Protestants Got Christianity All Wrong

[00:00:00]Did you know that Tucker Carlson loves Martin Luther?

[00:00:03]>> I'm sorry to hear that about Luther who I've always loved. There's a lot to love about Luther. He's a character for sure.

[00:00:09]Um quite >> he would actually chase the devil away with farts which I think is great.

[00:00:13]>> Quite a robust man and a happy family life and everything about him I like.

[00:00:16]>> So that's cool. But he was bummed to learn from Jay Dyer that Luther denied universals.

[00:00:22]>> Basically uh there's an idea in the middle ages called nominalism. Have you heard of that?

[00:00:26]>> Yes.

[00:00:26]>> Okay. So nominalism is the idea that there are only names to things not essences. The middle ages in the ancient world the time of Paul or the you know church fathers they thought very differently. They thought that things have natures they have essences. And so the words aren't just terms or nominal nameism they actually describe what's really there in them metaphysically.

[00:00:52]Okay. So there is human nature and in orthodox theology Christ assumes >> who would deny that >> in the middle ages it begins with people like William of Aam. So Aam is the first nominalist. So he also goes up against this idea of universals that there's no such thing as a universal class or essence of a thing. Another guy named Gabriel >> Bile who he's going to pronounce his name wrong but it's usually pronounced be >> and he's very influential on Martin Luther. And so when the reformation kicks off, there's this debate about how could you be called righteous if you're not in fact righteous. So if as a human being you are, you know, menstrual rags as Isaiah says, as the reformers said, then how could God call you righteous without being a liar? Well, enter in nominalism. And nomalism is able to say, "Ah, because things don't have actually have essences. They just have names."

[00:01:43]And so if God calls you that, you are that legally even though in actual fact you're wicked. So that was yeah that was and Luther was very happy to utilize that nominalistic uh approach. And by the way this is not just my theory. This there's famous Lutheran scholars.

[00:01:59]There's a book called Harvest of Medieval Theology by Haiko Oberman. And the whole thesis of that book by a Lutheran is that yeah Luther had to use nominalism. So, so we're also though moving away not just from theological squables, but the idea that things have natures and that's this is how we get to David Hume and Kant and these enlightenment figures which give us the you know scientific revolutions supposedly this is how we get to there's no male and female. So you can see kind of the logical train here. If things don't have essences, well then they don't actually have genders, right?

[00:02:36]Objectively because everything is just a name. So I can just name myself he him or Z it. Right. Only Luther didn't deny universals. Today we're engaging this Orthodox claim that Luther broke from the historic Christian faith. And if he did, well, Lutheran are in the same pench as the sectarians that you like to call Protestants. If Dyer is accurate, if he's correct, confessional Lutheran are going to have a bad day.

[00:03:19]Laura Hansen asked if we could do an episode on this Tucker Carlson interview of Jay Dyer, and I'm happy to do so, especially after I saw that Jordan B.

[00:03:28]Cooper already posted a response and well as you'd expect with all philosophers things get complicated. The question is did Lutheranism come from nominalism? Now I'll give you the short answer. It's really simple. No. No.

[00:03:45]Lutheranism comes from the Bible. But if you can say Gabriel Beal and William of Aam in one sentence, congratulations to you my friend. You win philosophy Jeopardy.

[00:03:59]And who really cares? Paul didn't say, "Let me introduce you to Gabriel Beal."

