Crop Rotation

Crop Rotation - 001 - Athanasius - Selections

• Matthew Talamini • Season 1 • Episode 1

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 1:31:57

Athanasius: Selections from Against the Arians.

SPEAKER_01

Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears. While we are some sorrow with the song that will linger forever in our use. Hard times come again. Tis the song the time of the week. Hard times, hard times come again. Many days you have lingered around my cabin door. Oh hard times come again.

SPEAKER_03

Welcome to Crop Rotation, a literature, theology, and philosophy discussion podcast. A good farmer doesn't grow the same thing every year. For the soil to thrive, there needs to be variety. We're a group of friends who found that we missed the life of the mind that we were able to live together when we were at St. John's College in Annapolis two decades ago. This podcast is an opportunity to explore and discuss works of art and of intellect that we've each discovered in the intervening years. Before each meeting, one of us gives the group an assignment. This leader is also responsible for asking an opening question to begin the discussion.

SPEAKER_06

Greetings, gentlemen, welcome and thank you for agreeing to have a long-form conversation about Athanasius and a section of his writings that we've pulled together that have to do with some of the Greek terms that he made as a pillar of his arguments clarifying the nature of Christ in the face of Aryan heresy, namely that the Son is not God. I am fascinated by how little new argumentation, new theology, new even tools of explanation show up in such a, you know, so these this big section we put together. It feels not only to be orthodox, but he feels like he's staying very close to the text, to the existing revelation. But I don't want to take that for granted, and that's really kind of the core of the question that I want to start off with. Has the Holy Spirit spoken differently by Athanasius than by the apostolic authors? Is there any new doctrine here? And finally, has Athanasius made arguments incommensurate with the word? If not, are they invited or even required by the existing revelation that we have?

SPEAKER_02

That's it. I see him doing two things in these. He seems to be making arguments not really surprising to me, from scripture and from reason. I didn't see any although I I saw some things that which I can talk about in a minute, if we want, but uh that didn't seem to me to be super obvious or you know, where he was grounding everything. But it seemed like his goal was to keep everything grounded in scripture and things that were manifest to him. Though I'm not sure what that means.

SPEAKER_06

No, I like your term manifest, and I would like to talk about that word more. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

I think it has to do with I kept noticing this term that he uses, irreligious.

SPEAKER_06

Why do you think that that term has such cachet for him? Why do you think he keeps throwing down that card? He thinks he obviously thinks that it plays well, so why does he keep playing that card from your perspective?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I mean, what I think personally, it seems like he has some preconceived notions that may have come down from like Greek thought about the nature of correct religion, that he feels I think he he definitely makes some good arguments from scripture, but then like, for instance, there's that one argument where he's like, if you say that Christ is a co-creation, or he says, like, if Christ is a co-sibling of all creation, you gotta realize that that doesn't just make him kin to human beings with reason and rationality and souls, it also makes him kin to sticks and rocks and seaweed and dirt and stuff, and that's irreligious. I forget what section that's in, but that feels Platonist, and yeah. Sir Robert saying that he was relying on stuff that seemed evident to him. I think that maybe something we can add to the list of things that just feel evident to Athanasius. It might not even be Platonist, actually. I think I just remember it from Plato. I think it's one of Plato's interlocutors, who's like, there can't be a form of dog crap. Yeah, yeah, the forms are too lofty, and it feels like the same like Athanasius is like, Christ can't be co-sibling with creation because then he would be kin with dog crap.

SPEAKER_06

And the I see him being very Hellenistic here. He's a Hellenistic reasoner in the same vein that Greek arguments are saying, well, one way of proving something as being real or true is to disprove all options but one. And if you can prove that you have managed to cover all possible options and disproved all of them, you have effectively proved the only thing left. So he does seem to be following that rule of logical cover, and he's just mowing through and clear-cutting huge swaths of potential foolishness. So is it a neurological thing? Is he speaking this way because he's upset and he's out here with a weapon and he sees, hey man, is as long as I got people listening to me, I'm gonna cut down all the crap I can? These are all the dumb ideas that I see out there, and I'm out here with a scythe clearing them. Is that a valid pastoral or you know, motivational, if it given if it that pastoral is one particular motivation, what do you see his motivation being for arguing this way, given the fact that he's clearing through these high volumes of heresies?

SPEAKER_04

It seems to me like there's one heresy that he's trying to get rid of, and he's using high volumes of arguments to attack it.

SPEAKER_06

But it seems like to me as well. For just a uh few minutes to take care of my daughter, continue to talk about whatever you want, but please do look at the passage where he talks about the giants, because I definitely want to talk to you guys about what's going on there and about the Hellenistic versus Old Testament interpretation of who those giants are. So I'll catch up with you guys in a minute.

SPEAKER_02

Let me bring that passage up. So this is just for anybody who happens to listen to this someday, Athanasius against the Arians, Book One, I guess, section ten. Which of the two theologies sets forth our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Son of the Father, this which you vomited forth, or that which we have spoken and maintained from the Scriptures. If the Savior be not God, nor word nor Son, you shall have leave to say what you will, and so shall the Gentiles and the present Jews. But if he be Word of the Father and true Son, and God from God, and overall blessed forever, which seems to be a quote from Romans, is it not becoming to obliterate and blot out those other phrases and that Aryan thalia as but a pattern of evil, a store of all irreligion, into which whoso falls, quote, knoweth not that giants perish with her, and reacheth the depths of Hades?

SPEAKER_05

Which is a quote from Proverbs. Got it.

SPEAKER_02

Now I see that.

SPEAKER_04

Where in Proverbs 918? Proverbs 918. Man, what translation of Proverbs 918 is that?

SPEAKER_05

It's the uh Latin. It's like the Vulgate. No, it's not Vulgate, it's a Septuagint. The Septuagint.

SPEAKER_02

Like the departed spirits are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, I'm guessing departed the spirits is the let's see. Yeah, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_04

Well, let me keep reading from this passage. It gets interesting. But if he be I'll start a little bit before, but if he be word of the Father and true Son, and God from God, and over all blessed forever, is it not becoming to obliterate and blot out those other phrases and that Arianthalia as but a pattern of evil, a store of all irreligion, into which whoso falls knows not that giants perish with her and reaches the depths of Hades. This they know themselves, and in their craft they conceal it, not having the courage to speak out, but uttering something else. For if they speak, a condemnation will follow, and if they be suspected, proofs from Scripture will be cast at them from every side. Wherefore, in their craft, as children of this world, after feeding their so-called lamp from the wild olive, and fearing lest it should soon be quenched, for it is said, the light of the wicked shall be put out, they hide it under the bushel of their hypocrisy, and make a different profession, and boast of patronage of friends and authority of Constantius, that what with their hypocrisy and their professions, those who come to them may be kept from seeing how foul their heresy is? Is it not detestable even in this, that it dares not speak out, but is kept hidden by its own friends, and fostered as serpents are? For from what sources have they got together these words, or from whom have they received what they venture to say? Not any one man can they specify who has supplied it. For who is there in all mankind, Greek or barbarian, who ventures to rank among creatures one whom he confesses the while to be God, and says that he was not till he was made?

SPEAKER_05

Or who is there who to the God in whom he has put faith refuses to give credit when he says, This is my beloved son, on the pretense And real quick, that he was not till he was made was kind of the summation of the Aryan position.

