Episode 129: Interview with Dr. Jordan Wood

Jordan Daniel Wood discusses his recently released monograph The Whole Mystery of Christ: Creation as Incarnation in Maximus the Confessor (University of Notre Dame Press, 2022). Dr. Wood talks us through some the controversial aspects of his thesis, but why it can still be understood as an orthodox perspective. We even cover a little bit of Hegel and his role in Dr. Wood’s work.

Timestamps:

7:52- Connection Between Maximus and Hegel

18:57- Maximus and Incarnation

26:53- The Nature of Worship

39:44- The Revival of Interest in Platonism and Classical Theism

56:33- Deification and the Theology of Second Coming

1:00:12- Maximus and Origen

Charles Kim 0:00

Hello, and welcome to history of Christian theology. My name is Chad Kim. With me this week we'll be Jordan Daniel wood. Dr. Wood recently released a book with the University of Notre Dame press called the whole mystery of Christ creation as incarnation and Maximus, the confessor, we talk through some of the provocative ideas in this book, and also go into a little conversation on Hegel, which will be a first for this podcast. We have not discussed Hegel very often as I am not all too familiar with it. But but also, we just discussed the sort of general questions that surround this book, what makes this kind of challenge? What makes this interesting, and I think that you will appreciate this conversation. The book has been endorsed by John Baer, father, John bear, as well as Dr. David Bentley Hart. So it's a, it's making quite a big impact in the theological conversation, especially in the reception of calcium, which we've also been talking about. So I would encourage listeners, after they listen to this conversation, to listen to the conversations that Tom Trevor and I have been having, trying to explain some of the history surrounding the Christological controversies, because Maximus the Confessor comes later than those. So maybe even be better to listen to those first. But But Maximus is one who kind of continues the conversation from the Council of Cal Seton in order to continue to think through exactly what we mean to say, when we say that Christ is fully God and fully human. So thanks for listening. We appreciate any comments that you all would share on either on Facebook or on our web page at history, Christian theology.com, as well as reading and reviewing us on iTunes. We still have a few more conversations to go in the Christological controversy series, as well as a conversation coming with Benjamin Wheaton on what the atonement looked like in the middle ages. So thanks for listening. And hope you appreciate this conversation with Dr. Wood. So you and well, I'll give you a kind of introduction. I mean, the book is the whole mystery of Christ creation as incarnation in Maximus the Confessor, but I was actually just this is with the University of Notre Dame press. But I had actually looked up when is this supposed to be released as a book?

Jordan Wood 2:28

So is the release date is October 15? Coming up? Oh, you know, I guess what, six, seven weeks?

Charles Kim 2:35

Very good. And have you been doing lots of I think I've seen one interview maybe out there. But you've been doing other interviews about it? Yeah, not

Jordan Wood 2:43

not. Yeah. Like not not a whole lot recently. It was kind of funny. I feel like about a year ago, you know, because because I've been done with the book for a while, you know, on my end for a while for the most part. And so last year, there were a few, a few people that got their hands on it even earlier than you did, and got to like earlier versions of it. And so I did a few podcasts with them. But but that's because I didn't know I just the projection date of the production and the publication wasn't clear. And so I was like, Sure, I guess we can go ahead and do this. And so you're kind of the first one though. That's anywhere near the actual publication date.

Charles Kim 3:21

Okay. Well, we're Yeah, we're recording this in August. I suspect that I will get it on the docket cool. Actually, probably closer to its release date. There you go. I've been recording a lot of stuff this summer. So yeah, so we're, you know, we're probably looking at like September or something like that.

Jordan Wood 3:40

Yeah. No, that's great. Yep.

Charles Kim 3:43

And what is it? What are you going to be like? Do you have a title that I should I mean, you're Dr. Jordan. Daniel, would that is there a position that I can we can talk about or anything like, you know what you'll be doing this coming year?

Jordan Wood 3:57

I have no clue. I mean, no, I haven't. The short answer is I have no position or title or I'm not teaching or anything. I have a I'm a little I'm a I'm on a team that has received a small grant to translate some showing late shellings lectures on the philosophy of Revelation. So I'll be staying at home doing two translation projects. One is shelling and then the other one is maximises letters for the Fathers of the Church series. Okay, but But no, I have no I have no title. I'll just be as I always say, I'm just going to be working in my garage you know, listening to Weezer or something.

Charles Kim 4:37

And, and doing some Greek translation and shelling doing some German.

Jordan Wood 4:41

Yeah, exactly. Yep. Yep.

Charles Kim 4:44

Oh, that's good for you. My I mean, I started working on my like, Duolingo and some other stuff that I do when I was like trying to do better in the language. But man, my German is just always feels like it's way behind.

Jordan Wood 4:59

Yeah, well Well, I'm not sure that ever will go away for any of us that haven't been growing up speaking, it's, ya know, I, I kind of stumbled into that project. Clearly it's outside of my, you know, I guess expertise or wheelhouse, though it isn't outside of my interests. And it was just sort of an idea that my colleague and I had years ago to translate this and we pitched it to University of Notre Dame's John Betts just even see if it would be a good idea. Anyway, it's kind of snowballed into a larger thing. And so yeah, I'm so I'm, I'm a full time stay at home dad, but my wife is a nurse. And so since she works three long days a week it means like basically get like one or two days a week where I can kind of piddle around in the garage. And whereas most dads would be, you know, fixing cars or doing something useful. I'll be translating an activist and chilling. Yep.

Charles Kim 5:57

That's about how I feel I'm doing I'm doing something on Augustine for the new city press. So yes, I sit up in my I'm in my office but upstairs, but yeah, just, you know, transit every I'm doing on on the one baptism date when he called baptismal which is, everyone always goes You mean date baptismal? No, there's another one that no one's ever heard of. But yeah, so it's not all that interesting, but at least I get to be the first one to put it in English. So

Jordan Wood 6:25

there you go. Well, that's it. We'll see. We'll see what happens. Sounds cool.

Charles Kim 6:30

It's not that cool, but I'm doing it. And it's it is, but it's the same sort of thing like, Well, what do you do with your summer? Well, I play pickleball. And I ride my bike, and then sometimes I read some Latin.

Jordan Wood 6:41

There you go. That's not a bad life.

Charles Kim 6:45

Um, no, it is not at all. I'm I am very, I will. That's the thing like, like, I'm a little like you every year, I just hope I have a contract. And, and so it's like, I'm gonna ride the wave, as long as I can ride it, because it's a great life. Well, I can get it. And if I have to go back to being a painter, I guess I will. Yeah.

Jordan Wood 7:06

Yeah, exactly. We have to be versatile in these times. That's right.

