Pageau masterfully reclaims the depth of traditional symbolism, offering a necessary antidote to the flat materialism of the modern world. He turns the act of seeing into a spiritual discipline, effectively bridging the gap between the mundane and the transcendent.
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reality. It'll blow your mind. Angels, dominions, divine council members joined by the saints, the marters, defenders, icons, NOT ONLY DECORATIVE ART, THEY SERVE A SPECIAL PURPOSE. ALWAYS SET APART ICONS AND WORSHIP DIVINE LITURGY.
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So eagles, >> soaring eagles, >> guys. It's like, yo, I just saw you a few hours ago, right? We had a great guest, Doc Boon, and now we have another great guest who, you know, this guy never sleeps. Thank you. This is crazy.
Alex, Alex is stamina maxing. Thank you, Andre. Uh uh Alito Sest says, "Shane Picios, eight hour stream last night. Are we sure Alex is awake for this one? I would not miss this one for the world because this is somebody that I look up to for a long time." And here he is. I'm going to present him to you guys right now.
Jonathan Pio.
>> Hey, Alex. How are you doing?
>> I'm doing great. It's great to be uh to be on your stream. You know, we were talking a bit before and I was saying, you know, I don't know how you guys do it, the stamina, everything, but one thing I really enjoy seeing is everybody kind of pulling together and I saw that stream with Father Stephen and you and Jay and I was thinking this is what we need. Like we just we need to to present to Yeah. Yeah. to come together. So, thanks for having me on.
>> Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure. Um, and we were talking beforehand and I was I told you like I was thinking like how do I draw the best out of this man for this interview? Because on one hand, you know, I've been studying a little bit more philosophy because it's very useful in this debate world, you know, and like between the uh Ionian and the Italian philosophers, you have these ideas of being and becoming that are synthesized and like Plato and Aristotle afterwards, as you know, being a philosopher yourself. Um, and on one hand, like you're a very cerebral man as a philosopher, but you also work with your hands doing carvings and icons and producing art. And that's like such an interesting balance, I think, because like the philosophy kind of connects like the being like who you are and then when you're writing an icon, it's it's becoming like it's literally it's transforming into something.
>> Yeah, for sure. I mean I to me the obviously I've I would say in the past few years I'm not carving as much as I as I wish I was but I mean definitely the carving part for me was to make sure that everything I'm doing is is has feet you know that it's incarnated that it's not just speculative and so the to me the symbolism that I talk about you know it's it's it embodies itself it's not just it's not just a mental activity you know >> yeah and I think that's a part That's okay. So, I have like an unfair bias I guess against academics and I think that's like something I acquired through litigation and like lawyering and like my my mentors in this field you know I've mentioned them before like my audience knows but this like 77y old Jewish lawyer 72year-old Italian lawyer they've been doing this their whole lives and like I remember coming in there green like right out like I just got my law license you know it's my first day as a lawyer and the gap between me and them in terms of like powers of persuasion and like talking was so wide it was almost as if I couldn't even see like I will just never be as good as as these people right but there was I remember there was a case >> where the Italian partner was working with some uh forensic actuaries like double PhDs super nerds like huge nerds and he was talking to them and he's like I can't understand that they're always telling me about different perspectives.
I'm not trying to like go on some objective journey for truth. I'm trying to make a point and like their their hatred, not hatred but like kind of uh animosity maybe or like frustration their frustration with academics kind of seeped on me a little bit. So I think that connection of like actually doing something in the like being a practitioner, actually doing something in the real world is like really important.
>> Yeah, I totally agree. I don't you know I I it's funny because you keep calling me a philosopher. I actually don't consider myself a philosopher at all.
You know, I consider myself an artist first and foremost, you know, and and I think in images more than I think in concepts. That's why I actually one of the reason why I don't get involved in some of the more pointed debates in in orthodox theology is that my mind doesn't work that way. To me, it's really analogy and images. And so even when I talk about philosophy, it's very grounded. I have a kind of map of the cosmos in my mind and and I kind of see things appear on that on that map. Uh you know, and the map that I have is really a it's a biblical map. It's really what what's written in Genesis 1 and ultimately the incarnation as as the the resolution of those puzzles. You could say >> there was a a point that that Doc Branson made where he was talking about like and it occurred to me that ancient peoples like these philosophers, the church fathers, the capidosians when they were talking about like these these terms that we see today as abstractions like essence and accidents and uh like qualities. It was like a very practical uh endeavor like he was talking about uh the essence or nature of something as like causal effects right so if you have a chunk of rock and you want to find out what it is you test its melting point you test its malleability and like by these effects you kind of figure out what it is and I was like wow that's like I'm just thinking of like a Greek dude who's going around and like he literally just wants to test what this is and he just he goes and he does some tests and like oh this thing has like a nature.
>> Yeah. It's a very like concrete practical thing which is not what you see today in academia. And it's like there there's like a bifurcation of like all of these heady things and then you have like the trades and like the practical jobs. But when I look at these ancient people, Jonathan, like Plato was a wrestler ostensibly, right? People theorize like he was this was somebody who was using his body who is out there in the world. It seems like there's like a weird bifurcation between this. Well, that's the way that I often talk about, you know, let's say the modern world, let's say from nominalism, but obviously accelerating is that it's kind of like a deincarnation.
>> You know, it's as if people always think of it becoming more and more material.
Like we we tend to think that way. We think, well, everything's degenerating.
We're become materialist. You know, we're we're we can't see formal causes anymore. We can't understand purposes and stuff. But it's actually like a bifurcation. And on the one hand, the mental stuff just flies up really high and becomes very very speculative and and esoteric. And then at the same time, we develop these these these physical practices. And so and and if you look at the history, you can you can see that the development of the sciences and the these these really technological uh practices, they go hand inhand with esoteric doctrines kind of flying up into this wild speculative uh place. And so you have secret societies happening at the same time as you have kind of scientific societies. And that's one of the things that I loved about orthodoxy is that it just keeps it all together.
Like that we never had secret societies in the Orthodox in the Orthodox East because the mystical aspect of of creation was was integrated into the practical practice of you know the things that we did every day and the worship whereas in the west you you have this weird bifurcation. uh where and you see it I mean it's kind of funny because how can I say this like it it's kind of funny because if you look even at philosophy you know it just becomes so esoteric and reading analytical philosophy is just unbearable it's like it you know what are you even talking about you know it's it's not even it's not interesting it's it's just Anyways uh wow there is so much in there um so I've been going through this this book the ontology of the ontology of death uh petristic philosophy against nominalism and uh a few I've just been digging a little deeper into this topic because it seems like to be under uh undergirling I guess uh Protestantism but not only Protestantism like there's an entire modernist mindset which is like in the past everybody was connected to a story like I am going to be a blacksmith because my father was a blacksmith and his father before him was a blacksmith and I'm going to live in this village.
I'm going to do this thing because within the clockwork of the universe like this is my one little function and it might not be a king or a noble or somewhere but and it might be very humble but it's still important because it helps things function and this modern mindset is more like you know based on self-determination and like freedom and individual liberties and in in that like scaffolding you end up being like missile ellaneous human being number 3 bill863 million and you're just like a blank slate without any story attached to you because like you make your own destiny and you make your own story but like that came with a huge cost.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And I mean I think that's exactly what we were talking about before which is that the if you think about this deincarnation you know you can think about it in a way where on the one hand in the ancient world identities were stacked right so you you basically you're you are a person you're fully a person there's a whole there's a whole philosophy and way of thinking about what a person is but then you're fit into a family which fits into like a village or a tribe. Then you have a parish and you have and you have these kind of stacked identities. you're part of different uh guilds or different organizations and all of these just kind of uh play with each other, right? They just kind of fit into each other and they function and all of society has a basic structure. There's spiritual authority, there's temporal power, you know, and there's all these things. Uh and then what the modern world does is that on the one hand it does what you said which is that it actually takes you tries to break you out because those are all oppression, right? Remember all of these structures that are on you, they're actually oppression. And so we have to free you from all of these oppressive structures. The the structure of family, the structure of religion, the structure of uh you know like different any kind of moral order that exists. We have to free you from that.
And then but the secret this is this the secret is that as I do that I'm also creating an insane hyper authority. I'm also creating like a kind of authority that no one has ever seen. you know, surveillance, control, uh, you know, and and so it's like as you're because this is the thing is that that all those functions in the world, like all the things that we we participate in, they have they serve a function. They actually serve a function in life. Like a family takes up a certain amount of of of purposes in the world that fits in a village and that takes out a certain amount of purposes. If I free you from all of those, those things don't go away. All the things that those that those structures did before don't go away. So now you give them to the state.
You just keep giving to the state. And so now the state is protecting you from all these organizations. The state has to protect you from your family, has to protect you from religion, has to protect you from all these things. Uh but then you end up with like a hyper form of tyranny, you know, and you and it's just so insidious. You don't even see it. people. It's so funny to think that people now I think it's normal that you have to ask the city like if you're going to build a porch on your house and they're going to tell you like how many inches that the guardrail has to be and we think that that's normal. And then at the same time the same people will complain about how the church controlled people back in the day. Like that's insane. Like in Quebec, they literally changed the order of authority in in in the state where now the state has primal prime authority over children and this the parents have secondary authority because obviously the state has to protect your children from you, >> right? Yes. Um you also mentioned earlier like about how in the west you see like secret societies expanding everywhere in this idea of like mysticism and the occult and you know Freemasonry has been a topic that's been up in like the apologetics realm recently. Jay recently did a 2v1 debate against uh Masons. So it was Jay versus two Freemasons. And I was thinking man that's really not fair.
They're probably like it's it's like there's a little bit of uh of disparity between this two sides. They're going to need at least 10 Freemasons to even like have a shot at J >> at Jay, right? At even making like a scratch, right? Um, but there was so I grew up in uh this like charismatic Eastern European Pentecostal uh community and there was like such a heavy emphasis on experience and like what we'd call in orthodoxy like the mystical or mysticism. And then I I had like a short stint in this like kind of John MacArthur style independent Bible Baptist church that like really emphasizes like tulip and like that pastor said from the pulpit at one point. This was when I was inquiring into orthodoxy. He said, "Uh, free will is a heresy." And I was like, "Wow."
>> Wow. Yeah. So, I was like, I guess all the church fathers, like they literally all of them had no idea what they were talking about at that point. But uh there was like a synthesis between these two extremes of like you know extreme like literalism and like intellectualism on the tulip side and then this emphasis on experience in the charismatic side that I think Loski it was like is either his introduction or his first chapter to the mystical theology of the Eastern church and he said like mysticism like emphasizes experience on one hand and like you need that that's where true knowledge of God comes from, but you also need like theology, this intellectual side as like the guard rails for your experiences so you don't go too off the rails and start like barking like a dog on the floor or something like that. Um, yeah, go ahead.
