Episode 132: Acts of Chalcedon

In this final episode on the Christological Controversies, Tom, Trevor, and Chad work their way through the Chalcedonian definition and what that means for how Christians understand the two natures of Christ.

Timestamps:

3:31- Changing the Theotokos?

17:10- What is the Nature of God?

23:56- The Monophysites

56:51- Arguments, Social Epistemology, and Plausibility Structures

1:17:21- Farming and Sustinence

Episode Transcript:

Charles Kim 0:00

Hello, and welcome to history of Christian theology. My name is Chad Kim. This week Tom Trevor and I will be talking through our last episode on the Christological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries, centuries, culminating in the Acts of Cal Seaton. So today, we will basically just be talking through How did the church come to an agreement on this idea of the relationship between the two natures of Christ, and what was kind of the the formulation at the end at Calchedon. And so we call this the Christological definition because it's not strictly speaking, a creed. And the same way that the Nicene creed or the apostles Creed's are Creed's, it is a further elaboration on those. And so it is a sort of definition to give us more information, but not strictly speaking, a creed. So as I say, this is the last in these conversations, but but I hope that you all have been enjoying them, I would encourage any listeners to also listen to my conversation with Jordan wood on the whole mystery of Christ. So Dr. Wood is working on Maximus, the Confessor and his interpretation of the Christological controversies. I also just recently noticed that we had a review on iTunes. And so I just wanted to thank land lover, Christ follower, who gave us a nice comments on iTunes. This person says I was in search for a deeper understanding of Christianity, upon the first few episodes I listened to, I felt complete happiness, and the information and conversations I heard this podcast is a great way to keep the mind on Christ and those who followed him. But there's so much more that comes with with this. And that's kind of where it ends. But we really appreciate the comments, the reviews. And it's really nice to hear these words of encouragement. So thank you, land lover, Christ follower, and all others who have left us comments in the past. Please keep them coming. It helps people find the show, or at least that's what other podcasters say. Yeah, we will have one more episode coming with Benjamin Wheaton. We'll be recording new episodes. We're gonna have Brad east on to talk about the nature of Scripture. I'll have a conversation with another Augustine scholar on some Augustine stuff. So we've got a lot of stuff in the works. So stay tuned. And we thank you for listening. So here's the conversation with Tom and Trevor Chalcedon. Yeah, it's not Calchedon. We're not talking about dinosaurs.

Trevor Adams 2:30

Is that true? I can't say Coulson on chalsa. Don, what about Charles,

Tom Velasco 2:35

it will be very bad.

Charles Kim 2:38

I mean, again, with all of these things, we're trying to speak a language that none of us speak on a regular basis. So I don't really get mad at anyone. And I know that it's hard. And actually, I'm the worst at doing American pronunciations. One that I realized that I like people would make fun of me for is some people say John Chrysostom. And apparently that is closer to the Greek cadence, the proper cadence, but I always had John Chrysostom I just I like when I say it, I feel like I sound like what I am, which is a Midwesterner who over pronounces is hard godson, it's Chris Sass them, soccer mom, but I get

Tom Velasco 3:17

them and my classics professor always said Chris Austin.

Charles Kim 3:22

Yeah, but apparently people say Chris system, in a lot of cases,

Trevor Adams 3:27

but I don't like it. I like the other one. I like her. So

Charles Kim 3:31

I'm not going to be hard on Anyone who misses pronounce. My point was I'm not gonna be hard on anyone who mispronounces it. Um, so one thing that I wanted. So to kind of recap, right, we've done a couple of weeks on contract on things that have led up to the Chalcedonian definition, the acts of Chalcedon, and so unfortunately, one, the church gathers together in this place in Asia, Kelsey eaten, and they gather together to try to sort of settle this controversy over how do we speak about Christ? How do we speak about the fact that God became human? That that somehow the Word was made flesh? Right? So how do we, how do we talk about the second person of the Trinity in a way that is fitting both for the humanity and for the divinity? Right? So there's some somewhere that we have to acknowledge, we have to confess, we have to recognize that in one cute one person, not one human person in one person. There was the fullness of divinity and the fullness of humanity. But it all gets sparked by the stories. The real controversy heats up because the story is says that they should change the name Theotokos of from to Crystokos this name for Mary. And I had mentioned this in the podcast and I couldn't find a source. But so here is an old prayer that is from at least from the third centuries. So this two hundreds in Alexandria. And the prayer goes like this to your protection, we flee Holy Mother of God, do not despise our prayers and our needs, but deliver us from all dangers glorious and Blessed Virgin. So what I'll say about that prayer is in Alexandria in Egypt for hundreds of years, the church has this mention of the Mother of God, the Theotokos in their prayer. So the Alexandrians have been singing and speaking this way, for for hundreds of years. And then someone from Constantinople, and an elite from another center tells them that they can no longer use this phrase that they have been using in worship for hundreds of years. And to some extent, I just want to reiterate how, how sort of inflammatory that would be. And so I was, I was actually thinking, so I've had a sort of strange theological journey as YouTube will know well, and I remember so like I sing to my son every night before he goes to sleep, I sing the doxology Praise God from whom all blessings flow flow, praise him all creatures here below, praise him above you, Heavenly Host praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He actually calls it his song, he thinks that it's just one that I wrote for him, which is kind of funny. But I remember when I was in very liberal theological circles, I one time went into a service where someone's saying this, praise God, from whom all blessings flow, praise God, all creatures here below, praise God above you, Heavenly Host creator, Christ and Holy Ghost. And I was like, What are you doing? And I was, you, wait, stop, what, what is going on? And I was so mad. And then I realized I was at a gender inclusive Church who wanted only gender inclusive language for God. And I was like, it just it was so startling, it kind of enraging. Because like I in my head, I'm just singing the song that I sing all the time, a song that I love so much that I sing to my my son to my son for three years, every night he goes, You know, before he goes to bed like, and long before we used to sing it at Ambrose all the time to you know, say I just say it all the time. But I was enraged. Why Why would you take take away something so precious, something that I knew by heart? You know, so I said to for people to understand what's at stake, like, that's what's at stake, right? Someone comes along and says, No, you've always seen it this way. Not only is that not what you should say, but you're you're being damaging to God, because you are you are saying something that's not true, you know, that God shouldn't have genders, you know, is in the doxology case that I gave. And so, you know, so I want to I bring that up just to kind of give a little flavor to why this causes because some people will say, this just seems like theological hair splitting and such, you know, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin kind of thing. But I'll let you all respond to that. That's, that's where I'll start.

Trevor Adams 8:15

That's a great thing to do. Because also I think if it for some of our some particular Protestant listeners, they might be like, who cares if Mary's mother God, and that's so that's the other thing is like, Okay, I, you know, maybe from your modern day perspective, you see it that way. But yeah, giving an example of sort of how enraging it could be for someone to sort of correct your, your prayers or something in such a way. I think that's, yeah, right. On the money.