[00:04:05]He didn't say, "Let me namerop every medieval philosopher that comes to mind as I try to respond to a popular conversation." No. Guarez Thomas Aquinus William Plato Aristotle the atomists for linenets Roselinus is is a nominalist Oberman's beal gabriel beal brian Ellis and some other Ed phaser Edward fasers Jacqu derided Michelle Fuko Duncotus John Towler Meister Ehart Gustin Brown of Clvo Meen Emanuel Contour David Hume French Jesuit Pier Chiron Deart system Peronian skepticism Thomas Hobbs Scottfried Linet Samuel Pufendorf Christian Tomasius are two major names Tomasius Pufendorf is as a volunteerist Emanuel Kant or David Hume through Carl Marx among the Frankfurt school and the critical theorists Hegel Boyerbachinstein is so derided or Roland Bart so is going to say you chiron no St. Paul said, "Let me tell you about Christ and him crucified. That's all I want to know among you." So, yeah, sure, we can watch Dyer and we can watch Cooper and we can we can read Oberman and and all this kind of stuff, but eventually it's all a waste of time if we don't then read well Romans again or or the rest of the scriptures again. The measure of truth, friend, after all, it isn't how many late medieval thinkers you can name. It's whether sinners are forgiven. And you you know sometimes some Lutheran get so busy with nuance they get so caught up in the academy that they forget that the gospel is actually scandalously simple.

[00:05:43]Super simple. Christ for sinners. Full stop. No footnotes needed for that one.

[00:05:51]Sorry, Coupe. Leave it to theologians to take the simplest message in the universe and bury it under 700 years of philosophical vocabulary.

[00:06:02]Jay Dyer sat down with Tucker Carlson and argued that Protestantism and and Lutheranism, he he lumps Lutheranism in there and he's focused on Luther especially, is the product of nominalism. And Jordan Cooper has spent years studying philosophy and he says it's much more complicated than that.

[00:06:23]Sure, maybe it is. But here's my question. Did Jesus make it that complicated? See, philosophy loves to complicate. Theology, on the other hand, it is so simple that even a child can understand it.

[00:06:40]>> [snorts] >> Every time some theologian says, "Well, um, it's actually much more nuanced than that." Us ordinary Christians start wondering, "Well, do I need a PhD before I can know for sure that I'm forgiven?"

[00:06:56]Seriously, I watched Dyer's interview and then I watched Cooper's hour-long response to it, which I thought was a complete waste of time. Actually, what's what what's Dyer's point about Lutheranism? all extends back to nominalism along with transgenderism.

[00:07:14]He's lumping these things together in his interview with Tucker. And and then what's Cooper's response? Well, everything is more complicated than than Dyer says. Meanwhile, you and I are sitting over here with St. Paul wondering if the Bible has anything to say about this, thinking as Paul says, "Well, I determined to know nothing among you among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

[00:07:41]Whatever happened to that?"

[00:07:43]Now, before you get too carried away with my critique of Cooper, I actually appreciate Cooper's desire to be historically careful. [clears throat] History is complicated. Medieval philosophy is complicated. Nominalism is complicated, but salvation isn't.

[00:08:01]That's what Dyer is talking about in his interview. Salvation, all the talk of nominalism and and William of AAM and and all this kind of stuff, it's all just the on the periphery. The the actual question at hand is how is one saved? The actual topic is salvation.

[00:08:19]That's what his journey into orthodoxy is all about. That's why he's talking to Carlson about it. We don't often think about this, but during the Reformation, the Lutheran initiated conversation with the Orthodox patriarch Jeremas II of Constantinople. And one of the main points of disagreement was over the doctrine of justification. The Lutheran taught that justification is by faith alone, not by faith and good works. As Romans 3:21-28 says, "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

[00:09:29]This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

[00:09:37]It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

[00:09:50]Then what becomes of our boasting?

[00:09:53]It's excluded by what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

[00:10:07]Okay. But the Orthodox according to Jeremas II said good works contribute to justification which is not what St. Paul said adding the nuance that the works are not in themselves absolutely worthy of salvation and therefore salvation does not depend upon them but only in faith in God. So, you know, exactly what the Bible and the Lutheran said, but with a man-made addendum. So, let let's pump the brakes here for a second. I I don't know if if I want to respond more to Dyer's comments on Tucker's show or Cooper's approach to responding to them.

[00:10:46]Uh, probably we're going to do both.

[00:10:49]Dyer's premise is that the foundation of Lutheranism, and he wrongly lumps us in with the radical revolution that gave birth to all the Protestants out there who took the name Protestant over and took advantage of the Lutheran Reformation to be clear. Uh but his premise is that Lutheranism is founded on nominalism. And so, as Cooper points out, his argument is a non-starter because he doesn't have the facts straight about Luther and nominalism.

[00:11:22]But let's entertain the argument for the sake of truth.

[00:11:26]Dyer argues that once the nominalism shift took place, it inevitably changed how Western Christians thought about God, thought about grace, justification, and even thought about the church itself. According to Dyer, if you begin with nominalist assumptions, justification becomes primarily a legal declaration, forensic rather than participation in the divine life.

[00:11:54]Salvation becomes something external rather than transformative.

[00:12:00]And eventually the visible church loses its central role as the place where believers participate in Christ's life.

[00:12:10]Now, Dyer would have us believe that Luther didn't come to his ideas out of thin air, and that's absolutely true.

[00:12:19]But he's trying to say that Luther was just one link in a chain of an airing school of thought that wasn't a return to scripture, but actually pushed certain medieval philosophical assumptions further than they had gone before.

[00:12:36]So he wasn't according to Dyer reforming the church but was furthering the deformationation of it.

[00:12:45]And that's one of the reasons Dyer says he became Eastern Orthodox. He was Calvinist and he ended up Orthodox. From his perspective, Orthodoxy never underwent this philosophical revolution.

[00:13:00]It preserved the older petristic worldview. A worldview centered not on legal categories, forensic categories, but on participation, sacramental life, and theosis.

[00:13:13]So for Dyer, becoming Orthodox wasn't abandoning Christianity for something new. It was recovering Christianity before medieval Western philosophy redirected it.

[00:13:27]Now, whether or not you agree with him, that's a a serious historical claim. One that is very important to all of us.

[00:13:37]It's not a meme. It's not just some throwaway argument online. It's it's it's not merely Protestant bashing or to be more specific, Lutheran bashing. Dyer is offering a sweeping interpretation of Western intellectual history. His argument is that if the philosophical foundation is wrong, then every theological structure built upon it will eventually lean in the wrong direction.

[00:14:05]And I wouldn't say philosophical foundation, but theological foundation lean leads to the leaning of a theological structure.

[00:14:16]But that's the argument. And before we criticize it, we owe him enough respect to state it as clearly as possible and to even say with that little asterisk next to the philosophical foundation comment, I agree with the conclusion. It's biblical.

[00:14:34]If the foundation is wrong, the structure will eventually lean in the wrong direction. It'll be compromised.

[00:14:43]And this is why Jesus is our foundation.

[00:14:46]Jesus, he's the cornerstone upon whom his church is built. Jesus, not philosophy, any philosophy. As Paul says when he told the Ephesians that the household of God is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the spirit. But instead of turning to scripture when asked to respond to Dyer, Cooper reached for Haiko Oberman, Gabriel Beal, the via Madna and about 600 years of medieval scholarship. And while the history of philosophy is important, Christians aren't lying awake at night wondering whether nominalism influenced the via Madna.

[00:15:52]This is where I'm not so much concerned about Dyer's mistaken view of the Reformation as I am about how the Lutheran quote unquote theologian responded to it. And I put theologian in quotes because put simply, Cooper is more of a philosopher than a theologian.

[00:16:14]I hope this doesn't come across too harshly, but from where I sit, Jordan B.

[00:16:19]Cooper responded to a theological conversation not as a theologian but as the philosopher he is. The lure was on the line and he bit diving deep into an opportunity to wax philosophic and I say that while being in full agreement with the facts of the philosophy lecture that he gave.

[00:16:43]But while I don't think the question is whether Jay Dyer's historical thesis is correct, I also don't think Jordan Cooper has successfully complicated it.

[00:16:53]Uh uh I mean addressed it. I don't think he's addressed Dyer's core issue and the fallout that it might have on the hundreds of thousands of people who hear his words.

[00:17:06]They're both talking about interesting philosophical things, true enough, and using lots of syllables to do it, but they're missing the point.

[00:17:16]They are themselves in a way a podcast expression of the egghead school that Luther escaped when he learned the gospel.

[00:17:26]See, Luther studied the scholastics.

[00:17:30]He was learned in Plato and Aristotle.

[00:17:33]He he knew what Gabriel Beiel said and how he how to pronounce even his name, right? And he was aware of all the academic philosophical debates.

[00:17:48]He was a professor in the academy and none of that mattered. Not a bit.

[00:17:56]Luther's strength and and Luther's ability to speak the truth of scripture in a way that changed the world didn't come from being a better philosopher than the other guy.

[00:18:10]It was Luther the Christian pastor.

[00:18:14]The pastor being a pastor is what made him effective.

[00:18:21]That's how he won the day. I I don't know. May maybe maybe this video is actually pointless. I don't know. I was asked to respond and I'm happy to do so.

[00:18:32]Uh, but I I do know is that if if you're lying in a hospital bed tonight, if you're one of my members that I have been called to serve, if if you're a Christian out there and you're taking in YouTube theology, if and and then also if you're if you're lying in a hospital bed, if you're if your marriage is falling apart, if if your child has has just died, if the doctor has just come to your bedside and used the terminal. Well, then I promise you the the question running through your mind isn't I wonder whether the via Madna influence 16th century forensic categories.

[00:19:14]No. No.

[00:19:17]You're asking one question.

[00:19:20]Am I forgiven?

[00:19:22]One question. Does God forgive me of my sins? One question. Has Christ atoned for my transgressions?

[00:19:33]One question.

[00:19:36]Am I a Christian?

[00:19:40]Am I going to heaven or some variation? Right? These are all the same question. And the guy with the right word won't be the one who knows the most about William.

[00:19:55]It'll it'll be the one who opens the Bible, points to Jesus, and says, "Christ died for you." See, that's theology.

[00:20:07]Everything else is commentary.

[00:20:10]Like I said a minute ago, I I I don't know if this video actually is very helpful or if it even has has a point. I wasn't planning on this week's episode being about Dyer's interview or Cooper's response to it. But I want to thank Laura for sending her email in, even if the video turned out to be more about my frustration with a Lutheran philosopher than about an Orthodox uh Christian, an apologist, I guess he goes by, an Orthodox apologist. Take my words for what they are. But whatever you do, don't lose sight of Christ and him crucified for you.

[00:20:46]And if you've made it to the end of the video, I want to raise my truth at all cost whiskey glass to you. But first, I want to thank everyone who makes these videos possible. St. John Lutheran Church in Levelville, Wyoming, top of the list, as well as our channel backers and all of our unashamed underwriters whose names are on the screen right now.

[00:21:07]and also our video producers who as of the recording of this episode include Jacob M0306, Beverly Flo, I am Spangler, Brockheart 3089, Paul Kazinowski, Ernest Sire 1924, Pilot Guy 22641, Pickle Ball Suzie C.

[00:21:29]Chapman 2780, My Dog Has Fleas RHL, Seth Murray 701, Deanna Z 2018, NW Flyer 7197, Wild Cowboy Man, and Manuel the Body also be 15, Capman 2780, and Marlo Webb who give monthly via Tyrell Bramwell.com.

[00:21:52]Thank you guys for partnering with me in the proclamation of the truth. Now, here's to you, my friend, to you. May you never be confused by the eggheheads or become as stupid as an academic. Rather, may you always remember what Luther taught in his commentary on Galatians. Namely, that Christian righteousness is a passive righteousness. It is called the righteousness of another, namely of Christ, by which he justifies through faith. And I'll see you in the next video.

[00:22:33]>> What's that saying? That uh you have to be an academic to be really stupid.

[00:22:38]>> Yeah. I mean, >> I guess that's right.

[00:22:39]>> Yeah.