So is the OrthodoxWiki conception of the Invisible Church in heaven. I merely point out that some of the church is invisible on earth due to its incomplete acceptance of the hierarchical churches.

Come on, you're being bad faith again. Did you miss the part where the Orthodox also believe in the visible historic Church here on Earth? Don't cherry pick but look at the whole picture.

This seems to accord with agnosticism about where the Spirit is not.

Exactly, all you have is negative theology. The Orthodox have both the negative and the positive claim as to where the Spirit is and isn't. Protestants don't have an objective standard for that - it's whatever individuals claim to have the Spirit and profess a generic faith in Christ and even that standard is subjective to each person (because each person reading the Bible is the ultimate authority).

I appreciate your reference to Palamas, but I think that route (though I suggested it) would then lead to circular defense, because the latest is always said to have come from before. But the earliest teaching of any proposition is "new" in its time. And that's how the Scriptural canon works: books kept getting added to the Word that had already been approved and each book took its centuries to have unanimous approval, Revelation being the fastest approved perhaps. Well, each book is "change" and "novelty", but over time it becomes Tradition.

It's not circular - it's regressive and ultimately goes back to the beginning of the apostolic Church. What the Early Church taught is the standard against which later teachings are verified. This is why appealing to the Scripture doesn't work, because it was compiled by the Church at a later stage and wasn't there initially. This is the defeater argument against Sola Scriptura.

But maybe Orthodoxy has closed its canon of Tradition like we agree the canon of Scripture is closed. I don't recognize that epoch, I see reasons why Tradition must remain open. I appeal to Stephen's reference to "living oracles" being understood in Messianism as oral tradition remaining flexible, not static.

The tradition is not closed because it's living. There are contemporary Saints of the Church. What you propose is evolution of doctrine which is a RC idea. But the dogmas and doctrines of the early Church reflect truth and changing truth leads to falsehood. What would necessitate such a change today?

Thanks for admitting. Protestantism by its name means not that Rome is false (that was an extreme) but that Rome erred in handling Luther. That's nominal united agreement even when Protestants forget their name. Since Rome takes about 911 years to apologize (1054-1965), we're still waiting. Protestants believe the Church continues otherwise but that radical times called for flexibility about physically demonstrated succession (just as they do for flexibility about water baptism and even Eucharist). The conservatives recognize Rome (and Luther tried to partner with Constantinople but the work was physically undoable at that distance).

You're playing word games. It doesn't matter how the name of the movement came to be, but what the movement was and it was a radical theological movement in opposition to the Western Church and not just a reaction to a political incident. Of course the Reformers believed Rome was false and denied the authority of the Pope and the See's indefectibility. Again, they may recognize certain aspects of the tradition but to determine that they'd need to have a standard which is other than tradition itself. Hence, they had to claim Sola Scriptura as their standard to judge tradition, but I've already explained why that doesn't work (because tradition is prior to and more fundamental than Scripture; it produced Scripture and encompasses it).

So again the similarity is that we have sufficient assurance our church is right enough, we constantly test our assurance, and we decline to judge other professing churches except in extreme cases. And that seems compatible with the Orthodox view.

No you don't and you don't have a standard to judge that. What does "right enough" entail? You're appealing to sufficiency which also requires a standard. Where is the cutoff point where one's not "right enough" anymore?

For an Orthodox to say that Orthodoxy has perfect assurance of continuing in its own name, no need to keep tested daily, or perfect ability to judge outside its jurisdiction, seems incompatible with it

The true Church has assurance given by Christ. If I can demonstrate the Orthodox Church is the true Church (and going back to Church history proves that) then whatever it judges, it is right because it has the guidence of the Spirit.

Again you are commended for your dogged maintenance of this discussion and it's helpful to me; perhaps your sharing your ideas of how Orthodoxy will someday under Messiah heal the breach and welcome Protestants back en masse under some agreements and negotiations (while definitively ruling out the heretics among us) will be a useful tack to take.

Our eschatology differs. You mean after Christ second advent? Everyone who renounces their false beliefs and wishes to come to the true Church is welcomed at any time of course. No negotiations or compromises with the faith are possible, even if it means that only one Orthodox person is left in the world. Anything else would amount to surrendering the true faith and abandoning the Church. If any Orthodox Church does that then it's no longer the Church (here's looking at you, Bartholomew seeking to unite with Rome). Those outside the Church are like the prodigal son or the lost sheep but in the end we're told there will be few people, even among the nominally Orthodox, who would have kept the faith and the commandments as Christ has ordered. So I don't think we'll be seeing more people coming to their senses and coming to the Church but the opposite. Jesus prophesized that false teachings and deceptions will multiply in the end times.