Tom Velasco 8:46

You know, I, I think that's, you know, when you were telling that story, chat, I couldn't help but think of an anecdote I heard and I, I, because it just came into my head, I don't have time to look it up and get a source and get all the details. But I remember learning this back, I think in school, when we were talking about Jerome and the Vulgate translation, how when he first when it was first published and circulated, that there was some group of monks that rioted over his particular translation. And when I say, right, I mean, they just started burning stuff to the ground, right? Like I'm talking. They were very distracted. And it was his translation from the book of Jonah. For the I mean, for those you guys who are familiar with the book of Jonah, at the end of the book, he's sitting under the scorching sun, and he's upset because God has spared the Ninevites which is the group that he went to go preach to and they repented and he didn't want them to repent. So he's kind of like, he's kind of being bitter and he's just saying, fine god, he's kind of pouting. I'm gonna sit here, and then this plant grows up to provide Have him shade. And I don't remember exactly how Jerome translated that word for that plant, I think it was gourd or something like that. But whatever word he used was different from the word that the older Latin texts it used. And it inspired a riot, because of the choice to use a different term in that context, which I think just kind of goes to your point, which is just how upsetting it is, when we're used to something being a certain way. And all of a sudden, it you know, it's challenged in some sense. Last night I was teaching on went like on my Wednesday night study at my church, and you know, it's online, and we give our everybody an opportunity to write in with questions. And then me and Tucker, our pastor get together and answer the questions. Well, the top question most voted up, you know, I made the mistake. And Trevor, you're gonna love this. I got off on some tangent, where I talked about Tolkien, and Lewis and Star Wars and things that I obsess about. And guess what I happen to throw in Harry Potter. So I got a question asking how that could square with my faith, which I'm actually looking forward to answering the question. But I just know, I remember right before I throw that, because I'm throwing out all these things that people like like, like Nerdist, sections, movies, and games, and video games, and all that kind of stuff. And I happen to throw in Harry Potter. And that, right before I did, I thought, Should I throw this out there? Hi, things have changed, because 25 years ago, it would have been absolutely like, no, don't do it. Now most Christians, I think are okay with it. But you still have that in people's minds. So what's happening is people who are used to thinking of something a certain way, it riles them up, you know, because, because to challenge this thing that has just been accepted, even though regardless of the merits of it is stressful and frustrating, right?

Trevor Adams 12:13

Yeah, I think that's certainly part of it. But then when you also add the intimacy of prayer, it's like, it'd be like someone saying, you can't use this name for your spouse anymore. I'd be like, what? Who are you to tell me like, like, because it's like, you're talking to God? And it's like, and I don't know. So yeah, it's, it's a combo. It's like a paradigm shift frustration, plus, you're taking away sort of an intimate language, which would be frustrating. And

Charles Kim 12:41

the other thing that and this will be pointed out to him, you know, depending on who's sort of history of the time period you're reading, the other thing that's at play here, and I'll go again, at another level, I use the phrase elite as as kind of a joke. But right now, you know, in America, we have this whole thing about elites, elites in DC versus, you know, the regular people. And so one thing that's happening though, there are rival centers of power around the Mediterranean, so if you all recall, you know, amen. I know you guys know this, but like, you know, most of us think especially in the West of Rome, right, Rome is the center of Roman Catholicism. But in, but this will matter to in terms of how the church kind of deals with the fallout of the Chalcedonia controversy, which is to say there, not only was there a center in Rome, but there was a center in Antioch. The first place the term Christ, Christian was used. There was a center in in Alexandria, which is where so the term Thea telcos was the term that was used in Alexandria in Egypt. And that was one center of Christianity by Alexandria and tradition mark, the writer of the gospel of Mark, or at least someone connected to him. I mean, I know there's disputes over who wrote what but the connection to that mark is, is it is said that he was the founder of the church in Alexandria. So there is a kind of apostolic origin for the church in Alexandria. So they took themselves to be an important center of Christianity. Antioch was an important center of Christianity, Jerusalem, a center of Christianity, Rome, a center of Christianity, and then Constantine says, I'm gonna make Constantinople as a center of Christianity. It's the upstart. And so here's the story is in the upstart center preaching this prayer, trying to say hey, look, we now determine for all Christians how we're going to speak and and so the Alexandria is rise up and they're like, Hey, come on. We've been worshipping here this way since John Mark, since and, you know, there's some tradition that John Mark actually provided the room For the Lord's prayer or for the Lord's Supper, and that was his family and there's some interesting history around John Mark and Alex or mark and Alexandria. Some people use the phrase, John Mark, but that's another thing. But yeah, anyway,

Tom Velasco 15:16

um, you know, I think what you just described, Chad really harkens back to stuff that we talked about early in our podcast way back when the Gnostics when we were covering kind of the Gnostic heresies, because one of the arguments that was constantly being brought up in opposition to the Gnostics was to look at the centers of power that you just referenced, for lack of a better term. I mean, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, not Constantinople, because obviously Constantine hadn't, you know, come to power yet. But to look at these and and the bishops of these various places all put forward the same argument, they all said, Look, we were started by apostles. We have an unbroken line of apostolic authority and succession. And we all agree that this Gnostic teaching is bad. And so just bringing in Constantinople now, is this like, upstart? I like that phrase? It's kind of a challenge, like the the Alexandrians can say, no, no, we're doing it the way it's supposed to have been done. Right, by the way, not to change subjects real quick. But to get back to something Trevor said a bit ago about the Theotokos, and about how some Protestants, depending on their tradition may not really care, because it deals with Mary and that would be something that we're probably just not as concerned about. One thing I'd point out is that the term Theotokos is more than just about Mary. It really is about the nature of Jesus while in the womb, it's really speaking to His nature. And so if you saw when the story is called, G or marrying the, the Christa telcos, saying that she was the Christ bearer, but not the God bearer. He's essentially saying that in her womb, Jesus was something else than what we tend to think of, and wasn't really God in the womb. But in some sense, became God later, so to speak, I think, at least I think that's kind of what he's implying by it. And I also want to throw out there because we haven't talked much about it probably, I don't know that we will. But 20 years before Chalcedon, you have the Council of Ephesus dealing with that particular heresy, and they condemned the the term Krysta Tucker's I don't think they condemned the term. The term in some sense is probably true, but they condemned this teaching. The Theotokos is wrong, right to teach the Theotokos is bad is heresy is what they what they said it at Ephesus, so 20 years before Chalcedon, this is already in play. And they condemn that. But then they failed to go further and give a precise definition of what the nature of Christ is. Right? So anyway, just to fill that in.

Trevor Adams 18:00

Yeah, yeah. The metaphysical implications are certainly important, whether or not you say prayers to marry or not.

Charles Kim 18:09

Well, and that's actually even in my example, where you take out the gendered language for God. I mean, the the criticism which I find compelling, why we should say, father and son is because it seems to make God impersonal. It's like an impersonal force. And so using these names and using these pronouns, and, you know, it's trying to it, at least to some extent, it's intended to communicate, sort of the personhood of God, like God is not just some impersonal force, right? Christians have always believed that God, in some sense, has, you know, a personal connection to us. And it's not just or, and some will say, it sounds even motorcyclist, right just sounds like the modes of God. But it's it's a it is a deeply theological question. What should one do with how we speak about God, which is also still the controversy here? How should we speak about the God man? And so we get the, you know, we get this settlement at Chalcedon. And the first thing that they do and the, in the sort of the acts of the of the in when they like when they make their kind of final declaration, what is our agreement here, they say we the first thing, the most important thing is they say, Look, we affirm Nicaea. So all we're doing here is giving a further clarification to what we've already said at Nicaea. We've talked about that a little bit. And then they say following then the Holy Fathers we all confess in harmony, one in the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same one perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity. truly God and truly man right so you know, these are phrases that many of us will be familiar with fully God fully man truly God truly man, something Unlike that perfect meaning complete total that kind of thing right perfect and divinity perfect humanity of a rational soul and a body right so you can you can parse each one of these words to some extent right so we started back with a pollen heiress who didn't think that there was a mind that that you know that the divine mind inhabited the soul in a body the tripartite form so they're saying no rational soul and body as if to say Apollo Maris your you know your definition doesn't work and then they go on have one being with the Father as regards his divinity or con substantial with with it with God con substantial with us in humanity, like us in all respects except sin. Yeah. Should I just read the whole thing I guess? Or

Trevor Adams 20:57

yeah, keep going.

