from

9:58Lutherthe orthodox

10:00Lutherposition, what would you say is holy tradition, and how does holy tradition

10:05Lutherrelate to scripture?

10:07Stephen De YoungRight. So this is this is important to disambiguate

10:11Stephen De Youngtoo because

10:12Stephen De Youngthere there's a major difference between the orthodox understanding of holy tradition

10:18Stephen De Youngand the Roman Catholic church's understanding of tradition, for example.

10:23Stephen De YoungVery,

10:24Stephen De Youngvery different.

10:25Stephen De YoungThe

10:26Stephen De Youngthe Roman Catholic church's view is essentially that there is sort of propositional content of revelation

10:33Stephen De Youngthat is not recorded

10:35Stephen De Youngin the scriptures, but that has been handed down orally somewhere in secret, maybe,

10:41Stephen De Youngright, and passed down

10:44Stephen De Youngfrom bishop to bishop or in some other way.

10:47Stephen De YoungThat is not what we're talking about in the Orthodox Church when we talk about tradition. So the the very short definition

10:53Stephen De Youngof holy tradition in the Orthodox church is that it's the life of the holy spirit in the church.

10:59Stephen De YoungAnd what that concretely means is

11:03Stephen De Youngthat

11:06Stephen De Youngover the course of church history

11:09Stephen De Youngand really the history of god's people. Right? We're so going back to the very beginning of humanity until now,

11:17Stephen De Youngthe holy spirit has been active,

11:20Stephen De Younghas been active primarily,

11:22Stephen De Youngbut not exclusively

11:23Stephen De Youngwithin the church, within the assembly of Israel, in the Old Testament, within the church,

11:29Stephen De Youngfrom the New Testament to today.

11:31Stephen De YoungAnd

11:33Stephen De Youngthe holy spirit's actions, being the actions of god,

11:37Stephen De Youngare infallible,

11:39Stephen De Youngright, are

11:41Stephen De Youngperfect,

11:42Stephen De Youngare holy.

11:44Stephen De YoungRight? And

11:45Stephen De Youngso within

11:47Stephen De Youngthat, the scriptures have a pride of place.

11:51Stephen De YoungThere's another important thing to disambiguate.

11:54Stephen De YoungI doubt I'm going to disagree with any of,

11:58Stephen De Youngdoctor Ortlund's positive

12:00Stephen De Youngstatements about scripture.

12:02Stephen De YoungSometimes this is framed as people who don't believe in sola scripture having a lower view of scripture.

12:08Stephen De YoungWe don't actually have a lower view of scripture. We have a higher view of some other things. Right?

12:14Stephen De YoungSo the scriptures have this paramount place. Right? And and as he already referenced,

12:20Stephen De Youngright, Saint Paul in writing to Timothy

12:23Stephen De Youngsays that that scripture is Theotokosnos.

12:27Stephen De YoungRight? Meaning, it comes from the.

12:30Stephen De YoungRight? It comes from the spirit of god.

12:33Stephen De YoungThe holy spirit not only inspired the scriptures.

12:36Stephen De YoungRight? Men wrote as they were carried along

12:39Stephen De Youngby the holy spirit,

12:40Stephen De Youngbut

12:41Stephen De Youngthe holy spirit has

12:44Stephen De Younggoverned the transmission of the scriptures, handing them down to the present day and copying and recopying and all of this. And the holy spirit

12:53Stephen De Youngguides the interpretation

12:55Stephen De Youngand the application of the scriptures

12:57Stephen De Youngwithin the church.

13:00Stephen De YoungIt's important that this is a

13:02Stephen De Youngcollective

13:03Stephen De Youngguidance and inspiration,

13:05Stephen De Youngnot an individual guidance

13:07Stephen De Youngand inspiration that's promised.

13:09Stephen De YoungWhen Christ says the holy spirit will lead you into all truth, that you is plural.

13:15Stephen De YoungIt's not a promise that every individual who reads the scriptures will always interpret them perfectly.

13:21Stephen De YoungAnd it is not a promise that any particular individual,

13:24Stephen De Youngincluding the bishop of Rome, will always interpret and apply them perfectly.

13:29Stephen De YoungBut it is a promise that when that the church as a whole

13:34Stephen De Youngwill be guided by the holy spirit in the way that she interprets and applies the scriptures,

13:39Stephen De Youngin the way that she acts

13:41Stephen De Youngand governs herself.

13:44Stephen De YoungAnd so this is why

13:46Stephen De Youngin the Orthodox Church, we we may have these these distinctions of authority, for example, within councils.

13:52Stephen De YoungRight? An ecumenical council has much greater authority

13:56Stephen De Youngthan a local council because the ecumenical council is a greater gathering of the whole body of the church.

14:03Stephen De YoungThe more of the church that is gathered together,

14:06Stephen De Youngright, then

14:07Stephen De Youngthe more

14:09Stephen De Youngthey will be guided their the results will be the product of the guidance of the holy spirit.

14:16Stephen De YoungAny individual

14:18Stephen De Youngwill will

14:19Stephen De Youngget things wrong. Even collectives will get things wrong.

14:23Stephen De YoungEven the whole church can get things wrong for short periods of time.

14:28Stephen De YoungBut, ultimately, as the life of the church unfolds, the holy spirit guides,

14:33Stephen De Youngright, guides the church,

14:35Stephen De Youngto what is right.

14:37Stephen De YoungAnd,

14:38Stephen De Youngwe see this we see this with, for example, the formation of the New Testament.

14:44Stephen De YoungThe New Testament is formed together over the course of a few centuries,

14:48Stephen De Youngbut the same holy spirit who guided the writing of those texts guides the church to recognize

14:54Stephen De Youngthose texts,

14:56Stephen De Youngwhich he inspired.

14:57Stephen De YoungAnd so over the course of those centuries, the church recognizes that under the guidance of the holy spirit.

15:03Stephen De YoungWe would say, the Orthodox Church, that the same thing happens, for example, with councils.

15:07Stephen De YoungWhen councils meet, it's not always clear. Did we get it right? Did we get it wrong?

15:12Stephen De YoungFor every ecumenical council, there's a robber council that met a few years before or a few years after.

15:18Stephen De YoungRight? And it might not be clear to the attendees,

15:20Stephen De Youngright, who's who's who are the ones who are really being guided by the holy spirit. But over time, right, god reveals to the church that, no, what was said about the doctor of the trinity at the Council of Nicaea,

15:32Stephen De Youngthis came from the holy spirit. What was said about

15:35Stephen De Youngthe person of Christ at the Council of Chalcedon,

15:38Stephen De Youngthis comes this came from the holy spirit.

15:41Stephen De YoungAnd so then that is recognized

15:43Stephen De Youngin a similar kind of way to the way that the scriptures were were recognized. But the scriptures continue to have a pride of place within holy tradition that's expressed very concretely

15:54Stephen De Youngin our liturgical life,

15:56Stephen De Youngin our worship,

15:57Stephen De Youngwhere the scriptures

16:00Stephen De Youngare not only read continuously and only they are read,

16:04Stephen De Youngright, but the hymns,

16:07Stephen De Youngthe the structure of the worship itself

16:10Stephen De Youngis replete with quotations, allusions to scripture.

16:14Stephen De YoungAnd so the scriptures have this guiding and shaping influence over our faith through

16:20Stephen De Youngthrough that worship.

16:22Stephen De YoungAnd the rest of holy tradition can be seen as a way of reading

16:27Stephen De Youngand applying the scriptures as guided by as guided by the holy spirit.

16:35Father JonathanOkay. Very good.

16:37Father JonathanDoctor Gavin, I'm gonna go back to you for our third question.

16:41Father JonathanSola scriptura is is I I think I've spoken with enough Protestants to kind of, I think, justify my saying this. It's seen as a doctrine.

16:50Father JonathanIt's seen as sort of an official teaching.

16:52Father JonathanSo my question is, is sola scriptura as a as a doctrine or teaching,

16:58Father Jonathanis it of divine inspiration or of practical necessity?

17:07LutherI

17:09Lutherthink you're on hold on. Sorry, doctor Gavin. I think you're on mute.

17:12Gavin OrtlundThank you. You could've just let me go, and I never

17:15Lutherwould let you go.

17:17Father JonathanI wouldn't do that.

17:19Gavin OrtlundThanks for letting me know. Was hearing some background noise

17:22Gavin Ortlundearlier, so I put myself on mute in case it was me because I never know if it's me or not. But

17:26LutherYeah. That's what I did too.

17:28LutherYeah.

17:29Gavin OrtlundOkay.

17:30Gavin OrtlundSo so I I would say it's not itself of divine inspiration. It's the effort to be faithful to that which is of divine inspiration.

17:38Gavin OrtlundAnd to that extent, it is a practical necessity because,

17:41Gavin Ortlundbasically,

17:43Gavin Ortlundwe need to be guarded against errors that can creep in among the people of God.

17:48Gavin OrtlundAnd and

17:50Gavin Ortlundin these differences,

17:52Gavin OrtlundProtestant to Eastern Orthodox

17:53Gavin Ortlundecclesiology

17:54Gavin Ortlundor the doctrine of the church, think, is probably gonna come up to some extent here. Because when I'm talking, especially with at the street level or or just in the comments of videos, you know, you

18:05Gavin Ortlundyou see how differently we are approaching that issue that plays out into,

18:12Gavin Ortlundwhat to what extent should we expect that there will be errors in the church.

18:16Gavin OrtlundSometimes I get the impression people are thinking none of you, but just as I say, just in in the the comments and other places,

18:23Gavin Ortlundthat people think the church is either perfect or dead.

18:27Gavin OrtlundBut the church can be alive, and I would agree wholeheartedly with the with, what I take to be the definition of tradition that father Steven mentioned of the holy spirit's life in the church. We believe, as Protestants, the holy spirit has never abandoned the church. The church never died. The holy spirit never forsook the church,

18:47Gavin Ortlundbut the church can be alive even while there are errors.

18:50Gavin OrtlundI I think that's an extremely modest position that I think we could agree upon, that errors creep in among the people of god, corruptions, deviations.

18:58Gavin OrtlundI use the word accretions a lot to get at the slow growth nature of these things. The church is not perfect. And when errors come in, we need some sort of mechanism

19:07Gavin Ortlundfor discerning them.

19:08Gavin OrtlundAnd a a good parallel that maybe helps someone who's trying to understand a sola scriptura perspective

19:15Gavin Ortlundfrom the inside out would be looking at the pharisees and Jesus' interaction with them because here you have a situation where the pharisees have a legitimate

19:24Gavin Ortlundgod given authority

19:25Gavin Ortlundover god's people to teach

19:28Gavin Ortlundthem. Jesus says, obey the pharisees. You know? The pharisees end up as the bad guys, but they had a legitimate role. Jesus said they sit on the seat of Moses, so do whatever they tell you in Matthew 23.

19:40Gavin OrtlundAnd yet they yoked people to

19:42Gavin Ortlunderror,

19:43Gavin Ortlundand they did that by appealing to oral tradition.

19:46Gavin OrtlundThey could have made the same appeal of

19:49Gavin Ortlundthe life of the Holy Spirit in the church.

19:53Gavin OrtlundThey they said, basically, there's an oral law for Moses even as there's a written law, and they're roughly equal in authority

20:01Gavin Ortlundis a common view that you find.

20:03Gavin OrtlundAnd, Jesus opposes them in Mark seven not for not for having

20:08Gavin Ortlundjust the wrong traditions,

20:10Gavin Ortlundlike making an error in elevating some traditions when they should have been elevating others or something like this, but for their inflated view of tradition as such.

20:19Gavin OrtlundAnd he says, basically, many such things you do. So they had a tendency

20:23Gavin Ortlundto elevate their traditions too highly, and the consequence is this nullifies the word of God. This mutes and tames the word of God in its power to be a corrective over the people of God.

20:35Gavin OrtlundAnd, I do think a lot of the arguments I hear, again, at the street level, especially against sola scriptura,

20:40Gavin Ortlundcould have been arguments that the pharisees could have made against Jesus. They could have said, look. Where where do you get that in the text? Where is it explicitly said that this is the only infallible rule or something like that?

20:51Gavin OrtlundBut the simple fact is the scripture is unique,

20:55Gavin Ortlundand it doesn't need to sort of anticipate those later errors that the pharisees would make. And the basic reason I I you know, at the at the end of the day, at the at the bottom line, I just want to be faithful to Christ.

21:09Gavin OrtlundAnd,

21:10Gavin Ortlundas I study church history, I I think there are errors. I think there are things that come into the picture. Sure we'll probably talk about some of the areas of Protestant to Eastern Orthodox difference,

21:19Gavin Ortlundthings like the intercession of the saints,

21:23Gavin Ortlundicon veneration,

21:24Gavin Ortlundthings like this. I'm just firmly persuaded these things are later errors. They're innovations and accretions and things that you can pretty clearly see are coming in slowly over time after

21:35Gavin Ortlundthe apostolic age is long gone.