So is the OrthodoxWiki conception of the Invisible Church in heaven. I merely point out that some of the church is invisible on earth due to its incomplete acceptance of the hierarchical churches.

Come on, you're being bad faith again. Did you miss the part where the Orthodox also believe in the visible historic Church here on Earth? Don't cherry pick but look at the whole picture.

This seems to accord with agnosticism about where the Spirit is not.

Exactly, all you have is negative theology. The Orthodox have both the negative and the positive claim as to where the Spirit is and isn't. Protestants don't have an objective standard for that - it's whatever individuals claim to have the Spirit and profess a generic faith in Christ and even that standard is subjective to each person (because each person reading the Bible is the ultimate authority).

I appreciate your reference to Palamas, but I think that route (though I suggested it) would then lead to circular defense, because the latest is always said to have come from before. But the earliest teaching of any proposition is "new" in its time. And that's how the Scriptural canon works: books kept getting added to the Word that had already been approved and each book took its centuries to have unanimous approval, Revelation being the fastest approved perhaps. Well, each book is "change" and "novelty", but over time it becomes Tradition.

It's not circular - it's regressive and ultimately goes back to the beginning of the apostolic Church. What the Early Church taught is the standard against which later teachings are verified. This is why appealing to the Scripture doesn't work, because it was compiled by the Church at a later stage and wasn't there initially. This is the defeater argument against Sola Scriptura.

But maybe Orthodoxy has closed its canon of Tradition like we agree the canon of Scripture is closed. I don't recognize that epoch, I see reasons why Tradition must remain open. I appeal to Stephen's reference to "living oracles" being understood in Messianism as oral tradition remaining flexible, not static.

The tradition is not closed because it's living. There are contemporary Saints of the Church. What you propose is evolution of doctrine which is a RC idea. But the dogmas and doctrines of the early Church reflect truth and changing truth leads to falsehood. What would necessitate such a change today?

Thanks for admitting. Protestantism by its name means not that Rome is false (that was an extreme) but that Rome erred in handling Luther. That's nominal united agreement even when Protestants forget their name. Since Rome takes about 911 years to apologize (1054-1965), we're still waiting. Protestants believe the Church continues otherwise but that radical times called for flexibility about physically demonstrated succession (just as they do for flexibility about water baptism and even Eucharist). The conservatives recognize Rome (and Luther tried to partner with Constantinople but the work was physically undoable at that distance).

You're playing word games. It doesn't matter how the name of the movement came to be, but what the movement was and it was a radical theological movement in opposition to the Western Church and not just a reaction to a political incident. Of course the Reformers believed Rome was false and denied the authority of the Pope and the See's indefectibility. Again, they may recognize certain aspects of the tradition but to determine that they'd need to have a standard which is other than tradition itself. Hence, they had to claim Sola Scriptura as their standard to judge tradition, but I've already explained why that doesn't work.

So again the similarity is that we have sufficient assurance our church is right enough, we constantly test our assurance, and we decline to judge other professing churches except in extreme cases. And that seems compatible with the Orthodox view.

No you don't and you don't have a standard to judge that. What does "right enough" entail? You're appealing to sufficiency which also requires a standard. Where is the cutoff point where one's not "right enough" anymore?

For an Orthodox to say that Orthodoxy has perfect assurance of continuing in its own name, no need to keep tested daily, or perfect ability to judge outside its jurisdiction, seems incompatible with it

The true Church has assurance given by Christ. If I can demonstrate the Orthodox Church is the true Church (and going back to Church history proves that) then whatever it judges, it is right because it has the guidence of the Spirit.

Again you are commended for your dogged maintenance of this discussion and it's helpful to me; perhaps your sharing your ideas of how Orthodoxy will someday under Messiah heal the breach and welcome Protestants back en masse under some agreements and negotiations (while definitively ruling out the heretics among us) will be a useful tack to take.

Our eschatology differs. You mean after Christ second advent? Everyone who renounces their false beliefs and wishes to come to the true Church is welcomed at any time of course. No negotiations or compromises with the faith are possible, even if it means that only one Orthodox person is left in the world. Anything else would amount to surrendering the true faith and abandoning the Church. If any Orthodox Church does that then it's no longer the Church (here's looking at you, Bartholomew seeking to unite with Rome). Those outside the Church are like the prodigal son or the lost sheep but in the end we're told there will be few people, even among the nominally Orthodox, who would have kept the faith and the commandments as Christ has ordered. So I don't think we'll be seeing more people coming to their senses and coming to the Church but the opposite. Jesus prophesized that false teachings and deceptions will multiply in the end times.