Tom Velasco 21:00

Some everybody should

Charles Kim 21:02

know. Yeah. So like us,

Tom Velasco 21:04

along, at home or on the car in the car while driving.

Charles Kim 21:12

So like us in all respects, except sin, right? So this is huge. So you know, he's actually even the perfect in respect to humanity. Like, it's interesting to think about the, you know, Christ as the, the perfect human. So all of the you know, when we think about humanity, we think about Christ, not about us, like we are the imperfect humanity, he is the perfect humanity. So he is the standard, he's the form he's the exemplar, begotten before the ages from the Father and divinity, and in the last days, the same one for us, and for our salvation born from Mary, the virgin Theotokos, Scott bear, inhumanity, one in the same, alright, so one is really important here unity, one in the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten. And then here is a really controversial phrase, which we should go back to, but acknowledged in two natures. Without and then these, these are pretty important phrases to acknowledging two natures without confusion, without change, without division, and without separation. Right. So these are kind of standard things, whatever we say about Christ, we mean that his humanity is divinity or not mixed together, they don't change. They're not divided, and nor are they separated. And no point was the difference between the natures taken away because of the Union, right, so the hypostatic union, but rather, the distinctive character of each nature being preserved, and each coming together in one person and a single subsistence being. And obviously, it's not the

Trevor Adams 22:49

phrase, we need to come back to mine. Iron renders that hypostasis, by the way, but

Charles Kim 22:54

yeah, well, that's yeah, that's the hypostatic union. Yeah, yeah. He is not divided or separating the two person, one of the same son, only begotten God word, Lord Jesus Christ as the prophets of old, and the Lord Jesus Christ taught us about him, and the creed of the fathers handed down to us, right. So again, the Creed handed down, were kind of affirming that this is long held. So so that is the Caledonian settlement. And I have hinted at already once, but we'll get to this more that what, as with a lot of these things, it almost causes as much controversy as it settles. So some people will say that the reformation is when Christianity seems to break off into factions. You know, at the very least, you want to go back to here to the fifth century, because this is where we get the different churches that like of the Far East, so churches in Syria, Bab, Iraq, and actually the Egyptian church breaks off to eventually. Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Adams 23:55

Okay, check

Tom Velasco 23:56

over here, actually. Um, just because you're talking about the splintering offs at this point of all these various Eastern churches, they're all splintering, because of the definition of calcium. Correct. Like that,

Charles Kim 24:12

more or less? Yeah, more or less? Yeah.

Tom Velasco 24:15

So I was just in a conversation with a friend the other day, and I brought up cuz somebody was asking what we were doing on our podcast, and I said, Well, we're talking about the definition of Kelsey Eaton. And we're talking about the story aneurysm and the amount of the amount of is a heresy, right. And immediately one of my friends who is familiar with the churches in the east, says, me if is like, Please, could you explain the distinction? Me and this is I'm not asking for the audience. I'm asking for myself. Monophysite and while they cling to that me, because Because none of them acknowledge the phrase Monophysite Correct.

Charles Kim 24:55

Right. Now,

Tom Velasco 24:57

I do know what Go ahead.

Charles Kim 25:00

I think there is. I think there is one of the churches of the East that might embrace the term Monophysite, Manassa Zite or Monophysite. But yes, yeah, but the Coptic Church definitely does call themselves me off the site. And that it is a nod to saying that we're not saying that there is only one sort of one nature. But

Tom Velasco 25:28

because it means it means nature. So like, as opposed to the dual nature that appears in the council of Chalcedon, where there's God and man united in one person, the to say man of is it is to say, No, there's not a distinct God and man nature, there's only one nature, and both unit keys and Apollinarus had different versions of this and what we've talked about the last couple of weeks, but sorry, go ahead, Chad, they say the nature but

Charles Kim 25:56

yeah, so here in Greek thesis means nature. So this is Robert Wilkin, a sort of esteemed pathologist, a steam scholar of the early church. He says this, me so the proper term for the non Caledonian says we opposites though in past historical writings in the office, it has been widely used, whatever the term the non calcitonin is, did not believe that Christ had only a divine nature. Like the Caledonian they held that he was fully human as well as for the divine, but they thought that the expression to nature's suggested that the divine Logos and the man Christ were two distinct persons, and for that reason, they rejected Cal Seaton. So that's how Wilken settles it, it doesn't actually explain why Mia is preferred to prefer to Monophysite. I think what Wilken would imply is that to some extent, it's it manifests I feels like a slur. And so they would prefer me ah, I think I've heard some people say that me feels like, well, so the phrase that the, the Coptic Church preferred was out of two natures. So there's a oneness to him. But it's acknowledged out of two natures, rather than in two natures. So actually, so glad.

Tom Velasco 27:21

I was just gonna ask what is the prefix meow mean, again? Well, it's

Charles Kim 27:25

102. Savings, mono for the most? Yeah, yeah. Cool. Cool. Well, I mean, I guess if you

Tom Velasco 27:41

makes total sense, then, right? I mean, because it's like I can, I mean, I guess I'm not thinking off the top my head, I can't think of anything off top my head. But there are tons of things that we use a certain phrase, oh, I just thought of it. I love how the reformed will refer to our minions or Wesleyans, or people who just don't embrace a reformed soteriology. They'll call them semi palladiums. And what I love about that, I remember walking with Dr. Corr tins at Boise State years ago, and I was reformed at the time. And I called him a semi Palladian. And he goes, you know, Tom, I'm a Catholic. And he goes, and we hate Palladius, too. Because, and I was like, oh, and he's like, yeah, he's like, he's like, I'm not just embracing some doctrine called semi Pelagianism. That's offensive. And I realized, because though the reason I use it, is I remember reading books at the time, where people were like, oh, it's not offensive, it just what it's what it is, it's semi Pelagianism. And now it's offensive. And it's particularly using a phrase that we know will be offensive when you can use some other now of course, being Catholic, Dr. Cortez wouldn't really want to be call himself an Armenian or a Wesleyan either, because those are Protestants. But they have you know, I mean, they have their own you know, version of it, so to speak. But it but yeah, we we can find a phrase that even though you might properly call an Armenian view, semi Palladian like there might be some way you can say, well, there's a little bit it's kind of a little palladium. It's still offensive. Right? Right. Yeah.

