Who Do People Falsely Say That I Am: Heresies About Jesus

[00:00:13] Speaker A: So just about every single person in the world knows who Jesus Christ is, but do they actually know who Jesus Christ is? There are so many heresies out there about the identity of. Of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We're going to look at some of them. We're going to look at the historical ones, and we're going to look at how they impact us still today and how what people hold about today. And our guest today is Dr. Michael Cirillo. Welcome to the program, Mike. [00:00:39] Speaker B: Thank you, Eric. So good to see you again. [00:00:41] Speaker A: Yes. We saw each other about a month ago. We just have to say it in this podcast. My son married Dr. Cirillo's daughter a month ago, and it was a beautiful wedding. It was just a wonderful. I mean, just. Just wonderful. I mean, we're still talking about here in our family, about how great it was, and it was beautiful. Yeah. And we're so, so happy to have your daughter as part of our family. It just. It's great. [00:01:05] Speaker B: And vice versa. [00:01:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:01:06] Speaker B: So, yeah. No, thank you. Yeah, it's great. [00:01:11] Speaker A: So we do. So those who are watching, listening. We don't do. We do know each other a little bit. [00:01:15] Speaker B: Yes. [00:01:16] Speaker A: So actually, the story goes, might as well just tell it and embarrass, because they'll probably watch it or, you know, my son, your daughter. We actually knew each other. Mike and I have been friends for years, and before even Peter and Faith, our son and daughter even got to know each other. And. Yeah. In fact, we even joked when they first met about, like, oh, maybe one day they'll get married or something like that. And it was literally a joke at that point. And they. They must have taken us seriously. I. I guess so. [00:01:43] Speaker B: Yeah. It was great. It was great. So, yeah, Laura said, oh, they're made for each other. Yeah. [00:01:49] Speaker A: Yeah. I really think they are. They're. They're both a little bit. [00:01:52] Speaker B: I agree. Yeah. [00:01:53] Speaker A: Yeah, They're. They're a little bit. Half. A little bit crazy together. So that's great. [00:01:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. [00:01:58] Speaker A: So we're not going to talk about that. Don't worry, everybody. We're not going to talk about that forever. [00:02:02] Speaker B: Yes. [00:02:03] Speaker A: So the reason I have you on the program is because you actually have a new course from the St. Paul Center. I'll have a link to it in the show notes. Just to take a step back, the St. Paul center has been offering online courses now for a couple years, I think. I feel. A couple years. I know we had Ben Reinhart on to talk about his Tolkien class. I feel Like I can't remember if we had Scott on or we had somebody else on. Maybe it was Bergsma on to talk about their course. And I know you've done other courses as well for them, but you have a new one on the identity of Jesus Christ and that's right. Anybody who looked, looks at my bookshelf here will know that's been a big topic of interest to me. I have a couple shelves worth of books about it. I wrote a book called who do youo say I Am? About the identity of Jesus Christ is found in the Gospel of Matthew. And I just think it's, I mean it's, it's the most important question that's ever been posed to man is who do you say that I am? And of course what was interesting about it is the first answers were wrong in the sense. I mean what the apostles gave the answers. They said, other people are saying, some say, what was it? Some say Elijah, some say John the Baptist, right? And he's like, well, who do you, who do you say I am? So I want to talk about that, about all the heresies about Jesus historically and today. But why don't we start with about. Give me about one minute or so. Synopsis of the actual teaching of the Catholic Church about the identity of Jesus Christ. [00:03:34] Speaker B: Jesus Christ is truly God, the Son, the second Person of the Trinity. He is fully and completely God, consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit. They're one God, one essence, three distinct persons. And Jesus is fully human. He is not half God and half man. He is not a, a human who's Godlike. He's not God who appears to be man. And he's certainly not an angel who's taking on like a flesh covering, like a puppet. He's, he's one divine person, God the Son, with a full and complete divine nature and a full and complete human nature with a human body, human soul, human intellect, human will, divine intellect and divine will and a divine, excuse me, a divine elect and a human intellect. And he has a divine will and a human will. [00:04:32] Speaker A: So one thing I've always found fascinating when studying like church history and particularly the identity of Jesus. If I had asked a first century Christian that question, he would not have answered like you just did. Right, but that's not saying he's a heretic or that you're a heretic. Right, but he would not have all those terms you used essence and persons and, and will and all that. If you have St. Peter, for example, in 50 A.D. who is Jesus, he probably said he is the Messiah, the son of the Christ, the Son of the living God. And that's his whole answer. And that's. That's. That is faithful, that is orthodox, that is beautiful. [00:05:12] Speaker B: But he's Son of Man and Son of God, right? [00:05:14] Speaker A: He's Son of man. He would have been. But yet you said so much more. And, and the reason you said so much more is because so many people have gotten it wrong. And I think it starts really in the first century because unless I'm mistaken, in the first century, there were Jewish Christians. I mean, everybody began with Jewish Christian. But you know what I mean, The Jewish. Among the Jewish Christians, there were. There were those who had a wrong idea about who, Jesus, the identity of Jesus. Who were they? And kind of, what did they. How did they set the table for the heretics to come, so to speak, the Ebionites. [00:05:53] Speaker B: Now, let's get rid of the name. No, it's perfect. And then there was a Jewish Christian named Cerinthus. But before we jump into them, let me mention this, because a lot of that terminology isn't the terminology. You're right, that was used in the early church. And so is it a. Are they nova? Are they new things? In a certain respect, they are. But what's not the case, and this is very, very important, what's not the case is that the early church or the church all the way up to the present is making stuff up, making up new things or having some kind of new revelation that is. That is false. What dogma is. Benedict XVI put it beautifully as Cardinal Ratzinger. That dogma is the Church giving an authentic explanation of divine revelation. So there's not. It's. There can be new terms. For example, the term Trinity is not in the New Testament, but. But the reality of one God and three divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each of whom are the one God and each of whom are distinct from one another, is unequivocally revealed in the New Testament. So, yes, the terms come later. So in the first century, you have a kind of growing group of Jewish Christians who are making a connection between the Psalm, you are my son, this day I've begotten thee. I think it's Psalm 2 and the baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan, when the Holy Spirit, as the form of a dove, descends upon him and the heavens open, and the Father says, this is my son, my beloved Son, Listen to him. Okay? And so that resonates in their mind with the psalmist who says, this is my Beloved Son, you are my beloved Son. This day I have begotten thee. So this is the first of many forms over the history of the last 2000 years of what's called adoptionism, that Jesus Christ is not pre existing before the world with the Father through whom all things were made. No, rather Jesus is a full and complete human being, human person who is adopted. The Son of God this day. I have adopted thee at his baptism in the Jordan by John. There are, there are, there are recent Protestant preachers on tv, Trinity Network, who, who would preach the adoption that Christ has adopted God the Son at his baptism. So it really is a denial of his divinity. [00:08:30] Speaker A: So, so they say just regular human. Now how is that, how would that even for today's Christian, how's that any different than like, for example, we're adopted as sons and daughters of God when we're baptized, Is there any. Is it like it's just a special adoption? Is that kind of what they would say? [00:08:45] Speaker B: The only difference is, is that it's this. It's the same in kind, but different in degree. Okay, so it's he's an adopted son, or like we're adopted sons and daughters of God, but, but he is to the superlative