It's my honor and privilege today to introduce James Payton. Dr. Payton is professor emeritus of history at Redeemer University College in on Castor, Ontario, Canada. And it's our privilege to listen as Dr. Payton presents on his book, The victory of the cross available from IVP academic in 2019. And when Dr. Payton has concluded his comments, we'll join in a parent panel discussion, discussion, responding to Dr. Payton's work, Dr. Payton, we're all yours.
Thank you very much. First, let me express my gratitude to the aqueduct product and to you Dr. Armstrong for inviting me to be here and to talk about my book the victory of the cross salvation in Eastern Orthodoxy. And I'm honored by the interests of the panelists in my book, the readiness of those of you who are here to engage with it, and those who may do so in the future. I'd like to break my presentation into two parts, to set it up so that we can then go into the discussion and interaction. First is how I, as a Protestant, came to study and eventually to teach and write about Eastern Orthodoxy. And then secondly, to look at an overview of the book to lead into the discussion of it. Many of the panelists will have read it already. But perhaps there may be others who have not read it, or who may read it in the future, in light of our discussion here, so this will serve as a reminder of what that what it's about and kick, kick the discussion loose. So as my background, I grew up in a fundamentalist Baptist dispensationalist church, and was a very committed young person there, I went to church regularly was involved in all the youth programs, all the kinds of things were going on. I did what our pastor, you know, I was a clever young person. And I actually did what the pastor said you should do. And so when he said, when I was in seventh grade, that every Christian should read through the Bible every year. And they could do that if they read four chapters a day, I started doing it. And by the time I found out most of the church wasn't, I was hooked. I was fascinated by it. And I did that multiple times and did the other kinds of things and that kind of background. were encouraged multiplying, or memorizing large tracts of Scripture as you could or whatever else. But as I was growing up, I had this deep love for scripture, and what it taught what it meant for us to believe and do, but also a deep love for the study of history. And I had, I could not figure out how to bring those together. I had never heard of church history, or the history of Christian thought in the circles in which I grew up. It certainly wasn't anything that anybody talked about. And I don't recall ever hearing a reference to it until I'd actually finished an undergraduate degree at an evangelical institution, and started into a graduate program and enrolled in a course called history of Christian thought, with church history as a parallel been. And it was like, you know, I finally found the way of bringing these two things together was like finding the button on the TV screen that turned from black and white to color. I realized I'm really dating myself with that. But back then, you know, the TV was much more exciting when you when you could actually hit the tints and shades and make it look like real life living life. In any event, I went from there to seminary took the seminary program, but I took every grid, every elective course in church history that was available. I was absolutely fascinated with it. And so I took these courses and by my final year at seminary, I taken all the courses except one that had been was on the calendar but had never been offered it was entitled Eastern Orthodoxy. So I asked if I could take it and I was allowed to do so what as an independent studies course. Now, when I started the into this course, by that time, I had been a very diligent student in graduate school and seminary. And I had, I was very familiar with fundamentalist Baptist dispensational background I'd grown up in, but then I become quite well versed in the reformed tradition into which I'd been drawn that I found myself studying at that seminary I'd learned Lutheranism from the inside as well. Having studied a little bit in Lutheran seminary and read extensively, I was pretty well acquainted with classical Roman Catholicism pre Vatican to Roman Catholicism, at least. So I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the history of the church and doctrine. And then I took this course on Eastern Orthodoxy, and was startled by being my orthodoxy asking questions I had never considered never heard asked as far as I can recall. And they started at different points than typically, we did in The West. And I started to figure out that all the stuff I learned was really not just Christianity. It was Western Christianity that is Christianity that had its roots in the developments in Western Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire especially and then on into North America and elsewhere. So this fascination continued for me, I continue to do, I wish I learned a lot I
this course in Eastern Orthodoxy opened up the richness of Scripture to me and the Christian faith in new and exciting ways that I was developing. I was finding insights that that illuminated many things that I wrestle with are not understood. And so I can, I've continued in the following, following decades since that graduate program. Since that seminary time to study orthodoxy, I completed a PhD in western history of late Middle Ages and Renaissance and reformation era, and eventually joined the radium University College from which I retired. Five years ago, they were joined, I joined them in 1985, as a history professor. Within a couple of years, I proposed a new course on Eastern Orthodoxy to expand our treatments. And it was a Christian University. And so that was an interesting if exotic idea. It was approved. And it became a very popular course with students. It's, it was an upper level course, cross listed between the history departments and religion and theology department. And a number of the students came there from a variety of Western Christian backgrounds, reformed Baptists, United Church, independent, charismatic Roman Catholic, whatever, and suddenly were exposed to a version of Christianity that they'd not really encountered before. We had an opportunity here in Hamilton area, which is where Redeemer is located and where I live. But we had the opportunity to interact with a lot of Orthodox people. There are many churches of Orthodox background here in in Hamilton, and we were able to go to several of them through Ukrainian orthodox or Greek, Serbian Orthodox Church in America, Romanian Orthodox, Macedonian orthodox, and they always welcomed us with open arms, and would answer our questions, we engage with them, and I develop good relationships, then we did as well with the Orthodox, faithful and clergy. And that's what led all of this to writing my first book on orthodoxy called light from the Christian Easton introduction to the Orthodox tradition, also with intervarsity Press, back in 2007. But then, there was a an orthodox scholar friend, Peter Bell tena from St. Vladimir's orthodox Theological Seminary, who had read the book and suggested that I developed the segment on salvation, the seminal treatment there and salvation Complete Book with much more use of patristic and liturgical resources than I used in my first book, I'd already been reading extensively in the church fathers. One of the things I found in my Protestant upbringing, is that while we study the history of the church in a little bit in the Middle Ages, a lot in the reformation, not as much with the church fathers. And so I'd found that fascinating as well. been doing a lot of reading in the church fathers. And now I turned to intense careful reading of liturgical resources, there are so abundant in the Orthodox tradition, which issued into the writing of this book, though. So let me do an overview of it as a way of again, reminding us of what it's about and then opening up for discussion. The purpose of the book is to present orthodox view of salvation. In a way orthodox readers themselves would encounter their own rich tradition. But I wanted to do that, so that they would hear themselves or hear their own emphases being spoken, but I wanted to do it in ways that others, Western Christians of various stripes, Roman Catholic, and Protestants, and all the varieties, might be able to process now. This is the path I've taken in life as an intellectual historian. In all my courses and teaching to try to get inside the mind and heart and experience of people we're examining, to see how they instinctively approach questions or issues and to consider the options they had at the time and the influences on how they chose to live and act back at the time, whenever it was that we were studying. So here I was doing I'm doing so with folks living long ago in orthodoxy. Also, your thoughts were living today. The obvious place to start was with chapter two, an approach to the cross itself Christ's crucifixion, which is prominent in in throughout Christianity, and there is no Christianity without Christ or without the cross. But I pick up on St. Paul's declarations in First Corinthians about the power of the cross about Christ disarming the principalities and triumphing over them in the cost and similar statements that frankly had always been a little bit puzzling no matter how well I'd studied them out of my Western Christian background.