Charles Kim 29:20

Well, and so one phrase though, that also is a dispute in Cal Seaton, and I'm actually not clear how how to make sense of what, why this preposition makes such a big difference. But here, here we go. So we're talking about this distinction among the churches. So you will find people you know, the Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church, all the Eastern Orthodox churches, so Greek Orthodox, Russian, Orthodox, Ukrainian Orthodox, all the sort of, you know, typical Orthodox Church in America, all these sorts of things, they will call themselves Calzedonia. Right. So they accept this settlement as the right way to think about this, but there are non Caledonia, Ian's, and so non Cal Sidonians tend to come like I say from the Coptic Church. The sixth one is called the Syriac Church, the Church of the East. So these are churches that are like the modern day Middle East, tend to be non Cal Sidonians. Again, you have to be careful, because there are like, there's one in lebanon that has made peace with Rome. And they're like, Eastern, right, Byzantine, Catholic, and there's, you know, there are there are, you know, there are variations almost to all of this. But by and large, they're non Caledonian, they reject this definition. But it's interesting that Cyril is from Egypt. And if you ask a Catholic or an Eastern Orthodox, they'll say Cyril is Orthodox, but the church from when silver oil comes now is non Caledonian. So the civilians, like his people, they don't like what what it was called, was what was intended to favor Cyril, in some sense. So, you know, here's here's, you know, just for a little bit more confusion, right. If you go to a Coptic Church church today, Cyril St. You know, but they say we're not in Caledonia. Well, wait a minute. I thought Kelsey, Kelsey didn't send a favor, Cyril well not in their mind. And why is this the case? Well, it goes down to this phrase. So in the kind of the middle of the x, it says, The Virgin Theotokos and humanity, one the same Christ son Lord only begotten, acknowledged in two natures. So as far as I can tell, the southern historian position was acknowledged was into nature's the anti McCain's preferred into nature's so which seemed to preserve the Tunis acknowledged into nature's, as far as I can tell the civilians, the Coptic Church, the Meopham sites, they wanted to say out of two natures EC, which seem to say it's one from two. So there's sort of a you, I think, as far as I could tell, it acknowledged they kind of unity in the two. And that's maybe me so to some extent, maybe that's the meow is like, somehow that comes kind of it leads to them. It says, Hey, remember, we actually prefer this one out of two natures. That's the best I can do. But that is an interesting part of this. We start talking about the splits, cops, civilians, non Cal Sidonians.

Tom Velasco 32:55

Yeah, it's funny how important prepositions can be to people.

Charles Kim 33:03

I mean, in in and out of Ark, so clearly different, but I still don't know. Okay, if we acknowledge out of two natures, Christ, verbally acknowledge nature. Yeah.

Tom Velasco 33:13

I, like I do agree in and out of in many contexts is concretely, very clearly are two very clearly different terms, and can be concretely expressed, but when you're talking about in or out of two natures, it I don't see actually because of the substance that's in question. I don't really see the distinction, like in other words, I guess I don't know what concretely is being

Trevor Adams 33:40

Yeah, it's, um, it's hard for my mind to chew on as well. I feel like I need we need like a really deep study on the use of the word physis in this time period, because the nature part every time i i keep putting my contemporary philosopher my knowledge and metaphysics hat on, even when I dig back as far as I can dig back, which is pretty much Aquinas is version of Aristotle. And I tried to picture that version of the word nature. I'm like, I'm just left confused because about the debate between the mere desire it's because I'm like, You're you metaphysics or that's still to nature's there. I don't I don't know what how you're still getting. I don't know how you're getting a human being and the divine being and yet you've got Christ in one nature. I'm, I'm still that baffles me. It makes me think that Phocis had a different usage, obviously. Which it probably Yeah. And I'm so yeah. Can you say something to that? So

Charles Kim 34:54

real quick, this is a funny footnote in an older version of the acts of Cal seed and this one was produced in the library of Christian classics. Let's see. This one was from 1954. It has a footnote on this, where we were I just read into nature's, it has a funny little footnote here, the correct reading is in, though older texts of the acts often have of EQ. Of the four following phrases adverbs and Greeks the first to assert the permanence and last to the inseparability of the natures in Greek. Well, then it goes on to say something else about mana, Genis, but, but they even footnote that within the x itself, some of them produced with AQ and some of them produced within. So it's not even clear. It's not even 100% Clear. What was the intended preposition in the, in the original Caledonian settlement?

Trevor Adams 35:59

Wow. Yeah. And so that makes it

Charles Kim 36:02

which, which what that suggests to me is that, in fact, they didn't have a clear idea of why those two should be so substantively different. But I have a good explanation for nature. If you want that. Do you want to tout it

Trevor Adams 36:16

just because I think that'll help with the preposition thing? I mean, at least so I could get my mind on what's being in and out of, yeah,

Charles Kim 36:23

yep. So Robert Wilkin. Again, he says, although the dispute had centered on the term Theotokos, the next phase, it focused on the term nature to your point for the Alexandrians for the civilians, nature designated a specific entity. As the name Samuel refers to an individual person named Samuel. Hence, the Alexandrians could say that Christ was one nature of God, the word incarnate. So for them one nature seem to mean one person.

Trevor Adams 37:02

Okay, what's

Tom Velasco 37:03

the word? confusion between the phrase hippos, tosses and loses, right? I mean, are osios? Right? I mean, they're confused, because they're using these phrases interchangeably. And they, here's my like, just, you know, I'm not the scholar. And and I want to let you finish reading that. But my suspicion is, Trevor, that we don't have a clear definition of how these phrases are being used or not. I don't think they

Trevor Adams 37:30

have one. That's my suspicion is that they're talking past each other keep going.

Charles Kim 37:34

Well, so hence, the nature meant the concrete person, the Assyrians, that is the historians, Theodore you know, all them use the term nature to mean a characteristic that belonged to a person such as brown hair, blue eyes, traits that individual shares with other person, hence, they said Christ had two natures one define and one human, the difference in the understanding of the term nature would foil efforts to preserve unity. So almost exactly, not the opposite. But you know, very distinct. Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Adams 38:13

Yeah, this is like, this makes perfect sense then, because they basically both think they're affirming one person using their word versus, which is the important part. And they both affirm divinity, which, for our purposes, is also important. And other than, like, pollen, humanity, yeah. Let's say, Yeah, but that's where that's, you know, the humanity part. I'm not sure it sounds like the me if fizz lights want to say something like, something about the human. I mean, obviously, there was a human there, but But obviously, they they are sort of affirming a new, maybe like a new thing. A third thing. I mean, at least in terms of the metaphysics, it's kind of how it sounds, but but other than that, it's like, you do get really, really two important parts of agreement here. And then the humanity bit is, I guess, typically important for soteriological reasons, right? What, what most is assumed to save so. So that I don't know that this is. Yeah, it does. It does make it a really fine grained issue, but it does sound like on that word. physis. They talked past each other a little bit. At least as far as that sort of scholars take suggest.

Charles Kim 39:40

I mean, it's funny when I like, you know, we one of the things that we keep doing is who do we side with and all of this. I mean, if I just I do still think the anti kings just seemed more precise. And like when I hear the word nature and even when I hear the word fuscous I don't think I have a specific instantiation, even a Greek. Like I just I think more along the antiochene side, it's always weird to me that foo says the nature is the concrete individual. Like that's, that's just as I'm like, well, that's a that's a weird thing to say.

Tom Velasco 40:18

So, weird use of the word fizzes for sure.