degree, because through him, he's the firstborn of many. See all, all the scriptures reinterpreted here. He's the firstborn of many brethren who, who are begotten kind of through his primacy, through his ministry. So he's the first, like Adam is the first. [00:09:13] Speaker A: Okay. And maybe he's getting certain powers. [00:09:15] Speaker B: Super saint, you know? [00:09:16] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe he's getting certain powers, like miracles and things like that he's able to do. [00:09:19] Speaker B: But look, other saints have apostles perform miracles. Saints in the history of the church, Old Testament prophets perform miracles. Old Testament prophets raised people from the dead. [00:09:29] Speaker A: Right. So it's interesting. [00:09:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So. [00:09:33] Speaker A: Sorry, yeah. Modern people. There are modern Protestants who believe in adoptionism. I feel like. Haven't there been a few Catholic theologians who have kind of said that something changed with Jesus at the baptism of, at his baptism. I feel like there was some in the 80s or 90s that might have said that, but I, I could be confusing with some Protestant ones. [00:09:54] Speaker B: Well, listen, about the exegesis of the baptism, in particular, its connection to Psalm 2, I'm not sure. But what I am sure about is that what's often called neo Nestorianism, and we'll get to Nestorianism soon, I'm sure. Neon historianism is all, all the rage for especially the 70s and 80s. The assertion that Jesus is a human subject. They want to avoid saying person, but really they're saying he's a human person. Right. [00:10:21] Speaker A: I want to break down the person nature here in a minute, but I want to kind of stay early on because I think there's. We see a rhythm almost to the heresies. Like it's one thing the church responds and then they. Sometimes it goes the other way and sometimes it goes. The Gnostics were the big heretics of the kind of pre Nicaea church in the first second century. That's what you see Irenaeus for example, really going after. And even you see John himself, you know, already kind of hinting at that there's probably Gnosticism now how did, what was there? What did they think the identity of Jesus was? [00:10:58] Speaker B: So there's two, there's two very infamous Gnostics facilities and Valentinus, not to be confused with St Valentine's but they were Gnostics even before these fellows. But they really kind of repristed and promulgated Gnosticism and just spread like wildfire. And the idea is this, that there are many species of Gnosticism, but, but in general they all share this perspective that there are two in some accounts co equal and eternal gods. Other accounts are variations on this and the, the one God, the Father created soul, spiritual reality, and that's the good God. And, and spirit is good, but the other God envious perhaps or antagonistically oriented toward the true. The one God created matter. So matter is intrinsically evil. And so the idea is there's no way that the Logos God the Son would, would ensconce himself in evil, something intrinsically evil. And so he did not literally become human. He couldn't have become human. And so again like with all the heretics, they, they give an account of a rereading of all of scripture about Christ. So they'll say that God the Son only appeared to be human. He wasn't really human, it was an apparition. So in Greek do means to appear. Docetism comes from that term. So Docetists, the heresy of Docetism is the heresy that holds it. Jesus is the Logos God, the second person of the Trinity, fully God, but he's not fully man. He's not really human. He only appeared to be human. So who was nailed to the cross was Simon of Cyrene, who was forced to carry the cross in place of the apparition of Jesus. And he, Simon was nailed to the cross. It's interesting that Muslims traditionally picked that up and said that Simon was nailed to the cross in traditional Islamic view. So, yeah, John, you're right. You mentioned John, and you're right. John the evangelist was very insistent upon the truth of Christ's real humanity, the reality of his flesh. It's not an apparition. And you see this as a theme throughout all of his writings in the New Testament. From John, chapter one, the gospel, chapter one, verse 14, the Word became flesh. Sarx, Flesh. Not just. He didn't just take a body, he took flesh. Something very vivid and undeniably real carne. He took, he was encarcosis or incarnated. He took flesh and dwelt among us. Elsewhere in his letters, John says, those who deny Jesus coming in the flesh are of the spirit of the Antichrist. It's very serious. Yeah, yeah. [00:13:56] Speaker A: Now, heresy, we'll get to the big one of Arianism here in a minute. But I, I, if I remember correctly, before him even, there was the heresy of adopt, not adoptionism. We were talking about that of modalism. [00:14:08] Speaker B: Yes. [00:14:09] Speaker A: And explain modalism and kind of who, who promoted that and, and what does that mean? [00:14:13] Speaker B: It gets very cut. Here's where it gets very complicated, even for my grad students, because the linguistic difficulties are tremendous, especially in the Greek language, where one word can mean a lot of, have many more different meanings than in Latin. There was a bishop, patriarch, Paula Samasata, Patriarch of Antioch, and he held that the idea is, look, if you have three distinct individual individuals, you have three different beings. Now, that's not, that's not, that's ordinarily true, but not in the case of the Trinity. But, but, but he, he was thinking Father, Son, and Holy Spirit cannot truly be three distinct beings. Why? Because then there would be three gods. You'd be tritheistic, which is a form of polytheism. And so he said, there aren't really three distinct persons in God. There's just one God, one person who has three personae in Greek can mean person. It can also mean mask. Right. Or a mode of act. Like an actor in the Greek theater wore, you know, prosopones, they wore masks through which they sounded out their character. And an individual actor could have several different masks. So the idea is in modalism that there's one God, one person who acts in three modes. When he is in the mode of creating his Father, when he's in the mode of redeeming, he acts as if he were the Son. And when he's in the mode of sanctifying, he acts in the mode of the Holy Spirit. So what gets tricky linguistically here is that Paula Samasata used a term heretically that eventually was reframed and used in an orthodox way at Nicaea. And that term is Hamausias or consubstantial. But, but usias could mean person or nature in ancient Greek, and he meant it to mean person. So he heretically taught that the Father and the Son are Hamausias, the same person. And so at a local synod at Antioch, the term Hamausias was condemned. That's why it's very difficult at Nicaea to rehabilitate that term. But it was rehabilitated. [00:16:30] Speaker A: So Nicaeo is 325. [00:16:33] Speaker B: Yes. [00:16:33] Speaker A: When was it, when was it condemned? [00:16:35] Speaker B: Around 260. In the third century. About 50 years earlier. Well, more than 70 years earlier. [00:16:40] Speaker A: So I think this is something fascinating how complex it can be. And you brought up one of the issues that I think is important is just language. Like, I love the Eastern Christian world, but let's be honest, that was a hotbed of heresy in the first millennium. I mean, that's in the West. We're a bunch of dumb Latins who are just like very. Keep it very simple and straightforward. We don't want any like, you know, fanciness. But we're in the East. They're like, oh, let's speculate on this and that. And it got them into a lot of trouble because, I mean, you already mentioned that Paul was the same. So it was the patriarchy, Antioch, I think even the patriarchs are getting. Whereas the Patriarch of the West, I. E. The Bishop of Rome, I. E. The Pope, I just felt like those guys were like meat and potatoes guys. [00:17:27] Speaker B: Consistently solid, but part of what did it without going to the tall grass. If you, if you look, if you sign on to my class, we'll go into the tall grass in a simple, manageable fashion with no homework, but just as much substances, much as much substance as you get in a class. You don't have to do the homework. It's kind of like Hillsdale. I love the Hillsdale courses where you just, yes, you get the meat, but you don't have to do. Write papers and stuff. Yeah, but, but, but in, in, in the west, in the Latin west, there was a ecclesiastical writer, very important, named Tertullian. And early on, around the same time as Paul Samasada, mid third century, 250s, 260s, wrote an important work, a letter against a man named Praxeas, in which he gave the formula in Christ. You have one divine person in Two natures, human and divine. Now, Persona and natura in Latin were