Palamism & Thomism - David Bradshaw & Christopher Tomaszewski
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- Опубликовано: 29 май 2021
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Awesome Suan. I am so glad that you got to have Dr. Bradshaw on to discuss these issues. I am merely a novice compared to his expertise on Palamas and the energies. God bless!
Another fun discussion would be an east and west dialogue on the Trinity. Specifically the fillioque. Beau Branson is an orthodox scholar on the Trinity and it’d be cool to see him dialogue with a Catholic scholar on the issue.
If you get someone at David Bradshaw's caliber, and you are mostly unfamiliar with the subject they specialize in, and you want to learn more. It might be a good idea to just let them have the floor for almost all of the stream, instead of getting caught up in your own philosophical system.
Chris seems like a smart guy but he definitely started to filibuster on the interpretation of Aquinas' view of distinction. Which took away from him and the audience learning about the essence and energy distinction, from one of the leading experts on the subject.
My humble critique of the stream.
Man essence and "energies" distinction is as easy to understand and as simple to logically understand as 2x2=4
Essence is God himself and Energy is his.. Well anything that comes out of God...
(in my opinion Energy is not the best translation of the word into modern English, since modern understanding of Energy is different from OG Greek)
@@FirstnameLastname-py3bc really wish we would just universally translate energeia as actuality.
I'm an hour in and my thoughts exactly.
Seriously; Dr. Bradshaw has the patience of a saint. The other guy just came off as rude and borderline disrespectful to Dr. Bradshaw's own expertise
@Kingfish13 it's just the difference in a guy who is super comfortable in what he does and doesn't know and one who is new and still thinking like a young person.
This has got to be one of the most normal discussions I've seen. Excellent job on not simply being "talking heads" like all of these Internet pundits
Dr. Bradshaw and Christopher both intend for this to be an informative exchange of ideas and not a "debate" in the polemical sense. So, please be compassionate to our guest philosophers and each other.
In orthodox theology there is no such thing as palamism.the says of saint Greogory Palamas are actually the says of the orthodox church nothing different.
@Ventura i dont see that. In orthodox theology we don't have schools of thoughts but simple what is the orthodox church theology and what is not. The says of saint Gregory Palamas as other says from different saints are in the synodicon of orthodoxy tbe most official orthodox document read at the first Sunday of the great lent the Sunday of orthodoxy. He that does not follow saint Gregory Palamas says simple he is not following the orthodox church theology.
@Ventura when you want to see what orthodoxy is you see it in the life saints of the elders .
@Ventura also all philosophical methodologies to suppose learn about God in orthodox theology are seen as heresy. The knowledge of God comes from THEOSIS not philosophy
@Ventura wrong again the hesychast method was practise at mount athos all the ottoman period
1:08:57 - Thank God for Dr. Bradshaw. Finally, what needed to be said for so long is plainly stated.
Waldrop's reformulation of the Simple Modal Collapse arguments demonstrates clearly why the Orthodox have a way out and the Thomist does not:
1) Necessarily, God exists.
2) God is identical to his actual act of creation.
3) Necessarily, God's actual act of creation exists.
The Thomist accepts premise 2, the Orthodox denies it. God in his existence is necessary and immutable, but if his actions are not identical to his necessary and immutable essence, then there is no modal collapse.
If you want to take Chris' attempt at an out, by appealing to indeterminate causation(I. E. A cause that doesn't necessitate it's effects) you're going to need to drop intentionality. If God's identical to his intentional act of creating the world then Chris can't make that move.
1) Necessarily, God exists.
2) God is identical to the creator.
3) Necessarily, the creator exists.
All Theists accept both premises. So, you're stuck with the problem too. Thankfully, as Tomaszewski has pointed out, "fortunately for the proponent of the DDS, and as I (Tomaszewski 2019) have shown, this argument commits the famous formal fallacy of substituting a contingently co-referential term into the scope of a modal operator. So the argument is simply invalid, for the reasons explained long ago in Quine (1953: Ch. 8), who gives us the following counterexample: Necessarily, 8 is greater than 7. The number of the planets is identical to 8. Necessarily, the number of the planets is greater than 7."