And you have that you have the I I think that really understanding the west and the modern world as a as a kind of radicalization of of all these these and and I think that you guys have become really good at this but one of the problems you have is that when you enter into a conversation you people use dialectical thinking right away right so it's like they just oppose things right so it's like either God's will or your will right it's like so if God is if God is supreme it means that free will can't exist because it's all of these it's all of these opposites and they don't understand like a real ontological hierarchy where each aspect let's say of the world has its own particular existence. It's embedded, right? It's it's stacked into other participations.
And then so God's supremacy does not remove your free will. It makes it real.
Like it's it's the the fact that things are connected together in this hierarchy up to God, you know, is what makes everything real. It's not what it's not what reduces them or eliminates them.
I'm just taking notes here because, you know, can't really turn off my lawyer mind. But I have never heard it stated that way before. I think that's uh like probably the best way to stay is that God is the grounding for your free will.
>> It's not opposed to your free will. Like that's crazy.
>> Yeah, of course. And I think that I really love the way that, you know, St. Maximus uh he he has this idea obviously of Nomic will and true free will. And if you understand that, then you kind of see what freedom is. Like freedom doesn't freedom doesn't mean you do whatever you want to do. That's not what freedom that that's that's like just inconsequential in terms of what freedom. Freedom means real freedom means not being a slave to contingency.
That's what freedom is. And so it doesn't look the way that people think.
As you become free, you actually it's mastery. Freedom and mastery are the same thing, right? And so as you are free from your hunger like just kind of the obsessive cycle of hunger doesn't mean that you stop being hungry. It just means that you master it. And this this and so true freedom is just moving towards the good and moving towards God.
Um and so this is really the way of understanding that's what grounds freedom or else like I don't even know what freedom would mean. So I so I kind of have sympathy for people that say free will doesn't exist because what they think free will means is something like just this you're completely idiosyncratic like you're completely disconnected from all other causalities and you have this like absolute capacity to choose. Well that's stupid but that's not what free will is anyways. That was this is something where like our mutual friend uh father Dr. Stephen Young, he really messed with my thinking on this because the the way he stated it was like so like blatantly obvious right in front of my face. But then also I I had never thought of it that way nor heard anyone formulate it in this way where he said that people think that free will is choosing.
>> What I free will is not choosing.
>> That's what free will happen.
>> Yeah. Free will is when your will is is completely in line with reality, right?
So you don't deliberate. You don't have to pick anything. You just act. Pure act is freedom. But that's not choosing.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And like what he was talking about St. Maximus and how like you know uh maybe in this like Calvinist scheme people tend to think I remember because I thought that way when I was a Protestant too that like Adam and Eve in the garden must have been some like automatons that like did what was right and then they got like duped or like tricked by by uh you know the serpent and then now they have like choosing and it's like kind of hard to conceptualize well if they weren't like choosing before it didn't even have knowledge of good >> even sin >> how Yeah.
>> If if someone tells you free will is a heresy, where does sin come? Why? Oh, so God is just pure evil then. So he like he basically chose for them to to sin to send billions of people to hell. My goodness. Like seriously, that's God.
That's your god, >> bro.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've argued it's an entailment and I think like Jay and like Cleave and others have made this argument too that that Calvinist god kind of reduces to this like Muslim God that is like not necessarily good or bad. He kind of just is.
>> Yeah. Sure. That this idea that evil like that God is the source of evil, you know, that's something that you kind of see pop up in Islam once in a while. Uh, and it really is a deep misunderstanding obviously of of the metaphysics, you know, and I think Christianity has just has the best metaphysics in terms of understanding what what bad is, what evil is.
>> Yeah. Okay. So, part of my pipeline into orthodoxy was the Kaiser De Young Dionius pipeline which >> I I'll land it.
>> All right. Okay.
So there's this like and iconography and symbolism has a huge role to play in it too. So I'm excited that you're here to talk about it. So there's in the unseen realm there's this quote from uh Dr. Heiser. He says the part of the story we know most about is the one that we're in the visible terrestrial world. Naturally that's the one that gets the most attention from pastors and theologians.
The invisible realm is regularly overlooked or talked about only in relation to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. The two realms are not mutually exclusive or peripheral to each other.
They are integrally connected by design.
>> And there's this idea that like the boundary between the seen and the unseen, the spiritual and the material, it's like a porous boundary. And there's like it's almost like for everything that happens in the spiritual realm, there's some effect in the created realm. And for everything that happens in the the material realm, there's uh an effect in the spiritual realm. And it's like corresponding events in there. And uh the young father Stephen, he also like he makes the same point in religion of the apostles where he says that uh the belief systems of ancient Israel, the second temple Judea and early Christianity embraced all these beings, you know, referring to like the gods of the nations having a place in their cosmology, right? And in their spirituality says they invis they envisage the invisible realm and its occupants interacting constantly with the visible world and the people who inhabited it. So again this idea of like going back and forth and about a year ago you posted that video on the symbolism behind the Olympics and when they were like mocking the Last Supper and kind of integrating it into this like pagan scene. Uh and I was thinking maybe this one of the ways that these two like the the spiritual world and the material world connect is through symbolism and icons. And this is what this is where St. Dionius comes in, right? So in the mystical theology in chapter one, he talks about like Moses going up the mountain into the darkness and he says that Moses beholds not him indeed like not God himself but the place wherein he dwells. It is like that section of Exodus where it says uh make the tabernacle based off of what you saw on the mountain.
>> Yeah.
>> And that's what Dionius is like you know this obviously I'm kind of landing it for >> the the listeners here. But uh Dianius goes on to say in these like characteristically extremely long sentences and this I take to signify that the divinest and the highest of all of the things perceived by the eyes of the body or the mind are but the symbolic language of things subordinate to him who himself transcends them all.
Through these things his incomprehensible presence is shown walking upon those heights of his holy places which are perceived by the mind.
And it then it breaks forth even from the things that are beheld and from those that behold them and plunges the true initiate into the darkness of unknowing. wherein he renounces all the apprehensions of his understanding, and is enwrapped in that which is wholly intangible and invisible, belonging wholly to him that is beyond all things and to none else, and being through the passive stillness of all his reasoning faculties, united to the highest faculty, to him that is wholly unknowable. But he's making the point that like it's these symbols that bring us to God because even the way like the angels are described like this is not talking about biology.
Yeah. It's analogy. I mean the the Dianisis really is the one who found this this notion of analogy which is that the everything that you can understand kind of functions through through through these analogies. That is it is a it is a relationship between similarity and dissimilarity. that is God is obviously you could say absolutely dissimilar from everything in creation but because he is the source of creation and because all things are you know descended from his will therefore all things resemble God at the same time so you have both that all of creation resembles God but then understanding that also it absolutely does not resemble God but that's actually how all meaning making functions it's like it's it's the root of all meaning making is everything you understand is because everything in the world is similar to everything else in the world and everything in the world is also dissimilar to everything else in the world. And it's through the play between similarity and dissimilarity that you come to be able to engage in anything.
And therefore like this idea of like a kind of knowetic uh understanding like this cloud of unknowing that that that he's talking about this move into the unknowing it actually functions iteratively at every level of understanding. And so you're always knowetically engaging with reality whether you are capable of really living it out or not. Right? That's why this this kind of mystery about creation that it is that all of creation is how can I say this? Like if we were able to engage with the world properly, we would see God everywhere. You know, we would see God manifested in all things because necessarily that's actually how how even things exist.
>> Yeah. Uh so maybe let's just say so all right so just so to get to the symbolic part and so you would say that >> that means that all things are symbolic that is everything that exists is symbolic uh and the the reason why we aren't able to perceive it is just our fault like we are the we are weak and we therefore need in some ways to be helped to be able to perceive this symbolism.
Um and then there there are symbols that are more concentrated uh you know that are more like that are that like holy places. So if you think about the the the ark of the covenant or the tabernacle, you think about churches, you think about altars, all of these things are actually kind of concentrated symbols of God's presence in the world.
And they really are like it's not how can I say it's not just a construct.
It's not an illusion. They they the way that they're made is revealing to us how God manifests itself in the world. But at the same time, God God is also present everywhere and in all things.
Okay.
You said all things are symbolic and I want to put a pin in that and come back to that at one point. But there's like this intersection between the unseen and the scene that I kind of want to hone in on just like for a moment here >> where in your video about the Olympics there's like you're saying like this is demonic right and uh that you know we know there are demonic energies from Ephesians 2 you know in the work of uh Dr. Brad Shaw on this, he shows this extensively and the early church fathers recognize that like the energeta of God, but also there's like the workings of of demons like on the other hand of that and that I it seems like this is a battleground like in the spiritual realm like what what symbols are going to be pushed in the material realm, right? So this like uh profane uh sacrilege of the image of the last supper, right? portraying it as some like orgistic pagan uh idea and uh like this is where I really appreciate your cultural commentary on like movies and stuff and like how uh your emphasis on how tropes are changing and like you have typically it would be like the male leader and hero and then you know the feminine caretaker and that these things are being subverted uh in the media and it like in movies and it's like it it doesn't take much analysis really to to notice that, right? It's it's kind of out in the open and obvious. So, it seems like like what is the source of this like subverting of uh like the the symbols and these things that we know are true in the culture?
Like seems spiritual to me.
>> Of course, it is. I mean, of course, it's spiritual, but it's not it's not like uh sometimes when you say there's some words that I rarely use, right? So, like a word like spiritual is a word that I don't use. Not because it's not good, but because people struggle to know what we're talking about when we use those words. I actually never use the word soul, for example, which people like, why don't you use these words?
It's just because they've been ruined in culture. They're totally fine words and they're okay. Um, but so the idea to understand like when we say that something is spiritual, what we mean is that what it the the causes that it produces in the world is through influence, right? So it's like the the demons influence us, right? Just like uh uh propaganda influences us just like teaching influences. These are all spiritual in you know relationships between spirit and let's say the what we do in the world. So when a teacher tells you you should do this for this and that reason it's a form of influence. But there are types of influence that are beyond the human level that are that are wills right that that are beyond just the individual human and that is absolutely necessary even if you think about it because how can I say this like I can recognize anger across different people like I know so if someone is angry and is influencing me through his anger I know what that looks like it means that there's something else there's a higher form of intelligence that is influencing uh people, right? And so this is this is like really quite natural to to realize that this is how how this works. And in the same way that you sin like in your own life, this there are social versions of that, right? So when you sin, you fall under an influence that it's it's an intracychic influence, but it ultimately can be related to demonic activity where you mistake goods, right?
And so you worship the the you worship that piece of cake, right? you actually see it as a good in itself. You want to have it for itself. And that's a subversion of of of goodness. And there's a whole reality around it, which is that you're going to celebrate it.
