Transcription
Because that's the opposite of certainty is doubt. I think that's that's perhaps because of a weakness. Probabilistically, the chances of finding the true church are slim to none.
So I really want to get fast fact-checked here because I already know for a fact it's true. For the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, their position is way harder to defend because you have to go through another 1,000 years, like I said, with regards to Cliff and Stewart and the whole thing that we have.
I believe that there's something really happening when I take the. So I believe in baptismal regeneration. No, I don't hold to baptismal regeneration. I I think that's like a major, like a really, really, that's a major freedom. I think to deny that is to deny.
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So, so let me let me just say this. So, in this in this entire conversation, right? Uh, we can go back and forth on scripture. We can go back and forth on verses. Someone still has to then figure out the figuring out what is the ecclesial authority or or or the proper ecclesial institution to get epistemological certainty.
Yes. But the Protestant has to get independently figure all these things out for himself. I I I don't think we do because I don't think these are the things that keep up the average believer at night to think about. And I think they might. So that's that's a different question. The question of whether they care or not is fine. But we're talking about epistemic certainty. Let's not conflate those.
Does faith require certainty? I would say, yeah. Faith is the evidence of things unseen. It's evident. It's evident. But is it certain? I'm certain. I'm certain in my faith. You're certain in your faith? Yes. If you're certain in something, having having doubt because that's the opposite of certainty is doubt. So you're saying that you have doubt in your faith.
I think there I go through seasons of of doubting aspects of my faith. Yeah. I think but you think but you think that's that's perhaps because of a weakness. Is that is that a good thing? Would you say that's a good thing? Uh, no. I was going to say it's a good thing, but like when someone's uh enduring suffering and they're struggling, right? Uh, sometimes you could you could wonder when someone's seeing something terrible happen. You someone can have uh doubt.
But that's different emotional doubt, and we're talking about epistemic certainty or uncertainty, meaning how like how do I know I actually got these things right? That's the question we're asking, right? Yeah. I think I think all of that creates, am I in my humble opinion, unnecessary ecclesial anxiety.
No, but that's the thing. That anxiety is only the case if you're out here by your own. If you're someone that's actually wanting to find epistemic certainty, the best way you can do it is by means of finding one institution and then once you do that, all you have to do is just find that institution that you believe is the church.
From that 1 Timothy 3:15, Matthew 16. We've already covered this. We're going to insert right now. That's how you you get your. So, what I'm saying is then within this pursuit of institutional epidemic uh certainty, you're saying that reading through all of these councils, you don't have to do that.
I got to at least go to Ephesus, according to you. Yes. I gotta go through uh these, and then the the the Eastern Orthodox, they're going to tell me other councils I got to check out. The Catholic is gonna tell me other. Here's the thing. You know what we'd all agree on though? Is we would say the first split would be at E would be at Calcedon, right?
Wasn't there a split before that? Wasn't the uh Assyrian Church of the East? Wasn't there a church on split? They didn't end up splitting until 612. Okay, my bad. Okay. So, the first split is us. Okay. So, it forces you to first examine the Oriental Orthodox Church.
So, since we have the claim of being the true church, we say that's divine providence. You check Ephesus. If you think Ephesus is right, come join us. If not, go ahead and examine another thousand years of councils and all that. And I would say probabilistically, I would agree with you there. The chances of finding the true church are slim to none.
So that I think. Was there never any other big big big or smaller splits before that? I mean, you you want to talk about the Aryans, sure. No, no, it wasn't. Any actual institution today that's pre that's that's prevalent today. It's us. A lot of people try and claim the Assyrians because they don't accept Ephesus, but they didn't issue any condemnation of Syri's teaching until 612.
Or uh 451 church. I could have swore there was a different one before that council, Calcedon, Armenian. Anyway, it doesn't matter. That's the the first split. Okay. And like I really want to get fast fact-checked here because I already know for a fact it's true.