God does intentionally create the universe. God has all reasons to create any world in His mind, and so whatever God creates, those reasons to create are already in His mind, so He creates intentionally. God decides which reasons can be attributed as His intentions by creating.
@@alithea9510 your mistake is assuming that being a creator is an essential attribute of god
@@alithea9510 Oof, The topic of creation being necessary is the very thing in question. By extension the attribute of God being 'creator' is also in question in this debate. So your argument is begging the question in P2. Nice try though.
36:00 This whole Thomistic diatribe seems to be an exercise in distinction without difference from an Orthodox perspective and for the purposes of Orthodox-RC discussion.
Agree completely. Tomaszewski was allowed to hijack the show with his flailing defenses of an absurd doctrine (Thomistic absolute divine simplicitty) that was tangential at best to the work of the main guest.
1:09 seems like the key moment. I wish a Thomist would explain how it can be proper to draw a distinction when there is no distinction there. Christopher talks about the Divine Essence ‘lending itself’ to virtual distinctions being drawn and I’ve heard other Thomists talk about its ‘richness’ such that it can serve as the fundamentum for different virtual distinctions. But where is the Thomist who explains how this is consistent with absolute Divine simplicity? It rather seems like the Thomists are unwilling to surrender Aristotelian absolute Divine simplicity, and so this is the only position left to them.
They look very much alike. It looks like Dr David Bradshaw is talking to his younger self lol
They do. Ha!!
It’s a new Zoom update. It threw me off the first time too.
This was an awesome discussion... 👌. I loved it. Amazing. Is there a follow up yet? Has it come out?
If we're equating God's essence with his actions then we must say that, like his essence, God's actions are necessary and immutable.
Now, if we're going to admit that there are possible worlds where God created different things, then the differing effectuations in said possible worlds are necessarily not the result of God's will, which is equated with his essence. We have now disconnected God's actions with the effects of said actions.
Wouldn't we then have to say that God's intentions aren't the determinates of the effects of his actions? If so, then wouldn't we have to say that God's "creation" of the world was mediated by something, namely the determinate of the action's effects, whatever we pin that on being? What then could we say is the determinate of his action's effects before he created anything? The only out that I see here is to say that God intentionally acts without purpose, which would collapse any causal argumentation regarding God.
Tomaszewski saying that 'cutting nature at the joints' is a contemporary analytic phrase is the biggest Freudian slip I've ever heard. It's not at all, it stems directly from the latter half of the Phaedrus - one of the most important dialogues for understanding Plato's conception of the intellect's cognitive ascent to forms. Seems like he has not grasped the Platonic tradition at all based on that comment
Great!
How can a reality be apprehended by a created mind without an actual distinction existing? Are there any examples of this that anyone can think of?
I think a better way that Chris could have described virtual and merely logical distinctions instead of "lending itself to" is this: A virtual distinction in a thing is a distinction made in the thing by an intellect in virtue of something intrinsic to that thing. Since the distinction is made in virtue of something intrinsic to the thing, it means that this particular distinction isn't a distinction intrinsic to the thing because the distinction is made posterior to whatever is intrinsic to it. So for God, the reason distinctions between His mercy and justice and power and whatnot are not merely logical is because these distinctions are made in Him by an intellect in virtue of something intrinsic to Him, which could be said to be His act of Being or something.
A merely logical distinction is a distinction made in a thing by an intellect made in virtue of something not intrinsic to the thing. So, in the case of Venus, the reason we can say that the distinction between the Morning Star and the Evening Star in Venus is not a virtual distinction but a merely logical one is because the distinction is made in Venus by an intellect in virtue of the times at which it appears to human perceivers, which is certainly something extrinsic to Venus.
Can you explain how the distinction between a human's rationality and his animality is a virtual one? I don't understand how someone's rationality (their ability to form concepts, put them into propositions, reason) and their animality are not distinct outside the operation of an intellect.