SPEAKER_02

Right. Yeah. So I'll I have a thing just to say about that is my personal opinion and has been for a while, about the sun, which is and I I'll just say it first and then we can talk about it because I think it may be similar, hopefully not in a bad way, to the Aryan position articulated here, which is that the father is logically prior to the son, but not chronologically prior.

SPEAKER_05

I would just point out the Aryans wouldn't say that the Arians would say they say there was a time which the where when the son was not.

SPEAKER_02

So that's actually so the reason I'm bringing this up is because I wanted to I have uh what I would call mature and developed idea here, and it's similar in some ways to this Aryan idea, but I think it's different also. So maybe we can use that because I can at least talk about it and see some similarities. So God the Father is logically prior to the Son, but chronologically not, right? Not chronologically, just logically, and I think, I think that's the same shape as saying that the son emanates from the father or something like that. I could say things about it, but the important thing about that is the idea of son, one thing coming from another, they call him a son, but he's not he's not created. I think the Aryan position here, as Dwight articulated, is different than that and is a bad one.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_02

But it is not clear to me exactly what Athanasius thinks with regard to that distinction of chronological and logical. He calls them different, but he doesn't I don't understand the way in which he calls them different.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah. Guy He says that the son is the word of God.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. The word of God's really interesting because the word is that phrase, the word of the word, is personified in the Old Testament frequently. And if you know that it's personified in the Old Testament, then it all it also seems personified in the New Testament. If you don't, then it doesn't. But there are times when it says such and such the and the word said or something like that. The word, you know, went there and did calls the word a he, which I I don't see a clear answer from Athanasius, at least that's not clear to me, of what he thinks is happening if they're different. Unless it's a black box, which might be no, I think there is an answer.

SPEAKER_04

Okay. I'm trying to find I found one place where we can start to dig into it, but I'm I think there's a better one. I mean, I guess I'll I'll use this first one that I found, but so he's making an argument in these three sections that we read from Discourse 3, 23, 24, and 25. Like in 21, he which we didn't read, he makes it a little bit more clear what he's arguing against. Oh, like so there's a passage that they may become, that they may be one in us, and the Arians were using that to say that we Christians were going to become like Jesus, we're gonna have the same thing happen to us that happened to Jesus when he was like transmogrified or raised to the highest heights, right? And they and the converse of that is that Jesus was in his time raised from our condition to his condition. So if if the Arians can prove that we will be raised to Christ's current position, then that that also proves partially that Christ Jesus was raised to his current condition from our condition. Does that make sense? So Athanasius is trying to prove that actually we will not be raised to Christ's current condition, even though the scripture says that they may be one in us, right?

SPEAKER_02

I don't okay, that I see what you're saying. So I don't exactly follow proof that's seeming right to me. Sorry? But I in that articulation, I think I don't agree with Athanasius, but maybe I need to understand it better.

SPEAKER_04

So he basically lays out in 23 this way of understanding the way scripture talks that draws parallels between things. So this is this is Discourse 3 23. Yeah, I'm just going there so I can find it.

SPEAKER_05

He draws this starts with talking about Jonah.

SPEAKER_04

So he draws a parallel between uh there's a parallel between Jonah and Jesus just because it's explicit in scripture, just because Christ himself says, I'm gonna do the thing that Jonah did, the sign of Jonah will be given. This generation will receive the sign of Jonah, right? Does not mean that Jonah actually did the exact same thing that Jesus did. Jonah did not die and go to hell and then rise again from the dead in the fish. Is what is the argument that he's making. And so, and this is this is my long-winded way of answering your question. There are ident there are scripture draws both parallels and identities, and often it can be hard to separate the language that's being used, whether a parallel is being drawn or an identity is being drawn. And Athanasius is asserting that there is a parallel being drawn between sorry, uh, we are being raised in a in a parallel way to how Christ was raised, and not in an identical way to how Christ was raised.

SPEAKER_06

Wait, wouldn't he say that the only way in which we are being raised is the same way that Christ was raised? Because that's the whole point. We're only supposed to receive things.

SPEAKER_04

No, because then we would be equal to him.

SPEAKER_06

But we are. We're his righteousness. We are like we are equal to him in righteousness because so complete is his work, right? Does he contradict that?

SPEAKER_04

We will not be omnipotent.

SPEAKER_06

Sure. We're not we haven't entirely received everything that Christ has received in the way of identity. Yeah, that's what he's saying, but but everything that he is appropriate that Christ is that's what he would call a parallel, right?

SPEAKER_04

But not an identity.

SPEAKER_05

Because you're only giving an identity as the Son of God being risen from God.

SPEAKER_04

God is Jesus. We we is but but the reason that scripture does not say exalted purified believers are God is that we're not gonna be omnipotent, we're not gonna be uh we're gonna be eternal, but we're not gonna be omnipresent, presumably. So let me yeah, this no go on.

SPEAKER_02

Let me play uh opponent's advocate here. Yeah, I guess I'm really doing it in a testing way against Athanasius as I'm reading this, or as you're as you're articulating it. It is not obvious to me that we won't be omnipotent for some value of omnipotent. And also just want to say, first of all, I have very rarely heard anybody talk about God's omnipotence and mean a particular thing. And so that's fine. If we want to if we aren't meaning a particular thing, we mean something like transcendently, goddishly, no one else can be like that, then okay, sure, definitionally. But if we're meaning something else, but go on. Great. I would like to know that, but if we're meaning something else, it actually seems to me that we're at least getting treated in the same way that God the Son is.

SPEAKER_05

Can we just real quick, just can I read this section and see if it's so this is I'm gonna skip down just a little bit and tell me if it just seems like I started in a random place, but he's talking about Jonah.

SPEAKER_02

Are you in book 323?

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, or here I'll just start at 323. Indeed, we may learn also from the Savior himself when he says, For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. For Jonah was not as the Savior, nor did Jonah go down to Hades, nor was the whale Hades, nor did Jonah, when swallowed up, bring up those who had before been swallowed up by the whale, but he alone came forth when the whale was bidden. Therefore there is no identity nor equality signified in the term as, but one thing and another, and it shows a certain kind of parallel in the case of Jonah on account of the three days. In like manner, then, we too, when the Lord says as, neither become as the Son in the Father, nor as the Father is in the Son, for we become one as the Father and the Son, in the mind and green of his spirit, and the Savior will be as Jonah in the earth. But if the Savior is not Jonah, nor as he was swallowed up, so did the Savior descend into Hades, but it is but a parallel, in like manner, if we too become one, as the Son and the Father, we shall not be as the Son, nor equal to him, for he and we are but parallel.

SPEAKER_06

And yet, parallel is the same direction. It's is it everything that that other is? No, but there is a way in which it partakes of exactly the same nature of being as the other. Like a son is not less human than his father. That's one of the great powers of fatherhood, is you entirely distribute your nature.

SPEAKER_05

The change that happens when we're raised from the dead is different, though. Right. We start out as we are, and we are made like Christ and changed into a unity. Because it whereas God was one and he was God, and then he died, and then he is risen from the dead. So that's that's it's a parallel change, but it is not the same change.