You're going to emphasize it. You're going to put it in the wrong place or you're going to put it up on the, you know, put it in a place that that that you know, you think about it. You look at it. And this is what happens. This is how we end up with things like the the Olympics uh version of the orgy type of of feast, right? It's a it's the same thing that happens to you when you're seduced by that third piece of cake or whatever, but now it's happening at a social level where we take certain goods, certain pleasures, certain things that are completely normal. We put them in the wrong place. We put them in the wrong order and then it creates the kind of weird it creates the perverse orastic uh cannibalistic feast that we saw at the Olympics.
So that's like one way that symbols go.
I realized that in my debate with the other Paul on icons that it also goes the other ways like demons try to influence us by like trying to get us to engage in in these like I archetypal like bad things like by by asserting this influence over over you like you said but that's also our way to the divine which I think is what St. Dionius is saying uh and you see this in the Psalms, right? Because the tabernacle itself, although it contains icons, it the tabernacle itself is an icon because it's made off of what Moses saw on the mountain.
>> Uh and Hebrews 8 confirms like I love the NE translation on it says it was a sketch of what you saw on the mountain instead of like a copy in a shadow. It's like literally something that somebody drew out. Um, and then there are the psalms that say, uh, and I use this as a proof text. It says, I worship in your divine assembly. I bow towards your holy temple.
>> Yeah.
>> It's you do that. You worship in the divine assembly by bowing towards the icon of the divine assembly, which is the tabernacle.
>> Yeah. Of course. I mean, you know, the the the problem of a lot of the problems of iconoclasm in the Protestant world, they're more than just about icons, right? They're they're actually about a deep mistake about how reality functions, which is a kind of modern materialistic idea that the world is arbitrary and almost like a gnostic.
It's like a semi-nostic idea that in actually the world is is so fallen that you shouldn't engage with it at all in relationship to God. that you know like it's it's it's it's just up there, right? It's just up there which is but the redemption of the world doesn't happen through us going to heaven, right? It happens through the resurrection. It means that it's actually gathering things back into their proper order and re and seeing in them God's revelation. And so you can imagine that like saints like some some of the really high saints they are able to do that everywhere like they in some ways see God's presence in all things and they and they they can almost have this reverential attitude towards all creation. Uh but specifically for us especially people who are kind of still weak and we're still moving. We we obviously have to be able to re show reverence to the places where we do see God's presence. It's like when you when you enter in when you see an image of Jesus, my goodness, it's like how would you not show reverence to an image of Jesus? It's like he is the one through which God has revealed himself to us, you know. So it it's there it's a deeper problem, you know. It's a deeper problem than just images. There's a whole problem of what how they how people understand how to react to God's presence in reality. And and you see and it's funny because in the Old Testament it's not a problem at all. Like it's totally normal obviously to bow down before before the altar. It's totally normal to bow down before the tabernacle to to and it's even normal to bow down before other people if you're asking forgiveness to someone, right? It's I think it's in the Proverbs where it says that you should bow down on your face in front of them because you are saying I was not able to see that you were in the image of God and I'm going to recognize that now because I hurt you. I did something to you which is actually impious and is almost like a sacrilege and now I'm going to bow down before you because I can see in you that you are made in the image of God. Right? I'm recognizing that by bowing down. And so it's like it's so who does that now? Like who and this is the thing that's funny is that when I was a Protestant, it's not that we didn't bow down before images. It's not that we didn't bow down before things. We didn't bow down ever to anything >> to anything. Yeah.
>> We didn't kneel to pray. We didn't like it was like we did none of it.
Yeah, that's right. Um, I wanna I want to get your take on something actually. So, there was an there was an argument that I was making.
Um, I didn't lose you, did I? Sorry, you were lagging for a second.
>> I can still see myself and I can still see you, so it should be fine.
>> Oh, okay. Um, so in the tabernacle you have the veil separating the holy of holies and the holy place. And on that veil you have a bunch of cherubim, >> right? Who are the messengers to go?
They carry our prayers to God.
>> Immediately in front of that veil is the altar of incense.
And so when I was going through this in my mind trying to argue like icon veneration like whether or not it's apostolic, that was the prompt, right?
And this is something that Protestants for some reason just feel so confident on that they can like like they can get us on this one thing at the very least like in in this apologetics realm that like at at least we have icons on like that for sure is an accretion. But I put myself in like the shoes of a priest may as best I can of an ancient who's like walking into the tabernacle. He goes through the gates as he's lighting the altar of incense. He looks and what does he see? A cherubim. the messenger that carries the incense like the prayer to God and then like the place of God is symbolized by the holy place and the incense literally goes through the icon to God behind the veil. So in my mind, this is exactly what we're doing in the liturgy when the priest goes up to the iconostasis and he's like got a sensor and the incense offering it up to those saints, you know, the uh Christ, mother of God, offering them the incense like so that our prayers are taken up to them.
>> Yeah, of course. I mean icon veneration in the tabernacle. forget about like you know in the the period of origin it's like from the tabernacle even in the temples like there's it's already icon veneration in the same way we do it.
>> Yeah. I mean there is there's clearly a can I say there's clearly something that's missing I think in the Old Testament like you sense that there's something that's missing. And so uh because how can I say this? Like it says in Genesis 1 that we're created in the image of God, right? It's like humans are the image of God. I do think that the this emphasis like in the second commandment is christoologgical that is the the purpose of the second commandment is that God is going to give us an image right because this intradiction towards towards representing uh to of making images and bowing down and venerating them obviously it's related to the false gods for sure but there's also like a deeper thing which is I think that it is you know just like the Sabbath like nobody celebrates the Sabbath. I always find it funny when people point to the second commandment and they're like, you know, we still need to follow the follow those rules. And I'm going, did you celebrate the Sabbath? Like, nobody celebrates the Sabbath. So, how how is it that how does Christ transform this commandment?
That's the question. It's like if Christ has transformed the commandment of the Sabbath, then how does it how is he how does he transform this commandment as well? And the answer is that God restore the image. God gave us an image of himself at the same time restoring the image of man as the image of God and now we recognize that. So in the same way that in the Old Testament we uh you know there's all these psalms where it says I I worship your name like we we ride we lift up God's name. So we we bow down we make ourselves lower than God's name.
But nobody believes that God's name is God. Like that would be that would be a heresy. God's name is the means by which God reveals himself to us. And therefore, when God gives us an image, then that becomes the means by which God reveals himself to us. And it restores something which was actually true from the beginning. Well, there's these all these old interestamentary texts like you enter uh you know, second temple text about how the angels were asked to bow down before Adam, right? Because Adam was the image of God and so the angels had to bow down before the image of God. It's like it's right there. It's and the the early Christians knew very well that the angels were asked to bow down before the image of God. So the idea that there's no image of God is crazy. Like there are im there is an image of God and we should bow down before the image of God. This is like part of I recently had a debate with a unitarian over very broad prompt trinitarianism or unitarianism which is correct and my whole argument was basically set on precedent in history and that like look the standard view at the time of the second temple period was that there are like some distinctions in God right and but part of that is the image tradition right and you see it in Pho of Alexandria who very clearly connects the what he he called it the anelos logos the angel word of God who is he expressly says it's the image of God which in Greek of course would be eon. So these ideas were like already existing and it's like integral to the doctrine of the trinity. But I wanted to like real quick talk about or just plug father Steven's apocrypha book because you mentioned a lot of the second temple literature. a lot of my research for that in like learning about the mera tradition within the second temple period Judaism uh like logos theology wisdom christologology like a lot of these were ideas that came before Christianity and like Christianity is in continuity with those line of like binitarian or it seems like emerging trinitarian theologians at that time. So like >> this is something that was already evident to these people from the text that there had to be some like image of God because how are you going to have like in the in Isaiah like chapters where you have Yahweh is the speaker speaking about how Yahweh sends Yahweh's spirit on Yahweh?
>> Yeah. No, you can't. The the the the trinity without the trinity you you you struggle to have creation like you struggle to have manifestation because you know how where like I once had this went with a Muslim. I really don't like debating Muslims. You probably imagine I had that horrible interaction with Muhammad hijab once. But um yeah, that was really bad.
Uh but it I was asking I said what's the relationship between the creation and God like what's what's the rel how what where is creation in relation to God and it's like he had never even thought about that like how what bridge is there between between God and creation like that means that when God speaks that's not him like God's God's pronunciations are not are created so that means that there's no creation like there's just it just I just can't see to me the trinitarian uh proposition like the trinitarian revelation it it it helps so much to understand the relation and it makes it that we can believe in a god of love because when you if you don't have that then really ultimately the only thing you really can have is is Hindu like a kind of Hindu idea of of processions of from God being like levels of error really they're just all levels of error you know and the further you are from the from the divine mind, the more you're lacking in being and the more you are in some ways kind of uh dead, you could say. Uh and it's like, you know, unless you want a cast system, really, the trinity is the is the solution.
>> Yeah. Um that's why I enjoy your dialogues with like there was one recently with an atheist, I think, like >> Yeah. Was it was it I I really it's so funny. I'm like I'm totally not like you guys. I'm like the very opposite. I'm just like I'm just too much of a nice guy. I take, you know, I just really don't want to be like the the And so every time I have conversations with atheists, um I I can just feel my passions like it's not good for me. Like it's it's like it's really not good for me. Um you know, and like that conversation with Muhammad hijab, by the way, people might not always know that it was it was so horrible because I was kind of tricked into it in some ways.
you know, Jordan Peterson says, "I want, you know, they want us to talk about the place of Jesus and Islam." So, I thought, "Well, that's interesting.
Like, I'm willing to engage on that.
Like, it'd be interesting to talk about the differences, you know, do it." And so, we and I didn't even know who Muhammad Hijab was at this time at all.
I looked him up in the evening. I'm like, "Oh my goodness, this is the guy I'm going to go talk to."
And so, imagine you're sitting in a mosque and there are 50 men in front of you, right? And that's what how it was.
And we're supposed to talk about the place of Jesus in Islam. And then all he does is attack.
And I'm thinking, so what am I supposed to do now? Like, am I supposed to mock your religion? Like, you're mocking mine in a mosque in front of all your like Muslim friends? This is this is the the one of the most egregious acts of of inhospity that I've ever experienced.
Like, this is actually an assault on hospitality. That's why you can see in my face. I'm just like so pissed off like the whole time. I'm thinking where are where am I? What is this? And so yeah, so I'm not very good. I'm just not good at that. Uh when I when I have I just get I can feel it in me. Anyway, but that said, I think you frame things in a way that like is unexpected for people sometime because like there's there's like a genuine like you're an atheist like what what are you thinking and why?
>> Yeah. The last one, the one you're talking about uh with Joe Foley at the end he had to he he was smart. he understood the entailments and so he had to say that cities don't exist because he didn't want to accept any form of vertical uh existence right so any form of of onlogical beings that would be higher than a than just a human person and so he was like the city is a projection from the mind of of of your mind I'm like okay that's not that's really not useful like you nobody thinks nobody actually thinks that nobody actually acts that way and then if that was true how could the city put you in prison like like the city can literally put you in prison. It means that it has some form of true onlogical existence that isn't that isn't dependent on your mind. Anyway, >> yeah, it's kind of crazy. Uh there's something earlier that you said I put a pin in it. I said we come back to it.