21:39Gavin OrtlundAnd so when that happens, just like the people in the first century

21:42Gavin Ortlundneeded to measure the pharisees'

21:45Gavin Ortlundclaim of oral tradition,

21:47Gavin Ortlundso the people of God and the church need to measure

21:50Gavin Ortlundother claims of oral tradition. Because as you study church history, you see all kinds of things are are

21:55Gavin Ortlundclaimed in the name of apostolic tradition. But it's very easy for the telephone game to happen when you've got oral communication.

22:03Gavin OrtlundIt can get garbled over time

22:05Gavin Ortlundextremely easily. In fact, we see that as early as the second century.

22:09Gavin OrtlundSo the the the the concern here is if the church claims to be infallible, because we we we would wanna say absolutely the holy spirit's at work in the church,

22:18Gavin Ortlundand the holy spirit is guiding the church. But if the church claims to herself be tantamount in authority to scripture itself, to the very speech of God,

22:26Gavin Ortlundthen we have a problem because now we have no mechanism for measuring

22:31Gavin Ortlundwhen are these errors coming in. And, again, the the so the intention is we wanna be faithful to God. You know, Christianity is a revealed religion.

22:40Gavin OrtlundThis is something God has spoken in human history.

22:43Gavin OrtlundAnd so we wanna look to that era of divine revelation and measure

22:48Gavin Ortlundlater developments by that

22:50Gavin Ortlundtime period and specifically,

22:53Gavin Ortlundmost exactly, by the scriptures because they constitute the speech of God. I'll try to not

22:58Gavin Ortlundramble on too much here.

23:01LutherNo, doctor Gavin. Thank you for sharing that of father,

23:04LutherStephen De Young. Any thoughts?

23:08Stephen De YoungWell, I think I think this gets at

23:10Stephen De YoungI think that really that really well gets at some of the some of the differences we have. Right? Because I think,

23:18Stephen De Youngfor example,

23:21Stephen De Youngthe the danger on the other side from not having a means to correct the church,

23:26Stephen De Youngfrom our perspective, maybe the difficulty would be

23:29Stephen De Younghow do we then

23:31Stephen De Youngjudge between different interpretations of scripture.

23:35Stephen De YoungThere have been times at church history

23:38Stephen De Youngthere was a time when Arianism was ascended,

23:40Stephen De Youngand

23:42Stephen De Youngthey were making arguments from

23:45Stephen De Youngbiblical passages, which, of course, we now believe they were

23:48Stephen De Youngright, misinterpreting.

23:50Stephen De YoungAnd,

23:52Stephen De Youngagain, unlike someone from a Roman Catholic perspective, I'm not saying, well, the church ruled authoritatively

23:57Stephen De Youngon this. But,

23:59Stephen De Youngagain, it's something that happened over time that the church guided by the holy spirit

24:04Stephen De Youngcame together around the correct,

24:06Stephen De Youngright, doctrine of the trinity. And so

24:09Stephen De Youngwhile it may not have been clear during the issue, today, it is clear, right, that someone who rejects the doctrine of trinity has laid out of the council of Nicaea

24:18Stephen De Younghas separated themselves from from Christianity.

24:21Stephen De YoungAnd I and I don't feel bad saying that.

24:25Stephen De YoungSo

24:27Stephen De Youngthat would be, I guess, the the the flip side danger. And I think the other thing that's going to come out

24:33Stephen De Youngis a difference in our view of revelation.

24:38Stephen De YoungAnd I'll I'll be corrected on this if this doesn't represent your view, doctor Ortlund. But,

24:44Stephen De Youngfrom what you've said so far,

24:46Stephen De Youngand this is

24:48Stephen De Youngfairly common within reformed

24:50Stephen De Youngareas, there's there's an emphasis on the idea of revelation as propositional,

24:55Stephen De Youngright, as statements spoken by god that are true.

25:00Stephen De YoungRight?

25:01Stephen De YoungOver against

25:04Stephen De Youngour view of revelation would be more

25:07Stephen De Youngthe actual manifestation in time and space of

25:10Stephen De Younggod.

25:12Stephen De YoungRight?

25:13Stephen De YoungAnd revelation and the truth as Christ himself, right, the person of Christ

25:18Stephen De Youngrather than certain

25:20Stephen De Youngstatements or truths.

25:22Stephen De YoungAnd that may be a misrepresent we could get into that later

25:25Stephen De Youngwhen we when we talk.

25:29Stephen De YoungBut I think that plays out here in terms of how the scriptures are understood.

25:33Stephen De YoungRight?

25:34Stephen De YoungLetter

25:35Stephen De Youngright? This statement is a true statement within the scriptures

25:39Stephen De Youngversus

25:39Stephen De Youngthis is a statement that points us to

25:42Stephen De YoungChrist himself.

25:45Gavin OrtlundWell, thanks for those comments, and maybe I could just give a brief parenthetical sort of clarifying remark about it. Because

25:51Gavin OrtlundI

25:52Gavin Ortlundcan understand why you're saying that and where you're coming from because there is in the reformed tradition, sometimes you see that emphasis. On the other hand, you also have these great

26:02Gavin Ortlundbiblical

26:03Gavin Ortlundtheologians

26:05Gavin Ortlundemphasizing the narrative character of scripture like,

26:10Gavin Ortlundpeople some of these Dutch reformed guys. I wouldn't I wouldn't at all say it's it's an difference of propositional

26:16Gavin Ortlundversus some alternative.

26:18Gavin OrtlundThat's not the contrast in my view. So I would say the difference is the again, the ontological uniqueness of scripture as such, most of which is narratival,

26:26Gavin Ortlundmost of which is not,

26:28Gavin Ortlundis more concrete and is not is the if the Bible's anything, it's not an abstract philosophical treatise. You know? It is a story,

26:35Gavin Ortlundfirst and foremost. That's the backbone. That's the skeletal structure.

26:39Gavin OrtlundThings like epistle or law, these are the organ and tissue. So that I think we might have a lot of agreement there. I would say with regard to maybe something we can talk through at some point is with regard to the matter of interpreting scripture.

26:52Gavin OrtlundI would say it is true, and actually it's a historic protestant

26:56Gavin Ortlundthat the church and I'm hearing some background noise again, so I don't know if anybody wants to I think it might be you, father Jonathan. The that's okay. No problem at all. I do hey. We all it keeps it lively. Right?

27:07Gavin OrtlundBut

27:08Gavin Ortlundthe so historic

27:10Gavin Ortlundpartisan emphasis is on the necessity of the church unto the word of god, including in so canonization,

27:17Gavin Ortlundpreserving

27:18Gavin Ortlundthe scriptures, preaching the scriptures, translating the scriptures, and interpreting the scriptures, all we would maintain

27:24Gavin Ortlundis that those interpretations

27:26Gavin Ortlundare not tantamount

27:28Gavin Ortlundto the scripture with respect to infallibility.

27:31Gavin OrtlundThey're revisable.

27:32Gavin OrtlundThey're fallible. They're not the speech of god.

27:35Gavin OrtlundAnd, you know, the the danger here is if you say they are the speech of god, if you say the church itself is infallible you know, the confession of Dysite says the church is not inferior to the scripture because she is likewise

27:48Gavin Ortlundinfallible.

27:49Gavin OrtlundAnd if we say that, then the concern is,

27:52Gavin Ortlundyou know,

27:54Gavin Ortlundwhat happens when you have something it's great when you have nicaea one,

27:57Gavin Ortlundbut then what happens when you have nicaea two? What happens when you have something that does need, in my opinion, to be reformed, to be revised, and you're yoked under it as a as an immovable,

28:08Gavin Ortlundverdict. So that is where

28:10Gavin Ortlundthe that's where I would locate the difference.

28:17LutherYeah. So,

28:20Lutheryeah, so if you wanna add on to that, father, you can. But I did want to ask in light of what,

28:27Lutherfather

28:27LutherI'm sorry. I said father. In light of what doctor Gavin shared earlier about, you know, pretty much whether sola scriptura is of divine inspiration or practical necessity.

28:40LutherCan you speak to the orthodox perspective why sola scriptura

28:44Lutheris

28:46Lutheruntenable?

28:47LutherLike, what makes sola scriptura untenable from the orthodox perspective? Yeah.

28:52Gavin OrtlundAnd I

28:52Lutherknow you kinda shared a little bit, but if you wanna

28:54Gavin OrtlundYeah.

28:55Stephen De YoungI can I can at least develop that a little bit more? So

29:01Stephen De Youngthere are a number of of issues that we would have

29:04Stephen De Youngwith it from an orthodox perspective, and I'll try to

29:07Stephen De Youngcondense this under a couple of headings.

29:10Stephen De YoungOne of them, I think, is that

29:15Stephen De Youngit moves

29:17Stephen De Youngthe authority from the holy spirit himself to the written text.

29:21Stephen De YoungNow, certainly,

29:23Stephen De YoungI I think doctor Ortlund would say the holy spirit's inspiration is the origin of the authority of the text, right, and and the authority that stands behind it.

29:31Stephen De YoungBut I think in in the orthodox tradition, we would want to very much

29:37Stephen De Youngkeep the holy spirit as that locus of authority.

29:41Stephen De YoungAnd

29:43Stephen De Youngin terms of a biblical basis for that, I think Saint Paul

29:48Stephen De Youngspeaking continuously about walking according to the spirit and even contrasting that with the letter

29:53Stephen De Youngas a way of contrasting

29:56Stephen De Youngthe way in which a Christian reads and keeps the commandments of the Torah with the way a non Christian Jewish person, specifically a pharisee, would try to keep the commandments of the Torah.

30:06Stephen De YoungThat he is

30:09Stephen De Youngsort of moving past the written text to the authority that still remains within the holy spirit who is who is god himself.

30:17Stephen De YoungI think one of the difficulties that I already mentioned then is judging between

30:23Stephen De Younginterpretations

30:24Stephen De Youngof

30:24Stephen De Youngof scripture

30:26Stephen De Youngif everything is revisable.

30:29Stephen De YoungRight? So I know doctor Ortlund doesn't or at least he he just said he doesn't wanna revise anything about Nicaea one.

30:37Stephen De YoungI know a person who identifies as a biblical Unitarian,

30:40Stephen De Youngwho identifies as a Protestant. Most Protestants would not accept him as a Protestant.

30:44Stephen De YoungBut

30:46Stephen De Youngwho wants to revise Nicaea one

30:49Stephen De Youngand wants to revise it based on his reading of the bible.

30:54Stephen De YoungAnd so

30:55Stephen De Youngwhile doctor Ortlund is located within

30:59Stephen De YoungProtestant

31:00Stephen De Younghistorical Protestant tradition that very much accepts and endorses the earlier councils and the later ones finds more problematic,

31:10Stephen De Youngthat division is based upon, again, a certain reading of scripture, which is appropriate if you're sola scriptura.

31:16Stephen De YoungBut from someone outside of those circles,

31:20Stephen De Youngwhat is the concrete difference between what my Unitarian friend is doing

31:26Stephen De Youngwith Nicaea one and what doctor Ortlund is doing with Nicaea two

31:30Stephen De Youngfrom someone who isn't

31:33Stephen De Younginvolved in the internal Protestant

31:35Stephen De Youngdiscussions?

31:37Stephen De YoungAnd I I think on a very practical level, and I don't mean this as a cheap shot, but I think

31:43Stephen De Youngwithin

31:44Stephen De YoungProtestantism

31:45Stephen De Youngin The United States and Europe,

31:48Stephen De Youngwe've seen certain people take semper reformata to an extreme of everything is always open to question. Everything is always revisable.

31:58Stephen De YoungIf I can frame some kind of scriptural argument,

32:01Stephen De Youngwe can ordain women. We can change our views on moral issues. We can we can do all these things.

32:10Stephen De YoungAnd so

32:12Stephen De YoungI I find

32:14Stephen De Youngand I know

32:15Stephen De Youngone reason why a lot of people are coming to the Orthodox Church now is because they find the idea that nothing is revisable very attractive.

32:24Stephen De YoungBecause even in the Roman Catholic church, now it seems like just about everything is revisable.

32:30Stephen De YoungBut in a worse way, because they don't even feel the need to make a scriptural argument, they can just have

32:35Stephen De Youngpeople in magisterial authority change their mind

32:38Stephen De Youngand

32:39Stephen De Youngissue something different and contradictory to previous statements

32:43Stephen De Youngby the magisterium.

32:48Stephen De YoungAnd

32:51Stephen De Youngso I I I accept and appreciate doctor Ortlund's

32:56Stephen De Youngclarification in terms of propositional revelation, and I and I think that's good. And

33:02Stephen De Youngand referencing Dutch people is a good way to come close to my heart. So

33:07Stephen De Youngthe whole Dutch idealist school.