SPEAKER_06

Right, because Christ was maintaining his divine identity through all that, whereas we are coming from death to life. And that's the great miracle of the power of the Holy Spirit is that was able to sustain. Sustain him even through being the sacrifice, he was still sustained by the Holy Spirit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. So I mean, even if we were raised to omnipotence, still we would not be God.

SPEAKER_06

And yet he says you are gods.

SPEAKER_04

I mean, Athanasius specifically addresses the plural versus the singular at some point in here.

SPEAKER_02

I that totally makes sense to me that we won't have his identity. Like that seems clear. And Jesus does. The Son does.

SPEAKER_06

And yet, isn't that exactly the mode of salvation? Is that we receive his identity? We receive the beloved identity that the Son has in the Father. We receive that beloved identity. And also like 57,000 other identities. Really, every way in which we could be re-identified in Christ, we are, because Christ redeems the capacity for the Father to identify. And so you can just do it in any way you want. So it's not a particular piece of the nature of Christ, right? Matthew's making faces at me like I've said your religious things.

SPEAKER_04

I don't know what you're saying. I didn't understand it.

SPEAKER_06

Oh. We're talking about, but you're not God, but you're not this, right? So there are a thousand and one of these terms that you have to be careful that you don't metaphysically overstate it. But that's what's so crazy is that the gospel is it's like a gun being waved around. You're like, whoa, man, whoa. That's a lot of that's a lot of power that you're throwing around because God does make these statements about us. Like in the word of God, you are gods. You are being made to participate in the divine nature.

SPEAKER_02

Aaron Powell I'm just looking at the at the word as, not the English word, the Greek. Because I want to I want to understand just see how it's used. Yeah, cathos. So I'm looking just for whatever I'm looking at Blue Letter Bible. I just went to the interlinear, got the word out of there.

SPEAKER_06

Aaron Powell Athos, thoroughly thus, extremely thus, or therefore thus.

SPEAKER_02

Aaron Powell So what I'm trying to do here is I want to look at Athanasius' argument. I get I you know I get it, right? He's saying, hey, this is uh more of a proportional a proportionality than an identity. Great. Wonderful. I don't object to that either, by the way, if that's what it says. If that's what the text says, that's what I want to believe, right? So I'm just looking, skimming through these to see the cases in which it's used. It comes up 180 times. Some of them are like what we're talking about, some aren't. But there's a couple that say things like let's see. Sorry, let me find this one that I just had. They that they may be one as we are one. Great. As you have given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. Okay, maybe. Um this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Okay. There's some distance there or something. Don't be crucified for each other or something. Maybe we can't, maybe we can't actually be, if we want to take it like super strictly be a propitiation for their sins type of thing. If you keep my commandments, you'll abide in my love, even as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. I'm trying to I'm trying to understand Athanasius' grammatical argument is if it holds consistently. If it does, that's really good evidence, right? But if it doesn't, you know, or if it seems like, hey, it could be this, could be that, then it's like not a great counter to them. Also, I should say, I'm not like trying to like promote Aryan heresies. But I also am sympathetic to somebody being misunderstood. And you know, then they also could be terribly wrong about some things, but that doesn't mean every single thing is. That's where I'm coming from on it.

SPEAKER_06

So there are grammatical arguments to be made. It seems to me that a hundred percent of those grammatical arguments that are focused around the grammar of prophetic language are valid grammatical arguments. Maybe there are some that are just immediate logical conclusion arguments, but any that are interpretive or speculative are just categorically not worthy, not worthwhile to me. Maybe they are conversationally as explanatory metaphor. Is that a fair assessment of the categories of ways that grammatical arguments can be made?

SPEAKER_02

I'm not sure I followed that.

SPEAKER_06

So there are three different categories of grammatical arguments to be made. Some of them focus on prophecy and the grammar of prophecy, and you're literally exploring like prophetic, the nature of the prophetic and how it intersects with language. Or you're talking about just l reason, logic. You're you're talking about grammar, but really you're exploring immediate logical implications of truth that come out of grammar just being a very pregnant thing that's full of a lot of meaning. Or you're making these grammatical arguments that are they're speculative. You're you're kind of playing around in the space.

SPEAKER_04

Is that can I I I think I can explain specifically what this particular grammatical argument is. Okay. And I I also I think that if we're interested in grammatical arguments that Athanasius is really putting some weight on, there's a it's a different one. But I think that he has established what he thinks is his case in like discourse one or discourse two. And then the part with Jonah that we're looking at is him really just trying to tear down one specific Aryan argument against his position. So he would say, you know, he would say, Look, John, the Gospel of John says that Jesus precedes all these things, and that therefore he was before creation. And the Arians would say, Well, but look, you know, there's all these places where it says we're gonna be as him, and there's places where he's like Jonah, and there's all these connections that are drawn. And doesn't that mean that we're like him? So doesn't that mean that he was like us? And in the section with Jonah, he's specifically like explaining how scripture can draw a parallel without drawing an identity, and so if scripture can draw parallels without drawing identities, then uhism or Athanasius' rebuttal of Arian can hold water. Whereas if scripture only makes identities, and any time one thing is likened to another thing, it means that ultimately the one thing will turn into the other thing and be that thing in heaven, then Athanasius does have to give in to in these arguments that they're making to him. But if we're interested in the grammar, I think the interesting one is which I I real quick a rose by any other name would be whatever that other name you gave it, as Sabard said. In 259 and 60 and 61, it's all about the words begotten versus created, and there is a specific grammatical argument that I think the way it goes is Ari or Athanasius is claiming that every time scripture talks about Jesus in relation to creatures like us believers, it says stuff like created. But whenever it talks about Jesus in relation to God the Father, it says begotten. That's a grammatical argument from Scripture that I think Athanasius does depend on. I think if you could find a place, I think he depends on nobody being able to find a place where God begets something besides Jesus. Yes, God begets something besides Jesus. Or where it says that God the Father created Jesus. Or if it does, then you know that's something that he specifically has to answer at some point.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Unrelated to this just that begot word monogenon, I've just been looking at recently, is it's out of vogue to in this this is not in the text, I know I'm going outside of it, but it's out of vogue to translate that begotten, only begotten. And the reason is uh with different archaeological finds and other stency scrolls, whatever, there's a general consensus right now. I'm not taking a position on this, I'm just saying this is what the general consensus is, that it is um better translated the way that it's kind of being translated more one and only, in which case the translation, the meaning of that is unrivaled, right? Which goes towards Athanasius's general idea, but it doesn't necessarily it's not quite as strong, I would think, in that case. Okay.

SPEAKER_05

What do you mean by that? Well, I mean, for me, I I don't quite grasp your different differentiation between translations. I mean, if you just replaced begotten with genesos in that sentence. But he called them to be sons as having genesosed them. You know, just just get rid of begot. Like, what does it mean that you're saying don't translate that as begotten?

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, I mean if it makes sense that you use the word genesos right there, because gene is, you know, the type, the sort of thing that it is. You're making another thing that is the same as the other thing. And so Christ has to be Genesis by the Father because he's has to be the one who represents distinctness of personhood and yet oneness, such deep oneness of something at a level even deeper than personhood, that he can say to Philip, How can you say that? If you've seen me, you've seen the father. That's the only way he can pull off that sentence linguistically.