And the Church Fathers I found, as I was able to see, falling in that train emphasizing preeminently Christ's victory at the cross and his accomplishment conquering sin, definitely devil. And so the emphasis that came across comes across in much of the Church Fathers treatment, and certainly in Orthodoxy is on Christ, as Victor certainly suffered grievously, but the emphasis is on what he accomplished as Victor, which is a contrast to what's more common emphasis in, in Western Christian teaching on Christ as victim, that is, the one who suffered, who suffered the wrath when you're the punishment, the judgment, and that's graphically visible in the classical kind of pictorial representations. If you look at the pictorial representation for the late Middle Ages, in the Reformation era, on on Christ's crucifixion, such as by by Rubens, or Matthias been Groeneveld, the extreme suffering the grotesque, suffering of Christ is portrayed graphically, whereas in an orthodox icon of the crucifixion, of Christ is almost regal, dying on the cross and above the cross appears, the Lord of Glory, a quotation from First Corinthians but also from Psalm 24. So with that, then we can return from that, from that to consider why salvation is needed. And this led to what I found. It found through the years, so fascinating as the Orthodox way of dealing with the story of creation, in Scripture, story of creation, with an emphasis not so much on worrying about how evolution in Scripture might fit together. That's not been an issue. But the creation story is given to tell us who not how to emphasize that God has made all this but we humans have blown it, and corrupted it. And then the approach to Scripture that is given that in orthodoxy, that it's not meant to answer all of our questions, but to point to the fulfillment of God's promise to Adam and Eve would fallen, that he would send the woman to crush the head of the serpent. That lead that leads to the consideration of Orthodoxy treatment about dignity of humanity. And what I've always found striking is the distinction made in orthodoxy in by most, though not all of the church fathers. In this crazy story of human creation, between image and likeness, the God created male and female in his image after his likeness. In much of Western Christianity, we view that as Hebrew parallelism, saying the same thing two different ways. Whereas most of the church fathers and certainly in orthodoxy, generally, there's a distinction between image as gift and likeness as goal. That image is what we have, the likeness is what we're to pursue the after likeness to pursue that. Which leads them to me to a brilliant insight within orthodoxy as to how the tempter could lead me astray. He promised that if you eat this fruit that you're not supposed to eat, you'll become what, like, God, a shortcut to the goal God had in the first place by disobeying him in any of that stuff. So the question of how he was tempted, and the results there, of that, of that fall into sin, we can talk about them later, the differences and the ways in which we talk about humanity being cursed, perhaps sharing original guilt from Adam and Eve, and the question of depravity that what's happened to human nature, that led in chapter four to a focus on the Savior, that All scripture is focused there. This is something the apostles learned after the resurrection, and the true disciples on the road to a mass and then later when Jesus appeared to the disciples, that everything written about, about the Messiah, and in the law and the prophets and the Psalms, has had his fulfillment in him. So the apostles and the church fathers in their train, looked at everything from a perspective of Christ, the crucified resurrected one. And that's how they approached scripture as fulfilled in Jesus Christ, that shaped the way in which they looked at the the inspiration of Scripture, not so much to figure out questions of how God did it, but that he focused things so that they would continue to point to and be fulfilled in Jesus Christ and what he would come to do.
And this then remained the focus in ancient and ancient church as over against the allegation by others ad on harnack and others of the hellenization of Christianity wants Constantine lifted the prosecution's that know everything continued to be focused on for us and For our salvation even in the midst of trying to come up with terms, they'll protect the episodic proclamation that leads them in chapter five to the question to treatment of the economy of salvation, the economy being a commonly used theological term and orthodoxy, the way something is run the way it's worked out, if all we had happens in four steps there, well, we can return to me, as I'm sure as part of the discussion. The first one is the incarnation as a first step, not just getting the Savior on the ground, but the significance in orthodox teaching of the actual incarnation itself, what it means for humanity for the one who is life, in his life in the life of light of man, the one who became incarnate for the one who is life to enter into humanity, Judge to death, and a variety of things like that there's some there's some really rich insights, various other teachings that That, to me opens up a lot of the wonder of the Incarnation more than the emphasis on the last atom, something we're familiar with in western Christianity as well, and how the Orthodox player worked that out treatment of the death on the cross again, Christ as Victor, with the power of the cross, then a consideration of the ransom that we mentioned in the West, but we don't do a lot with in the east, in the fascinating treatment of the question of the deception of the devil, as Gregory of Nyssa, john Damascus and many others end up talking about it among the church fathers. But then a very clear distinction that that the death on the cross is not something paid to the Father. It's not paid to him. And in fact, trying to discern then where that develops, as far as I can tell, it's hardly mentioned in the church fathers and the first time we find a clearly articulated as under Anselm of Canterbury, and subsequently within the satisfaction theory, then eventually elaborated in the Reformation era to the penal substitutionary atonement, that something is not in the church fathers certainly is not common among them, whereas the victory victory of Christ and the ransom is and then of course, the consideration of victory over death and eternal life for humankind, as what is given that leads that lead sixth lead to a consideration of deification Greek term theosis. Other terms are used as well. deification is the goal of salvation. deification, meaning that we become like God, we're not changed into God, we remain creatures, but we are made like God is what God intended in the first place for a spot for human beings. And the rich expansion of the Church Fathers took on the episodic exchange formula, Christ became this so that we might become that and, and the elaboration of that in a variety of ways, to, to teach us what we're supposed to be and to become and how, what the goal of salvation is. But the the, the church fathers, then who fought it out this train, especially in the in the eastern tradition, gave a distinctively Christian content to theosis theopolis, or whatever the very various Greek terms may be. A distinctively Christian content is just to separate it from and distinguish it from similar notions that were common in the philosophies of ancient Hellenic and Hellenistic times. When we consider the significance of the Transfiguration, what that meant at the time for the disciples and what it means for us as we consider what it means to to be made liked to God. And then, finally, in the chapter we consider the biblical warrant for this approach, where in Scripture is this kind of terminology of being God's or being made like God, found and and with with a final mention of deification is the fullness of salvation is the completed package.