33:09Stephen De YoungInterestingly,

33:11Stephen De Youngthis is just a a kind of a side, but Anthony in particular from that school

33:16Stephen De Youngargued for starting to use orthodox

33:19Stephen De YoungGreek

33:22Stephen De Youngtheological vocabulary

33:24Stephen De Youngto get away from the Latin vocabulary that he thought was sort of stifling

33:28Stephen De Youngdiscussions.

33:29Stephen De YoungRight? It's sort of framing everything in a Protestant versus Roman Catholic way.

33:36Stephen De YoungBut I I so there's there's still,

33:39Stephen De Youngthough or at least maybe this isn't quite the same issue.

33:44Stephen De YoungI frequently hear if we get very concrete about some traditional things that we believe

33:49Stephen De Youngin the Orthodox Church. Say the fact that we believe in the Orthodox Church

33:53Stephen De Youngthat after

33:55Stephen De Youngthe death of Christ's mother, the Theotokos,

33:58Stephen De Youngthat her body was taken up into heaven.

34:01Stephen De YoungWe haven't dogmatized this the way the Roman Catholics have, but this is something that we believe.

34:08Stephen De YoungFrequently,

34:09Stephen De Youngwhen I hear and, again,

34:11Stephen De YoungI I I

34:12Stephen De Youngawait doctor Ortlund's response to this in terms of how he feels about it. But frequently,

34:17Stephen De Youngwhen I hear that discussed, especially in Protestant versus

34:21Stephen De YoungRoman Catholic discussions or debates,

34:25Stephen De Youngthe question is all about, well, when do we have a text that says this?

34:29Stephen De YoungRight? It doesn't say this in scripture.

34:32Stephen De YoungWhen in history do we first get a text that says this?

34:37Stephen De YoungAnd

34:38Stephen De YoungI think that misses the fact that

34:42Stephen De Youngwe would say that it's something that happened,

34:45Stephen De Youngright, historically.

34:46Stephen De YoungSo the the origin of that belief for us as Orthodox Christians would be the fact that it happened

34:52Stephen De Youngand then that people remembered it.

34:56Stephen De YoungAnd at some point, someone wrote about it.

34:59Stephen De YoungAnd at some point, one of those things that someone wrote about it managed to survive to the present day. Right? We don't know how many things were written about it that didn't. There might have been people who opposed it. Who knows? Right? But

35:12Stephen De Youngwe we don't know. We just have what we have.

35:16Stephen De YoungAnd so

35:19Stephen De YoungI guess that we I wanna clarify

35:22Stephen De Youngthat,

35:25Stephen De Youngagain, this distinction that for us tradition is is

35:29Stephen De Youngbased on something that we believe happened,

35:31Stephen De Youngthat god did, that the spirit of god did.

35:37Stephen De YoungNot any of the

35:39Stephen De Youngplaces where it later got written down,

35:42Stephen De Youngright,

35:43Stephen De Youngwhich are not scripture,

35:45Stephen De Youngright, and do not have the and none of those writings

35:48Stephen De Younghave the authority of scripture

35:50Stephen De Youngor even authority within the church. So

35:53Stephen De Youngthat's a clear a related clarification,

35:56Stephen De YoungI think.

36:00Gavin OrtlundLuther, should I comment on those comments? Yeah. I was about to say different direction.

36:03LutherYeah. No. Doctor Gabbard, your

36:05Gavin Ortlundthoughts on that? Go ahead. Okay.

36:08Gavin OrtlundI

36:09Gavin Ortlundappreciate

36:11Gavin Ortlundstarting off with some of your earlier comments, father Steven, this emphasis upon we have that which is unrevisable,

36:17Gavin Ortlundand we need to be anchored upon that. I think, existentially, many of us, myself included,

36:22Gavin Ortlundfeel a deep longing in our hearts for this anchor,

36:26Gavin Ortlundamidst all the turbulence of the modern world.

36:29Gavin OrtlundIn principle, we'll agree on that that much, and we would say that unrevisable

36:35Gavin Ortlunddeposit,

36:37Gavin Ortlundwouldn't include ecumenical councils. So that would be where we would differ. We would say it's it's the deposit of faith and that,

36:45Gavin Ortlundwe look to the scripture as the supreme north star for how we locate that unrevisable body of teachings.

36:51Gavin OrtlundAnd then from distinguishing

36:52Gavin Ortlundamong the ecumenical councils,

36:55Gavin OrtlundNicaea one to Nicaea two, I would say

36:58Gavin Ortlundwe can do so, I would say, clearly on the basis of scripture and also the early church. I would say the deity of Christ versus icon veneration,

37:06Gavin Ortlundthese are very different in terms of

37:08Gavin OrtlundI mean, I I never wanna be insulting, but I would say there's it's resounding

37:12Gavin Ortlundin terms of the scriptural

37:15Gavin Ortlundattestation

37:16Gavin Ortlundto to different directions on those two different issues.

37:21Gavin OrtlundAnd I would say I I people really don't like this when I say this about Augustine,

37:26Gavin Ortlundbut I would say that even a a theologian of his great stature as Saint Augustine of Hippo, who wrote more on church

37:33Gavin Ortlundauthority

37:34Gavin Ortlundand tradition than all the other fathers combined, arguably, he wrote so much about it, I would say he's pretty clear and emphatic himself that the councils, even what he calls the plenary councils formed for the whole Christian world, can get it wrong and be corrected by a subsequent council.

37:50Gavin OrtlundSo I think that's a I think that's a reasonable view to say the deposit of faith is that unrevisable thing, and the councils aren't necessarily infallible or unrevisable.

37:58Gavin OrtlundOn Mary's assumption, I would say the big question is, did it happen?

38:02Gavin OrtlundAnd I I I appreciate,

38:03Gavin Ortlundyou know, the comments.

38:05Gavin OrtlundIt's

38:06Gavin Ortlundtrue that we shouldn't just say, well, when's the first text we have, and then that's the the this the the only way we are kind of measuring this.

38:15Gavin OrtlundI would say we need a holistic look at just

38:18Gavin Ortlundshould we accept this as true? And and I would say it's not just late attestation.

38:23Gavin OrtlundIn my videos on this, I've talked about its appearance first in heterodox contexts,

38:28Gavin Ortlundlike the book of Mary's repose. That's the first time it comes up, and it's in a gnostic text, which is extremely demeaning to Mary herself as a text, which we which offends all of us. Second of all, I would say it's the

38:39Gavin Ortlundnumerous counter testimonies.

38:41Gavin OrtlundPeople who are listing bodily assumptions to heaven, and it's always Enoch and Elijah to the tune of dozens of times in the first four centuries of the church, never once is Mary included in these references to all the people bodily assumed to heaven. It's

38:56Gavin Ortlundwhen you do start seeing it come up, it's referenced as a late development.

39:02Gavin OrtlundAnd the people epiphanius does his investigation and whatever people try to say, he affirmed it. I don't think he did. But even if he did, his objective findings of his research, of his search

39:11Gavin Ortlundabout it is no one knows her end.

39:13Gavin OrtlundSo it's it's what's positively portrayed in the historical data.

39:18Gavin OrtlundAnd I,

39:19Gavin Ortlundyou know, appreciate others have a different take, but just for my conscience while trying to follow Christ, I don't think I have a reason to say that dogma is true.

39:28Gavin OrtlundI don't think it did happen. I mean, you know, if someone says I should believe this and I should enter the one true church which holds this, I would just say, why? You know? I I don't see any evidence for it at all. It I would I would be

39:41Gavin Ortlundarbitrary

39:42Gavin Ortlundif I just did that. I would just be suspending my critical faculties of thought if I said, I think the bodily assumption of Mary did happen

39:50Gavin Ortlundbecause it it it because the the historical evidence for it is so it's almost the polar opposite of the resurrection of Christ where you have this, you know, independent multiple attestation within decades, and here it's the opposite end of the spectrum. So that that that's a concern is did it happen?

40:07Father JonathanWell, as we move on to our next

40:09Stephen De Youngjust briefly Can say what

40:10Father JonathanOh, yes. Of course. Go ahead, father.

40:12Stephen De YoungYeah.

40:13Stephen De YoungSo

40:15Stephen De Youngjust a couple quick thing. One, again, we have to always remember, the first thing we have is not necessarily the first appearance.

40:23Stephen De YoungRight? It's the first thing that survived to today.

40:27Stephen De YoungAnd in terms of things showing up in heterodox,

40:29Stephen De YoungI mean,

40:32Stephen De Youngthe first place where there's a division between the the sort of classical Protestant division between the ceremonial and civil and moral law

40:41Stephen De Youngis

40:42Stephen De Younga gnostic letter from the second century. Right? That that doesn't mean,

40:47Stephen De Youngyou know, Calvin doing that as a gnostic, obviously. Right? No no one sensible would say that. Right?

40:55Stephen De YoungBut

40:56Stephen De Youngand I just wanna clarify again. That is not a dogma for us. Right? We don't say that as a dogma. This is just something we believe happened. And for us, it's parallel to

41:06Stephen De YoungMoses' body being taken up into heaven, which is

41:09Stephen De Youngalluded to in the scriptures, right, by Saint Jude,

41:13Stephen De Youngbut it's not stated there, but

41:16Stephen De Youngwas around,

41:17Stephen De Youngyou know, clearly as a tradition in the second temple Jewish period and then

41:21Stephen De Youngis reflected there.

41:25Father JonathanOkay. Well, doctor Gavin, I'm gonna come back to you for for this question. And and

41:30Father JonathanI was going to begin by asking what what's the Protestant concern with with holy tradition? But let me elaborate on that question just very briefly.

41:39Father JonathanBecause

41:40Father Jonathanwhat what I hear you saying and what I hear a lot of other Protestants,

41:44Father Jonathanespecially Calvinists,

41:45Father Jonathansaying is that

41:47Father Jonathanand I know you might disagree with this particular statement. You you alluded to it in the first your first answer,

41:54Father Jonathanis that for you, sola scriptura doesn't necessarily

41:58Father Jonathanmean that it's

42:00Father Jonathanonly in the written text. I think you said something like that. Did I understand? Okay. That's what I thought I heard you say.

42:07Father JonathanAnd I'm not gonna hold it to you, but how do we take then

42:10Father Jonathanthe

42:11Father Jonathanthe written text,

42:14Father Jonathanwhich also does say, when Saint Paul says of the Thessalonians,

42:18Father Jonathanhold fast to the traditions which I have taught you, whether by word or by letter,

42:25Father Jonathanthereby

42:26Father Jonathansort of

42:28Father Jonathanblessing, if you would, the idea of oral tradition.

42:31Father JonathanWe know Saint Paul lived in certain cities for as much as three years. I think Ephesus was one of them. What did he teach these people in those three years? We we only have

42:40Father Jonathanone small letter from his time there.

42:43Father JonathanHow do we deal with Paul

42:45Father Jonathansaying to Timothy, Paul representing the first generation of Christians, Timothy, let's say, representing the second generation because of his youth and living longer than Paul did probably?

42:56Father JonathanWhat I have taught you and he's talking to him as an episcopal, as a as a bishop, not he's not saying this to an entire congregation.

43:03Father JonathanBut what I've taught you,

43:05Father Jonathanteach to others so that they can teach others. So we've got first, second, third, fourth generation kind of being represented there. And I've often asked Protestants,

43:13Father Jonathanwouldn't it be nice to know what that third and fourth generation were taught? Well, that's what the apostolic fathers are.

43:18Father JonathanSo if if there is in the New Testament this affirmation of oral tradition, and there is, and I would argue that there is, how do we deal with the Protestant concern?

43:29Father JonathanHow do we answer? How do we understand

43:31Father Jonathanthe Protestant concern of holy tradition?

43:35Gavin OrtlundOkay.

43:36Gavin OrtlundMake sure I'm I'm not on mute here. Okay. Yeah.

43:42Gavin OrtlundThe the concern here in response would be ambiguity about this word tradition. We would say that,

43:48Gavin Ortlundof course,

43:49Gavin Ortlundin the New Testament, you have oral traditions. Of course, this is during the era of public revelation while apostles are alive.

43:56Gavin OrtlundThey're writing to particular local churches,

43:59Gavin Ortlundthe the Thessalonians,

44:01Gavin Ortlundfor example,

44:02Gavin Ortlundand, you know, sola scriptura is not opposed to that. What it's saying is but but here we get into the ambiguity of the word tradition.

44:09Gavin OrtlundAnd what we're saying is after the apostles die,

44:12Gavin Ortlundonce scripture has,

44:13Gavin Ortlundno more scripture is being written, the apostles are all out of the picture, and the post

44:19Gavin Ortlundapostolic church is rumbling forward.

44:21Gavin OrtlundNow how do we function? Because we only have access to those apostolic traditions from that time by means of a fallible transmission process.