SPEAKER_02

I'm reading the Athanasius bit right now, the 59. Sorry. Yeah. I think okay, so here's what I'm saying. Actually, I'm I'm gonna backtrack with that on what I said a little bit. Yeah. If the idea of it is is a uniqueness, then great. That works. I can see that. And if he only uses that about only uses that about the sun, or in general it's used only for unique things, then okay. That seems to be just as strong then.

SPEAKER_05

I think the Arian issue is not so much I think Arians like to point out the places where God calls us sons. And I think what Athanasius is doing is saying that we are I think tying back to the the parallel versus identity. It's a different thing because we're we're made sons, not we we're changed from not son to son. And so maybe occasionally this here in 59, it's mentioning times when it talks about sons, not just one son. And that's probably um it's a little bit hard for me because we don't have the Aryan arguments, we have just you know Athanasius' response. I'm kind of trying to figure out what they were arguing, and it seems here maybe they were saying, look, here's a place where in the Bible it says, I begat sons and exalted them. So obviously we're the same as Jesus. And that's the like that's the heresy. And I think Athanasius' general point is that the difference is the beginning, not the end. Jesus never was like us. We are changed to be like him.

SPEAKER_02

So here's the part where I'm that first of all, I that makes sense to me to write, and I also think that that's that sounds like uh the argument to me as well. The part where I'm it's tripping me up a little bit is and this it this may be just because of distinctions in my own mind that I'm making, right? That he maybe he's thinking in a orthogonal way or something. But one of the things about the sun is that the sun is Yahweh, right? Yeah. And the father is Yahweh. Yeah. The Spirit is Yahweh, right? We see in the Old Testament Yahweh and Yahweh interacting, right? So they have the same, I'll call it something like identity with some distinction, but there's also some kind of you know, identity that way. We aren't gonna be Yahweh, that's true. However, yeah, the language that I'm seeing about being like him, I think not gonna I don't know, I'm just saying some stuff. But I don't see any way in which it's reasonable to say that we are not like him. That said, what we aren't is at the identity level. We are distinct, we are other with respect to identity. But I think the whole point of this is that all of the attributes of God are bestowed upon us. That's the oneness, and that's and it's attributes. That's that's different than identity. I think Athanasius would say that too. Oh, I don't know if he would say the all of the attributes, but I think he would say the issue is identity. No, no. Actually, I think he would say something stronger than the issue is identity versus attributes. He would say, because we are not, we don't have the same identity, um, we're not gonna be Yahweh. There are attributes specifically of Yahweh that we won't have to us because they're unique to him. This Jesus, that God the Son does have those because he's Yahweh, God the Father does because he's Yahweh, God the Spirit, because he's Yahweh, and we won't. That part's not obvious to me. And this is the part where Matt, where I was saying before, I have trouble because with some people saying things about omnipotence, omniscience, uh, whatever. Because when I have pressed in general and they're saying that, I can't often find a particular meaning. So for me, I can't get down to that part.

SPEAKER_04

I mean, I feel like I can list a lot of things that in the ultimate eternal case, we will not be like Christ. All the saints and angels are not going to bow before me and say, holy, holy, holy is Matthew. I I would say that that's not a good thing.

SPEAKER_02

Never said anything more true in your life.

SPEAKER_06

Go ahead. What was that, Sir Robert?

SPEAKER_02

I I just wouldn't call that likeness or unlikeness.

SPEAKER_06

So the manifold, the dividing line is he's creator, we're created. So of course, along that line, there will be some things that go his way, some things that go our way. But I'm gonna say it differently.

SPEAKER_02

Let me say it differently. We certainly have different roles. That that seems very clear, right? And Matt, in I'll use this very old phrase that I sort of like, in glory, there can be many, there may be many things accidental to you that are not true of me. Maybe you have 25 cities to rule over, and I have nine, and maybe the habits in some of those cities, you know, you know, all these like things I could say, and there's like these just circumstantial or historical quote-unquote things. Accidental things, right? That seems to be, and when I say accidental, appropriate to a role. Great. He's the master, I'm never gonna be the master of everybody, but I don't think that's a an unlikeness of us, at least in any meaningful sense that I can see.

SPEAKER_05

Okay. I understand what you mean by saying that.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I don't I don't really care what's extremely unlike it doesn't I mean what it seem it seems to me like it's a uh matter of semantics whether the word like is appropriate for this relation. As long as you're as long as you're like they're not gonna the all the saints and angels are not gonna bow down before each one of us saying holy, holy, holy. And as long as as long as for instance anything that we have is from Christ and cannot be without him, that's fine. I mean, whether you can have the word like or unlike, I'm not uh connect attached to it.

SPEAKER_06

I think Christ is very attached to it, and he has a very aggressive position on it because in the parable of the prodigal son, the mechanism of salvation is the transformation of a young man who was born into a family, was a son of a family, became a fully vested heir of the family, split off from the family, left it and died and was lost. And the person shows up in rags who looks nothing like the son that left, maybe his face, but nothing else about him. He's lost the resources. He doesn't have anything that signifies the that he received something good before. He's lost it all. And the father immediately says, peels off his jacket, peels off his ring, says, That's me. This is the guy who is the head of the family. He says, This is my son, but he he says this is my son, but his actions are turning that young man into the one who holds the position that he like almost steps out of the way to put back on him. Into his air. Not just air, not just air, full replacement, right? There's a partial air, someone who takes a piece of the act.

SPEAKER_04

It's not a replacement that happens in the story.

SPEAKER_06

The father He takes off his ring, he takes off his jacket, right? I'm just saying, metaphorically, the level of visual language, the visual level of visual transaction is divestment of my stuff. Not just giving you things that I have, but giving you elements, tokens of my identity, my ring, my jacket, those kinds of things. So doesn't that mean that Christ is imposing topology on that matter of like and saying God is God has said something about this and it's aggressively so?

SPEAKER_02

Let me make a claim about this, Card.

SPEAKER_04

Matt, you weren't you respond first. Sure, yeah. I think it's very hard to make the case from scripture that some kind of authority or power or attribute or likeness or whatever is in glory taken from the father, not to be possessed by him anymore and given to us.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, that's the glory of the father. He's able to maintain all of his own glory and engender glorification in low things.

SPEAKER_04

There is, and I would also say that there is nothing that we will have that does not depend on the father. This is, I think, this is the ground that I will stake out as Matt's position, that I will accept whatever power you want to give me in heaven, as long as it's not essentially mine, as long as it is essentially God's. Right. Right. As if I have it and God doesn't, that's a satanic doctrine.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I agree with that, Matt. And let me articulate it gets a little uh difficult for me when we it's too abstract. So I just want to concretize with like scripture and stuff because that's helpful to me. So 1 John chapter 3, and I wanna I want to use this to illuminate what I mean by the things being like or unlike. Beloved, we are God's children, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared, been made visible. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is, and everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. Yep. What I'm not saying here out of this is the likeness is is not it, there's not it's not identity, it's not role in a in a way I attached to identity. But what I think is the idea here is in all ways that we might call something like character, we get perfected in those ways. Perfected, made, complete. And I would leave room personally for that to be something like we might not all it is possible that we might not all be perfected into everything the same way. I don't know if you Has like some kind of shape that he wants for me versus you. Okay, I don't know. I'm not trying to say that. But I am trying to say no one who abides in him keeps on sinning. I'm just reading the next couple of verses. No one who keeps on sinning has seen him or know him. Elsewhere he says we will be like him because we will what is it? I can't remember. So I'm not going to quote it. Okay. So I just want to throw that out there. Then I think the thrust of this is something like with respect to character, right? We get to have as mature and complete a goodness as he does. I agree with you, Matt, that it's essential to him. It's from him. It's not mine. Like I didn't, I'm not bringing it right. I'm clothed with his righteousness. It's not emanating from me. But I want to also throw in what was the other verse I was thinking? Give me one second. When he appears, we'll be like him. We'll see him as he is. Oh, yeah. I don't have the verse in front of me because I couldn't find it really quickly, which was that all things are put under Jesus. Remember that verse? And I'm 1 Corinthians 15 27, maybe?

