WEBVTT 00:00:01.120 --> 00:00:03.840 Welcome to the At AnyCause Podcast. 00:00:03.840 --> 00:00:04.880 I am Cory J. 00:00:04.880 --> 00:00:09.360 Mahler, and this is the 27th of November 2025. 00:00:09.360 --> 00:00:12.560 It is Thanksgiving Day for those of us who are in America 00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:14.080 at least, for our friends around the world. 00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:18.000 I know that you separate celebrate that on other days, but for 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:20.320 us here it's Thanksgiving Day. 00:00:20.320 --> 00:00:24.560 This is the fifth QA episode of twenty twenty five and I 00:00:24.560 --> 00:00:26.480 have a handful of questions here. 00:00:26.480 --> 00:00:29.200 I have some other questions I see in the chat as well. 00:00:29.200 --> 00:00:32.560 So again let me know if there are any audio or other 00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:36.160 issues. I did sign up for restream so hopefully that will have 00:00:36.160 --> 00:00:38.400 solved all of those issues going forward. 00:00:38.400 --> 00:00:39.040 I know that 00:00:40.240 --> 00:00:42.560 excuse me, I know that kick is not working. 00:00:42.560 --> 00:00:43.840 I am not certain why. 00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:46.560 I think maybe I'm sending it too high of a bitrate and 00:00:46.560 --> 00:00:51.040 it is objecting to that fact. 00:00:55.120 --> 00:00:58.400 So starting off we have a question. 00:00:58.400 --> 00:01:03.520 Someone says he cannot hear. 00:01:03.520 --> 00:01:05.040 Sounds great on X. 00:01:05.040 --> 00:01:06.880 Can't hear on YouTube. 00:01:06.880 --> 00:01:15.200 Okay. Let me check that. 00:01:15.200 --> 00:01:21.120 It's not reporting any issues for me in Restream, but 00:01:22.080 --> 00:01:26.160 that doesn't mean that they don't have any. 00:01:26.160 --> 00:01:28.880 Can someone on YouTube tell me if you can hear me or 00:01:28.880 --> 00:01:29.040 not 00:01:32.480 --> 00:01:38.080 Loud and clear on X, that's good. 00:01:38.080 --> 00:01:40.240 Works fine the sound okay good. 00:01:40.240 --> 00:01:43.120 I I guess maybe you're having 00:01:44.160 --> 00:01:48.320 a problem on your end there, not on my end with regard 00:01:48.320 --> 00:01:49.600 to the sound. 00:01:49.600 --> 00:01:51.840 So check your settings. 00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:54.000 At any rate it seems to be working, so I will move 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:55.280 into the questions then. 00:01:55.280 --> 00:01:57.760 I will try not to sniffle into the mic, I do have 00:01:57.760 --> 00:02:00.000 a little bit of a cold, so I will try not to 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:03.600 share that with those of you out there. 00:02:03.600 --> 00:02:06.560 Thankfully I can't actually share the cold with you, but I'll try 00:02:06.560 --> 00:02:08.640 not to share the sniffling. 00:02:08.640 --> 00:02:14.320 The first question is about Roman Catholic Mariology, and I will read 00:02:14.320 --> 00:02:20.080 through the question first here. 00:02:20.080 --> 00:02:24.320 I've been discussing various topics with some Catholic friends, and as the 00:02:24.320 --> 00:02:27.920 only Lutheran I am usually going for against one, it puts a 00:02:27.920 --> 00:02:30.480 burden on me to know their doctrine well in order to be 00:02:30.480 --> 00:02:33.040 able to know why it is wrong. 00:02:33.040 --> 00:02:36.480 Mary is coming up soon, this was briefly covered here and there 00:02:36.480 --> 00:02:40.400 in passing in Stone Choir, true, but I am curious as to 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:46.080 the specifics of Roman Catholic Mariology, particularly modern, as most of these 00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:50.160 accretions became binding after the Reformation, which is true, I'll go into 00:02:50.160 --> 00:02:55.440 that, the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption to Heaven, etc., though others like 00:02:55.440 --> 00:03:01.360 perpetual virginity were believed in Luther's time, though still accretions, also true. 00:03:01.360 --> 00:03:04.880 Exactly how wrong are the Roman Catholics? 00:03:04.880 --> 00:03:07.840 What is the best steel man of their views? 00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:12.160 Which arguments would be most convincing against them, though I fear anyone 00:03:12.160 --> 00:03:16.000 with a presupposition of magisterial infallibility will not be able to budge 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:17.280 on an issue. 00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:19.120 That's generally true. 00:03:19.120 --> 00:03:19.440 So 00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:24.800 the question here with regard to Mariology. 00:03:24.880 --> 00:03:25.760 really there are 00:03:26.800 --> 00:03:32.240 essentially four doctrines here that are going to be relevant, one on 00:03:32.240 --> 00:03:36.560 which all Christians have to agree, and then the others are going 00:03:36.560 --> 00:03:41.520 to be various stages of you don't have to agree or you 00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:44.240 should not agree or you cannot agree. 00:03:44.240 --> 00:03:44.560 And 00:03:45.760 --> 00:03:48.480 the first one then is theotalkos. 00:03:48.480 --> 00:03:52.640 And that is defined in 431, although it's been the holding of 00:03:52.640 --> 00:03:55.920 Christians, the belief of Christians from the very beginning, it simply means 00:03:55.920 --> 00:03:59.680 that Mary is the God bearer, that's what the Atakas means. 00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:03.360 And the reason this came up and was officially defined as a 00:04:03.360 --> 00:04:08.080 dogma, as a doctrine, at a council was this was the council 00:04:08.080 --> 00:04:13.040 of Ephesus, incidentally, was because there were those who were arguing that 00:04:13.040 --> 00:04:18.240 she was only the bearer of Christ in terms of his humanity, 00:04:18.240 --> 00:04:19.920 and only Christ as 00:04:20.800 --> 00:04:22.400 a created creature. 00:04:22.400 --> 00:04:24.720 So in other words, it's Aryanism. 00:04:24.720 --> 00:04:27.520 And so obviously as Christians we have to reject that because that 00:04:27.520 --> 00:04:27.920 is false. 00:04:27.920 --> 00:04:29.440 That's not what we hold. 00:04:29.440 --> 00:04:31.040 Christ is God. 00:04:31.040 --> 00:04:33.600 He is fully God and fully man. 00:04:33.600 --> 00:04:37.520 And so Theotokos, you cannot object to that as a Christian, because 00:04:37.520 --> 00:04:41.120 that is simply right teaching with regard to Mary's role. 00:04:41.120 --> 00:04:44.080 She is indeed the Godbearer, because she bore Christ and Christ is 00:04:44.080 --> 00:04:50.240 God. The second one would be perpetual virginity, or sempre if you 00:04:50.240 --> 00:04:53.520 want to use the Latin, called by various names. 00:04:53.520 --> 00:04:57.200 That is defined in six hundred forty one 41 by Pope Martin 00:04:57.200 --> 00:05:01.680 I. And there have been those who have held to that down 00:05:01.680 --> 00:05:06.640 through Christian history, but that is when it became an official dogma 00:05:06.640 --> 00:05:08.720 of the Roman Catholic Church. 00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:13.680 And so the problem with Semper Virgo, and we have gone through 00:05:13.680 --> 00:05:16.720 that just so you know it's the Lateran synod, and it's canon 00:05:16.800 --> 00:05:18.480 three of that synod, if you want to go and look at 00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:20.080 that document. 00:05:20.080 --> 00:05:24.000 But the big problem is how do you define marriage? 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:28.320 If you don't understand what marriage is, then you are going to 00:05:28.320 --> 00:05:31.280 be okay with Semper Virgo. 00:05:31.280 --> 00:05:34.080 If you understand what marriage is, you are not. 00:05:34.080 --> 00:05:35.840 You have to reject it. 00:05:35.840 --> 00:05:40.320 And the reason for that is that what does Scripture say? 00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:43.760 Always look at Scripture for these issues. 00:05:43.760 --> 00:05:48.080 Scripture says Joseph is a righteous man. 00:05:48.400 --> 00:05:53.680 And Scripture says, Do not fear to take Mary as your wife. 00:05:53.680 --> 00:05:56.240 Well, that's a command from God. 00:05:56.240 --> 00:05:59.600 A righteous man obeys a command from God. 00:05:59.600 --> 00:06:04.880 Scripture calls Joseph righteous, commands him to take Mary as his wife. 00:06:04.880 --> 00:06:06.960 There's only one way you can take a wife. 00:06:06.960 --> 00:06:09.200 We were very clear on that in a number of episodes, not 00:06:09.200 --> 00:06:12.880 least of all the one on marriage for Stone Choir. 00:06:12.880 --> 00:06:16.800 And so, Zemper Virgo is at odds with that. 00:06:16.800 --> 00:06:21.200 If you understand the nature of marriage, you cannot believe that Mary 00:06:21.200 --> 00:06:23.680 was a virgin for her entire life. 00:06:23.680 --> 00:06:28.640 And also, just reading scripture plainly says that Christ had brothers and 00:06:28.640 --> 00:06:35.040 sisters. Now the Roman Catholics will argue that those were cousins. 00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:38.320 The problem is the scripture doesn't say that. 00:06:38.320 --> 00:06:41.920 Greek has a word for cousins, it's not always used, and this 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:44.800 is where perhaps we can steel man their argument. 00:06:44.800 --> 00:06:47.840 There are times where a cousin is called a brother. 00:06:47.840 --> 00:06:49.120 We even do that today. 00:06:49.120 --> 00:06:52.080 Perhaps less so than the Greeks would have done, and probably less 00:06:52.080 --> 00:06:56.400 so than The Old Testament Israelites would have done. 00:06:56.400 --> 00:07:00.960 However, the word for cousin exists, it's not used. 00:07:00.960 --> 00:07:04.400 It simply says brothers and sisters. 00:07:04.400 --> 00:07:06.960 That is what they were known as, and not only that, but 00:07:06.960 --> 00:07:10.080 they're called that later on as well because you have them in 00:07:10.080 --> 00:07:13.920 important positions in the church, and they're called the brother of Jesus 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:15.200 and things like that. 00:07:15.200 --> 00:07:20.720 So if you just read scripture and take the language plainly, it's 00:07:20.720 --> 00:07:24.320 very clear that Mary had other children, and also that makes perfect 00:07:24.320 --> 00:07:28.080 sense, because children are a blessing from the Lord. 00:07:28.080 --> 00:07:31.440 Why would God not bless his own earthly mother? 00:07:31.840 --> 00:07:35.360 Now, that's not to say that you cannot be a Christian and 00:07:35.360 --> 00:07:36.080 believe this. 00:07:36.080 --> 00:07:40.080 You're going to be in error because you have misunderstood what marriage 00:07:40.080 --> 00:07:44.000 is, and you have misunderstood some parts of Scripture, but you can 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:46.400 still be a Christian and believe in Semper Virgo. 00:07:46.400 --> 00:07:49.280 There are plenty of Christians down through history who have believed that, 00:07:49.280 --> 00:07:51.920 and there are Christians today who believe that. 00:07:51.920 --> 00:07:55.360 I reject it obviously, I don't believe in it, and I think 00:07:55.360 --> 00:07:59.440 that it raises other problems because again, the central problem is it 00:07:59.440 --> 00:08:01.600 misunderstands marriage. 00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:04.880 So if you get marriage wrong, you're going to be able to 00:08:04.880 --> 00:08:08.480 defend Semper Virgo, but if you get marriage right, you'll find that 00:08:08.480 --> 00:08:12.080 you have to reject SV. 00:08:12.080 --> 00:08:17.200 The The next dogma is jumping a bit here from 649 to 00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:21.760 1854. This is the Immaculate Conception. 00:08:21.760 --> 00:08:25.840 Now, if you are dealing with some Roman Catholics, they may try 00:08:25.840 --> 00:08:29.920 to argue that it is from 1476. 00:08:29.920 --> 00:08:34.720 Now, that particular document, the problem with it, is that it doesn't 00:08:34.640 --> 00:08:36.320 actually define it as a dogma. 00:08:36.480 --> 00:08:38.320 This is important for the Roman Catholics. 00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:41.520 For those who are not in Roman Catholic land, perhaps some of 00:08:41.520 --> 00:08:47.600 this is irrelevant because we don't have ex cathedra pronouncements as Protestants. 00:08:47.600 --> 00:08:48.640 They do. 00:08:48.640 --> 00:08:53.360 And so the fourteen seventy six document does not define it as 00:08:53.360 --> 00:08:55.680 a dogma, and one of the ways that you can look at 00:08:55.680 --> 00:09:00.800 this is that in eighteen forty nine the Pope asked the bishops 00:09:00.800 --> 00:09:04.560 for a definition of the Immaculate Conception. 00:09:04.560 --> 00:09:08.320 Well if he's asking for a definition of it, it can't be 00:09:08.320 --> 00:09:12.160 a dogma because that one have already been defined. 00:09:12.160 --> 00:09:16.560 And so it's actually an eighteen fifty four with the document is 00:09:16.560 --> 00:09:19.440 called Ineffabilis Deus. 00:09:19.440 --> 00:09:22.480 That is when it is established. 00:09:22.480 --> 00:09:25.200 And then one of the other ways that we can know this 00:09:25.440 --> 00:09:31.040 is that in 1904, fifty years later, it is celebrated as the 00:09:31.200 --> 00:09:34.960 50th celebration of the establishment of the dogma. 00:09:34.960 --> 00:09:37.680 And that is by Pope Pius X. 00:09:37.680 --> 00:09:42.160 And so very clearly you can see, this was not established until 00:09:42.640 --> 00:09:43.440 much later. 00:09:43.440 --> 00:09:45.280 This is not from the early church. 00:09:45.280 --> 00:09:47.120 This is not ancient. 