The following is an *under construction* excerpt from a paper that is even more in the works than the excerpt. I’m sharing it as is because of a comment Matslacker made in the pervious post from AD, regarding orienting ourselves to the Spirit through activities like catechumenate that seek not necessarily for intelligibility but rather for points of connection “between dogma and life through the difficult practice of amending one’s life, of practicing humility, prayer, virtue in general, that is, of attaining purity of heart and thereby attracting the life-creating Spirit, whereby one’s “eyes” might truly “see”–even the eyes of the simple (cf. here the catechesis of Paul the Simple as an extreme case–or Aquinas’ last considerations upon his theologizing).” I thought his point was great, and happened to be a line of thought I’m trying to pursue in my own work. I heartily recommend that you read his comment, and offer the following only as an inchoate step toward a “systematic” account of the role of church practice.
As a philosophical historian of ethics, Alasdair seems almost obsessively concerned with recounting the development of practical rationality through the emergence of late modern liberalism. In Whose Justice? Which Rationality? MacIntyre argues that the loss of a teleological orientation in the account of social formation necessarily results in competing practical rationalities. Pursuant to which, modern social science lacks the ability to recognize much less help redress the fracture in practice and rationality caused by the loss of ends-based reasoning. ((I am here employing MacIntyre’s definition of practice: “By a practice I am going to mean any coherent and complex form of socially established co-operative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realised in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended” (After Virtue: A Study in Moral Philosophy, revised edition [South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984], 187); by “goods internal” to a practice, MacIntyre means the kinds of goods (results) that can be had only by successfully pursuing certain activities, whereas external goods are those that are not specific to an activity, but can be obtained through a variety of activities (e.g. prestige, riches, status, social influence, etc…).)) “And hence arises the fundamental incompatibility of theories of justice framed in terms of one of those schemes with theories framed in terms of the others.”1 MacIntyre is here trying to articulate not only the relationship between theories of justice (or any philosophical pursuit for that matter) within a particular philosophical tradition - e.g. Socrates to Plato to Aristotle, etc. - or even the relationship between competing traditions - Humean rationalism versus Aristotelian virtue ethics - but also, and in many ways more importantly, the relationship between that philosophical tradition and the communities in which it finds itself at different times. “The history of philosophy as a form of rational inquiry is in such cultural and social orders embedded in the larger history of culture and society and will be, if too much detached from that history, in certain respects distorted or even unintelligible.”2 MacIntyre is clearly wary of attempts to define philosophy in a neutral or absolute sense, divorcing it from the concrete lived experience of its practitioners as members of a organic organization. But because philosophies relate to their social context in different ways, it becomes necessary for MacIntyre to describe how rationality and concepts of justice arise in each particular social tradition as what he calls “socially embodied traditions of rational inquiry.”3 Thus begins MacIntyre’s account of the highly contextual matrix of virtues, practices, and traditions, all as interconnected and mutually supporting elements of human society. MacIntyre’s writing does not lend itself to quick summation, or short citation. What follows is my attempt to briefly spell out three elements of his project - his account of the formation of individuals in a distinct practice, the ends (or goods) they seek in those practices, and the pay off of the first two, a theory of practical rationality that is dependent upon but also elucidates elements of the community in which it arises - which together, I think, will be helpful for stabilizing an image of community and practice in mind in discussions of such Church activities like interpretation of Scritpure.
An Aristotelian teleology. MacIntyre establishes the majority of his account of practical rationality on the Aristotelian/Athenian framework of the polis as the organizing locus of practice. He argues that an Aristotelian history of philosophy is superior to both alternative (Enlightenment & Neitzschean) accounts in that an Aristotelian phronetic teleology can both explain itself as well as the idiosyncrasies of an Enlightenment/rationalistic hyper-individualism and Neitzsche’s brilliant but flawed alternative to said individualism. The Aristotelian framework is able to do this not because it captures some objective, neutral assessment in a more rational way than the latter, but rather because it is able to describe the way in which it and the other ideologies fit into concrete social matrices.4 In such a framework, success in a particular practice - say farming - clearly depends on more than the mere aggregate of mastery over discrete functions - sowing, harvesting, etc… Rather, success depends on the ability to decide on immediate action whereby one evaluates the success of previous attempts,5 and eventually the ability to think abstractly about and evaluate something like farming at its best, and thus a distinction is drawn between thinking about efficiency as the good of the moment and excellence as the best overall.6 Such evaluative ability only comes from long periods of familiarity with a particular practice in which one can imagine the end toward which one is proceeding. To do so requires the second kind of evaluation, in which the best is not idealized, but rather is seen as a real condition toward which one is striving and can attain.