44:32Gavin OrtlundAnd when the earth so with the word tradition,

44:34Gavin Ortlundwhen early Christians like Irenaeus appeal to tradition,

44:38Gavin Ortlundthey're often referring to something very

44:41Gavin Ortlundmodest. They're they're not often talking about a a separate norm

44:46Gavin Ortlundsomething like this, but they're often talking about what is coinciding

44:49Gavin Ortlundwith the content of scripture.

44:51Gavin OrtlundAs you go forward, there are different uses of that word tradition. Martin Kemnitz lists eight,

44:58Gavin Ortlunduses of the word tradition as it's used in the church fathers, and he says only the eighth is the one that is at at odds with sola scriptura.

45:04Gavin OrtlundBasically,

45:05Gavin Ortlundto

45:06Gavin Ortlundkinda cut to the chase, what I would say is the concern from a Protestant, it would only be with traditions

45:12Gavin Ortlundthat don't have a plausible relationship

45:15Gavin Ortlundto apostolic teaching and yet are commanded to be received and venerated with with equal reverence as the scripture itself.

45:24Gavin OrtlundAnd the the concern here is with the telephone game, with the garbling of

45:30Gavin Ortlundthe

45:31Gavin Ortlundtransmission

45:32Gavin Ortlundof apostolic teaching. And, again, I as I mentioned this earlier, but as soon you're you're already in

45:38Gavin Ortlundyou're already getting this in the second century where you'll have these disputes come up, and each side will appeal to apostolic tradition to ground their view in the date of Easter

45:46Gavin Ortlundcontroversy.

45:47Gavin OrtlundThis gets very heated. You've got you know, the bishop of Rome is ready. He doesn't do this, but he's ready to excommunicate people over this dispute. Both sides are appealing to apostolic tradition for their view, and that's a relatively factual question. When did he strap in?

46:04Gavin OrtlundThe third century dispute about the rebaptism of those baptized by heretics, same thing. Both sides appealing to apostolic tradition.

46:11Gavin OrtlundIrenaeus,

46:12Gavin Ortlundhe appeals to apostolic tradition for some eccentric views that very few of us would accept today, like Jesus dying

46:18Gavin Ortlundas a middle aged man or however you parse that precisely.

46:22Gavin OrtlundSo we would say

46:24Gavin Ortlundthere's there's a difference between

46:27Gavin Ortlundwhat the apostles

46:29Gavin Ortlundthemselves taught

46:30Gavin Ortlundand that which is bequeathed to us two thousand years later through a very fallible transmission process.

46:38Gavin OrtlundAnd a sort of generic appeal to tradition,

46:41Gavin Ortlundit can become a kind of wax nose where we can just turn it to anything we want. It's very easy to make a claim of oral tradition just as the pharisees did with an oral law from Moses. But when we look at the actual things on the table, whether it's we talked about Mary's assumption for a second. I've mentioned icon veneration, and we've talked about Nicaea 2. I would just say,

47:02Gavin OrtlundI don't think this

47:03Gavin Ortlundthe the claim at Nicaea 2 is also this is apostolic.

47:07Gavin OrtlundThe claim is, you know, we follow Paul and the whole apostolic company.

47:11Gavin OrtlundWe add or subtract nothing from the church. We follow the ancient legislation of the church.

47:16Gavin OrtlundThe iconoclasts

47:17Gavin Ortlundare the intrusive innovators rejecting

47:20Gavin Ortlundthis tradition,

47:21Gavin Ortlundand yet

47:24Gavin Ortlundwe just wanna follow our conscience because I just, with all my heart, don't believe that was an apostolic tradition. I don't think the apostles did bow down before images and pray through them as a window to heaven. I think that's very manifestly a later

47:37Gavin Ortlundinnovation.

47:38Gavin OrtlundSo,

47:39Gavin Ortlundthis is the concern, that things get smuggled in

47:42Gavin Ortlundunder the label of tradition because that word is defined in different ways.

47:46Gavin OrtlundThere's fallibility

47:48Gavin Ortlundin the process of how,

47:50Gavin Ortlundtradition is transmitted.

47:52Gavin OrtlundThe scriptures give come to us. There there's no major dogmas at stake in the in the issues of textual criticism.

48:00Gavin OrtlundThey have a more of a fixity to them. So that's why we want to look to them as the North Star.

48:06LutherDoctor Gabby, you said a lot of important things. Father Steven De Young, your thoughts.

48:13Stephen De YoungWell, I think

48:15Stephen De Youngthere's

48:16Stephen De Youngan issue here in terms of

48:20Stephen De Youngphenomenology,

48:21Stephen De Youngbasically.

48:23Stephen De YoungNot the scriptures themselves, which, again, I agree about the scriptures themselves,

48:27Stephen De Youngbut

48:28Stephen De Youngthe fact that we only have access to the scriptures by our act of reading them

48:36Stephen De Youngand then interpreting them.

48:38Stephen De YoungAnd that's where the fallibility enters in. The fallibility is not with the scriptures. The fallibility is with our reading and interpreting and applying them, especially when we're doing it,

48:49Stephen De Youngright, as as individuals.

48:52Stephen De YoungAnd so

48:54Stephen De Youngand I think that is that fallibility is sufficient

48:58Stephen De Youngthat we effectively end up in the same situation that doctor Ortlund described regarding

49:04Stephen De Youngregarding holy tradition,

49:06Stephen De Youngright, in the sense that

49:10Stephen De Youngsomeone, yes, can misinterpret and claim something as tradition. Someone could take something that the church does

49:15Stephen De Youngand say, oh, well, this is why we do it, or this is what that means. It'd be completely wrong.

49:21Stephen De YoungRight?

49:21Stephen De YoungCompletely wrong. But someone could also read a passage of scripture and interpret it completely wrong.

49:28Stephen De YoungRight?

49:29Stephen De YoungAnd groups and and, of course,

49:31Stephen De Younganyone sola scriptura has to accept that because they could point at, if not other Protestant denominations, they could point at the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses. Right? Any number of other groups that are clearly sort of outside Protestantism and outside Christianity

49:46Stephen De Youngthat nonetheless make claims that,

49:49Stephen De Youngoh, well, we're getting this from the bible or that from from the bible. So that's certainly possible. Right?

49:57Stephen De YoungBut I would also say, and this is something I've said about sola scriptura before.

50:02Stephen De YoungSola scriptura,

50:03Stephen De YoungI think, arose when it did in the sixteenth century in the reformation

50:07Stephen De Youngbecause it was serving a very practical purpose. Right? It was doing work for the reformers

50:13Stephen De Youngbecause in their concrete historical situation in the sixteenth century,

50:17Stephen De Youngyou had falsified documents from church history that the Roman Catholic church was using to support its claims. You had falsified

50:25Stephen De Youngand just generally falsely attributed

50:28Stephen De Youngworks from church fathers that were being used to support papal claims.

50:33Stephen De YoungAnd so when the reformers say, look.

50:36Stephen De YoungThis Hebrew

50:38Stephen De Youngtext of the old testament from the local synagogue,

50:41Stephen De Youngwe know Rome hasn't gotten their hands on it. Right? We know this goes all the way back. Right?

50:47Stephen De YoungAnd

50:47Stephen De Youngthis Greek New Testament,

50:49Stephen De Youngright, that Erasmus is now published, at least the parts that the church didn't meddle with, the Roman Catholic church didn't meddle with,

50:55Stephen De Youngright, that we got from the Byzantines fleeing

50:58Stephen De YoungConstantinople

50:59Stephen De Youngas it fell. We know Rome didn't have their hands on this either. Right? So we know this

51:05Stephen De Younggoes back to the because the old testament even before the apostolic era.

51:09Stephen De YoungWe know this hasn't been tampered with. We know we can trust this. We need to base things on this. That makes eminent sense.

51:16Stephen De YoungIt makes eminent practical

51:19Stephen De Youngsense in in that milieu.

51:23Stephen De YoungPart of, I think, the issue, though, is that

51:26Stephen De Youngwe're not in that same situation now.

51:29Stephen De YoungRight? So

51:31Stephen De Youngeven if we wanna talk about iconography,

51:33Stephen De Youngwe now have

51:36Stephen De Youngarchaeologically recovered first century synagogues in Galilee, some of the ones that Christ went and preached in, right, according to the scriptures,

51:45Stephen De Youngright, that have iconography.

51:48Stephen De YoungRight? Whereas John Calvin will say, there weren't any icons before the fifth century. We now know that's just not true. He didn't know he couldn't know any better. Right? He was working on what he had, but we now know that's not true.

52:01Stephen De YoungWe now have

52:02Stephen De Youngwe now know

52:04Stephen De Youngand are able to assess which of these documents from church history were were falsifications and which weren't,

52:10Stephen De Youngwhich texts actually go back to the fathers and which are phony.

52:14Stephen De YoungRight?

52:16Stephen De YoungWe have a much better picture of what apostolic Christianity

52:20Stephen De Youngwhat second temple Judaism,

52:22Stephen De Youngespecially now that we have the Dead Sea Scrolls,

52:24Stephen De Youngwe have a much better historical understanding now. And so I think

52:29Stephen De Youngand and I think doctor Ortlund appreciates this to some extent because he very frequently makes historical arguments based on these things we know now, right, in in favor of his positions.

52:40Stephen De YoungAnd I think we have to allow the context and these things we know

52:45Stephen De Youngcondition not the scriptures,

52:48Stephen De Youngbut our interpretations of them.

52:50Stephen De YoungRight?

52:51Stephen De YoungOur interpretations of them.

52:55LutherThat's good. That's good.

52:58LutherI keep

53:00Luthersaying doc

53:01Lutherdoctor

53:02LutherGavin.

53:03LutherForgive me, doctor Gavin. It just it flows out so naturally.

53:07Gavin OrtlundI got five kids, so it's

53:10LutherYou're not my father, though.

53:13LutherYou're my friend.

53:14LutherBut, doctor Gavin, if, if you may, you could you could add a thought to what father Steven Young if not, I do have a final question for you both.

53:22Gavin OrtlundOkay. Just briefly, I think father Steven is totally fair to point out what is the role a a genuine weakness in the Protestant world, and that's the proliferation

53:32Gavin Ortlundof

53:34Gavin Ortlunddivision.

53:35Gavin OrtlundThough that that is often exaggerated, but it is still a very real problem in differing interpretations of scripture.

53:42Gavin OrtlundBut I would say, though, that is different from the point I was bringing up because we do not claim infallibility

53:47Gavin Ortlundfor our interpretations.

53:48Gavin OrtlundSo it's not a falsification

53:50Gavin Ortlundof our system.

53:51Gavin OrtlundWhereas,

53:52Gavin Ortlundappeal to apostolic tradition, that can be the case there depending on how that appeal is made. It depends on the details. But I just wanna make one quick clarification and maybe just maybe just gesture toward this, but not develop it, and we can return to it if we want. That's

54:06Gavin Ortlundthe issue with

54:08Gavin Ortlundicons is not the presence of religious art in buildings or on the catacombs tombs

54:14Gavin Ortlundor on, you know, engravings on furniture, anything like that. That's all,

54:19Gavin Ortlundnot the issue. The issue is veneration of those

54:22Gavin Ortlundimages.

54:23Gavin OrtlundAnd so that, you know, that would be the specific theology

54:27Gavin Ortlundthat is required

54:28Gavin Ortlundand upon which anathemas are given at Nicaea 2, praying through the,

54:33Gavin Ortlundicon as a window to heaven, a theology of figural representation. What's given to the image passes through it to the prototype. K. That practice

54:41Gavin Ortlundis the target there that that then we will need to get into in terms of the historical data for that. I'm firmly persuaded there isn't a historical case for that. I just don't I think it's I think it's clear that that is a late accretion

54:53Gavin Ortlundslowly coming in late in the patristic era. But I know we'll have differences on that, but I just wanted to flag kind of that's where we're we'll need to kind of probe that issue.

55:04LutherYeah. For sure.

55:07LutherWell,

55:08Lutherfather Steven, yeah, I don't know if you wanna later,

55:11Lutheraddress that more so in the conversation time that you guys have.

55:15LutherOkay. We'll leave that there.

55:16LutherI'll just leave you guys with this final question before we go to that that conversational time between you two uninterrupted.

55:23LutherSo I know a lot of times, like and you had a really cool six minute video on sola scriptura,

55:30Lutheryou know, you know, a little,

55:33Lutherbut I think

55:34Lutherone thing that is more, you know, highlighted today more so from, you know, the historic Protestant position is we're we're we're just basically saying that it's the only infallible authority.

55:46LutherSo the question that kinda have for you both is,

55:49Lutheris there

55:50Lutherany infallible authorities

55:52Lutheroutside of scripture?

55:54LutherAnd I know dev doctor Gavin's

55:57Lutherview on that, but,

55:59Lutherfather Steven Young, I don't know if you wanna

56:03Stephen De YoungYeah. I'll go first, and then and then he can respond.

56:06Stephen De YoungYou know?

56:07Stephen De YoungBecause I'm pretty sure he could just do a no.