SPEAKER_06

There's stuff in um Hebrews about establishing Christ's authority.

SPEAKER_02

Let me one sec. Okay.

SPEAKER_06

There's a lot in Isaiah and Revelation about the I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_02

No, it's it's a New Testament one that I'm thinking of. Uh one, 1 Corinthians 15 27. Let me see if I can Yeah.

SPEAKER_06

Ephesians 1 22, and he put all things under his feet and gave him his head over all things to the church. Hebrews 2. Hebrews 2 putting everything in subjection under his feet now and putting everything in subjection to him. He left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.

SPEAKER_02

No, not that one.

SPEAKER_04

No, you're thinking of 1 Corinthians 1527. 1527.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, great. So I thought 1 Corinthians 15.

SPEAKER_06

Oh, yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_04

For he has put everything under his feet. Now when it says that everything has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God Himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son Himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all. Great.

SPEAKER_02

So this is really important because I want to point out that, first of all, I agree with this. But um this is, I think, a big part of what you're saying. That I think is essential to what you're saying, Matt, that it's not a loss of God's God the Father over the universe, right? When he puts all things in the Sun, it's that he elevates his son to have to share his authority not over him as Father, but everything else. Like literally everything else, like every everything else. Yeah. And my understanding is that Jesus does this same thing with the church. Maybe not, maybe that's my current understanding. That doesn't mean with me personally, not me myself personally, but with his church.

SPEAKER_04

I don't know. I think I think one note that I would make is that perfection does not mean all possible fullness, all possible natural physical excess of whatever attribute. Perfection means uh one hundred percent of the design qualities have been fulfilled in the instantiation. Yeah, absolutely. Which is Jesus. And so, like for instance, I think that my perfected form will have some of the traditional attributes assigned to God, such as eternity, but not others, such as uh laser omnipresence.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, that's interesting. So I'm making some distinction because I wouldn't have called eternity an attribute. So I must be I I I'll have to think more about what I mean by that and why I would why that struck me as an odd thing to say for you to say. Um I'm not objecting, I just was an odd example. That said, by the way, I would be interested to know, I would be interested to know whether I guess I would say something like, I think that we are not all going to have the same, like you and I, Matt, or Josh or Dwight, the same personality as each other. I think we get we keep us, we become all the way whatever we were designed to be. Me, different than you, different than. I also think it's probable that we don't have the same skills or wisdom or whatever. I'm clinically insane. But not flaws. And I think that's I don't know what the Arians are saying, but that was how I was reading what Athanasius was objecting to.

SPEAKER_04

This whole topic, I think, is a sidebar to the Aryans, because what the Arians wanted to say, or what Athanasius says the Arians wanted to say, was that there was being before Jesus. And chronologically, like in some important way. I think Athanasius is committed to interpreting them as chronologically. I don't know about what they would say.

SPEAKER_05

They themselves were known to say there was a time when Christ was not. Sweet. If they had t-shirts with logos on them, that's what they would have would have put on it.

SPEAKER_04

So it seems to me like the point of saying that we will become like members of the Godhead equal to Christ for the Aryans is that that that establishes that one of the things that things that God does is raise up lowly, sinful human beings to full membership in the Godhead, equal to Christ, equal to the Father.

SPEAKER_06

And um it doesn't say equal, but it does say inhabited and deified. Sorry, what were you saying, Dwight?

SPEAKER_05

So I I think they're actually unknowingly they're lessening all of Christ and pulling him down, and they're saying we will be equal with Christ. I don't I'm not sure they they're saying I think they're trying to say that, oh, you need to keep God further away from us. And that's why they came up with the idea that Christ was created, because it's too much to say that we'll be at all one with God. I don't know about that exactly, but yeah, I I think a lot of the times they're more focused on the beginning of Christ, the creation-ness of him, yeah, rather than the end. And I think because their lower creation idea of Christ, their end is lower than what it actually is.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, so in 327, Athanasius says that the Arians say, if he, meaning Christ, were very God from God, how could he become man? And then also he has them say, How dare ye say that he is the word proper to the Father's essence, who had a body so as to endure all this. So, like there, I think that's absolutely correct to say that what they're doing is lowering Christ from being God.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, I gotta jump in here because I'm getting caught on some language. First of all, I never heard anything about the Arians. This is my first introduction to them. So I'm getting it from Athanasius too. But I mean, I knew like basically of them, but not any details. When you're saying Christ, you're meaning the incarnated son of right or how me are you do you mean by Christ also the pre-incarnate son, God the Son?

SPEAKER_04

Well, I was just quoting from Adramatius, who the he in what the Arians say seems to refer to the word Christ, and also to the word word, the word.

SPEAKER_02

So here's this little section. I as I was following along, but I was going to the section that I remembered, which was in chapter 138. It was like right at the beginning of what we read. This was and this kind of set the tone for me. Um it's like maybe halfway through 38. If the Lord God, for if the Lord be God Son, Word, okay, yet was not all these before he became man. So he's I think there he's saying the Arians are saying that the Lord, Jesus, is God Son and Word, but he Athanasius is saying the Arians claim that he was not before he became a man. Yeah. Either he was something other than these three and afterwards became them, or that he didn't exist at all, and then was just came about as man. I think that's what that like the weight of that first little chunk is.

SPEAKER_06

Yep. Which is interesting because it gives you context for why John goes through the trouble of saying in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, the word was God. Because it answers those very openness, very open questions that could be left. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And then the word became flesh. Okay. That helps me to understand Athanasius' idea of the Arians. So their idea is so sorry, their idea as he's saying it, I don't I assume he's right, or whatever, is that he had I I can't tell. Does he think that they thought he didn't exist and was merely a blessed human? Or did he think they had sorry, was he saying that they have some idea of his pre-existence?

SPEAKER_05

I think that his part about uh he must not have existed before his incarnation is not what they were arguing. I think he was offering that as an alternative that was even more absurd than they would bring up, but that would be available to them if they wanted. I think they're they think that Jesus was created first. You know. When you go back to Genesis, when God starts speaking, sometime before that, God created the word.

SPEAKER_04

Like some kind of angel. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I guess I would have I think I don't know. That I could see that Dwight, and and we didn't read the entire thing, so I don't know, but I would have expected more of a more argument from first from not first one, from John chapter one, that through him all things were made that have been made. Like that seems like a really concrete Yeah, it seems like a clincher.

