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SmithW1984 3 points ago +3 / -0

Why not answer my question in a single sentence instead? Where do you get knowledge of Who Jesus was and what ethnicity He was? Did this Freedman guy travel back in time to report this? Why should I trust anything a former jew says? Aren't jews born liars like their father the devil like your quote there says?

Saying I don't have no argument doesn't make it true. Nobody's buying your cheap rhetoric.

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SmithW1984 3 points ago +3 / -0

Materialism always reduces to determinism which makes knowledge impossible because if we're all determined in out output, then there's no evaluator who's able to choose between the true and the false proposition.

It's a self-refuting position. There's nothing to argue about. If a person can't grasp this rather simple argument, then they are either too low IQ and shouldn't bother with philosophical inquiry, or their mind is broken which as St. Paul says is a moral problem and not an intellectual one. Most atheists you see arguing online are the second category.

I recommend JimBob's channel - he loves the subject of free will and grills idiot atheists regularly: https://youtu.be/iqb_ncQpBnQ?t=345

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SmithW1984 2 points ago +3 / -1

They debase currencies, debase society, debase culture, debase art, debase education. If people are dumber, more dependent and more degenerate today than 100 years ago, they have succeeded. I consider people who run a 100-year global plan successfully to be smart. They know what moves people. They know how to compromise people. They know our human weaknesses and exploit them. But are people like Rothschild, Karl Marx or Soros really smart? Is being a demented wicked and calculating bullshit artist being intelligent? Is Satan smart or just cunning? Maybe not. Their hand is ultimately guided by a power that's way above their heads.

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SmithW1984 1 point ago +2 / -1

Looking at where they got society and how far we've come since Nathan, they have proven they can take care of the "unalienable assets" via social engineering, media, education, pharmaceuticals and diet. They have created a society that they can control on all levels - not just financially. It's Full Spectrum Dominance. The opposition is well taken care of too by subversion, shills, implants, psy ops.

The more books I read on the topic and look at how things are going, the more I realize how insightful, clever and resourceful those goblins are.

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SmithW1984 2 points ago +3 / -1

When you have no counter, just repeat what the opponent says. Do you think that works?

I'm sorry you got exposed for being full of shit. Christianity comes from the Abrahamic tradition which is jewish. Jesus was part of that tradition. Judaism being a heretical phariseical sect that rejects Christ doesn't change that.

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SmithW1984 3 points ago +3 / -0

Exactly. It ultimately boils down the the Truth behind all truths. We're in a spiritual warfare against the principalities not of this world. Today it's the malthusian transhumanist elite, tomorrow evil may take another form as it has done throughout history.

You'll notice people who reject Christ and blaspheme Him are the most deluded of all in normieland. They're literally in living hell without knowing it. "Spiritual death is worse than physical death. Make no mistake - the Church Fathers teach us that foretasting both heaven and hell start here on Earth, depending on how we orient our will - either towards God or against Him.

27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, 30 backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; 32 who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

  • Romans 1

Rejection of God debases the mind. This is the reason they are blind to all this.

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SmithW1984 3 points ago +3 / -0

The exact same people who dismiss the increase in turbo-cancers act as though they would have been too smart to take thalidomide, or use DDT.

Yep. They are too dumb to understand that trusting the Science has proven lethal in the past, so even if you have trust in the system (why would you though - they literally say they hate you and want to depop you), it's not always reasonable to do so 100% and you should be skeptical of the quality and safety of tech in general, even if there's no ill intent (but there is).

The absurd amount of confidence normies have in the system is never rational or justified - it's the product of careful indoctrination and social engineering to create the desired behaviors and beliefs. They literally worship the system knowingly and unknowingly.

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SmithW1984 5 points ago +5 / -0

Yes. People today are too weak, soft and pampered. They are dependent on the fake and gay system that force feeds them sweet nothings, false comfort and false narratives since birth. The system creates good slaves and good slaves idolize their beast system and are willing to sacrifice themselves to it. Anyone who opposes the system is identified as the enemy. All by design of course.

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SmithW1984 2 points ago +3 / -1

Yeah, send me an hour plus long video instead of a straight answer to a simple question.

There's nothing that proves he's jewish.

Scripture and Church tradition is nothing? Where do you get your knowledge of the person Jesus Christ? What kind of a cult are you in?

Btw, your last panel literally says what I commented. At least read the stuff you post.

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SmithW1984 2 points ago +3 / -1

Based on what? On you liking Jesus but not the jews and struggling with the cognitive dissonance?