And then in the seventh chapter, we talked about actually becoming like God walking the path, what is it that we're called to be? How do we engage in this path of deification? Well, first the mysteries as they're called in orthodoxy, sacraments in western parlance, the different approach that is often found in the rich sense of how this works for us, because God says, Does consideration of that consideration of what's called synergy and Eastern Christian tradition different from synergism is certainly different from monotheism, and Western Christian discussions that, that we bring our wills to, to the one who has given us grace to call us to himself. And we want them to walk in His ways, and then that we love our neighbors living in that we live as God wants us to Living in the church, living in the church not as ideally in our theories, but in the actuality of the person next door with whom we can hardly get along. The challenge of becoming like God, in, in, in walking in this path and living in the church. And then finally and more simply in chapter eight, we deal with the sign of the cross on, if it's this significant, what is it, the Orthodox do with it, how they use it in worship, how they make the sign of the cross, to serve itself as a confession of faith and what it means, but also how the sign of the cross can be used as deliverance from temptation as a cipher as a request for blessing and as a joyful sign of recognizing and professing the deliverance of Christ. And then as an appendix to respond to challenges I've heard given to, to orthodox teachings about deification challenge I've sometimes heard from Protestant circles is that orthodoxy seems not to use the biblical parlance that so often found in the episodic terminology. And so I went through the lens and try it on the festival, ion and excerpted places square, the various terms that are used more commonly in Protestant circles appear in abundance throughout the throughout the liturgies. Just to point out that these terms are there, the Orthodox are exposed to them, they learn about them, but the term in which they the way in which they talk about it is by that more commonly about the concept of deification. So that's been a rather quick tour. That's pretty much it, Jonathan, I'll turn it back to you,
then. Thank you so much Dr. painting, we're extremely grateful for you outlining and laying out the content of your text. Applause doesn't work very well on zoom. But we are applauding you. And thank you very much for your kind contribution. We have a really remarkable group of panelists with us. I've invited also to this conversation, many of my students from Moody Bible Institute. So we're also delighted to have about 30 students from Moody, thank you for joining us as well. We will let the panelists respond directly to you with any questions or comments or follow up that that we may have.
I want to say thank you to our speaker today. From a pastoral standpoint, and as a rather late in life convert to the Orthodox faith. As a matter of fact, I, at one time many years ago, taught systematic theology in an extension course of Moody Bible Institute. So lots of lots of background, I have come to the place where as a pastor, in the Orthodox Church as a priest, I find that your book, Dr. Patton, is the finest tool that I have yet discovered, to give the depth of a biblical and a theological basis to inculcate somebody into the church. Because of the rich use of patristic, writing, and the clarity of what you've chosen to do before we get into all of the external things, which are certainly important. But this book, as a matter of fact, just last Sunday, we welcomed three new catechumens into the church. And my first instruction was to buy the victory of the cross, because we're going to go through it. And I'll just say very briefly, the difference. And there are so many fine books, wonderful books, to introduce people. But it uses the language of the church fathers in the rich spiritual quality and the beauty and the spiritual poetry of from the very second century on that has remained steady, stable. And the great work of a priest today is to help Orthodox people to have that same interaction and heartwarming experience of the glorious truth that the APA systolic fathers brought to the church and it's been carried on ever since. So that is a profound Thank you. I'm also delighted that before the victory of the cross came out, a patristic Treasury came out from conciliar. Our I should say, Ancient Faith now, publications to give all of these references in one form. And the two coming together are going to be just increasingly something I think will give people today in such a chaotic and rootless world, a wonderful wonderful rootedness in the faith that what this work has done is really unique. So thank you.
grateful for your assessment. Thank you. I want to thank you also Dr. Peyton, for a really well balanced and, and rich presentation. In particular, I want to thank you for insisting on the understanding of the gospel is what God has done, and not as a how to get saved. scheme, my original background to salvation army and then through Anglicanism, to Orthodoxy. So, you know, I've, I've seen various construals of the gospel, and to see that on the first page, that you're taking seriously what St. Paul has to say about the gospel, being about Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, I really appreciate. I also like the fact that you emphasize pretty early on that the cross and the resurrection are knitted together in orthodoxy in a way that you hadn't experienced in western Christianity. And that is something that rings really true for me, I really loved your emphasis upon the canon of truth or faith, including the approach to Scripture, not just to creed, how we read scriptures, is, is something that we've inherited from the Apostolic tradition. And I thought that that was a really good emphasis there. And I really want to thank you about that. And also, just your subtlety in weaving your way through arguments, for example, your response to how some and in various ways, two different ways you point out have, have talked about how orthodoxy moved into a more philosophical way of looking at the truth and that and that you emphasize that it never lost the focus upon Jesus is the center while you do acknowledge those different ways of looking at the development of the faith, I just thought that was wonderful. And especially for emphasis on the whole meaning of the incarnation, I just want to thank you for that. You made my heart sing with many of the many of the quotations that you gave from, from the church fathers and, and showed how they were consonant with Scripture and with the life of the church. So thank you so much.