The idea that you can have a conceptual distinction, without implying that there is a real distinction in the thing, is an incoherent notion. I would like someone to give me an example of a conceptual distinction of something, which doesn't imply a real distinction in that thing.
The distinction between the morning star and the evening star is not a conceptual or logical distinction, it's merely a semantical distinction. To conceptualize the morning star as distinct from the evening star, is to think or portray that there is a real distinction between them, which is incorrect, since there is no real distinction. So what follows is that a conceptual distinction between the morning star and evening star is a mistaken distinction.
@@danzo1711
A "semantical distinction" is the same as a "logical distinction". A logical distinction just means one that doesn't exist prior to an intellect's conceiving of it.
@@ob4161 No, they are not the same. A distinction in semantics is a distinction of terms. A logical or conceptual distinction, is a distinction in the concept or idea of a thing.
1:40:42 Mark Spencer article
13:10 Augustine quote
1:32:20 Tomistic answer to Spinoza
44:46 Bradshaw's article
46:36 Giles of Rome
48:48 Bradshaw's view of Real Distinction
49:44 Book recommendation
1:00:12 Not simply mind-dependent
1:10:15 Another book reference
excellent discussion
I’m so confused by the Thomistic perspective here and I’m agnostic
Where is part 2 to this??
In orthodox church theology there is no thing as palamism. What the orthodox church theology is what saint Gregory Palamas said .in reality saint Greogory Palamas said the orthodox church theology.
Suan get Fr Peter Totleben OP on for these discussions. He is a thomist who is quite familiar with Palamism
In orthodox theology there is no such thing as palamism. The theology of the orthodox church is what saint Greogory Palamas said
@@user-pj7sq7ce1f there was a literal civil war in Constantinople between anti-palamite Orthodox vs the palamite Orthodox.
@@DanielWard79 you are wrong because going your logic we can say the nicea was the arians Christian with the athanasian Christian but that is not the case. In the same way it was the orthodox with GREGORY PALAMAS and the heretics
@@DanielWard79 in orthodox theology there is no such thing as palamism but the says of Gregory Palamas is what is the orthodox church theology nothing different.
@@user-pj7sq7ce1f when a unbiased person reads the writings of Gregory Akindynos and finds out he was uncharitably smeared as a Barlamite heretic something he was not by Gregory Palamas for asking about the E&E distinction. Without a explanation which Palamas refused to give Akindynos, he came to the conclusion Palamas was inviting novelty into Orthodoxy. So it was the anti-novelty Orthodox vs the pro-novelty Orthodox.
Suan, where is the best place to contact you for an inquiry?
My email is suan@ksu.edu
I would like to thank you all for this great discussion!
I don't mean to be presumptuous, but I think the solution is sort of simple and, despite being, for all I know, a boilerplate Thomist, the Scotist nomenclature may be helpful in getting a Thomist point across here: the formalities of, say, goodness and wisdom are different, in the epistemic sense; the ideas or forms we apply to the epistemic matter of God are different, and the terms are not synonymous, but the referent in reality, in God's case, is the same.
On a basically Aristotelian account, in knowing Himself, God has only one form "through" which He knows - Himself. We humans, having to abstract forms from sensible substances, require many ideas if we are truly to know God through His created effects available to us. It is this fact about the human mind that makes virtual distinctions dependent on reason - our reason, not God's.
So, contrary to Dr. Bradshaw's impression, the Thomistic account of distinctions in no way relies on what God would know; not only would be question-begging to build God into the account, as the Thomist relies on it to prove God's existence and derive much data about His attributes; the theory of distinctions is a human tool, which God does not need.
Although it is, of course, trivially true that God knows what sort of a distinction a good philosopher/theologian should maintain in a given case.
That is the problem. Your Thomistic presupposition is gnostic and heretical. St Paul talks about nous which is in the heart. We know God through the nous and not through intellectual reasoning. This is how you get western natural theology which argues you can get to God only by reason.... Well you can't get to the Christian God that way. You as a Thomist have the same presupposition as the Muslim of God and his simplicity which is why you both argue the same way. You got there by boiling Gods acts down to his very essence. You in this way create a God who is enslaved by his acts.
