Eastern vs Oriental Orthodox - what's the difference?

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]Question about me me a physical um Oriental Orthodox me a physical yes.

[00:00:05]If you ask the me a physical did the divine and human natures fuse into each other? No. So they never created a third nature? Exactly. So it's really divine truly human? Yes. Okay. So then what's the issue? The issue is philosophically it does not make sense to speak of one composite nature. It's more preferable to speak of diophysitism.

[00:00:24]But their argument is hold on. We want to go with what the Christians said before Calcedon. Saints that you even said and they don't use your terminology. They say one composite nature and the 12 anathema Saint Cyril anathematizes anyone who will speak of two natures.

[00:00:38]You're stuck because he's one of your saints.

[00:00:42]What's your background Fisk? I'm Orthodox. Why you upset about it? Okay, what's your question?

[00:00:46]>> Question about me a physical Sam.

[00:00:49]Um Oriental Orthodox me a physical yes.

[00:00:51]What about it?

[00:00:53]So just really wanted to get your view on it really because I mean I I understand of course it's you know you know the the composite of two you know perfect natures.

[00:01:03]Just wanted to get your view and um Yeah. How how much how much you think about it?

[00:01:08]Well, when you ask the me a physical you believe Christ is truly divine truly human? Yes? Do you believe the divine nature fuse into the human nature? No, it did not. If you ask the me a physical did the divine and human natures fuse into each other? No. So they never created a third nature? Exactly.

[00:01:27]So it's really divine truly human? Yes.

[00:01:31]Okay.

[00:01:32]So then what's the issue?

[00:01:34]The issue is after the union, after the conception in the holy womb of the Theotokos the divine and human natures are so inseparably united in one person that you should not speak of them as being two distinct natures that he then operates through because he's always operating as one person with the dual nature. In other words, we don't say oh, well that's the God part who did this. Well that's the man part who did that. No.

[00:02:07]Jesus died. So you can say God died, God was born because obviously he was truly God, truly divine who experienced a human birth human life, human death. So their point is that the union is so inseparable that Christ is now experiencing reality through the two natures so that you should speak of them as one composite nature because the incarnate Christ can never operate without both natures functioning together perfectly in one person.

[00:02:42]It comes down to terminology because if I ask you, do you believe that too? Um I do. So so so I believe in I believe in kind of you know one one perfect nature.

[00:02:51]The the the the kind of the kind of >> nature. No, one composite nature. Well one composite nature, yeah.

[00:02:56]>> Yeah, they won't say one nature because that assumes that somehow you're denying that there are a divine and human natures perfectly and separately united in one person. And the imagery they'll give you is this.

[00:03:10]They're saying no, there is a divine nature, there is a human nature.

[00:03:14]The divine didn't become human, human does not become divine. They don't fuse, but we speak of them as one composite nature in order to show that Christ that incarnate divine person now operates in both natures fully, completely, not in one nature one time and the other nature the other time.

[00:03:37]Because then if you take it to the conclusion, you'll end up with creating a separate person and they want to avoid that. But now watch here, this is the text they use.

[00:03:46]Matthew 19, verse 4 to 6. And he answered and said, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.'" Here. So they're no longer two but one flesh. Yes.

[00:04:02]So wait. We don't say two, we say one composite nature. Yes.

[00:04:06]But now no one's going to deny that Adam and Eve are not the same flesh body, the same gender, same personality.

[00:04:14]But Christ said, "They're no longer two.

[00:04:16]Stop seeing them as two, see them as one."

[00:04:18]That's what they're telling you. Stop saying two natures. It's one composite nature perfectly united in one person who now operates in both natures perfectly, consistently, not acting in one nature one time, another nature not another time. So when he's raising the dead, obviously he raises the dead because he has the divine nature but you still say Jesus raised the dead.

[00:04:43]Well, who is Jesus?

[00:04:45]Is he a man or is he God? No. He's both simultaneously.

[00:04:50]So it comes down to language. Yes. I see. Yeah. At the end of the day well believe it or not, you're saying the same thing. You're just using different language to communicate that point.