Trevor Adams 40:21

I so you know, I don't know the Greek, obviously that well, but, and I get your intuition. But I have noticed that when I explain the Trinity to people, which to me is like, I have an understanding of it. And like, so in my head, I'm like, it's very clear. And I tried to, like explain it. And, sort of, and I and I subscribe to a very, like social model, the Trinity is sometimes called, really emphasizes the fact there literally are three persons, you know, three centers of consciousness or something like that. So the phrase I would use, but whenever I'm trying to explain it, and I even say that people do get tripped up, because when they hear being all of the beings they've ever interact with, are one person beings. And so it's there is like a, I would call it like folk metaphysic intuition that maybe wants to attach being to personhood in a very direct way. Like, anytime you have a being you just have a person, you have one person, that's it. And then, you know, I try to like give them like the three headed dog example. And I try to I try to do the best I can. But it is hard. But but being a philosopher, I'm like, well doesn't imply a contradiction. So it's metaphysically possible. And here I am, like, you know, so I'm off to the races, I don't really care whether I can like perfectly picture it or not. Which is something you get used to as a philosopher, but then that doesn't quite work with with lay people. And so yeah, I can actually see, I'm just saying I can, I can see the use, at least I can, or I can see like the folk metaphysical intuition behind wanting physicists to be like a person. Even though I don't get it myself. I'm I'm very much on the other side, I don't think I'm like, oh, yeah, I just think of like, a, basically a bundle of essential properties for and

Tom Velasco 42:21

I totally agree with you on that, Trevor, I do tend to think of the word being as slightly different from nature, and I would stick being more with like, osios. Whereas physis is more like, necessary, in my mind, at least the way I've thought of it. And I can't pull examples out right now of stuff I read, I'm sure, like I said that people obviously use them in different ways in ancient Greece, but I always think of it more as basically essential condition are necessary and sufficient features, I guess, are Yeah, these are attributes, right? Like the nature of water is, and then you talk about its, its its attributes, that's its nature. Whereas if I'm talking about the essence, or the sorry, the being of somebody, I think of gluteals right, is kind of the term I would again, I mean, I

Trevor Adams 43:16

obviously here we have

Tom Velasco 43:19

another Greek to split hairs on these things.

Trevor Adams 43:22

Like metaphysically, you know, really all we're talking about is form versus something that at particular, yeah, it's a form. Yeah. And,

Charles Kim 43:32

and it seems like the civilians are saying that the particular is also called a nature. And the anti kings are saying the particular well, they would say it's a proce upon.

Trevor Adams 43:47

Yeah, that's person, right. I don't remember. Yeah. Yeah. Ha.

Charles Kim 43:54

And so yeah, it does seem like they're directly talking past each other. And, and they like, so. This is like, if I don't know what kinds of real scholars listen to this, but it's basically in fashion. People you know, like Marco Cogley. I don't know if there's some if there's some like big wig in the field. gigs in the field,

Trevor Adams 44:19

people who get paid to do it rather than Yeah,

Charles Kim 44:23

I don't know if there's some like, yeah, you know, endowed chair somewhere who would you know, excoriate me for this? I get the intuition that the anti Keens sort of have a better education and sort of have a more like in the sense that they like I mean, I know for sure that Theodoret like really heavily relies on his platonic sources and other things they have they seem to have a better command of rhetoric in certain ways. They they just seem to have been more Earth thoroughly and precisely educated.

Tom Velasco 45:03

Yeah, you keep bringing up I am assuming that our listeners will get confused on this because I actually keep getting confused on it. Which group are the entire teams like what do they? What do they do? What did they defend?

Charles Kim 45:16

So the Yeah, the entire Keens are the ones like so the sort of the standard names that are associated with the anti kings are Theodore of Tarsus, Theodore of mops, who estia notorious, and theater to Cyrus, all of them, at one time seem to overemphasize the duality of of Christ seem to, like really want to press the separation. And they were always concerned that the Alexandrians from a pollen as well and pollinators isn't exactly, exactly, Alexandria, but they seem to be concerned that Apollo and Eris Cyril and later Yuda keys. And discourse is another one, they seem to be worried that these guys so pressed the unity, that they're that either it became like, and it sort of became all divine, there was no humanity.

Tom Velasco 46:17

Second group, that group you've referred to as Alexandrians. Yeah. So is there a term you're using for those who embrace the definition of calcein? Well, is Alexandria.

Charles Kim 46:27

So I mean, mostly, the ones who accept the Caledonian definition are typically now just called either their calcitonin Ian's or procalcitonin Ian's

Tom Velasco 46:39

Yeah, something like that, me or physics or

Charles Kim 46:43

whatever via the Miata resides or the Syriac church or these sorts of things, they became non calcitonin, Ian's and they, they rejected the settlement. So all all that is a way of saying it's interesting that like, I feel like a lot of scholars that I read nowadays tend to side with the Alexandrians like tend to say like they had, they had a better and more interesting metaphysics. They like that's, you know, that they like and that's the side that that has more references to deification more references to the this kind of, like almost more mystical tradition. And yeah, but it's just interesting. Like they get the they seem to win the day for a lot of Caledonia ins for later theologians. They tend to think, you know, that that's this the Alexandrians you know, its origin was Alexandria and as well, long before these controversies, but origin super popular right now. Right. And people love origin. And but people tend to dog on the entire Keynes because they're sort of sticklers and they're sort of sticklers for precision. They're sort of sticklers for, you know, not over sort of over emphasizing the allegorical at the expense of the historical. They're, they're precise about their language. They're worried about making sure that we don't, you know, because kata who postures in the hypostatic union is actually a term given by a person who's declared a heretic, right? Apollon heiress, and so they're really worried, like, hey, we shouldn't use terms and heretics use. And so like, I don't know, so it's funny, like, I don't know, I'm saying all these things, but I don't know. Like, there's there's a part of me my reflex actually, though, is still like, I'm actually kind of, I don't know, I have I feel like sometimes I have more in common with the entire canes than I do with the Alexandrians.

Trevor Adams 48:48

Mm hmm. Interesting.

Tom Velasco 48:51

Now, I forget who was the was it Sarel? Who was the big guy fighting against Nestorius? Yes. So cider roll. Was it Cyril? Yeah, sorry, Sarah, would he he would have been an Alexandrian. Yeah. Okay. So so when you describe the Alexandrians that would include guys whose perception would be a little closer to the definition of Chalcedon as well as the Memphis sights, right? So it's like a combination of both right right. So Alexandria, and when you say that they're less precise, they really are like they're there's a broader I don't know Venn diagram that surrounds the Alexandrians and their theological or Christological positions. Then there is the entire kings.

Charles Kim 49:41

Yeah, so like, well, like as a for instance, we're gonna have Jordan would an episode with him that probably will air before this conversation. He wrote on Maximus the Confessor, and Maximus is a later procalcitonin Someone who wants to defend Cal Seaton, but who you know who Uh, is kind of in this sort of line of this sort of surreally you know, so Maximus confessor is sort of in, you know, he's procalcitonin. But he's still like sis Cyril, you know, he's like, he's like, I'm on this, like, trajectory that like, is is fully orthodox. But and really like Cyril and really likes elements of origin ism, although he rejects some origin. But yeah, he sort of, you know, there's, that's kind of like, that's really, that's like cutting edge. Historical theology is like, they're like, Oh, we like like these people that want to take some of the interesting stuff from the Alexandrians and origin and Cyril, but we're still procalcitonin. And so we're going to, you know, and we're going to do the mystical thing. And we're going to talk about Theosis. And we're going to talk about dividends ation and these sorts of things. That's, that's David Bentley, Hart. Right? That's kind of is trajectory as well.