Let me give you an example. Both Muslims and Catholics say that God is and has eternally been the creator.
We as Orthodox would argue that he hasn't been. You would argue that because we say this that we imply a change in God which we don't.
Your thomistic idea goes as follows. God is a creator and that attribute is part of his essence and since God can't change because he is simple in his essence then God always creates. If God always creates then he creates at infinity and there are an infinite number of world and universes which he is still creating. You have thus creates a God that is a slave to his attribute of creation.
The Orthodox essence and Energies distinction doesn't fall pray to such nonsense. God has the potential to create from eternity. He chooses to actualize that creation at some point and that creation is THIS SPECIFIC creation because it is special to God. He WILLED this creation to be. He created through his divine energies which are eternal but only actualized at specific times such as creation. This as you see does not entail God being a slave to his attribute of Creation as it is not a part of his essence. He is eternally a potential creator but he becomes the creator at the time of his willing it to be so. The act of creating is a specific act separate from his act of incarnation for example which is another specific energetical act. I can give you another more specific example of why essence and Energies are important as a distinction to God.
None may see God and LIVE and yet Moses sees God in the burning Bush and Abraham sees God as does Hagar. How is this possible? God has told us that we may not see him (his essence) but we may see his theophanies as manifest of his divine energies. The theophanies are not illusions as is evident by Jacobs wrestling with God. The Logos aka Jesus Christ says that he was there in the old testament. How could he have been if his divine essence can't be seen as it is the same as that of the Father and Holy Spirit? He was there in theophanic manifestation of his divine energies. Those very same energies are what sustain creation.
Finally the point I make to Muslims which they never get out of and it applies to thomists as well. If God is eternally the creator and the attribute of creation is part of Gods essence which itself is eternal, then God is eternally creating as bound to his attribute in essence. Creation becomes existent at the very time God is. This is nonsense!! Creation has a beginning and God is eternal in a sense that is inexplicable by human reason because God is beyond all natural and logical laws which makes him the creator of those laws. But if God is bound to his attributes in his essence and those attributed are PURE ACT or Actus Purus, then it follows that God has ALWAYS created AND this Universe is thus eternal as well as an infinite amount of other universes as he is still perpetually creating things.
This is NOT the God of the Bible who tells us of ONE creation that is specific and special to him, because he is LOVE itself and his LOVE manifests towards his creation at the time it was created. God also tells us that on the seventh day he CEASES to create as he RESTS from his work. Rest does not mean that God grew weary from labouring in creating the world, but he ceased from THAT SPECIFIC ACTION.
Now God creates other things such as each living soul for communion with him. But the act of creating the World and universe had creased. God does things for a reason and because he is personal and because he is LOVE. He is NOT a generic natural theology or aristotelian notion of a God. He is the LIVING God who is revealed by his revelation to his creation through his prophets and ultimately through his ETERNAL SON, our God, Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
This is why Thomism is false and why for over 1000 years this heretical idea has been refuted and done with. It is just unfortunate that Rome in it separation from the East has lost its way and thus "reasoned" its way into a false position.
God bless you and may you come home to Orthodoxy 🙏☦️
@@godsaveskyrieeleison5859 My "presupposition" seems to be that one can conclude to the existence of God using intellectual reasoning. If this is heretical gnosticism, then I'm guilty as charged, though I doubt you'd be able provide an authoritative ruling to that effect, even of your own hierarchy.
May I suggest actually studying St. Thomas, at least before pronouncing on "our thomistic ideas", instead of going by takes by polemically motivated people demonstrably ignorant of the tradition, such as Mr. Dyer (who seems to be your authority on Thomism), because your presentation bears no resemblance to what we actually hold: I challenge you to provide one citation for your assertion that being a creator is "part" of His essense.
Your use of "always" and "infinity", "still" seems to suggest you take God's eternity to be some sort of time that before our time and goes on etc., whereas we hold God qua such to be outside time altogether.