Well join the others in saying, you know, what a beautiful presentation in the book. You know, the for opening prayer was about generosity. And your book, really is a kind of template for how to look at other people's tradition, how to enter sympathetically into a tradition that is not your own, as you said, you know, to hear our own emphases being being spoken. So just from that point of view, it's really beautiful. When it's written, so, so complete in many ways. You know, I mean, as the compensation goes on, I mean, there's, I would add one chapter, but I can, I'll tell you about that later. I don't need to know the chapter. But I'm just having gone through, I just cut a few of the things that really struck me. The the way that you, you'll highlight areas that are different in the western and eastern conceptions, guilt, corruption, depravity, as synergy, Grace, biblical interpretation, those you have various points in the book, you sort of step aside to focus on those differences. And I found those especially helpful, particularly if someone's coming from a Western background. But I come from an entirely Eastern background, I grew up in the the the Orthodox Russian Orthodox Church. So I look at it very helpfully from from that side. How do other How do those from the western churches? What's their mindset? Because that's been my sort of lifelong task is to enter in sympathetically so but I really appreciate the way you did that. Particularly your chapter eight, the sign of the cross. You know, I, I had, you know, I've been a parish priest. I'm right now teaching as an adjunct. You know, I had a period of full time teaching at university, but all the time I've been a pastor as well. And on one occasion, I had someone in my youth group, join her friends at a I think was a Methodist, but my evangelical kind of Bible study, and as they began the Bible study, she made the sign of the cross. And the the leader of the study said, Oh, that's okay. You'll grow out of that. And she came asking me, you know, Father is Something that I will grow out of. So I appreciate it, especially that you devoted an entire chapter to this idea of the cross, you know, is something that you literally sign yourself with and how rich that is as a sign of prayer and commitment, you know, many, many times a day, so that was all very helpful.
The
y'all go back to the generosity, you know, as a lifelong orthodox, it was almost too generous. You know, when you're in your own tradition, you're aware of the the flaws, and those things that are kept in the ideal, but not practiced all that much or so, I that's the thing I struggle with, is the beautiful presentation of theology, which is utterly accurate, utterly accurate, you know, the way you You, you, you mind, the not just the scriptures, but the patristic teachings, the liturgical inspiration, all of those things are totally accurate. It's the living out part that, you know, I think all pastors have difficulty with in their own life, and also as they look at their congregations and what people actually believe. I had a friend in seminary, who did a, you know, sort of informal survey of his parishioners and found that 70% did not believe that Jesus Christ was God incarnate. You know, so, we have, we have a quite a bit of teaching, left left to do. So, I will join father Wilbur in, you know, recommending the book to people to learn what our own tradition is. But there are some times Orthodoxy is presented as this kind of beautiful picture that needs some correction, in terms of realities. Anybody who is, let's say, been involved in ecumenical kinds of things with orthodox will be able to identify that it's it's not all beautiful, that there are, there are some, you know, rough spots in orthodoxy that need to be addressed. But the chapter that I would add, would be one on kenosis kenosis, the emphasis on Philippians chapter two, Hebrews, the emptying, you know, it might not be a Greek patristic emphasis, but, you know, especially in the 20th century, it was studied as a Russian emphasis in Russian, Kannada cism became a whole category, George fedorko, looking at the lives of the saints, and how that's expressed that cannot emptying I even looked up, Paul gabey, Luke, wrote a whole article on the kinetic theology of surges Bulgakov. And I was happy to see that you referenced bulcock of you know, as a later orthodox thinking thinker, but I happen to feel that that this particular emphasis on the kinetic work of Christ the emptying sometimes in the liturgical services, use use the word condescension, which is not always, you know, kenosis. But it's but it's the same kind of idea of, of emptying of, of relating to the outcast, of which we're all examples. It's such a powerful theme in orthodoxy I found, and it has so many practical implications, how you relate to outcast the outsider, you know, going outside the camp, you know, Hebrews You know, sometimes orthodoxy can look like like a kind of perfect tent in which only the perfect can enter. And, and yet I find it very consoling that this stream is so powerful that it is for everybody, including the the outcast. So that's, I would, I would add, but the final comment I would make right now is, I love the fact that that Moody Bible Institute is is involved here. I lived in England for eight years. And my Bishop was the really well known spiritual teacher, Metropolitan Anthony bloom, of blessed memory. And he used to cook moody regularly. He had a phrase that he loved. Moody at one point was faced a lot of criticism in his life for the way he was doing things. And he said, I prefer my imperfect way to doing it to your perfect way of not doing it. And this was something that Metropolitan Anthony regularly quoted. So anyway, I love that that little connection to moody anyway. So again, thank you.
Thank you so much for the Jillian's and also for your An example of humility. We won't get any real ecumenical work done unless we're willing to be self critical. So thank you for leading us in that step. Dr. Patton, do you care to respond to further Jillian's or any of the previous comments? Yeah, thank
you. A couple things. First, I thank you, Father Wilbur and Dr. Humphrey and father john, for your comments, I noticed that all three of you are orthodox and appreciate appreciate your positive responses. And your encouragement in that regard. And you're the book to which father Wilbur referred was another one that I published a patristic treasuring early church wisdom for today, which I hope many people will be able to use because it does pull together a vast number of excerpts and so on from the church fathers. But to pick up on on your, your, your comment, Father, Father, john about, about orthodox being less than perfect for short. As somebody deeply committed to ecumenism and who studies other traditions as well as my own, I think it's far safer and more appropriate for orthodox to do the criticism than for the outsider to start pointing fingers. You know, if I praise it highly enough, somebody is going to correct me on the other side, but if it comes from you, it's a whole lot better. The other thing is that this is the ideal to which orthodox Aspire, it's, you know, and when they fall short of it, hopefully, it'll be a stimulus to them to aim higher. I spent eight years before I became a prof as a pastor as well. And I certainly know that in the evangelical and reformed worlds. Our, our, our menu description is sometimes better than the food we eat. By that, I mean that sometimes what people think about us is better what actually happens, I've recently been doing some writing on something else. And it's something like over half the evangelical world does not regularly read the scriptures, even though that's supposedly one of our homeworks. And that's, that's a, that's exceedingly troubling in a number of ways. So there were certainly that kind of things in the past that I knew, I know, in my own tradition, but um, thank you for that suggestion on kenosis. I've been thinking about it recently. And you know, since Paul calls us to follow in Christ's steps, what what would that mean, not only in the church, but also in social issues in the present day, for in all questions of anti racism, you know, the variety of things that come up, when we think about what that would mean, in the church, but also in the larger world. So thank you for that suggestion. This one I can all consider closely.