Charles Kim 7:12

Well, I'm excited to talk about the book itself. And you started with shelling. And I was just rereading the conclusion, where you start talking about Hegel. So I don't think shelling gets a maybe he does that I missed. Oh, yeah. Well, you actually know the first sorry, in the epigraph you actually have a quote from shelling on there as well. But sort of it is interesting the overlap with more modern German philosophy in this work on Maximus, but I think you say in your conclusion, something like you didn't recognize that you that some of the stuff that Maximus says has a connection to or sounds similar to what will be discussed in Hegel. So yeah, what is the connection here? I mean, my my knowledge of Hegel is is minimal at best we had to read. So I was a philosophy major undergrad. But we mostly did analytic stuff. And so we like we laughed at Hegel because we couldn't understand him. So what what is the connection between Hegel and Maximus?

Jordan Wood 8:16

Yeah, so that's, there's actually a few different angles on this one is that you know, what, I think one of the best still to this day, one of the best you know, monographs on Maximus is both desire sounds respond both desires, book cosmic liturgy, went through two editions, the second edition substantially expanded. I talk a little bit about that in the in, say, the introduction of the book, but, you know, it's already like both as are already for example, and I had a, I think I had a footnote to it, or I guess, here in this book, and in note two, to a letter he wrote somewhere around 1939, two a friend and he refers to Maximus as the Hegel of the Greek fathers. And, and so both of us are himself and in his book, cosmic liturgy is pretty clear from this from the outset that he sees in Maximus, among other things he sees in Maximus, someone who can quote look Hegel straight into the eye, that's, that's from his book, and but these are images, but the, so, just to say he, so there is there is sort of in the background. So even within the, the, you know, the waters of maximum Scholarship, which are relatively small compared to other oceans. He, he's, he's already kind of put in the water a little bit, this connection. Now, personally, I didn't. I didn't make a lot of that when I first like read both the source book years ago, I certainly didn't have Hegel in mind when I started reading Maximus, and when I started taking grad courses on him and writing on him, and actually it was a different scholar who had written a book on like Hegel, Hegel and Augustine and he He was at Boston College at the time. And he like I remember giving a presentation a kind of like early version of just like a summary of where I was headed at Boston College, and he was actually the one in the question to answer who said, you know, is this have you? Have you considered the connections with like Hegel, and I was like, I don't know, I've never read Hegel, like, like, basically just the like, you know, the kind of excerpts that everyone reads and surveys or whatever, but, you know, it's like, no, no, like, that's not I don't know, you tell me you wrote a bug rap about hey, you know, and, and so it kind of put a put a bug in my ear a little bit about that. I still didn't quite follow that track that down, but then it was about halfway through my dissertation year. And this book is an expanded version dissertation. I decided to kind of just sit I was like, I needed a pause. And because I guess I don't know, there's something odd about me, I decided to turn to Hegel for a while to pick a break from Maximus or whatever. And actually, I went into reading Hegel sort of, kind of, I guess, prejudiced against him because a lot of what I had heard in theology world was Hegel was bad Hegel ruined 20th century, systematic theology, Hegel ruins the Trinity, and, you know, all this stuff. And, and, and moreover, the kind of sub narrative is that like shelling, especially the late shelling, when he's brought into, to kind of refute Hegel, after Hegel's death, you know, the late shelling sort of returns us to a better more pre German idealist closer to Mike like what you might call a classical DSD even viewpoint, though with uh, with with oddities, of course, and his lectures and so I was sort of like, going into reading Hegel is like, Well, look, this is somebody should just understand better. I hear his name thrown around a lot. Now, I'm now people are saying I sound like him. Like when I'm talking about Maximus, and I still do that to this day, I still get that. And I'm like, okay, so I should need to know more about him. So, but I have to say, even I went and kind of prejudiced against him. And to this day, a lot of my friends and even people I consider like, you know, masters, or superiors for sure, are much less keen on him than I have become. And so when I really jumped into Hegel, and I don't know, you know, I don't always know how to parse out it was was that because I was already so far into Maximus, that when I went to German idealism and Hegel in particular, I was already sort of reading it through maybe I don't know, I mean, who can say a lot of times other things are disentangled or whether they can be. And so anyway, yeah, I guess I saw on a formal level, I kind of ended up seeing what Balthazar was getting at, which is really is is kind of an sure you talk to me time. Do you like lots of differences? And of course, you know, I wouldn't I think I even do say in the conclusion of the book, I don't mean to make Maximus Amir proto Hegel. But at some point, you have to say, you know, when when both thinkers specifically on the question of like, say the absolute and creation, or the creator creature distinction, and the way that they run that through what I would call Christology or in the book Christo logic,

that such that that becomes everything that becomes the logic world, the logic of creation, the logic, deification, logic, everything. There are some striking similarities that arise there, I think.

Charles Kim 13:30

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's interesting. Your your conclusion makes a lot of things kind of make some sort of Stark statements that might show might show why there is some connection between Hegel and your thinking here on Maximus, I have, you know, I had so many questions. I'm not for one. I'm not sure I understood half of what you said. But I take that to be a knock against me, not against you. Maybe? No, no, it's always well, even one of my questions just has to do with the nature of what we call historical theology. But But I, but yeah, so anyway, but I think I probably, I'm less of a philosopher than I want to be. So I read stuff like this. And it stretches me a lot further. And I realized, like, oh, I still have a lot of work to do, and a lot of things that I can can learn. So I always appreciate being able to talk with people like you and sort of helped me kind of make make the next step as it were. But But as to this question of creator creation distinction. I didn't really want to go there. But you did mention it. And we've mentioned it on the podcast, because I could tell it you could in your conclusion is kind of funny, you could tell that it kind of bothers you, that people will make this kind of will press you on this question but but the sort of the implication of this whole study on Maximus, I will actually I guess we should start with the quote itself. So the The you basically in the whole book, you try to unpack the Word of God, very God wills that the mystery of His incarnation be actualized. Always and in all things. And so your your project, as I understand it, is to try to take this seriously. And so there, as you say, your conclusion, some people might be worried that this, this kind of destroys the Creator creation distinction, it could become a kind of pantheism. So, and that's basically, I mean, in broad brushstrokes, I guess that's where the worries about Hegel come in. But that's not really attending to the details. That's more just saying, well, in broad brushstrokes, you could make these connections.