The account of God you're presenting seems to be that of a contingent, complex entity, something that would demand explanation for its existence, just like the created world. The only nous I have happens to ask "why" questions, and is not satisfied by - for all I know - verbiage conaisting of Greek words.
The energies as presented by you, if real entities, are, entirely straightforwardly, parts corresponding to these potentials, and so if the reality behind "creation" is something that comes to obtain in God, then on this account God does, indeed, change. That you'd likely prefer to deny such consequences is known to me, but, rationally, you can't, and devaluing logic isn't helping your case.
*consisting
If I cannot know that God capable of revelation and performing miracles exists (something contrary to the clear sense of Romans 1:20, pace polemical eisegisis) then I have no reason to accept the theophanies, let alone certain theological interpretations of them.
When Thomists say that God is pure act, what we say is, among other things, that His act of being suffices for any effect: unlike myself, for example, who had to undergo change both physical and mental to be able to write this response to you, thus switching between different acts, because I'm limited, God does whatever He does without any need for such changes.
Similarly, as said, God's eternity isn't a time before time: time (which is just a measure of change) is a consequence of our creaturely participation of reality, not some essential feature of it, which your exposition seems to presuppose.
Bradshaw clearly nailed it here. Christopher presented some interesting points, but at one point he seemed to be falling back on 'sophistry' to justify his understanding of distinction
what's the sophistry
What’s the sophistry? It seemed like an interesting & humbling discussion for both people involved. Christopher clearly had the upper hand philosophically, while Dr. Bradshaw had more knowledge in terms of the supposed “historical” precedence for this distinction
@@TheBrunarr Non-existent. But for our Orthobro brethren, mere assertion = proof. No data, no evidence needed.
1:08:50 Dr. Bradshaw packing heat.
1:30:20 "if under your schema you can say creation is contingent, without contradicting. Then on my schema where creation is necessary and immutable, if I use other words I can say that creation is contingent and changable and not have it be a contradiction".🤔?
I mean as a sola scriptura Christian what it would really come down to for me is whether or not Paul actually meant energies in the sense being discussed here. I mean is this something that can be found in Jewish thought at all?
Divine revelation does not depend on jewish thought.
Paul writes in greek.
@@user-pj7sq7ce1f and? It wasn’t his mother tongue. Greek back then was more of a utilitarian language for Jews. It wasn’t like he was Aristotle or Hesiod
@@bradleymarshall5489 He knew perfect greek and as i said the Holy Spirit wanted the NT to be written in greek
Paul writes ενεργεια ενεργηματα .so i am going with his says .you can follow your thoughts
Hi Suan, please can you make a video on why Peter is the Rock in Matthew and respond to some objections
Sounds like a great idea!
@OrthodoxyChloroQuine right. Even in our services (Orthodox) we refer to St. Peter as the rock of faith. We don’t have an issue with that title. The issue is how that title is interpreted.
@OrthodoxyChloroQuine:
This aspect of Catholic apologetics is not intended to distinguish between the Catholic Church and the various Orthodox Churches. It is rather intended to clear the air of strange text-defying theories from less-well-read Protestant fundamentalist folk, who variously claim that the text teaches...
(a.) that Christ is the Rock, in such a way as to exclude Peter being the Rock;
(b.) that Peter's faith is the Rock, in such a way as to exclude Peter being the Rock;
(c.) that Peter's declaration of Christ's identity is the Rock, in such a way as to exclude Peter being the Rock;
(d.) that Peter as an individual is the Rock, in such a way as to require that after Peter's death, there's no Rock;
(e.) that Christ briefly gave Peter the role of being the Rock, and revoked it again by saying "Get thee behind me Satan";
...and other similar attempts to exclude the idea that Christ appointed anyone on earth to execute the role of "Rock"-ness in the Church. (So as to eliminate any episcopal authority, you see.)
Lonely Berg's request was probably intended to be understood in that context, not the debate of how episcopal authority is exercised or anchored.
@OrthodoxyChloroQuine:
Sure, I get that you hold that.
I used to, also, more-or-less. (I don't know your precise opinions on intra-Orthodox disputes.)
