Is Gavin Ortlund Right About Icons: Evidence from Tertullian, Origen, and Methodius 

Hi Seraphim. I've written several pages after Gavin Ortlund's recent video. I think they may be beneficial to the end of defending the Faith. Just so you take this offer seriously, I have a degree in philosophy and I'm in my mid 30's and have been convicted of Orthodoxy for over a decade. I really think these observations may be very helpful. Please let me know how I can contact you to share these considerations with you.

Thank you!

Hahaha thank you

Bro what

That was Saint Justin Martyr. It's very clear in context that he regards them as creatures. The words for worship and venerate are somewhat flexible, it's the content that matters. Hebrews 8:5 says the Levites "served" (latreuō, could be translated "worship" as in latria) the "copy and shadow of the heavenly things." But that doesn't mean they were confused and thought the temple was a god or something. Saint Justin doesn't seem to be saying that the angelic beings are viewed as God, and he even emphasizes they are creatures (by saying "good angels who follow and are made like to Him"). In context he's rebutting the Roman charge against Christians of "atheism" (ambiguous between rejecting the gods of the state and rejecting all gods), and so must show evidence that Christians have some kind of reverential action towards spiritual beings. So we wouldn't expect Saint Justin to use the later language of latria / dulia in the precise way we do now. The funny thing about bringing up Tertullian is that even Ortlund admits he's a witness to Christian practice.

No he isn't, icon veneration was in the early church.

The trinity can be called and accretion since alot of the nicene and post nicene theology is very hard to be traced back to the early period every doctrine has its base form and has a later exposition that keeps going

@@shiningdiamond5046 The doctrine of the Trinity does not evolve. There's nothing "new" that can be added.

​@@JunkyJeeMail For clarity here I am a trinitarian but much of the language around it is developed over the periods of the years such as the perichoresis and the mutual indwelling. The usage of unity predicated upon essence and will wasn't until the nicene and posts nicene period and Basil said that the begetting isn't really capable of being fleshed out in philosophical language which I agree with.

@shiningdiamond5046 You can't be Protestant and claim to accept the Cappadocian Fathers' teachings on Triadology. Faith Alone is a Christological error; i.e., monergism. Secondly, your doctrine of the invisible church is nothing more than the application of iconoclasm to Ecclesiology; likewise, there's no room for the person-nature and energy-essence distinctions in your Reformation's Solas. It's you who've innovated, just as Rome innovated in its claims to be supreme and infallible. Basically, you're inconsistent.

@@JunkyJeeMail ​​⁠I’ve noticed the inconsistencies within Protestantism and I’ve slowly become convinced that these inconsistencies are within the fundamentals of our theology. Protestantism’s iconoclastic tendencies gravitate towards a type of postmodernism reminiscent of Gnosticism which I believe we are seeing a rapid emergence of. It seems like Protestants will always struggle with retaining a sincere faith in Christ without diluting that with the influence of modern (relative to the time one is in) phenomena. I am particularly concerned that Protestantism lacks the spiritual insight and depth that is present within the fathers and thus will be deceived or else deeply influenced by technology which is rapidly finding itself at the center of our civilizations, becoming, in practice, a “new” religion. All that being said, I still struggle with seeing how the Church isn’t invisible, not in the sense that it has no physical manifestations, but that the institutions themselves are not depicting the spiritual reality. The people are the Church, but not all the people IN the Church are of the Church, so it makes sense that the Church, in the truest meaning of the word, would remain in some way mysterious. Nonetheless it only makes perfect sense that the Church correlates physically, as the body is the temple of the Spirit. Yet, by what basis do we discern whether Eastern Orthodoxy is the truest expression of the church? I think what makes it hard for Protestants to bridge the divide between sola scriptura and apostolic succession is that Protestantism arose as a reaction to what was inarguably a gross institutional corruption, an institution that likewise claims to descend from the apostles. So, in a way, Protestants are marred by the horrors of the reformation and, as a result, are constantly skeptical towards claims about the “One Holy Apostolic Church”. Because they wanted to be faithful to Christ, the response was to point to scripture as the basis for authority. Obviously I sincerely believe the Holy Spirit moves through scripture and guides us into truth but, it’s clear that personal desires and judgements are a great impediment along the way (cue Mormonism, Jehovah’s witnesses,and all those other bizarro Protestant heresies). So how do we discern that Eastern Orthodoxy is the most accurate expression of the Apostolic Faith and did not suffer from unnecessary innovations? If by nature we are bound to use personal judgement, and personal judgement plays a pivotal role in conversion, what should be the basis of our personal judgement?