Jordan Wood 15:42

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, and that's the thing, you know, it's, and I guess I should say this, I don't know, sometimes. I don't know, if I've had enough. It's funny, because I'll say a few things here just to kind of, by way of like, throat clearing before I get to an answer. But one is that that we're this is a weird world we live in now where like, we've got interviews, we've got social media interactions, we've got, you know, in like, there's always been rumors and discussions and so forth. But like, it's, I need to, this is more for myself, I need to, like remind myself that, look, even though I've wrote some of the stuff three, four years ago, you know, given the publication processes, the pandemic, all this stuff, the full the full kind of, you know, presentation is just not out there yet until October 15. Yeah, for people to read. And, and so, so I would say like, these questions are exactly the right ones. I think worries about creator creature distinction is the right one. I mean, honestly, the creator creature distinction has always been what has motivated the entire development of patristic Christology. I mean, you know, you read, like, choose to, I always like to say, you know, let's say theater to Cyrus's era nesties I mean, how does he begin? Well, he begins with these abstract distinctions. Like, we know what it means to say God is immortal. We know what it means to say God is immutable. And that clashes with what we're seeing what we're seeing with a certain formulation, articulation of Christology. So, so right there, the concerns are nice, see, it's already there, right, be gotten that made? Well, are those the same? Well, no, well, why not? Well, what's the distinction there between being made created, versus being begotten? Which is not necessarily the argument goes not necessarily the same thing. So that's all fine. And it's natural, like, in other words, is inherent intrinsic to the to this variant? I think I say that somewhere in the conclusion to like, look, every, every kind of advance or deeper attempt to at a deeper penetration into the mystery of Christ, always seems scandalous at first. And it's not to say that my book is somehow some kind of groundbreaking thing. I'm just saying, Maximus like that back to him. I mean, he was he was actually, right, tortured as an 80 year old man for this stuff. And, and so I don't blame anyone for having these questions or raising the questions. That's why I could kind of sense that at the end of the conclusion, I really wanted to anticipate some of this. However, what I want to say like about the greater creature distinction is, you know, let's just take the Creed begotten, not made consequential with the Father. Well, okay, the very One who is called begotten, not made, is also just a little bit down in the creek called, and he was made men will flock to a mess, you know, like that's, it's in the Latin, it's the same verb even that's repeated in the Greek, it's slightly different. But so now we have a subject to put it this way, who is begotten, not made, and made? Right. So this is, and I'm not, I'm not making a strong claim that, you know, obviously Nicaea there's some ambiguity around it. That's what generated the later controversies. But but just to say like, certainly from Maximus perspective, looking back, I mean, he's, he's has the benefit of time and development in the sense that it's not Nicaea. We've seen Cyril and historians who've seen called Seaton, we have these post Caledonian debates that I do think are in general, somewhat neglected in the details, and the developments that happen there. And part of the book's purpose here as well is to kind of bring those forth a little more, I mean, a lot of stuff's not even translated. A lot of it is edited, but some of it isn't. And so it's just historically it's not as available. But the developments that happened post Cal Seton are fundamental because and this is where I'd want to push back against a kind of survey approach to all this, you know, like the, the monitor just controversy, or the the mono felt like controversy. I know that it's easier to teach it in such a way that's like, these are sort of bows that need to be wrapped up a little more, you know, like just later further issues and like, let's just tweak it a little bit more and and clarify and dot dot the i's cross the T's. But I actually what I what I came to see in Maximus is that in order to do that they're they're required a fundamental revisiting of very basic concepts in the dogmatic tradition that have always been there like what Hypostases and Hosea, like, what exactly is the distinction there? And then further, how do they relate again after you've distinguished them on the level of logic? So there's all kinds of details, we could jump it there, and I'm not trying to get but the bigger picture if we pull back here.

One of the things that I sort of want to push back, I want to like answer the question or the potential objection about pantheism or create a creature distinction with with another kind of question, have we not, at least in one case, conceived of and affirm the possibility that one in the same reality could be uncreated and created so that worshiping that person is no longer? idolatry? You know, the humanity the flesh of Christ is created. And, you know, you could go to like the Senate ladder and Senate 649, where Max is probably attended and maybe even authored some of those canons, specifically says the Jesus Christ is both created and uncreated. And I think that one of the things that starts to like raise people's eyebrows with someone like Maximus, is that I think there is an implication from his Christology, and then the way he applies it generally. there that I think it starts to sort of spotlight that a lot of people unreflectively, when they think about, say, the Incarnation, they kind of think that the Word of God is still as it were more divine than he really is human. And I think it comes from a pretty clear and like, understandable and natural kind of, but simplistic picture of like, well, well, that's obviously true, because the word of God was already there before the incarnation. And then the Incarnation happens to him as it were crudely put. Right, and he sort of takes on humanity. And almost like from that point on, he's naturally human to but surely his own personal identity is not implicated in the addition of his humanity, because he was already there. Right? Right. And so and so now it's so there's this kind of way deadness? Whatever else we're called, like a asymmetrical sort of relation where it's like, the weight of the true identity of the Word of God is still his divinity. And I think one of the things that Cal Seton pushes with it's sort of string of dualities are binaries to births to seccombe substantiality has two natures, and then what Maximus and other Neo Houstonians who are defending calcein, but trying to like reintegrate it a little bit more clearly with Cyril. What are the one of the things they have to do is kind of really make clear that the symmetry there between you know his divinity and humanity or whatever the it means that he is just as much one as he is the other. It's not that there's this kind of lead into this. And I bring all that up. Because if we, if that's true, if at least in the case of Christ, the creator creature distinction is not final in the sense that it doesn't ultimately determine the singular identity of of Jesus Christ. That is to say as like a limit, like, Well, surely God can't transcend his own divinity. You know, in this and that's a line that Maximus uses that. In fact, in Christ, he has shown that he transcendentally humanity but divinity itself, but what does that mean? What does it mean to transcend divinity? What it means what it means, at least in part, is that it's like an old it's like an old point that Gregor Nyssa makes sense kind of decorations that God and so to speak, is not even limited by his own unlimitedness so that he can become weakened and powerless. Yeah, that's the one thing right? He uses the Gregory's example, the fire burning down was the one thing we would not think that divinity could do it and that's why it's marvelous. He says, it's actually a greater miracle than anything, any other anything greater demonstration was power. Well, I think similarly, Maximus with a lot with different terms and more developed post custody Ionian language. He's kind of making that same basic point, though, and following it out, which is, look, the way that the way that Christ is both divine and human, exceeds the logic, the abstract conceptual logic that we usually think is possible for divinity and humanity. And so at least in this case, there is absolutely no opposition or contradiction between a reality being created, and also being God. And And if that's true here by what logic? Can we can we get away with that and not be idolaters? Right? And like otherwise we're worshiping a creature, even if it's the highest creature.