What directs [participants in a practice] toward that goal is both the history of successive attempts to transcend the limitations of the best achievement in that particular area so far and the acknowledgment of certain achievements as permanently defining aspects of the perfection toward which that particular form of activity is directed. Those achievements are assigned canonical status within the practice of each type of activity. Learning what they have to teach is central to apprenticeship in each particular form of activity.7
MacIntyre is quick to point out that excellence in that activity is not reducible to merely following the rules to the point of perfection. Rather, attaining to excellence demands “a freedom to violate present established maxims , so that achievement proceeds both by rule-keeping and by rule-breaking.”7 Only the practitioner able to imagine the best within the established framework, even when the best leads her to divert from that framework, will be able to make that kind of advanced discernment. In other words, success in practice depends on being formed in a dynamic practical rationality inherent to that very practice.
Goods of Efficiency vs. Goods of Excellence. Too often, however, external goods (“good of efficiency”) challenge that imaginative ability by tempting practitioners to act for the sake of obtaining those external goods rather than for the sake of obtaining the internal goods of excellence.8 After all, the qualities prized by the “goods of excellence” and the “goods of efficiency,” while sometime matching up superficially are often accounted for differently in important ways. Justice or fairness in a system ruled by “good of efficiency” will be the outcome of holding to contractual agreements - i.e. justice is observing a prior mutual social bond.9 In this case, there is nothing inherent about justice. On the other hand, justice in a system of excellence will be understood as that which is “due excellence” and therefore injustice entails both wronging the one upon whom the injustice is perpetrated as well as upon the perpetrator because she is denying herself a particular good in that she will now face some kind of punishment.
Political Orderings. However, MacIntyre wagers that the only framework in which a concept of justice can be sustained without fracturing into competing account of goods or deserts (i.e. Competing mutual social agreements about justice - or orthodoxy?) is a community that orders goods in such a way that its members orient themselves and their actions toward achieving a common goal. In such a community, “a polis,” the multiplicity of practices, internal goods, and external goods are all ordered with a view toward the greatest possible enjoyment of all goods by its members.10 Note, however, that even enjoyment has a strongly teleological flavor here. “The constitution of each particular polis could therefore be understood as the expression of a set of principles about how goods are to be ordered into a way of life.”10 MacIntyre here unveils his definition of practical rationality as one which “aspires to show what it is for the citizen of the polis qua citizen - the citizen who acts in accordance with the ordering of goods established in his particular polis - to act rationality.”10
While this is truly one of MacIntyre’s outstanding achievements, it is also one of MacIntyre’s most contested arguments;11 by clarifying Aristotelian practical rationality as acting in such a way that one stands in relationship to a set of ordered practices with a particular end in view, MacIntyre locates rationality within practice in such a way that seeks to avoid a naïve absolute (or universal) rationality (i.e. classic liberalism).12 In eschewing a neutral foundation for knowledge, however, his critics assert that the thereby makes his proposal vulnerable to relativism or perspectivism. However, he inasmuch as both presuppose not local modes of thinking as they purport but rather a rationally neutral individual, a blank slate which is recognizable only by virtue of its social role and therefore reducible to social role. The individual, for MacIntyre, is primordially directed and motivated. On a microcosmic level, the individual is potentially motivated by the ordering of goods particular to her polis, the ordering without which the person has no recourse to practical rationality. On a macrocosmic level, all individuals are oriented toward a true good, but only insofar as she committing herself to a particular practice. For, it is in initiation into that practice that she begins to move toward finding that good that transcends her local practice.
By advancing in a distinct practice, by learning how to make discrete decisions, and then later to judge the outcome about the decisions, the individual learns how to distinguish the good from bad in terms of her practice. Eventually, the individual also learns how to judge the best in her practice, and may even become an expert in that practice, setting a new standard of the best. However, this person may eventually move on to other practice, and indeed is already involved in a community that is larger than her particular practice. She is involved in a polis that attempts integrate the variety of practices (and their respective goods) in which its citizens are involved.
