Two Natures: Interview with Rev. Dr. Timothy Thomas

[@navienslavement]

Yeah yeah, nobody was a heretic back in the day, no monophysites, no nestorians, maybe even no arians!

[@dioscoros]

Yeah, I have a feeling that in the upcoming decades, many will suppose that the Lord Jesus Christ misunderstood the pharisees, and that the pharisees were another misunderstood "family of orthodoxy." We already see that Islam is starting to get this same treatment as an "Abrahamic faith" which leads to the same God.

[@traceyedson9652]

That’s a very helpful “stance.” Some prioritize truth by division, where division is the test of orthodoxy. Another way of seeing this stance: no wounds healed. Sad.

[@dioscoros]

​@@traceyedson9652isn't that presupposing that it is impossible for heretics (Arians, Chalcedonians, Protestants etc) to recant their error? The True Faith is necessarily distinguished from all false faiths. Truth is necessarily known by being delimited from what is false. That's why we speak about God apophatically (He is UN-contained, IN-corruptible, ABOVE-essence etc).

[@traceyedson9652]

@@dioscoros no, and I’m sure you’re not so inexperienced in life & faith to know it. And we have 1,700 years of history to prove that that approach and thinking is in error. But you & o aren’t going to solve this here. Blessed Lent.

[@dioscoros]

@@traceyedson9652 well it's nice of you to assume what my experiences in life and faith are. I hope that someday I can be as experienced and faithful as you are. As for my approach being "in error" because of the last 1,600 years, I think we have radically different views of what has taken place in those last 1,600 years: It is my belief that the examples of Sts Acacius of Constantinople, Anthimus of Constantinople, and Elijah of Antioch, that it is indeed possible for the Chalcedonian heretics to abandon their heresy and join the Orthodox (Oriental) Church. After all, if those 3 examples didn't convert and anathematize Chalcedon and their former denomination which they were patriarchs/bishops over, we wouldn't be venerating them today. You do not seem to share that view of history, which is fine because maybe you've thought about those 3 saints as being in actuality heretics from a Chalcedonian perspective. But again, the point in case is that conversion of the Chalcedonians into Orthodoxy is entirely possible as it has happened before at meaningful scale on multiple occasions.