Now we're back. You said all things are symbolic. That reminded me of another video that uh you made which is this one that says there is no literal meaning and then the icon or the icon the thumbnail is of the Holy Bible which is like what? No literal meaning. every single Ken Ham or Ken Hovven fan suddenly they're up in arms. No literal meaning. Jonathan, what could you mean by that?
>> Yeah. Well, obviously I was, you know, since I've made that video, I've been like trying to to all mitigate some of the way because the actual word literal means close to the text. That's what the word means. Like, so there is a literal meaning, literary. It's the text. The literal meaning is the text. But what people usually mean when they say literal is they mean that there's a form of phenomena of existence that have no meaning that are just completely neutral and that doesn't exist. There's no way that that exists. Like we believe in a world that's created by the lo divine logos for goodness sake. It's like everything has meaning. Everything is meaningful in its very arrangement. That is you know you see things because you see their purposes. You see their reasons and you you can intuitit their reasons. And therefore the idea that that that there is like a completely neutral uh existence is just ridiculous.
It's this is not a Christian way of thinking. Yeah. This idea that like everything is symbolic. Uh you talked about like this dualism or dichotomy in the beginning where like would you say that maybe on one end you have like literal and on the other end you have symbolic or would you would you is there an objective you have?
>> Yeah. people like you know oh so a good this is actually a really super interesting example which is that >> people talk about metaphorical meaning right you see that like a lot of protestants they they're like well we don't like the fact that the fathers do kind of metaphorical meaning right uh because what we want is the literal meaning we want what's actually you know the the historical or sometimes they use that word historical meaning right >> um and historical cultural context >> yeah yeah and my yeah that that's the worst like when people are like well we need to you We uh this is what I you the truth is that the fact that something is a story is already completely symbolic you know because if you think about it so imagine Christ you know walking in Galilee uh there were a million things going on at the same time there's some guy selling fish at the side there was you know I mean like you know and there were all these details you know he maybe he was wearing a belt maybe he wasn't maybe he was wearing sandals maybe I and so the the texts don't mention those details The reason why they don't is because they're symbolic. That is that they are gathering uh facts in a meaning, >> right?
>> And so the very fact that the we have stories means that you can't you can only everything that is in scripture is symbolic. Even the fact that it's gathered into a story, the selection of the facts is always symbolic.
Does that make sense?
Yes. in the sense that a story at all, any sort of narrative is a thing.
>> It's symbolic. Yeah. Because it's it's the facts are coordinated around a purpose, right? You know, because there's all these other things going on that you could mention, but you won't because they're not relevant to the purpose that you're trying to get to in telling the story. This reminds me of like part of um something I was discussing with Father Deacon Ananas recently. There was like some atheists that called in to debate him and he was like, "No, evidence is just evidence.
It's not like theory >> laden."
>> It's the craziest thing ever, right? I'm evidence for what?
>> What is it evidence for?
>> Kind of begs the question for binds the evidence. Like if I'm trying if I'm studying on a rhinoceros, I'm not giving you details about flowers. And so the idea that evidence just exists, like what evidence to prove what? And therefore all evidence is always related to a theory. There's no way for evidence to exist without a theory.
>> Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was thinking like here I am like okay I I have been in court like I have uh second chair trials you know I'm still green you know and like seven years of practice you know they still like there's a hierarchy in there right you got to give the the more experienced guys the first chair but like the prosecution and the defense they're working with the same batch of evidences and they have two like totally different narratives.
>> Yeah. But they're but they're even bound in the same narrative ultimately, which is they only have facts that are relevant to whether or not the person is guilty of the thing they're being accused of. And imagine if you just said you just started bringing in like the person's uh grocery list and like, well, I have here the grocery list and I also have their tax form and their and like whatever. And you're like, dude, this is not re Why are you bringing up facts that have nothing to do with the case?
The case is the symbolism is the symbolic structure of the facts. Even whether or not you go one whether or not you're able to prove one way or the other, you need a symbolic umbrella in order to care about things rather than others.
>> Yeah, there's like a there's there's a point at issue. There's something both are are striving towards. This is I didn't really anticipate maybe going this way, but this this is kind of cool because in when they teach you about advocacy, like the general advice is, you know, if you have the facts, pound the facts. If you have the the law, pound the law. If you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table, right? But the the idea is that it's it's not the lawyer who has like the the the best facts or the most law on his side that wins at the end of the day.
It's the one that can tell the best narrative. Oh, yeah. one that can tell the best story.
>> Maybe maybe there's something in there, >> Alex. Like that is a secret, you know, and that's why you always have to be cautious. Every time someone tells a story on the news, the first question you have to ask is why is this relevant and why are they saying this? That's the first question you have to ask. You know, people get most of the talking heads in the news cycle, they take it for granted. They just they just gobble gobble up the supposed importance of this and then they argue about who's right or wrong. But the true magic happens at the level of framing. That's the very that's the powerful true powerful worldbuing thing. And so if you're able to train yourself to see what the frame of something is, then you'll always have a better perception of of reality. Whether you're seeing something that is serving the true, the good, the beautiful, or whether you're being manipulated, you know, to serve some other purpose. Most of the time it happens in the frame. It doesn't happen in the facts.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah.
>> Does that make sense?
>> Yeah. And I think in the context of like world building too, like you said, this is just like this is just framing, right? I think people immediately think of like, oh, people talking about world building like uh Game of Thrones or some like fantasy novel. Like you have to build up this lore. And like in part that's true. Yeah. You have to build up a lore, but you have to like really put the person like the listener like in there like you have to put them in that world like in the shoes of like the the people in in the narrative. And like that's when when the truth is revealed is >> it's a very orthodox idea is when you experience it yourself. Yeah. I mean, and it's can I say this? You know, I'll give you an example of something that I I remember noticing. You know, when the when the USSR broke apart, right? Uh it was super interesting because for a few years, the Russians were like us. They'd become like us. Uh you know, and so it's like always it was like fascinating. And then a few years later, not that long, like three or four years, five years maybe after the fall of the of the wall, the bad guys in movies started being Russians again.
And I started wondering, I was like, "Oh, wait a minute. What's what's going on?" You know, it's like we're being set up for something like we're being set up for a shift. It's as if some people weren't happy with the shift that had happened. Like we need an enemy, we need a bad guy. And therefore, we start framing reality that way. And then ultimately then the facts become interpreted in that in that direction.
That is, you know, Russia is our enemy.
You know, all the things they do, they're they're dangerous to us. And then we start framing. Now the thing is that it's not like you can absolutely manipulate reality right you you can't just you can try but you can't totally there has to be some coordination between what's actually happening and and and the framing. Uh but the real magicians are the one that can twist it just enough so that the facts still kind of connect but you're able to tell people what what what it means like and and the facts like and you know that's true. I mean the George Floyd example was like the most was the wildest example which is that >> yeah it was all you're like watching the video and you're like I am seeing something completely we're watching the same video and I'm seeing something completely different >> from my ideological enemy >> and it's because it's because it's it's it's the frame that's acting on the facts.
>> Yeah. Well the COVID situation too good.
>> Yeah. Like that's that's uh gaslighting to the x degree, right?
>> Yeah. And it was the co one was the most interesting in terms of understanding how symbolism kind of functions which is that what co did the trick that it played on us was that it made us ignore that there are actually multiple goods that there are multiple goods that we serve and ultimately God is the highest is the highest that we that everything is submitted to him. And so what they did is they said, 'Well, isn't health a good and isn't safety a good? And the answer is of course. And then now let's never ask that question again and now interpret all of reality through that good. And then so then but then it's like the thing is that once you're tricked on the frame, then everything else falls into place because yeah, it's true that if we want to be safe, we have to do this. If we want to be safe, we have to do this. If we want to not get the disease, we have to do this. and we keep acting and it's completely coherent and everybody everybody can just follow along and and and if you're not questioning the the frame then you'll never see it. You're like blind, >> right? Um there was something in like in Father Steven's uh chat at the Symbolic World Summit was last year. I think the the video is online now, but like there there's something like there's a lot that goes into understanding like what these symbols mean for us. And I thought like when he was applying this to the escaton and trying to understand like you know speculating pushing the boundaries of of his thinking on this that uh it is in a way like very practical and lived because he's talking about how like what if like eternal life is an eternal life like this life that you're living where like all the chaff is burned away and like the gold remains like it says in in first Corinthians >> um and then you're just kind of like living eternally these moments of gold in your life, right? Like an eternal life as he like did that original translation from from John's epistles.
Um but like something like that, the only way that might be able to be communicated would be through symbols.
>> Yeah, of course.
>> Yeah. I mean you and in some ways very bright, very bright kind of condensed uh symbol. That's why the stories in the Bible, the fairy tales, like some of the deeper stories, they they kind of look like that because they're trying to communicate something that is truly universal. Um, and uh, and has to apply to everything, especially the escaton.
Like the the escaton in some ways has to apply to everything. And therefore, the images that will be used to reveal that to us have to be the the highest kind of symbols. And so if you look at the the description of the heavenly Jerusalem, for example, it's like, you know, I mean, it's a it's a it's a city with a garden and crowns and kings, you know, and it's like these are these are abs these are really foundational images.
Like nobody's talking about the sewage system or, you know, the electrical grid or some kind of secondary really some really uh, you know, arbitrary thing that we that we deal with. and there it's really kind of it's capturing something in a way that then can be applied you know at every level of reality. So that's why the symbolism that we find um prophetic symbolism is usually some of the some of the deepest because of that for that reason.
>> Yeah. Which speaking of the symbolic world summit it's actually coming up guys.
>> That's right. And so this Yeah. So so thanks for thanks for for for also reminding your viewers. So this next week we are doing the symbolic world summit again and we did it the first time. Uh the first time was wild. It was amazing. We had father Stephen you know father Steven Young, Jordan Peterson um we had a bunch of a bunch of people Martin Shaw and so this year is going to be exciting too. We have uh you know obviously we have father Josiah and Mary Harrington. It's like I wanted to stretch people like as much as possible you know in terms of of like storytelling and uh and um let's say symbolism. uh but then there'll always be these these these great speakers but it's mostly about like coming together and uh meeting in person and getting out of this online uh sphere but if you can't come uh we also have now digital tickets you know so people can at least participate participate that way and so if you can come it'd be great and worst case scenario uh you can also get a virtual ticket and uh great to see all you guys there actual conference is in Ohio right it's in Ohio near Cleveland uh we're actually doing it um It's the It's kind of like the hall for an Orthodox church. So, we're not doing obviously in the church, but the church will be right there. And so, people will be able to go to liturgy uh and even maybe to vespers or to some services where I'm going to do a church tour as well explaining the iconography and stuff. You know, we want to kind of remain in the secular sphere, but you know, kind of always pointing towards the church.