So is the OrthodoxWiki conception of the Invisible Church in heaven. I merely point out that some of the church is invisible on earth due to its incomplete acceptance of the hierarchical churches.

Come on, you're being bad faith again. Did you miss the part where the Orthodox also believe in the visible historic Church here on Earth? Don't cherry pick but look at the whole picture.

This seems to accord with agnosticism about where the Spirit is not.

Exactly, all you have is negative theology. The Orthodox have both the negative and the positive claim as to where the Spirit is and isn't. Protestants don't have an objective standard for that - it's whatever individuals claim to have the Spirit and profess a generic faith in Christ and even that standard is subjective to each person (because each person reading the Bible is the ultimate authority).

I appreciate your reference to Palamas, but I think that route (though I suggested it) would then lead to circular defense, because the latest is always said to have come from before. But the earliest teaching of any proposition is "new" in its time. And that's how the Scriptural canon works: books kept getting added to the Word that had already been approved and each book took its centuries to have unanimous approval, Revelation being the fastest approved perhaps. Well, each book is "change" and "novelty", but over time it becomes Tradition.

It's not circular - it's regressive and ultimately goes back to the beginning of the apostolic Church. What the Early Church taught is the standard against which later teachings are verified. This is why appealing to the Scripture doesn't work, because it was compiled by the Church at a later stage and wasn't there initially. This is the defeater argument against Sola Scriptura.

But maybe Orthodoxy has closed its canon of Tradition like we agree the canon of Scripture is closed. I don't recognize that epoch, I see reasons why Tradition must remain open. I appeal to Stephen's reference to "living oracles" being understood in Messianism as oral tradition remaining flexible, not static.

The tradition is not closed because it's living. There are contemporary Saints of the Church. What you propose is evolution of doctrine which is a RC idea. But the dogmas and doctrines of the early Church reflect truth and changing truth leads to falsehood. What would necessitate such a change today?

Thanks for admitting. Protestantism by its name means not that Rome is false (that was an extreme) but that Rome erred in handling Luther. That's nominal united agreement even when Protestants forget their name. Since Rome takes about 911 years to apologize (1054-1965), we're still waiting. Protestants believe the Church continues otherwise but that radical times called for flexibility about physically demonstrated succession (just as they do for flexibility about water baptism and even Eucharist). The conservatives recognize Rome (and Luther tried to partner with Constantinople but the work was physically undoable at that distance).

You're playing word games. It doesn't matter how the name of the movement came to be, but what the movement was and it was a radical theological movement in opposition to the Western Church and not just a reaction to a political incident. Of course the Reformers believed Rome was false and denied the authority of the Pope and the See's indefectibility. Again, they may recognize certain aspects of the tradition but to determine that they'd need to have a standard which is other than tradition itself. Hence, they had to claim Sola Scriptura as their standard to judge tradition, but I've already explained why that doesn't work.

So again the similarity is that we have sufficient assurance our church is right enough, we constantly test our assurance, and we decline to judge other professing churches except in extreme cases. And that seems compatible with the Orthodox view.

No you don't and you don't have a standard to judge that. What does "right enough" entail? You're appealing to sufficiency which also requires a standard. Where is the cutoff point where one's not "right enough" anymore?

For an Orthodox to say that Orthodoxy has perfect assurance of continuing in its own name, no need to keep tested daily, or perfect ability to judge outside its jurisdiction, seems incompatible with it

The true Church has assurance given by Christ. If I can demonstrate the Orthodox Church is the true Church (and going back to Church history proves that) then whatever it judges, it is right because it has the guidence of the Spirit.

Again you are commended for your dogged maintenance of this discussion and it's helpful to me; perhaps your sharing your ideas of how Orthodoxy will someday under Messiah heal the breach and welcome Protestants back en masse under some agreements and negotiations (while definitively ruling out the heretics among us) will be a useful tack to take.

Our eschatology differs. You mean after Christ second advent? Everyone who renounces their false beliefs and wishes to come to the true Church is welcomed at any time of course. No negotiations or compromises with the faith are possible, even if it means that only one Orthodox person is left in the world. Anything else would amount to surrendering the true faith and abandoning the Church. If any Orthodox Church does that then it's no longer the Church (here's looking at you, Bartholomew seeking to unite with Rome). Those outside the Church are like the prodigal son or the lost sheep but in the end we're told there will be few people, even among the nominally Orthodox, who would have kept the faith and the commandments as Christ has ordered.