Ask a Theologian IV

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I'm getting to these, everyone. I was hoping to do so today, but work is very busy at the moment. As are wedding preparations.

Good luck if you are the one getting married. And goodbye to theology and philosophy?

Spoiler :
In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one’s rights and double one’s duties -by that weird guy who had thrown a woman down the stairs.
 
Question: What have been the different theological opinions regarding an age of accountability?

I'm not sure what you mean by that - do you mean an age of moral responsibility? I believe that the Council of Trent fixed this as coming somewhere between the ages of 7 and 12, but otherwise I don't know of any particular opinions.

What were the different theological opinions on the salvation or otherwise of infants? And which viewpoints seem the most plausible?

As far as I can tell, most Christians have wanted to avoid saying that infants who die are condemned, even those whose other beliefs seem to imply that they should be. For example, one might think that those who believe that salvation comes by faith alone ought to believe that babies cannot be saved, since they cannot have faith. But no-one seems to want to accept this conclusion. Some Calvinists have argued that since God may predestine whom he wishes to salvation, he may predestine babies who die to salvation, and (in some way that is mysterious to me) this does not contradict the doctrine of salvation by faith alone.

In the case of Catholics, as long as the baby is baptised, all is well, because baptism removes whatever guilt attaches to original sin. A baptised baby is therefore without sin and will be all right if it dies. The case of unbaptised babies is a bit more problematic. Here again it seems the logic of the doctrine ought to mean that they are condemned, but most Catholics have followed Augustine in holding that if they are condemned it is a very mild sort of condemnation. Augustine thought that unbaptised babies occupy the least bad portion of hell. By the Middle Ages, some theologians (such as Abelard) thought that this meant that unbaptised babies suffer less than other condemned souls, but others (such as Aquinas) thought that it meant that they do not suffer at all. Rather, they simply lack the joys of those in heaven. In fact Aquinas thought that they exist in a state of natural joy and don't even realise that there is a higher joy that they're missing out on. Today there are plenty of Catholic theologians who believe that unbaptised babies might be saved after all, but this is not official Catholic teaching - even though Benedict XVI is one of those theologians.

As for what's plausible, I'd say that it seems pretty obvious that any theology that involves the claim that a good God would consign to damnation babies who die is bad theology, and it's fairly clear that most Christians have taken that view. The Catholic way of dealing with this makes more sense to me than the Protestant one.

And when was birth control first given mention by theologians? And when was it first mentioned favorably? (Not as a sin.)

Again, I don't know much about this. I believe that the church fathers mention it, at least as early as Clement of Alexandria, and they're opposed to it. However, this is at least in part because they held ancient biological theories which involved the view that a sperm contains the whole human being in miniature (and the mother contributes nothing other than being basically a sort of incubator), a view which entails that spermicide is homicide. So they regarded birth control as basically a form of abortion. As far as I know no theologians regarded birth control favourably until the twentieth century, but I don't know much about it. You must remember, though, that in the past practices such as this had very different connotations. E.g. with abortion, today we think of abortion as (in part) a women's rights issue, and think that restricting the right to abortion is a restriction on a woman's right to choose. But in antiquity it was exactly the opposite - abortions were ordered by men (fathers or husbands) and were extremely dangerous for women. So an ancient proponent of women's rights and a woman's right to choose - had anyone with such modern views existed then - would have been opposed to abortion. That means that we can't take ancient attitudes to this subject as directly relevant to modern debates, because they weren't really talking about the same thing. I suspect it's the same with contraception. Before the middle of the twentieth century people contraception as we know it didn't really exist, at least not in the same way, and it had very different associations.

I was reading about the Hussite Wars recently, and while it didn't go into much detail on the theological side of things- the main focus was on the social-political content of the Hussite movement- it did seem to suggest that the Utraquist current of the movement was a theological forerunner of Protestantism. Is that substantially the case, or was it just the author glossing over the details for simplicities sake?

As I understand it, Utraquism per se was the view that the Eucharist should be taken in both parts (i.e. everyone got to partake of the wine as well as the bread). But the term came to apply to the moderate Hussites. Now here again I'm afraid I don't know much about this subject. But as I understand it, the Hussite movement is indeed often seen as a forerunner of Protestantism, at least theologically. Hus himself was hugely influenced by Wycliffe (indeed, I don't think he really said anything that Wycliffe hadn't already said, although he formed some of his opinions independently) and Wycliffe too is quite reasonably seen as a forerunner of the Reformers. During the Reformation many of the remaining Hussites were absorbed into the Protestant churches, as were remnants of even earlier protest groups such as the Waldensians. Certainly there were differences between the Hussites and the later Protestants, but that doesn't mean one can't see genuine similarities, as the Hussites themselves evidently did when they decided to join forces with the Protestants.

I was thinking about this passage right after the throwing the first stone -episode:

Could you deduct from this that God doesn't judge people for their sins? Or, of course it's possible, but has this been considered, and if so, how widely?

Do other passages of the Bible come to your mind that would lend support to the idea that God doesn't judge at all?

I don't know of any such interpretation of that passage, but anything's possible. I don't think one could build much of a biblical case for the claim that God doesn't judge at all, though. Judgement is frequently depicted as one of God's most distinctive functions.

Why did St. Clement of Alexandria have such a fixation on facial hair?

Because most of his moral teachings are taken directly from Musonius Rufus and reflect contemporary views on how a Roman gentleman should behave.

(He's not a saint, by the way, although in early modern times he was sometimes venerated as one.)

On a less spammy note, I read an argument online that there's no real dichotomy between Thomism and Palamism, and that the two are actually quite complementary. What would you say to this? In general, what was the influence of Aristotleanism on Byzantine theology? Did Aquinas have any influence at all?

There certainly was Aristotelian influence on Byzantine theology, at least in its early stages. Eastern theologians were Aristotelian before western ones ever were. The obvious examples are Leontius of Byzantium and John of Damascus, who presented extremely sophisticated understandings of Christian theology in deeply Aristotelian terms. I'm fairly sure that Leontius made no impression on the west, at least directly, but John of Damascus was obviously very significant and was effectively the last Greek theologian to be familiar to western authors. He is a very important influence on Aquinas, who cites him frequently.

To the extent that they shared that heritage, it is true to say that there is affinity between the later medieval theologies of east and west, and Aquinas and Palamas in particular. However, I don't believe that Aristotle continued to have a great influence on Byzantine theology. Although his works were known they were not much read. The major figures who influenced subsequent Byzantine theology - Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, and so on - had little to do with Aristotle, being far more Neoplatonic. (Of course one can be both Neoplatonic and Aristotelian - Aquinas was - but I don't think they were.) In fourteenth-century Byzantium, the most prominent Aristotelian theologian was not Palamas but his nemesis, Barlaam.

Obviously Palamas and Aquinas are often linked and compared, but I don't think it's because of any real similarity in their thought. It's because each one was the greatest figure in his respective tradition, summing up the views of his predecessors and presenting a clearly packaged, authoritative statement of his tradition which subsequent and lesser minds would spend centuries unpicking. It's probably true to say that there is no great disagreement between them, but I think this may be not so much because they were saying the same thing as because they were addressing such different issues and with such different terms. The things that Palamas spent so much time and effort arguing and writing about - principally hesychasm - were complete non-issues for Aquinas, and I'm sure the reverse is true too.

Anyhow, I've come to the conclusion that heaven exists outside of time. This is partially because this seems to be the ideal way for paradise to work. I think given an actual infinite amount of time, the idea of heaven becomes horrifying: either people live out a literal eternity there seems it would drive anyone to ennui, people would be despondent over loved ones missing, the general ability of the human mind to make itself dissatisfied, etc. etc.

This makes sense, except that heaven isn't supposed to be eternal. It's a temporary state that the devout are supposed to enjoy while they are waiting for the final judgement, when they will be re-united with their bodies and go off into the new heavens and the new earth. So in traditional Christianity, heaven is very firmly temporal (and so is hell, and also purgatory, which are similar "waiting rooms", just not as pleasant).

Assuming these problems are negated by the infinite joy of paradise, heaven sounds like a horrifying cyberpunk style scenario. People so mind numbingly happy that they have no sense of what is going on around them.
Instead, if heaven exists out of time (with god, as presumably god created time when he created the world).
This also seems to make the idea of hell a bit more compatible with an omnibenevolent being. Rather then being subjected to the infinite tortures imagined by Dante, a soul is lost to hell, and simply exists in that state, permanently, without change, but without an eternity of torment.

Is that not inconsistent, though? If you're saying that an atemporal heaven would be pleasant, then I don't see how you could say that an atemporal hell would not be unpleasant. If hell is atemporal then there certainly is an eternity of torment - it's just an atemporal eternity rather than an everlasting one. That doesn't seem much better to me.

Now first, the problems I'm grappling with from a theological standpoint. First is the fact that this would mean that people exist in heaven "before" they are even born, and in fact, before anything on earth was born. This seems at first to be an absurdity, but one that seems very reasonable to me.

No, atemporality doesn't work quite like that. Suppose Peter is born in 1900 and dies in 1980. In the year 1800, on your theory, it is true to say "Peter is in heaven." However, it is false to say "Peter is in heaven now," because if heaven is atemporal it is not simultaneous with anything. Similarly, in the year 2000, it is true to say "Peter is in heaven" but false to say "Peter is in heaven now." And the same applies even in 1950 as well. It is never true to say "Peter is in heaven now" (or talk about Peter being in heaven in any temporal context) and always true to say "Peter is in heaven." This is one of the paradoxes of atemporality.

1) Do you think this qualify as a form of predetermination?

I don't think so, because there's no "pre" about it.

2) If so, does thinking like this show up in any theological discussions on predeterminism?

Again, I don't think so, because as I say heaven has always been seen as temporal, not atemporal.

3) Is there a name for this kind of philosophy about heaven and salvation? Is it considered a heresy by the Catholic Church?

I don't think it is named or formally heretical, but I'm pretty sure it would be seen as erroneous from a Catholic point of view.

3) If not, do I get to name it?

Of course! Although, you know, heresies are invariably remembered under the names that their opponents gave them, not by the names they gave themselves - even when we know those names.

As an afterthought, since I know you're not big on the bible per se, but this does seem to involve some philosophical and metaphysical wrangling: Do you think this would contradict the Book of Matthew which says "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth"?

Well, it probably would. But I'm sure a defender of an atemporal heaven/hell could find a way around it.

Who were their great founders and what texts did they leave them (and us?)?

Platonism was founded by Plato, who wrote all the dialogues that are still extant.

Aristotelianism was founded by Aristotle, who wrote the esoteric texts that are extant and also about four times as many exoteric texts that have all been lost.

Stoicism was founded by Zeno, who wrote a lot of works that are all lost.

Epicureanism was founded by Epicurus, who also wrote a lot of works, almost all of which (but not quite all) are lost.

The New Academy was founded by Arcesilaus, who I believe wrote nothing, but the New Academy was at least in theory Platonic and so I would guess revolved around Plato's writings.

I think those are the main schools. There were other movements too, such as Pyrrhonism, but they seem not to have been so well defined and institutional.

Two questions,
1) is the image of Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus a reference to the rite of adoption found in Orthodox
2) Where can I find more about the rite of adoption in the Catholic Church


I'm afraid I don't know the answer to either of those things - although a good place to start looking for information about Catholic things is the Catholic Encyclopedia (preferably ignoring the rather alarming homepage and going straight to the alphabetical index at the top of the page). It's very outdated and obviously partisan but the historical scholarship is of good quality.

I had a sleepy friend read over the threads, and she asks, wrt this:
: even if it is obvious that obama exists, burden of proof still rests on people believing his existence
: they just have lots of proof.
: thoughts?

I suppose that when there is that much proof for a claim, that means there is no burden of proof to speak of for those defending it. Does this contradict what I said before?

Good luck if you are the one getting married. And goodbye to theology and philosophy?

I'm getting married in a fortnight. I'm sure that there will be more provision for philosophy and theology, and indeed everything else, after that than there is in the period when one is preparing to get married.
 
Again, I don't know much about this. I believe that the church fathers mention it, at least as early as Clement of Alexandria, and they're opposed to it. However, this is at least in part because they held ancient biological theories which involved the view that a sperm contains the whole human being in miniature (and the mother contributes nothing other than being basically a sort of incubator), a view which entails that spermicide is homicide. So they regarded birth control as basically a form of abortion. As far as I know no theologians regarded birth control favourably until the twentieth century, but I don't know much about it. You must remember, though, that in the past practices such as this had very different connotations. E.g. with abortion, today we think of abortion as (in part) a women's rights issue, and think that restricting the right to abortion is a restriction on a woman's right to choose. But in antiquity it was exactly the opposite - abortions were ordered by men (fathers or husbands) and were extremely dangerous for women. So an ancient proponent of women's rights and a woman's right to choose - had anyone with such modern views existed then - would have been opposed to abortion. That means that we can't take ancient attitudes to this subject as directly relevant to modern debates, because they weren't really talking about the same thing. I suspect it's the same with contraception. Before the middle of the twentieth century people contraception as we know it didn't really exist, at least not in the same way, and it had very different associations.
For what it's worth, this gives the 1930 Lambeth Conference as the first partial acceptance of contraception by any Christian group.
 
I already tried searching the Catholic Encyclopedia and came up with nothing
 
I'm not sure what you mean by that - do you mean an age of moral responsibility? I believe that the Council of Trent fixed this as coming somewhere between the ages of 7 and 12, but otherwise I don't know of any particular opinions.

Pretty much I mean moral responsibility, but I mean full moral responsibility. A four year old who steals a cookie is in some sense responsible, but he isn't 100% aware of what he's doing.

Basically I meant at what age people have to either do or believe what is required for Salvation (Worded vaguely due to the differing opinions) or face damnation.

As far as I can tell, most Christians have wanted to avoid saying that infants who die are condemned, even those whose other beliefs seem to imply that they should be. For example, one might think that those who believe that salvation comes by faith alone ought to believe that babies cannot be saved, since they cannot have faith. But no-one seems to want to accept this conclusion. Some Calvinists have argued that since God may predestine whom he wishes to salvation, he may predestine babies who die to salvation, and (in some way that is mysterious to me) this does not contradict the doctrine of salvation by faith alone.

Theoretically the Calvinist teaching is rather simple, God chooses.

Its broader implications are very complex, and I should know since I have two Calvinist parents;)

In the case of Catholics, as long as the baby is baptised, all is well, because baptism removes whatever guilt attaches to original sin. A baptised baby is therefore without sin and will be all right if it dies.

Simple enough.

The case of unbaptised babies is a bit more problematic. Here again it seems the logic of the doctrine ought to mean that they are condemned, but most Catholics have followed Augustine in holding that if they are condemned it is a very mild sort of condemnation.

So Catholics do believe in differing degrees of punishment in Hell?

Makes sense I suppose, but how can there be any such thing as a MILD eternal torment?

Augustine thought that unbaptised babies occupy the least bad portion of hell. By the Middle Ages, some theologians (such as Abelard) thought that this meant that unbaptised babies suffer less than other condemned souls, but others (such as Aquinas) thought that it meant that they do not suffer at all. Rather, they simply lack the joys of those in heaven. In fact Aquinas thought that they exist in a state of natural joy and don't even realise that there is a higher joy that they're missing out on. Today there are plenty of Catholic theologians who believe that unbaptised babies might be saved after all, but this is not official Catholic teaching - even though Benedict XVI is one of those theologians.

So not official but acceptable?

As for what's plausible, I'd say that it seems pretty obvious that any theology that involves the claim that a good God would consign to damnation babies who die is bad theology, and it's fairly clear that most Christians have taken that view. The Catholic way of dealing with this makes more sense to me than the Protestant one.

Are you unaware of the Protestant arguments for some reason? You seem to have gone through all the different Catholic arguments, but you didn't even mention the Protestant arguments, perhaps since I'm already aware of them.

Either way, I've never heard of any Protestant saying all babies who die are damned. I have heard before that it depends on the parents, that all babies are saved, that its God's choice, I've even heard it theoretically stated that babies could potentially choose for or against Christ after death, or that their salvation depends on, if they have lived, whether they would have chosen God or not.

To be Honest, I've never heard any Protestant say baptism has anything to do with it. Most Protestants don't hold water baptism as a prerequesite for Salvation, and most that do hold to believer's baptism anyways. Infant baptism securing their salvation is a Catholic thing I think, not sure if the Orthodox hold it or not.
 
No, atemporality doesn't work quite like that. Suppose Peter is born in 1900 and dies in 1980. In the year 1800, on your theory, it is true to say "Peter is in heaven." However, it is false to say "Peter is in heaven now," because if heaven is atemporal it is not simultaneous with anything. Similarly, in the year 2000, it is true to say "Peter is in heaven" but false to say "Peter is in heaven now." And the same applies even in 1950 as well. It is never true to say "Peter is in heaven now" (or talk about Peter being in heaven in any temporal context) and always true to say "Peter is in heaven." This is one of the paradoxes of atemporality.

Your argument is wrong, because contemporaneity does not work like that. Two events can only be said to be happening at the same time, if they are also at the same place. In all other cases there can only exactly one reference frame (arbitrarily chosen from an (close to) infinite amount of reference frames), where the events happen at the same time. Generally the most one can say is that the distance between two events is space-like (i.e. there is a reference frame where they happen at the same time, but no reference frame where they happen at the same place) or time-like (you can find a reference frame where events happen at the same place, but there is no reference frame where they happen at the same time). But to do that you need to know the spatial separation between these events.

So unless you want to pinpoint an exact location of heaven in the universe it makes no sense to refer to "now" with respect to heaven, because the definition of "now" also requires a place, which you cannot define. Therefore the statement "Peter is in heaven now" is not false but indeterminate. If heaven was far enough away, you could find a reference frame where this is true.

Of course any theologian before the 20th century could not have know that (and I doubt that many do today) and operated under the assumption that there is an objective definition of "now". But as modern physics has shown this to be false, all arguments relying on such an assumption crumble.

Obviously, this all only applies if you do not reject scientific evidence.


I would argue that any modern conception of heaven has to incorporate some notion of atemporality to avoid these issues. This might be a minor point today, but might become relevant if humans ever left earth on fast spaceships.

For a modern conception of God this is even more important, because omnipresence immediately demands atemporality. Or maybe it would be better to talk about omnitemporality (I am probably making up a word here) - omnipresence in time.
 
So Catholics do believe in differing degrees of punishment in Hell?

Makes sense I suppose, but how can there be any such thing as a MILD eternal torment?

I am reminded of a section from the Divine Comedy.

Dante Alighieri said:
Thus he went first and had me enter
the first circle girding the abyss.
Here, as far as I could tell by listening,
was no lamentation other than the sighs
that kept the air forever trembling.
These came from grief without torment
borne by vast crowds
of men, and women, and little children.
My master began: 'You do not ask about
the souls you see? I want you to know,
before you venture farther,
'they did not sin. Though they have merit,
that is not enough, for they were unbaptized,
denied the gateway to the faith that you profess.
'And if they lived before the Christians lived,
they did not worship God aright.
And among these I am one.
'For such defects, and for no other fault,
we are lost, and afflicted but in this,
that without hope we live in longing.'
 
To the extent that they shared that heritage, it is true to say that there is affinity between the later medieval theologies of east and west, and Aquinas and Palamas in particular. However, I don't believe that Aristotle continued to have a great influence on Byzantine theology. Although his works were known they were not much read. The major figures who influenced subsequent Byzantine theology - Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, and so on - had little to do with Aristotle, being far more Neoplatonic. (Of course one can be both Neoplatonic and Aristotelian - Aquinas was - but I don't think they were.) In fourteenth-century Byzantium, the most prominent Aristotelian theologian was not Palamas but his nemesis, Barlaam.

To clarify, Palamas would have been considered an Aristotlean theologian as well, correct?
 
Uppi: If heaven is atemporal, should it be also aspatial? Can anything exist outside the time, but inside the space?

If so, the example could perhaps be salvaged, as the claim "Peter is in heaven now" would be false. (Although, the word "in" in itself would be at least problematic).

How about if you take Peter as a reference point, and instead of using the word "now" say "peter is in heaven after his death"?

Just speculating here...
 
Yes, it would also be aspatial with respect to our space, as space and time are deeply interwoven. But that merely means that there is no place in the universe where it is. And I do not think many people are claiming otherwise in the age of manned spaceflight.

Note that although heaven might be atemporal and aspatial with respect to our space-time it might have its own time and space (or just space, no need to follow the rules of our universe) orthogonal to our time and space. So the "time" there would be unrelated to any time in our universe.

And no that would not rescue the example, as there would be still no spatial reference point to the temporal "now". And without that it is useless to talk of "now".

Taking Peter as the reference point could work, but then the question arises, what happens to that reference point at the point of death and how do you manage that sudden switch of reference point from on on earth to one in heaven? Does it make sense to talk about "after"? Maybe it does, but without a model how heaven is supposed to work, this is difficult to answer.
But even if you could continue Peters timeline after his death, this timeline might intersect his timeline on earth. So maybe Peter could watch his life from heaven. This would be like teleporting yourself a light year away and then watch yourself a year ago. Within physics there is no way known to achieve this, but heaven is not within physics.
 
Question: I am aware of the Catholic viewpoint of Salvation ("Outside the Church there is no Salvation" with limited exceptions being the simplified version) but what is the most common Orthodox view?

Do all non-heretical Catholics reject predestination?

If Jesus were alive today, based on what he said in the gospels, what Christian group do you think he'd endorse the most?

If you take the same question, but instead of Jesus, you use Paul, what Christian group would Paul most likely endorse (In your opinion)?

And same question with the writer of the book of James.
 
If Jesus were alive today, based on what he said in the gospels, what Christian group do you think he'd endorse the most?

I shouldn't presume to speak for Plot, but lots of people have asked some variant of that question before, and the answer has always been "there is no way to know, and it wouldn't be a meaningful answer anyways".
 
I shouldn't presume to speak for Plot, but lots of people have asked some variant of that question before, and the answer has always been "there is no way to know, and it wouldn't be a meaningful answer anyways".

Yeah. Plot primarily interprets Jesus as an apocalyptic teacher, and most modern churches with an especially apocalyptic emphasis have rather... "innovative" interpretations of scripture.
 
What would you recommend for Biblical commentaries? I'm interested in reading analysis regarding genre and historical significance as I go through each book in the Bible.
 
1) Whenever Fr. Sergius Bulgakov is mentioned on Orthodox forums, reactions are... polarized at best. What did he teach that was especially controversial? In general, who's your favorite 20th Century Eastern European theologian?

2) What did you think of Futurama's response to the Problem of Evil?
 
Yeah. Plot primarily interprets Jesus as an apocalyptic teacher, and most modern churches with an especially apocalyptic emphasis have rather... "innovative" interpretations of scripture.

Even if this is right (And I hope Plot can at least sort of give me an answer) I still want to know where he thinks Paul or James would stand...
 
And to add another question:

Someone posted this in a VM conversation:

Matt 16:18 clearly states that upon this rock (Simon Peter) should the Church of Jesus be built. Simon Peter was also the first Bishop of Rome (and Antioch as well). That means it's pretty clear how papal succession works then from the Bishop of Rome (Antioch as I'm sure you know ceased to exist soon after). And just because half of Christians disagree does not mean they are right. They are just ignoring really obvious Gospel passages.

Is this, in your view, as "Really obvious" as this person says? Or are there good arguments against it? And what do you think the best of those arguments are?
 
I know I'm not Plot, not in any way an expert in Christian theology but this is fairly easy. Peter's name was also a byword for 'rock', so it is just another one of Jesus's metaphors. He builds his church upon a strong foundation: his followers.
 
Plotinus, I have a question, but it's more historical than theological -- still worth a shot, I guess. Is there anything you can tell me about the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons? The impression that I've got is that it took place fairly rapidly once it began, was done largely for political reasons, and was probably heavily associated early on with a significant degree of syncretization between Germanic paganism and western Christianity. But that's all terribly generic -- is there anything that can't basically be gleaned by a fairly cursory reading of Bede? How did the Roman Catholic Church handle syncretization/minor "backsliding" in other formerly pagan areas?

I realize that's rather specific and pretty far from your area of specialization, so if you can't really think of anything, that's fine. I just thought it'd be worth a try. :)

Two questions,
1) is the image of Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus a reference to the rite of adoption found in Orthodox
2) Where can I find more about the rite of adoption in the Catholic Church

Have you read John Boswell's somewhat-controversial work on this topic, and the subsequent responses? (I'm assuming that's what prompted this question.)
 
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