fairly well defined at that point. Unlike in Greek, they're not interchangeable. A person meant a rational individual, and a nature was a, a type, a kind or species of being. Okay? Whereas in the east, what came to be used as person, hupastasis or hypostasis could also. Was also used to signify a nature. And what came to be used for the word nature, usia, could also be used to signify person. So they were. There was no kind of linguistic and as a result, no, no kind of intellectual, hard and fast distinction until later. And I see as the beginnings of. [00:18:58] Speaker A: These distinctions, I might get in trouble for saying this. Somebody might clip it and use it against me. But I have to admit I feel a little sympathy for the heretics of the early church, particularly the heretics before Nicaea, because when you think about modalism and you really look into it, I can see if I, if I take away everything the church defined later, which, remember, they had not yet defined, I can see how somebody could interpret the Scriptures like that. Like, I don't think adoptionism works very well, at least in my mind. But modalism, okay, he's acting different modes. I know there's times when the Father and the Son are kind of interacting with each other, but you could still kind of say, well, that's because the fact is, is like they really did want to make sure that they kept monotheism. [00:19:45] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:45] Speaker A: I mean, which is, which is very important. That's like literally the first kind of rule of our faith is there's only one God. And they wanted to do that. And so coming with something like modalism kind of makes sense to me. Is there, in other words, why is modalism if you don't use the later definitions, why is modalism wrong? Other than the fact, I know the church said it was later, but kind of like I'm just trying to think of, if I'm living in 240 as a Christian and I hear somebody preach modalism, what would make me think, oh yeah, that's obviously a heresy. [00:20:21] Speaker B: Well, to start off with the sympathy which I also share, a lot of these fellows are coming from pagan polytheism and, and so they're very keyed in on, oh, well, we, we must, must preserve the absolute unity of God's essence. But an early, an early Christian would say, well, well, hold on, if it's all the same person, then you're saying, not just the Son, but the Father, I Mean, in a sense, the same person whose Father, Son and Holy Spirit died on the cross. In fact, the pushback was, well, hold on. The Father didn't die on the cross. It was only the Son, not the Holy Spirit, just the Father. Because the Son is addressing the Father from the cross. There's a dialogue, there's a discussion going on. And in fact, in the rest of Scripture, Christ is. Jesus is consistently praying to his Father. He even says, the Father is greater than I. In John 14, he Even in the garden says, let this cup pass, but not my will, but thine be done. So he makes acts of prayer and obedience to the Father. How come they. You don't pray to yourself or, or obey yourself? And the pushback by the modalist was, oh no, the Father did die on the cross. And so we have something called, you know, patra pashinism, which is a version of modalism. So, so a good. You know, I'd say, I'd say, Eric, sure, the first generations of Christians wouldn't all have had this term, these term, terminological abilities to use words like person, nature, et cetera. But, but they would intuit. Hey, something's wrong here. If you're saying that there's not three distinct persons in the one God, then the whole, it all falls apart. The Gospels don't make good sense. The death of Christ, his prayer to the Father, his claim that he will, and the Father. And he. In John's last discourse from around, especially John 14 and 15, he says, I will ask the Father, and he and I will. I will send you the Holy Spirit from the Father. So again, how are we supposed to take that? There's no metaphor in the Greek language, Aramaic language in Latin. These are the common languages at the time for asking yourself to send yourself to someone. [00:22:36] Speaker A: Right, right. [00:22:37] Speaker B: I'm gonna ask the Father to send the holy. So I'm ask myself to someone. That's. That's all convoluted nonsense. So a good simple Christian grandma, you know, or whoever. Yeah. Would have been. Yeah. No, yeah, right, right. [00:22:50] Speaker A: That's who we should listen to, by the way. Usually Christian grandmas. Exactly. Now we get to the big, the big guy, Arius. And okay, when we looked at these other heresies like Gnosticism, you know, Adoptionism, the, the modalism, whatever, those are serious heresies that cause real rifts in the church. But none of them tore apart the unity of the Church like Arius did. And I mean, he is definitely probably the number one when it comes. I mean, there's we'll get to the story of some others, but I mean there's nobody more so than him. And so give a quick explanation of who Arius was but then also what was his fundamental teaching that that really led to? So like the tearing apart of the church basically. [00:23:38] Speaker B: No, it was huge. It was huge. Arius was a priest of the Patriarchate of Alexandria in North Africa and he served under the patriarchate of the Patriarchy of Alexander of Alexandria, who was the predecessor, immediate predecessor to Saint Athanasius, who eventually became Patriarch of Alexandria. Arius is grappling. Start with a sympathetic view. Okay. Although Arius showed himself to be a pretty, not, not a very innocent guy it seems. But it's not for me to judge. We don't have to judge that. Not a. Not a very good willed person it seems. But, but, but this is a goodwill question, a well intended question. In John's Gospel chapter one it says in verse one the Word in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then in verse 14 it says and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we've beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father. So Monogenes only begotten. And so here's how Arius's thought processes unfolded. And he says so we still have some of his letters surviving. He wrote letters to Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia, to his patriarch Alexander. He wrote letters to Constantine, the emperor in his defense. And he claimed that his bishop was, was a heretic and that he, Arus was preserving the ancient faith, which is the exact opposite. So here's Arus's approach to this issue. How is it that the, the Logos is the only begotten of the Father? What does it mean to be begotten? Well in every instance of, of one being being begotten from another, right. It has to be the case that if time what T1 time 1, they. They don't exist yet there was a time when they didn't exist, when they were not. And then they're begotten and then they begin to exist. You can't have a begetting without a beginning of existence. And so he takes in a certain respect to his credit, I guess you could say John chapter one, verse 14. Seriously, that he's the only begotten of the Father. But to be begotten means to begin to be. And he says was wasn't this wasn't. [00:26:03] Speaker A: The slogan like there was once when the Son was Not, I think it's kind of. Was their kind of rallying cry. [00:26:08] Speaker B: Absolutely. There was a time when he. The. The Son was not. And, and so he. He's, to his credit, he's taking John 1:14 seriously. But what he does is he takes his own innovative interpretation of John 1:14, which is in unequivocal contradiction to the consistent teaching of the Fathers before him for almost 300 years from Thomas, when in John's Gospel, he puts his hands in the wounds of Christ and says, my Lord and my God and worships him. And of course, Jesus doesn't disabuse Thomas and say, don't worship me. He accepts the worship because he is God. And constantly in the liturgy, you have to remember, these are not abstract, geeky theologians in ivory towers hammering out technical terminology. These are pastors of souls. And it translates very quickly into the liturgy. So he's not God. He was begotten areas a great late motif, in addition to. There was a time when he was not. Is this, that the Divinity, the Godhead, is unbegotten. And that's. That's a heresy. Now, the Father is unbegotten, but the Son is begotten in his divinity. So it's not true to say that divinity or the Godhead is unbegotten because in the case of the Son, it is begotten. But he says the. The Godhead is unbegotten. So he's not God, but he. Why is he called God? Because he is the most godlike. All of creation in a hierarchy resembles more and more the divine perfections of God. And the highest, the first creature who's the highest creature, the Son of God, resembles him the most out of all creatures. And therefore he could be called the Son, who resembles his Father the most. And through him, all other things were made, including