00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:50.480 This is the 1800s, the mid-1800s. 00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:54.080 And so if they want to argue for that, they're going to 00:09:54.080 --> 00:09:58.720 have to argue that this was something that was revealed or just 00:09:58.720 --> 00:10:00.640 missed in Scripture. 00:10:00.640 --> 00:10:04.000 And the problem, of course, is that it is fundamentally at odds 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:05.440 with Scripture. 00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:08.400 Because Scripture says that all have sinned and fallen short of the 00:10:08.400 --> 00:10:09.520 glory of God. 00:10:09.520 --> 00:10:10.880 That includes Mary. 00:10:10.880 --> 00:10:12.320 Mary was a sinner. 00:10:12.320 --> 00:10:16.240 Mary did not believe in Jesus in the way that she should 00:10:16.240 --> 00:10:19.920 have initially, because think of what happens in the pages of Scripture. 00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:25.600 She and Jesus' brothers, incidentally, come to take him away from what 00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:29.360 he's doing because they believe he's lost his mind. 00:10:29.360 --> 00:10:32.960 That is not fully believing in him as your God and Savior. 00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:35.440 Now it's not to say that Mary didn't have some idea because 00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:37.680 you have things where it says that she cherished these things in 00:10:37.680 --> 00:10:40.880 her heart, and clearly she had some idea, but she did not 00:10:40.880 --> 00:10:41.760 fully understand. 00:10:41.760 --> 00:10:44.800 It seems very clear from the pages of scripture. 00:10:44.800 --> 00:10:46.880 And so Mary was a sinner. 00:10:46.880 --> 00:10:48.720 She needed a savior. 00:10:48.720 --> 00:10:51.760 And in fact, I think it's an insult to Mary to call 00:10:51.760 --> 00:10:56.400 her sinless, to say that she was without sin, because that's to 00:10:56.400 --> 00:10:57.840 minimize the work of Christ. 00:10:57.840 --> 00:10:59.920 And I don't think Mary would want that. 00:10:59.920 --> 00:11:01.600 Because Mary did eventually recognize 00:11:02.560 --> 00:11:05.760 the nature of Christ and his role and what he did, and 00:11:05.760 --> 00:11:09.200 part of it is that he was her Savior as well. 00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:14.000 And so the problem with the Immaculate Conception is that it's just 00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:16.880 a false teaching, it's just wrong. 00:11:16.880 --> 00:11:20.480 Because all those who are naturally conceived, which means a man and 00:11:20.480 --> 00:11:21.520 a woman 00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:24.400 are born with original sin. 00:11:24.400 --> 00:11:28.640 Original sin is transmitted that way, because that's just how God designed 00:11:28.640 --> 00:11:30.720 the universe how things are designed. 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:33.680 You received original sin in your conception. 00:11:33.680 --> 00:11:36.880 In sin did my mother conceive me, as it says in the 00:11:36.880 --> 00:11:40.000 Psalter. That includes Mary. 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:42.960 Nowhere does it say in the pages of Scripture that Mary was 00:11:42.960 --> 00:11:44.320 born without sin. 00:11:44.320 --> 00:11:48.720 Nowhere does it say that she was saved from original sin, which 00:11:48.720 --> 00:11:51.760 is basically what the Roman Catholics hold. 00:11:51.760 --> 00:11:52.720 This is a doctrine 00:11:53.680 --> 00:11:58.560 that is necessary for them because it builds up to other things. 00:11:58.560 --> 00:12:01.840 And it's going to build up to worse things in the future. 00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:05.680 Because I'll get into it now, but this is sort of not 00:12:05.680 --> 00:12:10.000 the main four, this is something a minor doctrine. 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:13.520 Doctrine, not doctrine, it depends on which Roman Catholic you ask. 00:12:13.520 --> 00:12:16.720 There are those who will call her the Mediatrix, or the Co 00:12:16.880 --> 00:12:20.000 Redemptrix, which is just blatant heroic. 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:22.080 You cannot possibly believe in that. 00:12:22.080 --> 00:12:24.960 Because there is only one mediator between God and man, and that 00:12:24.960 --> 00:12:26.080 is Christ. 00:12:26.080 --> 00:12:30.080 And so in order to build up to that doctrine, which is 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:33.520 where they're going, they will eventually make that a dogma. 00:12:33.520 --> 00:12:36.400 In order to build up that, they need to say that Mary 00:12:36.400 --> 00:12:38.080 was without sin. 00:12:38.080 --> 00:12:41.520 Because otherwise she can't be co redemptive. 00:12:41.520 --> 00:12:45.920 And so this doctrine is a necessary part of that foundation for 00:12:45.920 --> 00:12:48.000 something much worse in the future. 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:51.600 This is one that you have to reject as a Christian. 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:55.200 Because it just goes plainly against the words of scripture, and it 00:12:55.200 --> 00:12:57.680 is going to produce poisonous fruit. 00:12:57.680 --> 00:13:00.960 And then the final one is the Assumption of Mary, which sort 00:13:00.960 --> 00:13:03.920 of flows naturally from the other things they believed. 00:13:03.920 --> 00:13:06.720 And that is 1946 actually. 00:13:06.720 --> 00:13:08.720 That one is very recent. 00:13:08.720 --> 00:13:12.960 And it's in a document entitled, I'll just give the English name 00:13:12.960 --> 00:13:16.160 instead of the Latin, Virgin Mary Mother of God. 00:13:16.160 --> 00:13:16.640 And so 00:13:18.240 --> 00:13:21.920 that it's actually that's the one that asked for the definition. 00:13:21.920 --> 00:13:22.720 It's nineteen fifty. 00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:23.600 It's four years later. 00:13:23.600 --> 00:13:27.040 It's actually defined as a dogma in nineteen fifty, so four years 00:13:27.040 --> 00:13:28.720 after nineteen forty six. 00:13:28.720 --> 00:13:31.120 I misspoke on that first date. 00:13:31.120 --> 00:13:34.240 So this is obviously quite recent. 00:13:34.240 --> 00:13:38.320 And the problem here is that it's just nowhere in scripture, and 00:13:38.320 --> 00:13:42.000 we don't have the ancient church testifying to it either. 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:45.440 I think it's pretty clear that the ancient church would have said, 00:13:45.440 --> 00:13:50.560 oh, by the way, Mary just disappeared into heaven one day. 00:13:50.560 --> 00:13:52.640 Because that was something that happened in the Old Testament. 00:13:52.640 --> 00:13:54.960 This is not something that never happened. 00:13:54.960 --> 00:13:59.840 And so if she had been assumed, instead of dying, it would 00:13:59.840 --> 00:14:01.760 have been noted. 00:14:01.680 --> 00:14:06.000 It's kind of noteworthy if the mother of God disappears into heaven 00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:08.400 one day if she doesn't die. 00:14:08.400 --> 00:14:11.920 We don't have that testimony from the ancient church, and so this 00:14:11.920 --> 00:14:13.440 is something that is necessary. 00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:17.920 It flows necessarily from the other things they believe with regard to 00:14:17.920 --> 00:14:22.720 Mary, but it is very modern, and it's simply not supportable by 00:14:22.720 --> 00:14:25.280 either scripture or history. 00:14:25.280 --> 00:14:29.520 Then, of course, you have the Queen of Heaven bit, which that 00:14:29.520 --> 00:14:32.080 should make you uncomfortable because the Queen of Heaven is the name 00:14:32.080 --> 00:14:38.000 of a demon, and Heaven doesn't have a Queen because Mary is 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:42.560 not the wife of God, which is what they sometimes try to 00:14:42.560 --> 00:14:45.120 argue. That's nowhere in scripture. 00:14:45.120 --> 00:14:47.440 That's just whole cloth. 00:14:47.440 --> 00:14:48.560 Made out of whole cloth. 00:14:48.560 --> 00:14:49.360 Complete nonsense. 00:14:49.360 --> 00:14:51.600 Incidentally the East holds to that one as well. 00:14:51.600 --> 00:14:54.160 Slightly different formulation for the East, but 00:14:55.120 --> 00:14:58.320 you don't have to argue with that one as much when you're 00:14:58.320 --> 00:15:02.160 dealing with Roman Catholics because it's not officially a dogma yet. 00:15:02.160 --> 00:15:04.640 And so it's really just those core four. 00:15:04.640 --> 00:15:08.160 And so in summary, Theatokos, you have to accept it because that's 00:15:08.160 --> 00:15:12.240 the teaching of the creeds, it's the teaching of the scriptures, it's 00:15:12.240 --> 00:15:14.400 the teaching of Christianity. 00:15:14.400 --> 00:15:19.520 Semper Virgo, you should reject, because it's false with regard to marriage. 00:15:19.520 --> 00:15:24.080 Immaculate conception you must reject because it is explicitly contrary to the 00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:25.520 clear teaching of scripture. 00:15:25.520 --> 00:15:27.840 And then the assumption of Mary. 00:15:27.840 --> 00:15:31.760 Honestly, that one's really neither here nor there, it's just it's part 00:15:32.320 --> 00:15:35.760 of this cloth they're building, this tapestry that's going to lead to 00:15:35.760 --> 00:15:37.040 worse things. 00:15:37.040 --> 00:15:40.320 But there's no proof of it, and there's no real proof against 00:15:40.320 --> 00:15:43.360 it. We don't have like the grave of Mary, we can say, 00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:47.040 well, no, Mary didn't get assumed into heaven because there she is. 00:15:47.040 --> 00:15:49.600 And we also don't have the testimony of the ancient church when 00:15:49.760 --> 00:15:53.200 else saying she was assumed into heaven, so that one is just 00:15:53.200 --> 00:15:57.440 a weird myth they've made up. 00:15:57.440 --> 00:16:00.720 So that So that sort of covers the answer to 00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:04.960 that particular question, so I'll move on to the second question. 00:16:04.960 --> 00:16:08.320 This one is about Christianity in the Third Reich. 00:16:08.320 --> 00:16:12.000 Let me pull up the actual wording of the question here 00:16:14.160 --> 00:16:17.280 I was hoping you could speak on the state of Christianity in 00:16:17.280 --> 00:16:18.560 the Third Reich. 00:16:18.560 --> 00:16:21.600 Growing up I was fed the line that the confessing church was 00:16:21.600 --> 00:16:26.160 full of good guys everyone's fed that line, who stood against German 00:16:26.160 --> 00:16:29.600 Christians. Over the past several years it has become obvious to me 00:16:29.680 --> 00:16:33.120 the confessing church was full of men who were less than orthodox. 00:16:33.120 --> 00:16:35.920 I am aware of the issues of men like Bonhoeffer, but I 00:16:35.920 --> 00:16:37.600 was surprised to find that Sassau was weak. 00:16:38.560 --> 00:16:41.200 He very much was on the issues of the young earth and 00:16:41.200 --> 00:16:42.880 some other things as well. 00:16:42.880 --> 00:16:46.480 I have started reading the book on positive Christianity, put out by 00:16:46.480 --> 00:16:49.760 Sacra Press, but I have not gotten very far yet. 00:16:49.760 --> 00:16:54.080 Ultimately my question is were there any Orthodox teachers in Germany during 00:16:54.080 --> 00:16:56.560 the nineteen thirties and nineteen forties? 00:16:56.560 --> 00:16:59.440 And so of course I would recommend finishing that book. 00:16:59.440 --> 00:17:02.480 You can also just read the twenty eight Theses of the German 00:17:02.480 --> 00:17:04.960 Christians. I am the one who translated that. 00:17:04.960 --> 00:17:06.480 It's available on my website as well. 00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:10.080 I'll put a link in the show notes for that one. 00:17:10.080 --> 00:17:15.040 The question of were there Orthodox teachers in Germany is yes, there 00:17:15.040 --> 00:17:17.920 were. In fact, there were much better teachers in Germany than basically 00:17:18.320 --> 00:17:23.200 anywhere else at the time, with regard particularly to Lutheranism, but Christianity 00:17:23.200 --> 00:17:24.560 generally. And 00:17:25.440 --> 00:17:30.080 some of those names there are people who would definitely immediately know 00:17:30.080 --> 00:17:30.640 those names. 00:17:30.640 --> 00:17:34.400 The one that would be most known by including many American pastors 00:17:34.640 --> 00:17:38.640 would be Kittle, uh K-I-T-T-E-L. 00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:41.440 And the reason that that would be known is because they probably 00:17:41.440 --> 00:17:46.400 have his books on their shelves, because he produced a multi volume 00:17:46.400 --> 00:17:52.640 series basically on church history and theology that everyone still uses, despite 00:17:52.640 --> 00:17:53.280 the fact that he was 00:17:54.560 --> 00:17:58.320 very pro-National Socialist. 00:17:58.320 --> 00:18:01.360 So he's still used, he's still read, and he was a th 00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:03.520 sound theologian, confessional. 00:18:03.520 --> 00:18:07.040 There is, of course, a caveat that I'm going That I'm going 00:18:07.040 --> 00:18:10.160 to give with regard to any of this, because I'm never going 00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:13.840 to give just a blanket everything this man said was perfect and 00:18:13.840 --> 00:18:16.240 he is the perfect theologian because no one is. 00:18:16.240 --> 00:18:19.920 Everyone's going to have something he believed was a little off, or 00:18:20.080 --> 00:18:23.520 something he could have worded better, something like that. 00:18:23.520 --> 00:18:26.720 That's obviously true with many. 00:18:26.720 --> 00:18:28.560 And that's true with these men as well. 00:18:28.560 --> 00:18:31.360 So you also have Ellert and Althouse would be two other men 00:18:31.360 --> 00:18:35.520 I could name for Orthodox Lutheran teachers in this period, there are 00:18:35.520 --> 00:18:39.280 small things with which I would quibble, but by and large, these 00:18:39.280 --> 00:18:42.560 are orthodox teachers of the Christian faith. 