Protestantism: Critique and Debate Thread

[GodfatherPartTwo]

I want to point out that the "critique" of PSA that was shared earlier in the thread was written by some lawyer who dabbles in theology and is not reflective of what actual Orthodox authorities teach. This Twitter account does a good job of exposing Orthobroxy which masquerades as real Orthodoxy.

 

[Iakobos]

the "critique" of PSA that was shared earlier in the thread was written by some lawyer who dabbles in theology

Ad hominem, attacking the author not the argument; made ironic by immediately pivoting to contrast a random anon X account as a strong and valid source.

what actual Orthodox authorities teach.

You're not fooling anyone, you don't care what Orthodox authorities and the consensus of the fathers teach and you're once again appealing to authority that you don't recognize as authority as a transparent attempt to make a 'gotcha'. If you were actually interested to know and present the Orthodox teaching, and not strawman it, it would be ludicrous to use this quote as your cornerstone. This asymmetrical tactic of yours does not bear engaging with so I will not be drawn into a tit-for-tat quote mine battle. But for any other readers I will share St. Athanasius, a true foundational Orthodox authority, teaching that the purpose of Christ's death was to purify, atone and heal humanity from corruption.

St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation:

Although being himself powerful and the creator of the universe, he prepared for himself in the Virgin the body as a temple, and made it his own, as an instrument, making himself known and dwelling in it. And thus, taking from ours that which is like, since all were liable to the corruption of death, delivering it over to death on behalf of all, he offered it to the Father, doing this in his love for human beings, so that, on the one hand, with all dying in him the law concerning corruption in human beings might be undone (its power being fully expended in the lordly body and no longer having any ground against similar human beings), and, on the other hand, that as human beings had turned towards corruption he might turn them again to incorruptibility and give them life from death, by making the body his own and by the grace of the resurrection banishing death from them as straw from the fire.

You can read or simply CTRL+F the entire treatise: punish, 0 results, wrath, 0 results. Nothing about Father abandoning Son.

The funny part is that it's impossible to find Patristic quotes debunking PSA. Why? Because no one taught PSA in the first 1000 years of the Church.

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

The funny part is that it's impossible to find Patristic quotes debunking PSA. Why? Because no one taught PSA in the first 1000 years of the Church.

None of the Fathers debunked it because they taught it. It is actually you who doesn't care about what Orthodox authorities teach. All you are interested in is presenting some malformed anti-Protestant brand of Christianity. You cited some lawyer who's not even a ranking church member and you sooner believe him than you do actual priests, bishops, and church fathers because he scratches your ears. So much for tradition.

 

[Iakobos]

None of the Fathers debunked it because they taught it.

Claim: PSA wasn't taught by the Church Fathers of the first 1000 years.
Counter-Claim: PSA WAS taught by the Church Fathers of the first 1000 years.
Supporting Evidence: A quote from the 21st century.

IDK maybe debate ain't for you homie.

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

Claim: PSA wasn't taught by the Church Fathers of the first 1000 years.
Counter-Claim: PSA WAS taught by the Church Fathers of the first 1000 years.
Supporting Evidence: A quote from the 21st century.

IDK maybe debate ain't for you homie.

Well Ive already cited a quote from Augustine that you ignored. I'll cite it again for posterity's sake:

"Death is the effect of the curse; and all sin is cursed, whether it means the action which merits punishment, or the punishment which follows. Christ, though guiltless, took our punishment, that He might cancel our guilt, and do away with our punishment." (Contra Faustum)

And just for kicks I'll cite more of them:


But please, tell us more about how you know better than these teachers.

 

[Iakobos]

None of those quotes are teaching your Calvinist PSA lol. And for the 1000th time you're being dishonest by appealing to the fathers when you don't ascribe authority to the fathers (what a joke that you accuse me of setting myself over them when doing so is literally your foundational position as a Sola Scripturist). I'm not going to waste my time engaging with a position that you will happily retreat from when it suits you. Such snaky behavior.

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

None of those quotes are teaching your Calvinist PSA lol. And for the 1000th time you're being dishonest by appealing to the fathers when you don't ascribe authority to the fathers (what a joke that you accuse me of setting myself over them when doing so is literally your foundational position as a Sola Scripturist). I'm not going to waste my time engaging with a position that you will happily retreat from when it suits you. Such snaky behavior.

No. None of those quotes are teaching the anti-gospel that you are spreading, which is denying that Christ was punished for our sins in our place in order to save us.

It's not dishonest of me to cite the Church Fathers. I can cite them to point out that you're a hypocrite who doesn't follow them whenever they say something you don't believe in, even though you pretend like you follow them. The standards that you love to apply to others, I'm applying to you.

 

[Giordano Bruno]

Okay, I think it might just be a error, but reading the Terminology section of the Miaphysite Wikipedia, the refutation for Miaphysitism is arguing that Saint Cyril said Jesus had One Nature.

That makes no sense to me, is it an error of citation or something? Why would Dyophysites argue for their opponent? Surely it's the opposite and the wording is the other way around.