The Catholic view is that only Christ is head of the Church; that He created the episcopal offices exactly as you say; but, additionally, He created a special role for Peter which was an additional office, the office of the Al Bayith. The Al Bayith in the Kingdom of God corresponds to the same role in the Kingdom of David and his successors: He is merely another representative of the king, like any of the territorial governors or other stewards. In that sense, the offices are not distinct. The only difference is that the other stewards (usually governors) sometimes have conflicts between them involving administrative or legal decisions that touch on matters affecting both. The office of the Al Bayith under the Davidic King existed to resolve such disputes with the sanction of the King, and in the King's name. "What [he] bound, no other could loose; what [he] loosed, no other could bind." This office was the court-of-final-appeal regarding disputes between otherwise-equal stewards of the King.
If, for example, the Orthodox had the benefit of an Al Bayith, then there could be a final decision between the Russian Church and the Greek Church regarding the status of the Ukranian Church. As it is, there cannot be, not even in principle. It is an epistemological principle: If I can only recognize the True Church by finding the church that teaches the true doctrines; and if I can only recognize the true doctrines by the fact that they are taught by the True Church, then an uneducated atheist to whom Christ miraculously reveals His divinity and says, "Now, go join My Church" is in an impossible situation, a vicious regress of circular logic. I choose this extreme example because all intellectually humble persons are in the same boat: A patriarch no less than a plumber should recognize that his preference for the truth is not the same as knowledge: He, too, is in the same vicious regress. And God does not command the impossible.
If Jesus Christ was (is) wiser than Mohammed and Joseph Smith and similar heresiarchs, He did not set up such a stupid system. But He is God. Therefore He did not set up such a system. Therefore there is a way to know (objectively) what decisions the Church has rendered, with the sanction of Heaven, without first identifying the True Church by what we think are the true doctrines, and identifying the true doctrines by asking what the True Church teaches.
Now, I grant there is a certain kind of unity in the Orthodox Churches. (You say "tomato," I say CHURCHES.) But there is not currently, nor will there soon be, the kind of unity which allows a plumber to know whether the Russians or the Greeks are correct regarding the status of the Ukranian Church. And if I were born into the Assyrian Church of the East, I would have insufficient basis for objectively knowing which option was Correct Orthodox Ecclesiology.
Look, I'm not going to convince you. I'm not really trying. May God bless you, brother.
All I'm doing is explaining that (a.) I formerly thought as you do; (b.) it's unlikely you're going to tell me anything I haven't heard (and even thought) before; and (c.) I now think it's incorrect. Oh, and (d.) Catholics emphatically deny that the pope is the "head" of the Church in the sense which is heretical; they only claim that he is the "head" of the Church in the same sense that first Shebna, and later Eliakim, were responsible for being "fathers" to the people of Jerusalem and a "tent peg in a secure place" to hold up the whole house.
Christ is God and King and Lord. May His glory be manifest on the earth, in the unity of His saints.
@OrthodoxyChloroQuine:
I would be regurgitating Suan's talking points, if I hadn't come to the same conclusions independently after a four-year scripture/mishnah/patristic study from 2006-2010.
(Not sure how old Suan was then. He's very smart, but he looks like a baby to me, even now.)
If Suan had a clue who I was, I'd jokingly claim that he was regurgitating my talking points.
But, I maintain no public presence. So realistically, we're both just regurgitating the talking points of the fathers and various figures in 2nd Temple Judaism.
Or, y'know, maybe the term "talking points" is overly dismissive. Jesus is the Son of David, isn't he? His Kingdom reinstituted many of the structural hallmarks of the Davidic monarchy, did it not? (Not to mention the tribal leaders and elders and judges of the Exodus and Desert Wanderings.) He did replace the Sanhedrin with His own, did He not? We have the elders and the overseers, do we not? We have the Gebireh, do we not? Why shouldn't we have the Al Bayith?
You say: "There's only One Episcopate and many Bishops." Sure. Nothing I said contradicts that.