>> Uh what do the virtual what do you get with the virtual tickets?
>> Yeah, so virtual tickets basically you can attend all the events uh live on online. You can watch them after if you don't have time to watch all the events.
You can also participate in the Q&A. You know, you you can submit your questions.
Um, and then it'll also be like a chat where people can exchange between themselves also, you know, while the event is going on.
>> Cool. All right. Well, you heard it guys. Go to Symbolic World Conference.
Go buy the tickets now.
Cool. Okay. So, we're going to be moving to like more of a Q&A, guys. We're going to do this cleave to antiquity style, right? So the super chats get priority, but you know, you don't have to pay. You just put Q before your comment in the live chat and then I'll add it to the to the feed here and we'll discuss it. So >> I see Deacon Sarapim is in our chat.
>> Yes, he says, "Wow, I guess Alex will just have anyone on.
>> That's hilarious."
>> Uh thank you, Father Father Deacon Sarapim. Uh, appreciate you very much.
Um, five bucks from Iron Giant Man. Did you sleep at all? You were still streaming when I was going to work at 3:30 this morning. You know, I was kind of discussing this with I think Dr. Branson last night, but uh and with with Jonathan a little bit now, but like there's a a series of hazings that you go through uh to become a lawyer and during which you become immune to things like sleep deprivation.
Uh, Pufferfish with the three-month membership for Peou. How was the sitdown with Brett Weinstein?
>> Yeah, so it was a long sit down for people who don't know. I was with him for like three days. Uh, I went to Jordan Hall's house and spent three days with Brett and his wife and Jordan Hall, too. And, you know, it's really interesting. It's difficult, you know, it's it's like how to get someone to understand vertical causes, how to get someone to kind of understand um what it is we're talking about. Like we had we tried to break his idea of supernatural for like three days like what because he's talking about like do I know can I believe in a supernatural God? And we're like no it's not that's not the right framing. So we were like trying to break it. We're saying no you know God transcends reality but God is in all things and all things are in God.
And he's like you could tell like he was just messing with him. He didn't he had no like he had never thought about these things. Uh but the thing about Rhett though is that he's really a genuine person like he's not dishonest which is which is huge you know and he's he was really curious and you know he was he was especially curious at Jordan Hall's conversion to Christianity. He was like how is this Jordan Hall is like a true genius. So he was thinking how is it that this genius could become Christian he's like a techie guy like a Harvard grad even right like a really like a smart guy. Jordan Hall. Jordan Hall invented MP3s.
Jordan Hall invented uh video compression. Divx. He owned DivX. He owned mp3.com.
Uh >> okay. But Jonathan, I I made some YouTube videos. So, I mean, come on.
Like, >> yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he is like huge. Yeah.
>> Like he's really And he's also really he's very good at thinking in terms of systems. Like, he has a he has a really deep understanding. Anyway, so so it was it was a wild time. It was it was fun.
>> Nice.
uh one month from in the filth. Thank you for the white monster energy fund.
Thank you very much. Joshua Nadau, good to see you, man.
Yeah, a fellow artist, I guess.
>> Yes, I'm going to have him on my channel. And Josh, by the way, sorry I haven't written you that email yet. I like literally wrote him as I'm gonna I'm gonna invite you to my channel and then I just dropped it. But after the thumb, you know, definitely I'll have you on.
>> Cool. Thanks for the 10 bucks, Josh. Uh 10 bucks from Yuba Bird. I purchased Jonathan's carving course when I was still not a Christian and it brought me to my local Episcopal church. Two years later, my wife and I are now catechumans because of Jay. Well, >> look at that. And it's wild like I it's I always all the time, you know, when I would go out to parishes, I always hear the similar stories, you know, it's like a mix of of especially I mean now there'll be more people, but at the time it was kind of like I heard Jordan Peterson, I heard you and then Jay was the one that really brought the like all the detailed questions because I don't I don't do that. And Jay's like he'll go into the verses, he knows all the references, you know, he'll be he'll just like hammer that in. And so I think that's really helpful. Yeah.
>> 10 bucks from Matthew Amline. Hamline.
Uh, have you heard of the Maggus of Strovolos? If I understand correctly, the Greek Orthodox Church never excommunicated him, but his teachings seem very influenced by Gnosticism and Hindu metaphysics. Well, I don't know. I have not heard of the Magus of Stravolos, but it makes sense. uh he never excommunicated him but his teachings well I'm sure that's a nuance situation right maybe he left >> so the thing about the thing about about excommunication is that you know there there are clear reason why you excommunicate someone you don't necessarily excommunicate someone because he's distasteful or because he says things that are weird like you have to be able to really point to either >> either personal reasons either sinful reasons for him being excommunicated for moral deficiency or for clear uh let's say theological pronunciations that are heretical. Uh but sometimes like you can you can kind of be weird on the line and not you know you could people could say well don't listen to him but it doesn't mean that he's excommunicated. Yeah it's a good like sometimes people are just speculating and they just take it as oh this trying to pass this off his orthodox teaching. Like I know Bulgakov was one of those theologians who was like always kind of on the periphery like kind of pushing the boundaries. So yeah, I think that's an important thing to consider.
>> Yeah. And it's also the difference between the idea that the church can encourage or discourage people from reading of some people, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they've said things that are clearly heretical according to the the the councils.
>> Yeah, good point. Uh Protestants icons are idolatry. Also Protestant put the US flag behind the pulpit. Give it respect and special treatment because it represents us all. I think this like I kind of want to start using this argument more because the people that are so passionately Protestant and like an iciconic or iconophobic are the ones that are like so like they're the first ones to like rightfully so take off their hat when the national anthem is sung or to to salute the flag when they see it or you know to go to >> the flag is literally an act of veneration.
>> Yeah. It's there's no how like saluting a flag is an act of veneration. There's no way around it.
I mean, I don't know. I don't know what else. What else? What is it? Oh, they they'll use different words. Say it's honoring. It's not venerating. Okay, fine. Whatever. Like, you're just playing with words here at this point.
Yeah, I think the flag's an interesting one, too, because it's not It really is like a symbol of the country like in that you don't have a depiction like a map of the USA on the flag. It really represents an idea. Just like the idea of the country of the United States.
>> Yeah. You'll go to someone, I mean, you'll go to a veteran's house, you know, and you'll see that folded flag, you know, like framed up on the wall.
It's like, you know, you sure you don't have icons?
>> Uh, five bucks from Hee 2K. Plato's demon. Why would a pure monad contradict his nature and create multiplicity?
Yeah, that's right. The holy trinity solved this problem. Yes, that's right.
two books from Snakefoots watching your last vid. Ask him about dog resurrection. Well, you can you can ask Jonathan directly. I had >> an extended conversation with Doc Branson about this and the idea of animal resurrection in the escaton. Uh like the idea of like whether your pets will be with you in in uh the afterlife in the new Jerusalem after the resurrection. And I think there are like some interesting arguments on both sides. Like Doc Branson, his conclusion was all of the arguments against are bad. That was his evaluation. He said the arguments for like there's something there. Like in Ecclesiastes, uh there's the passage there that kind of treats the soul of a human and the soul of an animal as like it's kind like they're both unknowable in a way.
>> Uh >> one of the things that I tend to think um >> Yeah.
is the is using kind of same Maximus as a as my my guy would be to think that animals are rec resurrected uh through us that is that that we gather that you know we gather the loi of creation in us and in our resurrections all things are resurrected now it doesn't mean that like let's necessarily every single animal that existed has been resurrected but that in our resurrection the you know in the same way that our resurrection participates in Christ's resurrection The animal resurrection also participates in in in ours just like the resurrection also of all of human activity all of human things. I mean obviously it's mysterious to understand like what that would look like but also it's because we don't live in the escaton you know.
>> Yeah. There was a a good analogy that Doc Bransston was drawing from like the ark and like the animals were saved through Noah.
>> That's right. Yeah. That's right. In the same way that like maybe there's a resurrection for like you know these animals that we have a relationship with because like Christ is our Lord and we are the Lord of the so maybe like like you mentioned like our connection through Christ that maybe there's a possibility for that.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Five bucks from Maryland. Thank you for the donation. Uh 10 bucks from Green Emperor 3022. Hey Jonathan, I know about the dis the discard image by CS Lewis, but I was wondering if you could recommend any other books to get a medieval mindset. Thanks for your work.
You and Alex keep being awesome. Thank you for the compliment.
I mean, there there are plenty of books that you can read to kind of understand the medieval mindset. There are books from the Middle Ages. You know, we just did a whole analysis of Dante's um Dante's trilogy, his comedia. Obviously there are some small there are some theological problems as from orthodox perspective but in terms of the basic worldview and and you know this kind of tiered uh structure of the world you see that in uh in Dante you know and for sure CS Lewis's discarded image is great but there are plenty of more recent books now on re-enchantment and you know and uh you know saving the appearances all those kinds of books are just interesting to to think that way I mean the book that did it for me you know and I don't recommend end it 100% but the book that did for me was uh was the crisis of the modern world by like that book just I just read it and that was it like I changed worlds within with reading one book that my entire world view was just transformed so >> bring a symbolic world to LA >> LA I mean maybe who knows >> we did it on the east coast now we did it kind of more in the you know in the middle so maybe next time we'll do it on the west coast Yeah, thank you for the donation. Mamba, uh 15 bucks from McKinitar. Completely off topic, but could Jonathan speak briefly about depictions of bassilisks? I don't think it's totally off topic. It's very general like icons discussion, but I'm trying to get a Psalm 90 doormat going.
I need to know how to draw it. The anatomy of a basilisk, Jonathan. Uh I mean, usually it's it's kind of it's it looks a little bit like a snake if that's my kind of understand it. You can you can look up I mean you can look it up online you know it's it's a kind of monster you know uh five bucks from momento my how do lies fit into constructing a story and symbolism? Don't the existence of lies necessitate a focus on facts over stories? Well, >> yeah, that's an interesting question and the answer is that the purpose of the lie is the story, right? It's like there has to be a reason why you lie. And so obviously this is a sinful behavior, right? It's a sinful behavior in the sense that you know if you understand sin sin as missing the mark, right? As distorting reality away from its true purpose into a purpose that I'm trying to contrive, that's where lies uh function. And so you can lie about the frame and then you can lie within a frame too to kind of try to twist things towards uh towards towards purposes. And so I think that those those in some ways are the two are the two aspects of lying. One one can be simply misrepresenting things, right? Obviously that's a lie, but there is also like a deeper lie. And that's why in the in the ten commandments, the commandment isn't about lying. The commandment is about false witness. It's about you will not bring false witness because the the purpose it's the purpose that's the problem more than anything else. You know, and this is hard for people to understand, but sometimes and I've actually have seen it happen where very holy people will somewhat like fiddle with the facts because what they're trying to do is to to get you to understand something very very deep. And sometimes the facts they have to be just a little bit a little bit like played with so you can understand what it is the person is saying. And that's not a lie. That's a very different thing. And you could say actually you know fact fine whatever but but it's really the biggest lie is more in terms of the wrong purpose.