00:18:42.560 --> 00:18:42.880 But 00:18:43.920 --> 00:18:49.360 the real answer to the question that's sort of the preliminary answer. 00:18:49.360 --> 00:18:54.800 The real answer is that there were thousands, because there were many 00:18:54.800 --> 00:18:58.720 faithful parish pastors who day in and day out taught the faith 00:18:59.200 --> 00:19:04.960 truthfully under the Third Reich, because Christianity was not persecuted, Christianity was 00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:08.960 not attacked, they were building churches, they supported the churches. 00:19:08.960 --> 00:19:10.720 It was a Christian movement. 00:19:10.720 --> 00:19:15.120 And so you had many thousands of men who were Orthodox, small 00:19:15.120 --> 00:19:19.760 O Orthodox, teachers of the Christian faith in the Third Reich. 00:19:19.760 --> 00:19:23.760 And you're not going to know those men's names because they just 00:19:23.760 --> 00:19:26.960 did their duty day in and day out Because a parish pastor 00:19:26.960 --> 00:19:30.000 is not supposed to be known really outside his parish. 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:31.520 Because that's his duty. 00:19:31.520 --> 00:19:34.640 He has a flock God has given him to take care of, 00:19:34.640 --> 00:19:37.760 to look after them, and that is what he's supposed to do. 00:19:37.760 --> 00:19:39.600 And so you have many faithful men 00:19:41.120 --> 00:19:44.960 in Germany and other parts of Europe at this point in time, 00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:47.680 and you'll never know their names until you get to paradise, and 00:19:47.680 --> 00:19:49.040 then you'll get to meet them. 00:19:49.040 --> 00:19:52.960 So, yes, the answer is there were many faithful men, including some 00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:58.000 well-known theologians, including some your pastor probably has on his shelves. 00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:03.680 Particularly Kittle would be the best example of that. 00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:07.200 Guess I'll answer next. 00:20:07.200 --> 00:20:11.280 I saw a quick question in the chat just before we started 00:20:11.360 --> 00:20:15.040 here asking if I saw that Doug Wilson had responded to my 00:20:15.040 --> 00:20:17.200 debate with James White, and the answer is no. 00:20:17.200 --> 00:20:21.120 And I may not read it because I honestly don't care. 00:20:21.120 --> 00:20:25.520 But the larger question there sort of is are those men even 00:20:25.520 --> 00:20:26.240 relevant anymore? 00:20:26.240 --> 00:20:27.680 And the answer is no. 00:20:27.680 --> 00:20:32.560 Doug Wilson is sort of vaguely relevant in his tiny little bubble 00:20:32.560 --> 00:20:37.120 at this point, and that influences shrieking and also just the fact 00:20:37.120 --> 00:20:40.720 that how much longer he will be alive is an open question 00:20:40.800 --> 00:20:44.080 because he's getting older and he's not in the best of health. 00:20:44.080 --> 00:20:48.080 To be quite frank, he should lose weight. 00:20:48.080 --> 00:20:52.080 It's Christian to tell him that, because if you have a supposedly 00:20:52.080 --> 00:20:54.720 Christian brother, which I hope that he will repent and come back 00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:56.000 to the fold, I don't. 00:20:56.000 --> 00:20:58.640 He will, but I wish that he would. 00:20:58.640 --> 00:21:01.280 It is one of your Christian duties to tell him you need 00:21:01.280 --> 00:21:02.640 to lose some weight. 00:21:02.640 --> 00:21:05.680 Because it's bad for you and it's not fitting for someone in 00:21:05.680 --> 00:21:07.760 the office of pastor. 00:21:07.760 --> 00:21:11.840 But both of those men have chosen to sort of set fire 00:21:11.840 --> 00:21:14.640 to their legacy and become irrelevant. 00:21:14.640 --> 00:21:18.560 And so they can do whatever they're doing off in their corner. 00:21:18.560 --> 00:21:21.600 They're not part of what we're g doing going forward. 00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:28.400 The next question is about the Nephilim, which this one comes up 00:21:28.400 --> 00:21:31.840 occasionally, so I may as well answer it here. 00:21:31.840 --> 00:21:35.680 Do you hold to the Sethite kingly or angelic explanation for the 00:21:35.680 --> 00:21:37.440 Nephilim and their tribes? 00:21:37.440 --> 00:21:40.560 Do you think a better understanding of the angelic explanation is that 00:21:40.560 --> 00:21:44.800 the angels or watchers use genetic manipulation instead of genetic contribution to 00:21:44.800 --> 00:21:46.160 their offspring? 00:21:47.440 --> 00:21:51.040 This is one of those questions where we do not fully know 00:21:51.040 --> 00:21:51.680 the answer. 00:21:51.680 --> 00:21:54.960 I don't think we can fully know the answer until we get 00:21:54.960 --> 00:21:58.160 to paradise, and even then it will be irrelevant because by then 00:21:58.240 --> 00:21:59.840 who cares? 00:21:59.840 --> 00:22:06.880 But insofar as speculation goes, I can certainly say angels are spirit 00:22:06.880 --> 00:22:12.160 beings. They are permitted to have a body, a physical body, only 00:22:12.160 --> 00:22:15.760 when God permits it, and it seems like only for very specific 00:22:15.760 --> 00:22:19.520 tasks. So you can think of the angels who visited Sodom and 00:22:19.520 --> 00:22:22.400 Gomorrah. They were physical. 00:22:22.400 --> 00:22:25.120 But God gave them something specific to do. 00:22:25.120 --> 00:22:28.080 That's why they had bodies at that time. 00:22:28.080 --> 00:22:31.120 Did they have bodies in the sense where they could have produced 00:22:31.120 --> 00:22:33.680 children? I don't think so. 00:22:33.680 --> 00:22:35.440 I don't think that they did. 00:22:35.440 --> 00:22:38.800 I don't think, I certainly don't think that God would permit demons, 00:22:38.800 --> 00:22:42.240 fallen angels to to produce children. 00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:44.960 They are a different thing from what we are. 00:22:44.960 --> 00:22:48.800 And so I don't think there's biological compatibility there. 00:22:48.800 --> 00:22:52.400 I don't think that the Nephilim are children of angels and human 00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:57.200 women. I think that it's speaking of the wicked versus the elect, 00:22:57.200 --> 00:22:59.680 the righteous versus the evil. 00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:05.040 And could there be manipulation with regard to fallen angels? 00:23:05.040 --> 00:23:07.200 I think that's probably true. 00:23:07.200 --> 00:23:12.240 Because Because we know that demons can influence the physical world in 00:23:12.240 --> 00:23:13.360 certain ways. 00:23:13.360 --> 00:23:15.760 The question is where is the line? 00:23:15.760 --> 00:23:17.760 I don't know where God drew that line. 00:23:17.760 --> 00:23:21.040 God did not give us the rules of engagement for demons. 00:23:21.040 --> 00:23:23.200 It might be nice to have those. 00:23:23.200 --> 00:23:27.520 It would certainly help figuring out what's demonic and what's not, but 00:23:27.520 --> 00:23:28.960 we don't have those rules. 00:23:28.960 --> 00:23:31.600 And so we don't really know. 00:23:31.600 --> 00:23:35.200 Scripture is not particularly thorough on this point. 00:23:35.200 --> 00:23:37.920 And it's not to say that scripture should be thorough, it's to 00:23:37.920 --> 00:23:40.160 say that we don't need to know. 00:23:40.160 --> 00:23:43.040 If we needed to know, God would have told us. 00:23:43.040 --> 00:23:47.280 And so I know that men get very interested in the Nephilim 00:23:47.440 --> 00:23:51.040 and things like that and all these parts of scripture where it's 00:23:51.040 --> 00:23:54.720 left open and vague and it draws people in. 00:23:54.720 --> 00:23:57.840 I think it's best to just leave these things alone. 00:23:57.840 --> 00:24:00.960 There's no reason to get invested in this stuff. 00:24:00.960 --> 00:24:03.520 It's not important to your faith. 00:24:03.520 --> 00:24:07.760 It's not going to change anything with regard to your faith. 00:24:07.760 --> 00:24:11.360 And in large part this stuff is so far in the past 00:24:11.360 --> 00:24:13.920 that it is essentially irrelevant at this point. 00:24:13.920 --> 00:24:15.360 Is it interesting? 00:24:15.360 --> 00:24:17.120 Perhaps. But 00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:20.960 there's no knowable answer in this life. 00:24:20.960 --> 00:24:24.960 And so there's no amount of investigation where you're going to arrive 00:24:24.960 --> 00:24:26.640 at a definitive answer. 00:24:26.640 --> 00:24:30.480 And so it is a distraction where you could spend that time 00:24:30.480 --> 00:24:31.840 on better things. 00:24:31.840 --> 00:24:35.920 So I think the short answer is that can demons influence the 00:24:35.920 --> 00:24:36.640 physical world? 00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:37.840 Sure, we know that. 00:24:37.840 --> 00:24:39.920 Demonic possession is a thing. 00:24:39.920 --> 00:24:43.920 And so could they influence genetics as part of that? 00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:46.160 Maybe. We don't know. 00:24:46.160 --> 00:24:49.760 I don't think that you have hybrids though, because again, angels are 00:24:49.760 --> 00:24:55.120 spirit beings, not human beings that have a human body and then 00:24:55.440 --> 00:24:57.600 like a super soul or something. 00:24:57.600 --> 00:24:58.560 So it doesn't work. 00:24:58.560 --> 00:25:02.240 The biology doesn't work there for the the half breed thing, which 00:25:02.240 --> 00:25:03.840 is basically fanfiction. 00:25:03.840 --> 00:25:05.920 You have the book of Enoch and things like that, you're talking 00:25:05.920 --> 00:25:07.600 about Jewish fan fiction. 00:25:07.600 --> 00:25:13.440 And so I'm not going to put much stock in that. 00:25:13.440 --> 00:25:19.040 The next question is about evolution and some related things. 00:25:19.040 --> 00:25:23.040 In the Stone Choir episode where you discussed evolution being debunked by 00:25:23.040 --> 00:25:30.160 natural selection, being deleterious, it's more specifically that the mutations 00:25:30.160 --> 00:25:31.840 are deleterious. 00:25:31.840 --> 00:25:36.640 Does this point to the first men being visibly similar to Europeans 00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:38.080 or Americans? 00:25:38.080 --> 00:25:41.680 We have the largest set of possible physical characteristics when compared to 00:25:41.680 --> 00:25:44.480 non-japhithetic races, that's true. 00:25:44.480 --> 00:25:46.960 Eye color, hair color, things like that. 00:25:46.960 --> 00:25:49.360 Particularly regarding coloration. 00:25:49.360 --> 00:25:50.880 Yeah, exactly. 00:25:50.880 --> 00:25:51.200 So 00:25:52.640 --> 00:25:56.880 I I think we can probably fairly conclude that Adam was fair 00:25:56.960 --> 00:26:00.240 skinned. Can we say what shade of fair skinned he was? 00:26:00.240 --> 00:26:01.200 I don't think so. 00:26:01.200 --> 00:26:03.280 Scripture doesn't tell us. 00:26:03.280 --> 00:26:09.440 But if you look at dark skin, that is an adaptation with 00:26:09.440 --> 00:26:14.720 regard to exposure, particularly to high levels of ultraviolet radiation, because it 00:26:14.720 --> 00:26:15.680 protects you from that. 00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:16.880 We all know that. 00:26:16.880 --> 00:26:20.400 Blacks can sunburn, despite the fact that many of them don't even 00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:24.400 know that, they can sunburn, but it takes them longer. 00:26:24.400 --> 00:26:27.840 Which makes perfect sense because they're supposed to live in an equatorial 00:26:27.840 --> 00:26:30.480 region, not areas that get snow. 00:26:30.480 --> 00:26:32.640 And so for those of us who are native to areas that 00:26:32.640 --> 00:26:36.480 do in fact get snow, we need lighter skin because we need 00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:40.480 more of those wavelengths for vitamin D and various other health reasons. 00:26:40.480 --> 00:26:46.240 And so the adaptations don't make any sense for Adam in the 00:26:46.240 --> 00:26:51.760 state of perfection because ultraviolet radiation wasn't a problem. 00:26:51.760 --> 00:26:55.520 God didn't set it up so that in the world pre-fall you 00:26:55.520 --> 00:26:57.280 could have had skin cancer. 00:26:57.280 --> 00:27:00.960 And so protection from ultraviolet would not have been a thing. 00:27:00.960 --> 00:27:04.880 So it does seem to follow that darker skin tones that are 00:27:04.880 --> 00:27:11.360 part of evolution post-fall would not have been part of Adam, except 00:27:11.760 --> 00:27:14.960 insofar as they were possible in his genome. 00:27:14.960 --> 00:27:18.240 And so again, you get the evolution due to the loss of 00:27:18.240 --> 00:27:19.600 information over time. 00:27:19.600 --> 00:27:23.760 And this also follows because we have descriptions of some of the 00:27:23.760 --> 00:27:24.720 sons of 00:27:26.480 --> 00:27:29.760 the sons of the sons of sons of Noah, depending on where 00:27:29.760 --> 00:27:33.280 exactly it is in the timeline, and they're described as being fair 00:27:33.440 --> 00:27:36.960 skinned. They're described as being able to blush and things like that, 00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:40.400 which only those of us who have fair skin can blush. 00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:45.520 Yes, you can have the physiological response in those with much darker 00:27:45.520 --> 00:27:47.360 skin, but you don't see it. 00:27:47.360 --> 00:27:49.920 And so you would not comment on it because it's not something 00:27:49.920 --> 00:27:51.120 that's visible. 00:27:51.120 --> 00:27:56.320 And so when we're dealing with the men in scripture, we're basically 00:27:56.320 --> 00:27:59.360 dealing with almost all men who are in fact fair skinned. 00:27:59.360 --> 00:28:04.880 We would recognize them as having a European style phenotype or an 00:28:04.880 --> 00:28:08.080 ancient Mediterranean phenotype. 00:28:08.080 --> 00:28:11.920 Because all of the areas around the Mediterranean in ancient times, those 00:28:11.920 --> 00:28:15.280 men were fair skinned, with the exception of those who came from 00:28:15.280 --> 00:28:19.200 other parts deeper into Africa for trading and purposes like that. 00:28:19.200 --> 00:28:23.520 So for instance we do have Ethiopians in the Old Testament. 00:28:23.520 --> 00:28:27.040 We have some of them who traded with and actually it's one 00:28:27.040 --> 00:28:29.840 of the reasons they had Christianity very early on. 00:28:29.840 --> 00:28:34.400 They were in trading relationships with Old Testament Israel. 00:28:34.400 --> 00:28:37.360 So they had access to the scriptures and things like that, which 00:28:37.360 --> 00:28:39.680 basically no one else did at the time. 00:28:39.680 --> 00:28:41.440 They would have been dark skinned. 00:28:41.440 --> 00:28:44.880 The Ethiopians were dark they're called Ethiopians because it means burnt face 00:28:44.880 --> 00:28:45.680 in Greek. 00:28:45.680 --> 00:28:47.360 They were dark skinned. 00:28:47.360 --> 00:28:51.680 But by and large, the men in scripture are fair skinned. 00:28:51.680 --> 00:28:53.360 Christ was fair skinned. 00:28:53.360 --> 00:28:56.640 He probably had light brown hair, not he was probably wasn't blonde 00:28:56.800 --> 00:29:01.360 with you know blue eyes, but he had fair skin and light 00:29:01.360 --> 00:29:02.160 brown hair. 00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:06.480 That's the most likely thing given the period and the artwork that 00:29:06.480 --> 00:29:10.320 we have from those shortly after that period Period depicting him. 00:29:10.320 --> 00:29:13.520 So with regard to Adam, yes, he was fair skinned, but I'm 00:29:13.520 --> 00:29:16.720 not going to guess he was, you know, pale, copper, whatever it 00:29:16.720 --> 00:29:18.160 happens to be. 00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:22.560 He wasn't black is sort of one of the short answers there. 00:29:24.560 --> 00:29:29.520 The next question is about the descent into hell. 00:29:29.520 --> 00:29:30.160 Let me 00:29:31.440 --> 00:29:34.640 see where that one went. 00:29:41.040 --> 00:29:43.680 I think the question has disappeared. 00:29:47.680 --> 00:29:50.320 Well, I know what the question is about, so I can just 00:29:50.320 --> 00:29:52.400 answer the question and then 00:29:53.840 --> 00:29:57.120 link to it when I figure out where the question is actually 00:29:57.120 --> 00:29:58.560 gone. But 00:29:59.760 --> 00:30:05.120 the question is basically, what was the descent into hell? 00:30:05.120 --> 00:30:09.680 Because obviously the creed speaks about he descended into hell, the third 00:30:09.680 --> 00:30:11.520 day he rose again from the dead, etc. 00:30:11.600 --> 00:30:17.120 etc. And this is one of those questions on which there is 00:30:17.120 --> 00:30:20.000 disagreement among Christians. 00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.560 There is not disagreement among Lutherans, incidentally, because we all hold to 00:30:24.560 --> 00:30:26.640 the solid declaration on this one. 00:30:26.800 --> 00:30:30.720 And the solid declaration of the formula of Concord is very clear 00:30:30.720 --> 00:30:33.520 on this point. 00:30:33.520 --> 00:30:36.720 Let me just go ahead and pull that up so we can 00:30:36.720 --> 00:30:37.760 look at it. 00:30:37.760 --> 00:30:42.080 And we'll read part of it. 00:30:42.080 --> 00:30:44.400 So Christ ascent into hell. 00:30:44.400 --> 00:30:45.600 This is Article 9. 00:30:45.600 --> 00:30:49.360 I will just read the second and third paragraph. 00:30:49.360 --> 00:30:52.640 And we simply believe that the entire person, God and man, after 00:30:52.960 --> 00:30:57.760 the burial, descended into hell, conquered the devil, destroyed the power of 00:30:57.760 --> 00:31:00.640 hell, and took from the devil all his might. 00:31:00.640 --> 00:31:04.000 We should not, however, trouble ourselves with high and acute thoughts, thoughts 00:31:04.160 --> 00:31:05.920 as to how this occurred. 00:31:05.920 --> 00:31:09.280 For with our reason and our five senses, this article can be 00:31:09.280 --> 00:31:13.280 comprehended as little as the preceding one, how Christ is placed at 00:31:13.280 --> 00:31:16.560 the right hand of the almighty power and majesty of God. 00:31:16.560 --> 00:31:19.200 But we are simply to believe it and adhere to the word 00:31:19.360 --> 00:31:21.200 in such mysteries of faith. 00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:25.840 Thus we retain the substance, the sound doctrine, and true consolation, that 00:31:25.840 --> 00:31:29.280 neither hell nor the devil can take captive or injure us, and 00:31:29.280 --> 00:31:31.120 all who believe in Christ. 00:31:31.280 --> 00:31:38.160 And so the teaching here, and the important distinction, so between Lutherans 00:31:38.160 --> 00:31:42.080 and some of the Christians, and I think this is obvious from 00:31:42.080 --> 00:31:47.280 scripture and obvious from the creed, the descent into hell is not 00:31:47.600 --> 00:31:50.800 part of Christ's state of humiliation. 00:31:50.800 --> 00:31:54.640 And if you're not familiar with the theological terms of these, the 00:31:54.640 --> 00:31:58.800 state of humiliation is basically depends on which sense you're using, but 00:31:58.800 --> 00:32:03.600 it's either his entire time on earth, or it is the trials 00:32:03.600 --> 00:32:07.120 and tribulations of the last few days of his life. 00:32:07.120 --> 00:32:11.680 But at any rate, it is his suffering, it is his being 00:32:12.240 --> 00:32:16.240 cursed in the place of sin on our behalf. 00:32:16.240 --> 00:32:18.880 And so you have the state of humiliation, and then you have 00:32:18.880 --> 00:32:20.800 the state of exaltation. 00:32:20.800 --> 00:32:25.200 The descent into hell is part of the state of exaltation. 00:32:25.200 --> 00:32:29.360 It is him going to hell and declaring his victory. 00:32:29.360 --> 00:32:32.400 He's preaching, which is one of the things that Luther says about 00:32:32.400 --> 00:32:34.960 it. I don't have the quote here, but he is proclaiming his 00:32:35.120 --> 00:32:35.360 victory 00:32:36.320 --> 00:32:39.520 to the devil and his fallen angels, and perhaps also to those 00:32:39.520 --> 00:32:40.480 in hell. 00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:46.400 Lutherans don't hold to the release of those in limbo because we 00:32:46.400 --> 00:32:48.880 don't hold to limbo being a thing. 00:32:49.040 --> 00:32:51.440 The Roman Catholics are going to hold to that, that's going to 00:32:51.440 --> 00:32:54.960 be part of their argument, but the big division is whether you 00:32:54.960 --> 00:32:59.040 hold it to be part of the state of humiliation or part 00:32:59.040 --> 00:33:00.480 of the state of exaltation. 00:33:00.480 --> 00:33:04.400 And I think that from both the Creeds, again and Scripture you 00:33:04.400 --> 00:33:07.840 clearly have to argue, you have to believe, that it is part 00:33:07.840 --> 00:33:10.160 of the exaltation. 00:33:10.160 --> 00:33:14.160 And the clearest warrant for that is what does Christ say on 00:33:14.160 --> 00:33:15.520 the cross? 00:33:15.520 --> 00:33:17.440 It is finished. 00:33:17.440 --> 00:33:22.000 Well, if the descent into hell is part of the state of 00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:26.800 humiliation, then it is part of his work, and then it's not 00:33:26.800 --> 00:33:30.400 finished, which would contradict what he said on the cross. 00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:33.600 So I think you have to conclude it is part of his 00:33:33.840 --> 00:33:38.160 state of exaltation, it's proclaiming victory, not part of his suffering. 00:33:38.160 --> 00:33:39.920 He didn't go to hell to suffer. 00:33:39.920 --> 00:33:46.960 He went to hell to proclaim that he had won. 00:33:46.960 --> 00:33:51.040 Those are the questions that I have for today written down, but 00:33:51.040 --> 00:33:53.520 I saw a few in the chat, I'll scroll back and see 00:33:53.520 --> 00:33:57.600 if I can find those. 00:33:57.600 --> 00:34:01.040 Ah yes, that's I found the descent into hell question is in 00:34:01.040 --> 00:34:05.440 fact in the chat, so I will copy and quote that in 00:34:05.440 --> 00:34:12.240 the show notes. 00:34:12.240 --> 00:34:16.960 Will you address the contradictions between James and Paul around salvation through 00:34:16.960 --> 00:34:18.800 faith versus works? 00:34:19.120 --> 00:34:22.240 No matter how many times I read it, I cannot reconcile the 00:34:22.240 --> 00:34:26.320 two. I commented on that last week actually, and 00:34:27.840 --> 00:34:30.960 I can go over that just briefly again, because it's always a 00:34:30.960 --> 00:34:35.360 a point that comes up and it's worth addressing. 00:34:35.360 --> 00:34:42.400 The issue between seemingly the contradiction between faith and works 00:34:42.720 --> 00:34:45.920 is sort of an order of operations. 00:34:45.920 --> 00:34:48.080 You are saved by faith. 00:34:48.080 --> 00:34:50.400 You can be saved only by faith. 00:34:50.400 --> 00:34:53.440 And the reason that you can be saved only by faith is 00:34:53.440 --> 00:34:55.920 that it is faith in Christ. 00:34:55.920 --> 00:34:57.520 And that is what saves you. 00:34:57.520 --> 00:35:01.200 Because you are saved by works, but you're saved by Christ's works, 00:35:01.200 --> 00:35:02.560 not yours. 00:35:02.560 --> 00:35:05.440 Because sin is an infinite debt. 00:35:05.440 --> 00:35:07.840 And the reason that sin is an infinite debt, and the reason 00:35:07.840 --> 00:35:11.680 I have to explain this is because this is an understanding that 00:35:11.680 --> 00:35:14.880 has fallen away in modern times because our legal system has become 00:35:14.880 --> 00:35:16.000 so corrupt. 00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:22.080 But we used to understand that the nature of a transgression is 00:35:23.040 --> 00:35:25.440 partly incumbent. 00:35:25.440 --> 00:35:30.560 It relies partly upon the nature of the person against whom the 00:35:30.560 --> 00:35:32.480 transgression was committed. 00:35:32.480 --> 00:35:36.800 Another, perhaps clearer and easier to understand way of saying that Is 00:35:36.800 --> 00:35:41.920 that the person you wronged matters for the nature of your transgression, 00:35:41.920 --> 00:35:44.480 your crime, your sin? 00:35:44.480 --> 00:35:47.760 And the best example of this, and the one that I usually 00:35:47.760 --> 00:35:50.640 use, is we used to understand that there were different kinds of 00:35:51.120 --> 00:35:56.720 treason, because there's high treason, treason committed against your sovereign, and then 00:35:56.720 --> 00:36:01.280 there's petty, which is just the French for small, not petty in 00:36:01.280 --> 00:36:04.400 the sense of what we think of petty these days, petty in 00:36:04.400 --> 00:36:05.680 the sense of lesser. 00:36:05.680 --> 00:36:10.640 So not high treason, not against the king, but petty treason, against 00:36:10.640 --> 00:36:14.160 someone in a position of headship over you. 00:36:14.160 --> 00:36:18.400 The most common version of that would be either your local lord, 00:36:18.400 --> 00:36:21.760 or if you are a woman, your husband, or if you're a 00:36:21.760 --> 00:36:23.680 child, your father. 00:36:23.680 --> 00:36:28.160 And so the transgression is worse because it is committed against someone 00:36:28.160 --> 00:36:31.760 to whom you owe a certain sort of loyalty and duty. 00:36:31.760 --> 00:36:32.080 And 00:36:33.040 --> 00:36:36.800 we would also recognize that a crime committed against your own child 00:36:36.800 --> 00:36:40.560 is worse, because you owe them a particular sort of duty. 00:36:40.560 --> 00:36:45.200 In the case of sin, the transgression is against God. 00:36:45.200 --> 00:36:49.120 God's dignity is infinite because he is God. 00:36:49.120 --> 00:36:53.840 And so the transgression that is sin is infinite because of the 00:36:53.840 --> 00:36:58.640 nature of the one against whom you have transgressed, and so is 00:36:58.800 --> 00:37:02.000 only the infinite work of Christ that can be set in the 00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:03.600 scales against that. 00:37:03.600 --> 00:37:07.840 That's why nothing you do can ever save you, it's why those 00:37:07.840 --> 00:37:12.000 who are in hell are there for eternity, because they have elected 00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:14.800 to refuse Christ's gift. 00:37:14.800 --> 00:37:18.080 They have re elected to refuse faith, and so what they are 00:37:18.080 --> 00:37:20.560 doing in hell is paying off their debt. 00:37:21.280 --> 00:37:25.120 The problem is their debt is infinite, and they are finite, and 00:37:25.120 --> 00:37:27.760 so it can never be paid in full, and so hell is 00:37:27.760 --> 00:37:33.120 eternal. And so you are saved by faith, but you are not 00:37:33.120 --> 00:37:37.200 saved in the word of James by faith alone. 00:37:37.200 --> 00:37:39.520 What he means by that, and I know it sounds crazy to 00:37:39.520 --> 00:37:42.320 hear that coming from a Lutheran, but what he means by that 00:37:42.640 --> 00:37:47.760 is that a faith that is alone, a faith that does not 00:37:47.760 --> 00:37:50.720 produce good works is not faith. 00:37:50.720 --> 00:37:51.760 It's a dead faith. 00:37:51.760 --> 00:37:53.200 It's not a living faith. 00:37:53.200 --> 00:37:55.840 And so again, that's one of the reasons that we put the 00:37:55.840 --> 00:37:57.200 things we put on the challenge coin. 00:37:57.200 --> 00:38:00.240 I lifted up one up and I showed it last time. 00:38:00.240 --> 00:38:00.640 But But 00:38:01.600 --> 00:38:04.640 a good tree produces good works. 00:38:04.640 --> 00:38:08.000 And so if your faith is living, your faith is the good 00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:10.560 tree producing those good works. 00:38:10.560 --> 00:38:15.120 If your faith doesn't produce good works, it is producing bad fruit, 00:38:15.120 --> 00:38:18.560 which is say the absence of good works, it's a bad tree, 00:38:18.560 --> 00:38:20.000 it's a dead faith. 00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:21.840 Dead faith can't save you. 00:38:21.840 --> 00:38:24.160 And so there's no contradiction there. 00:38:24.160 --> 00:38:28.480 You just have to understand again sort of the order of operations. 00:38:28.480 --> 00:38:32.240 You're saved by faith, and then because your faith is living, it 00:38:32.240 --> 00:38:34.000 produces good works. 00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:37.040 And we should also look at good works as a gift from 00:38:37.040 --> 00:38:40.640 God. It does say that, you know, good works were prepared beforehand 00:38:40.720 --> 00:38:41.760 that you should walk in them. 00:38:41.760 --> 00:38:44.080 God is the one who set up these things for you to 00:38:44.080 --> 00:38:48.640 do. But one of the reasons he did that is because you 00:38:48.640 --> 00:38:52.560 can look to the good works that your faith is producing and 00:38:52.560 --> 00:38:56.960 be assured of your salvation because you recognize that your faith is 00:38:56.960 --> 00:38:59.680 living in producing those good works. 00:38:59.680 --> 00:39:02.080 So it's actually it's good news. 00:39:02.080 --> 00:39:05.680 It's not law, it's not saying you must or you will be 00:39:05.680 --> 00:39:06.560 damned. It's saying 00:39:07.440 --> 00:39:13.440 look at the consequences, the produce of your faith, and recognize that 00:39:13.520 --> 00:39:15.520 yes, you do indeed have a living faith. 00:39:15.520 --> 00:39:17.360 It is a faith that will save you. 00:39:17.360 --> 00:39:19.440 And so there's no contradiction there. 00:39:19.440 --> 00:39:25.360 It's just necessary to understand the different authors are teaching different things. 00:39:25.360 --> 00:39:28.480 What Paul is teaching is how you are saved. 00:39:28.480 --> 00:39:31.920 What James is saying is don't be a hypocrite. 00:39:31.920 --> 00:39:35.120 Don't say, Well, I'm a child of Abraham, and so it doesn't 00:39:35.040 --> 00:39:36.640 matter what I do, I'll be saved. 00:39:36.640 --> 00:39:39.120 He's doing the same thing that John the Baptist does. 00:39:39.120 --> 00:39:42.560 God could raise up for Abraham's sons from these stones. 00:39:42.560 --> 00:39:45.840 You have to have a living faith, and a living faith produces 00:39:45.840 --> 00:39:54.240 good works. 00:39:54.240 --> 00:39:58.160 Can the tree of knowledge be translated into a racial or genetic 00:39:58.160 --> 00:40:02.720 way, much like sowing seeds and bearing fruit are reproductive terms? 00:40:02.720 --> 00:40:05.200 Does eating the fruit mean race mixing? 00:40:05.200 --> 00:40:06.400 I don't think so. 00:40:06.400 --> 00:40:12.000 That starts to get into sort of Christian identity kind of territory. 00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:17.360 And I don't think that that is anywhere warranted in the text. 00:40:17.360 --> 00:40:22.800 So race mixing is a problem that is addressed in other places 00:40:22.800 --> 00:40:23.760 in Scripture. 00:40:23.760 --> 00:40:27.760 It's addressed when the foreign wives are said to be put away 00:40:27.760 --> 00:40:31.040 because they're leading men into idolatry and other problems. 00:40:31.040 --> 00:40:34.560 It is condemned, quite frankly, in a number of different places, but 00:40:34.560 --> 00:40:37.360 the key one would be the fourth commandment. 00:40:37.360 --> 00:40:39.760 Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother. 00:40:39.760 --> 00:40:42.240 Of course the rest is that mayest go well with you and 00:40:42.240 --> 00:40:44.400 thou wilt live long in the land, etc. 00:40:44.400 --> 00:40:47.360 So it's a commandment that has a promise, right? 00:40:47.760 --> 00:40:51.680 And one of the ways that you honor your father and mother 00:40:51.920 --> 00:40:56.800 is by honoring their fathers and mothers, so on and so forth 00:40:56.880 --> 00:40:58.880 back into the mists of time. 00:40:58.880 --> 00:41:01.360 And one of the ways you do that is preserving one of 00:41:01.600 --> 00:41:05.280 the most important things they gave you, which is your blood, your 00:41:05.280 --> 00:41:08.960 race. Because if you marry outside your race, you are going to 00:41:08.960 --> 00:41:12.000 have children that don't look like you, that don't look like your 00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:15.840 parents, or your grandparents, or your great grandparents, you are going to 00:41:15.840 --> 00:41:19.680 have squandered that patrimony that was given to you. 00:41:19.680 --> 00:41:23.920 And so it is dishonoring your father and mother. 00:41:23.920 --> 00:41:30.560 That is the most important argument with regard to opposing miscegenation is 00:41:30.560 --> 00:41:34.080 that it is ultimately a violation of the fourth commandment. 00:41:34.080 --> 00:41:36.320 It is a violation of other things as well. 00:41:36.320 --> 00:41:40.560 Obviously I could talk about the philosophical issues with regard to destroying 00:41:40.560 --> 00:41:46.080 that which is beautiful and just eliminating a particular group of people 00:41:46.400 --> 00:41:50.960 because God created the races of men, and so absent a compelling 00:41:50.960 --> 00:41:53.120 moral warrant, you should not get rid of them. 00:41:53.120 --> 00:41:56.560 And I have to add that caveat because obviously he commanded the 00:41:56.560 --> 00:41:58.320 Canaanites to be destroyed. 00:41:58.320 --> 00:42:02.320 That was the destruction of a race, right? 00:42:02.640 --> 00:42:05.920 That is permitted under certain circumstances. 00:42:05.920 --> 00:42:09.280 And so the general rule is that you should not destroy that 00:42:09.280 --> 00:42:12.720 which God has created, because the destruction of that which is good 00:42:12.800 --> 00:42:16.080 and everything God creates is good is evil. 00:42:16.080 --> 00:42:18.000 Absent a compelling moral warrant. 00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:21.200 Because of course we are We are permitted to, for instance, execute 00:42:21.200 --> 00:42:25.920 murderers. That would be the destruction of something that's good, but we're 00:42:25.920 --> 00:42:28.720 compelled to do that because of the moral warrant. 00:42:28.720 --> 00:42:32.960 And so that's one of the philosophical arguments against miscegenations, the destruction 00:42:32.960 --> 00:42:35.440 of the beautiful and the good and the good. 00:42:35.440 --> 00:42:40.080 But no, I don't think that the tree of knowledge and that 00:42:40.080 --> 00:42:42.800 is a matter of race and race mixing. 00:42:42.800 --> 00:42:47.680 It's a different thing. 00:42:50.960 --> 00:42:54.240 Trying to scroll and see if there's another question in the chat. 00:42:55.360 --> 00:42:58.320 Need to have someone collecting these for me so I can have 00:42:58.320 --> 00:43:00.720 a screen displaying them. 00:43:02.080 --> 00:43:06.000 My question wouldn't let me post, but is there are there issues 00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:10.240 being friends with someone who is three quarters European and a quarter 00:43:10.240 --> 00:43:16.400 Jewish? I don't think there's an inherent problem with that, but the 00:43:16.400 --> 00:43:17.360 problem is 00:43:18.320 --> 00:43:21.600 why are you still calling yourself Jewish? 00:43:21.600 --> 00:43:25.280 Why would a person who is a Christian refer to himself as 00:43:25.280 --> 00:43:27.360 being Jewish? 00:43:27.680 --> 00:43:30.640 That raises some questions. 00:43:30.640 --> 00:43:35.120 Because someone who has truly converted is going to have totally and 00:43:35.120 --> 00:43:36.080 completely rejected 00:43:37.040 --> 00:43:42.000 that identity because that identity, and yes, I mean it in the 00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:45.440 fullest sense in this case, not just the the modern sense of 00:43:45.440 --> 00:43:50.880 the term, is founded wholly on rejection of Christ. 00:43:50.880 --> 00:43:56.480 This is why it is different when a Jew converts versus anyone 00:43:56.480 --> 00:43:58.320 else in the world, basically. 00:43:58.320 --> 00:44:05.200 Because no other group is founded on a rejection of Christ and 00:44:05.200 --> 00:44:07.040 the Word of God. 00:44:07.040 --> 00:44:09.520 That's not a central part of any other group. 00:44:09.520 --> 00:44:13.600 And so when European pagans converted, yes, they had to give up 00:44:13.600 --> 00:44:18.240 their false gods, but they didn't have to repudiate their people and 00:44:18.240 --> 00:44:23.680 their history because it wasn't a foundational tenet of any European group 00:44:23.680 --> 00:44:27.520 to hate Jesus, to believe that he's boiling an excrement for all 00:44:27.520 --> 00:44:28.720 of eternity. 00:44:28.720 --> 00:44:32.880 That is central to the identity of what it means to be 00:44:32.880 --> 00:44:37.520 Jewish. And so they have hurdles that others do not. 00:44:37.520 --> 00:44:40.400 They are required to do things that others are not required to 00:44:40.400 --> 00:44:42.640 do to truly convert from that. 00:44:42.640 --> 00:44:47.440 We used to have in the confirmation rite and in the baptismal 00:44:47.440 --> 00:44:54.000 rite as well, in the Lutheran Church, explicit instructions for Jews to 00:44:54.240 --> 00:44:58.400 condemn the history of their people and to reject those things, because 00:44:58.400 --> 00:45:04.320 we recognized there was a difference for them because of the group 00:45:04.320 --> 00:45:07.840 of which they are part, because of the evil of their race 00:45:07.840 --> 00:45:11.600 historically. Guess I'll try not to get banned on YouTube for this 00:45:11.600 --> 00:45:13.840 one, but we'll see how that goes. 00:45:13.840 --> 00:45:18.720 So there are differences when it comes to that. 00:45:18.720 --> 00:45:24.000 If you are a quarter Jewish, an eighth Jewish, you need to 00:45:24.000 --> 00:45:27.040 stop identifying as Jewish. 00:45:27.040 --> 00:45:30.160 Because if you are still identifying as that, you are still clinging 00:45:30.160 --> 00:45:31.360 to that identity. 00:45:31.360 --> 00:45:36.320 And again, that identity is intimately linked with the wickedness of rejecting 00:45:36.320 --> 00:45:41.040 Christ, calling down that curse upon yourself, and being part of that 00:45:41.040 --> 00:45:47.280 people. That foundational identity is rejecting and blaspheming Christ. 00:45:47.280 --> 00:45:51.440 There's no way you can continue to identify it as that and 00:45:51.440 --> 00:45:53.920 have truly converted to Christianity. 00:45:53.920 --> 00:45:57.760 It's one of the reasons we went through in the Septuagint series 00:45:57.840 --> 00:46:00.880 and we're looking at Looking at the history of Jews who have 00:46:00.880 --> 00:46:05.520 converted or supposedly converted, in most cases it was a false conversion, 00:46:05.520 --> 00:46:09.920 but the ones who truly converted basically immediately went to the authorities 00:46:09.920 --> 00:46:11.920 and said, Do you have any idea what these Jews are doing 00:46:11.920 --> 00:46:13.360 in your territories and your lands? 00:46:13.360 --> 00:46:15.680 Do you have any idea what these people are doing how evil 00:46:15.680 --> 00:46:16.960 and wicked it is? 00:46:16.960 --> 00:46:18.720 That's a true conversion. 00:46:18.720 --> 00:46:23.840 It's a fundamentally different thing from just professing with the mouth and 00:46:23.840 --> 00:46:25.280 then doing nothing. 00:46:26.320 --> 00:46:30.240 Because there are plenty of conversos in history, there have been vanishingly 00:46:30.240 --> 00:46:32.720 few who have truly converted. 00:46:32.720 --> 00:46:36.800 And so, yes, there is a particular issue that is represented there 00:46:36.800 --> 00:46:40.080 with regard to Jewish converts to Christianity. 00:46:40.080 --> 00:46:44.560 And I think we all recognize that because we have seen many, 00:46:44.560 --> 00:46:50.000 even recently, high profile supposed converts to Christianity who have stabbed Christians 00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:52.720 in the back the first opportunity they had. 00:46:52.880 --> 00:46:57.440 And so this goes back perhaps to the issue of faith and 00:46:57.440 --> 00:46:59.760 works. Is it a living faith? 00:46:59.760 --> 00:47:01.520 Is it producing good works? 00:47:01.520 --> 00:47:04.800 Or is it producing no good works and rotten fruit? 00:47:04.800 --> 00:47:07.280 Because then it's a false conversion. 00:47:09.280 --> 00:47:13.440 Thoughts on the alliance between Germany and Japan in World War Two. 00:47:13.440 --> 00:47:17.680 Why did Japan not open a second front for the Soviet Union 00:47:17.680 --> 00:47:18.720 from the East? 00:47:18.720 --> 00:47:21.680 What alliances are wise for a Christian nation? 00:47:21.680 --> 00:47:25.600 I think I will probably comment on that one next time because 00:47:25.600 --> 00:47:27.680 it's sort of a broad topic. 00:47:27.680 --> 00:47:30.800 The short answer for Japan is they just didn't have the manpower 00:47:30.800 --> 00:47:31.680 and the fuel. 00:47:31.680 --> 00:47:33.680 They couldn't have done it. 00:47:33.680 --> 00:47:35.920 It would not have been a very successful campaign. 00:47:35.920 --> 00:47:40.560 They were already very much overstretched, overtaxed at that point in the 00:47:40.560 --> 00:47:42.480 war. 00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:46.800 What is my favorite Lord of the Rings movie? 00:47:46.800 --> 00:47:50.320 I don't know that I necessarily have one. 00:47:50.320 --> 00:47:53.520 Woe is the one who watches more movies and things, and this 00:47:53.520 --> 00:47:54.880 one always surprises people. 00:47:54.880 --> 00:47:59.040 Not that he watches more, but when people ask me questions about 00:47:59.040 --> 00:48:02.640 pop culture, just how little I know tends to surprise people. 00:48:02.640 --> 00:48:07.280 So if we are ever doing a game, a quiz at a 00:48:07.280 --> 00:48:10.720 pub or whatever, you need someone else who knows pop culture because 00:48:10.720 --> 00:48:12.880 I am going to get them all wrong. 00:48:19.040 --> 00:48:22.800 When confirmed I chose Saint Michael as my patron saint, why would 00:48:22.800 --> 00:48:25.360 the church offer a figure in the Bible with little to no 00:48:25.360 --> 00:48:27.280 information on him? 00:48:27.280 --> 00:48:31.200 There are many figures in the Bible with very little information, and 00:48:31.200 --> 00:48:33.120 some of them are very important. 00:48:33.120 --> 00:48:35.600 I mean Melchizedek. 00:48:35.600 --> 00:48:40.720 It says that Christ is a priest after the order of Melchizedek. 00:48:40.720 --> 00:48:45.840 Melchizedek appears from nowhere, brings out wine and bread, and then disappears 00:48:45.840 --> 00:48:47.200 into the ether. 00:48:47.440 --> 00:48:48.960 He's still pretty important. 00:48:48.960 --> 00:48:52.800 He's very important to the book of Hebrews, certainly, and the arguments 00:48:52.800 --> 00:48:54.400 presented therein. 00:48:54.400 --> 00:49:00.560 So I don't think that just because someone, some individual, has very 00:49:00.560 --> 00:49:06.240 little airtime, as it were, in Scripture, means that we can't hold 00:49:06.240 --> 00:49:09.280 that individual in high esteem and even have I don't believe in 00:49:09.280 --> 00:49:12.400 patron saints, of course, because I'm a Lutheran, not a Roman Catholic, 00:49:12.400 --> 00:49:14.880 but with regard to Saint Michael, it has always been held that 00:49:14.880 --> 00:49:20.160 Saint Michael is basically the protector of the Christian Church. 00:49:20.160 --> 00:49:26.320 And incidentally, I think there's possibly a wrinkle there this perhaps harkens 00:49:26.320 --> 00:49:28.720 back to the previous question. 00:49:28.720 --> 00:49:32.080 Historically, if you look at the pages of scripture, when it speaks 00:49:32.080 --> 00:49:36.000 of Saint Michael, he is the angel responsible for the protection of 00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:41.120 Old Testament Israel, but when you get to the New Testament, he's 00:49:41.120 --> 00:49:43.040 described as the protector of the church. 00:49:43.040 --> 00:49:48.400 Now that's not inconsistent, of course, because you have a large part 00:49:48.400 --> 00:49:51.760 of the church in a certain period of time in the Old 00:49:51.760 --> 00:49:54.960 Testament being Old Testament Israel. 00:49:54.960 --> 00:49:58.800 Now you have a difference, of course, between the nation of Old 00:49:58.800 --> 00:50:02.720 Testament Israel and the believers who are a subset of that nation. 00:50:02.720 --> 00:50:05.760 I'm not going to get into that in depth right now. 00:50:05.760 --> 00:50:12.800 But if you look at what happened there, the Jews lost their 00:50:12.800 --> 00:50:15.920 archangel. They lost their national angel. 00:50:15.920 --> 00:50:20.480 Because if you have the national angel of Old Testament Israel, as 00:50:20.480 --> 00:50:24.880 Saint Michael, and then he is the angel of the church. 00:50:24.880 --> 00:50:27.280 Well that means they don't have one anymore. 00:50:27.280 --> 00:50:30.960 And the reason for that is what they did in Pilate's courtyard. 00:50:30.960 --> 00:50:34.320 They chose a different angel as their national angel. 00:50:34.320 --> 00:50:35.520 They chose Satan. 00:50:35.520 --> 00:50:38.720 So they still have one, but it's not Saint Michael. 00:50:38.720 --> 00:50:42.000 So no, I think that Saint Michael is a a great symbol 00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:44.640 to use for the church because he is the protector of the 00:50:44.640 --> 00:50:48.800 church. It's very clear where scripture speaks of him in that role. 00:50:48.800 --> 00:50:52.080 And so no, I have no problem with Saint Michael, even if 00:50:52.080 --> 00:50:59.920 he's only mentioned a handful of times and not particularly in depth. 00:51:04.800 --> 00:51:08.480 I'm only about seventeen percent ethnically German, but I do feel a 00:51:08.480 --> 00:51:11.120 strong connection to that heritage as a white American. 00:51:11.120 --> 00:51:14.800 Is it inauthentic to think of myself as a German American despite 00:51:14.800 --> 00:51:17.440 not being very German? 00:51:17.440 --> 00:51:22.480 Well you can always just say you're Germanic because that is broadly 00:51:22.480 --> 00:51:25.200 true. That's basically all of Western Europe. 00:51:25.200 --> 00:51:28.880 Because I've mentioned it before, but you have a number of large 00:51:28.880 --> 00:51:32.320 divisions among the sons of Japheth. 00:51:32.320 --> 00:51:35.600 You have the Germanics, and then you can include the Nordics in 00:51:35.600 --> 00:51:38.160 the In that or not, if you want to separate them out. 00:51:38.160 --> 00:51:43.200 You have the Slavics, the Italics, and that's basically you can use 00:51:43.200 --> 00:51:44.960 whatever term you want for the Southern Europeans. 00:51:44.960 --> 00:51:47.440 I know that if I say Italics, the Spanish are gonna object, 00:51:47.440 --> 00:51:49.840 and if I say something else, then the Italians will object, but 00:51:49.840 --> 00:51:53.520 I'm You basically have southern, western, and eastern. 00:51:53.520 --> 00:51:56.480 Those are the big divisions of the sons of Japheth. 00:51:56.480 --> 00:52:00.880 And so if you are German and Dutch and English, you're Germanic. 00:52:00.880 --> 00:52:04.480 There's nothing wrong with saying that you are particularly attached to your 00:52:04.880 --> 00:52:09.360 German heritage, you should feel strongly about your other heritage as well, 00:52:09.360 --> 00:52:13.280 because you know if you're seventeen percent German and eighty percent English, 00:52:13.280 --> 00:52:16.560 you should have some attachment to your English ancestry. 00:52:16.560 --> 00:52:19.680 They are part of who and what you are. 00:52:19.680 --> 00:52:25.760 And in the case specifically, of course, for Americans, we're still sort 00:52:25.760 --> 00:52:31.440 of forming up, firming up our national culture, our national racial identity, 00:52:31.440 --> 00:52:35.360 because we are a mixture of a number of different things. 00:52:35.360 --> 00:52:39.520 Because we are in we're basically a sort of a reunification of 00:52:39.520 --> 00:52:44.560 almost exclusively the Western, but with some southern and eastern as well, 00:52:44.560 --> 00:52:47.200 European sons of Japheth. 00:52:47.200 --> 00:52:51.760 And so we are a Germanic nation, but we do certainly have 00:52:51.760 --> 00:52:55.840 that Celtic admixture, we have a number of Italians who came over 00:52:55.840 --> 00:52:59.920 and have sort of blended into the population over the last half 00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:03.120 century, century or so. 00:53:03.120 --> 00:53:07.760 So in the US context there is some complication there, but no, 00:53:07.760 --> 00:53:10.960 I don't think there's any problem with identifying with your Germanic heritage 00:53:11.120 --> 00:53:12.400 and so 00:53:13.360 --> 00:53:16.400 go ahead and you know say that you're a German American, but 00:53:16.400 --> 00:53:21.680 don't denigrate your English and Scottish ancestry as well, because that's certainly 00:53:21.680 --> 00:53:22.960 part of who and what you are. 00:53:23.200 --> 00:53:28.320 I am majority German, but I also have twelve, thirteen percent Scottish. 00:53:28.320 --> 00:53:30.960 And so I recognize that is also part of who and what 00:53:30.960 --> 00:53:31.440 I am. 00:53:31.440 --> 00:53:33.040 That's part of my history. 00:53:33.040 --> 00:53:35.120 I can't ignore that. 00:53:35.120 --> 00:53:37.680 And so I'm not going to denigrate the Scots. 00:53:37.680 --> 00:53:40.480 I'll make some jokes, of course, because that's I think that's part 00:53:40.480 --> 00:53:42.400 of the the fun of it. 00:53:42.400 --> 00:53:45.600 But recognize that you are Are 00:53:46.560 --> 00:53:48.800 all of those things at once. 00:53:48.800 --> 00:53:53.680 So yes, you're a German American, but you're also a Scottish American, 00:53:53.680 --> 00:53:57.200 a British American, a Swedish American, I saw the follow-up there in 00:53:57.200 --> 00:53:58.800 the chat. 00:53:58.800 --> 00:54:03.120 So no, there's nothing wrong with saying that you recognize that you 00:54:03.120 --> 00:54:05.920 have that Germanic, that German heritage and celebrating it. 00:54:05.920 --> 00:54:07.440 That's perfectly fine. 00:54:14.480 --> 00:54:16.640 Does God see the future? 00:54:16.720 --> 00:54:20.720 Does this present any problem with original sin or culpability of God? 00:54:20.720 --> 00:54:25.200 This one comes up a lot, obviously, historically, particularly. 00:54:25.440 --> 00:54:32.080 It's the question of the difference between prescience, pre-knowledge, foreknowledge, whatever term 00:54:32.080 --> 00:54:36.000 you want to use for it, and sort of a hard form 00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:38.880 of predestination or determinism. 00:54:38.880 --> 00:54:43.360 God knows the future, God knows all things. 00:54:43.360 --> 00:54:47.360 God does not dictate all things that will happen. 00:54:47.360 --> 00:54:49.600 He permits that things to happen. 00:54:49.600 --> 00:54:54.160 He permitted Satan to fall, he permitted Adam to refuse to rebuke 00:54:54.160 --> 00:54:58.880 Satan, he permitted Eve to grasp the fruit, that does not make 00:54:58.880 --> 00:55:01.680 God responsible for those things. 00:55:01.680 --> 00:55:04.720 It again does mean that he permitted them. 00:55:04.720 --> 00:55:08.640 So a good sort of analogy that we can use in illustration 00:55:08.880 --> 00:55:11.600 would be how parents interact with their children. 00:55:11.600 --> 00:55:15.440 You don't always stop your children from doing absolutely every stupid thing 00:55:15.440 --> 00:55:17.120 they are going to do going to do. 00:55:17.120 --> 00:55:21.600 You stop them from some of the worst things, and so there 00:55:21.600 --> 00:55:24.160 are certainly plenty of times in your life where God has stopped 00:55:24.160 --> 00:55:28.320 you, almost certainly, from doing something particularly bad or dumb, but He's 00:55:28.240 --> 00:55:30.000 not going to stop you from doing everything. 00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:32.800 He's going to let you learn some of your lessons the hard 00:55:32.800 --> 00:55:38.800 way. So God's foreknowledge does not dictate the outcomes, because we have 00:55:38.800 --> 00:55:40.000 free will. 00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:42.480 And this is one of the reasons that I am a staunch 00:55:42.480 --> 00:55:45.200 philosophical proponent of free will. 00:55:45.200 --> 00:55:48.720 Because if you don't believe in free will, ultimately you have to 00:55:48.720 --> 00:55:51.040 assign evil to God. 00:55:51.040 --> 00:55:53.600 And that's obviously philosophically incoherent. 00:55:53.600 --> 00:55:58.400 You can't do that So it is the free will of created 00:55:58.400 --> 00:56:02.400 beings that is the source of evil, which is to say it's 00:56:02.400 --> 00:56:05.920 the source of turning away from God, because evil doesn't have any 00:56:05.920 --> 00:56:08.960 actual substance of itself, it's not an actual thing. 00:56:09.200 --> 00:56:14.960 It is a rejection, corruption, a destruction of the good, the beautiful, 00:56:14.960 --> 00:56:16.320 and the true. 00:56:16.320 --> 00:56:21.920 And so when a free will of a created being chooses to 00:56:21.920 --> 00:56:23.360 turn away from God. 00:56:23.360 --> 00:56:25.920 It is turning away from that which is good. 00:56:25.920 --> 00:56:30.480 God didn't cause it, in the sense that we use cause in 00:56:30.480 --> 00:56:34.720 modern parlance, I'm not talking specifically of the different forms of causation 00:56:34.720 --> 00:56:38.720 in philosophy because obviously you're talking about final cause and things like 00:56:38.720 --> 00:56:43.600 that. You can you can say that God caused sin, but that 00:56:43.600 --> 00:56:47.520 is a very specific philosophical sense of cause and it is going 00:56:47.520 --> 00:56:50.480 to be heard wrong by basically everyone because it's not the way 00:56:50.480 --> 00:56:52.800 we use cause in everyday speech. 00:56:53.360 --> 00:56:56.560 is not, in everyday speech, the cause of sin. 00:56:56.560 --> 00:56:59.520 It is the will of free creatures. 00:56:59.520 --> 00:57:02.080 It is our will that is the source of sin. 00:57:02.080 --> 00:57:07.360 And so no, God's foreknowledge does not cause sin, and it doesn't 00:57:07.280 --> 00:57:09.520 make him culpable for sin. 00:57:09.520 --> 00:57:11.200 Because he gave us freedom. 00:57:11.200 --> 00:57:14.720 Because obviously the only al alternative would be to make us robots 00:57:14.960 --> 00:57:18.960 automata, and that's not what he wanted to do. 00:57:18.960 --> 00:57:21.440 He did that to some degree with certain things. 00:57:21.440 --> 00:57:25.040 Plants don't have free will, but human beings do. 00:57:25.040 --> 00:57:31.200 So no, foreknowledge and sin do not combine to make God the 00:57:31.200 --> 00:57:33.840 moral agent responsible for sin. 00:57:42.240 --> 00:57:44.720 Pull up another question here. 00:57:53.200 --> 00:57:58.320 Frequent recurring question here, what are those who are sort of abstracting 00:57:58.320 --> 00:58:01.200 out the question here a little bit from the specific one, but 00:58:01.520 --> 00:58:05.440 what are those who are mixed race supposed to do? 00:58:05.920 --> 00:58:10.240 And this is one of those questions that does not have sort 00:58:10.240 --> 00:58:15.360 of a one-size-fits-all answer because it is going to be fact-dependent. 00:58:15.360 --> 00:58:17.680 You know, what is the mix? 00:58:17.680 --> 00:58:19.680 What is the percentage? 00:58:19.680 --> 00:58:20.160 Because 00:58:21.040 --> 00:58:22.320 if you are 00:58:23.280 --> 00:58:28.080 half Russian and half English, does that matter that much? 00:58:28.080 --> 00:58:31.600 It does, because you're sort of torn between two nations that are 00:58:31.600 --> 00:58:32.800 very different. 00:58:32.800 --> 00:58:37.200 Because Eastern Europe and Western Europe are certainly different, but it's nowhere 00:58:37.200 --> 00:58:40.160 near as big of a problem, and you can certainly live your 00:58:40.160 --> 00:58:45.040 life without any real conflict there, as being half Russian and half 00:58:45.040 --> 00:58:48.800 Ugandan. That's going to cause you more trouble. 00:58:48.800 --> 00:58:51.680 You are going to have more difficulty because you are truly torn 00:58:51.680 --> 00:58:53.760 between between two different worlds. 00:58:53.760 --> 00:58:58.720 Those are two vastly different races, two vastly different peoples. 00:58:58.720 --> 00:59:04.320 So, generally speaking, the best thing you can do is pick. 00:59:04.320 --> 00:59:08.560 You're going to have to pick one of those sides, as it 00:59:08.560 --> 00:59:10.960 were, and you're going to be that. 00:59:10.960 --> 00:59:15.040 You're going to live your life as that, marry into it, have 00:59:15.040 --> 00:59:18.880 children that are that, and continue down that line. 00:59:18.880 --> 00:59:21.280 It's the best thing you can do. 00:59:21.280 --> 00:59:24.880 And it's one of those instances, one of those cases where there 00:59:24.880 --> 00:59:29.760 is no easy answer, because sometimes there are no good answers. 00:59:29.760 --> 00:59:30.480 There are 00:59:31.440 --> 00:59:35.520 times where all we have are imperfect options, which is most of 00:59:35.520 --> 00:59:39.200 the time in a fallen world., of course, remember, these are problems 00:59:39.200 --> 00:59:40.080 for this life. 00:59:40.080 --> 00:59:43.760 You get to the next life, these problems don't exist in paradise. 00:59:43.760 --> 00:59:48.400 In paradise there are no problems, there's no fighting between or among 00:59:48.400 --> 00:59:49.760 the races. 00:59:49.760 --> 00:59:53.680 You know, we don't have the issues that we have here in 00:59:53.680 --> 00:59:56.080 time, because crime isn't a thing. 00:59:56.080 --> 00:59:58.080 Murder isn't a thing, rape isn't a thing. 00:59:58.080 --> 01:00:01.680 All these problems we have here that have a very strong racial 01:00:01.680 --> 01:00:04.640 component aren't present in paradise. 01:00:05.280 --> 01:00:08.160 So, but we need to get there. 01:00:08.160 --> 01:00:10.880 Which is sort of the most important part of this. 01:00:10.880 --> 01:00:15.600 And those who ignore the issues regarding race and things like that 01:00:15.840 --> 01:00:17.200 simply decrease the odds 01:00:18.480 --> 01:00:24.320 of more men and women getting into paradise because in ig in 01:00:24.320 --> 01:00:30.640 ignoring those issues they create a false world, a false world view, 01:00:30.320 --> 01:00:34.560 and they really set men up to believe in an idolatrous sense 01:00:34.560 --> 01:00:38.240 of these things and reject Christ in the process. 01:00:38.240 --> 01:00:40.880 But I've sort of gone off on a tangent a little bit 01:00:40.880 --> 01:00:45.680 there. the central point is you're going to have to pick. 01:00:45.680 --> 01:00:49.680 If you are half African and half European, you're probably going to 01:00:49.680 --> 01:00:51.680 have to pick the African side. 01:00:51.680 --> 01:00:57.520 Because the simple reality of it is that admixture is going to 01:00:57.520 --> 01:01:01.760 make you closer to the African side than to the European side. 01:01:01.760 --> 01:01:04.480 And I think we all watch that play out. 01:01:04.480 --> 01:01:06.800 Day in and day out. 01:01:06.800 --> 01:01:10.080 Now we watch it play out many times in a certainly a 01:01:10.080 --> 01:01:13.760 particularly pernicious way, in which you have those who pick the African 01:01:13.760 --> 01:01:15.040 side and then hate whites. 01:01:15.040 --> 01:01:16.320 Don't do that. 01:01:16.320 --> 01:01:16.640 But 01:01:18.880 --> 01:01:20.080 There is a difficulty there. 01:01:20.080 --> 01:01:23.840 I recognize that, of course, because you're going to feel a little 01:01:23.840 --> 01:01:27.680 bit of resentment against at least one of your parents. 01:01:27.680 --> 01:01:30.560 And this is one of the reasons that we've been so clear 01:01:30.720 --> 01:01:32.960 when we have taught on this issue and why we're willing to 01:01:32.960 --> 01:01:35.760 say things in Stone Choir and elsewhere and why I'm willing to 01:01:35.760 --> 01:01:38.960 say things here that make others very uncomfortable. 01:01:38.960 --> 01:01:40.800 They don't want to say them. 01:01:40.800 --> 01:01:46.720 Because the reality is when you produce children who are miscegenated, who 01:01:46.720 --> 01:01:50.160 are mixed, you are creating problems for them. 01:01:50.160 --> 01:01:53.920 Now you're creating problems for your society as well, you're creating problems 01:01:53.920 --> 01:01:59.600 for yourself, but they're not as personal because you're not the one 01:01:59.600 --> 01:02:03.280 who is now torn between two worlds in yourself. 01:02:03.280 --> 01:02:05.680 That's a fundamentally different thing. 01:02:05.680 --> 01:02:09.200 So one of the reasons we are so clear on this, so 01:02:09.200 --> 01:02:13.120 willing to address the issue, is we don't want men to have 01:02:13.120 --> 01:02:17.120 that problem in their lives, and it's completely avoidable. 01:02:17.120 --> 01:02:19.040 It's not something that has to happen. 01:02:19.040 --> 01:02:22.160 We don't have to make life harder for ourselves and for those 01:02:22.160 --> 01:02:26.640 around us, particularly just because we happen to have a fetish, which 01:02:26.640 --> 01:02:29.760 is often the case here, which makes it so much worse when 01:02:30.080 --> 01:02:34.000 people are willing to destroy their lives and others as well because 01:02:34.000 --> 01:02:35.840 they have a sexual fetish. 01:02:35.840 --> 01:02:38.720 That's not a good reason to make any decision, certainly not a 01:02:38.720 --> 01:02:43.440 reason to make as important of a decision as having children and 01:02:43.600 --> 01:02:47.680 erasing your family line, your racial line that is carried down to 01:02:47.680 --> 01:02:52.800 you again, fourth commandment, carried down to you for thousands of years. 01:02:52.800 --> 01:02:55.840 So the short answer is the best thing you can do is 01:02:56.160 --> 01:03:00.080 pick which one you're going to be and go all in because 01:03:00.720 --> 01:03:04.160 your parents have admittedly made your life more difficult than it would 01:03:04.160 --> 01:03:05.440 otherwise be. 01:03:05.440 --> 01:03:08.240 All you can do is the best with what you have been 01:03:08.240 --> 01:03:12.480 given. You can't make a perfect world, you can't perfect yourself here 01:03:12.640 --> 01:03:15.440 in time, because that wholly belongs to God. 01:03:15.760 --> 01:03:19.280 We can only do the best that we can with what we 01:03:19.280 --> 01:03:21.200 have been given here in time. 01:03:35.680 --> 01:03:41.360 I think I probably got most of the questions from the chat. 01:03:41.360 --> 01:03:44.000 I'm sure that I missed a few in the scroll, but 01:03:45.920 --> 01:03:49.600 someone asked what are the objective standards by which you define human 01:03:49.920 --> 01:03:54.640 that is sort of a long and complicated answer. 01:03:54.640 --> 01:03:59.760 I did answer that one in large part in a thread really 01:04:00.000 --> 01:04:01.440 a series of threads, unfortunately. 01:04:01.440 --> 01:04:04.720 It's not a very neat thread, but a series of question and 01:04:04.720 --> 01:04:06.960 answers on X. 01:04:07.040 --> 01:04:09.520 Because that was I believe that was Jeff Durbin. 01:04:09.440 --> 01:04:10.800 Is that his name? 01:04:10.800 --> 01:04:15.600 Anyway, he asked me some questions because I offered him the opportunity, 01:04:15.600 --> 01:04:18.000 and one of the ones that came up was the image of 01:04:18.000 --> 01:04:18.880 God and things like that. 01:04:18.880 --> 01:04:21.040 And so I did answer it on there. 01:04:21.040 --> 01:04:23.520 But But sort of the short answer is that there are two 01:04:23.520 --> 01:04:27.040 different answers, because really this is getting the core of the question 01:04:27.040 --> 01:04:30.000 here is the image of God in man. 01:04:30.000 --> 01:04:32.800 And there are two ways I answer that. 01:04:32.800 --> 01:04:35.120 And this is not just the way that I answer it, I 01:04:35.120 --> 01:04:37.840 want to be very clear on that, this is also the Church 01:04:37.840 --> 01:04:43.360 Fathers and many Orthodox again, lowercase o theologians have answered in this 01:04:43.360 --> 01:04:49.520 way. There is the binary, which is man is made in the 01:04:49.520 --> 01:04:51.760 image of God, period. 01:04:51.760 --> 01:04:56.320 But that is not sort of an extensive definition of the image 01:04:56.320 --> 01:05:00.000 of God, it's just yes, man is in the image of God 01:05:00.080 --> 01:05:01.040 with no real 01:05:01.920 --> 01:05:07.520 deeper examination or extension of what the image itself actually is. 01:05:07.520 --> 01:05:10.640 And then the second one is that deeper examination. 01:05:10.640 --> 01:05:15.440 This is particularly found in Augustine and some other church fathers, but 01:05:16.080 --> 01:05:21.840 the image of God in man is also related to man's attributes, 01:05:21.840 --> 01:05:26.560 because part of it is man's ability to image 01:05:27.680 --> 01:05:30.640 God to creation. 01:05:30.640 --> 01:05:35.760 And so that would be things like our capacity for beauty, our 01:05:35.760 --> 01:05:41.280 capacity for truth, intelligence is going to play a role, emotional capacity 01:05:41.600 --> 01:05:43.440 is going to play a role. 01:05:43.440 --> 01:05:46.000 Our appreciation of beauty. 01:05:46.000 --> 01:05:49.440 There's a whole bunch of things that make up what it is 01:05:49.440 --> 01:05:50.400 to be a human being. 01:05:50.400 --> 01:05:51.680 And of course we recognize this. 01:05:51.680 --> 01:05:54.800 We all know that to be a human being you have all 01:05:54.800 --> 01:05:58.720 of these various attributes and some men have more than others and 01:05:58.720 --> 01:06:00.720 some men have less. 01:06:00.720 --> 01:06:04.000 The one that always comes up is intelligence, but it's not the 01:06:04.000 --> 01:06:04.720 only one. 01:06:04.720 --> 01:06:08.880 It's just the one over which everyone wants to fight because IQ 01:06:08.880 --> 01:06:09.920 makes men uncomfortable. 01:06:09.920 --> 01:06:11.840 That's just the reality of it. 01:06:11.840 --> 01:06:17.120 But with regard to what it means to be a human being, 01:06:17.120 --> 01:06:20.080 then can you say that there's sort of a binary? 01:06:20.080 --> 01:06:21.360 You are you aren't? 01:06:21.360 --> 01:06:25.760 Yes. Are you a member of the species Homo sapiens? 01:06:25.760 --> 01:06:27.760 If you are, you're a human being. 01:06:27.760 --> 01:06:29.600 That's the binary. 01:06:29.600 --> 01:06:33.200 But then you can also give the answer in the same way 01:06:33.360 --> 01:06:37.360 of: well, what are the attributes of a human being? 01:06:37.360 --> 01:06:43.360 If you have an IQ of a hundred, your average European average, 01:06:43.360 --> 01:06:45.840 four IQ four IQ. 01:06:45.840 --> 01:06:50.080 Is that different from having an IQ of let's go extreme forty 01:06:50.160 --> 01:06:53.200 five? The answer is absolutely yes. 01:06:53.200 --> 01:06:56.160 Is the person with the IQ of forty five less human in 01:06:56.160 --> 01:06:58.640 a very real way from the person as an IQ of one 01:06:58.720 --> 01:06:59.920 hundred. Yes. 01:06:59.920 --> 01:07:01.760 That's absolutely true. 01:07:01.760 --> 01:07:04.880 If you have no sense of beauty, are you less human than 01:07:04.880 --> 01:07:07.040 someone who has a refined sense of beauty? 01:07:07.040 --> 01:07:09.360 I think the answer again is yes. 01:07:09.360 --> 01:07:13.840 And so you have two different answers to that question. 01:07:13.840 --> 01:07:16.960 Are you human if you're just a homo sapiens? 01:07:16.960 --> 01:07:18.880 If you're just a member of the species? 01:07:18.880 --> 01:07:20.560 The answer is yes. 01:07:20.560 --> 01:07:23.680 But can you be more or less human within that? 01:07:23.680 --> 01:07:29.120 The answer again is yes. 01:07:29.120 --> 01:07:32.480 Do animals have souls and go to heaven when they die? 01:07:32.480 --> 01:07:35.200 Scripture is pretty much silent on that, but 01:07:36.080 --> 01:07:41.520 I think that you can answer it theologically and philosophically, because all 01:07:41.520 --> 01:07:45.040 things that are created by God are good, and the destruction of 01:07:45.040 --> 01:07:46.960 that which is good is evil, and so I don't think that 01:07:46.960 --> 01:07:51.600 God is going to destroy the animals and everything like that. 01:07:51.600 --> 01:07:55.920 And it also speaks in scripture of the renewal of all things, 01:07:55.920 --> 01:07:59.840 because Christ came to redeem all things, not just to redeem human 01:07:59.840 --> 01:08:04.240 beings. He came to redeem creation, because remember it's creation that is 01:08:04.320 --> 01:08:07.680 groaning together in the birth pangs of that which is to come. 01:08:07.680 --> 01:08:08.320 And so 01:08:09.840 --> 01:08:13.040 No, there will be animals and plants and all those things in 01:08:13.040 --> 01:08:16.160 paradise, and I happen to think that he's going to take the 01:08:16.160 --> 01:08:18.480 ones he created and perfect them and they will still be there. 01:08:18.480 --> 01:08:21.920 So yes, I think the sort of underlying question there, will you 01:08:21.920 --> 01:08:22.880 get to see your dog again? 01:08:22.880 --> 01:08:23.840 I think yes. 01:08:23.840 --> 01:08:26.240 I think that is definitely the case. 01:08:29.680 --> 01:08:31.280 What would heaven look like? 01:08:31.280 --> 01:08:34.080 I have a friend of mine who had a stillbirth a month 01:08:34.080 --> 01:08:40.320 ago. The question there is: do those who die in infancy go 01:08:40.320 --> 01:08:41.680 to heaven? 01:08:41.680 --> 01:08:44.560 And there are two answers to that. 01:08:44.560 --> 01:08:46.080 I'm going to be completely blunt. 01:08:46.080 --> 01:08:48.400 I'm not going to sugarcoat it. 01:08:48.400 --> 01:08:53.360 For those who are born to unbelievers, we have no promises. 01:08:53.360 --> 01:08:55.040 We have no word from scripture. 01:08:55.040 --> 01:08:58.080 We have nothing saying that they will be saved, because it's very 01:08:58.080 --> 01:09:00.880 clear in sin did my mother conceive me. 01:09:00.880 --> 01:09:05.360 And so we don't have hope in that case, but we also 01:09:05.360 --> 01:09:10.080 don't have absolute proof, absolute conclusion from scripture that all those who 01:09:10.080 --> 01:09:11.600 are born to unbelievers go to hell. 01:09:11.600 --> 01:09:12.720 We don't know. 01:09:12.720 --> 01:09:17.440 We leave that to the wisdom, mercy, and justice of God. 01:09:17.440 --> 01:09:22.480 With regard to believers and their children, we have absolute comfort. 