This integrative activity of the political community thus has as its aims and end the achievement of a form of life which is the highest good, and that form of life provides a telos above and beyond those internal to the practices integrated into that form of life. This telos is the telos of the practice of making and sustaining this type of political community by participating in it as a citizen; let us call this practice politics and let us call such a form of political community a polis.13
The measure of the success of the polis in integrating those goods will affect how much or how little she is able to move toward a broader conception of the good, and ultimately her understanding of the ultimate telos toward which her life and all lives are moving. So, the polis is not only responsible for ordering the rationality of discrete practices, but also for ordering those practices and the ensuing rationality toward a higher good - “the polis is the form of community concerned with all human goods.”14
- Alasdair MacIntyre, “Précis of Whose Justice? Which Rationality?,” in The MacIntyre Reader, ed. Kelvin Knight (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998), 106.↩
- MacIntyre, “Précis of Whose Justice? Which Rationality?,” 106.↩
- MacIntyre, “Précis of Whose Justice? Which Rationality?,” 107.↩
- MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 144-45; similarly, Hadot: “for [Aristotle], philosophy was incapable of being reduced to philosophical discourse, or to a body of knowledge. Rather, philosophy for Aristotle was a quality of of the mind, the result of inner transformation, The form of life preached by Aristotle was the life according to the mind.”↩
- Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, 31: “It is a distinction which will inform later judgments upon one’s earlier mistakes in a rational, well-grounded way only in one is able to explain what it was about one in an earlier state that led one into error”; see also, “Practical Rationalities as Forms of Social Structure,” 4: “Such apprentices learn to make two kinds of distinction: between what merely seems good to them and what really is good (a good way to plough a field, for example, or to write an elegy); and between what is good or best for them in their present circumstances and what is good unqualifiedly. They learn to make these distinctions in the course of acquiring habits of action and of judgement which discipline and redirect the initial untrained desires and responses which they brought with them to their apprenticeship.”↩
- MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, 31: “[I]t is important to note that the kind of judgments invoking this second type of distinction are themselves subject to later judgments invoking the first kind of distinction. What seemed to us at one stage a perfect performance may later be recognized either as imperfect or as less perfect than some later achievement. That is to say, in all these areas there is not only progress in achievement but also progress in our conception and recognition of what the highest perfection is.”↩
- MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, 31.↩↩
- MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, 32.↩
- MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, 37: “it will always be as if justice was the outcome of a contract , an episode of explicit negotiation… But the rules will have to be at least minimally acceptable to almost all for them to function as rules of justice for any extended period of time, and this will characteristically involve that some of the same constraints are imposed on those who are relatively rich and powerful as well as on those whoa re relatively weak and powerless.”↩
- MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, 34.↩↩↩
- Jennifer A. Herdt, following L. Gregory Jones’s and Jeffrey Stout’s respective arguments, takes it that MacIntyre is here being inconsistent in that he claims that particular human life and traditions are narratively unified, even if traditions are not unified across the board by a normative narrative; Herdt claims that MacIntyre needs a third option between the emotivist and his own to resolve this inconsistency, namely her tradition-trascendent alternative (“Alasdair MacIntyre’s ‘Rationality of Traditions’ and Tradition-Transcendental Standards of Justification,” The Journal of Religion, 78 (Oct., 1998), pp. 524-546, esp. 525. ↩
- MacIntyre points out that classic liberalism is actually idiosyncratic in that it purports to a neutral rationality, while in fact being informed a social tradition of prizing the individual’s preferences in way which are highly incompatible with an Aristotelian ordering; see especially, “Practical Rationalities as Forms of Social Structure,” Irish Philosophical Journal 4, (1987): 13-15.↩
- “Practical Rationalities as Forms of Social Structure,” 6-7.↩
- “Practical Rationalities as Forms of Social Structure,” 7.↩
Thanks for this. MacIntyre is s/one I’ve read bits of, and should have read lots of, but haven’t…yet.
It’s interesting how he emphasizes the teleology of a polis as essential for fleshing out a given notion of justice. It seems the Xn tradition could fill out this notion in all sorts of ways by reference to the Spirit. One might even transpose Huetter (we don’t create the ecclesia, but the Spirit recreates us w/in it) into a MacIntyre-ean key (we don’t create a notion of justice, but learn it, bit by bit, as we are transformed into greater likeness with the righteous God). And so forth… eh?
But what I’m really wondering is whether he (or you) have ever thought through Mac’s stuff in light of Pierre Hadot’s, the erstwhile sage of Foucault who makes such interesting arguments about ancient philosophy being less a form of rationality than a form of ’spiritual practice’, along the lines of Seneca’s statement: “Philosophy teaches us how to act, not how to talk” (Letters to Lucilius, 20.2). Hadot goes on and on about how it was not only Socrates who wrote nothing, but that many of those considered the finest in the ‘philosophical life’ wrote nothing, b/c at root philosophy was understood to have more to do with the rigorous upbuilding of capacities for wise living (cf. Stoic practice of ‘practicing’ for death, and on and on) than with abstract reasoning. The philosopher as the early Ralph Nader, I like to think? Anyway, that conception of philosophy is regular in the patristic writings, I’m learning. “The philosophical life” is, throughout the Fathers, synonymous with ascesis, with the pursuit of virtue, with monastic life, exceedingly moreso than w/ arumentation (though the latter is not wholly absent). H’s books “What is Ancient Philosophy?” and “Philosophy as a Way of Life” were revelatory for me. But I haven’t yet read any critical interactions w/ them, so I’m not sure if so-and-so demolished him 10 years ago.