Adam 205 two bucks. Jonathan's thoughts on Smearov.
>> I don't I'm not even sure I know who that is.
>> I don't know who that is. Adam, but thank you for the $2 donation.
Uh, Dirt Poor Robbins. Neil, hey, >> good to see you, my friend.
>> It's good seeing Neil.
>> Awesome seeing you two together. You should also have Jonathan Pon on sometimes. Jonathan can introduce you.
Well, hope one day to meet Jonathan.
>> Yeah, I think you've met him. I think you're talking to him right now >> down there in the comment. You know, this is right. This is when the early early like uh Q&As's Neil would show up in the chat as as Jonathan Pon and he would say things all these things opposite to what I was saying basically like inverting symbolism on purpose in every single in every single comment. It was hilarious.
>> Which by the way, Neil and I have something quite exciting in the works.
Guys, keep your eyes open. We're working on something big over here.
>> Hopefully something big, you know, by God's grace.
Dano 007499 PJO how would you pou Jonathan how would you respond to someone who says that there's nothing wrong with venerating icons but why is it necessary that I do it >> yeah I mean I think this this is a very important uh this is a very important question and the the the answer is related to everything else that is it's important to venerate scripture but why should I do it. It's important to venerate or to elevate the name of God.
But why should I do it? And it's a and so if this is a means by which God is revealing himself to us and is explicitly the means, we should treat it with the honor and the reverence that it deserves. You know, if we if we if we kiss the if we're fine kissing the Bible, but we would wouldn't kiss an image, it means that you are negating an aspect of revelation. you are in some ways uh you know you're implying that this is not a means by which God is revealing himself to us.
>> Yeah, it's christoologgical at at its root.
>> Um see, Father Steven is in the comments.
>> Oh wow, look at that. My goodness, >> we're stacked in the chat.
>> Team is here.
>> Yeah, that's right. Uh Father Steven says, I think this is in response to Deacon Sarapim Roland's earlier comment.
He goes, I mean, he won't just have he won't have just anyone on. He hasn't had that deacon cherubam guy on for example.
>> Deacon cherubim.
Oh man, I love it. I'm gonna start calling him that deacon cherubim.
>> Uh five bucks from Sebastian Gerorado.
Good to see you.
>> The language of creations translator here. So excited to go to the summit.
Please come to my supra. Although it will take place at the same time.
>> You're doing you're doing a supra.
You're going to be there'll be there's already like supras happening that I'm going to participate in. But it would be good to see you, Sebastian.
>> Very good. Uh 10 bucks from Era. Would a lot of pagan deities fall under this category of relational beings, similar to cities or countries? If so, would pagan gods be similar to AI but made of relations rather than machinery? This is a deep question.
>> Yeah, I I think that this is al this is the way to understand it. But I mean you have to be careful the way you formulate it, right? So so one of the ways to kind of understand how intelligence functions is you can see it bottom up, right? So you can see it as the relationships of the parts kind of come together. You see the god or you see the influence in the relationships of parts. But when you talk about a god or an angel, you're talking about it top down. You're saying there's a there's a true influence and this influence is coordinating the parts together. And so this is one of the problems with AI is that is like this is why AI is such a big question is that the intelligent patterns that is that the AI is manifesting they have an existence they have an autonomous existence and the question is what is what influences are being channeled through the AI and that's why a lot of people are are worried about the AI because they're worried that in some ways either it's either it's like sorcerers apprentice level of of naivee that they're just like they're just like building bodies and building bodies for intelligences and they don't know what the hell they're doing or there's something more nefarious which is that some some maybe some people involved know exactly what they're doing and that they are invoking on purpose certain intelligent patterns into these machines and so uh and so you can understand it like it's very similar to to to divination the old world divination Divination was a mix of relational and machine parts.
Right? So if you think about ancient divination, you can imagine like you know if you think of Taro for example, right? So Taro is a system. It has a it has its own internal logic. But then there's a there's a person that is interpreting the that is giving the meaning or connecting the meaning of the machine to the situation. Right? So you need a machine part and you also need an influence part and then you you you kind of ask the question then you get the answer. This is also how AI functions.
AI we are the ones training AI by the way. You you understand that that like it's the opposite from the matrix. You know in the matrix you have this weird idea where you have the AI and the AI and we're the batteries for the AI, right? But that's not how AI works. AI, we are the intelligence of the AI. So it we we have influenced it through our common intelligence and so we are acting like the uh like the magi like we're acting like the magus with the on the machine. So it's like a massive version of of like interpretive power with a mass version of a machine and so it's acting. So there there is a there is that's why people that's why a lot of Christians are like well you know like how do we engage with this right how do we deal with this um and the answer isn't isn't really clear so I don't know if that makes sense in terms of you need the machine part but you also need the influence part thank you for the donation uh Adam clarified his super chat from earlier he said thoughts on Smearia saysov the bastard son of >> karamazovvski refence I'm not even there and I'm also not even sure like what the question is like what do I think of him >> just general thoughts I think impressions >> I mean I you know that I I I'm a I'm afraid that I don't I don't have proper insight in this in this situation. I read it a long time ago. I kind of know the story but I I don't remember all the details.
>> Uh Mark AK adds a little detail. It says the name Smearikov by the way means the wreaking one referring to decomposed flesh.
>> Interesting fact. Thank you. Uh to Steven says, "Good to see everyone here.
Looking forward to the summit." All right.
>> Aren't we all?
>> Uh Mosaic asks, "What counts as iconography? If I do Christian mosaics, am I an iconographer? Can you venerate mosaic icons?"
>> Yeah. Yes, definitely. the the the in the in the the the council they it's images in general and they actually name a whole bunch of mediums by which the images can be made and so it the the materiality of the the way that the icon is made and the materiality of the icon is inconsequential to its theological position. So, and actually like a lot of things we say about icons, these are not can necessarily like actual things that are in the cannons or that are that that are theological. And so, even the style of the icons, all of this, the only thing that is required for an icon to be an icon according to the canon is that it represents an image of the person and that it has an inscription that tells you who that person is. And now, now there are all these traditions that we like that that have that these traditions are not arbitrary. shouldn't ignore them that have brought us to where we are in terms of kind of uh of understanding what icons are are acceptable or inacceptable. Um but that's really all that is needed. So embossed icons on metal uh you know that's why even like there icons on the gospel cover you kiss the icons and and uh and icons on the walls all of these are icons. Now we have a problem as modern people which is that because we are we are kind of gnostic we have this issue because according to the actual cannon the digital icon would be as much an icon as as the the painted one and so all these Facebook images people using them as their avatars and the all of these is deeply problematic you know and also like you know having having uh you know printed on like just like the church bulletin that gets thrown way. Like all of these are deeply deep like deeply kind of problematic. Doesn't mean that there aren't solutions to these problems, but the the fact that we we we don't think that a picture of an icon that we see on our phone is an icon. Uh it means that we're we're we have a a deficiency in our in our situation. Like there's some kind of deficiency. I don't have a total solution to it, but uh it's a problem. You got five bucks from David Leance Jr. What does Jonathan think about Mike Winger and his coverup culture takedown videos? You have >> Mike Winger? I don't know who that is.
>> He's like the kind of the probably the top like non-denom kind of he's charismatic YouTuber, but he's it's actually like a pretty in-depth like it's good journalism from him honestly.
Even from like a lawyerly perspective, it's good like investigative uh and like church accountability stuff. Basically, he goes there like accusations at these like really big mega churches about like misconduct by like some of the leaders like whether it's a sexual misconduct or just like harassment of every and he like he does these like exposees like in a way that's kind of loving like he gives like a lot of background story.
He'd be like, "Look, you need to repent of this. You ought to step down from leadership for a while." And usually the things they ignore him. Wait, so he he actually goes to see these people that are covering up stuff and he kind of confronts them with it.
>> It doesn't actually it's not like that sensational type thing, but he like the witnesses will come to him and he'll like put together like evidences and kind of present the case and have like the paper trail like he's not getting up in Todd White's face and being like Yeah. But but uh yeah, it's it's more like expose type stuff like journalism.
>> Yeah. I mean, I think that that's I think that that's fine. You know, I I would in some ways hope that this person is going through the right means at the outset, you know, because one of the problems we have now in our society is that we think that everything has to be public all the time. Um, and we, you know, ultimately if you were to discover things like this, the best thing would be to go privately first to the person, to contact them privately to be able to to to make sure that things happen within the within the disciplinary actions of our churches. Obviously, you're not this person is not orthodox, but this is the this is actually the way to do it. I think the one of the big one of the big downsides of internet culture is this belief that we have to do everything in public. And so, when you see someone who's barely orthodox go online and like accuse a bishop or a priest of being a heretic, it's like this is >> this is very very unacceptable and dangerous behavior. Uh you know, and St. Paul himself tells us how to deal with problems within the church and that's not the way to do it. So that's what I I don't know these videos but that's what I would say would be that I would hope that he's going to to actually in private uh pro you know kind of confront these people first.
>> The mambbo says that Mike Wingery needs to call in and stop running. I agree.
Stop running Mike Winger.
>> He's running from orthodoxy. You mean it's like whenever we ask someone to debate and they're like, "No." They're like, "Call in." You know, they like talk smack about orthodoxy online.
They'd be like, "Oh, look at these idoltors and necromancers." I'm like, "Call in."
>> And then they don't call in. It's like, "Why are they running?"
>> They're they're always running, right?
Got five bucks from Daniel Artis. Hey, Alex. Will call-ins be open? Not today.
We're just going to do Q&A today. I wanted to ask about the symbology of the trinity in nature in relationship.
It's a broad topic.
>> Yeah. I mean, I think that for sure we believe that that that the trinity is imaged in the way that creation functions. That is the this is the the source of our understanding of dynamic of kind of dynamic unity. The fact that we both we have no problem with multiplicity and unity. We don't see multiplicity as deficient in terms of of its unity. We don't we we kind of have this beautiful pattern of love and it and it really underlies all our metaphysics and it underlies all of our society like the way that we kind of understand the poor the way that we understand um you know how things work is really it's really undergurtded by uh trinitarian love. So Christian 499 that's actually sorry love is so important by the way I was reading St. Demetrius Stanoy uh on this and like he he does talk about how like the kind of it's improper to say it this way dogmatically but like the foundational like the way to understand the trinity foundationally is through >> love. Yeah, for sure.
>> Uh Christian499. Thank you. Thoughts on the sons of God in Genesis and the Enoch account? Are they fallen angels or men from the line of Seth? PS. Love the Ethiopian crosses. Well, thanks. Uh, I love my Ethiopian crosses, too, as well.