You say: "The papacy is not an additional degree higher than the Episcopate." Sure. Nothing I said contradicts that; but, we have to qualify: There is only one Sacrament of Holy Orders; yet, the role exercised by the bishop is different than that exercised by the deacon. These distinctions exist not because Christ can be divided, but because the Church benefits from them.
You say: "The papacy, which is nothing more than a Patriarchate." Well, no: We hold that Jesus instituted one of His episkopoi with the duty of serving as Al Bayith. The Patriarchs also have a role to play. But like the Deaconate, the Patriarchate is instituted by the Church. The first Al Bayith was instituted by Christ. This is not to diss or deny the Patriarchate, for of course the Bishop of Rome is also one of the Patriarchs of the Church, Patriarch of the West. We should not be surprised when one person holds multiple roles: Peter was an apostle, a bishop, a teacher, a judge, a prophet, a pastor. Patriarch and Al Bayith and Episkopos and Pastor are not mutually-exclusive roles.
I admit, you've got me on Vatican One. I haven't studied it particularly, and it played no role in my becoming Catholic. I made use purely of pre-400 A.D. sources in coming to my conclusions, until after I became relatively convinced.
I think some of the arguments you're raising against me are really targeted at other people with different views. You seem to think that I hold that some different higher ordination pertains to the papacy; but I don't. You claim I am unable "to recognize the one and the many"; but, I'm not. (My insistence that the Melkite liturgy be preserved, for example, would make that impossible.) You speak of "presuppositions," but you don't know what mine are: I started by holding merely that Jesus rose from the dead and is what He claimed to be. My focus on the Davidic character of His Kingdom derives purely from His self-description as recorded by Matthew.
You say, "We never had a supreme and infallible man on earth during the first millennium." We don't have that NOW. Your head is emitting straw men.
But look: As I said before: I'm not interested in convincing you. When I believed as you do, some goombah on the Internet couldn't have convinced ME of anything. I just ran into questions which the Orthodox Epistemology of Faith can't answer...not because of practical problems or human sin, but even in principle. I asked various priests and theologians for something to fill in the missing pieces, and a non-contradictory, non-question-begging answer was not to be found in all the non-Catholic world. You can't see it until you see it. And then you can't not see it.
But, I don't expect you to be convinced. Nobody should be convinced QUICKLY, of ANYTHING, about something so important. (Why do you think I took four years of study?)
So, God bless you, and may He in His grace see to it that neither you, nor I, is ever culplably ignorant of anything.
15:34 - bradshaw: basil letter 234
23:20 - tomas: seeing the essence of God
35:40 - tomas: There are no real absolute real distinctions in God's essence. Aquinas doesnt believe real distinction between God's nature and God's will.
38:45 - bradshaw: What does the term real distinction mean?
44:07 - bradshaw: RE real distinctions. Aquinas only mentions real distinctions are between the three person of the Trinity. And that real distinction is defined as existing in virtue of some kind of relation of opppsition. 4th Lateran council teaches there is real distinction between persons of Trinity but not between person and the divine essence they'd say Thats only a rational distinction (only in our mind].
46:28 after Aquinas, Giles of Rome says essence and existence are two different distinct things. Creates more elaborate distinctions. Aquinas didnt do all that.
48:40 Aquinas never said that a real distinction exists independently of the mind. He says its one in virtue of some relation of opposition.The rational distinction also exists idependently of the mind in the case of the divine essence.
49:44 - tomas: dictionary of scholastic philosophy + basically denies the distinction opposition thing.
56:57 - bradshaw: provides source on Aquinas saying distinctions are oppositions. Suma Contra Gentiles 4.14.15, 4.24.7, and De potentia question 10 article 5
59:20 - tomas: what is the relation of opposition that exists between you an I? + tomas trying to explain distinction
1:08:25 - bradshaw: that's what the scholastic manuals will tell you but Aquinas will never actually define a distinction as one that exists independently of the mind
=modal collapse argument discussion=
1:23:37 - tomas: EO havent escaped the modal collapse argument. Line of questioning.
If creation is contingent,
did creation begin to exist?
If its contingent and began to exist,
Would it have to have a cause?