And so that's clearly not what is meant to be expressed some how that's possible, at least in this case. And that's not some case elsewhere. It's in this in this world. And our own history. Yeah. And so and so, now, the big question and the wager of the book, and this is we can get into more details later. But what what I'm sort of putting forth with Maximus is to say, is there a way in which week? Does he in fact, apply that logic that which applies to that exception, the case of Christ? Does he apply that across the board? Does he eventually come to apply that the entire God world relation from proto logical beginning to eschatological deification, the end? And my answer that exegetically is yes, he does. And then that actually explains a lot of what are otherwise anomalous or sort of hyperbolic or kind of radical statements and conclusions and positions he takes. And then we could think further, more about the implications systematically or philosophically, like, well, what would be what would follow from that, if that were true, it's a totally different way to approach, say, the creator creature relation. So anyway, that's that's quite a lot there. I just dumped out. But I'd begin by, I'd begin by saying, you know, by what, by whatever logic, it's the case that we're not idolaters and worshipping Jesus Christ. If it's also the case, that logic applies the guy role relation, then we're not pantheist either simply. If pantheism really is concerned about right, just essentially identifying creator and creature abstractly, like as if they're the same essence or something. Right?

Charles Kim 26:53

Yeah. Well, you I mean, yeah. So when you were talking, it reminded me of a couple different things. One of which is part of the project of this podcast has always been to try to read original sources and kind of talk through them. As we go in. We've moved away from that. But recently, we've been reading some of the Christological controversies. And I have a paper out on theater of Osiris, actually on deification, but but one of the things that I learned while doing that research for Theodoret, and we've been talking about this a little bit in the other episodes of the podcast, is the nature of worship, and what does it mean to worship a human? And like it is, it's a funny thing, like, just to reiterate, and to sort of reinforce one of the one of your kind of questions here is when like, as I'm talking about this with my friends and the podcast, like, you know, we would not even think of that as a question that it might be strange to worship a human. But it really was like, the otter is really worried. And this story is, and you know, they're very concerned, like, hey, wait a minute, we can't do this. So how do we work our way around this? And it may, you know, of course, obviously, you know, the other thing I want to talk about is the way that you understand the hypostatic union and the hypostatic identity, which is, which is really fascinating. But but you know, and that that wins the day. And I think theater is ultimately can concede to that, even though he's just worried that it's a pollen heiress rid of Elvis or something. But But nevertheless, it's that very fundamental reflex and intuition of worship. And there's a question of worship. But there's a question of what do we do when we gather, and when we say this human is an object of worship? And that's like, and again, that's just not something? I think that that at least, you know, I grew up in a in a Southern Baptist context and Missouri here. And you know, I never even thought of that as a problem.

Jordan Wood 28:54

Right? Right. Or if it is like, yeah, and it's interesting to ask, because I also grew up kind of more of like an Evangelical, you know, Protestant, restorationists background. So it's just all about the Bible. And in fact, I think one of the, one of the things they used to say was no creed, but Christ. Yeah, I'm no longer that tradition. But but, you know, so So then, of course, the funny retort is always like, Well, isn't that a creed? You know? No creed, but Christ. But um, and then also, the deeper question is, well, who is Christ? Right? And that's, that's what leads to all these discussions and debates and developments. But But back to your point, I think another way, another way that it gets interesting to ask why doesn't it become a problem maybe in the way that it does say, for the moderator, or whoever, or a lot of these people on the father's? And I think one reason is, again, back to the point I made earlier is I think it's also sometimes because we perhaps unreflectively Or reflectively. Assume that will will, we're really not worshipping. Not just that we're worshipping a god human which which helps it a little bit more like the object is also divine and divinity. But I actually think we often presume, again reflectively or not, that he's, he's really just, he's mainly God. Right? It's like, it's like, it's the incarnation is amazing. And yeah, it's great. And you gotta confess that his two natures and all that, I mean, depending on where you are, but you know, like, but, but even if you do that, it's still that it's still back to that, but his but more more fundamental, if you can put it kind of an odd phrase, more fundamental to who the Son of God, the second person that Trinity is, is his divinity. And so yes, you're, as it were passing through the screen, and your veneration and worship of Christ, passing through the screen of his humanity. But really, the terminus of your of your veneration and worship is His divine person. And even that phrase, I think, is a little odd, divine person. Because, as I tried to point out the book, I mean, it's the way he's Divine is, is, isn't just by being divine, is by being the son of God. Right, and I know that sounds weird, but it's like the it's like, there is no divinity that isn't personal. And so the sun is not even this not even divine, except by as by being generated from the father. That's a personal Act, the act of the Father and generating eternally the sun, you know, is the way that the sun is, but what the Neo custodians want to do later, is they want to play that crystal logically and say, well, that's also how he's human. He receives in his person, and he in his person gives real subsistence to the humanity that he has from the Mother of God. And so and that's an calcein stuff definition for them. That's how they read that, right? It's like, look, it's it parallels the two, born of the Father before all ages, you know, but also in these latter times born of the of the Holy Virgin, they also goes, and so, so there's this like, Okay, so the very same subject receives two births in the terminus or the end or the product, if you want to speak a little crudely, they're the product is, is the same, it's the Son of God, the person, second person. And so for someone like Maximus, when he's working, that some of that stuff out, one thing he has to come to say is what what that means is, since the sun is human, precisely by giving his personality and subsistent personality to the humanity, he's actually that he is actually divine. In the same way, though that act is eternal, whatever you mean by eternal. And so he is no less human than he is God, because the very filiation by which he is who he is, as God is also the affiliation by which he is who he is as human. Yeah. And so there is no degree here. There's no more or less, there's no, this is really fundamental to his identity. This is sort of not accidental, because that sounds bad to say that we don't want to make it to extremes, like like a garment he's putting on, but it's still not quite the substance. benedi. Right. And so I know that all sounds theoretical, and I in no way am claiming most, most PERSON No, nobody, you know, went to church with was thinking about any of this stuff when I was growing up. But I do think it actually is the impulse or intuition, which doesn't even allow the question of, you know, we're worshipping a human being that doesn't even arise, because I think a lot of people think it's like, well, kind of, but not really. Right. He's human, but he's, he's really God. That's the real part of him. And I think, yeah, so anyway,

Charles Kim 33:50

well, it's gonna say, and you use the phrase asymmetry, that's the asymmetry, right? That's a way where we just sort of instinctively move in this one direction. So part of what makes Maximus and early on you said, this is not really your idea, but Maximus, but it's what makes it so every you call these I think you said the phrase like every development and Christology is is striking or, you know, difficult to swallow. scandalous. Yeah, well, and so here, what you're what you're trying to get us to realize, in some sense, part of this whole project is, is making the fully God fully man making that without an imbalance without an asymmetry, saying whatever it means to be the Son of God is both of these things. And that's a difficult, it shouldn't be in some sense. It shouldn't be a difficult thing, pill to swallow, but it is, insofar as we've kind of been trained at various reflexes to go, well wait a minute, you know, whatever it is to be human is less or less, you know, and so we have to kind of be careful how we say all these things.