One thing that has been important to me, and inspired me, ever since all of my years of preaching, I have obviously had to confront my lord statement, I am the way the truth and the life and connections on actually kenosis came to me is in reading the victory of the cross. Because the way is kenosis. The truth is the antipathy to the lie of the of the devil at the temptation, and the life is coming to the Father. And that, that struck me very, very powerfully, and particularly, what a What a great I probably shouldn't use the term in the church, but meta narrative, the gospel is, and it hits me so strongly, that there is a narcissistic kenosis in nihilism, that ends up showing the exact emptiness of the human person, without Christ, with all of the aggression and all of the hostility in the name of doing wonderful and good things to create a godless utopia today. And that deeply impressed me as I was recently just going through all of this wonderful treatment. And the other thing, just to say it very quickly, and I did mention my prior experience at teaching theology at Moody, because I live and have served in 30, for 33 years in Wheaton, Illinois area, as a Baptist pastor, and actually been told I don't believe the Bible anymore. And there's nothing more concisely well written in one chapter on the Christ saturation of the entire Old Testament. Edith has written wonderfully about this as well. But that is so very powerful this constant stream not Am eyes chopped up concepts and ideas and people are always getting them better. But from the very beginning, beginning to the entire climax of the cannon is this meta narrative that speaks so deeply to every kind of human opinion and situation today and the chapter on, on focus on Christ. As I just was looking really on, I can remember looking at, well, what will that be about? Well, it was about focus on Christ in a very holistic way. And I think that you have captured the whole ism or the Catholicism, according to the whole, wonderfully, and that was a great contribution to me.
But also like to thank you for organizing this lovely event. And thank you, Dr. Paden, for this wonderful book you've given us I really, really enjoyed it. It's actually a book that clarifies many things, and it's very, very approachable. I could recommend it, to my students in Greece, to read it and understand a lot of what Orthodox people believe. It's always better to have something like this rather than a character tour of what we create about what the other people believe. So I grew up in Greece, in Greek Orthodox context. And there, there's a lot of misunderstandings between the two communities unless we actually sit down together and discuss and get to know each other. And so I'm very thankful for the work you have done. So I don't know if we're, if you're taking any questions now, should I be the first one to launch into that? Okay. I made several notes. But I just want to focus on one point that I suspect is the sticking point for evangelicals. It's the whole issue of synergy. synergism. And this this kind of topic. So you you say that the of course the Easter claims, that scene is always the result of freewill. And the emphasis on freewill is really, really important. But I feel that the reformers were trying to account for a human experience that we do not consciously and freely always choose evil. But we have this human experience of bondage like we see in Romans seven, for example, the thing that I want to do i do not do and and so on. So perhaps the the language of depravity is not adequate, or it can be misunderstood, or it's a word that is it's more challenging to discuss with. But I would like to ask you if if there is an account of this experience, this human experience, which is so basic, and a lot of us feel it, this bondage of the will that we experience? What do the fathers say about this? Or is there a different kind of language that they're using that Protestants do not catch or think that is completely absent? So if you could help us on this topic, I would really appreciate it.
Thank you. Okay.
Yeah, there are different levels of emphasis that I found in the church fathers, on the one hand, he has someone like St. JOHN chrysostom, who emphasizes that, you know, we are not born with a with what we would call depravity in the Protestant world, or with a broken nature, but that we we don't bear somebody else's guilt, but only our own. And so he talks very strongly about the importance of turning properly in to in response to others and to God. Then you have in some of the Desert Fathers forgotten whether it's cinema chorus, I think it's a Makarios, who talks about being so overlaid with corruption, that we it's almost like it's become part of our nature. But he's, but I just put out he doesn't say it's become part of our nature. So it's like, the patterns are there. We've learned this from you know, we've imbibed it with our mother's milk. It's just the the brokenness that's around us and the evil that surrounds us, it's pervasive. And so you have you do have the emphasis on both sides. What What what has struck me as distinct as distinguished from the way I've, I've heard it spoken about in Western Christian thought, already talked about a depraved human nature, which is a common way of speaking in certainly in Calvinist circles and reformed circles, and to some degree in Lutheran circles as well. an Orthodox priest challenged me once he says, Wait, nature, is God's creation. Sin is not more powerful than God, so that what we've done is corrupted. But we can't change the nature to something else. And I thought that was was a helpful way of making a distinction, recognizing serious evil that is around us that we can see, but also in us, and recognizing, nevertheless, that we are still made for God and turned toward God, which in the way I reflected on it makes him that much more heinous. Because since we're turning toward God, if you as the Orthodox say, every sin is a departure from God. It's not just Oh, the devil made me do it the way a comedian used to say it in North America. And it's not my depraved nature made me do it. It's, it's something far more direct. The other thing I would, I would say, and this is a challenge that I'm sometimes given in my own circles. In the reformed tradition, where we do talk about total depravity, meaning that all every part of us is corrupted, not that we're as bad as we could get, but every part of us is turned from God. I say, well, then how do we account for the love that people who are not believers show toward others and toward their children, that they don't run red lights? They're not always shooting each other. That kind of exaggerated things, but nevertheless, is there I said, Well, we talk about common grace that inhibits that happening. I said, Well, you've got grace splashing around all over the place. That's not saving grace. I said, there must be a better way of speaking of that than we've then we've often found. So I think, both within orthodoxy and in western Christianity, we found different ways of talking about the corruption that's undeniably around us and within us. And, yeah, I'm not sure that it's an answer as much as a kind of a response.
I could piggyback on to that, thanks so much for that explanation. I am, I really appreciate your emphasis upon the strength of God, and the goodness of creation and that human beings can't obliterate what God has made. That word nature and the word curse, though, are, I think, a little slippery. Um, even on page 79, you speak of St. Maximus, the Confessor, who says that, in by coming in, in the flesh, Christ freed human nature which had been enslaved by corruption. So there's a sense in which, certainly in the tradition, there is a mitigating factor or a muting of all that we are intended to be. And even the word curse is used, it's used liturgically, you know that the women cast away the ancestral curse, I know that I know that. In your book, you you want to suggest that song, a major theme, but there is this sense in which what we have inherited from the beginning, is, is something that is not all that it was intended to grow into, and that in fact, there are obstacles in the way within not just without, that our beings aren't all in sync in the way that they ought to be. And that's certainly a patristic patristic, a theme among among many of the fathers not that we inherit guilt so much, but that we do inherit, we do inherit something that we all share, and we can call that nature. That is not exactly how God intended it to be. And that that impedes us from growing into what what it intends us to be if what happens in the Incarnation and the cross and the resurrection doesn't take effect in us. So I guess, I guess I'm, I'm, I'm happy with what you are affirming here. I'm not so sure that what you're denying is exactly accurate. So I do think there's an ancestral curse. It's very clear in the tradition, and I do think something has happened to nature. It's just not the way that the western church tends to talk about what has happened to our nature. I react for example, against even in terms of not sin. But in terms of more mortality, when the nrsv translates, oh, son of man, as a mortal, as though that's all that we are now, in God's eyes, when, when when God is speaking to a zekiel. So I see what you're reacting against. I just think we can go too far, and maybe push it too far. I want to be a little bit more ironic towards the Western tradition that something has happened there. I just wouldn't describe it that way.