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SmithW1984 4 points ago +6 / -2

There's no point in arguing with people about this stuff really. Their beliefs are not rational and no amount of evidence will change it. They will just explain it away. Unless they get a shift in their paradigm, it's like talking to a wall. But there's a reason why normies still believe the mainstream narrative. The reason is that they're normies - they don't seek the truth, they don't challenge their beliefs, they don't change.

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SmithW1984 2 points ago +2 / -0

"Origination and sending without begetting or procession or spiration": Yeah, it's over semantics. For a couple people it wasn't and they were heretics, and God knows who they are. For the rest, I won't argue the size of hypernormative connection. (And my larger point is that all schisms that remain might well be over semantics, as there will be a final resolution for each and it will be either semantics or one size being defined out forever. You do want the Filioque resolved, don't you?)

I literally gave you an example why the Orthodox and the Catholic position is not the same and you've blown past though it... Orthodoxy taches monarchical Trinitarianism - the Father is the origin of the Trinity. He begets the Son and spirates the Spirit. The theological consequences of the filioque are devastating. Here's a video explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDwuQqPr-rM

The resolution of the filioque is for Rome to renounce this development and return to the original Nicaean creed. But you understand that admitting they've taught error for 1000 years will automatically destroy their whole system so that's not happening. Btw, as I already said if Rom falls, Protestantism falls too because you adopted their tradition and their teachings like the filioque.

No, you! I might say. I asked the difference, you didn't give an answer I comprehended and ultimately deferred the answer to authority, that's where it stands. Another pass on OrthodoxWiki doesn't find anything supporting "The True Church".

You don't have apostolic succession through Luther. Luther wasn't a bishop to begin with. He never claimed to have apostolic succession. He doesn't need it for his system which is based on personal inspiration, Sola Christus and Sola Scriptura. He literally made up that system to undermine the authority of the Pope which is guaranteed by tradition and apostolic succession. You're making up stuff to check the boxes you see that are missing in your system. This is idiocy.

If the mark of "The True Church" is that it does treat other professing churches as hypernormative, well it seems Rome has that mark too (and again it's just semantics about size).

That's not a mark but a necessary precondition. There are many things which define and identify the Church. The reason I call it the True Church is to set it apart from all the heterodox who use the term to denote multiple sects. The Church can only be one. There are no 100 bodies of Christ. There's no division within His Body either, but complete unity in sacraments and creed. Everyone is in communion in the Church through baptism and the Eucharist. The fullness of truth and grace is only in the Church. If "a Church" doesn't lay claim to being the single true Church, then it's definitely not it. Branch theory is unscriptural. But if you are a Lutheran and believe the Lutheran Church - the specific denomination that has common creed and tradition - is the true Church then you're past that hurdle. Now all you have to do is demonstrate how that's the case. You can't of course because of the stated above.

BTW there's no evidence Origen or Tertullian were excommunicated. Origen made big errors but the church was too polite to him to name him in their anathema against his errors. Tertullian reformed Montanism (Tertullianism) to bring it back to Christianity and was a great pontifex.

Correct, Origen wasn't excommunicated but his teachings were condemned. Tertullian left the Church for montanism. He didn't bring anything back to Christianity - he became the leader of that sect and influenced it but didn't return to the Church. His earlier writings are considered authoritative but he's not canonized as a saint.

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SmithW1984 2 points ago +2 / -0

I've said all along that calling it something like "origination and sending without procession or spiration" is just argument over the same thing with different definitions applying.

I just explained how that's not the case - is you being born of your father the same as your brother sending you to do some work? Maybe consider that theological disputes that led to the splitting of the Church are not over semantics?

All I have to do is invert. Our Church and Tradition judges that we have apostolic succession through Luther and that the Eastern Church are the heterodox by not agreeing with Luther when they had and have access (he tried!); and Eastern claims to the contrary have already been proven wrong by our tradition, even if it sounds silly and illogical to them and we don't explain it very well, because our tradition is The True Church. You see how it doesn't work in the reverse direction, and why I don't think it works in your direction either?

You can't because you don't have a Church and tradition, that's the point. You have denominations which agree on some things and disagree on other things. We've been over this. Luther's theology has nothing to do with what the Early Church teaches so pretending he was on the same footing as the Orthodox Church is just stupid. There were no "Luthers" in the first millennium. There was a universal apostolic and synodal Church. Actually there were guys like Luther but all of them were excomunicated like Nestorius, Valentian, Origen and Tertullian.