One other point: Clement of Alexandria, in his Paedegogus, connects virtue and knowledge, in the Xn context, such that both are key, but the long and rigorous practice of upbuilding virtue (and its result: healing/catharsis) must come first. This logic, of course, is extended by many others, not least St Gregory of Nazianzus: “Not to everyone, my friends, does it belong to philosophize about God . . . b/c it is permitted only to those who have been examined, and are past masters in meditation, and who have been previously purified in soul and body, or at the very least are being purified.” Before I type out one more killer Nazianzus’ quote, I’ll ask my question: I wonder if/how this logic of first virtue, then clear thought (i.e., properly functioning rationality) might intersect w/ MacIntyre. It seems a bit like he controverts the order: rationally establishing what is virtuous first, then devoting oneself to pursuing it. Is that right? It seems like the Xn might want to lean on a stronger theological argument: bring your life into obedience to God (i.e., acquire virtue), and the Spirit will ever more make a home in you–which inspiration impacts all human functions, including reasoning. Which doesn’t mean that we’ll each become gifted thinkers, but more truthful ones.
Ok, here’s a gratuitous Nazianzus quote on practices vis-a-vis the “disease” of easy and too-early theologizing. A veritable syllabus of practices, which I like to reference when people ask: “But, like, what else is there to do in a theological school other than read books? Isn’t the practice of piety something for the home?” The Theologian replies:
“What is this great rivalry of speech and endless talking? What is this new disease of insatiability? Why have we tied our hands and armed our tongues? We do not praise either hospitality, or brotherly love, or conjugal affection, or virginity; nor do we admire liberality to the poor, or the chanting of psalms, or nightlong vigils, or tears. We do not keep under the body by fasting, or go forth to God by prayer; nor do we subject the worse to the better–I mean the dust to the spirit–as they would do who form a just judgment of our composite nature; we do not make our life a preparation for death; nor do we make ourselves masters of our passions, mindful of our heavenly nobility; nor tame our anger when it swells and rages, nor our pride that brings to a fall, nor unreasonable grief, nor unchastened pleasure, nor meretricious laughter, nor undisciplined eyes, nor insatiable ears, nor excessive talk, nor absurd thoughts, nor aught of the occasions which the evil one gets against us from sources within ourselves; bringing upon us the death that comes through the windows, as Holy Scripture says; that is, through the senses.”
Thanks, Mat. Good references!
Hey Dan,
Thanks for this. I wonder what you make of Aristotle’s Nico. Ethics? Particularly the claim that one is happy if one is contemplating speculative sciences, which have been developed as intellectual virtues, and have basic external goods (food, shelter, peace, etc.). I was struck by how he ends NE by saying that now we know what happiness is, we need to sort out how to achieve this in an institutional sort of way — what kind of society will promote this happiness, which is the perfection of human qua human (rather than human qua shoemaker, human qua politician, etc.)?
This paragraph grabbed my attention:
“MacIntyre is quick to point out that excellence in that activity is not reducible to merely following the rules to the point of perfection. Rather, attaining to excellence demands “a freedom to violate present established maxims , so that achievement proceeds both by rule-keeping and by rule-breaking.”7 Only the practitioner able to imagine the best within the established framework, even when the best leads her to divert from that framework, will be able to make that kind of advanced discernment. In other words, success in practice depends on being formed in a dynamic practical rationality inherent to that very practice.”
I think there is an interesting tension between creativity/freedom and rules. I wonder if there is a false dialectic between the two which results in thinking one needs to paint outside the lines/break the rules and become iconoclastic and anti-tradition in order to keep from being a mere lifeless copy-cat.
Being Orthodox, we are not that much on development of tradition or changing things, and in that there is a fear of saying anything original. But I am thinking that in good rules there is life, freedom, and individuality. One person’s pure heart, fashioned according to the rules of morality, creed, and orthopraxis, will look different from another’s in the way each Saint’s story and face on the icon is different than another’s, to a point. There is room for economeia of practice according to an individual’s health and circumstances, but I think there is a resultant recognizable holiness. How that translates into a lay-person’s creativity is a bit less defined, but I tend to think we are allowed more license. We can make non-sacred, more varied art, and it’s of great interest to me to see how one stays Orthodox with that. Dostoyevsky, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky are the most common examples, but I think this aspect of Orthodox creativity is still quite undeveloped (oops I used that word) in the west where it is still new.