Uh, I mean, they're both, you know, I think that that's really what Father Steven Young has been so useful in helping us understand, you know, I really thank them on this because I have had insight for 20 years that we really have to talk about this some of the concepts in the book of Enoch, especially in related relation to technology and kind of the the rush of technology. But I always hesitated to do that because of the problem of the sons of god question. And I think that once father Steven started talking about it in terms of ritual uh ritual transmission of influence then I was like no this is perfect because it means that we can accept both stories and there isn't this weird because you understand why people didn't like the the sons of the idea that demons had relationship with women because that's clearly a category mistake like you can't like they don't have bodies like they don't have seed. what what are you talking about? But when you understand it through secondary causes which is the idea of someone say let's say being possessed by the spirit and then having a relationship with a woman and that child would be uh kind of under that influence. Uh then then you can have both. You can have the story that they are descendants of Seth that mix with the descendants of Cain and at the same time understand that these there was a kind of invocation of fallen angels uh that perpetuated their society. So there might have been one that I missed.
Oh no. Okay. Uh we did that one question. What is the symbolism of Christ having one nature versus two natures? These are these are really difficult. Like one of the one of the reason why I don't talk about this stuff is that these things are not totally symbolic. Like this is what's complicated. like Christ isn't symbolic of something else. It's actually everything else that but I mean I you know I kind of understand what you're saying. One of the things that that it relates to is this idea of love in general which is that we we believe that that there is a way to bind two things together without destroying them. Right?
That when we like in terms of the way that we participate, right? So a good way of thinking about it is this is that there's a narrative in our society that when you are submitted to something that it destroys your particularity. Right?
So the idea that if you submit to an authority that it actually that authority destroys your particularity.
But that's not how it works in Christianity. The way it works in Christianity is that when you submit to an authority especially an authority that is there in love it affirms your particularity. It actually is what makes it real. Right? So if you're the if you play a position in a basketball team, you're submitting to the team doesn't eliminate you. It makes your position real. And that's how we understand reality. So a lot of the pronunciations in terms of our understanding about the trinity and the multiple persons and the united in one in one nature in one essence and the idea of of of Christ's two natures united in one person for us because we don't have we're not that for us it helps us understand how multiplicity and unity can exist in love in ways that doesn't crush the the particulars you know bully the anti- anti- be hilly.
>> Oh man, >> I have a question. Yes, that someone could ask Jonathan. When is his Christ icon carving course going to be available? Jonathan, the people are begging. When will it be available?
>> Oh, man. I know. I know. I know. And it's like it's one of those things where it takes up so much time to do it. uh like I need to if I find someone that can edit it for me already then then it would it would open up a big door you know because last time I had someone to edit my last class for me so I was willing to do it put in the time it's a lot of time and then have the person edit it but the first one I edited myself and I mean it just took so long for me that I was like I don't but I do want to do it I would love to do it because the thing about the last class is my plan with the last class is obviously to do the icon of priced and make it a little shorter because people have already done two courses and then at the end of the course have a like three-hour history of carved icons uh like course where people can kind of know from the beginning you know the first the first carvings in stone and ivory all the way to like the the the kind of controversies about carved icons in the Russian church and so can to kind of do a class on that it's coming at some point maybe I hope Oh, well, experienced editors in the chat that have, you know, a body of work to speak for, they'll reach out to Jonathan. You heard it. Uh, Crystal Logic asks, "What is the symbolism of rhetoric?" Ooh. How is rhetoric and persuasion distinguishable from magic?
In some ways, it's not I think, but I'll give you like the lame answer and then Jonathan can give you the cool symbolic answer. There's like a sense of I really see myself in you know the the learning this profession of in a way being conformed to an image like the image of Cicero or like an advocate like trying to become this archetype like rhetoric and coming into orthodox Christianity like being received by the church and like receiving the patron saint of St. Alexander of Alexandria. Uh there's like a different goal, right, where I can emulate my patron in that like Paul says in that he emulates Christ. So it's like you can have excellent rhetorics and like philosophers and debaters in the saints. There there's no shortage of them. There's like plenty of them and how to like live that out in a Christlike way. So like I mean while that was like a a great story arc in my life like I realized that I was moving too far in this direction to where like really I need to be conformed to the image of Christ. And I think orthodoxy is the worldview that emphasizes that more than any other Christian worldview.
>> Yeah. And I think it I mean it's related to what we're saying when we talked about this idea of how let's say unity and multiplicity function. And so in in Christianity what we believe is that the external means serve the internal ones.
Right? So it's like beauty is an expression of truth. Beauty is an expression of goodness. Now can beauty be uh a form of manipulation? Well, obviously everybody you know everybody who's seen a woman wearing like massively long eyelashes and you know like beauty can definitely be a form of manipulation. Now the the the error is believing that the fact that beauty can be a form of manipulation that therefore beauty is invalid and that beauty is a kind of magic a seductive magic. No, it's not. It is it can be the expression of that within true and beautiful true and good. And I think that this is true about rhetoric as well is that can rhetoric be used to trick people to convince them of things that they shouldn't do that they shouldn't believe? Well, of course they can. We've seen it all the time. But it doesn't mean that that the the way that we express truth in a convincing way is invalid in itself. If it serves God and it serves the truth, then it can actually be the most powerful thing ever. Right? Because if you both have the truth and you have the means to be able to carry it to people in a way that they will be convinced and and will understand, then you have the most powerful thing ever. You know, because sometimes people have the truth, but they're not good at explaining it or defending it. And then the problem is that the truth doesn't land. It's like almost like a seed that you know it's it's seed that doesn't land and doesn't produce fruit.
>> Got 10 bucks super chat from Katherine.
Thank you Katherine for the donation.
Jonathan, would you be offering the lurggical vestments course again for those who want to become vestment makers? Do you have resources for >> this person is like like how does this person know about that? It wasn't me. It was the it was the Hexamron school uh of of liturgical art that I was participating in that were offering this class and sadly that that organization since co has shut down and wasn't able to to reopen and so I have no idea where you could learn lurgical vestments sadly.
>> Maddie asks Jonathan will you ever consider doing any conferences in the UK? We'd love to have all the bros from the orthodoxy universe. So look out for September folks. We have a planned conference at Oxford at Puzzy House.
Puzzy House is has offered us to be able to use their their their spot. It's going to be it won't be huge. Like I don't think we can have more than like 200 people there. You know, there's like a limit of amount of people, but uh but if you're interested, stay attuned to Symbolic World and we'll soon make the official like official uh dates and announcements and stuff. Could Mr. Pejo explain again about story as frame please? It's really different from the trad English literature way of reading books, poems, etc. >> Well, you you can understand the the story as so the story has a structure, right? So it's like it most stories have the same structure. It's it's basically the Joseph Campbell heroes heroes story.
It has a dip and a and and an up, right?
So, it's like you have a situation, you have a problem, and then you either have a solution or you don't, right? Either you come out of the dip or you or you end you you things break down and you kind of stay in the dip, right? And so, it's like that's really the story structure. All story structures pretty much follow that that that angle because the thing is that it's like you don't tell a story unless something happens that makes it worth telling and makes it interesting, you know. Um, and so that's like that's the basic basic basic frame.
But there are also, you could say, secondary frames that make a story interesting.
And so those are not arbitrary. People find certain things interesting, certain that the that and those are the frames in which the facts are then placed. And so that's why there are themes in stories that are universal and that will gather people's attention. Um, and so that's why stories act as frames for facts.
And so you because you have to fit them into a pattern or else what are you even talking about right it's like you know that because when someone is not good at telling stories you don't remember their stories right when when when someone at the end of the day like someone comes and tells you the story of their day but it's not structured as a story like you just want it to end right you're like can this example it's just like a series of things you're just gonna tell me all the things that happened to you in every detail is that really what you're gonna and there's no flow to it.
>> Please, seriously. Like, luckily, you're not telling me about like when you bent down and tied your shoe because you came down the escalator. It's like, okay, my goodness, like don't tell me when you went to the bathroom. Like, I don't want to hear about that part of your day, right? And so, that's what I mean by the stories of frame. It's like there are too many facts and you have to compress them uh in order for people to be able to attend and be interested in them.
>> It's just like a list of irrelevant facts. I love you.
>> Uh, Jonathan, what do you think of the Gen Z fascination with the East, idol culture, and anime and computer lingo of icons and profile pictures? Are they related to Protestant iconocclasm?
>> Is that one question or is that two questions?
>> The the last part kind of confused me a bit, but I guess what do you think of the Gen C fascination with two questions, right? So the Gen Z fascination with the East um you know it's mostly it's not just Gen Z it's actually been happening since World War II you know world the World War II frame if we want to talk about a frame it's a very very powerful one um and the world one of the aspects of the World War II frame is something like your identity is bad it's dangerous your identity is dangerous you have to you have to be attracted to that which is not you you have to be you have to be attracted to difference in itself you have to focus on different uh in order to avoid the Nazi problem, right? And so this is just hyperexamples of that which is that the fetishization of difference and therefore people at some point are like if they're going to go back to religion, they'll say, "Well, any religion except for mine, right? It's like all these other religions, they're the ones that are really interesting, but my religion, you know, that's that's dangerous and that's like a Christian nationalism or however people are going to phrase it."
Uh and so that's definitely the that's the problem, you know, and and you know, this in some ways uh in terms of it just keeps accelerating. If you think about after World War II, then it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
And the anime uh manga kind of thing and the the weeb thing is huge. And if you look at it, it's really important because fetishizing that which is not you leads to a form of sterility because you don't want to reproduce yourself. And so that's why there's a deep relationship between manga and rainbow, whatever Skittles stuff, you know, and and and a kind of self-hatred and all of that. it's part of the of the manga kind of anime world. Uh, and so there's a there really is a deep coherence in how all these things kind of come together. Um, and so in terms of the idea of icons and profile pictures and stuff, it I mean it this is a kind of perverse form of of uh of iconography. It is related to iconography but it's very misunderstood because we don't have a the we don't have a theology of it and therefore we do it half-hazardly. And so this is of course this is one of the things actually that that Neil from Der Robbins showed me said it's so funny to have a proin friend that says that I don't venerate icons and then watches a worship video and then the guy is like singing worship songs you know and you're just watching him in awe of this guy who's singing worship songs and you think bro you do you even do you even know what you're doing can you even notice what's going on you know >> no they don't >> uh he clarifies a little bit he says As to the Protestant bit, I mean that the iconoclasm led to an outburst of odd and non-Christian iconography in tech and icon idol language being used in a secular context.
>> Yeah, that that's exactly right. Is that is that we someways we suppress a real aspect of reality and then it just kind of starts popping up in all these weird and disturbing ways. But it is a nominalist. So this is why like one of the things that happens in tech world is that there is a form of gnostic gnostic thing right which is that it's self-generated identity and therefore what happens is the idea that I can make myself into anything and that's why a lot of tech iconography you know like the furry iconography is a tech iconography right it's the avatar it's the idea of my digital self which I'm projecting and I'm trying to create myself I'm trying to to to kind of self generate my identity. Uh that's related to influencers and all this stuff. It really is a kind of satanic iconography, right? Uh and it's related to porn, too.