56:11Stephen De YoungNo. So

56:16Stephen De Youngfrom my perspective, I think from the orthodox perspective,

56:20Stephen De Youngthe framing of the question needs to be shifted a little in the sense that Mhmm.

56:25Stephen De YoungAgain, for me, the locus of the infallible authority is the holy spirit, is is god himself.

56:31Stephen De YoungRight? That is the locus.

56:34Stephen De YoungThere is nothing outside of scripture that is scripture. We would agree on that, obviously. Right?

56:41Stephen De YoungBut

56:43Stephen De Youngthe if the infallible

56:45Stephen De Youngthe is with the holy spirit,

56:47Stephen De Youngthen

56:48Stephen De Youngthat authority is carried by wherever

56:51Stephen De Youngthe holy spirit is working.

56:53Stephen De YoungMhmm. Right? And that includes and is preeminently the scriptures,

56:58Stephen De Youngbut

56:58Stephen De Youngwhere the holy spirit

57:00Stephen De Youngis working. And the way we verify

57:03Stephen De Youngthat is

57:04Stephen De Youngthe collective church, right, verifies that.

57:08Stephen De YoungRight? I may think

57:10Stephen De Youngwhen I get up and give my Sunday homily, I may think, oh, you know, I am I am speaking the words of, right, the holy spirit, and I may be maybe horribly spiritually deluded.

57:22Stephen De YoungRight? That's I'm not in the practice. I've I've sometimes heard

57:26Stephen De Youngevangelical pastors get up and say, oh, the holy spirit put this on my heart to say to you.

57:31Stephen De YoungAnd then they'll say something about the Greek that is completely wrong. And I'm like, you know, they used to stone people to death for that in the old testament. Right? I I wouldn't go there.

57:41Stephen De YoungI do not do that. Right? So but

57:45Stephen De Youngand

57:45Gavin Ortlundthat's

57:45Stephen De Youngthe check. Right? So I I think

57:49Stephen De Youngwhen I'm reading the scriptures, right, and I pray that the holy spirit will guide me, right, to see the truth,

57:55Stephen De Younghow I find out if that happened is

57:59Stephen De Youngin consultation with the rest of the church.

58:02Stephen De YoungAnd if the conclusion I come to is,

58:05Stephen De Youngwow. The ecumenical councils are wrong,

58:10Stephen De YoungI feel like I have to humbly accept that maybe the holy spirit is not guiding me to that conclusion,

58:16Stephen De Youngthat maybe I'm getting it wrong.

58:21Stephen De YoungAnd and

58:22Stephen De Youngso that that is sort of then the the the check on it. Right? That is the check on that authority. But wherever

58:29Stephen De Younggod acts, obviously, this is a tautology. Right? Wherever god acts, he acts perfectly and infallibly.

58:36Stephen De YoungIt's the recognition of that

58:38Stephen De Youngwhere there can be some subjectivity.

58:40Stephen De YoungAnd I think the the recognition of that happens

58:44Stephen De Youngthrough the church because

58:46Stephen De Younga text by itself can't do that. Someone has to be reading and applying the text and comparing their reading and interpretation to another.

58:54Stephen De YoungRight?

58:57LutherGreat. That's good.

59:00Gavin OrtlundLet me just start by saying kind of a parenthetical comment. I'm just stating my appreciation for our our dialogue right now. I actually find it really fruitful and interesting when Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Christians talk.

59:11Gavin OrtlundI'm I more commonly do dialogues with Roman Catholics, not because I choose to, but I think there's just probably more

59:18Gavin Ortlundopportunity for that that comes my way.

59:20Gavin OrtlundI'd I'd really like to do a lot more with some of the other eastern traditions, but,

59:25Gavin OrtlundI think these are really great conversations, and I have great respect for father Steven. So this I just I didn't say at the beginning. I just want to be really clear about that. I'm really honored to be having this conversation.

59:35Gavin OrtlundJust, some comments on this. I mean, I some areas maybe where you could find some levels of agreement.

59:41Gavin OrtlundI would say the holy spirit works in different ways

59:44Gavin Ortlundin our individual lives and in the corporate life.

59:48Gavin OrtlundAnd so, there are lots of ways that the holy spirit is at work, both individually and corporately in the church, that don't yield

59:56Gavin Ortlundinfallibility.

59:57Gavin OrtlundIn our in my tradition, the reformed tradition, we speak of sermons as the word of god, and we say the holy spirit is speaking through the preacher.

1:00:05Gavin OrtlundBut we don't mean it's the inspired word of god. Every word is carried. It's infallible.

1:00:10Gavin OrtlundThis is a more general work of the holy spirit that doesn't is not serving as the guarantor of that specific result as we when we think of, like, scripture and something like that.

1:00:20Gavin OrtlundWhen it comes to the holy spirit's work in the church generally,

1:00:23Gavin OrtlundI can certainly understand the the concern here in some Protestants,

1:00:27Gavin Ortlundnot not the best represent

1:00:29Gavin Ortlundof our tradition, but some Protestants act in a highly individualistic

1:00:32Gavin Ortlundway with respect to the holy spirit's work in the church. And so it it is like, you know, well, who cares what what church history says or who cares what the broader church says and that kind of thing.

1:00:43Gavin OrtlundThat really isn't my heart at all when it comes to something like Nicaea two. I would say I'm agreeing with some of the other councils at that time, Hieria, to some extent, the council of Hieria, but even more so in the West, the council of Frankfurt.

1:00:57Gavin OrtlundAnd I think the holy spirit's at work in the council of Frankfurt as well,

1:01:01Gavin Ortlundfrom my vantage point. And I would say the difference between Frankfurt and Nicaea 2

1:01:05Gavin Ortlundis

1:01:07Gavin Ortlunda lot of politics, I would say. That's a huge factor in that. The difference between Hieria and Nicaea 2 is a lot of politics.

1:01:13Gavin OrtlundEmpress Irene

1:01:15Gavin Ortlundwants to do something, and she does it. And that's, that doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, but it's the point is it's not like we Protestants are coming along and saying, well, who cares what the whole church does?

1:01:27Gavin OrtlundNo. I mean, we call Nicaea too an ecumenical council as a technical term that kinda follows

1:01:35Gavin Ortlundthe the custom of usage and what came to be recognized as such. But at the time, it was extremely

1:01:42Gavin Ortlundpolitical,

1:01:43Gavin Ortlundbitterly,

1:01:44Gavin Ortlundmilitant,

1:01:47Gavin Ortlundjust

1:01:49Gavin Ortlundas grisly as people can imagine. If they look into the history of what both sides okay. This is everybody. This is not one side or the other. What both sides are doing and the torture and mutilation of the bishops and monks on the other side

1:02:01Gavin Ortlundis brutal. And so

1:02:04Gavin Ortlundwhatever we make of that,

1:02:06Gavin Ortlundit's not the Protestant position that we sort of reject the Holy Spirit's work in the church generally.

1:02:10Gavin OrtlundWhat rather, what we're saying is,

1:02:13Gavin Ortlundwhere is that work of the Holy Spirit that is guaranteed to be infallible?

1:02:19Gavin OrtlundAnd so I'll close those comments there. I have a guy coming to my house, and I'm so sorry about this, but I might need to go unlock the door and let him in.

1:02:26Gavin OrtlundAnd I'll be back in about thirty seconds, and then I gotta run up two flights of stairs

1:02:30LutherDuh.

1:02:30Gavin OrtlundOut out of breath when I come back too. I really apologize, guys. No.

1:02:34LutherIt's totally fine.

1:02:34Gavin OrtlundGive me ninety seconds, and I'll be right back.

1:02:38LutherGo. That's you got it.

1:02:40Father JonathanGood. This is very this is a very interesting conversation to me because there are an awful lot of things being said here that need that that that we need to go back and reexamine. And I just wanna let all our

1:02:52Gavin OrtlundHe he got let in on his own, so I'm good.

1:02:54LutherWell, that

1:02:54Gavin Ortlundwas quick. Okay.

1:02:55Father JonathanI just wanna let all our viewers know that

1:02:58Father JonathanThe Transfigured Life's next episode in two weeks is gonna be just Luther and I going back over this discussion and giving

1:03:06Father Jonathanour own analysis

1:03:07Father Jonathanour own expert interpretation and analysis of things being said and so forth. And, I hope you'll all look forward to that because there's a lot of commentary that we can't provide right now because we wanna keep this session moving forward. But we are gonna go back and and revisit some of the things, a lot of the things that are being said and discussed here. And so we'll be doing that in two weeks. So

1:03:28Father Jonathana lot of fun.

1:03:29LutherIt's a lot of fun.

1:03:30Father JonathanIt's gonna be a lot of fun. So we

1:03:33Father Jonathanwant to move now from a kind of a q and a that's been going back and forth to

1:03:39Father Jonathanand and thirty minutes of open discussion. The the the floor is open to both scholars to have a a charitable discussion and understanding concerning

1:03:47Father Jonathanthe Protestant and Orthodox approaches to the rule of faith.

1:03:52Father JonathanSo we

1:03:53Father Jonathanwe've spoken of a lot of things. This may be an opportunity to go back and revisit some of that or to bring up anything else or new items that contribute to this discussion about

1:04:04Father Jonathansola scriptura,

1:04:06Father Jonathanholy tradition, and the Protestant and Orthodox views

1:04:09Father Jonathanof each.

1:04:11Father JonathanSo

1:04:13Father JonathanYeah. Well,

1:04:13Gavin Ortlundthat's the

1:04:14Lutherinerrancy the inerrancy of scripture, you know, presuppositional,

1:04:18Lutherthe camp, whatever you guys wanna or stuff that you guys mentioned before,

1:04:22Lutheryou guys have the next half an hour. And, father, do you father Jonathan, you want us to just remove ourselves from the background, let them do their thing?

1:04:29Father JonathanYeah. We're gonna we're gonna remove ourselves from the background, and we want the these two fine educated gentlemen to

1:04:35Father Jonathanbe able to go right at it. So

1:04:39Father Jonathanfather Steven, I'll I'll give the floor over to you first, and let's let's do that.

1:04:44Father JonathanSure.

1:04:47Stephen De YoungWhat

1:04:48Stephen De Youngto pick up on first? So

1:04:53Stephen De Youngmaybe kind of where we where we

1:04:56Stephen De Youngwhere we just left off. I I think it's important in terms of ecumenical councils because you point to sort of the historical

1:05:02Stephen De Youngthe ugly, messy

1:05:04Stephen De Younghistorical realities.

1:05:06Stephen De YoungRight? I don't like the seventh.

1:05:07Stephen De YoungMany,

1:05:08Stephen De YoungI mean,

1:05:09Stephen De YoungChalcedon,

1:05:10Stephen De Youngif you ask any

1:05:12Stephen De Youngnon Chalcedonian

1:05:13Stephen De Younggroup, they're gonna they have a lot of mess they'll talk to you about there too

1:05:19Stephen De Youngbehind those those decisions. It's very important, though, that that

1:05:24Stephen De Youngwhat has authority in the Orthodox Church

1:05:27Stephen De Youngis not, quote, unquote, what really happened or a historical reconstruction of what was going on on the ground.

1:05:34Stephen De YoungBut what is authoritative is

1:05:37Stephen De Younghow that council was received

1:05:40Stephen De Youngby the church,

1:05:42Stephen De Youngwhich, again, we believe was guided by the holy spirit.

1:05:47Stephen De YoungSo that

1:05:49Stephen De Youngthis

1:05:50Stephen De Youngis an internal thing. There there are certain revisionists

1:05:53Stephen De Youngout on the sort of

1:05:55Stephen De Youngliberal fringe of of orthodoxy, for example, who wanna promote universalism.

1:06:01Stephen De YoungAnd so they wanna kind of relitigate the Fifth Ecumenical Council. Well, was Origen really condemned? Was universe really

1:06:08Stephen De YoungAnd the question is sort of irrelevant from an orthodox perspective because the way that council was received by the church was

1:06:15Stephen De Youngas a condemnation of universalism,

1:06:17Stephen De Younga condemnation of originism.

1:06:19Stephen De YoungAnd and that is sort of

1:06:22Stephen De Youngwhat has the authority. And I would compare that to a lot of modernist, you know, our nineteenth century German friends when they try to read, especially the Old Testament,

1:06:31Stephen De Youngand try and do these reconstructions of what really happened.

1:06:35Stephen De YoungThat's not authoritative.

1:06:37Stephen De YoungThe text is authoritative. The way the text of scripture records those events is authoritative,

1:06:42Stephen De Youngnot what you think actually,

1:06:44Stephen De Youngright, might have happened.

1:06:46Stephen De YoungMhmm.

1:06:46Stephen De YoungSo that's a clarification, I guess, on that and how that functions.

1:06:50Stephen De YoungRight?

1:06:52Stephen De YoungYeah. And and

1:06:53Stephen De Youngone little note on Frankfurt.