the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit's also a creature. Alexander, his bishop, cracks down really hard and says, look, this is contrary to Scripture. And you can look at. You can find these online in good English translations. Alexander's letter to Arius and all these correspondences. And Alexander says, this is contrary to Scripture. It's contrary to tradition. It's contrary to everything that our forebears taught. He warns him, excommunicates him, exiles him. Arius flees to Palestine and is protected by a couple bishops. You see Beast of Caesarea, and you see Beast of Nicomedia. And they not only protect him, but they sponsor him, support him. Look, this is how it plays out. Liturgy wars are not new. They're very Very old. Yeah. In fact, there are disputes about the liturgy that Paul talks about in First Corinthians, chapters 1014. But any event, yeah. Arius, in the liturgy, you. You must. And he's priest. You must not worship Jesus with Latria. He's not God. We venerate him as the highest being. He's not. He's not a human either, by the way. For Arius, he's the highest angel. Very similar to Jehovah's Witnesses, who hold that Jesus is Saint Michael the Archangel. Okay. Jesus is the highest angel with. With sarks, with flesh. And just to. Not to put too fine a point on it, with. Without a rational soul. So his humanity is just kind of a. It's not exactly a corpse, but it's not. It doesn't have a soul. And it's manipulated and moved by the angel, the Logos that moves this body around. In any event, in the liturgy, you must not worship Jesus as God. You can imagine what this did with families and communities because there were people who were holding the orthodox faith. But bishop after bishop fell eventually to the point where St. Jerome, way after the fact, looks back on this in one of his letters and said, it was like this. The whole world awoke and groaned to find itself Aryan. And that means most. That's also most of the bishops, a few bishops who were. Were faithful, were persecuted, driven into the wilderness. They held liturgies in the wilderness because in their liturgies, they worshiped Jesus as almighty God. And that, from the Aryan perspective, is. So the stakes couldn't be higher. If Jesus is God, you must worship him, but if he's not, you must not. And those are very grave. [00:30:22] Speaker A: You know, this kind of brings me to, like, a side point, but it's so important for today, I think. So the great orthodox opponent of Arius, of course you already mentioned him, is Saint Athanasius. And he spent decades fighting against Arianism, getting exiled, all that stuff. Athanasius against the world is kind of the saying, right? And one of the things I remember, and correct me if I'm wrong here I remember from reading Athanasius, is that he had, at times his argument would simply be, this is how we've just always done our. How we've always worshipped, how our liturgy has always been. And if we. If we. If Arius is right, then doing that has been wrong. And therefore, that alone tells me Arius is wrong. [00:31:08] Speaker B: No, absolutely. [00:31:08] Speaker A: The whole lex credenda, lex rendez guy, you know, that. That. What the hell. He worship what they believe. And so wasn't that one of the strong arguments against Aries was simply like, you're saying, we worship God in the. In the liturgy. I mean, I'm sorry, we worship Jesus in the liturgy. We have to believe he's God simply because we've done this. [00:31:30] Speaker B: Well, it's. Now, historically, it's difficult to reconstruct everything because the Church was generally in the habit up until the early Middle Ages of delenda est. Like, you had to delete or destroy all the writings of heretics. So the vast majority of Arius's works are. Were destroyed. But we know about them indirectly through Athanasius citing them, other church fathers citing them. And that's true for a lot of other heretics in the early church. There are a few things that survive, but most of their works were. Were destroyed. But Athanasius, absolutely, and his patriarch Alexander makes the same point. And Irenaeus of Leon makes his point a few decades earlier in his work against the heresies. He's, of course, in what's now modern day France. But the point is this. It's not just that we've always prayed this way. Lex arandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi. The law of prayer is the law of belief, which is the law of life. It's how you live your life. But we can show in an unbroken chain to the apostles themselves that this is what we've received from them. And our duty, and you see this in Paul's letters especially, but you see this in the letters of all the great holy bishops and popes in the early church, is to preserve what we've been delivered to us and pass it on intact without adding anything, without taking anything away. If there are new terms added, the terms are just to explain what's already being believed. It's not to add any new content, no new content after the death of the last apostle. So, absolutely, Eric, that's a great leitmotif of all the fathers, Athanasius, Alexander, this is what we've always believed. And. And they. Alexander calls Arius. I mean, some of this is classical rhetoric, but it's not sophistic, meaningless rhetoric. Alexander says Arius is mad with demons, that he's feverishly insane. Because what Arius does do, and you'll see this in his letters. So his rejoinder, Eric, is that, no, no, no, what we've always done is what I'm teaching. He's claiming to be the preserver of the traditional faith from the time of the apostles, that we never worshiped Jesus as God, which is. Which Is it is feverishly demonically insane, as bombastic as that rhetoric kind of sounds. And maybe is that's the kind of rhetoric that some of the Fathers used to make it clear publicly through letters that the teachings of some of these clerics are extremely pernicious and they could really shipwreck souls. Jesus, they dishonored. Yeah, sorry. [00:34:11] Speaker A: So the 4th century, I just said how it's an era when the Church was torn apart. Like Jerome says, the. The world woke up and found self. Arian and. But yet I think most people consider the 4th century one of the greatest centuries for the Catholic Church in its history, which there's a certain irony there that it. It took attacks from inside because, remember, the Church had been, as you know, had been attacked from the outside for 300 years. That finally cools off and immediately. [00:34:43] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:34:44] Speaker A: You feel like there's some simmering going on there, but it's not getting out in the open too much because the fact that you're a persecuted church, you're underground church, you can't really debate this out in public too much because you're just trying not to get killed. And then all of a sudden, now that that threat is gone and everything explodes. But then what happens is, of course, God raised up Athanasius, Basil, you know, Gregory Nanzianzus, greatness, all these great saints. So walk through a bit about like the Council of Nicaea and then what was the kind of the definition that the Church settled on? The really trinitarian, but it's also christological at the same time. During the fourth century, leading into the fifth century. [00:35:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I like the way you contextualize it. Some people say this is one of the most important centuries of Church history. It really is. Because it's hard to. You can't really overstate this. And it's so easy to overlook in the 4th century with the Edict of Milan, with. With Constantine, and not just the toleration of Christianity, but the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Empire. It's the end of the better part of millennium of Roman paganism this deep, and it's Greco, Greek, Greek paganism before that. So extremely, deeply entrenched paganism, which was not just, you know, fancy mythological stuff. People really held this and there was real demonic phenomena, all sorts of stuff happening. And this is over by the. By the 4th century. There's an amazing. I mean, just some argue. Aquinas argues this is the greatest miracle in Church history, is the. Through 12 men from Palestine, the ancient empire of demonic paganism is Overthrown and Christ Kingdom is established right on earth through the Church. Okay, so a crisis erupts. Because it's not just that tons of bishops were falling into error. And priests in the east, in the west, they generally were inoculated because of Tertullian's formula, Jesus is one divine person with two natures. So in the west there were very few pockets of Arianism. But in the east, almost the entire Church went down. And not only that, but there were the. The emperor got involved, Imperial guards, people were imprisoned, beaten, tortured, literally. There's first hand accounts of all this. Just amazing. John Henry Newman has a great work on early, you know, the Arianism in the early Church and what happened. It's beautifully written, it's worth reading. Should read that. So the emperor called a council and the Pope consented. Now, the popes generally didn't attend the first six or seven general councils of the church from Nicaea and 325 to Nicaea 2 in the 8th century, because generally they were dealing with barbarian incursions. In the west the barbarian attacks were occurring. And for example, Leo, Leo couldn't go to the Council of Chalcedon, which we'll talk about maybe in a couple minutes, because he was dealing with, for example, Attila the Hun trying to come into Rome. But they did send their legates. They sent three priests usually to represent the Pope. The Pope sent them to preside over the councils or and to present the Pope's position. So he sent legates Pope Sylvester to Nicaea. Constantine, the emperor who was the protector of the faith, called the council. And Alexander the patriarch was one of the fathers. And Athanasius was his peritus, his expert. The theologian is a famous account of Athanasius punching Arius in the face at the council. Afterwards he apologized. Afterwards he apologized. But any event, in any event, what happens at that council is that the orthodox faith is reaffirmed that Jesus Christ is. And this is why we profess in the creed, this is the creed that came out of that council. He is God from God, light from light. And if there's any mistake of metaphor. No, no, true God from true God begotten, not made Hamausias consubstantial of the same substance. Hama same homo hama same usia substance, same essence. He has the same. He is the same. He's the numerically self, same God as the Father, but a different person. Okay, A distinct person. So that's. So Nicaea 3, the form of a creed dogmatically defines that Jesus Christ is Truly God. And A and B, that he is truly God, the Son and the begetting. Here's the beginning of the orthodox response to Arius's really challenging question about begetting. Seems like you need to begin to be. They say, no, no, he's. He's begotten, but not in time, not through sexual reproduction, not materially. He's begotten in Mary's womb. That's distinct. But we're talking about his eternal beginning. From the Father is not in time, it's not in space. It's not created, it's not finite, it's eternal, it's uncreated. And it's not material. It's a spiritual, it's not sexual, but it is a begetting. It's a begetting from the mind of the Father, the Logos. So the response is there was. There was never a time when he was not. He always was. And so they say he's. We say in the Creed, eternally begotten of the Father. And then they anathematize very clearly after the Creed. And anyone who says there was a time when he was not, let him be Anathema. In Greek, that means to be put out or excommunicated. [00:40:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And I. This is where we get, of course, the whole distinction between natures and persons, and here's how I always explain it to my kids when they're young, is that nature is what something is and person is who somebody is. [00:40:30] Speaker B: Beautiful. That's what I do, too. [00:40:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I am. What I am is a human. That's my nature. But who I am is Eric, Eric Sammons. That's who I am. And so that's who my person is. And in every case we know, except for one. The person in the nature are one, each one, you know, you have a human nature as well. But our human natures are not shared. It's not like we have. We share one nature. We simply have. We each have a human nature, an instantiation of or wherever you want. I wouldn't use that word with my little kids. But, you know, and. But then in. In the case of Jesus, we have one person, two natures. In the case of God, we have three persons and one nature. [00:41:10] Speaker B: Right. [00:41:10] Speaker A: And so that kind of breaks it down. Now, when it comes to Jesus, that's kind of what I focus on, is it allow. If there's. This is where I see lots of people trip up today, including Catholics. They don't want to. They. When you say, for example, is Jesus. Was Jesus a human person? They'll say, oh yeah, of course. And it's like, wait a second, you just messed something up, right? Another thing that gets them tripped up. I see people don't like, this is when you say something like, God died on the cross. They're like, no, God can't die. He didn't die on the cross. Like, well, who died on the cross then? Who was it? It was God the Son, right? The Person. And what is God? Who is God the Son? He's a divine person. So, yeah, just like. And it goes to the next heresy, major heresy, which is in the story isn't who is, you know, Jesus Christ, you know, is his nature. So how did then, you know, go. Go from Arianism, big problem, councils defined and stuff like that. But then it keeps going in the 5th century and Nestorius, and I'm skipping a few steps here, but Nestorius is the nest next major figure. Yeah, what, what was his heresy? And I know there's debates upon whether or not he really believed it or whatever. I don't care, you know, what he really believe in the language. But today there are. But what's basically classically considered Nestorism, the heresy and Nestorianism. [00:42:32] Speaker B: Well, what's behind a lot of these heresies is the, is the inability or refusal in some cases to make the distinction you just made between person, person in nature. Even though with us we have one person, one nature, there's still what makes you what you are. Human nature is the same thing that what is what makes me what I am. That's how we're the same. That's not how we're different, but we are different. What makes us different is not human. Right? We're both human fully, you and I and all of us. But what makes us different is person, which is what makes you who you are, are. Right? It's what makes you an individual. Not makes, doesn't make you be the kind of thing you are. It makes you be who you are. Right? So that's very important. Nestorius, like many of the early heretics, refused or failed to distinguish between person and nature. So he held that. Well, look, if you say that the Logos, God, the Son, you know, he is fully God, true God from true God, then, then he's a divine person. But Jesus clearly is also a human person. We know that the Church has condemned, for example, Apollinaris, a bishop in Asia Minor, right after Nicaea, for saying, okay, well, I'll hold what Nicaea holds, which is that Jesus is truly God, but he can't be fully human. Because if he's fully human, then you have two persons, a human divine person and a human person. That's not the case. And Constantinople one, which came in between Nicaea and Nestorius, condemns Apollinaris and says, no, he's truly a human. Okay, so. So here's Nestorius. Nicaea says he's truly God. Constantinople1 says in 381, he's truly human. And here Nestorius is in the early fifth century, four hundreds, saying, well, you can't have a person, person without a nature. So if there's a true divine individual, then he's God, and that's the Logos. And if you have a true human individual, which Jesus is truly human, you have to have a human person. So he's a different person than the Logos. He's the human person. Jesus of Nazareth, whom Mary gave birth to. And so again, liturgy wars, all right? And right out of the gate, it's He. The story is, regardless of this. I didn't even really know. This is much debated outside of academic circles what Nestorius really meant. Nestorius unequivocally prohibited all of his priests in the liturgy from invoking, which has been the case from the beginning of the Eastern liturgy, from St. James of Jerusalem, to invoke Mary as Theotokos, Mother of God. No, she's not the Mother of God. She's the mother of Jesus Christ, who's a human, not God. The Logos is God. Now, the relationship's coming up in a second, but she's the Christataka. She buries, she bears Jesus Christ. Now, at his baptism, the Logos comes to dwell in Jesus Christ so he can be. And they were so perfectly united in will that Jesus as the human, never willed anything, that God the Son, the Logos, willed that they didn't. Their wills never conflicted, except, excuse me, they never conflicted. Whatever the Logos will, Jesus willed. They were so identical in what they willed and desired and hoped, you know, that you can. That. That scripture speaks of them metaphorically is an Astoria's position, as if they were one person. Now, he's onto something here, because in everyday language, in Greek, Latin, in English, we will say things like that, boy, they are. It's as if they're one person, these two. They're so much alike, you know, it's like they're the same person, right? But they're not literally, but they are metaphorically. And so that's what Nestorius taught, is that Jesus Christ is God in the sense that he is the most exalted temple in whom the Logos came to dwell. So here's in a sense very refined form of adoptionism revived. Jesus is a human person, not. Not a divine person with a human nature. One person per nature, please. That's what they hold. Right. And that's a failure to distinguish what makes somebody a what and what makes them a who is different. And even though with us there's always one person per nature, that's not the case with the incarnate Lord or with the Trinity. So. So again, in the liturgy, the effects were you don't worship the Jesus in the Eucharist as God, you do not give him the worship of Latria, you don't honor Mary as Mother of God. Jesus doesn't save us through. He saves our bodies through his death on the cross, but not our souls, because he's not divine. So we imitate Jesus, we imitate him in order to be saved. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of liturgical ramifications here. Practically speaking of the theology. Right. Lex credendi, lexerendi, Lexerendi. Lex credendi. Interplay. [00:47:29] Speaker A: Yeah. What's also interesting about historianism is if you look at all the ancient heresies, their followers are all gone. Even Arianism, which lasted quite some time finally, in fact, it kind of revived in the west later among the barbarians. But in the story of that church that split off from that exists today. [00:47:48] Speaker B: Right. [00:47:49] Speaker A: In fact, it's the Persian Church, you know, that's kind of what it's considered. That's where it grew, was in ancient Persia and things like that. So. And I know there's a lot of efforts between the Catholic Church and, and it's the Assyrian Church of the east is the official name. Right? Yeah. To try to reunion, you know, we recognize our sacraments and you know, they're an apostolic church and all that. But. And I know there's been, like I said, there's been some rehabilitation efforts about Nestorius himself, but it's just interesting showing how far reaching of consequences these ancient heresies can have. And so that, that was settled at council in Ephesus in 431, if I'm getting my date correctly. [00:48:29] Speaker B: That's right. [00:48:30] Speaker A: But then it's like they didn't even wait. Now, Cyril of Alexandria was the great hero there. But then it's like immediately it, it switches back and now all of a sudden this is one, I, I had to admit my memory isn't as good about remembering the details of this. But followers of Cyril, if I remember correctly, after he dies, they go where the Church thinks is a little too far. And they, they're the ones who fall on the mono, how you pronounce it, Monophys, Monophysitism. And so they fall that which is then condemned by the Council. Calcanon. So what is Monophysitism? I can't say it, but I, you know, what does that, what does that mean then? [00:49:11] Speaker B: So again, it gets complicated in the course. I go into the tall grass. We won't go into the tall grass here because there's a lot of details we have to skip over. [00:49:18] Speaker A: We'll go into the medium level. [00:49:20] Speaker B: There's linguistic, there's linguistic details, all sorts of things and there's interesting dramatic things that occur, amazing heroic things by saints like St. Cyril Etc. Anyway, there was a work that was falsely attributed to Saint Athanasius. It was Pseudo Athanasius that Cyril saw. And in that work the Pseudo Athanasius claims that in Christ there's mia fusis, one nature. But by one nature they meant kind of one concrete individual with full humanity and full divinity. So Cyril was orthodox, but linguistically he used the term mia fusis, one nature. Eventually he willingly rejected that term. But it was in a certain respect not too late for him, but too late for others. So there's this monk up in Constantinople, Cyril's in Alexandria, North Africa, Constantinople is in Asia Minor. And that's where Nestorius was patriarch by the way. Nestorius was patriarchal Constantinople. He was excommunicated and sent into exile after Ephesus. The council anathema, you know, condemned his, his views as heretical, that Jesus is, is one divine person. He's not a human person, he's. But he's a full human being. He's fully human, fully divine, but only one divine person. That's Ephesus. Well, after Nestorius was kicked out, an extreme version of kind of what Cyril was getting after was, was revived in Constantinople by a monk named Uticis. And he held that Christ's human nature gets absorbed. The incarnation is the human nature getting absorbed into the infinite divine nature and kind of burned out, right? So the divine essence is God is an all consuming fire, we read in Hebrews. And so the human nature, when it is united to the divinity, gets consumed. Like a. Imagine a rope, a big corded rope. If you could burn that thoroughly without wind blowing it away, the ashes remaining would make it look just like a rope, but it's not a rope. And that's what happens to the humanity of Christ when united to the divinity. It gets completely consumed by the divine fire, and then in the end only appears human. Another example he gives is the humanity of Christ is like a drop of water. It's very liturgical, evocative, dropped into, in this case, the divine nature, an infinite vat of wine. And when the water goes in, it completely is absorbed. You can't distinguish that water any longer. And that's what happens to the humanity of Christ. So the humanity of Christ is mixed in and combined, mixed into the divine. And so you have, you have one nature. Jesus Christ is a divine person with only one nature. That one nature is a mixture of the human and the divine, which in the end really only appears divine because the humanity is just completely consumed by the divinity. Hence mono one fusis nature, Monophysitism. [00:52:24] Speaker A: And so, and then Council Galcan under Pope Leo the the Great. Yeah, he then what is in the definition of Jesus? Like, how many natures does he have and how do they interact with each other? [00:52:38] Speaker B: The key phrase in a fairly substantive definition of faith, which we read the whole thing in the course the definition of faith at the Council of Chalcedon, that was in asia Minor in 451, 20 years after Ephesus condemning Eutyches and Monophysitism. The key phrase is this, that in Christ, the one divine person, there are two natures united without confusion, without mixture. So that's the heresy of Monophysitism, but also without division and without separation. That's Nestorianism. So those are the two extreme errors that Chalcedon teaches the truth, that the truth is found away from those two errors, that Jesus Christ is one divine person with two complete natures, human and divine, that are not mixed together. They're not combined together. So they retain their distinct, but they're not separate, like Nestorius said, they're two separate persons. How can you imagine this? Think of your body and soul. This is the, this is the analogy used at that council by Pope Leo and the council themselves itself. Your body is not your soul and your soul is not your body. Your soul's image is non material. Your body is material. They're distinct, they're not the same. They're not mixed together. They're distinct, but they're not separate. If they were separate, that's, that's death. Right. So that's a way to, way to begin thinking about these, these more kind of difficult but very important precisions that the, that the council gives us. [00:54:12] Speaker A: So what's interesting is this is 450. And so we have about 450, 50, you know, a little bit over 400 years since the time of Christ, for about 120 years between Nicene, Chalcedon, basically we have this, this refinement. Refinement, refinement. And really, essentially I do know, like, there's other monotheism, stuff like that. I'm not even going to go into that one. Take the course. You want to know that? Yeah, Right. But, but essentially, after the first four councils, we have the orthodox faith defined, trinitarian, Christological, that, that the Trinity is, you know, one. One God, you know, three, one nature, three, three person. Jesus is one person, two natures, human and divine, with all the different. And there's. There's more to it than that, but that's the essential crux of it. What I think is very interesting. This is, I think, what led. I don't. I don't think, but he said it. What led John Henry Newman to become Catholic was what I mentioned at the very beginning, which was that the way you describe the orthodox faith about Jesus is not exactly how St. Peter, for example, would have mentioned, or even St. John would have mentioned it, yet it's obviously the exact same faith. And that gets into the whole issue of development of doctrine, that the doctrine didn't change at all. What, what, what St. Leo the Great believed is the exact same thing that St. Peter, the first Pope, believed. Yet it clearly is. I want you better explained, I guess. Is that probably the best way to put it? [00:55:44] Speaker B: We're in more detail. Yeah. I mean, a helpful way