It seems as I came out with an understanding and appreciation for differentiating what God said to Adam and Eve, that I that you spoke about this so well. A curse is consequence. And the consequence is to be cut off from the life of God. And that goes back to that trilogy. I'm the way the truth and the life The falsity, the lie, the deceit is a curse against God. And it struck me in reflecting on that, and I think these I agree with EDA, these are really hard things to to separate out. But um, in the great repentant Psalm, Psalm 50, against the only of I send it down that which is evil, and I cite that thou mightest be justified in thy words and prevail. David was saying, I called you a liar. And I called you as having no rightful authority over me in what I've done. And then in Psalm 62, the same kind of thought, at the very end, but the Kings to be glad and guide everyone, she'll be crazy swears by him. For the mouth of the unjust word, the unjust word shall be stopped it close the unjust word, is the lie. And so that cutting ourselves off from the Word of God in that life giving prohibition do not eat, the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. When that happened, that brought a curse, it was not him imposed by God in the sense that he actively did something. He spoke about the reality of things, and Jesus is the truth. And the truth was no more powerfully expressed anywhere than on the cross. And so that curse and consequence, and God not allowing himself to be made, or diminished in his truth, telling in His Word, sent the word to show the full consequences. So that I don't know if that softens the conflict between East and West. But I found that what Dr. Payton said, on that subject really gave me a deeper sense of the wholeness of the thing. Yeah, thank you very much.
I really enjoyed reading the book. You know, it was a very good presentation, from my point of view. But I liked what john Jillian's had to say, too, I mean, of course, he's speaking from, you know, a cradle orthodox position, which, which is good. And I would, I would fully support what he was saying. And I would want to add, particularly in this question of Western east and so on, it seems to me that people who read modern orthodox theology from a wet from outside, you know, from the western point of view, don't realize that they're reading one strand of it, shall we say, you know, one, one aspect, though, it's not, it's not the whole story by any means. And in particular, they don't seem to understand that the Orthodox world was very heavily influenced by post reformation, Roman Catholicism. In the 16th and 17th centuries, you know, the there were sort of academies set up, and so on in the Ukraine, in Russia, and also the Greeks were, you know, were influenced by this. And for a long time, what passed for orthodox theology in the in the seminaries in the Orthodox world, such as they were, was really Roman Catholicism. Pope you know, post Tridentine Roman Catholicism slightly modified in order to, you know, satisfy certain orthodox sensibilities. So they would, they would take out, you know, the filioque weight or something like this. But basically, you know, the method of doing theology was very heavily influenced by, by by by scholasticism by Neo scholasticism. And what you have from the 19th century, and particularly in the 20th century, is a reaction against this. And so, if you read, like the Russians of the 19th century, you know, people like kamiak, cough, and so on. And lossky and people like this, and they're very anti Western, or they, you know, they express this, but their conception of what Western theology is, it's very much influenced, you see, by Scholastic thinking, and then of course, you have the, from the reformed tradition, there is a kind of Neo scholasticism there as well. So when you get discussions with nature, and grace, and so on, I mean, you know, people like Richard Miller, and so on, develop this history, how the reformed tradition sort of retreated from the Reformation in some ways, and, you know, recreated itself like this. And so they're arguing in this line. And I think that when it comes to to today, and what's going on today, we have to be very careful. I mean, for example, all this discussion about theosis. deification in a way, I mean, you can go back to the Fathers of the Church, and, you know, if you if you route around long enough and hard enough, you might find this word or some form of this word, there. But that concept really wasn't discussed in the way that it is today. You know, in the ancient world, or indeed, very much at all, until the 20th century, it's a modern way of reading the the the ancient tradition, you seem to go back to it, it's a kind of contestation, you might say, within orthodoxy itself, you know, by by sort of modern neo patristic, or Neo Byzantine thinkers of what was there in the past. So we have to be careful about this, I'm not trying to say that it's right or wrong. I'm just saying that, you know, there's a, there's a background here, there's a development here, which is very complex. And it I felt in reading the book, this, this was kind of glossed over, it was simplified, not met by not being mentioned. And so you get this kind of thing you see, and things like, for instance, the image and likeness of God.