Jordan Wood 34:56

Yeah, just just to kind of like hang a kind of, you know, breach for something that I think probably if anyone's familiar with Maximus, they're probably more familiar with this one point, which is right that like you could go to the to wills. And famously Maximus comes to more explicitly deny that what he calls the nomadic will of Christ, or I'm sorry of humanity. He denies Christ, gnomic, human will gnomic, meaning like deliberative, like a sense of uncertainty, you have to work through the options you have to, you know, you lean more one take one way or the other. It's the way we typically experience our own life and our own wills and decisions and acts. And Maximus says, Christ does not have a it's so in other words, by the way, it's it's a mode, it's a way of wheeling, it's not whether or not he has a human will, it's how that human will actually unfold and act in actuality. And he says, It's not gnomic. Yours is gnomic, because you're uncertain, you're uncertain, not just about practicalities, like I don't know how to, I don't know the means to this end, you're uncertain about God. You don't even know God fully. You don't even know yourself fully. You don't know this world fully. And so you're wavering always, even if you've got a strong sense of strong faith is that that that sort of work within us, which starts to solidify and make it more stable through the world. But still, nevertheless, it's not a perfect knowledge. And what Maximus thinks is precisely because the son knows the father completely. There is no uncertainty about that most ultimate and important fulfillment of human rational will itself that is God, God the Father, and himself, the son in the Spirit. And so he has no wavering in his way of wheeling. No gnomic will in that sense, but but but the point would be not because somehow that therefore that makes him less human. Actually, it makes you less human. Right? We are not actually fully human. And so it's just it's just another way of approaching the point you just made, but I think maybe it connects with people have heard about Maximus and the two wills and, and you know that he denies a gnomic well, and instead it's a natural will that is what he calls the natural human will of Christ, which is to say, there's no wavering whatsoever. And then he has to face the exegesis of garden, Nick, assuming you know that, but um, but but the point being is, but the point being that, for Maximus, this Christological perspective, is exactly what you're saying he doesn't do that. Because it's not like he's afraid, that that Jesus will seem not so godlike. If he's wavering. It's that he's afraid that he won't seem so human. Like, that's so totally counterintuitive to us. Because we basically assume that the current conditions by which we experience our own humanity is the is humanity. Right? But what if it's actually just a failure of humanity that we all are experiencing. And that's simultaneously the sort of Flitz or what he would call the logoi are like the principles that are there that do from time to time, give give expression to what you might call the truthfulness of humanity, which is not only to come but has already come in Christ. So so it's a very it's it's a it's a counterintuitive, initially counterintuitive way of thinking about not only Christ but of humanity and of creation. And you know, in the fourth chapter, I tried to basically blow that out to the entirety of creation. That's a that's a different, maybe, point of discussion. But but just yeah, just to affirm what you're saying, which is, which is that for him? We don't know even what we are. Apart from Christ, we don't know what we are apart from Christ. And so yeah, and so and so. But that is only the case. Exactly. Because he is just as much the perfect human, fully God, fully man as he is God, right. And so it's what I what I often find, and I kind of wonder what you would think about this, when people are reading this or discussing this stuff that I'm trying to bring forth through Maximus, what makes it so interesting, in a way, at least it was for me when I first read him. It was in one way, it's the kind of obvious stuff like it's right there in what we confess about Christ. But on the other hand, Maximus has a way of thinking through the implications of these basic points and like, you know, textbook Christology or whatever, that that I that I think few including myself few had ever considered. Yeah. And so anyway, I think that's sort of one of his one of the benefits of really engaging him even though he's difficult points.

Charles Kim 39:44

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, I mean, I could say that in in a few different places. I had another question about his relationship to so called origin ism, and, but even his relationship to the sort of Um, the Platanus tradition broadly speaking, because it has become, like, you know, there's like been a revival of interest in sort of classical theism and, and sort of Platonic Christianity and Christian Platonism. We've had, like, you know, as a podcast host, I like to sort of pin where we've had previous conversations. So we've talked with Hans Bergsma a little bit about Christian Platonism. Also, we've had a great podcast the other so for my listeners who want more on Maximus, I have a great conversation with Ben Hi gherkin, who went to seminary, he and I went to seminary together. And he has a book on Maximus, and this very question of what does it mean for Christ to be tempted? And so sort of that question of his humanity played out, and in certain circumstances, so I'll direct listeners to those conversations, but But there has become this revival of interest. And, you know, and Maximus, kind of, you know, is not a, let's just a wholesale swallower of the tradition like he has his his own ways of receiving that, and moving it forward in a way that's, you know, sort of faithful to its tradition, but but also thinking through the implications in ways that no one had. And so yeah, so it is. Yeah, I don't I mean, I oftentimes, I'm a little bewildered, because it's just, you know, I come I do tend to come from this side, that's very worried of I mean, I've, you know, I've heard a lot of the Creator creation distinction, I sort of, you know, that's that those are my natural tendencies. So this was a stretch for me, and I don't know, Lonnegan at all, which is another point. I've read truth and method, I think, and with Ken Parker, but but other than that, you know, it's, you know, our truth and methods that get them

Jordan Wood 41:45

or geology. Yeah, yeah. I mean, method of theology. I read it with him, too. Yeah, that's

Charles Kim 41:51

it in theology. Yeah. But go ahead anyway. Yeah. So there is a kind of, yeah, he is a very different way of thinking.