Trevor Adams 51:07

I will say, I think I've now been convinced that Apollo and Eris heiress, upon Harris himself, his actual specific formulation, doesn't seem compatible with what ended up being orthodoxy. However, I do think that Neo Apollon Aryan view, still fits even what we just read here today. But it is definitely Neo, it's not quite literally his view. But I could see how you could get how you still get a fully human person, you still get it fully divine nature present, and you still get one person. But But then again, I don't know, it's one of those things where I think this is one of those metaphysical debates, where it's basically just intuition pumping at this point, because the truth is, it's like, well, what happens if you take a divine being and you put them into a human body and their what's their what becomes the soul that human persons like? I mean, first of all, we've got we've got the sample size of one, if that's what happened, you know, furthermore, but then also, it's like, the, the whole jiving this with our understanding of like, current dualism to which I think would be really interesting, though, not the point of this podcast. But like, how do we talk about the brain interacting with, you know, an immaterial self and what that would be, and talking about, like, I would love someone to do like a David Chalmers style, explanation of conscious dualism, consciousness dualism explaining how you get Christ in there. I mean, that's what really interests me about this, obviously, being the philosopher, but I'm, but it makes me think that there's actually even though it's like, settled, it's like, we're here, we've got our formulation, there's probably like, hundreds of metaphysics that could all still fit this definition. And you could, you could get even more nitty gritty, and I'm glad that we've like, sort of stopped. Like, we need to stop somewhere because this, I feel like this could just keep going, you could keep, as philosophers and theologians do, you could just keep tearing it apart, getting even smaller, particular definitions. And I just think it's, it's interesting that we get to see snapshots of that in history, like versions of that kind of going on, though, as we've just discussed, maybe they weren't too precise. They were probably weren't that precise enough, maybe, in some ways, since they ended up talking past each other. But yeah, very,

Charles Kim 54:04

it's, it's kind of amazing. They're talking past each other speaking the same language. I mean, you know, it's all it's almost like when I went, you know, like, I got to go to Scotland and, like, sometimes I would meet people. I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. You are speaking English, supposedly.

Tom Velasco 54:24

Think about some of our current debates, culturally, race, gender. I mean, you name it. We're all using different definitions for things and we're using them. What's, oh, gosh, dogmatically, right. Like, unyielding, not willing to stipulate definitions in conversations to try to get to the hearts of matters and things like that. You know what I mean? So it's, it makes sense to me that culturally, that is going to happen, right?

Trevor Adams 54:56

I have to shout out because I feel like this term would just that what you're saying so I'll have to shout out Eric recon from Oklahoma State University. One of my old professors he taught, he teaches fill religion there still. He has a good book on universalism actually. And he has a book that replies to Richard Dawkins called his God Delusion, cool, cool philosopher. But also, he had this phrase that he taught us called essentially contested concept, which I think is something he sort of invented, I'm pretty sure maybe he got someone else I'm not. But he talked about this culturally obsession, essentially contested concepts. And religion was his example use this and fill religion, where literally, some people can hear the word religion. And all they hear is negative things. They all their associations with that concept are negative. And then some people hear the term religion is very beautiful, and it's uplifting concept. And he, I remember the example he gave us the like, imagine if you were in a society where the word sex just meant rape to some people, and to other people meant like this loving act to other people, he goes, of course, they would then fight about sex, because that's where we're at with religion right now. And I've now I've thought about this so much, since he gave me that example of like, other concepts in our society that are essentially contested in such a way we're really that is, what's, that's what's going on. But yeah, so it doesn't surprise me that it's not new, that it was happening, it's been happening for a long time.

Tom Velasco 56:33

That's a really good analysis, I just think, in general, of what's happening in our culture, because I think that's where everything is, like you identify almost any hot button topic, and there's going to be a phrase or a term that is going to mean two radically different things to different people on the aisle, you know?

Charles Kim 56:51

Well, yeah, it's hard not to want to go into any number of of like things about this, but

Trevor Adams 57:00

I could, I could give like a personal example of the stirring the pot. I mean, I remember, like, hearing the word socialist just meant something so like, like, kind of evil, or like, it was more like not evil. It's more like dumb, it was just more like, Oh, those are stupid people who like have this crazy view. And like anything free market, anything, laissez faire just had this positive association in my mind, because that was the house I grew up in. And I had to like, literally train myself out of that I'm now in a more like, almost like I would call debt neutral space. Like neither term means much to me anymore. It's like they're almost pure utility. I'm just like, I don't know, markets work here. They don't work here. Whatever. I just, you know, I'm sort of getting past my own economic views, but I just, I, but it used to be very charged, like both words used to be charged both in positive negative ways. And like, it took like, literal training of my brain to like, get out of that. But I had to get into that mode, the philosophy and philosophy mode, as I call it, where I'm just like, Okay, I'll play with an idea. I'll think of this idea without attachment to it. And I'm not sure yeah, not. I don't know, if everyone has the instinct to do that. Whereas now that's actually my, like, my instinct, I hear about an idea. And I just, I put it in, like, a safe place where I'm trying to avoid my emotions. But But yeah, it's very, it's very difficult and takes conscious effort. Because your, your unconscious self wants to just hit that emotional button immediately. And it's just like, nope, bad. Like, we associate bad with that or good with that. And yeah,

Charles Kim 58:36

yeah. Well, yeah, I had, I was talking, I think, actually, I feel like I've learned that from you, Trevor a little bit, but definitely from, you know, continuing to talk with philosophers. Because like, you know, a few years ago, I was talking to my pastor friend about about the I think it was about the defund the police thing. And that was like a phrase, and that annoyed me the phrase annoys annoyed me at first. But then I realized I was like, you know, you do let you know, you need to say, Okay, that's a slogan. And I'm not sure you know, the slogan may not literally mean what they say that usually, you know, means like, reduce the budget, or it could mean ad. It could mean like ads, social workers, it could mean lots of different things. But for many of the people, it doesn't mean literally no police budget, and no, you know, something like that. But like I have to you know, I feel like that's something I learned better have a have a way to say, What do you mean? And it's like, Okay, I just I just okay, they can you can use your slogan fine. But if I'm gonna die, but if we're gonna if it's actually a conversation, or if actually I want to learn something from you, I need to say, Okay, sure. Before I just react. You tell me what you mean. And the new one actually It's getting play all over that I'm more than happy to talk about his Christian nationalism and Christian nationalism. It just is a way to say anytime anyone sees Christianity near something American Christian nationalism. And, you know, look, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, uh, you know, I've never voted in my life, I have very peculiar positions about politics, I would love, you know, I am very worried about Christian involvement like, like overtly directly Christian involvement in politics. But I had, I listened to a conversation, sort of a shout out to another podcast called The London Lyceum, where I listened to a bunch of people talk about various ways that Christians engage in politics. And I was like, oh, yeah, I have to be reminded. There are a lot of really nuanced and important ways to think about this that aren't just a boogeyman, that aren't just the like, you know, again, I'm suspicious, mostly of like, things that I'm worried are a little too wedded between, between, like, sort of, you know, American love of America, American fervor, and like, the only way to be American is Christian, if that's what that means or something. But, but like, that doesn't mean there isn't really there aren't really intelligent people who have really smart ways to think about like, no, it's, you know, there are ways to be a Christian and be involved in politics, and for those to mutually inform one another.

Trevor Adams 1:01:30

And then not automatic, sorry, this slogan, a way

Tom Velasco 1:01:35

of arguing is bad if your goal is to change people's minds, right, like, like the defendant police phrase, just as an example, that was one that struck a chord with a lot of people. So the benefit is for those for whom it's struck a chord are going to be on board, and they're not going to be thinking about what it means, of course. So they might actually be disappointed when they realize that oh, there's still police forces still being paid, still being budgeted. But it's going to really infuriate the a whole different side. So is your goal to bring about a serious difference in society? Ideally, you would not want to infuriate those who are already inclined to disagree with you, right? And then, and of course, it doesn't matter where you end up on a political spectrum. Everybody does this, right. I mean, you know, I always just default to Trevor to bring up what you just said about socialists, like, if you're on the right, everybody who disagree with is a communist or a socialist, right. And, and I mean, we're talking, You're stalling your mouse, you're Lenin, you name it. And for the last, everybody you disagree with is a Nazi, right? I mean, that's, it all defaults. And then you try to push back a little bit, and people will say, hey, but Hitler wasn't nationalist. Hitler was patriotic. Hey, you know what I mean, you just start bringing up ways in which this is in which there is like, again, going back to a Venn diagram, there's a Venn diagram that encapsulates certain aspects of, of Nazi belief with people on the right in America. And there's a Venn diagram that, that encapsulate certain parts of Stalin's beliefs with people on the left, but that doesn't mean they're the same thing. And, and it's like, I mean, guys, let's face it, if everybody would just listen to us, we would solve the current problem in America, of our complete, utter hatred for one another, and, and constant polarization. But I mean, we just at the end of the day, you actually do need to define your terms. And you actually do need to be charitable to your opponent listening to what they're saying. And yes, even the ones that you in your mind think are Nazis, or are communists, because they're probably not first of all. And second of all, because, you know, well, okay, there's more than two reasons. I just, there's like, 1000 reasons to do this. But if you want to affect change, that's what's gonna have to happen, because we actually have to kind of agree on things to bring make differences anyway. Sorry. Go ahead, Trevor, you were about to say something.