All of this like weird representation of the human in desire and in self empowering, self-empowering uh and self-creating identity.
>> That was a really good point. Uh, I have never made that connection, but it seems now almost obvious now that I've heard it.
>> Yeah, once you once you once you kind of see it that way, you're like, "Yeah, I mean all this stuff is really dangerous."
>> Yeah. Blake asks, "What is the Orthodox view on the what the world will be like post second coming of Christ?" While we believe that, >> yeah, all creation will be restored. Uh and there's the experience of God which for the wicked is you know painful because they hate God and for the righteous you know that's a good experience because we are always pursuing God. We also believe in like a constantly moving forward like moving towards God and theosis like theosis doesn't stop once the escaton starts.
>> Yeah. Um, yeah. Any thoughts, Jonathan, or >> No, I think that that I think that's that's exactly right. And if you read the the description of the heavenly Jerusalem, you know, in Revelation, that's that's it. That's what that is.
That is what the escaton will be.
Obviously, this an image description. We can't really, you know, it has to be analogical, but it it's a good way of understanding what the what it looks like.
VGO asks, "If angels are not made in the image of God in the same way man is, why are they depicted as men? Are they grounded in Christ in a different way?
Or is it just to make it easier for us to understand?"
>> I think I think so.
>> A bit of both. Yeah.
>> Yeah. I think it I think it's definitely in large part for to help us make it easier for us to understand. I mean, angels don't have wings for goodness sake. Like these are all analogical these are all the point. Like these are all analogical descriptions >> as if they need to move air to move around like a spirit.
>> Cherabs cherabs don't have the head of lions and and eagles like these are all analogies uh to help us understand invisible things. There's no other way to understand invisible influences except for using analogy. Now the thing that's important is that it doesn't mean that these analogies are arbitrary, right? And so depicting an angel with the face of a man is to say that this is an intelligent being, right? That this is this is a being that has rationality in the same way that when I look at someone's face, I see a reasonable person in that in that experience. And so it's not arbitrary, but it is definitely analogical.
>> 10 bucks from Matt who says, "Jonathan, are you ready for a six to eight hour stream? Thank you both for what you do."
I think that in about approximately nine minutes, Jonathan is gonna move on with his life.
>> But I'm like I have so much admiration for these marathon stream people. I'm like I usually after two hours I am just I am like I'm done. I'm getting better.
But at the beginning I could do one hour and I was just completely dead and now like maybe two I can go a little bit past two but not much not much more after that.
Uh, Louisis Antaro, do you think angelic beings are creative or generative like human beings or the way God is? If not, they may have that in common with AI.
What are your thoughts on that, John?
>> Yeah, you know, it's for sure the the the idea of angels is that in some ways they they're not creative because creative in the sense that we are because the way that we understand creativity is usually the adaptation of a principle to a a specific circumstance. That's usually what creativity is. And so you have like you you have something you want but you have to adapt it to the world. And so it's deeply ingrained in change, right? So that we the thing we understand creativity is usually ingrained with change. And in that sense uh um they're not that's not what they do. They're more like uh in some ways intelligent supervisors or intelligent influences over over uh over reality. Um, and so do they have in common with AI? Uh, that's really interesting to think about. Yeah, for sure. I'd have to think about it more, but there might definitely be something uh something going on there.
>> Yeah, you might be on to something. I don't know the answer to that, but I know St. John Damosine, I think everything Jonathan said was right. And then St. John Damosine has a section of angels on angels and on the Orthodox faith. And check that out. The mamba says, "JP, why are you orthodox?" I think that's a reference to Jay's interview with Jesse Lee Peterson.
>> Oh, why are you orthodox? Why you not a normal Christian?
>> That interview was so crazy.
>> Jonathan, I filled up my soundboard with that interview for like the next year.
>> It was so wild. And it was like I didn't even know. I mean, I know that guy Jesse Peterson, he's asked me on his show and I was like, "No, I'm not doing it." You know? Uh, and so, and so then I see Jay on there and I didn't know anything much about the guy and then I realized like he's not even a Christian like in any way. Like he >> I think he started his own church like his own sect.
>> I mean, he was saying that Christ wasn't divine. So, I guess he's like a kind of weird ah man. Who knows? It was wild.
Yeah, that was a wild interview.
>> I'm I'm glad you watched it. Then you'll understand the references on my soundboard when I play something like this.
>> That's gnostic. That's what >> That's gnosticism. That's >> nasty.
crazy moments throughout the whole thing.
>> Yeah. And also like Jay wasn't wasn't being careful in the sense that he was using the fancy words and you could see Jessie Peterson was like ambiguous. Amb what's that word ambiguous?
>> What's that mean?
>> It's like what does ambiguous mean? It's like >> and then it's funny because he said it's not clear. It was almost like uh you know like those funny like it means that it's not clear and he was like well yeah well right that's what I'm asking you.
What does amigos mean? It was one of those moments where like who's on first, you know? It's like, >> yeah, chicken or the egg.
>> It was hilarious.
>> Uh, VGO asks follow-up question. Could you please expand on the symbolism of the various animals of which angels may take the form, though not in a concrete physical sense.
>> Yeah, there's definitely there's definitely a a very deep symbolism in terms of the cherub, the way that the cherub is represented in scripture. Um, and you know, usually you can you kind of have to understand it like the a the eagle being at the at the top. Usually that's where we understand it as an image of spiritual influence. There's there's several places in scripture where birds are seen in some ways stand in for the spiritual influence. The the the lion, if you think about like the lion is a predator, right? So there's a relationship like the lion is a predator, the bull is a victim, right?
the the the the angel the the the spiritual the man is like the middle.
That's a good way of understanding it.
Sometimes it's how it's represented. The man in the middle with the eagle at the top and then on the right hand the predator and on the left hand the the the bull. Um and so the you know in Jewish like ancient thinking the lion is obviously a symbol of royalty. the the uh the the the cow is like a symbolism of the priesthood, but also that you have the victim of the priesthood and the lion as the as an impure animal, the one the other one as a pure animal.
There's all these like back and forth relationships between especially those two those two aspects. Um, my brother Matier wrote actually like a whole article on that in u it's weird because it's actually in our it's it's it's in the symbolism of of God's dog, the secrets of God's dog, which is our graphic novel series. And he wrote like he wrote this amazing article and submitted it to me for like this like comment on a comic book. And I was like, man, this is like the best comment on a comic book you'll ever you'll ever see.
But uh if you read the church fathers, they also kind of talk about this relationship. That's why the different uh gospels are uh attributed to the different faces of the angel in the vision of Ezekiel.
Okay. Uh Matthew Ryan says, "The method of validating church theology based on the saints and confirming who's a saint based on alignment with the teachings of the church seems kind of circular to me.
Thoughts?" It's because our epistemology is based in divine revelation, right?
It's a multiffactorial thing. It's not >> Yeah, that's right. That's the thing.
That's what's important to understand is that it is a multiffactorial thing. I see someone in the chat. I'm kind of have the chat running here asked if I would invite Rachel Witch Rachel Wilson as a guest for a Universal History episode. And the email is out and I think she's really busy, but she we agreed that she would come on my channel, but it just I guess it just hasn't happened yet. So, >> yeah. I love Rachel. She's a great debater. We did an analysis of her debate with Brian Shapiro and like Brian totally blundered that whole thing. But Rachel kept it like text, man. That was like a >> slaughter. Yes.
>> I mean, who's this guy and why is he debating? It's like it's really embarrassing. You wish that you'd had a better person because seriously, that was just insanely ridiculous. I guess he's so unconscious of himself that he's willing to put himself in these situations and doesn't feel the pain of the humiliation because he's just so like not conscious of his of himself. I there's no other way to see it except for that because man >> that was >> glutton for punishment I guess.
>> Seriously sometimes you think like is he a scop? Like is he is he like a false supposed to make the liberals look bad pretending to believe that? Cuz only someone who's pretending to believe would say something as stupid all the stupid things that he was saying.
>> I agree.
All right, we'll do a few more questions and we'll close it out here. Momento Mory says that St. Paul said don't call your bishop a heretic on the internet.
Yeah, don't do that. I don't know if St. Paul said it word for word, but certainly the sentiment like that concept is in there.
>> Yeah. To to to attribute to go privately when you have a problem with someone that is in authority, you know, to do it privately with with a letter or with a way to, you know, or go through the hierarchy instead of just peering online. And sometimes you actually you miss some details sometimes as well.
>> Yeah. Christian asks, "How do you interpret Enoch being identified as the son of man in chapter 71?" I think there's a a manuscript issue there because there's a section right before that verse in chapter 71 that's totally missing. Like nobody knows where it is.
So there's some context missing to that verse. Also, there are some uh manuscripts where it's not so clear exactly that it's Enoch. There's >> I don't even know what is it. What do you What is this referring to? So, there's like a pre-existent eternal son of man figure in Enoch that like is parallels like Christ like pretty pretty spot on. Uh but and at the end it's something like uh and the son of man is you Enoch or something and it like it works in there are like different translations of that like sometimes it's like an invitation some people interpret it as a declaration but the point is that verse is ambiguous among scholars they agree that it's ambiguous u there's also the unique angle we have as orthodox Christians that Enoch is participating in the through the son of >> that's right and that's really That's really the key because you see that that the people being called son of man like I think Ezekiel is called son of man too. It's like even though he sees the son of man above on the on the the dome he's also being called son of man. And so this is really it's only through understanding that we are Christians little Christ that participate in Christ that all of this kind of come together and make sense you know.
>> Yeah. Okay. Last one is five bucks from Orthodox Tony. Jesse Lee is a unarian that denies the deity of Christ but affirms he is the son of God.
Essentially a bed of heresies with Jay Wit theo mixed in well >> with J theology. I guess he means I don't know who that is.
>> Yeah. Well, you know, as our friend Jay Dyer always says, >> I'm Bipok, too. I identify as black.
>> There you go. And with that, uh, guys, check out, um, let me clear the the comment.
Check out the symbolic world summit. Uh he's virtual tickets are live so you know you can participate and in a in a virtual way right and uh check out Jonathan Pon. I have all of his stuff like all linked in the description below. Uh and then anything you want to close out here with Jonathan?
>> No thanks. This has been this been a lot of fun and I'd be really open if you guys want to do if you some of you want to do like multiple people on a stream having discussions and stuff. I I feel like things have kind of opened up a little more for me. I'm not as like there was a time where I was so busy it was hard to So that that could also be fun to do.
>> Yeah, definitely. Absolute pleasure to have you on. Thanks again, guys. Thank you for all the super chats and for your support. As Octavian says, hit the like and sub, guys. All right. Bye, everyone.
Bye bye.
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