I mean, the Fathers of the Church misunderstood that they, because they didn't have the the Hebrew background, that wouldn't be necessary to do appreciate it. And we just have to admit this, this isn't to say that, that what the fathers were necessarily all wrong in the conclusions that they drew, because sometimes you can draw, you know, good conclusions from that exit Jesus, it is possible. And that has happened before. But we need to be a little bit more objective in our assessment of this, you know, and not sort of, idolize, say patristic thought as if it's one particular thing. And not only just one particular thing, but somehow better than other things. It needs to be treated as I think with a lot more subtlety than what we're getting. And that's, I mean, I don't know that I'm making a whole lot of sense right now. But I'm just trying to say that there's, there's a lot more to this, one of the things I find with Western converts to Orthodoxy, is that usually they have a rather emaciated view of the Western tradition. You know, it's there seems to be a narrative of people coming from a fundamentalist background where they never studied church history or this kind of thing. And and then, you know, they are exposed to this whole other world. Well, that's fine. I mean, that's very good. But me, I mean, you know, I come from from an Anglican background, very exposed to church history, very exposed to liturgy, not really a stranger to this kind of thing at all. And, you know, when I read this, about orthodoxy, orthodox liturgy, and so on, I don't find this odd or strange. I mean, you sort of enter into it. But you know what, john God was saying the theory is one thing. How does it work out in practice? I mean, I see that in my own church, and you know, people who say, who say all the right things, but don't really understand, you know, what it means in practice. And I mean, I have to deal with people who have become Anglican, you know, from being Baptist or whatever, and have to tell them in politely that they've done it for all the wrong reasons. You know, they haven't really understood. And I think this is true of, of the attraction of Orthodoxy as well. I mean, that's the hard thing to say. But I that's what I think,
well, in an attempt to lighten the mood, do you all know the difference between theory and practice? They're the same in theory, but they're different in practice. All right. So you put your fingers on some very good points. Dr. Brian, we very much appreciate your openness and your boldness, to without hesitation, identify those things. So that's also a service. In no particular order, does anybody wish to respond,
but just just a quick response. And I think that it is helpful to realize that from the Orthodox point of view, we have people like, for example, Matthew Baker, a blessing memory, who has suggested that we follow in the more ironic approach of say, Fleur offski, and I'm in the Orthodox in the Orthodox response to Central Western ways of construing theology that we need to be more organic. And and I think that what Gerald says about the complex complexity of history is a really important thing to acknowledge here. I mean, so for example, all of us are very happy when Western Christians rediscover the theme of Christus Victor, but it would be an overstatement for us to then say, and thereby, you should ignore all the western construals of atonement, because in fact, some of those themes are found in our own church fathers. St. JOHN chrysostom, for example, does speak using juridical language using even punitive language with regards to what happened on the cross in his sermon on the ascension of our Lord. The difference, of course, is that he doesn't follow that metaphor, right to the its conclusion, which we would consider to be dishonouring to God, but he, he mixes it up with other metaphors, including the reconciliation of Christ, the Christus, Victor motif, and so on. So, I think that, as we as we deal with each other, I think it's helpful to remember that there have always been two solitudes, and that there are some approaches that have been maintained in the West that could be recovered by Eastern theologians today. Gerald, I would say that theosis is one of the things that the West is rediscovering that, in fact, I think is far more prevalent throughout Eastern thought than you characterized. I don't know what you would do with Maximus and palamos, and distinctions between essence and energies and so on. In saying that theosis is only a modern emphasis, I think that it was very strong in those strands strands, and that they had recourse to the distinction between energies, in essence, in order to safeguard theosis against something that became in pious, but I do think that more and more attention to the entire to the entire tradition, wherever we find it, and to all the fathers is very helpful here, and that there were things that we need to recover, perhaps on both sides.
Just to take up what Edith was saying, you know, about Maximus, and about Paula mass. I mean, these Maximus, of course, you know, was it was in the humanist before his time, you might say, I mean, he traveled all over the place, and and knew the western church and the Eastern Church, and and appreciated the kind of differences that there were between them. parlor mass has been, and, I don't know hijacked in a way, you know, by bias by certain groups within modern orthodoxy. And one of the interesting things that's happening and has happened in recent years is that you get it you're getting from within the Orthodox world, a kind of reassessment of of this, you see and what he was, what he was saying. On the question of of the deification I mean, that is it again, it's too complicated to go into right now. But But I would say maintain what I said that the the, you know, the the way in which it is treated in, in modern writing, say by somebody like, you know Vladimir lossky, for example. I mean, this is not necessarily either a faithful representation of what, you know the tradition Mas, and, or indeed is agreed among modern orthodox I mean, there plenty of people in the Orthodox world who don't like that, you know, and who are opposed to it. And all I'm saying is that, you know, what you have to see, it's a much more complicated and variegated scene than the one that we tend to be presented to us. You know, in the Western world.
History is an overly complex historian, there's a lot more layers of things that could be done writing this as a general presentation, to try to present the victory of the cross in orthodoxy. Are there layers of complication? Sure. Is there a further are there as Dr. Humphrey said, earlier, the terms curse and nature slippery, you bet. And even in the way in which I presented it, I acknowledged that the the use of the term curse, for example, does appear in liturgical materials. But I wanted to I wanted to place the emphasis where i, where i hear it being placed in orthodoxy, and, and lay that out there for people to talk about. Is it the case that, um, the modern orthodoxy sounds different than than the ancient world did, of course, I taught the history of, of Ukraine history, the history and culture of Ukraine and upper level course. And we dealt with mo heelas, you know, Academy, and its influence in my students, and I read extensively on Ukrainian Russian challenges about that, and what it meant for the teaching of theology. So there, there are lots of further complications possible. Clearly, I've also drawn primarily on the material that's out there, which mostly comes from Russian Orthodox expatriates. And from the Russian Orthodox tradition that is, you know, has behind it, the western icers blob of file tensions in Russian thought, not so much on the Greek thought, because there frankly, isn't as much material in Greek Orthodox on it says there are probably differences there. That could be that would nuance further some of what I've said here, but there is less material available in this undeniable rivalry with orthodoxy between the Greek leadership in theological and doctrinal thought, and the Russian one. So there's a lot more that could be done, but I appreciate that it's a it's, it's complicated.
I mean, if Gerald was right, about what he said about dedication, it's slightly odd. Sounds like a regional who's not a modern orthodox theologian. So this thesis was an obtuse deification difficulty was a doctrine that he found among the Greeks and didn't find the word among the Latins. Perhaps he was wrong, prevent present material things he is the other thing that would it be helpful if he could actually concentrate on James's book rather than we can talk forever among ourselves about what we think the Orthodox are? And, and we also are also quite quite used to being told by people who aren't orthodox what we believe, but I don't think this is this isn't what James is doing.
Thank you very much for that comment. And we do have a question that Tim grass has just chatted. So the question is one question which struck me on reading the book concerned the compatibility in Christian spirituality of the emphasis on Christ's victory, with the radical reformation emphasis on following Christ to the cross?
Yes, perhaps a couple of things in that regard, picking up on what following Willie Wilber mentioned earlier about kenosis that we are called to fall into to do what Christ did to lay aside ourselves and our privileges and so on. Christ and Christ called us in the New Testament to take up our cross and follow Him. So that the implication would be that yes, we would likely end up suffering, but it will also be victorious suffering that that is positive. And I'm not saying that well. Let me back up and put it a different way. One of the things I would like to pursue more than I have so far is increasing number of books have been presented, being published. On an anabaptist view of the cross that downplays wrath and anger, I'd like to know more about that I know, Danny Weaver and some others have published books recently on it. But I haven't pursued it enough to know where, where they go with it. But I can sense that, you know, nothing in the Orthodox understanding of Christ being Victor, would undercut the necessity of our needing to pick up the cross and following the fact that we'd call us to follow him in every regard, again, that I'm not sure that's a good answer, but I'm not sure that I know enough more about the particular question to answer.
Thank you for that response. One of the things I'd like to invite everybody to do, in addition to whatever question other questions may emerge, is simply to note the points of questions for future future research. So one of the things that could be a valuable, valuable product of our investment of time together to is simply to identify where real points of differentiation lie, that could be a point for further research.
So this, this also is a comment for something that perhaps Dr. Patton would like to include in a further book. And that is the whole question of the harrowing of Hades, which of course, you do mention. But only basically, so far as I could see, in the context of the, the trope, the Nissen trope of, of the tricking of the devil, not in the not in the, in the actual victory of all these of these prisoners being busted out. So whether that actually does have a scriptural as well as a, as well as a traditional war, obviously, is a very strong theme in the east. But are they right in going to the, to the pathogen in Matthew have the passion and in what happens when the skies darkened, and so on, and the bodies come out? And are they writing in interpreting First Peter, in that way. So I think that would be a really interesting addition to what you've done in filling out the Christus Victor motif. And I think that that's also the point the distance between mean, hardly anything is done on Holy Friday, or rather Holy Saturday, in the West. So
I found that to that, I read Hillary in all fields book on it a few years ago, dealing largely with the Holy Saturday and, and realized, as I as I had years earlier, when I was getting into this more fully, that I don't recall ever having Holy Saturday or silent Saturday, dressed, you know, in any of my own preaching, when I was past or in any of the preaching I've ever heard, or theological teaching, or maybe it had been, but it evaded me. If so, that'd be that'd be something marvelous to explore.
I follow john might know more about this than I do. But I find it fascinating. I mean, we actually do have to liturgies the sea Basel in the morning, which, from my understanding was originally an Easter, not a Holy Saturday. Service, but it but it functions the way that we do it is remembering Christ's victory in in harrowing Hadees. And so it's an interesting thing that we have that as well as our actual past the service, and that the one has started to be understood in terms for started for a long time has been understood in terms of celebrating what happened, what happened on Holy Saturday. So it would be an interesting distinction and debate to have, I think.
Yeah, and just to follow up on that, is that actually, that theme of Holy Saturday, the descent into hell goes along with the that theme we spoke about earlier about kenosis. Christ entering hell you could get all kinds of things could be developed from that. And as you yourself said, what are the implications of that kind of thinking for a whole raft of social and missionary issues? like it'd be quite interesting.
Yeah, I mean, another point as well is that the the icon that's called the resurrection, your Narcissus is often called in the West harrowing of hell. And that's the icon that you would have on Sunday. I mean, that that is the icon of the resurrection. We I think we I think partly what's what's what's going on with this with the literature's around Easter, because there are so many of them is that they get split up into different bits. But originally, there was just one possible celebration of the death and resurrection of Christ, which included the harrowing of hell, which is part of the same event.
And actually, that whole distinction about whether you look at unique things, themes, events, or whether you knit things together, the approach, sort of the charism of West and East there would be an interesting thing to discuss and looking at various things. Looking liturgically looking, looking at how the salvation story is told, and so on.
If I could add to that, that's fascinating. These themes, themes and ideas are rather different. We tend to separate on ideas, themes can draw us together, I have several Orthodox priest friends who, as I was, was a Baptist, most of my preaching life. And I can't count the number of times I have slipped in, I usually say a Christian poet once wrote, and just profound, profound heart language of everything that the Orthodox Church treasures, found in a clear and humble way just says it so well. These distinctions, really do keep us apart. And that's where the whole ecumenical activity becomes difficult, we find this great heart union and our love and devotion to Christ into the Holy Trinity. But we can find wonderful ways that sometimes surprise one group against the other group, that the other was saying that, but it was it's the heart language of the devotion, it's liturgical, or just the hymns of the church. At Edith, I think you've written about this, some of the things that you treasure, from your earlier days, in other other communions that we all we all share. And to be aware of those commonalities, I think is a very powerful part in what the Father desires, that even with the very well, strict ecclesiology of the Orthodox Church, those same passions, for truth, and for the love of God and His people are really pretty common.
One of the things that struck me over the course of many years of reading and teaching church history, is when we think about the devotion that we offer, whether in the west or in the east, to the to the Lord, to the crucified one to the resurrected one of the Trinity. What struck me is that, that, in the West, where the focus has been so much on the suffering and death of Christ, you find evidence periodically of people suffering the stigmata. As far as I'm aware, I don't know if that happening in East but in the east, where the focus is on deification and being transformed, you periodically have the people who have this experience of going with light. And again, I know, I since have encountered very little, if any of that in the West, and it's strikes me is that God meets us where we are, and challenges us. But they're two quite different types of experiences of unusual closeness to God that are striking, but are distinct in that I don't know that anybody can explore that. Well, I'm not certainly qualified to do it. But I find it a fascinating difference, at least. Finally, Oh, go ahead.
I'm sorry.
I just can't say that me there is a famous example of a person nearly a saint and Anglican. Who, who who did experience transfiguration. Oh, okay. In London, who is a, an account of it by her friend, Charles Williams, he visited one evening, and he talks about this extraordinary it's very, very likely account of the of serafina sorrows appearing to his friend, Matangi law. Certainly,
of course, she was fourth the file doesn't she very well knew these Eastern fathers very well, and the eastern tradition,
and easyto tradition and the Latin tradition. But beyond that, that's just something that is often intrigued me. I'd like to know more about it. But I'm not the person who can explore it. I want to thank all of you for the interest you've shown, I'm humbled by, by your interest. I'm honored by your engagement with my work. And I'm glad that you found it stimulating, challenging something to give you something to think about. So I'm, I'm very grateful to all of you and again to the Ecuador project for having this time with us, for me, and for my book.
And we're very, very grateful for your time, Dr. Payton, and also for this labor of love that you've worked out over decades to help the rest of us learn how to exercise ourselves in that sort of sympathetic entering into a tradition that we haven't known intimately from a first person perspective. Thank you for that. Thank you very much. Father john Chileans Could I call on you to close our time with the word of prayer please.
You're the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, we thank you for all the blessings that you've given us, especially today, through the the words and teaching of Professor Payton. And for everybody else who has contributed to this discussion. Help us to, to grow in faith and life and spiritual understanding the listening to each other. And to growing in love of you and your creation, where you are a good God, who loves all of us and all your creation into you. We give glory to the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.
Thank you, everybody. Have a wonderful day and a wonderful weekend. Thank you.