Trevor Adams 1:04:13

I was just going to make a joke. And I already forgot what the joke was. So I mean, yeah, but in like epistemic ly, just, social epistemology is a hot field right now. But if you're thinking of a society that's trying to share truths effectively with other members of society, we're all in bubbles. You know, we can't help that. We all just surely through the practical nature by which we get testimonial evidence about the way the world is, are automatically going to be in a bubble because you can only listen to so much testimony. What gets you in a chamber is when you're told to actively distrust everyone outside any one of your bubbles. And the only and i By the way, I'm just repeating philosopher tide and winds really good piece on this, which he actually has like a public facing piece that's like in some, like, some actual publication, like, that's not philosophy journal, you can go read. But when he talks about this issue, he explicitly says, Look, what's the solution and he goes, if you think it's like independent thinking, that's not going to work because guess what, that can just get you deeper in your hole that you're already in, because then you're going to like, basically Descartes yourself, kind of, but with your own little conspiracy theory, the only way, at least that he suggests that I think this is plausible, too, is he says, assuming goodwill, on the other side. That's it, if you just assume that they're not out there to like, harm you and kill you. And you're just like, actually, like, willing to listen to them. They're not here to destroy your way of life, whatever. Just assuming some semblance of goodwill of the other side, is typically what it takes. And he's got example after example. That's how people often leave cults, they just actually finally start to assume goodwill of the people outside the cult. Okay, this person doesn't see want to like actually hurt me. And that's how they escape. And so I don't know, it seems like sort of epistemic ly as a society. Yeah, we need like some humility. We need like maybe some techniques like asking people to define their terms. But yeah, we also got to, we need to assume more goodwill, of our of our neighbors.

Charles Kim 1:06:26

So we're really far afield from Cal Seaton.

Tom Velasco 1:06:33

It's the definition of calcium definitions where

Trevor Adams 1:06:37

it actually works to because maybe if they had assume goodwill, now,

Charles Kim 1:06:44

that's kind of got to be my question. Well, it to some extent, I actually, I think we're being you know, this is this is what makes this would make for a good class, I'm trying to explain why the terms, you know, how do I get into how, you know, like, when I try to teach students about history, you know, it's like, okay, how do I get in the mindset of the people that period, and you're always going to be making correspondence correspondences to the present day, not because, you know, it's the same conversation, but in the same way that we react and get inflamed. And so I do think that that there is a correspondence here, between these two eras, precisely in the ways that you all are saying it's like, okay, there's a bunch, you know, Cyril is proposing to just stick with the old, the old Theotokos. And the story is, is doing this other one. So you hear theater calls, or you hear out of two natures, and you say, Oh, that's my team. Or you hear in two natures, you hear the other one? That's my team. And, you know, and there's that that sloganeering. But um, okay. But, but it just an interesting question that I have. James K. Smith, is sort of a famous sort of philosopher theologian. He wrote a piece a year or two ago about how he was done trying to like to he says that he doesn't think people change their position, by their by rationality, by argumentation. And he says, he says, essentially, I think Peter Berger does this. But you talk about plausibility structures, and what seems plausible to someone. And how do you move someone from one plausibility to another up one plausibility structure to another plausibility structure? So in the case of defund the police? If it how would you? How would you get them to move to a position where they thought, you know, police were, you know, you needed more police or something? Or I don't know that the police force wasn't out to just hurt people of color? How would you move them? Well, you're not going to argue them? Because their plausibility structure already is set up in such a way that the only thing that seems plausible, is that the police just hate people of color or something. So the art, so James K. Smith argues that it's that it's love that it's relationships, and it sounds a little willy nilly, it sounds a little like feel good or something but he says you can only change someone by spending time with them. And sort of, by by how you embrace them, and kind of like a relational manner. So he made this kind of big declaration that he was, like, done with philosophy is what he said, Because he said, We don't need the arguments. What we need is, you know, something else, I'm not sure how can like, it was sort of an interesting proposal because, like, you know, there's something about that, where it's like, the longer I spend. Well, I mean, I spend all my time around Catholic people. And it's a very common thing for Protestants like me to convert, who spend all their time around Catholic people. And I love you know, it's like I see how that happens. The more time that I spend with them, I'm like, I can actually give you a fairly coherent account of why Catholics believe what they I believe I totally understand the Catholic plausibility structure at this point, like, I can give you a really good account of why that's compelling in a way that I could never have done the way that I was raised. Because I just spend all my time and in one Catholic setting or another. And now, you know, it's a whole other question as to why I'm not Catholic, but but we'll just take that point for a minute. It's like I can inhabit a mindset of a Catholic person in a way that I could never have imagined 1020 years ago.

Trevor Adams 1:10:36

Yeah, well, to me, that's still just as philosophy. I mean, if you're doing it right, even if you're even if you have a view, like I have a view, like I'm doing this right now, I have an view on the nature of hope. It disagrees with like one of the main authors who pretty much everyone looks up to on the topic of hope. But I could explain that pretty dang well, and that and, you know, probably better than many people, even in philosophy, because most people don't work out. Why? Well, because that's what you got to do. You got to understand why something seems plausible. In fact, this is like a criterion. Often in philosophy, if you just sit and make a view look really dumb. Sometimes it's just like, well, maybe the view really just was done. But often, it's like, but then there's always like a section in the paper. That's like, but then why did it sound convincing? Why would we think this? Like, what about it? Sounds good. Why? Why on earth? Would anyone think that this was more plausible than not? And that is exactly what you're trying to do. This is exactly what you're trying to explain. And if if you can't, if you can't even inhabit that frame of mind as to why your opponent would think it's plausible, you can't argue effectively against it at all. Because what you're going to do is straw man, that's all you're gonna do, you're gonna point at the weakest sounding things and destroy them. But then you're not going to capture anything about their view that actually needs defeating if you're going to, you know, defeat it in argument of style. So yeah, it's to me that, I don't know that proposal to me, it's like, okay, so still just philosophy. That's how that's