SPEAKER_05

Honestly, for me, that helps also just the beginning of Hebrews, you know. It would be interesting to read some argumentation from the Arians just to see where they're coming from. Yeah. Not very much.

SPEAKER_06

A note about that real quick. I picked three passages where he focused on homeousis, theyosis, and I for I forgot the other Greek word. I'll have to go look it up. But these were the three philosophical arguments that he made around a Greek word. That's why I picked these passages. So it may well be that there are passages where he does this exactly.

SPEAKER_05

I read some more outside. It I it doesn't seem like he ever like would quote something from them. It it does sort of seem like you have to assume what they were saying based on his arguments.

SPEAKER_06

So in Discourse 1, Chapter 39, he cites John 1, in Discourse 2, Chapter 61, Discourse 2, Chapter 64. So he does in three different places take the ball, dunk it, shatter the glass, rub their faces in it. Did anybody else get a sense of kind of glee or happiness as like watching a friend hit a couple of home runs in a row or watching your friend paint a really good painting or what is there a sense of a brother in Christ is doing a really great job and it's just saying lots of true things? Did you guys experience any happiness or joy or concert with him? Uh, or was it more of a, oh, this is these are good arguments, I I guess.

SPEAKER_02

I did not have any particular like emotion, positive emotion about it, or or negative. I wasn't like upset with him or anything. I found the maybe this is a lack of knowledge on my part of the Arians, but I found the arguments to be fine and basically true. Okay. They maybe I'm standing on the shoulders of giants or something here saying this, but they seemed like pretty reasonable refutations of something.

SPEAKER_06

I was gonna say, I did not choose this text because it is a Titanic work of very difficult to accomplish theology, but rather because this is the first major church father stepping up and addressing what's out there vis-a-vis heresy. So one of the kind of the part two question that I wanted to ask once we had had a chance to kind of get into this and talk about some of the highlights of the argument and the philosophy and the structure of the material, is are we at a different place? Where did you see value in the way that Athanasius was addressing the heresies of his day? Are there still passages or arguments that you saw that you thought, you know, this is still the kind of thing that the church or the world needs to hear? That's a good argument, that's a clarifying, relevant argument, or is this kind of passage?

SPEAKER_02

I was surprised. I was surprised by his open disgust. And I I didn't exactly object, or maybe I don't know, I don't think I objected, but it was very uninviting, which is not the kind of zeitgeist of our Christendom or something. And I found myself wondering something like, you know, what I this thought ran through my mind a couple of times when he said things like, you know, I don't know, those people are the most loathsome, you know, whatever it was that he said. And I found myself wondering something like, what percentage of these like church fathers speak that way of people who are who have uh in the most charitable version have wrong theology, and in the probably least charitable version are wolves. But if it's all of them, and if John the Baptist is saying, brood of vipers, and if Jesus is calling whitewash tombs, then should I do that? How should how shall I then live? Right? That's my almost always question right now is well, what am I supposed to do?

SPEAKER_05

As far as uh your question, Josh, about uh, you know, have we moved on or whatever, I think this heresy remains the most common one right now is uh as the Mormon church tries to tuck itself into or you know, pretend that it's Orthodox Christianity. This is very close to what they their cosmology is, is except they would include God as a created being who was, you know, given this planet, and then he created Jesus, and then we're all lifted up and we will eventually be given planets, and it's it's the same argument. We're created, and Jesus is created and it's interesting talking to Mormons because I realized I kept trying to move past when you say Jesus, you're talking about something completely different than what I'm talking about, and I never could because they just never would. I don't know, sometimes it's they don't get it, sometimes they're specifically trying to avoid it.

SPEAKER_06

And of course, Islam likewise relies on the exact same seat that Christ is a prophet, but a created being, which rapidly breaks down because only Allah can create, and Christ creates in the Quran, and that's one of the major self-inconsistencies of the Quran that came from trying to rip off the word of God.

SPEAKER_04

So I've got a couple of things written by Arius here in this book, and I've got also some stuff that was written in response to Arius that's not affinaceous, that we could get a beat on what was normal. But like the the Thalia that he talks about, it's I'll I'll just read you a little bit from it if it's okay. It's poet it's in poetry. Or rather, there is a trinity with glories not alike, their existences are unmixable with each other. One is more glorious than another by an infinity of glories. The father is essentially foreign to the son because he exists unbegun. Understand then that the unity was, but the duality was not before he existed. So straight away, when there is no son, the father is God. Thus the Son who was not, but existed at the paternal will, is only begotten God, and he is distinct from everything else. Wisdom existed as wisdom by the will of a wise God. He is conceived by so many million concepts as spirit, power, wisdom, glory of God, truth, and image and word. Understand that he is conceived also as effulgence and light, one equal to the sun, the supreme is able to beget, etc., etc. etc. We've got a letter here by Alexander of Alexandria, which is a letter to somebody who is also named Alexander of Constantinople, to my most honored brother and soulmate Alexander. I, Alexander, greet you in the Lord. The ambitious and greedy plot of scoundrels has been hatched against those provinces that have always seemed more important through various pretexts inflicted by certain people on ecclesiastical piety, driven mad by the devil operating within them, galloping away from all reverence into whatever desire happens to grip them, they trample the fear of God's judgment. I found it necessary in my suffering to clarify these matters to your reverence, so that you may guard against these people, lest some of them should dare even to set foot in your provinces, either on their own, for these swindlers are handy at perpetrating fraud, or through letters ingeniously forged, capable of hoodwinking someone who has offered himself in simple and undiluted faith. For Arius and Achilles recently joined together in a conspiracy and they rivaled the ambition of Caluthos, although they're much worse, etc. etcetera.

SPEAKER_06

Diatron.

SPEAKER_04

I think that Alexander of Alexandria was Athena was the bishop of Alexandria before Athanasius was. So he was like Athanasius's boss.

SPEAKER_06

So Christ says if they're not against us, they're for us, and Athanasius is saying those guys are against us. Is that well? He also says if they're not for us, they're against us. So maybe he goes too far in place.

SPEAKER_05

Yes. Sir Robert, when you asked about, you know, should you speak this way, I think when it requires it, not always, sometimes.

SPEAKER_06

Isn't that part of the like the hating what God hates is part of knowing and emulating his heart? Protecting his children. So isn't protecting the children of God a good enough reason to move in violence?

SPEAKER_02

So always be prepared. I'm this comes to mind. Do I always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you, to give the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience. No, that's talking that's talking about somebody who says, why? Why are you so hopeful in there there's I see such light in you? Yeah. And give them that reason. I'm trying to I'm trying to I would God please give me wisdom to know the difference between these things and to cut this line.

SPEAKER_06

But it's bigger than that, right? Sir Robert, you're citing a passage that gives a cultural framing for the interaction and then saying generalism respect. But Paul says he came to us plenum caris cae reine, full of grace and truth. And that is the entire modality of Christ's approach to us. What were you saying, Dwight?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I mean, you you whitewash tombs. But go I I'd actually rather hear from Dwight than me.

SPEAKER_05

So I was just saying, I personally would find myself wanting to, if I had to pick a default, go with gentleness and and that sort of thing. But there are times, and I think sometimes I'm too slow to switch over to a little bit of actual pushback and saying whitewash tombs to whitewash tombs. I kind of got it in a dis in a discussion with a Mormon. I was I was giving a little bit too much ground, and I realized all of a sudden we'd kind of moved past the identity of Jesus, and I had to pull back to that, and it seemed really harsh to me and to him, and but I realized that like it wasn't doing any good to move forwards without that definition that no, Jesus is God, He is not a created being, He's not Satan's brother. That's the yeah.