Which is why I say feel free to keep the theology of "exceptions for good reason" and be prepared to be called on any variances from that theology.

I don't keep anything. It's not up to me to pick and choose what the faith is. I am convinced EO is the true Church and I follow it a 100%.

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SmithW1984 2 points ago +2 / -0

But you don't feel qualified to answer about conscience from your own being born or catechized into Orthodoxy, you refer me to the bishop. Got it.

Exactly. If you want to learn about Orthodoxy you have to go to the physical Church and talk to the clergy. I can only reiterate the teachings of the Church and my opinions as an Orthodox layman. There's a hierarchy within the Church. You probably won't be talking to a bishop but to a priest who was ordained by the bishop. The bishops are those who have apostolic succession and lead the Church.

("Christ sent the Spirit"? Sounds like filioque to me! What is this change?)

No. This is the Orthodox teaching of the Church Fathers. The filioque claims double hypostatic procession of the Spirit and it has to do with the origin of the Spirit. The Spirit spirates from the Father, not the Son. The Son sending the Spirit is the Spirit originating from Him.

But there it sounds like you know for certain that all Protestants are disconnected from extranormative unity. That sounds like arguing over the size of the exception, that's all.

I knew you would go there and that's why I emphasized extranormative union applies to exceptions where there's good reason for the person not to be received in the Church through normative means. This is not the case with Protestants today, who have access to the Church but choose not to come to it out of their own volition and because they persist in their heterodox teachings.

Protestants typically reject "sheep-stealing" and so I generally stick with where my family grew up because I have vital connection. If someone says I must lose something I have in Christ to join their church, that's suspicious, and my perception of what is loss must be tested as well as their own perception of gain.

Leading sheep back to the Church is sheep saving actually. In th end you have to choose between the world and Christ. If the Truth leads you away from your community and family, so be it.

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

  • Matthew 16:24

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household.

  • Matthew 10:34-36
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SmithW1984 5 points ago +5 / -0

Yes, might makes right can't be Christian because only God is the standard for what's right and only God is almighty and everyone else's might is given to them by God.

As stated in Scripture, God sometimes allows pagan nations to oppress His people (in our case the Christian nations, not the jews) when they become degenerate and apostatize. This is exactly what's happening today - our own degeneracy has led us to be subjugated by the oppressive technocratic elite that seeks to enslave us in their beast system much like Nebuchadnezzar did in the OT.

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SmithW1984 5 points ago +5 / -0

Is Nick a darwinist? I forgot Catholics embrace theistic evolution which is retarded.

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SmithW1984 5 points ago +5 / -0

All of the Royal Society gang were like this. The RS families are the fathers of the NWO way back when the British Empire was the hegemon.

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SmithW1984 2 points ago +3 / -1

He was right. It was a demonic delusion. He, along with Freud and Marx are the greatest villains of the modern world. We have to thank those guys for how the world is currently.

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SmithW1984 2 points ago +2 / -0

Of course I can tell you you're wrong, but I can't force you to see it any more than I'm telling you I think you're wrong now and you don't see it. If the Orthodox Church told you you were wrong and you disagreed, you'd be out of there. (Or else perhaps you swore to always agree with whatever the bishop tells you even if he abuses his power because he's the bishop.) Orthodoxy doesn't solve the problem of people being wrong either. People who think they're the Church either work it out with others who think they're the Church (proving they are) or they don't forever (proving they're not). Simple.

You telling me I'm wrong is your subjective opinion. Truth doesn't care about subjective opinions. The Orthodox Church holds the objective standard for what the true faith is - not single individuals in or outside of it. The Church has a living body that is visible and mystical just like you have a living body - both physical and spiritual. It has a head just like you have a head. The difference is that the head of your body is your human mind, and the head of the Church is Christ. This is why Protestants worship the self, their own head and not Christ. Because you can't be in one with the head if you're not part of the body. You have to submit to the Church thus letting Christ be your head (through the bishops and priests who were given their office by Him - apostolic succession).

Here's the correct (only) path to knowing God:

  1. The Spirit moves us and brings us to the Church.
  2. The Church (Body of Christ) unites us to Christ.
  3. Through Christ we are united with the Father.

This mirrors God's plan for our salvation: God the Father sent Christ who then sent the Spirit.

TLDR: You're free to proceed any way you like. If you think I might be worth a little more of your evanglistic effort, we might try again with how catechesis works. How do I submit to the bishop or catechist, what's being asked of me, what do I do with my conscience? We might also work on those two positions I identified.