Tom Velasco 1:12:25

it. I mean, not to go all Aristotelian on you guys. But Aristotle, in his rhetoric identifies three modes of persuasion. Right, right. ethos, pathos, and logos. And I don't know, there's more to it than that. But I liked that breakdown, where he basically says, Look, in general, if you're going to persuade somebody to anything, they're going to be these three ways to do it. Part of it is going to be reason, that part of it, and he I correct, I might be wrong when he guys can maybe when he has a better recollection, I think he says this is the most important one is ethos, which is basically, more or less do peep does the person you're arguing with like you? Because if they don't like you, it doesn't matter what you say, doesn't matter what reason you give, you're not persuading anybody. Right? And I actually illustrated this for my students years ago, when Barack Obama was still president. Because it you know, I teach at a very conservative school. And everybody in my school hated Brock Obama back then. And I would show them a clip of Barack Obama at a while, I'd ask them a question, I'd ask them a series of questions like, What do you think about the president? What do you like, you know, there was always everything was negative, I forget what all their answers, you know, what the questions I asked were, but I then showed them a clip from the White House Correspondents Dinner where the Presidents traditionally roast themselves, kind of, you know, and it's kind of funny, and they often call themselves out on things that the opposing political party calls them out on. And he did that. And then afterwards, I asked them, How do you feel about him now? And the likability thing went up for all of them, right? Like, like just the fact that he made fun of himself and seemed a little bit more normal. All that went up. It was a it was just an I did this in my rhetoric class as an experiment and ethos, I did the same thing, showing them George W. Bush, who also did the White House Correspondents Dinner. Now they already and it was somewhat effective, because Bush, even for conservatives was a little unpopular towards the end of his presidency. But But I just showed them that as a way of like improving your ethos. And then I just pointed out, look, it doesn't matter. Like I can envision Barack Obama walking into the Republican National Convention, and giving the most straightforwardly consistent, clear argument, even for things that they agree with. And they're going to disagree with him because it's Brock Obama. And conversely, you put Donald Trump in the Democratic National Convention, it doesn't like and we've seen this like Trump had policies that Democrats would traditionally agree with. And he made decisions that Democrats would like. And even those you would see kind of stated in such a way to make him look bad, right? Like, it doesn't matter what he says, he's Donald Trump, and therefore he's bad. And I'm just doing that at this one level. But at a personal level, the most important thing, I think Aristotle would say, to try to persuade people is you've got to connect with them, like you have to there has to be that likeability. Or else, they won't even listen to you. Right? And that's another thing that we're losing in our culture, because people are proactively saying, No, I will not tolerate having a relationship with people on the other side. I mean, I see every day on Twitter, I saw, this was a few weeks ago, but I saw a woman post a tweet. And this was, for me, it was so sad, because I know so many people going through this kind of thing. And she said, y'all aren't serious about fighting racism, if you're not cutting relationships off with your family members, she goes, I'm down to two, I will talk to nobody, but two people in my family. And I'm like, Look, like God created us with families, I think partly as a built in system of having to fight with people. Like you just have to have them, you don't cut them out, right to cut family members out, then there's almost no hope for us like, because that's the one thing that traditionally has been there, you know, you have to talk to grumpy old Uncle Bill. And you have to listen to him. And deep down you kind of love him, even though you don't agree with it. But now we've hit this, this cultural Moray, where we actually feel a moral burden to cut, you know, Uncle grumpy old Uncle Bill out of our lives, we can't listen to him, we can't ever talk to him again. And the more that happens, the worse is going to be. And then of course, you throw in on our online discourse, will when we're online, we have no reason to love the people that we're arguing, right? Like, I mean, all, they're not even people. So even like, in the way that we talk a talk to them, we don't even perceive them as human beings. They're just, they're just these avatars on a screen saying things that infuriate us. And so we just respond without any connection at all.

Charles Kim 1:17:21

So, yeah, I mean, I think it's really, I think it's quite true. And, you know, my, I'm very fortunate I have a big family, we spend a lot of time with our extended family. But I just think about, like, to some extent, the seeds of that were so long ago when I mean, you know, it is only a sort of a modern American phenomena to think of the family as a, like, sort of your immediate nuclear, to parents and the children family. So to some extent living with fuller families required even more of what you're talking about, because you might only see crazy uncle Bill. You know, or I can't read what your uncle was Uncle Bill said, If bills, Mike. I think it's a great, did you Okay, yeah, cuz my head knob started dipping. And I'm thinking Uncle Bill, our chef brother in law. And he's his uncle Bill, and I actually slaughtered some chickens. This was kind of funny, like, so he's a little he is, you know, you get a little crazy when you're with Uncle Bill. But you only if, you know, if you only see him once a year, Thanksgiving or something like it's still not the same thing. It's like living with family members, and larger groups like the atomized world that we live in, you know, it's not something that just happened in the last five or 10 years. It to some extent, it's been the American dream of when you're 18, you leave your parents house, which is such a weird and sad thing to think about. But we have been well, and I love I'm going to I'm going to I, so I love reading about the history of like farming memoirs. This is a weird thing. But lately, I, like I'm really drawn to farm life lately. And so I'm reading I'm reading memoirs, but one of the things there was this really interesting one about the history of farming in Wisconsin, and they talked about how what technology did to farming was made it more individual. And so with every it with each, each move from, you know, first, you know, they used to farm with cattle, with with the oxen and yoke the oxen, and you'd work the fields that way, and then you got a tractor. So then you were distanced from the animals, you weren't working with the animals, but they also talked about combines, and so the tractor combine was like the next big revolution in farming. But what used to happen before the with either the animals or even the sort of simple tractor, was communities had to get together to gather the hay to bale the hay to put the hay in the hay loft, and all of these things were communal moments. And with every successive technological revolution in farming, every farmer became well, to some extent you needed fewer and fewer farmers. But you also slowly broke down the community, the the ties that bound one farmer to the next. And so you know, and basically over the last 100 years, we've made it so that 99% Or, you know, some absurd number 98% of Americans don't live on working farms, because we don't have to because of technology. And to some, you know, and I love Wendell Berry, and this is kind of a window berry point to

Tom Velasco 1:20:42

I was just about to say I read an essay that Wendell Berry wrote, I can't remember the name of it a couple of years ago, and he hit on this exact point.

Charles Kim 1:20:51

Yeah, so the Unsettling of America is the one that I love is a long, long collection of essays. And I don't know, I'm just I'm totally, like, I'm totally persuaded by it at the same at the same time that I'm now doing a podcast where I look at you all, via screen, have connections that I couldn't possibly have otherwise, and I run a podcast and all these things. Yeah, it wouldn't take much. And Abby and I would be on a farm. But we'll see.

Trevor Adams 1:21:21

That's so funny, because there's a very popular video game right now called Stardew. Valley, where the point the plot of the game, is it it's a very open world, sort of, there's not a linear story. And it's a someone who works at a company that's basically Amazon, they call it Amazon, who quits their job at Amazon and goes and lives on a farm. And people people are drawn to this game and I, I cannot help but think there's like a psychological factor that you share with those, those people. Some of those people being my my wife included, Meredith plays so much Stardew Valley is not even funny. And it's ironic. And she gets it. She's like, I see the irony here. I'm like, working on a virtual farm. But I got to attend to my farm, and she gotta collect my stuff. I got it just like wow.

Charles Kim 1:22:15

Yeah, yeah. Well, and I dabble. I mean, yeah, we're far afield. But I dabble in it every year. I mean, our garden grows, we're almost 100 like 100 square feet of garden plot and our little small single family in the city of St. Louis. We have chickens. My sister just got ducks. Like, you know, I mean, it just it gets worse every year. And every time I get a little further into it. I'm like, Man, I could really use some goats. Or you know, I just I don't know I love it. But maybe I love it because it's a hobby and my life doesn't depend on it. Actually, I'm fully convinced that that's the case. Yeah. Our zucchinis were terrible this year. And it's like oh, we'll just go buy them at the store

Tom Velasco 1:23:05

you don't eat them

Trevor Adams 1:23:08

i Yeah, there is like a whole connection to food thing too which is which is fun. Whenever I get food from like friends gardens and I cook with it. I'm like, I know who made this. That's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah.