Lecture on: An Orthodox Theory of Knowledge by Rev. Deacon Dr. Ananas Sorem

Here we lecture through a great paper by Father Deacon Dr. Ananias cover the philosophic and epistemic differences between the Greek Eastern Fathers and Latin Western Fathers.

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[@turquoiseturkey7824]

Sweet sassy molasses this is great I’m so glad you’re going over this material!
Thank you so much for putting in the work to produce this content brother!

[@ChristianLogos]

@@turquoiseturkey7824 ayeee all Glory to Christ! Thank you for your support 🤍

[@benrex7775]

That’s such an interesting topic. I’m a protestant who slowly starting to learn about various Christian ways of thinking.
~14:00 I'm also not too big of a fan of debates. But if you grew up among atheists and if you talk to atheists who don't even grant the existence of a God, I think natural theology is a good starting point. Of course it is an unhappy circumstance that if you debate with Atheists, then you will inevitably stay at the first step of a several step argument.
16:10 I disagree that natural theology gives ground to the atheist. It only does so if you start with the proposition that pure naturalism is the default view and anything deviating from it means that it has a burden of proof.
But I agree with you that natural theology doesn’t give you everything. But from the little I’ve learned it can give you a relational god (aka the trinity) which can create and wants to interact with humans. And if you have that, you are expecting God to have worked in this world. At which point we can go to the special revelation.
~18:30 I would say if we first come to Christ through reason or relationship depends on the person. Some find out there ought to be something out there as nature implies that. And some experience God first and find out there are good arguments for him. Because of that I don’t think we should make a logical order in that aspect. After all we also can’t say God was first a personal being and only after that he is the God of truth. God is both person and truth at the same time, and it is our way of experiencing him that puts an order to these non-ordered characteristics of God.
24:30 It is indeed a risk that you think your ground your confidence in your own rationality, if you try to find God through reason. But that is only one possible risk. The way I do it is I think God created the natural world and the supernatural world (I’m aware that they are interlinked or two sides of the same coin). He also gave me the tools of reason. So what I do is I experience one aspect of God with the lens that God has given me. He also gave me other lenses, but this is also one of them. In my opinion, if you reject the idea of observing the world through the lens of reason, then you reject one of the essential characteristics of God. I may be overly focused on one of the possible lenses, but I would reject the claim that I ground my approach on my own reason.
28:10 I would say the “we can still know things” does not necessarily mean that we can know it through our own strength. Everything we have is given to us and God has the capability to give everybody enough that they could know him. I would say there are plenty of examples where people got o know about God though a rational conversation. Of course giving a wholistic experience of God is very valuable too and those two approaches should be done alongside each other, if possible.
~32:30 I’m not American. But I would say that we expect all protestants to study the Bible while we think that politics is something not everybody has to do. Also we don’t say we should all study the Bible completely on our own. We should also listen to church authorities. But we should read it for ourselves and have a personal knowledge and personal experience. Of course reality doesn’t always live up to what the ideal is and there have been indeed cases of lunacy in my wider camp.
~38:00 TO me the difference of the west and the east approach that you present is like eating an apple from the front or the back. But if you do either of the approaches seriously, then with both approaches you end up eating the whole apple. To me it seems you are very charitable towards non-orthodox Christians, probably more so than I am. And because of that, any statement you say against Catholics or Protestants I take as possible dangers that happen when one takes those positions to the extreme.
I would say natural reasons or intellect alone would be capable of pointing to God. That’s why I am not afraid of independently thinking super smart AI. I think there are additional things influencing the humans which prevent them to see rational clearly. Partially because we lack the capability to be fully rational and partially, because we have other influences that bias our outcome. In my opinion the artist is always visible in the art pieces he makes. Enough aspects of God would be visible in nature and logic that it can lead unbiased humans to God. But in those natural revelations not everything about God is visible. Also rational is only one of several languages that human speak and depending on the individual different communication channel are effective to reach them.
46:50 I find it interesting to see how different Christians apply the verse of “I never knew you.” It seems to me like most Christians take what they/their denomination thinks is the most essential way of interacting with God and then say anybody who doesn’t do that is in the group that God never knew.
I would agree with you that if someone thinks God is essentially a deistic God that doesn’t care about humans and all their prayers are empty shells of tradition, then that person would belong to the crowd that never knew God. But when we have a person who likes to use the argument of the God of the philosopher and even has a twisted theology thanks to that, but they actually have faith and show the works of the spirit, then such a person will not be in the crowd that God never knew.
In your elaboration of what you mean with the interpretation of that verse, you mention that Christians are required to have a relationship with Jesus and experienced him. Would you say a charismatic evangelical who experiences Gods presence in a modern worship song and who goes out to evangelize would be having an authentic experience? Or is it required that this experience has to happen within the orthodox church during orthodox liturgy?
I once attended a Christian camp where we did some of the Benedictinian liturgy and I didn’t experience God at all in the lectio divina and in the daily prayers. But sometimes if I listen to the Christian metal band “Theocracy” during my commute to work, I get overwhelmed with emotions that seem to fit what other Christians say.
~55:00 When it comes to the topic of divine simplicity. I’m more comfortable with going what the Bible revealed over going thorugh the philosophical approach of divine simplicity. Reason for that is that I don’t trust myself to set up a logically coherent model of such an unintuitive concept. In the end I belief the two ought to be consistent. But I’m a complete layman in those fields, so I will listen to both sides.
As far as I understand it, the Christian god of the philosopher actually has a relationship with the world, both causal as well as relational. It also claims there is a personal God. Or at the very least there are versions of it that are predicting that. Because of that your argument isn’t as undermining of the western thought as you present it.
Once you started with the core of the video, among other the video, I can’t really contribute much. But I have a question. Based on what I’ve heard, the east and the west had also a lot of misunderstandings of each others positions. So if you only listen to the critique on one side of the argument, then that may paint a wrong picture of the other side. So my question is, would you say the east has a correct understanding of the west and do you listen to people from the west who treat the topic with the same care and depth?
~1:34:00 I agree with you, that rational is not the only thing that exists. It is one of the aspects of the way we experience the world and in which God can speak to us.
1:38:20 I recently heard the statement that some people overvalue the might of Satan. And they pointed to Job. He was a mere human from the old testament and Satan was given free range to do whatever he wants. But he could still not force Job to condemn God. Underestimating Satan is not smart, but overestimating him shouldn’t be done either.

[@ChristianLogos]

@@benrex7775 I appreciate you thoughts ☦️

[@Capxnn]

Another gem of a stream brother, the first 30 minutes itself cleared up a lot of things for me. Tysm for putting out these videos🙏

[@ChristianLogos]

@@Capxnn that’s what I’m here for 🫡 appreciate your support brother and I’m glad this helped. I hope you and your family are blessed and God continues to enlighten both you and I!