Jordan Wood 42:00

Yes, yeah. And, you know, and that's what I want to stress here. I was just having a conversation with a friend of mine, actually, on the phone yesterday about this exact point. In one way, what was really fascinating about Maximus, though, is is that, you know, to go to the way I kind of parse it out, especially that second chapter, on the level of the logic and the level of like, natures and essences, which just very briefly, I'd say, you know, for someone like him, this isn't shocking to anyone, probably the your listeners priority, you know, you know, the essence of something that was EO something the and he does equate it with nature as after calcium is pretty common. feces, it's, it's what something is, right, it's the kind of thing it is, it could be situated within it's a species within a greater genus, and then that has greater right, and so there's definitely this sort of chain of ever greater, more universal categories as you go upward as it were vertically. And then there's more specific down to the individuals as you go downward vertically. So Porphyry, and tree kind of thing. And so, on the level of essence, what something is, versus who something or someone is, which is more of the logic of hypothesis or persona or whatever, you know, Persephone. There. There, on the level of essence, he's actually almost more of a duelist than anyone you can imagine. He has a few points and I make a big deal about this at a few points in the book, he has a few points where he thinks the essence the uncreated and created essence have no common property between them whatsoever zero, almost equivocal, like in a kind of, like, absolute duelist way it would only be absolute dualism, though is if he thought being was basically reducible to essence and modalities of essence, will He does it because he doesn't think a person and above all, the person of Christ is reducible to either as nature's it's precisely because he's not reducible to divinity as such, or humanity as such that he can be both in his person. So the way he is human, the way he is Divine is utterly personal, which which actually opens him up to those relations, almost listen to an inconceivable horizon. He's, I think, the way I put it in the book is he's totally hospitable in his person, to the entire fullness of both natures at once. Right. And so, I bring this up because the Creator creature distinction from my perspective through Maximus, isn't it's not that it's wrong anxiety to have or question to raise. In fact, he thinks they're absolutely different. They could never coincide essentially. But the question becomes, are essences the only are those the fullness of what's real? And it isn't, it's a person, you know, it's person, it's the will ultimately it's the three persons but like, you know, it's the personal dimension of being which isn't reducible to anything that like what it is nature or essence. And so and so the way I also determined it in there is that this kind of, if you will, I know this is a little anachronistic, but like almost a personalist sort of metaphysics. Relieves nature essence from having to achieve the kind of identity that only a person can. Humanity doesn't have, we don't have to figure out how to get human essence as such, to be divine essence as such. We don't have to do that in reverse, either. That is not possible. So what's what's really, what's really compelling to me about Maximus has synthesis, if you will, is that he can fully accommodate all the anxieties of create a creature distinction. But he just doesn't stop there. Right? It doesn't stop there. And he says, Well, that's fine. And in fact, if if our anxieties basically just hit, they stay at the level of essence in nature, in fact, you'll never resolve this in any coherent way, you will either end up being virtually an historian, or virtually, you know, me a physic which he, which he thinks is like, you know, there's a famous, famous work but a well known work by Leon Jessa. Byzantium work, which is aimed both at historians and Tamiya, physicists, and he names it part of the title is opposite kinds of dosimetrists. Which is to say both of them sort of have to make a mirage out of one side or the other. Because abstractly, you cannot make these things, they're antinomies, you cannot make them one thing, time and eternity really are definitionally distinct, you will never bring them together without mangling, one or the other.

Creator and creature are absolutely distinct. As such, you can't bring them together without mangling, the definition, the logos of one or the other, except the Logos, the person somehow can make them one. So So I think it's important to just stress that because just as Max Maximus could actually move into more duelists and absolute almost equivocal direction, the level of essence, simultaneously as he's moving toward a Monus sort of, you know, direction on the level of person. But that's actually, that's part of what I call crystal logic. Those are mutually inherent. And, and I think, I think it's that more than it's that thinking through the dimensions and the logic of person, which is usually where we don't go. You know, so,

Charles Kim 47:42

yeah. Well, and that's, I mean, to some extent, when I was reading again, your conclusion this morning, I was thinking of TF Torrance, who, you know, learn from BART, but the how, how sort of Christocentric they were. And so in a sense, part of what Maximus does, is say whatever our you know, we can't reduce Christ to these other logics. Because if we do that, we lose the sort of the, the totally revelatory character, I guess, of what it means to be Christ. And so and it reminds me I also had Howard Watson, and we talked about like, he makes this line where he says, Well, if you're, you know, if your understanding of truth can be, you know, could explain to you who Christ is, well worship that truth, not Christ. And so part of what you're saying, in the end is sort of worship Christ as Christ as human, as divine as this person who can transcend some of these dualities and worship that don't worship some principle that you think could better explain this phenomena.

Jordan Wood 48:50

Exactly. It's it's, it required the event itself. It required the actual event of the hypostatic union. And so what's interesting here is, and this is where I would maybe this is where I kind of tried to strike a balance between, you know, I read quite a bit of Neo Platonism and stuff for this book and for background and like, I'm not, I don't, I think it would be wrong to be abstractly, like, you know, anti Hellenist, you know, influence or Hellenization thesis stuff. It's not really for me about whether or not you know, say Maximus or whoever is influenced by Greek philosophy, versus the Bible or the gospel. What is what's interesting is this perspective of where the person itself is, what alone is what can make one would, realities, which are otherwise abstractly and take this into theoretical, is actually what it would. Another way to put that is that the very event in the person of Christ is the condition for the possibility of abstracting about Christ at all. In other words, it's only because the one Christ is already both Adam DeVine that we can even argue about what it means for something to be divine and human at the same time. But he's already and in fact, are overcome what in theory, we have a difficult time holding together. And so he himself, you have to come to see that the fact the person of Christ, His actual existence is divine human is already, that's accomplished. And that's actually the occasion for us to be perplexed. And when we're perplexed, we raise questions. When we raise questions, we grasp for concepts that are familiar to us, like, well, hold on a second, can't How could the immortal die? Yeah, how can how can the that which is, you know, something that shouldn't be the first and therefore have no external contingencies or conditions, and therefore, you know, has a society and all this other stuff? How can how can that be crucified on a tree and unlike in those, so So actually the crisis of abstractions as it were, and then some sides are going to go towards one way of resolving it, which is just one half or one pole of the abstract antithesis, and now I'm sounding like, hey, go I know, and then and then and then once I tend to go to the other side, and then these two are going to argue and but they're actually mute and this is I'm explicitly just being hugging. I think it's helpful here. They are mutually determining each other