Go to an EO Church (if you're in the US, I'd suggest ROCOR) and talk to a priest about becoming a catechumen. If the priest is well-disposed you may ask him questions that you're struggling with. Beside that read the early Church fathers and look up Orthodox channels on youtube like Orthodox Ethos, Jay Dyer, Patristic Nectar, Orthodox Wisdom, Father Spyridon.

Is Metropolitan Kallistos right to say "We know where the Church is but we cannot be sure where it is not"? Is Theophan the Recluse right to say "Christ is here, in our Orthodox Church, and He is not in any other church"? Orthodox disagree interpreting those two!

Both are correct and are not contradictory if understood in context. There are no other churches because the Church is only one. What the metropolitan says has to do with normative and extra normative ways to be united to the Church. There's no salvation outside the Church but God can work out ways that are not understood by us and are not revealed to us. The normative is baptism and chrismation. The extra normative is God uniting people to the Church outside the rituals and proper worship, because He knows their heart - this of course is the exception to the rule and in no way suggests that people outside of the Church should hope to be saved by exception. We have a duty to seek God and enter the Church through the front door. The exception is for people who have a good reason in God's eyes why they didn't do that.

The best example of such extra normative union to the Church is the righteous thief on the cross. This is central to the Orthodox tradition, hence the Orthodox cross having the tipped line on the bottom, signifying the thieves crucified along with Jesus and their respective judgement. As Orthodox we follow what God has commanded through His Church but we can never know God's ways and we can't set boundaries to them.

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SmithW1984 3 points ago +3 / -0

Of course they weren't. You have to be a complete ignoramus of history and philosophy of ideas to think that.

National socialism is as antichristian as any socialist ideology. It stems from the Enlightenment freemasonic triadic mantra "Liberty - Equality - Fraternity" just like all other revolutionary ideologies. This together with the left-right dialectic (radical communism and socialism vs capitalism and libertarianism) of the French Revolution and the nationalism-internationalism dialectic defines every movement in the past 250 years.

On top of that nazis are occultists and the Party follows the model of the secret societies originating from illuminism, freemasonry and the jesuits. Keep in mind all movements are based on liberalism, revolutionary ethos and republicanism at its core (just like the French Revolution). What they disagree on is the model of the NWO and how it should be achieved. Here are examples:

  1. Nazism and Fascism are nationalist left-wing Fraternity with right-wing tendencies

  2. Bolshevism is internationalist left-wing Equality

  3. Sovietism (USSR after Stalin) is nationalist left-wing Equality

  4. Liberal democracies are internationalist right-wing Liberty (based on classical liberalism) with left-wing tendencies

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SmithW1984 2 points ago +2 / -0

Dude I can't deal with your filibustering and walls of texts. We're going in circles but the circles only get bigger because you can't write to the point. I'm addressing this and tapping out.

there is only every man's conception of Scripture and Tradition, which often largely overlap. (There's never even been a collection of perfect autographs of the whole Scripture in one place, God deliberately kept the several inspired manuscripts away from each other so we'd recognize via copying that we are imperfect carriers.)

You don't see the problem with this? What does "largely overlap" entail? An appeal to majority's interpretation? For the last time: You don't have a standard against which to judge what the correct interpretation of both scripture and tradition is. If one protestant believes in baptism and the other doesn't when both appeal to their interpretation of Scripture, how do you arbiter this?

So "Tradition" is not a standard because it doesn't externally exist to our experience, unless we count it as a concept in God's ineffable mind, something that we each collectively and substantially approximate.

Wrong. Tradition exists externally in the Church which keeps it. It doesn't exist externally in your system where very denomination or Bible reader makes up their own tradition by deconstructing and reforming what came before. Sure, some are more conservative with the process but that's arbitrary - both radicals and conservatives are equally Protestant (same goes for "protestantism" in the political realm - the left/right republicans where both sides are equally revolutionary and opposed to true conservatism which is monarchy and Church). Just like everything else in this system, it's entirely subjective and built around the individual and their immediate relationship with God. It is self-worship guised as Christianity. Protestantism is at its core satanic because it appeals to man and not God (the Church being His Body and His Spirit) as the authority. I can be a protestant and deny all previous traditions while interpreting Scripture in the most schizo way possible and you still wouldn't be able to tell me that I'm wrong and I'm not the Church. As long as I appeal to Scripture we're at an equal footing epistemologically.

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SmithW1984 2 points ago +3 / -1

Hitler was a patsy for the international banking cabal. They propped him up as an antithesis to the liberal democracies (just like they propped up the bolsheviks). They knew he was a keg of powder and wanted a war in order to complete the destruction of the old throne and Church world order (which WWI began). But while the bolshevik regime was strictly jewish and talmudic, the nazis we're it's antithesis. In reality all governments at that point were revolutionary modeled after the French revolution dialectic of girondins (right) and jacobins (left) - democratic or authoritarian, nationalistic or internationalistic. True conservatism was destroyed. The synthesis was the NWO post WWII, the eternal victimization of jews and the creation of Israel. It's all dialectics all the time. Once you know the mechanism it's too obvious.

This is how Count Cherep-Spiridovich among others knew about all the wars years before they came. He understood the Protocols.

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SmithW1984 2 points ago +2 / -0

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.

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SmithW1984 2 points ago +2 / -0

Protestants also rely on living tradition and relationship to help interpret pictures, dogma, and creed; they also claim the Spirit guiding them to ensure the faith is kept as members of the Body.

They may say that, but they can't justify the claim. What is the Body of their Church - a collection of all believers in Christ as God in the most generic and inclusive sense? It's an abstraction and there are no real boundaries. They apply an arbitrary standard and pick and choose things within the tradition (like the Bible, elements of worship, particular Church fathers and councils). Again, there are elements of the true faith, but it's not the wholeness of the faith. It's a binary - you either have the true faith or you don't. There's no 90% faith or having 90% overlap of consensus between all sects that leads to communality. Truth can't be mixed with lies. Even the smallest lie will poison the whole system. This is why it's crucial to defend the faith as deposited in the Church.

The Church makes and publishes its judgments through individual agents and Protestants have it no differently (granted many of them are promiscuous with assigning agency). So it looks the same to me, no differences seen.

The individual agents act in accordance with the mystical body of the Church, not on their own accord. You insist on presenting it the other way around to prop up your false equivalence with the Protestant system which puts the Spirit moving individuals first.

You appeal to our ability to review the Church's judgments and reason, which is exactly what Protestants affirm, the right to review. Perhaps the written decisions of the Seven Councils are as infallible as Scripture? But either way they're individually interpreted in what they say.

That's another false equivalence. In Orthodoxy you're not in a position to judge the decisions of the Church. You may study them and see their reasoning but if you disagree with anything and prefer your reasoning, that automatically leads you to sectarianism, i.e. you and not the Church being the authority and having primacy in judging on theological matters. You see - by the mere act of approaching the matter this way you assume the Protestant framework.

Orthodoxy is having unanimity on all matters of faith. If some contradiction occurs, it has to be resolved - the false teaching condemned and the true teaching affirmed. The arbitration between the true and the false is the Spirit working through the Church, because this task is impossible for the fallible human faculties alone.

It'd be interesting if I did find that Orthodoxy as a whole took some late interpretation that could be charged as "making up stuff that was not there before" because it adapted old text to new circumstances. Well, that's interpretation, not quite as bad as Mary's Assumption in Rome, but it'd be interesting to see if it exists.

You could try. One of the latest teachings in Orthodoxy is Palama's essence/energies distinction which was prompted by Barlaam's western-influenced teaching which contradicted the teachings of the Church. So even this "new" teaching is not new at all but an elaboration of what the previous Fathers taught, brought about by the need to refute this novel contention.

I agree the dying or living of movements is a testament to Jesus's work among the candlesticks. I don't want to keep saying none of this makes the Orthodox distinctive, just uniquely well-reserved, so I'll close there, thanks.

The other contenders would be the apostolic traditions that are alive today - RC, Nestorian, Oriental, Coptic. As already mentioned, (Reformed) Protestantism is not a tradition dating back to the Early Church but a radical innovation of the RC tradition (same for Anglicans). It's not even a single tradition, because it's solely defined as opposition to prior tradition and lacks unity of confession (the closest unified Protestant doctrine are the Solas I guess, but one can still be a Protestant even if they reject it). But even if I grant you that Protestants inherit their tradition from Rome, then if RC is proven false, Protestantism is false too by association. But the whole point of the Reformers is that RC is false. Therefore such appeal to tradition is self-refuting.

In the end true Protestantism is radical individualism and nominalism which were later philosophical developments historically. At the time of Christ and the early Church Fathers those ideas didn't even exist (that's another defeater for Protestantism).

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