1:06:56Stephen De YoungEucharistic adoration also emerged from Frankfurt, which is, I think, something you and I would both have a problem with

1:07:02Stephen De Youngin the Roman Catholic church.

1:07:04Stephen De YoungRight? So

1:07:07Stephen De Youngas a Protestant, I would not be quick to

1:07:12Stephen De Youngendorse Frankfurt very fully.

1:07:16Gavin OrtlundYeah. Well, I mean, sometimes when I will point out a historical fact like this, people will say this of, like you know, I'll I'll point out something that Augustine taught that's an undercutting

1:07:25Gavin Ortlundclaim to the opposing side arguing from the consensus of the fathers as though Augustine is ours.

1:07:32Gavin OrtlundHe's our father, not yours, and I'm opposing that. And then people say, oh,

1:07:36Gavin Ortlundwhat are you saying? Augustine was a Protestant? You know? And and that's I don't approach history like that as though whether it's the council of Frankfurt or Augustine or anything is sort of neatly on one side of the polemics that we face today.

1:07:49Gavin OrtlundThese historical realities are are messier, and a lot of times, they're frankly, they're gonna challenge all of us. A lot of times, an

1:08:01Gavin Ortlundfor

1:08:03Gavin Ortlundevery single and every single Christian that is alive today. So I'm not trying to appeal to Frankfurt as a as infallible or wholesale agreement or that kind of thing, but I'm just trying to point out. I mean and and I wanna agree with your point about violence too. I'm not saying Nicaea two is wrong because it was there was politics and violence involved or something like that. That that's true for lots of councils. That doesn't really determine it fully, though it's good to know. But the more more the point there is it's not me versus the whole church. Rather, you have this seesaw power struggle back and forth between these two parties going on for hundreds of years, and it actually in the West is a long time before Nicaea too kind of fully is embraced everywhere.

1:08:39Gavin OrtlundSo that was more the the general point there. I'd be curious to know, how do you know the Holy Spirit,

1:08:46Gavin Ortlundis guiding the church such that

1:08:49Gavin OrtlundNicaea two is right and Frankfurt is wrong?

1:08:53Gavin OrtlundHow do we know this?

1:08:55Gavin OrtlundYou know,

1:08:56Gavin Ortlundwhat what what is the specific grounding for that confidence? Why couldn't it be the case

1:09:02Gavin Ortlundthat just as all throughout the Old Testament, you have

1:09:05Gavin Ortlundidolatry creeping in. Just as throughout church history, we've got lots of erroneous councils. You know, we've we've talked about. We've got for every good council, there's a robber council. I would say there's some mixed councils. You know? The councils are are tough to adjudicate.

1:09:19Gavin OrtlundHow do you know? What's the confidence to know for sure that Nicaea two didn't get it wrong and and wasn't an intrusion into the life of the church?

1:09:28Gavin OrtlundIt seems to me to be a little bit of an arbitrary judgment. I mean, it it's not like Nicaea it's not like Nicaea two had more bishops at it. It's not like it was less

1:09:39Gavin Ortlundcontroversial.

1:09:41Gavin OrtlundIt seems to me to be an after the fact judgment that could just in fact, I would say it looks to me like it could have so easily gone the other way. You know, if empress Irene hadn't come into power,

1:09:52Gavin OrtlundI really,

1:09:54Gavin Ortlundit it all looked like it was going towards the iconoclast side in the decades leading up to that.

1:10:00Gavin OrtlundSo,

1:10:01Gavin OrtlundI I I'm curious about where you find that confidence to know for sure that's the holy spirit's guidance rather than an innovation.

1:10:08Stephen De YoungYeah.

1:10:10Stephen De YoungSo first,

1:10:12Stephen De Youngmost of the things you just said about Nicaea two, you could say about Nicaea one.

1:10:17Stephen De YoungThe Arian's looked ascended in the decades leading up to it. Mhmm. And

1:10:22Stephen De Youngcould've I mean, the the the the the personal chaplain to

1:10:27Stephen De YoungSaint Constantine was an Arian.

1:10:29Stephen De YoungAnd,

1:10:30Stephen De Youngyou know, and so

1:10:33Stephen De Youngcould very easily have have gone the other way. But, I mean, ultimately, the answer to that question

1:10:39Stephen De Youngfrom an orthodox perspective is the last twelve hundred years of history

1:10:44Stephen De Youngin which those findings have been affirmed

1:10:47Stephen De Youngand reaffirmed and reaffirmed

1:10:49Stephen De Youngnot just by other councils, but in practice

1:10:53Stephen De Youngby

1:10:54Stephen De Youngwhat we perceive to be the whole church. And for us, that's a reflection of what Christ meant when he said,

1:11:01Stephen De YoungI will send you the holy spirit, and he will lead you, plural,

1:11:05Stephen De Younginto all truth.

1:11:07Stephen De YoungRight. That that that

1:11:10Stephen De Youngis an expression of that guidance. So, yeah, I it requires time.

1:11:14Stephen De YoungWe we can't do anything quickly in the orthodox church.

1:11:18Stephen De YoungOne last little note on Frankfurt, and and then back to you. It's not just that, oh, there was this thing you agree with Frankfurt said and a thing you disagree with. Those were part and parcel of each other.

1:11:30Stephen De YoungThe the primary theological argument that was being made by the Franks on this was that

1:11:36Stephen De Youngiconography

1:11:37Stephen De Youngcould not function that way,

1:11:40Stephen De Youngthe way that Nicaea

1:11:41Stephen De Youngtwo claimed it did because

1:11:45Stephen De Youngicons were not homoousios

1:11:47Stephen De Youngwith

1:11:49Stephen De Youngwhat they represented.

1:11:51Stephen De YoungThey said the Eucharist

1:11:52Stephen De Youngwas homoousios

1:11:54Stephen De Youngwith Christ after being consecrated,

1:11:57Stephen De Youngand therefore,

1:11:58Stephen De Youngthat was used to justify eucharistic adoration. At the time, they just said the eucharist is the only true icon,

1:12:05Stephen De Youngwhich, again,

1:12:07Stephen De YoungI would have a problem with. I think you would have a problem with.

1:12:10Stephen De YoungThat's

1:12:11Stephen De Youngand then that led to eucharistic adoration.

1:12:14Stephen De YoungAnd so

1:12:17Stephen De Youngmy comment was not just, well, there's other things that council said you disagree with, but

1:12:21Stephen De Youngthere's bad theology at work, right, under undergirding

1:12:25Stephen De Youngthose those decisions.

1:12:28Gavin OrtlundI'm more familiar with that argument coming out of the Council of Hieria than Frankfurt, which is why I prioritize

1:12:34Gavin OrtlundFrankfurt. When I when I read the Frankish theologians, I mean, if I'm not actually I can't remember. Maybe there's things there that I am not familiar with. My awareness is their arguments were primarily

1:12:47Gavin Ortlundon historical grounds,

1:12:48Gavin Ortlundon,

1:12:50Gavin Ortlundother theological grounds. I mean, they're saying, you know, that the they're basically just going on and on about the count Nicaea two's use of scripture and just the the mangling of scripture. They're pointing out a lot of the historical

1:13:03Gavin Ortlundfalsities,

1:13:04Gavin Ortlundyou know, attributing things to Basel that Basel didn't actually say at Nicaea two. The Frankish

1:13:09Gavin Ortlundconcern with the East, I think, was far more

1:13:13Gavin Ortlundto

1:13:14Gavin Ortlundthe extent that Eucharistic theology would come in, I would see that as just one small piece of the pie. And I'm actually so I I I I feel more in line with the council of Frankfurt

1:13:25Gavin Ortlundthan than,

1:13:27Gavin OrtlundI think,

1:13:28Gavin Ortlundagainst it, but maybe there's other things there we need to parse. But I guess on on the broader question, if you said, okay. We know Nicaea two is correct because of the subsequent twelve hundred years and and the time and so forth, doesn't this make the church a law unto herself

1:13:43Gavin Ortlundwhere because it's not all Christians who affirm the Nicene Creed who agree with Nicea two. Like I said, it's in the 11 hundreds, and you've still got significant

1:13:52Gavin Ortlundopposition to Nicea two in places like Western Europe. So,

1:13:56Gavin Ortlundyou know,

1:13:57Gavin Ortlundbasically, that sounds to me like it's making the church a law unto herself in that, basically, if we agree on something and our our church agrees on something and then it just persists over time, we know that's right. I still don't see why we have confidence to know that. Think of in the old testament. Idolatry comes in among the people of God and it persists for long periods of time. I to to me, that's a a flimsy basis for having a guarantee that something is correct or pious or true.

1:14:25Gavin OrtlundI'm I'm curious what you think of that.

1:14:27Stephen De YoungWell,

1:14:29Stephen De YoungI mean, clearly and and this is something I think we agree about. If something is a clear violation of scripture because, again,

1:14:36Stephen De YoungI'm not trying to relive relativize scripture's authority in any way. Right? We agree about that. And so, for example, idolatry comes and persists, but is a gross violation of the Torah.

1:14:49Stephen De YoungRight? And so, I mean, I think that's part of the core difference here is I think you see

1:14:55Stephen De Youngthe veneration of icons as a gross violation of the scriptures that I do not. Right? So I see this as something that is not only persisted, but something that has persisted,

1:15:05Stephen De Youngwhich

1:15:06Stephen De Youngis consummate with

1:15:08Stephen De Youngthe theological position of Nicaea one, for example.

1:15:12Stephen De YoungAnd we can get into that. That that that the

1:15:16Stephen De Youngtheology surrounding icons is based on

1:15:20Stephen De Youngtheology that went into the formulation of the doctrine of the trinity.

1:15:25Stephen De YoungAnd I think that all of that is is concept of scripture. So it's something that is concept of scripture

1:15:31Stephen De Youngcomes into the church and persists.

1:15:33Stephen De YoungRight, then

1:15:35Stephen De YoungI think we could say this is this is the guidance of the holy of the holy spirit.

1:15:41Gavin OrtlundYeah. I'd

1:15:43Gavin Ortlundbe curious to ask about kind of for for me, when I study the issue of icon veneration,

1:15:48Gavin OrtlundI read through the anathema has given it, and I see it too, and they're making certain historical claims. So they're claiming I mentioned before, they're talking about a practice,

1:15:57Gavin Ortlundkissing,

1:15:58Gavin Ortlundlighting candles,

1:15:59Gavin Ortlunddeep kneeling and bowing. The theology

1:16:02Gavin Ortlundfor surrounding this practice is very specifically laid out as figural representation.

1:16:07Gavin OrtlundWhat is given to the image passes through to the prototype.

1:16:10Gavin OrtlundSo there's a very specific,

1:16:12Gavin Ortlundtheology and then a a claim of history surrounding that theology.

1:16:15Gavin OrtlundAnd, when I study the early church,

1:16:19Gavin OrtlundI would say,

1:16:21Gavin Ortlundyou know, you mentioned, like, a a gross violation of the Torah. I mean, I wouldn't be necessary to go that far with that language.

1:16:28Gavin OrtlundAll that would be necessary for my concern would be to dispute those historical claims of Nicaea two.

1:16:34Gavin OrtlundAnd and I would simply say, you know, look. If something's infallible, it's not gonna be wrong, but this looks wrong. I I just am really persuaded that the you know, I I go through the the anti Nicene period about what Christians taught about this, and you

1:16:48Gavin OrtlundI just lay out the evidence, and I I look at it all, and it's overwhelming to me. And and then, you know, the responses are saying, well, they they weren't condemning

1:16:56Gavin Ortlundcultic use of icons as such. They were just condemning the pagan practice. And I'm like, man, that's not what they're saying. They're all these early Christians

1:17:04Gavin Ortlundfor centuries. I mean, you get to use ebeas, the father of church history,

1:17:08Gavin Ortlundas he's often called, and he's saying somebody's requesting an icon, and he's saying,

1:17:13Gavin Ortlundyou know, he he's on the stricter side because there's a range of aniconism,

1:17:17Gavin Ortlundso it's not all the same. It's I'm not trying to act like everybody had the exact same view. But the idea of doing what Nicaea two commands, I don't think that's represented at all in the early church. So that would be the concern here is this really looks like not,

1:17:34Gavin Ortlundit it basically looks like the the historical claims of Nicaea two are simply wrong. It

1:17:40Gavin Ortlundwe don't have an apostolic practice here. This looks like it's something that just overwhelmingly from the historical evidence we have comes in in the fifth, sixth century around this time. All the early Christians are opposing it. In the fourth century, you start to get more images, but it's but anything like occultic use of images and religious practice and prayer and this kind of thing is extremely

1:18:01Gavin Ortlundcontroversial and opposed

1:18:03Gavin Ortlundand so forth. So I guess I'd be curious to hear kind of your thoughts on the historical claims of Nicaea too, and do you think those are tenable?