you know, in the story, and I'm not like I am not like a Poland Arius All right, I'm not doing what he's doing and instead I need to keep them apart though. I can't my positive account of that is shifting and changing and it's hard will appalling areas Why don't want to separate the one Lord Jesus Christ, you know, and later on zero and I don't want to separate the one Lord Jesus Christ, just one subject in the gospel here. But how Okay, well then what do you say it was divinity and humanity and the duality there? Well, that's hard right to keep together. So the real project to do Casone ism, generally, and Maximus in particular, is to incorporate all the elements from both sides. So now we're sounding like a synthesis and in The Hague alien sense, though, I want to throw out there that the word synthesis was already used for the hypostatic union and Constantinople to it's not a Hague alien German idealist word. It's a Greek word, and it's a Greek word that is in the Christological dogmatic tradition, so so it's already there way before Hagel. But, um, but anyway, so So the Neo custodian of Maximilian project in Christology is to kind of see what's actually true and to go back to Hegel. One sidedly true and to see if they can bring together in a synthesis will the synthesis is the person like that is what it means to be a person from this perspective is to be a reality which synthesizes its own parts as TO USE his language, that the nature's in a way that doesn't violate that the integrity of the nature's themselves. But the reason why it doesn't violate violate those nature's is precisely because the person, it's very logic, its structure, its dimensions are not reducible, they're not the same as the way that nature's work abstractly. So the only resolution to how can the uncreated be created in time is not a theory. Like you said, right back to how it was, it's not a truth. It's just a person. So I'm not even some people have criticized me a little bit some well known people have criticized me already about, like I sort of what I see in Maximus is sort of a way to resolve all these problems in what they what hasn't been attributed to me as a principle of person. Like personhood abstractly? Well, yeah, I have to talk that way, sometimes just to distinguish the logic. But ultimately, I don't think there is a principle of person that resolves these issues, there is a person who is the principle of everything else, right? That's not the same thing. There's a logos of all the logos, exactly the logos becomes the logos, and the logos are the logos. And but that logo says a person already conceived distinct from the Father and the Spirit, right already has integrity as a, as a as I won't say individual, because there's a whole other thing there. But a person is singular. Identity, right? So yeah, all that to say is, on the one hand, it's really interesting from this perspective, on the one hand, like it's completely like I'm on how our losses, so I like how he wants to and I was influenced by him early on, so let's just throw that out there. But, and I heard that interview actually was it was great, but on the one hand, it's completely right, you know, like, yes, this person is I mean, it's a person who says, I'm the WAY the TRUTH and the LIFE, not not a theory or a really smart person. But at the same time, it's kind of interesting because there's like another edge to that sword which says, Well, exactly because the resolution never comes. In the level of theory, in a certain way, it makes me more hospitable to all theories, because I don't expect them to do the work of getting the whole. So I have my books called the whole mystery of Christ. I don't think that that whole is achieved on a theory, I think Christ Himself is low. So, so that so that so I can look at like maximum the influence Neoplatonic influences on Maximus and say, of course, he's gonna pull some things from there.

There's some truths. They're they're one sided truths, they're a part. They're a fragment of the truth. And there might even be necessary as a part of the development of realizing what the whole truth is. You have to see the abstractions as it were, like, like the event happens, you say, Who is this man? You say, Well, is he God as a human, then we have all these centuries that you've been documenting in your podcasts? Yeah, all these centuries of argument, certain views and resolutions and proposals and so forth. And that very energy and dynamic brings to light the whole fuller I guess we can say fuller truth but towards the whole truth. And so it's even true that that necessarily, there's almost a necessity in the abstract the failure of abstraction before this mystery, in order to really see the truth of the mystery. And so all that to say is, it's like a both and it's interesting, it's like I'm absolutely on board with like, the truth is not, you know, a theory it's a person. But it's precisely because it's a person I'm also like, interested in all the theory.

Charles Kim 56:33

Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. Going on almost an hour. I it's, it's this has been, I'm learning a lot. Yeah, I really it's, I let's see, I was trying to think of like, what what other things that I could say to kind of sum up, but in your book, you you book in the conversation with origina and his, his sort of way of like, you say the things that he learned from Maximus, but he has this phrase that that I had not heard much in thinking about deification, but the quote from origina says, and we understand the deed, in what way this divine procession into all things, is called undiluted care. That is unraveling but reversion is called Theosis. deification. And it seems to me that this is one of the difficulties of the Creator creation distinction. To some extent, a lot of the people who think very who kind of really pressed this have a heart will probably not use deification, in the same way that Maximus is using it, or in the same way that origina is using it here. And so there is this kind of fascinating that like the first part of this, I've been, like, you know, I don't know I take this to be a knock against my theological education. I had not thought about this, this first principle on Alutiiq, a divided procession into all things. So normally when I think about Theosis, or deification, I'm just thinking about as a kind of soteriology. In return. I'm not really thinking about what let you know what, what was the first part of this movement? And so that I found that quote, in itself to be kind of, you know, like, oh, yeah, of course, there isn't just deification. But there is this beginning and then there is this return and how that works. When you have this logic of deification, which again, like I say, I think this is probably another part of the difficulty of of understanding, or have have been able to agree with Maximus, or at least agree with Maximus as you present them in the book. I mean, I'll I'm not a Maximus scholar. So I'll say you're right. Well, that's. That's right. Seems I was convinced, I walked away. But yeah, so I don't know speak, you want to speak to the place of deification of this return. So if we have this hypostatic union, and the way that you're saying part of this is, you know, we are not even fully yet created into what we are, to where we are headed, sort of.

Jordan Wood 59:12

Yeah, no, that's good. So I think so I do think it's often the case, when you again, if you're sort of surveying or you're thinking about doctrines, this is something that Father John bear likes to say, and, you know, I think it's, I think he's right, I think it's can be it can be overdone, but it's, he likes to say look like we're obsessed with like carving up theology into like, Okay, this is this subset of theology. This is this area, this is this branch. And there's a necessity to that and the scholasticism I think kind of showed what kind of precision you can achieve if you do that. So I'm not anti scholastic but but, but there's also another side of it sort of the other side to that is that and it's partly why I named it the whole mystery of crisis because it's like, you know, at the end of the day, there's As a whole those as a whole one reality. And, and one of the ways we can do this with like, say the doctrine Theosis is to think of it as like, like you said, like it's a soteriology. Or it's like an eschatology or something. And even in the book, I kind of I have a chapter that does have to frame it that way. But one of the kind of astounding and this, by the way, just to allude to a point you made earlier is this one place, I think Maximus is actually a lot closer to origin, then, than he is to some other versions. If you think that Christ is the beginning, and the middle, and the end, in the middle, he is the whole in the midst of it all. Then a certain sense deification, a real like fundamental sense, the deification is, is just becoming the body of Christ. Like it is, it is, it is, he is already a deified human being. And in and for Maximus, there is no deified humanity. That's not just simply the body of Christ. That is that is where to you Cyril is line, right? That's where the life giving sufferings come from. But but when they come to you, it's not like they reach you as something utterly separate. They're very coming to you as the simultaneously the unification of you as a member of the body. So it brings you to it as well, because there's only one life after all, one one truth, one way, that's Christ. So so you're not going anywhere outside of that, if you're alive, you're truly alive. You're truly deified, you're truly made. So you know, origin would talk about it, maybe in terms of like the image of God versus images of the image of God. But the more you become conformed to the capital, I image sort of, you know, there's interesting moments in his thought where that gets kind of, like closer to what I think Maximus would end up saying more explicitly. But I think the way we that does it, so it does a disservice little bit to think of like, okay, deification is just like the last episode, or the last phase or something there the last act, if you will, and even Maximus speaks about it that way. At some point, there's nothing wrong in in and of itself with with beginning of that way. But this kind of weird thing that happens, the more you think that deification is not only a result of but in a certain sense already accomplished in the incarnation. Then it's almost like the incarnation is an event around like whose gravity been spacetime. I mean, that like ambiguous 10 For anyone that's really interested in sort of Maximus on deification kind of on steroids. Ambiguous 10 would be a place to go it's very long, but it's worth it. But there's a huge there's there's several passages there where he's meditating on Melchizedek. And he's, he's, he noticed the notices that Melchizedek is called both in the Old and New Testament, it's mentioned that he's without generation. And in the Greek, it's like an articles without principle, which is usually a term that Maximus reserves for the divinity as such, for God as such. But he says, Well, the reason why Scripture calls Melchizedek, without principle is because he's fully deified in Christ. And so he becomes without beginning, which is to say he transcends time, but the only reason why he can transcend time is because Christ in the very act of incarnation, which unifies eternity and time has already transcended time. So the the the results, or the achievement of this event, which looks like it happened just in the middle of history, like every other event, actually was already those results and achievements are already at work and at play on the temporal line prior to the time that the Incarnation itself supposedly happened. And that's so Melchizedek himself has already been deified for Maximus, but that's not like that saying it's apart from the incarnation.