I find to look at this is development versus evolution. Okay? So if you think of human development, then you think of a baby developing into an adolescent, a young adult, a mature human, a old person, okay? That's human development. It's the same exact person every step of the way. It's you as a baby, you as a teen, you as a young adult. It's you the whole time. Nothing new, no new being added. Okay. No new substantial being added. That's development. Evolution is a thing begins as type A and then evolves into a different being, type B, a fish into a frog or, you know, whatever. [00:56:30] Speaker A: Okay? [00:56:30] Speaker B: That's, that's, that's evolution. And so evolution of dogma is de rigueur these days. That's the whole. Or I don't know if I use that word. Right. But it's. It's the common modernist view that dogma evolves. Now we're at the point where we should, you know, realize that the Church is teaching on homosexual homosexuality was wrong. We've evolved. Right. No, that's corruption of dogma. That's corruption. Development is. It's the same doctrine with the same sense, but explained more clearly. Okay, so we've. This is my body. We've held from the very beginning the Lord's presence in the Eucharist that was adored and worshiped and received with gratitude. But then the questions over time, and the heresies that Paul says, heresies must come, but woe to him through whom they come. But it's important for these to happen so that the truth of the reality of revealed truth is. Is explained in. In more precise detail. What does it mean to be God the Son, and how should we speak of Him? That's another thing that these church councils hammered out, especially at Ephesus and at Chalcedon, is how properly to speak of Jesus. You yourself brought this up. Who died on the cross? Is it true to say it's a true statement, God died on the cross. It's just as true to say that as it is to say God was born of the Virgin or God the Son, you know, was born of the Virgin. It's not the divine nature that died on the cross. It's not the divine nature that was born of Mary, but it's the person, God the Son, who in his humanity died on the cross. And God in his humanity was born of Our Lady. And this is how the New Testament speaks. We call it. The technical term is communication of idioms. But the New Testament speaks this way. Peter in his sermon says, in Acts 3, you've put to death the author of life. So you're using a term that refers to his humanity, death, and referring it to him in a term that refers to his divinity, the author of life. Or you can go the other way around. This man, Jesus, term referring to his humanity, has all power. All power has been given to me. Matthew 28, all power is omnipotent, that's divine, has been given to Jesus, who's referred to in his human terms in Matthew 8, Matthew 28. So communication of idioms. But it has to be done properly. [00:58:54] Speaker A: Right, because you couldn't say, for example, God, the Holy Spirit died on the cross. [00:58:58] Speaker B: Correct? Right. [00:58:59] Speaker A: You can't say because that's not the person who died on the cross, it's the Son who died on the cross. And one of the things, like bringing up Newman again and just for myself, I know, like, one of the things that led me to Catholicism from Protestantism was I grew up Methodist, a relatively orthodox Methodist Church, and most mainline Protestants, most Protestants for a very long time basically accepted the first four ecumenical councils, they looked at it differently. But the results of the first four they would agree with. They believed in Trinity. They believed that Jesus was human and divine equally and all fully and all that. But what you'd start to do is you start to realize when you study it more like, okay, I believe this as a Protestant, I did believe that. But how do we get to that? Like, how did we get there? And that's when all of a sudden you realize, oh, we needed the Church led by the Holy Spirit to get to there. Because you had bishops arguing with each other. You had patriarchs who were doing heresies. Well, who's to say they aren't right then? And it was only after the church councils. It kind of shows the authority of the church councils that last know for sure. Whereas a Protestant who rejects the authority of church councils, yet accepts the results of these as somehow authoritative, they would call somebody a heretic who thought not all. I know Protestantism has gotten so much even in the past 50 years. It's. It's broken up a ton. But they would say someone's a heretic who didn't believe in the Trinity, for example, yet we wouldn't have the Trinity, the knowledge of it like it is, without the church councils. [01:00:35] Speaker B: No, no, that's right. In fact, I used to listen to. I don't know if any of our viewers know this person, but Hank Hannegraf, the Bible. [01:00:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, Hank Hannah Graph. Yeah, Bible answer man. [01:00:43] Speaker B: He was great. And I'd listen to him, Christian Research International Institute. And he would. It blew my mind. This guy's a Protestant. But he would reference the first four ecumenical councils of the church to talk about the Trinity and talk about why some of these folks in the Trinity Broadcasting Network were often to heresies of adoptionism because they don't recognize that God is three persons in one divine nature. He said that from the early councils. And I'm thinking this guy is talking like a Catholic. Well, sure enough, as you might know, he became Eastern Orthodox. Close. [01:01:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:01:18] Speaker B: Because of the, you know, he was sick and he came to believe in Christ's real presence in the Eucharist. Right. Pray for him. I think alive maybe, you know. [01:01:26] Speaker A: Yeah. If you, if you value the councils and I understand authority, if you're going to become either Catholic or Orthodox, because obviously value the councils right now, jumping to today, then like Protestantism obviously has a lot of heresies involved with it, but they weren't in essentially trinitarian or christological heresies yet, even though they weren't really crystallized to heresies. There's almost no. Protestants will use the term Mother of God. They reject that. Very much so. And, and so. [01:01:57] Speaker B: Well, Luther did. [01:02:00] Speaker A: But is that why. Is that, like, why today they reject Mother of God, yet they really do accept generally the Christological teachings of the first councils? [01:02:12] Speaker B: Well, just anecdotally, and that's what I've got. And we look at the same stuff and are involved peripherally or more than peripherally in the same conversations. It just seems like a whole lot of contemporary Protestants are worried that if you say she's Mother of God and you're praying to her, then you're somehow worshiping her. Like, somehow prayer means worship and she's a Mother of God. Somehow she's equal to or superior to the divinity or some. I mean, I know that sounds nuts, but that's what I'm seeing. And then when people are engaging, I don't see a lot of. What I see is a lot of people becoming Catholic once they find out, oh, you don't worship Mary, we honor her, but we do that. We only worship God. We only adore God with Latria and we. And prayer is a complex. It's not just. Prayer is not just worship. Prayer is also asking for, you know, so. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Do you. What do you think? You probably know better than I do. Like what? Why? I don't get it. [01:03:14] Speaker A: It's. I think it is the, the knee jerk reaction against too much veneration or respect given to Mary that they've really turned Mary into. In practice, they've turned Mary into just an incubator. And you see that, like, they don't even talk about her except for during Christmas season. And she's just. She's just like kind of a side. [01:03:34] Speaker B: Character, not the person. She's the mother of nature. [01:03:37] Speaker A: And I always just say, well, who was, who was Mary's child? Jesus. Who is Jesus? God? I mean, that seems pretty clear to me. But I do think it's more a matter of just a reaction to try to be understanding how I might have been when I was Protestant. It's a reaction of. They feel like Mother of God is almost a gateway drug to school. Like, you know, hyperdulia is given to Mary and all that, and they don't want to do that. [01:04:04] Speaker B: No. Right. And I wonder if they feel like, well, if Mary's a sinner because they have that right, that she's a sinner. [01:04:09] Speaker A: Right. [01:04:10] Speaker B: A wretched sinner, then how. It's. How could the Lord himself have submitted himself as an infant to her guardianship and her authority over him to teach him, not just to feed him, but to clothe him, but to teach him she's a sinner. If you're a hardcore traditional Lutheran, then all you're doing, all your acts are sinful, all of