1:18:10Gavin OrtlundHow do you how do you and here's why it is so painful is I know what they also meant by anathema

1:18:16Gavin Ortlundbecause they also defined that as complete

1:18:19Gavin Ortlundseparation from god being condemned on the day of the lord. This is another thing that I feel like I'm getting gaslit when I point out these not from you, but just in general, I I point out these Eastern Orthodox historical claims, and then people say, oh, no. Anathema

1:18:33Gavin Ortlundthey're it's making it sound like anathema isn't that bad. And I'm like, well, look. Condemned on the day of the lord,

1:18:40Gavin Ortlundcompletely separated from god, that sounds pretty bad. You know? And so for an anathema to be attached

1:18:45Gavin Ortlundto this specific set of theology that's

1:18:49Gavin Ortlundand and historical claims that varies

1:18:52Gavin Ortlundoverwhelmingly

1:18:53Gavin Ortlundto my conscience seems like late accretion,

1:18:56Gavin Ortlundnot apostolic practice,

1:18:58Gavin Ortlundthat really puts me in a bind. And at that point, I I I must respectfully and with love in my heart for Eastern Orthodoxy as a legitimate Christian church, but not the church, I must just descend from that from that council

1:19:12Gavin Ortlundon grounds of Christian precedent and on grounds of scripture.

1:19:16Stephen De YoungAlright. So

1:19:20Stephen De Younglet me let me start with with

1:19:23Stephen De Youngwhat what I meant by this being based in Trinitarian theology. So the the first person

1:19:29Stephen De Youngagain, the first document we have that's made it down to us that uses the argument

1:19:34Stephen De Youngthat what is given to the image passes to the prototype is Saint Basil the Great.

1:19:40Stephen De YoungAnd he's using this to explain why Christians are monotheists.

1:19:44Gavin OrtlundDo you think that's actually from Basel?

1:19:46Stephen De YoungYes. Yes. He's using it to explain why because one of the critiques

1:19:50Stephen De Youngof

1:19:52Stephen De YoungNicene Trinitarianism

1:19:53Stephen De Youngthat he received was you're worshiping three gods

1:19:57Stephen De Youngbecause you're offering worship to the father. You're offering worship to the son. You're offering worship to the holy spirit.

1:20:02Gavin OrtlundI I apologize. You're you're right. That that's that's Basel. You're right.

1:20:05Stephen De YoungYou're right.

1:20:06Gavin OrtlundYeah. In my mind, I I got confused there for a second. In my mind, the concern I have is it's talking about the trinity,

1:20:12Gavin Ortlundand it's not

1:20:13Stephen De YoungRight. Yeah. Yeah.

1:20:13Gavin OrtlundImage there is the second member of the trinity.

1:20:16Stephen De YoungBut that principle comes from that. Right? That so if you're worshiping the son, the son is the express image of the father. So that worship ultimately is going to the father. We're worshiping one god, the father, right, which is how the Nicene Creed begins.

1:20:31Stephen De YoungAnd so then that understanding,

1:20:34Stephen De Youngright, is also present in

1:20:38Stephen De Youngvery present in early Christian ethics, even in the pages of scripture.

1:20:42Stephen De YoungRight? In the Orthodox Church, we just had the Sunday of the last judgment, so we read the parable of the sheep and the goats.

1:20:48Stephen De YoungRight? And whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me.

1:20:51Stephen De YoungRight? Man is created in the image of god.

1:20:55Stephen De YoungRight? Whatever respect or disrespect

1:20:57Stephen De Youngwe pay to our fellow humans, we are ultimately

1:21:02Stephen De Youngpaying that respect or disrespect to god. Right? The love or lack of love we show them. Right? So it's not that loving our neighbor is opposed to loving god. Right? That those are the same thing because the love we show to anyone is really showing love to god.

1:21:18Stephen De YoungAnd so

1:21:20Stephen De YoungI see that theology, and I see it too as being a reapplication

1:21:23Stephen De Youngof that to

1:21:25Stephen De Youngyou know, if I pick up a photo of my wife and I kiss it,

1:21:29Stephen De Youngright, I'm obviously not cheating on her with a piece of paper. Right? I'm I am loving her, expressing my love for her, right, through

1:21:37Stephen De Youngthrough that means.

1:21:40Stephen De YoungI think there is

1:21:42Stephen De Youngthat so but the the reason I wanted to re bring up that Trinitarian element is

1:21:47Stephen De YoungEusebius of Caesarea was a semi Arian,

1:21:51Stephen De Youngat least a semi Arian, if not an outright Arian.

1:21:55Stephen De YoungSo

1:21:55Stephen De Youngit seems reasonable to be that he would reject that theological argument.

1:22:01Stephen De YoungRight? That he would reject that theological argument in terms of the trinity, maybe in terms of ethics, and in terms of iconography. Right? That makes sense to me.

1:22:11Stephen De YoungMy concern with some of your presentations on this has been that most of the early Christians you present who approach psychedography don't have Satan in front of their name

1:22:18Stephen De Youngfor various reasons. Right?

1:22:23Stephen De YoungAlso, we have to consider that if something is a practice,

1:22:27Stephen De Youngright, if something is a common practice,

1:22:29Stephen De Youngthen we would expect that the people we find writing about it are gonna be the people who disagree with it.

1:22:36Stephen De YoungRight? If something is just something that everyone's doing every day,

1:22:40Stephen De Youngthey're less likely to write about it unless there's someone who comes and opposes it. Right? Someone who comes and says, you shouldn't be doing that. Well, now we have a discussion.

1:22:50Stephen De YoungRight? And I think we apply this to I would say that the doctrine of the trinity was believed by the apostles, for example.

1:22:57Stephen De YoungRight? And and so,

1:23:00Stephen De Youngyou know, well, why isn't there anything,

1:23:03Stephen De Youngyou know, laying it out,

1:23:05Stephen De Youngyou know, very directly? Because I don't believe the is

1:23:09Stephen De Youngoriginal. Right? Why isn't there anything just laying it straight out? Well, no one was coming and challenging it.

1:23:15Stephen De YoungAnd then when it comes and it's challenged, well, now we have to start talking about it. Now we have to articulate this

1:23:21Stephen De Youngin an authoritative way,

1:23:24Stephen De Youngright, and say, no. This is so it's in in in reaction to a challenge that that gets articulated.

1:23:30Stephen De YoungAnd I would I would present one additional piece of evidence in terms of actual veneration.

1:23:35Stephen De YoungIn the Jerusalem Talmud,

1:23:38Stephen De Youngit states

1:23:39Stephen De Youngthat

1:23:43Stephen De Youngpeople lining up

1:23:45Stephen De Youngto kiss images is idolatry.

1:23:50Stephen De YoungAnd I would present that pagans did not do that. That's not how pagan worship worked. They didn't form a line and go kiss the idol

1:23:57Stephen De Youngright in the middle of the temple. This sounds to be a lot like

1:24:01Stephen De YoungChristian practice. Now we could argue about whether it was universal Christian practice,

1:24:04Stephen De Youngwhether whether it was just something that some rabbi saw some Christians in Syria or somewhere doing.

1:24:10Stephen De YoungRight?

1:24:11Stephen De YoungThat's

1:24:12Stephen De Youngbut

1:24:13Stephen De Youngit's at least evidence that there were some Christians who were venerating icons in that way

1:24:19Stephen De Youngin the second, third century

1:24:21Stephen De Youngthat

1:24:23Stephen De Youngthe rabbi said, no. No. No. No. That's idolatry.

1:24:27Stephen De YoungDon't do that. Right? And at that point, it seems that Jewish synagogues still had iconography in them. So it's probably a very direct

1:24:36Stephen De Youngyou know,

1:24:37Stephen De YoungJewish people don't do that with the images in your synagogues. And then, of course, later in reaction to Christianity, they stripped

1:24:45Stephen De Youngthey stripped all of those out and became extremely

1:24:49Stephen De Younganiconic more than they had been previously.

1:24:53Gavin OrtlundOkay. On eusebius, I think what is

1:24:56Gavin Ortlundwhat I would say is he's he's making a historical claim. So it's not just his own theology. Now it might be shaped by his theology to some extent, but the way he phrases it, basically, like, who has ever heard of this,

1:25:07Gavin Ortlundis a tough thing to attribute to just his theology

1:25:10Gavin Ortlundand when there's so many voices like this. It's not just one or two. It's it's everybody, whether they're saints or not.

1:25:16Gavin OrtlundIt it seems to me to be basically the unanimous and resounding testimony of the early church that you don't bow down before an image and pray through the image. And I would say getting from the the trinity,

1:25:28Gavin Ortlundthe the that what's given to the son of god passes to the father or something or anything like that

1:25:34Gavin Ortlundto a liturgical practice of bowing down before an icon, especially when the object of prayer may not be god, but some some other entity, maybe Mary or a saint or something like this. That just seems to me to be,

1:25:45Gavin Ortlundto put it mildly, a a stretch to get from point a to point b there. The the the issue at hand, the the the claim of Nicaea two is a historical claim that the apostles venerated icons and that that's the ancient legislation of the church from which we add or subtract nothing. This is the unbroken consensus, and I just think that claim is is, you know, I just think it's wrong. I in in the depths of my heart, I I can't accept that. The trinity you brought the trinity. I would say the trinity

1:26:12Gavin OrtlundI mean, you got Jesus from the mouth of Christ himself. You got baptism in the name of the father, the son, the holy spirit. The building blocks are all there. I see that as a different kind of development. I would say the development in the under there's real development,

1:26:24Gavin Ortlundbut it's from this foundation that has the basic pieces. You have monotheism

1:26:28Gavin Ortlundexplicitly in the New Testament. You have,

1:26:31Gavin Ortlundthe father, the son, and the spirit linked in important contexts such as the the early baptismal formula.

1:26:39Gavin OrtlundYou have explicit

1:26:41Gavin Ortlundand repeated affirmations of deity to the son of god. I would say that's a motif throughout the gospels for which he's crucified for blasphemy, for forgive forgiving sins, and so forth. It's it's certainly clear in John, but I see it in the synoptics as well. So you've got, you know, these basic building blocks, and then the church's

1:26:59Gavin Ortlundunderstanding of that is is growing,

1:27:02Gavin Ortlundin in the technical vocabulary,

1:27:05Gavin Ortlundin the clarity,

1:27:06Gavin Ortlundin the, opposition to heretical alternatives.

1:27:10Gavin OrtlundBut the thing is there.

1:27:12Gavin OrtlundYou know, immediately,

1:27:13Gavin Ortlundyou're baptized in the name of the father, the son, the holy spirit. Okay? It's not perfectly understood, but it's there. Icon veneration seems to me to be different from that because I I I just don't see it there.

1:27:25Stephen De YoungRight.

1:27:25Gavin OrtlundOh, and I I should respond to your other point about that.

1:27:28Stephen De YoungYeah. You can if you No.

1:27:29Gavin OrtlundNo. No. I I've talked too much.

1:27:31Stephen De YoungYou you go. So

1:27:32Stephen De Youngwell, I think the bridge between that Trinitarian

1:27:36Stephen De Youngprinciple and that iconography is

1:27:39Stephen De Youngman being made in the image of of god. And that that ethical

1:27:44Stephen De Youngthe way that plays out is an ethical principle. Because, for example,

1:27:48Stephen De Youngin our orthodox tradition,

1:27:50Stephen De Youngat a funeral, people come and venerate the body

1:27:54Stephen De Youngof the person,

1:27:56Stephen De Youngright, to pay respect to them.

1:27:58Stephen De YoungAnd, again,

1:28:00Stephen De Youngthat's not some kind of worship directed toward them. That's not that's an that's an honor. Right? And we and we believe it's appropriate because,

1:28:08Stephen De Youngright, this is this is the image of god. Right?

1:28:13Stephen De YoungSo,

1:28:15Stephen De YoungI mean, ultimately,

1:28:16Stephen De Youngthe historical question, can't solve without a time machine.

1:28:20Stephen De YoungRight? In the sense that if we had a time machine, we could go back. We could go to a church of the second century and and see if they're kissing icons or not. Right? Settled. Right?

1:28:31Stephen De YoungBut but, again, you know, the the

1:28:34Stephen De Youngthe unanimous part, right, a couple conditions is that. One is we always have to condition all of our statements on this by

1:28:43Stephen De Youngfrom the documents that we still have,

1:28:46Stephen De Youngright,

1:28:47Stephen De Youngavailable to us today.

1:28:50Stephen De YoungThis appears to be so. I think it has to be conditioned by

1:28:54Stephen De Youngwho those documents are from again. There's an awful lot of people

1:28:58Stephen De Youngon the list opposed to icons who don't have saint in front of their names because they they were

1:29:03Stephen De Youngdissidents in other areas, meaning they were possibly dissidents in this area whether it was

1:29:08Stephen De Youngdirectly connected or not.

1:29:13Stephen De YoungEusebius

1:29:14Stephen De Youngmakes some fairly wild claims.