So you said there was a split, but they didn't recognize it till the 600s. Maybe that's what I'm getting. Yeah. Syrian Church of the East ended up, you know, following the stories and all that, but their condemnation of Cyril and all of that was in 612. After. Okay. I could have swore there was one before that, but it's neither here nor there. Okay.
But the point, my point is here. I get your point. If you could figure out the the the first. All you have to do is figure out Ephesus. If you, but like for the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, their position is way harder to defend because you have to go through another 1,000 years, like like I said, like the Fotian schism and the Palomite schism. And I'm sure I think I've seen you add like true Orthodox to the mix, and those guys are instead of a constantinople and all of that, right?
You don't have to do all that if you want to discern Oriental Orthodoxy. Just check. Check Ephesus. No, I like that. So, here's here's to kind of bring the conversation full circle. I think in that initial conversation you had with Stewart and Cliff, yes. Right. Why I think those conversations are seldom helpful is because you're talking about people who are living in a totally different uh gifting, right?
So, they're living in the gifting of apologetics and of dealing with uh evangelism. Like Cliff and Stewart are evangelists, right? You're a freaking Harvard grad with a high IQ, clearly. And you're and you've lived in this world of church history and specifically your own stream of Christianity. But even in the way that was set up, right, where you got you got you got him to, you know, you got him to kind of crash out a little bit on the on the uh the Third Vatican Council. Is that what he said?
Yeah. Vatican 3. Uh, Vatican 3, which which which I, you know, I'm friendly with Stewart and Cliff. Uh, more more Stewart than Cliff. But this is one of those things where um, it's like having a conversation with somebody and then you get into like philosophy, right? This just happened with the God I don't know if it's other God logic and Jacob Hansen debate. You should watch it. It's great.
Is that the Mormon guy? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Uh, they're talking about the scriptures and they're trying to have a conversation about scripture, and then Jacob Hansen is baiting like all this philosophy and the and you know, classical theism, and he's trying to get God logic to trip up on that, right? And so I think with regards to this like church history conversation, right? Again, I I still think it's disingenuous to frame it as like these apostolic churches versus these non-apostolic churches who are just kind of all over the place when there's not a whole lot of unity, and then to have that engage with someone like a Stewart or Cliff. They're like, that's not their wheelhouse at all. Like they're not they're not there.
Let me let me explain my my understanding. So again, with the whole apostolic, I don't want to get, you know, go in a circle, but again, I partially agree with you. Like, yeah, we're not all like one big happy family holding hands singing Kumbaya, but I have more in common with them in terms of the things that we just listed compared to, for instance, a non-denominational.
Okay, so that's the point I was trying to make there with regards to Cliff and Stewart and the whole thing that we had. I have deep love for them. They're they're on fire for Christ. They're trying to bring people out of atheism and Islam and all these other religions. No one's denying that they're doing an amazing work there. Okay.
However, that doesn't mean that we should also correct them when they're wrong, especially on things which I think are really important, like the Eucharist and baptism. Because John 6, the Eucharist, Christ doubles down when the Jews grumble. He uses, you know, the first time he speaks of to eat the flesh and drink the blood, he uses the Greek word esto, which just means to eat. It can potentially be used lexically to have a metaphorical connotation. When they grumble, he doubles down and uses the word trogo, which means to gnaw and to chew. A very carnal word.
And later on, his own followers and disciples question about it, and he tells them, "The flesh profits nothing. The spirit gives life. The words I give you is spirit." And it says that from then many stopped following him and walking away. Christ doesn't say, "Well, wait, come back. We can compromise on this topic." He turns around. It's just symbolic, right? He could just turns to the 12 and says, "Do you also want to go?" So, I think this, like, you know, Cliff likes to say, like, major in the majors, minor in the minors. I think this is a major.
So, it's out of love that I'm doing this. It's not to prove him wrong. I think he's already doing great work. I think he could do even great work if he corrected these really important things. So, so hold on, just just just to stay on the Eucharist. So, then someone like Gavin Ortlund, yeah, or someone like myself that believes in real presence. Yeah.