He thinks, in fact, in a certain way, that's an expansion of the Incarnation even though it's an expansion backward in time. Right. So there's, there's this really fascinating, you know, I think often people think that deification is like somehow purely moral like you just become more loving or merciful, her good and and even as you affirm of God that he has all those things, but in his simplicity, if you go that route, you know, his simplicity. He's, he's also everything he is, he is, you know, singularly or in a unified way. But it's like well, then why cut out the metaphysics, the metaphysical attributes, like, if you become more like God, and you do so through love, how can you become that How could you not become less bounded by time? Is he is he not also above time? And is that not? In fact, one with his goodness? So how can you become more good and not become more transcended of time? Right? Yeah. Or and you could write down the different attributes. And this is why I think there's a there's a really short episode which I've translated, I'm in the middle of translating his letters, where he said he at one point, he just says, Jesus Christ came to free us from the bonds of nature and time. Liberation of nature and time. And, and you know, and people can get worried, like, I sound sort of gnostic, like, what does it does he hate creation? What's the big deal? No, he doesn't hate creation. He's questioning whether or not we really know what creation is? And is it really something other than the Incarnation always and then all things. So we're back to that statement that you began with, that I'd begin the book with, you know, and it's it's if that is creation of creation really is incarnation, then him him sort of saying we need to catapult above the limits of, of spacetime that we need to sort of go beyond the DSDM of spacetime, the intervals. That's not him raging against creation. That's actually him refusing to think that the world as we experience it now is simply creation. And that's it, and there's nothing more to think about it. For him, it's you know, creation doesn't really actually happen. Until the end, from our perspective until deification. I think the simplest way to put it maybe is leave it there is you can't really call something properly a work of God if it doesn't fully express the will behind that work. We don't even do that normally. Look, if I if I say I intend to do something, so that I take ownership of this action I'm about to undertake, but because of contingent circumstances, it doesn't work out the way that I planned. In a certain sense, the result isn't what I will. So it's not really my doing. Now, it's a mixed bag and so forth. And you got to consider contingencies, external extenuating circumstances, but the God isn't like that is act of creation doesn't have to consider extenuating circumstances does if he's creating in a vacuum, or he's creating something that's already just given brute fact. And so in from that perspective, you can think of it that way and say, creation isn't it's not right to call something a work of God if it's not yet fully expressive of the of the Divine Will behind it. And as we know, logoi One of the ways that Maximus defines logoi that he takes from Dionysius is divine wills. So the logoi, the principle, the low GI, depending on which pronunciation Yeah, the principles are in all things, and they're already there. That's why he's not just a simple gnostic, right? Because he doesn't think everything is just bereft of goodness or something. They're already there, but they're there as the logos himself is there to quote ambigu I'm six, like, as if swathed in the womb waiting to be birthed forth. The birthing forth of the word and all things is the actual accomplishment of the work of God, the full will of God in and through all things. And until that has reached its term and fully manifest, God's will, for all things, it's not properly called the creation of God. There is another factor there that even complicated more that I get into more in chapter four with, uh, with our ability to kind of pseudo create and falsely incarnate fantasies. But I'll table that for now and just say, at the very least, that's the, I think, an operative principle that anything that isn't fully expressed the will of God is not yet properly creation, we tend to think of creation as the first act that God did earlier that set the stage for the drum of creation to unfold. Part of which will be soteriology, or Christ coming and saving us. And that's like the last act. And that's a nice, simple story to tell. But, but surely, that can't actually be the full truth.

You know, and I'll just want me to throw in the last little thing here, just I know, I keep saying that, but you know, as you can tell, I can go on and on. As you can tell, I don't get out much. But um, no, I some of this too, I have to say, I've been struck with like, just just reading the New Testament statements that you know, I'm not a New Testament scholar. So I can't make that kind of a claim. But there are statements there that kind of make more sense now. From this vantage, like you were created in Christ Jesus. And or Colossians one, he is the first creation Yeah, or Revelation 314. I am the beginning of God's works, sort of, you know, echoing proverbs eight. You know, there's, there's a lot of these, you know, I mean, what does it say fusion to 10 or 110, you know, he's the recapitulating all things in heaven on earth. And so like, it's it does actually seem, at least in parts of the New Testament, that the act, God's act of creation from nothing really is just his act of incarnating to being Christ. And that's bizarre and the implications there, it raises weird things. And so typically, we just write that off as like nice flowery language, to say, Christ is great. Like, he's really great. Everything is unto him comes from him is unto him is through him. Like all that stuff is just nice hyperbolic docs illogical, poetic. Yeah. So, and I think, well, it's all those it's, it's poetic, and it's stocks illogical, but it might, you know, from an access perspective, there actually might be a fundamental logic to it. An actual straightforward logic that it's almost necess necessary. But anyway, so that's a that's a little pitch for trying to find ways to sympathize.

Charles Kim 1:11:03

Well, that's great. Yeah, no, I was just gonna say, it has been, like I say, a little mind bending and eye opening, to read through the whole mystery of Christ. And I really appreciate Dr. Wood Jordan for coming on the podcast. And so this has been another episode of the history of Christian theology. And thanks so much for being a part of it.

Jordan Wood 1:11:26

Absolutely, it's my pleasure.