1:29:18Stephen De YoungI think with in the case of Eusebius himself. For example, he says that Saint, who is the Samaritan woman who Christ spoke to

1:29:26Stephen De Youngat the well

1:29:28Stephen De Youngin in Saint John's gospel, made a statue of Jesus that was still there to that day.

1:29:35Stephen De YoungI don't think that's accurate. I don't think that happened. Right?

1:29:42Stephen De YoungHe he makes claims like that. That's certainly a historical claim. That's even one related to iconography.

1:29:48Stephen De YoungHe invents John the presupposer to be the author of revelation because he didn't accept it as scripture

1:29:54Stephen De Youngand tries to parse a quote from papius that we don't have the context for to try to make that real.

1:30:00Stephen De YoungEusebius was highly theologically motivated

1:30:04Stephen De Youngin how he

1:30:06Stephen De Youngframed history. And that's that I think that the example of John the presupposer is a good example because it's I reject the book of revelation.

1:30:13Stephen De YoungTherefore, it can't have been written by an apostle.

1:30:16Stephen De YoungTherefore,

1:30:17Stephen De YoungI will

1:30:19Stephen De Youngcome up with a way to say there was this other John who wrote it so I can reject it while still accepting Saint John's gospel

1:30:25Stephen De Youngand at least the first epistle of Saint John is scripture. Right? That that's a theological motivation to reconstruct history. So I think Eusebius in particular is is

1:30:35Stephen De Youngpretty problematic

1:30:37Stephen De Youngin that

1:30:39Stephen De Youngin that way.

1:30:42Stephen De YoungSo I I think,

1:30:43Stephen De Youngyou know,

1:30:45Stephen De Youngwhen we could see, okay. Here's how the theology. Here's why they would venerate icons.

1:30:50Stephen De YoungHere's why it would be acceptable.

1:30:54Stephen De YoungClearly, it was a practice because the iconoclast rose to oppose it. Right? So at least by that time, it was a practice.

1:31:00Gavin OrtlundRight. Yeah.

1:31:01Stephen De YoungRight?

1:31:03Stephen De YoungAnd there are at least hints,

1:31:04Stephen De Younglike, from the Jerusalem tales that there were other Christians doing it. But when we say the whole church, right, obviously, we're we're not excluding that there were dissidents. Right? So when we say the whole church

1:31:15Stephen De Youngbelieved the doctrine of the holy trinity at Nicaea one, we're not denying that there were Arian's. We're not even denying that at one point, the Arian's were more numerous. Right? There were dissenters.

1:31:25Stephen De YoungSure. And and the Arians were more numerous at certain points than the than the Trinitarians.

1:31:31Stephen De YoungRight? But what we're saying is the faithful church,

1:31:35Stephen De Youngright, which may have been a faithful remnant, which may have just been Saint Athanasius, though I think that's exaggerated. Exaggerated. Right?

1:31:43Stephen De YoungThey held to the doctrine of the trinity.

1:31:45Gavin OrtlundI'm making a different claim. When I when I say the Holter know, in other words, way another way I could phrase it maybe is to say, all the evidence that we have and if it favors the view that any sort of cultic use of images was resoundingly

1:32:02Gavin Ortlundrejected

1:32:03Gavin Ortlundby Christians for the first five hundred years of church history. If you don't like Eusebius, chuck him out the window and just go with everybody else.

1:32:10Gavin OrtlundOkay? It's everybody. It's everywhere. It's resounding. It's clear. It's bright.

1:32:14Stephen De YoungIf there's anything vague there. Right? So there some of

1:32:18Gavin Ortlundthose things are very clearly too. Theology of Nicaea too. Bow down to images and pray through

1:32:23Stephen De Youngthem as we

1:32:23Gavin Ortlundgo to heaven that is resoundingly reject I would say if there's anything we know about the early church, we know that's not what was happening.

1:32:30Gavin OrtlundThat that that is as clear as anything about the early church. And and my Yeah.

1:32:34Stephen De YoungI profoundly I profoundly disagree with that. I think the

1:32:36Gavin OrtlundCan you name any advocate

1:32:38Stephen De Youngfrom the centers.

1:32:39Gavin OrtlundYou name any advocate of icon veneration before five hundred AD?

1:32:45Stephen De YoungWell, what do you what do you mean by advocate? Someone who expressly describes that particular practice and says this is good and we should all do it?

1:32:52Gavin OrtlundSays anything remotely positive about it.

1:32:55Stephen De YoungWell, I I don't think there was a need for that if it was the general practice.

1:33:01Gavin OrtlundOkay. Well, that seems to me be assuming the the very context that we're trying to get.

1:33:05Stephen De YoungBut that's that this is this is part of the ethos of how the church fathers work and the councils work. Well, what if you've got all these guns,

1:33:13Gavin Ortlundwe're gonna get three dozen people all opposing the practice. Wouldn't it need to be defended?

1:33:19Stephen De YoungWell, and it and it begins to be. But if those people are the people who have been excluded from the church. So Tertullian was excluded from the church for whole other reasons.

1:33:29Stephen De YoungRight? Even if you think Tertullian was right about iconography, he was wrong about a whole bunch of other things. And you don't find a ton of people refuting Tertullian's other errors.

1:33:37Stephen De YoungHe was a modernist. He's outside the church. Right? So we don't need to go in and refute him about iconography.

1:33:44Stephen De YoungWe've already settled this. He's outside the he he's outside the church.

1:33:49Gavin OrtlundWell, the let me just make one final comment, and I know we're near the end of the time. But the concern I have is inconsistency

1:33:54Gavin Ortlundin how historical

1:33:56Gavin Ortlundclaims are made because there's a on the one hand, there's historical claims made from the Eastern Orthodox Church at Nicaea Two, for example, that we've mentioned. And also in general, there's this appeal to be the one true church.

1:34:08Gavin OrtlundAnd, but then when there's, I would say, resounding counter evidence to a particular claim,

1:34:13Gavin Ortlundthen there's,

1:34:15Gavin Ortlundyou know, well, we don't have all the information. Well, something didn't need to be opposed yet. There's all all these kind of qualifications.

1:34:23Gavin OrtlundAnd I I guess I just I feel that there's an inconsistency

1:34:26Gavin Ortlundin how his history is being wielded at that point. And I would just go back and just respectfully state. I I don't think there's anything in the ballpark of,

1:34:36Gavin Ortlundanything

1:34:37Gavin Ortlundany sort of evidence or reason to think that early Christians before the year five hundred AD, frankly, could push that date a little bit, actually bowed down before images and prayed through them as a window to heaven. I I just think the evidence is against that claim. And I think

1:34:51Gavin Ortlundreactions to that feel like they're trying to be to get around

1:34:55Gavin Ortlundthe evidence because I mean, fine. Take you, Sebius, Ortlund off the table. It's still everybody else. You know? You see what I'm saying? It it it's it's everybody, it seems to me. So that that's my final comment.

1:35:05Stephen De YoungYeah. Well, I'll I'll just say,

1:35:08Stephen De Youngand this maybe is be on behalf of my Unitarian friend, he makes substantially the same argument about the doctor of the Trinity.

1:35:17Gavin OrtlundWell, then I've explained already why I I see the Trinity. No.

1:35:19Stephen De YoungI know. I know. But I'm just saying he on the historical level, in terms of the historical argument. Right? In terms of theological argument, totally agree with you, but he makes the same historical argument. He says, show me somebody who is teaching the Nicene doctrine of the trinity

1:35:32Stephen De Youngbefore Nicaea.

1:35:34Stephen De YoungRight? Or show me right. He makes those same kind of can

1:35:38Stephen De Youngyou offer me any proof

1:35:40Stephen De Youngthat from a church father in the second century where he defines it the way Nicaea defines it? Right? It's like well

1:35:47Gavin OrtlundBut that's not the argument I made. That that's not the argument I made. Because I said, you know, in the New Testament itself, we have all of the pieces for the trinity. So I would make a distinction in that way.

1:35:57Stephen De YoungAnd I think we have the building blocks for the veneration

1:36:01Stephen De Youngthe veneration of icons, the principle that the honor paid passes to the prototype,

1:36:06Stephen De Youngetcetera, etcetera. I think we have those building blocks there

1:36:09Stephen De Youngtoo.

1:36:10Stephen De YoungRight? But you are asking me for more than just where are the biblical building blocks for this. You are asking me for historical

1:36:17Stephen De Youngaccount that this was happening.

1:36:19Gavin OrtlundYeah. Right. And we'll just differ on whether that's a building block or or whether that would be a building block for that. But but let me just say, Steve father Steven, I

1:36:27Gavin Ortlundhope I didn't interrupt too much or press you there at the end, but I I I really appreciate the conversation. I know we'll differ on a lot of these things, but I'm I'm enriched by it, and I so thank you.

1:36:39Father JonathanWell, thank you both, father Steven,

1:36:41Father Jonathandoctor Gavin. It it's been an honor and a pleasure having you on our podcast, and it has been absolutely fascinating

1:36:49Father Jonathanlistening to both of you go back and forth. And interestingly enough, I think finding agreement on points here and there, I think that's important. I know that when I speak with with anybody who's not orthodox,

1:37:01Father JonathanI do try and find not what we disagree on first, but what do we agree on? Where are the common agreements, and what can we build out from based on those common agreements? So it it it was good to hear in this back and forth that there were times when when both of you said, yes. I can see and I can appreciate that or agree or whatever. So I I'm encouraged to

1:37:22Father Jonathanto to hear that from both of you. And and on behalf of Luther and I, we want to thank you again for being here to all of our

1:37:31Father Jonathansubscribers.

1:37:32Father JonathanAnd and we hope if you're watching

1:37:35Father Jonathanthis episode and you're not subscribed yet, please do. You'll get automatic notifications of when our new episodes drop and other things.

1:37:43Father JonathanBut to all of our viewers, know in two weeks, Luther and I are gonna go back and do a analysis of this

1:37:49Father Jonathandiscussion and put our own thoughts and

1:37:52Father Jonathanthings like that into the into the things that were brought up.

1:37:56LutherFather, if I could jump in. That that was fun.

1:37:59LutherYou know, both of you guys are both class personified,

1:38:02Lutherso appreciate you guys having this discussion.

1:38:05LutherYou know, I know I I forget who mentioned it between you two. Like, usually, the the conversation is more so on the, you know, the Roman Catholic and the Protestant, and it's it's refreshing to see more, you know, orthodox conversations,

1:38:19Lutheryou know, on the table. So, definitely appreciate you I don't know if you guys have,

1:38:24Lutheryou know, any any parting thoughts. I I do wanna plug some of the stuff that you guys are doing,

1:38:29Luthersome of the work. I know

1:38:31Lutherdoctor Gavin here has, you know, what it means to be Protestant,

1:38:35Lutherpopping out in, I believe, it's August of of this year. Right?

1:38:39Gavin OrtlundThat's right. Yeah. Thanks for mentioning that. Yeah. Book coming out, what it means to be Protestant, the case for an ever reforming church. That's coming out in August

1:38:46Gavin Ortlund2024

1:38:47Gavin Ortlundfrom Zondervan. And then people could check out my YouTube channel, Truth Unites, for other things,

1:38:52Gavin Ortlundstay in touch with me.

1:38:54LutherFor sure. And

1:38:55Lutherand father father Steven De Young, any any cool things you're working on right now?

1:39:00Stephen De YoungWell, I can only semi announce this because the details are coming into shape. But Okay. Sometime this fall,

1:39:06Stephen De Younglord willing,

1:39:07Stephen De YoungI've got a book on,

1:39:09Stephen De YoungSaint Paul coming out,

1:39:11Stephen De Youngthat doctor Ortlund probably won't like,

1:39:14Stephen De Youngbut or at least we'll disagree with. He might like it and just disagree on a bunch of things.

1:39:20Stephen De YoungBut I've got some other books out. You can find those.

1:39:24Stephen De YoungI've got a couple podcasts. The whole council of god is my parish bible study going verse by verse through the bible and

1:39:32Stephen De Younglord of spirits

1:39:34Stephen De Youngpodcast people have probably heard of

1:39:37Stephen De Youngthat I cohost

1:39:40Stephen De Youngand a bunch of other things, but that's That's

1:39:42Lutherthat's awesome. That's awesome.

1:39:45LutherYeah. Yeah. No. I look I look, look forward to that that that book coming out, Saint Paul. I appreciate you,

1:39:51Lutherdown in Miami. You signed this for me there, at the father Lucas church.

1:39:56LutherThat

1:39:57Lutherwas Jesus.

1:39:59LutherNo. That was great. Well, guys, thank you so much.

1:40:02LutherYou know, we really appreciate it. And,

1:40:05Lutheryeah, I mean, we look forward to, you know, future future conversations.

1:40:10LutherSo

1:40:11Lutheryou guys have a a blessed one.

1:40:14Stephen De YoungThanks, meet you.

1:40:15Gavin OrtlundThanks, father Jonathan. Thanks, father Steven. Really grateful, honored to be involved.