them. So he's submitting himself in obedience to someone who's committing acts of sin by telling him what to do. As a little baby, as a little boy, you know, I would imagine it's really hard to accept. [01:04:45] Speaker A: I feel like, you know, since the beginning of Protestantism there's been, I mean, it's fundamentally heretical, but then you get some kind of crazy offshoots that go more and more hereticals of that. But I feel like in general Protestantism maintained their trinitarian Christological orthodoxy, generally speaking. But I do feel like at the same time that's been falling apart in modern times, like in our lifetime, that because they don't have an authority, the church, to kind of keep them guarded and guided, that you see them going beyond just rejecting mother God to full on adoptionism. Okay. You know, a lot of beliefs are just. [01:05:27] Speaker B: Are you following, like have you followed over the years William Lane Craig? Yes, he's great. He's got so much good stuff on the resurrection. But then he's. He's an adoptionist in essence. Okay. Or Kenneth Copeland, do you remember age to remember him? But Kenneth Copeland or I think the guy's name is Benny Hinn. [01:05:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah. [01:05:49] Speaker B: Who was a faith healer on Trinity Broadcasting Network. [01:05:52] Speaker A: He was huge one day. He was huge. [01:05:54] Speaker B: He was unequivocal. I remember Hank Hanegraaff, actually, to his credit, exposed Benny Hinn as an adoptionist heretic on the Bible Answer man radio show. So, yeah, look, it all goes hand in hand too. By the way, as you know, Christological heresies are related to Marian heresies and Marian heresies related to Christological heresies. If you deny she's mother of God, then you're gonna have to say, well, maybe he's just a human in whom God dwelt or something. Right. Because your mother not of a nature, but of a person. Person. I don't say I'm the father of faith. My daughter's human nature, but not a faith. And you're the dad of Peter's human nature, but not of Peter. No, you're Peter. Father, son relationship, mother, daughter relationship, etc. Are relations that attach to persons, not natures. [01:06:40] Speaker A: Right, right. [01:06:41] Speaker B: Another way, another example I usually often give is if, if a student fails a test and they came to me and said, hey, hey, hey, I didn't fail the test. My intellect or my nature failed. No, it's, it's the person through your nature. Sure, your memory failed, your intellect failed, whatever it was, but it was you who have to own it. [01:07:03] Speaker A: Yeah, right. So, and I want to, we're going to wrap it up here in a minute, but I want to kind of ask the question, why does this matter? I think a lot of modern case, Catholics included, Christians and Catholics and non, non Christians as well, would say, yeah, you're just a, you know, ivory tower professor talking about things from that over a thousand years ago. It, all that matters is that we're good, that we're, that we're nice to each other. We, we help the poor over. Why does it really matter whether or not like is it. So why is it so important that it's like salvific, that you, you have the right theology when it comes to that? So why do we actually even care about that? Why is St. Paul center making courses about it and why are we talking about it? [01:07:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not ivory tower, abstract question, although it can be treated that way for sure. It's an extremely urgent question. And the stakes couldn't be higher in this sense. If you talk about stakes, what's at stake, it's usually some basic human goods or, or evils correspond, you know, contrary evils that are at stake. So what could be at stake is your, your human health or your safety or your nutrition. It could be your, your physical life, it could be your moral character could be at stake. When you look at the, the goods, right. In a hierarchy in our lives, prioritizing what's more or less good, your eternal life or condemnation is high. You can't access something greater, a greater good or a greater evil than eternal life or eternal damnation. Everything is secondary to that. You die a thousand deaths, but go to heaven. Okay, there's no comparison. And in this case, people who've reached the age of reason, this critical point, right, have to come to a determination about who is Jesus, who is Jesus? Yes, there are all sorts of fringe kind of questions about people who've never heard of Christ and all that, but the bottom line about, about Jesus is that there's no salvation through any other name except that of Jesus Christ. Can he save those who invincibly, ignorantly don't know of him? Yes, that's possible. So just put that aside for a second. But we're in A lot of trouble in our class. In the class for Emmaus Academy. I start with the bad news of the Fall and the evils that we're subject to because of the Fall. That is spiritual death, alienation from God, ignorance, error, malice, concupiscence, physical illness, suffering, death, limited and real subjection to Satan. That's real. It's limited, but it's real. And the very real possibility of hell. Okay, so we desperately need a Savior. If Jesus is God and scripture is inspired and inerrant and it's a testimony to him, so there's all these ifs. If you see the, the, the, the. The reasonability of belief in all this, then you have to take his word seriously. Mark 16. He who preached the gospel to all the nations. He who believes and is baptized will be saved. He who does not believe will be condemned. So the stakes are really high. They're not there. You have a very good book on indifferentism that I want to plug because that shows that you really answered the question in that book, I think better than I am now that the stakes are extremely high. What you believe, what you don't believe. It's not a matter of just being a good person. And heaven's a supernatural life that you cannot earn by human nature alone. And Christ got the God, man. God the Son incarnate makes that available to us. And so we have ourselves of that and there's salvation. He is not is. You know, ask yourself, is he just an ascended spiritual master like the Buddha or Socrates? Is he just a neat spiritual guy or, or not? Right. Because Lewis, I think, shows C.S. lewis that that's not an option, that he's a good guy. If he's not God, then he's a liar or a lunatic. And the presupposition is that the Gospels are historically reliable, which that's demonstrable. If the Gospels are historically reliable, then it's not an option to say he's just a nice, good spiritual religious guy or whatever, just like the Buddha or other Krishna. Okay? No, he claims to be God. And if he's not, he's just a good guy, then he's really a liar or a lunatic. But he's certainly not someone you should follow or listen to. But if, if, if he is the Lord, we have to listen up carefully because he. He says some very important things. And it's not just be nice, play nice and happy. [01:11:53] Speaker A: Exactly. Okay, we're going to wrap it up there. I want to encourage people to get the course at St. Paul Center. How many episodes it was like nine or ten, something like that. [01:12:03] Speaker B: Yeah, there's about, I think nine or ten episodes. About a half hour each. [01:12:07] Speaker A: Yeah, right. [01:12:08] Speaker B: Everything you get in a college class, but no homework. [01:12:10] Speaker A: Right. It's. And I think it's very good because it's some of the foundational issues that people get confused. Like, I personally think like a homeschooling parent, this is a very useful resource for them to watch, to then teach their kids so that when their kids start a younger age, need to understand this, you have a very clear understanding of it so that you don't get confused. Because it. Let's be honest, it's not always easy. Like, you know, some stuff you talked about, it's confusing. It's not. It's not like it's. It's. It's not complicated at times, but once you understand it, then it all. You notice everything kind of comes together. It just. All, all the pieces come together. [01:12:48] Speaker B: Some high schoolers. Some high schoolers could handle the course. [01:12:51] Speaker A: Yes, I think so. Yeah, exactly. So. Okay, well, thank you. I will put a link to the course in the show notes so people can go to it. Just St. Paulcenter.com I think is the website. But I'll put a link directly to the course called Jesus Christ Savior. Thanks a lot for coming on, Mike. We'll probably run into each other at some point before too long now that our families are intertwined. Actually, your son and daughter. My son, your daughter, they're coming to visit me next week, so that, That'll be nice. So, yeah, we'll see you around now. Okay. [01:13:20] Speaker B: Yeah. God bless. Eric. So good to see you again. Thank you. [01:13:23] Speaker A: Thank you. Until next time, everybody. God love you.