SPEAKER_04

I think I can possibly give a little bit of historical background that I don't know if it if it's exculpatory of this kind of language and argument, but um I've got this book which is about this time period and it's uh source material, and some of the first councils are making rules for how churches should organize themselves. And the rules are things like crazy, some of the stuff seems crazy, like don't let the women stay overnight in graveyards.

SPEAKER_06

Okay, but other ones are like if somebody I think that's the equivalent of saying don't let your women start in OnlyFans, it's a little wild, it's very specific, but it's relevant to the pitfalls of the day. Anyway, keep going.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah. But there are things like if somebody was a pagan priest and converts to Christianity, and then they go to a pagan temple and do a sacrifice at a pagan temple, then don't let them take communion ever again, even if they're dying. But if somebody was a pagan priest and he never did sacrifices, he was not a high enough level pagan priest to actually do sacrifices in like the temperature temple of Jupiter or whatever, and he converts to Christianity, and then he goes and takes part in pagan temple worship. Never let him have communion again. But if he's dying, you can let him have communion then. Like the rules are for the the rules reveal that what was going on was this very strange transition from paganism to Christianity, where people were not things were fluid, people were not sure what was going on, they didn't know how to do church, they were suddenly extremely powerful and popular and had the official blessing of the Roman government, and these theological disputations happen in that context. And it's like 300 years after, 400 years after Jesus' ministry, and they're having to yeah, so so there's like I think there's a lot of stakes that if the Arians can sort of win, then Christianity becomes more of a pagan thing. Jesus becomes like an Apollo, that you can sort of be fit into the Roman system, and maybe you don't have to be so crazy about it.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

A little bit like uh Israel entering into the promised land the first time, you know. Uh we can just we can marry these local ladies and exactly start to start to learn about you know the right way to worship and stuff.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, do not give your sons to do not give these women to your sons as wives.

SPEAKER_04

I mean, and think about Alexandria. Alexandria is like Egypt, center of Greek power, center of Roman power, center of of like magical practice from the dawn of time.

SPEAKER_06

I don't know about Alexandria being you'd have to go a little bit further down into Egypt to find, I think, the seats of Egyptian demonic cultic power. But can I ask a question real quick? If he if Athanasius speaks so concretely about salvation being a matter of deification, which we experience by anointing, which is placement, right? He talks about how when Christ is anointed, when David is anointed, there is placement happening on two levels where both something is being placed into them and they are being placed somewhere. And there's identity, you know, you're being you're being placed into an identity. And that's the mode of salvation. It doesn't seem like the father's wrath and penal substitutionary atonement, it's difficult for me to reconcile those things as happening when Christ is on the cross, giving up his spirit, the temple curtain is being torn apart, he's saying it's finished. Obviously, like something has happened there. And I if I agree with Athenae, then it seems like anointing and placement and deification dispossess, push out wrath, penal, substitutionary atonement kind of thinking and language. I've I'm I've been wrestling with that. So if anybody has any insight about how to see both of them at once, or you do see them at odds, or you see them being in harmony, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

SPEAKER_02

Can you say that succinctly, just like the two things?

SPEAKER_06

Either on the cross while Christ was being whatever in order to do the work of atonement that he came to do, it seems like he was either doing something where he was paying a ransom and placing us in himself, or the father is full of wrath and needs to crush and hurt someone, and so he's gonna hurt Jesus. That it seems like those two things are at odds, right? Because they're competing to explain what the father is doing when the father is doing his part during the moment of atonement that Christ performs on the cross. It seems like those are competing or oppositional motivations or frames of mind for the father to be in, to be doing the work of atonement in conjunction with the son, when the son is on the cross. Either you've got the son is paying a ransom and placing us in him, or the father is wrathful and he is beating Christ because someone needs to be beaten and he's being beaten for us. I have a hard time seeing those two things simultaneously motivating the father or being true.

SPEAKER_05

So I I think in general, the way we talk about what happens at the cross is a little bit like the way we talk about the Trinity, where we're not mapping out on just like a two-dimensional thing, something that can be entirely separated. God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one, but three. And I think at the atonement, the various ways we talk about it aren't all necessarily unifiable in our mind, because we're we're looking kind of at an aspect of the atonement when we talk about it in those ways.

SPEAKER_06

But you can't ignore Isaiah. You can't ignore Isaiah, obviously, him being beaten and mercilessly treated is part of the it's part of the core obedience and part of the core thing. Like he was born to die. That's the difference between Adam. Adam was born to live and died, Christ was born to die and lived, I think. Like there's this chiasmus. That's the again, what we're talking about parallel versus identity. That's one of the big chiasmus differences.

SPEAKER_02

Perhaps to no one's benefit, but we'll see. I myself am a mechanic at heart. And I think in terms of mechanics. You benefit it being mechanics. One of the things that is a core way that I frame the atonement, the crucifixion, that whole scene, and hopefully not to the exclusion of other things, but maybe, I don't know, is um I take it as Jesus taking responsibility for. Right. So that the main thing as I see it that's happening is Jesus is saying, having become a man, right? The second Adam, the second one from whom men. And by the way, in the genealogies, the genealogy goes back through Adam to God, right? So he claims to be the patriarch, the first father. And he says, These are my children, God, look what we have done. Right? He he puts himself with us.

SPEAKER_06

All that you have given to me.

SPEAKER_02

And he says, and and we see that there's this, I y'all have heard me say this before probably, but there's this really great line in uh I can't remember, it's one of the prophets, where God tells Isaiah or whoever it is, uh Ezekiel maybe actually, he says, tell them if the and I I'm paraphrasing to add to amplify it a little bit, but if the three get if the three great intercessors were here, Noah, Moses, or was Moses one of them, Daniel, whoever they were, right? Even if they were here interceding on your behalf, Job, yeah, yeah, I would not spare you. And so you've got this really interesting picture that what's happening in the gospel in general, there's other things you can bring your own to mind is in general, the gospel is one who has favor with God, you know, a righteous one, whatever, intercedes on behalf of another. And God says, For your sake, I will spare this one I ought not to spare. Jesus is the reality of that that everybody else is mirroring. And he's the one who comes, becomes a man, and says, Not only that, but please spare us all. Right? Not them. Don't spare humanity, right? I take responsibility, please spare us. And God says to him, You have such favor with me for your sinlessness, right, that I spare you all. But the way for that to happen is Jesus pays the price. That's the righteousness. Okay. Anyway, my point is to say, I don't know about God flagellating Jesus or the God the Father doing that. What I actually see is Jesus saying, you know, what it looks like to me is Jesus saying, I take responsibility for these, and then asking his father, where are you? Why have you forsaken me this way, right? These are doing this to me. I'm being persecuted by my enemies to death, definitely, whatever, becoming sin for us. It doesn't look to me like it's God, the Father, pummeling him. It looks like it's him giving him over to his enemies. And I don't understand this part, this is the part mechanically, I don't quite understand, but I do think that God's pouring out his wrath. Like there is that. I let you take. But it I don't know that I don't know what it exactly is, but it looks a little different to me than beating.

SPEAKER_04

Can I give a mechanical account? Probably also insufficient. It has to do with the world. So a world worlds because it's the context for things, and things are things because they're in worlds.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, cos is full of creative stuff.

SPEAKER_04

And Adam was the appointed head of the world, and when he sinned as the head, everything in the world was corrupted. Everything is connected to everything else in the world, or else it would not be in the world, it would be in some other world or some other universe or something. Everything is connected, and everything is under some head, and uh that head was Adam. Adam sinned and fell, everything was corrupted, and like a like a computer which has had every circuit, every component irradiated by some toxic or corrupting radiation, cosmic rays, it all must be replaced. And we see pieces of this, we see prefigurings of this in the flood and in the sacrifices, that everything that is corrupted must be destroyed and replaced with something pure. But as soon as you put something pure into the world, it's in the world, it's in relation with all the other things in the world, it gets corrupted too right away.

SPEAKER_06

Or it will be hated. Either it becomes corrupted or it doesn't, and it becomes hated.

SPEAKER_04

But it becomes if it's under, it does become corrupted. Yeah, it's under a corrupt head, it becomes corrupted. So this is why it's so important that the whole world is under Christ, that he is set above all things when he's raised up. Because we can become part of the world that is under Christ's headship, and which is just the straightforward vine transplant New Testament metaphor. But that's us being that's us joining, yeah. The word in New Testament is kingdom. I'm using like the Heideggerian philosophical term world, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you enter, you enter Christ's world, and everything in Christ's world is destroyed and replaced.

SPEAKER_06

Destroyed and redeemed. So in Isaiah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_04

That and Christ is destroyed on the cross.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

But because he is very God, even being destroyed does not destroy him, and death has no hold. Death has no hold on him, so he becomes the living head, the uncorrupted head of a new world, a new birth, into which we can be born again, and this is his kingdom coming to be. And the apocalypse is when the last of everything that has not yet come under Christ's headship and been purified by baptism and death and been destroyed and replaced. Basically, the whole computer has to be destroyed and replaced. God the technician was able to put in one part that could not, that despite being destroyed and replaced, could not be destroyed. And every part that connects itself to that can join in and become part of that system instead of being part of the other system. Anyway, this is my explanation.

SPEAKER_06

This is we're back to Greek geometric proofs, right? If you can, it's if you can deal with all of the things that it could be and you can wipe all of those out, you're speaking about all possible uh ways of moving forward or proving it. If Satan is the prince of the air, if Satan's got everything, and then Christ shows up and takes everything from Satan, he now has everything. There's this sense of there's only two categories, and one had everything, and the other is taking everything else from it and completely consuming. Did you guys talk about the giants at all while I was gone?

SPEAKER_04

I think that's a weird mistranslation.

SPEAKER_06

It's Gigantes or like and it's uh an analog to the Septuagint. He's using the same language in Greek that the Septuagint used. I did some I did a little dive on this. So he's using a Greek term that is in terms of biblical scholarship and awareness of Greek mythology. It's ambiguous. My argument is that it's ambiguous and meant to be a dual interpretation that represents both Genesis six, Nephilim, and giants that were in that were uh insolent to and rebelled against their titan fathers. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But it does, I see where you're saying the translation. But I, when the heretics allege it and prepare themselves with it, see in them the giants again fighting against God.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah. So the important the note that I had about that was that when he says giants, he would trigger recognition in Hellenistic and in Jewish Greek speakers who are familiar with the Septuagint. And the nature of that sin is a sin against flesh. It's a it's an incarnation sin. So I think that's one of the reasons why he's bringing it up in the context of a Christological discourse.

SPEAKER_02

I'm game, but that wasn't, as they said, that wasn't one of the sections, so I didn't read it either.

SPEAKER_06

Sure. Sure. But where he does bring it up, I mean it it's interesting, right? Because it's such a deep early sin that frames the shape of history. And I think a lot of the stuff that you see in Revelation talking about corruption and whatnot parallels that. Whatever. That's getting into it too much. That's separate from this Athanasius conversation.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, Josh, do you have a a way to close us? How should we close it?

SPEAKER_02

We should close at least at least at the end reiterating what the next reading is. But Josh, thank you for the selection. This is my first exposure to Athanasius. Oh, good. Also, my first real exposure to the Aryans, so I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, yeah. I thought it was important to for us to see and have a chance to actually crack open the arguments of the first guy to step up to the plate and defend the faith against whatever the heresy of the day was. And uh your points about his methods and tone were really good. I think I am so quick to commend him for fighting those guys that I see as other. And it's convicting to me to remember and see that Christ came to de-other others. And it I do not do him favors by looking down upon his enemies thus. So I feel like this was theologically and practically in terms of personal devotion and choices and character cultivation. It was it was a good conversation. I appreciate you guys a lot. Any uh roses and thorns for this? I I like. The roses and thorns wrap up. Is there something about this passage and the way that we talked about it that worked for you? Was there something that you particularly found lacking or didn't? So that we can be sure to do more of what's good and avoid what's bad? Matthew, you know what roses and thorns are, so you have to go first and show everyone what roses and thorns are. My rose is that R Sir Robert challenged the very language of and the very generosity of and the spirit of the argument itself. That was a really great thing. For me, the the thorn was that I had a sick kid and I had to keep getting up. So that was my rose and thorn. Matthew, what about you?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_06

Okay. Fair enough. Sir Robert, do you have a rose or a thorn?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I think it was a good it was a good uh discussion. Always interesting to hear Sir Robert's thoughts. Um Dwight always has excellent things to say. And sometimes we're able to get Josh to uh say things that are intelligible. Be concise enough that it'll make sense to the rest of us.

SPEAKER_06

I resemble that comment. I'm out of touch, man. I'm out of practice. I need this. Go ahead, Sir Robert.

SPEAKER_02

I was just gonna say I I also enjoyed hearing from Ed from y'all. I it's been a while since I've had this kind of thing because I talk to children a lot, and then I just talk technical things at work and such. But uh so I appreciated it. I especially the question that I will be tending to focus on because it's where I am, is how shall I then live? And so this was a good opportunity for me to be able to do that. I do appreciate all y'all letting me uh or you know, not letting me, but going along with me as I stumbled through things. Uh because I there was a lot of stuff that I didn't quite have the have clarity on in it.

SPEAKER_06

Dwight hasn't given his rose and thorn yet.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, go ahead, Dwight.

SPEAKER_04

I don't really know what this is, but it was good. Okay. The next seminar reading is three stories from Donald Bartlemay, A Shower of Gold, The President, and the School.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you for joining us for this discussion. You are dismissed with the following valediction from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Now the hungry lion roars, and the wolf behowls the moon, whilst the heavy ploughman snores, all with weary task foredone. Now the wasted brands do glow, whilst the screech owl screeching loud, puts the wretch that lies in woe in remembrance of a shroud. Now it is the time of night that the graves all gaping wide, everyone lets forth his sprite in the churchway paths to glide, and we fairies that do run by the triple heckett's team, From the presence of the sun, following darkness like a dream. Now our frolic, not a mouse, shall disturb this hallowed house. I am sent with broom before, to sweep the dust behind the door.