“After the Council of Nicaea, the Church authorised a proto-Bible, which justified the authority of the Church. Thus Church and Bible formed a self-maintaining system and, from then on, remained remarkably consistent.”

The council of Nicaea is such an important watershed, for better or worse. To credibly ‘holify’ a person on intellectual base is an achievement that I don’t see Moldbug’s cathedral replicating, no matter how many candidates are pushed in the spotlight (Ghandi / Obama / MLK). Progressivism lacks a credible anchor. Or credibility, for that matter.

AFAIK there aren’t many outside sources on Christianity of that era aside from Acts or speculation.

It certainly changed my impression of ancients that they managed to keep all these subtle distinctions distinct. (Before stumbling across the alt-right and the Orthosphere, the main forms of Christianity I’d experienced were wooly liberal Anglicanism IRL and anti-intellectual evangelical fundies online).

1. Interesting, and it makes Paul even more of an interesting figure.

2. Good catch, this was a plain mistake on my part.

3. The Gnosticism-Catharism relationship I got from the “What if Arianism had won?” lecture, linked above. Yeah, like New Agery, Gnosticism seems like a set of beliefs which spring up independently in many places.

I ended up watching a ton of those LutheranSatire videos, good stuff, and I enjoyed the talk he gave on “theology punches” i.e. righteous anger in favour of truth. ‘Tis why I included the nod to intellectually rigorous Christians. Traditionalist protestants like he and yourself certainly have a hard job preserving doctrine in face of the RCC to one side and liberal protestants to the other…

Atomic theory is a pretty good analogy. For a while chemistry and physics thought that protons, neutrons, and electrons were the fundamental particles; then we discovered quarks. Since then, the standard model has predicted all kinds of strange subatomic particles. But when you learn high school and college chemistry, the proton-neutron-electron model is still quite good enough under normal conditions. It is accurate as far as it goes, but incomplete. I believe the Nicene-Chalcedonian doctrine of the Trinity is accurate as defined by the church catholic, but incomplete.

Are you saying it can be “understood”? Post enlightenment, most high IQ Europeans, Americans (e.g. Founding Fathers) barely paid lip service to the Trinity… precisely because of its impenetrability.

I do believe in it but beyond simple analogies, it will always remain cloaked in mystery to mere mortals.