01:09:22.480 --> 01:09:25.200 And the reason for that is there are a few places in 01:09:25.200 --> 01:09:31.520 scripture where it's very clear that when the children of believers die, 01:09:31.520 --> 01:09:34.000 they they go to paradise. 01:09:34.000 --> 01:09:40.560 The best example for this is with David in Bathsheba, incidentally. 01:09:40.560 --> 01:09:45.280 You have the first son of David in Bathsheba dies, God kills 01:09:45.280 --> 01:09:49.360 him as punishment for the wickedness of David and Bathsheba. 01:09:49.360 --> 01:09:53.200 But David, who is a prophet of God, who is speaking in 01:09:53.200 --> 01:09:56.560 the spirit, who is speaking what will go into the pages of 01:09:56.560 --> 01:10:01.600 scripture, when his son dies says, He will not return to me, 01:10:01.600 --> 01:10:03.440 but I will go to him. 01:10:03.440 --> 01:10:07.360 There are only two ways you can conclude that that means either 01:10:07.360 --> 01:10:10.880 that David's saying he's going to hell, and his son is there, 01:10:10.880 --> 01:10:13.280 or David is saying that he will one day see his son 01:10:13.360 --> 01:10:14.640 again in paradise. 01:10:14.640 --> 01:10:17.360 And I think it's very obvious that he's saying he will see 01:10:17.360 --> 01:10:19.200 his son in paradise. 01:10:19.200 --> 01:10:23.760 And so his son died in infancy, very early in infancy, but 01:10:23.760 --> 01:10:24.560 he will see him again. 01:10:24.560 --> 01:10:29.520 So we have complete assurance and comfort when the children of believers 01:10:29.520 --> 01:10:35.200 die, that they are in paradise, and notably, his son died before 01:10:35.200 --> 01:10:39.040 he was circumcised, before he was given the mark of the covenant. 01:10:39.040 --> 01:10:43.680 So even for children who die before they're baptized, we have assurance 01:10:43.680 --> 01:10:45.280 that they are in paradise. 01:10:45.280 --> 01:10:48.880 So for a stillbirth, miscarriage, anything like that, you will get to 01:10:48.880 --> 01:10:58.800 see that child one day. 01:10:58.800 --> 01:11:02.400 I did not see the interview with Piers Morgan and Tucker Carlson, 01:11:02.400 --> 01:11:06.720 so I have no opinion of that, other than Piers Morgan is 01:11:06.960 --> 01:11:08.880 rather obnoxious. 01:11:08.880 --> 01:11:15.920 Evil and obnoxious, but mostly obnoxious. 01:11:15.920 --> 01:11:19.120 For how For how long do you see the Eastern Orthodox online 01:11:19.440 --> 01:11:21.440 fad lasting? 01:11:21.440 --> 01:11:24.960 How do you see its end precipitating? 01:11:24.960 --> 01:11:30.960 I think that it is similar to neopaganism in terms of the 01:11:31.520 --> 01:11:35.280 reason that some men, few, notably, there are very few of them, 01:11:35.280 --> 01:11:39.920 despite how loud they are online, but I think that it has 01:11:39.920 --> 01:11:43.920 the same sort of force behind it pushing men in that direction 01:11:44.640 --> 01:11:45.840 as neo-paganism. 01:11:45.840 --> 01:11:47.200 They go one of the two ways. 01:11:47.200 --> 01:11:51.200 Granted, there are some who just become apostates, but they do it 01:11:51.200 --> 01:11:54.080 because of the weakness of Christianity. 01:11:54.080 --> 01:11:57.440 The churches are so weak and in fact, in many cases, wicked 01:11:58.000 --> 01:12:01.520 these days, that you have these men who are looking for anything 01:12:01.520 --> 01:12:03.200 to which they can cling. 01:12:03.200 --> 01:12:07.200 And if something pops up and happens to look like it's traditional 01:12:07.280 --> 01:12:12.080 or strong or impressive, like it's doing something. 01:12:12.080 --> 01:12:14.400 They're going to cling to that. 01:12:14.400 --> 01:12:19.840 And you see men doing that with regard to neopaganism, and you 01:12:19.840 --> 01:12:21.440 see men doing that with regard to 01:12:22.320 --> 01:12:23.840 Eastern Orthodoxy. 01:12:23.840 --> 01:12:25.520 And so I think as 01:12:26.480 --> 01:12:31.600 the older weak leadership die off and retire and become irrelevant, to 01:12:31.600 --> 01:12:36.800 go back to Doug Wilson and James White, perhaps, but as they 01:12:36.800 --> 01:12:41.280 are removed, as they simply age out whatever it happens to be, 01:12:41.280 --> 01:12:47.360 the churches will continue the rightward shift, continue returning to actual Christianity, 01:12:47.360 --> 01:12:50.400 and these men will come back to the church. 01:12:50.400 --> 01:12:54.960 Because they recognize that strength matters, that power matters, and I don't 01:12:54.880 --> 01:12:56.160 think they're totally wrong on that. 01:12:56.160 --> 01:13:00.240 I'm never going to condemn them fully for that. 01:13:00.240 --> 01:13:04.960 What they have chosen to do is wrong because what they should 01:13:04.960 --> 01:13:08.160 be doing is helping those of us who are fighting the fight 01:13:08.160 --> 01:13:10.400 to restore the churches. 01:13:10.400 --> 01:13:12.560 But they have the right impulse 01:13:13.520 --> 01:13:17.200 to believe that there should be some strength of force, some strength 01:13:17.200 --> 01:13:20.240 of will behind that which is true. 01:13:20.240 --> 01:13:22.960 And it does not look like many of the churches have that 01:13:22.960 --> 01:13:26.640 today. That's why they're going that direction, and as the churches are 01:13:26.640 --> 01:13:31.520 brought back into the Christian fold, as if we have to, better 01:13:31.520 --> 01:13:37.840 churches are started, with actual adherence to scripture, adherence to historical Christianity, 01:13:38.320 --> 01:13:40.800 not the nonsense we have today. 01:13:40.800 --> 01:13:45.200 As that happens, as that continues to happen, as that intensifies, those 01:13:45.200 --> 01:13:47.040 men will rejoin the churches. 01:13:47.040 --> 01:13:51.520 And so I'm not particularly worried about them, because I know that 01:13:51.520 --> 01:13:54.640 they will come back to the fold, but I would really prefer 01:13:54.640 --> 01:13:57.760 they came back to the fold sooner rather than later, because we 01:13:57.760 --> 01:14:01.360 could use their help, and I don't want them to die while 01:14:01.360 --> 01:14:04.720 they're off in the wilderness because they's apostasy. 01:14:04.720 --> 01:14:05.040 So 01:14:06.320 --> 01:14:10.560 I can't give an exact timeline because I don't know, but the 01:14:10.560 --> 01:14:13.600 next ten, twenty years I think that it'll fizzle out. 01:14:13.600 --> 01:14:15.920 Because it's just it has no staying power. 01:14:15.920 --> 01:14:20.640 Neither one of those groups has staying power. 01:14:20.640 --> 01:14:22.480 What is your opinion of Adam Green? 01:14:22.480 --> 01:14:23.760 I had a debate with him. 01:14:23.760 --> 01:14:27.840 He is a deliberate subverter, not misled. 01:14:27.840 --> 01:14:31.360 He is doing what he is doing out of evil in his 01:14:31.360 --> 01:14:36.640 heart. He's certainly making some money off of it. 01:14:36.640 --> 01:14:38.720 And I of course that's always going to be part of it 01:14:38.880 --> 01:14:39.840 for certain men. 01:14:39.840 --> 01:14:41.360 They're going to be incentivized by that. 01:14:41.360 --> 01:14:44.000 Most men are incentivized by money to some degree. 01:14:44.000 --> 01:14:46.000 We all have to eat, you know. 01:14:46.000 --> 01:14:52.320 But no, I think that he is primarily his primary impetus is 01:14:52.320 --> 01:14:54.880 wickedness. He is deliberately subverting. 01:14:54.880 --> 01:14:56.240 He is leading men astray. 01:14:56.240 --> 01:14:59.840 And there are a number of neopagans like that, unfortunately. 01:14:59.840 --> 01:15:02.160 There are some evil men in that camp. 01:15:02.160 --> 01:15:05.760 There are, like I just said, some men who are just very 01:15:05.760 --> 01:15:10.080 deceived, led astray, who are frustrated with the church, but I'm talking 01:15:10.080 --> 01:15:13.680 about the men who are in positions of leadership or power in 01:15:13.680 --> 01:15:14.640 that camp. 01:15:14.640 --> 01:15:16.560 Some of them are wicked men. 01:15:16.560 --> 01:15:17.440 Not all. 01:15:17.440 --> 01:15:20.640 Some of them are just deeply deceived, but some of them are 01:15:20.640 --> 01:15:22.480 doing it out of a desire to 01:15:23.440 --> 01:15:30.480 see things destroyed because they are just fueled by a particularly nasty 01:15:30.480 --> 01:15:33.520 form of hatred of Christianity. 01:15:33.520 --> 01:15:37.440 And again, I recognize why some of them look at the church 01:15:37.440 --> 01:15:39.200 and say, I want no part of that. 01:15:39.200 --> 01:15:42.160 Because if the only churches you ever see have the rainbow flag 01:15:42.160 --> 01:15:46.400 and the BLM flag and all that nonsense to understate the matter, 01:15:46.400 --> 01:15:48.400 then of course you don't want to be part of that as 01:15:48.400 --> 01:15:49.520 a white man. 01:15:49.520 --> 01:15:50.880 Because they're saying they hate you. 01:15:50.880 --> 01:15:52.880 That's what both of those flags mean. 01:15:52.880 --> 01:15:56.800 Particularly well, really both of those flags, but then you also have 01:15:56.800 --> 01:15:58.240 the trans flag and all that stuff. 01:15:58.240 --> 01:15:59.680 They're just saying they hate white people. 01:15:59.680 --> 01:16:01.440 That's what all of those mean ultimately. 01:16:01.840 --> 01:16:06.640 The foundation of those worldviews is hatred of the white race. 01:16:06.640 --> 01:16:08.800 And so, of course, they don't want to be part of that. 01:16:08.800 --> 01:16:10.800 And I don't blame them. 01:16:10.800 --> 01:16:13.120 But they are drawing the wrong conclusion. 01:16:13.760 --> 01:16:17.120 Because you have to have a wider view of things. 01:16:17.120 --> 01:16:20.560 You have to have an historical view of things, not just this 01:16:20.560 --> 01:16:27.040 microcosm that is the post-1960s degeneration of everything. 01:16:27.040 --> 01:16:31.200 And as I pointed out many times before, the churches collapsed last. 01:16:31.200 --> 01:16:33.920 Everything else had already been conquered by the time the churches started 01:16:33.920 --> 01:16:35.360 to fall away. 01:16:35.360 --> 01:16:38.800 But you can't just look at that because European history didn't start 01:16:38.800 --> 01:16:41.520 in 1945. 01:16:41.520 --> 01:16:46.160 And the church has been around a lot longer than these modern 01:16:46.160 --> 01:16:50.560 churches that don't actually hold to Christian to Christianity, that have rejected 01:16:50.560 --> 01:16:55.760 Christendom. So they've drawn the wrong conclusion, they've gone down the wrong 01:16:55.760 --> 01:17:00.240 path. But many will come back to the fold, despite the evil 01:17:00.240 --> 01:17:06.160 men in their ranks deliberately trying to harm them, and others. 01:17:12.000 --> 01:17:15.600 See if there are other questions here. 01:17:15.600 --> 01:17:20.320 I think I have probably answered most of the questions here in 01:17:20.320 --> 01:17:22.080 the chat. 01:17:22.080 --> 01:17:25.920 If I missed any questions, go ahead and add them to the 01:17:25.920 --> 01:17:27.360 forum or elsewhere. 01:17:27.360 --> 01:17:29.680 I don't know that I will necessarily read through the chat again 01:17:29.680 --> 01:17:30.320 to find them, but 01:17:31.200 --> 01:17:34.160 if I missed your question, it's an important question, you really want 01:17:34.160 --> 01:17:38.880 an answer to it, then go to the forum and submit that. 01:17:38.880 --> 01:17:40.240 That's the best way to do it. 01:17:40.240 --> 01:17:42.800 So I guess I'm sort of wrapping up now. 01:17:42.800 --> 01:17:48.640 I will add a link to that in the description and elsewhere. 01:17:48.640 --> 01:17:52.240 That is the best way to submit the questions for this because 01:17:52.240 --> 01:17:55.200 that way it makes it easier for me to know the question 01:17:55.200 --> 01:17:55.920 is there. 01:17:55.920 --> 01:17:58.400 I can organize them, I can link them in the show notes 01:17:58.400 --> 01:18:01.680 so people can find them in the future, which is the purpose 01:18:01.680 --> 01:18:04.880 of this so that I can link to things that I have 01:18:04.880 --> 01:18:09.040 answered already instead of answering them many times, and so others can 01:18:09.040 --> 01:18:10.240 do the same as well. 01:18:10.240 --> 01:18:13.680 And so they'll be searchable because I will have transcripts that will 01:18:13.680 --> 01:18:17.120 be searchable and so you can find my answers, you can you 01:18:17.120 --> 01:18:20.160 know find a specific word, whatever happens to be. 01:18:20.160 --> 01:18:22.160 I think that's probably the 01:18:23.360 --> 01:18:27.200 just the best way to do this, and sort of the whole 01:18:27.200 --> 01:18:30.560 point, because it's not just an ephemeral sort of thing. 01:18:30.560 --> 01:18:32.960 These are questions that endure. 01:18:32.960 --> 01:18:36.960 These are things that have been asked for centuries in many cases, 01:18:36.960 --> 01:18:41.280 and sometimes it's nice just to have someone take the time and 01:18:41.280 --> 01:18:44.800 give the verbal answer to the question instead of say, go read 01:18:44.800 --> 01:18:47.680 these eighty seven books or whatever it happens to be. 01:18:47.680 --> 01:18:48.160 So So 01:18:49.040 --> 01:18:53.280 thank you for your time and thank you also for submitting the 01:18:53.280 --> 01:18:55.680 question for those of you who did, particularly to those of you 01:18:55.680 --> 01:18:58.800 who submitted on the forum, because again that makes it much easier 01:18:58.800 --> 01:19:02.160 for me and again is the just the nice way to do 01:19:02.160 --> 01:19:07.440 this. So happy Thanksgiving to those of you who are American, and 01:19:07.520 --> 01:19:10.000 of course happy Thanksgiving to the w rest of you as well 01:19:10.000 --> 01:19:13.280 in other parts of the world, even if it's not your particular 01:19:13.280 --> 01:19:14.720 national holiday holiday. 01:19:14.720 --> 01:19:17.200 I know that you have them on other days, particularly Canada's in 01:19:17.200 --> 01:19:19.120 October, for instance. 01:19:19.120 --> 01:19:22.160 But happy Thanksgiving to all of you. 01:19:22.160 --> 01:19:24.640 Thank you for your time, thank you for the questions. 01:19:24.640 --> 01:19:27.600 May God bless you and may you have a wonderful rest of 01:19:27.600 --> 01:19:28.880 your eveninging. 01:19:28.880 --> 01:19:31.600 And I will see you all next week. 01:19:31.600 --> 01:19:32.880 God bless.