[00:05:00]Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Go composite. One one composite nature. I understand. Yeah.

[00:05:05]Yeah. So now Um I mean Later on, I don't want to cut you off. Later on, they felt the need to affirm the distinct natures in order to show that God as God cannot die. Because if someone says, "You mean what do you mean God died? God as God is ever living. How can he be killed and die?" Oh well, he died in his human.

[00:05:22]That was the controversy they had to deal with and address. It's like when the Muslims tell you, "How can God die?"

[00:05:28]Then what we say, "Well he died and with respect to his human nature, he died as a man."

[00:05:33]Well now aren't you now singling out one nature in which he could die?

[00:05:38]Yes, but I'm not dividing the persons.

[00:05:40]See, it comes down to basically saying the same thing. I got it. I got it. So um and then just a further question on that. So that that that one composite nature. So they're not they're not I mean um so I mean I I've kind of been kind of struggling thinking, you know, are they they're not equal? I mean one of course is a predominant, you know, the the divine nature. There is no predominance I'll tell you because if you're saying the divine nature is predominant then it engulfs the human nature so that now you're creating a third nature, right?

[00:06:11]Yeah. Yeah. I see. Yeah.

[00:06:12]>> No, it's the divine person who perfectly operates in two natures simultaneously, but you can't say one is dominant over the other because then you're saying the divine nature engulfs the human nature. Then if it engulfs it, then what sense does he eat while he's on earth? What sense did he sleep? What sense did he got tired? What sense did he die? Right? If you're saying that divine person by virtue of being God is sustaining his human nature. Yes, you can say that.

[00:06:41]Okay.

[00:06:42]So did that help you?

[00:06:44]It did. It did. Thank you. Yeah. It did.

[00:06:46]I mean I I did done videos with the Lions Den guys as well. I know kind of very very detailed videos. I've seen some of those but it has. Yeah. I mean it does raise a lot of questions, you know, as you can imagine. Being Orthodox I mean it's yeah, I mean you know, it's it's it's something I've thought about for a long time anyway. So Yeah.

[00:07:05]>> Orthodox.

[00:07:06]We'll just anathematize the language but if you actually ask these Orthodox the me a physical who are Oriental Orthodox do they have the pre-Calcedonian saints accepted by these Orthodox church using the terminology they do? Yeah, Cyril of Alexandria.

[00:07:26]Yes.

[00:07:26]>> They use the very language of one nature, one composite nature. So this is why when there was a challenge made to Orthodox Shahada guy he was challenged by Subdeacon Daniel as well as Full Armor Apologetics. Let's debate what the saints even accepted by these Orthodox church.

[00:07:45]Right? Let's debate what Saint Cyril of Alexandria and others said, the language they used prior to Calcedon and let's see what the 12 anathemas of Saint of Cyril of Alexandria said if you speak of two natures as opposed to one composite nature. Orthodox Shahada Ram, you don't want to do it because he knows historically he can't refute the facts.

[00:08:08]The facts are they did speak of one composite nature. Even saints accepted by the Eastern Orthodox church. So what do they do is? They well they ignore that and they will focus on they will focus on the philosophical arguments to show why philosophically it does not make sense to speak of one composite nature. It's more preferable to speak of diophysitism.

[00:08:31]But their argument is hold on. We want to go with what the Christians said before Calcedon.

[00:08:36]Saints that you even accept and they don't use your terminology.

[00:08:41]They say one composite nature and the 12 anathema Saint Cyril anathematizes anyone who will speak of two natures.

[00:08:47]You're stuck because he's one of your saints. Yeah. But at the end of the day, we're all saying the same thing, brother. We are, believe it or not. But that's why it's all right, that's why.

[00:08:56]That's okay. Yeah.

[00:08:57]Yeah. Just need you Sam. So I mean I kind of go back to scripture. Go back you know to the New Testament exegesis, you know, looking at looking at you know all all the letters, all the writing.

[00:09:06]There's nothing in there. There's nothing in there. So you have to kind of Yeah, that's it. They all appeal to the same scriptures to come to a different conclusion.

[00:09:14]That's not going to solve it. Believe me, it's not as simple. If it was that simple, if there were just certain texts you could quote then how do you account for the fact all of them believe scriptures, love scriptures, affirm scriptures, are willing to die for scriptures and they quote scriptures and yet they quote scriptures to come to different conclusions. Because scripture itself does not interpret itself. The Bible doesn't start speaking telling you this is what it means. It needs an interpreter. So depending on the lens you use and the paradigm you use the scriptures will say one thing to you but another thing to someone else.

[00:09:50]So at the end of the day, my advice would be this. Let me explain to you.

[00:09:54]Why then do I have no problem with then going along with the later church and using the language of diophysitism. You know, like diophysitism, miaphysitism. You know why?

[00:10:05]Because I've seen in church history an evolution that's faithful to what came in the past, doesn't diverge from it, doesn't contradict it. For example, yes, it's true that before Chalcedon, Saint Cyril of Alexandria and others, outstanding saints accepted by Catholics, Miaphysite Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox as saints, chose to speak of one composite nature.

[00:10:26]Notice, composite nature. In other words, it's not just one nature per se, it's a divine nature, human nature, but their union is so unbreakable, we view them as one, not two, just like when Jesus says, "Adam and Eve, one flesh, not two." But obviously, they are two.

[00:10:42]Yeah. The reason why I'm okay with later language, if we're saying the same thing, is because I look at the Christians prior to Nicaea, what's called the Ante-Nicene Fathers, A N T E, and I look at Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and I look at Tertullian, who's not a father, but was praised, especially his works on the Trinity, and I see the way they explain the eternal beginning of the Son.

[00:11:08]There was a two-stage beginning, the process in which they articulated the Son's beginning that later Christians would not employ and would not articulate the beginning of the Son in that manner. But no one condemns them as heretics. For example, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus would taught that the Son was not the Son before creation. Now, here's where it gets tricky.

[00:11:36]That person we call the Son is the wisdom of God, the word Logos of God, the reason of God, who's uncreated, and resides within God, but then when God went to create, he then brought forth, begot, summoned out of himself that word that resides in him, that's uncreated, and when the word came forth, however God did it, however he begot it, then the word became the Son. A lot of people don't know that's what they taught. They didn't teach the eternal beginning of the Son like other Christians during Nicaea and after Nicaea. There was a two-stage at the beginning. He goes from the reason, Logos can mean reason, the wisdom, the word, residing in God, so he's not a creature, so they're Trinitarians.

[00:12:32]He's not a creature, and within God, God was reasoning with his word, reasoning within himself, and that reasoning is that fellowship he had with the Logos and by extension the Spirit.

[00:12:44]And then, when God creates, he then begets, summons forth the word and the Spirit, and then when they come forth from God without severing, that's the moment prior to creation, the word becomes the Son, and the Spirit is spirated. Now, later Christians would not use that language, would not speak that way. So, there was an evolution, a development that no one rejects. Got it. Got got it. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I I I know for example, Paul says, you know, "Don't ask Don't ask too many unnecessary questions." And for me, it's a question of closeness, your closeness to um but but again, I mean, it's not, you know, uh we're we're all we're all kind of close in our own individual ways, I guess, you know. I could say my opinion, but No, at the end of the day, we are still believing and affirming the same Christ with different language. And depending on your attitude, either you're going to extend grace and mercy and say, "We're saying the same thing in different ways." Or you're going to be adamant, "No, I don't like the way you articulate it. You're a heretic." But the same measure you use will be used against you.

[00:13:47]Sure. Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:13:49]>> So, I hope that helped you, brother. I don't know if it did.

[00:13:51]It did. It did. Yeah. Um I've done a little searching, but but it has done Thank you. Yeah. Okay, brother. If that's it, then I'll go to the next one.

[00:13:58]Thank you. Bye-bye. Bless you, brother.