Which part of God is the cause of the act of creation? Essence or energeia?
Bradshaw: the Divine essence. That said the energies are like the forms in plato. They mix and blend. So it has being,, and being also is an energy. it's wise. So it displays wisdom and wisdom is also an energy. But it's not caused by those really. Its caused by the essence, yes.
Tomas: If the divine essence is necessary and immutable right?
So then it seems like you have to say about the divine essence to God's energy about the act of creation precisely what I as a thomist is going to say about the relationship of the divine essence to the created things. Namely that there's this necessary immutable thing which is the cause of this contingent mutable thing.
Bradshaw: the difference though is that the Thomist is saying God is identical with his own activity. Right? That is what the palamite is not saying.
1:30:44 - bradshaw RE on tomas's article collapsing the modal collapse argument
So if literally seeing the essence of God is the goal of spirituality, how exactly is that done Trinitarianly? This is again where we see the West’s Trinity all messed up. The God we will see is Jesus Christ. It is impossible to see the Father (St. Paul, St. John) but Christ exegetes the Father (St. John). Therefor the true beatific vision is to see Christ in his uncreated divine glory, which would be an energy, not the very essence of God. How can you stare into the essence of something? We cannot even know the essence of any created thing never mind God. We can behold the person of Christ though.
Well energy just means God’s operations and workings. So if we partake in The divine nature by way of God’s operations aren’t we technically partaking in his essence? How is the uncreated light not his essence? Is it not separating God when you say that his essence and energies are not the same? If your only merely partaking in his divine operations and not his essence than your really not partaking in God’s divine nature. To say you are partaking of the divine nature yet not partaking of the divine nature is a contradiction, the scripture are clear that we really do partake of the divine nature.
@servantofHE22 His energies is not his essence. That’s the distinction. As St.maximus the confessor says “God is beyond existence” he also goes on to say we will never know his essence and so does St.John of Damascus. we will know him by his energies, but his energies are not his nature. That would be a modal collapse of person into nature as well. You can never know someone who is beyond existence. If you can really know God in his essence then he is not God. Just saying.
Excuse me, his energies are not his essence I meant to say**
I wish they had spent less time discussing what historical figures said and more on the actual assertions and disagreements the two guests have.
ADS is the the #1 reason I will never convert to Roman Catholicism. EED is the historical view of the fathers , both east and west and the most consistent trinitarian view
Metaphysical monism is the root of this issue and why Chris cannot conceive of the external critique the way Dr. Bradshaw is forming it. He’s stuck in his own system without the ability to understand the whole.
I’m not trying to be a jerk, Chris was insufferable and basically derailed any interesting discussion from 40 minutes on.
A hour in to an hour and ten minutes Chris is tripping all over himself trying to describe a distinction that is distinct, but not distinct. He has a really damaged view of distinctions due to Thomism.
@JL-XrtaMayoNoCheese Yeah, but that's because he's working of Hellenic assumptions. On one hand Chris believes there is a real distinction between the persons of the Godhead and it remains undivided and on the other he wants to say distinction entails division.
Let's not even get into the issues surrounding modal collapse, and how badly he confuses the order of operations.
You all realize that your boy Bradshaw is sitting here defending Aquinas??LOL
@@clark8250 being historically accurate and honest about your opponent while refuting them is the same as defending them?
Thomism is a mess
Dr. Bradshaw misspoke in my opinion. It is neither another energy or the essence that causes God's acts but persons
.saint John the Damascian in his work exact expodition of the orthodox faith ch 59. Check it up...
God's temporal actions are a type of energeia, which are processions of the divine essence given form and definition.
Would anyone have ever become a Christian, if Christ came to teach the difference between distinctions that are between this thing and that thing and Clark Kent vs Superman?
No wonder Saint Thomas Aquinas, ended up destroying and or not publishing his later writings after God gave him a revelation, making him realize that what ever Thomas was going on about, " Was Like Straw" compared to what it was that God revealed to him.
How would we ever defend the faith from corrupters if we never fleshed out these issues?