Even then, that's not an argument against Miaphysitism. It's just an argument against Saint Cyril explicitly saying it.

For the idea that he is referring to a rough equivalent to hypostasis, is hypostasis anti-Miaphysite because I like using that word.

Miaphysitism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The word miaphysite derives from the Ancient Greek μία (mía; "one") and φύσις (phúsis; "nature"). Miaphysites claim that the teaching is based on Cyril of Alexandria's formula μία φύσις τοῦ θεοῦ λόγου σεσαρκωμένη, meaning "one physis of the Word of God made flesh" (or "... of God the Word made flesh"), with early miaphysite Christians claiming such terminology was furthermore present in early patristic writers such as Athanasius of Alexandria, Julius I of Rome, and Gregory Thaumaturgus.[6]

However, Dyophysites interpret Saint Cyril's reference to "one nature" to mean Christ's human nature as the adjective "incarnate" is used in reference to nature and not person. The 451 Council of Chalcedon used physis to mean "nature" (as in "divine nature" and "human nature"), and defined that there is in Jesus one hypostasis (person) but two physeis (natures). It is disputed whether Cyril used physis in that sense.

John Anthony McGuckin says that in Cyril's formula "physis serves as a rough semantic equivalent to hypostasis".[7] The 431 Council of Ephesus used physis to signify the single subjecthood of Christ and also condemned speaking of two physeis (natures) in various homilies contained within the official minutes.[8]

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

For the idea that he is referring to a rough equivalent to hypostasis, is hypostasis anti-Miaphysite because I like using that word.

Neither side has the monopoly on hypostasis/person. Both sides agree that the Son is one person. They disagree about the physis/nature/natures of the Son.

No one would dispute that Cyril explicitly referred to one nature in that quote. The question is if he was using the word 'nature' in a miaphysite sense since the word's meaning would depend on its context. Sometimes, physis can refer more to 'character' than strictly 'nature'.

I find it unlikely that Cyril was a miaphysite since he elsewhere explicitly refers to Christ as having two natures that are unmixed but united, which is the dyophysite position.

 

[Giordano Bruno]

Neither side has the monopoly on hypostasis/person. Both sides agree that the Son is one person. They disagree about the physis/nature/natures of the Son.

No one would dispute that Cyril explicitly referred to one nature in that quote. The question is if he was using the word 'nature' in a miaphysite sense since the word's meaning would depend on its context. Sometimes, physis can refer more to 'character' than strictly 'nature'.

I find it unlikely that Cyril was a miaphysite since he elsewhere explicitly refers to Christ as having two natures that are unmixed but united, which is the dyophysite position.

Where did he say this? I found a source for one of his letters where he says Christ has one nature.

“Wherefore, we say that the two natures were united, from which there is the one and only Son and Lord, Jesus Christ, as we accept in our thoughts, but after the union, since the distinction into two is now done away with, we believe that there is one phusis [nature] of the Son, as one, however, one who became man and was made flesh.”

Letter 40 To Acacius of Melitene (153-167)

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32b26n

Here's a Scribd file containing the later. Pages don't seem to fit, so Letter is on page 170/254.



In Letter 44, he elaborates more and it gets kinda confusing...

”For we, when asserting their union, confess one Christ, one Son, the one and same Lord, and finally we confess the one incarnate phusis of God. It is possible to say something such as this about any ordinary man, for he is of different natures, both of the body, I say, and of the soul. Both reason and speculation know the difference, but when combined then we get one human phusis. Hence knowing the difference of the natures is not cutting the one Christ into two.”

”…again he says that the man born of woman is separately another Lord conjoined to the first by worthiness or equality of honor. But how is saying that in this way God the Word is named Christ because he has the conjoining with Christ not clearly stating that there are two christs, if a christ has a conjoining with a christ as one with another? But the bishops from the East have said no such thing; they only separate the sayings. And they separate them in this manner. Some are proper to his divinity, others are human, and others have a position in common as being both proper to his divinity and his humanity.”

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

Cyril of Alexandria Letter to John of Antioch

We confess, therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, perfect God, and perfect Man of a reasonable soul and flesh consisting; begotten before the ages of the Father according to his Divinity, and in the last days, for us and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin according to his humanity, of the same substance with his Father according to his Divinity, and of the same substance with us according to his humanity; for there became a union of two natures. Wherefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this understanding of this unmixed union, we confess the holy Virgin to be Mother of God; because God the Word was incarnate and became Man, and from this conception he united the temple taken from her with himself. For we know the theologians make some things of the Evangelical and Apostolic teaching about the Lord common as pertaining to the one person, and other things they divide as to the two natures, and attribute the worthy ones to God on account of the Divinity of Christ, and the lowly ones on account of his humanity [to his humanity].

@Giordano Bruno
What is your take on this?

I think the quotes you cited were fairly potent as well. To describe the natures as a "combination" would seem to be out of reach for dyophysitism, but to then say that the two natures are "unmixed" would seem to be out of reach for miaphysitism. Though, the "combination" seems to refer to human nature in general, a combination of body and soul. Not about Christ having one nature as in a combination of Divine and human nature.