Right. Uh, would you then distinguish our position? So, you guys believe in spiritual presence, correct? I believe in real presence. I don't know how it works in terms in terms of the substances and all that sort of stuff, but I believe there's something really present there. I'm not a Catholic, and that I believe the they don't say the molecules change, but they believe in transubstantiation. I don't quite go there.
But do you believe in like the Calvinist doctrine of spiritual presence, that his like his body is not physically there, but through the Holy Spirit, you have some spiritual partaking nourishment of Christ? So, this is where I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to have a cop out. I would say I don't know, okay? But I believe that there is something really happening when I take the. That's so that's why I was trying to be very terrible with Cliff and Stewart. If you saw the like the I don't know if you saw the video, but I saw the video.
I didn't want to take it to philosophy. Like he was trying to push transubstantiation. I didn't want to get into like the Aristotelian distinction of substance and accident. I just told him, "Do you believe you're eating Christ's body and blood?" And he said, "No." That's my issue. So if you tell me you believe that you're you believe it's Christ's body and blood on the table, then we're good. Yeah. I believe in real presence. Do I believe that's the literal body and the literal literal? That's what I'm saying. Then we got to be what is literal?
I don't know literal is, but do you see the distinction? My my thing is cuz I don't want to get into this, get into the niche like, you know, like what's it called, lose the for the trees for the forest, whatever it's. But do you believe as John 6 says that we must eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man? Then we're good. Okay. My issue is like, for instance, the Calvinist. You still don't believe I have a valid communion.
No, that's but that's that's another distinction, right? That's that's another topic, though. But I think first starting with this is really important, the Eucharist, because like even the Calvinist doctrine, I take issue with because the idea that it's spiritually there, but there isn't an actual, I'm physically consuming his body and blood leads to an issue because the word didn't become just spirit. He also took on flesh. So I can't just have spiritual communion with Christ. I have to have physical communion with him as well. Now, we can agree that this is a mystery. We don't need to get into the mechanics of it. But as long Mystery? Yeah. We we call it that in the Ethiopian church. We call it the mystery of the Eucharist.
But we have to believe that it's his body and blood that we're consuming. And so that was an important thing that I wanted to to get him to understand with love. It's not to say, "Oh, you're going to hell. Oh," but it's like it's out of love. Like seeing the things he's doing inspires me to want to lead him in the right direction to rebuke him, maybe not as a brother, okay, maybe as a nephew, cuz he's a little older than me, but to rebuke. And of course, I'm young. Rebuke uncle. Right. Exactly. Right. Out of love, because St. Paul even says to Timothy, "Let no one despise your youth." Yeah.
So that's the understanding. Same thing with baptism. Baptism is such an important thing. John 3, Christ says, "Unless you're born of water and the spirit, you can't see the kingdom of heaven." And then the next two verses down, you can't inherit the kingdom of heaven. Mark 16:16. We can go on. Mark, Acts 2:37-39.
I think people should be baptized. For the record, I don't think salvation is happening at baptism, but I think people should absolutely be. Do you believe in baptismal regeneration? No, I don't hold to baptismal regeneration. So I think that's like a major, like a really, really, that's a major for you. I think to deny that is to deny like the gospel. I think. Wow. Yeah. You think to deny baptismal regeneration is to deny the gospel?
Because if Christ's commandment says, "Unless you're born again of water and the spirit, you cannot inherit the kingdom." I think it's not to deny the entirety of the gospel, but you're denying a part of the gospel. A part. The baptism is part of the message that Christ gives. It's part of the good news. Okay. So, these are things which if if I believe that these things are part of the gospel, they're part of the essentials. It would think I think it would be actually cruel of me. Mhm. To gatekeep that from people that don't believe in it.
I I I I I understand how you think it would be cruel of you. What I'm what I'm getting at is if someone is there to do an apologetics conversation, yeah, and then the conversation derails into church history and these topics. But we didn't get into church history. If you look at the video, we were looking at scripture. He unfortunately got into church history. He wanted to, but if he saw me, my whole goal was I didn't want to get into that.