Father John Romanides in “Patristic Theology” talks about going beyond dogma by the use of apophaticism. God and people are more than their descriptions, but the correct descriptions are important. Father Romanides says apophatism is learning the right concepts, but then laying them aside. I don’t think this is the same as “rule-breaking”, but it similarly speaks to looking beyond what is known about, through a professed ignorance of the incomprehensible, and thus we seek to open ourselves to a higher knowing. And to keep from getting too spacey about that, a healthy dose of Incarnation is required, which I’m sure I don’t have the right balance of.
Yes! Isn’t this same tension in the relationship between the Law, which is holy, just, and good,” and grace, which transcends the law by fulfilling its spirit even at the expense of its letter?
Derrida writes about Cicoux’s “genius” that genius is always that which departs from and stands out against the general, the conventional, the commonly prescribed. But so often what was genius in the past becomes the presribed and conventional and ceases to be what it once was. The Renaissance humanists thought that mastering the conventions meant understanding them on a deep enough level to see how they could be and needed to be applied in a fresh and liberating way in a new situation, something Jesus was alwasy doing in his minitsry. It wasn’t about tithing dill and cumin but genuinely caring for your parents…. The letter kills; the Spirit maketh alive.
The truly wonder-ful thing about Christian orthodoxy is that every truth is countered by another truth, so that it cannot be about literalism and memorization, so to speak, but is all about growing by plunging deeply into one truth and then regaining balance through another truth, over and over again, and thus being led deeper and deeper into the spiritual reality, by being dialectically and exegetically and conversationally expanded and corrected and re-centered and enriched. Great to have you in the humble conversation here, Andrea.
By the way, since Mat put me onto Pierre Hadot, whom I had missed somehow — thanks so much! — I wanted to mention how much joy and understanding I got out of reading, after the Conference here, John Milbank’s paper on the reviving resources Bulgakov offers contemporary theology — it’s posted at the Centre for Theology and Philosophy website. He speaks directly to some of the themes that arose in the conference, including the significance of Mary’s role.
(His essay there on fairie stories and Christianity is also marvelous, if any of you haven’t read it.)
Andrea and Janet,
Interesting comments. Thanks for them. Gregory of Nyssa comes to mind: “Virtue knows no master,” whereas vice everywhere enslaves. Yet the learning of virtue, at least in the Orthodox tradition (capital ‘O’–I’m Eastern Orthodox), requires quite a bit of “literalism” (Janet’s word), inasmuch as the keeping of a rule is understood as the means to decentering the self (i.e., decreases that Christ might increase). We want freedom, yet freedom is only had in harmony with Christ, when we are “slaves to Christ,” when Christ, not us, is “all in all,” when “it is no longer we who live but Christ in us.”
I think it’s important to distinguish this Orthodox sensibility regarding freedom from the Renaissance notion, which seems to have been more keen on the bare notion of freedom as freedom of choice. As Luther quips, is an alcoholic’s freedom to choose her liquor an instance of true freedom, or does it not rather hide a most enfeebling slavery?
The Christian notion of freedom has a distinctively positive ontological charge: only when we exercise our capacity for choice toward virtuous ends do we move toward true freedom. And moving toward virtuous ends, inasmuch as those ends involve things like patience, kindness, charity, long-suffering, and preeminently humility, means we must walk a long road of learning to decrease (to decenter the self), which does not occur by free expression but by keeping a rule, by confessing everything to one’s confessor, and so forth. In this sense, it has been said that Orthodoxy is not a “confessional” tradition: it’s about Christ becoming all in all, not about me going on and on about my experience of Christ. This sensibility means to guard against very subtle forms of self-aggrandizement.
Hi All,
Great comments. Sorry I haven’t joined in, but the post above is only a small part on a paper I’m writing about Irenaeus & the regula fidei, portions of which I’ll post later.
m-slacker- Yes, I have read Hadot. Much of what he does is quite like MacIntyre, but on a broader scale within the world of classic philosophy. I’ve used his “Philosophy as a way of life” quite extensively, thanks to a scan of it from you a number of years ago.
Andrea, I’ll have to think about the tension between Freedom and Tradition. MacIntyre does not advocate any naive individualism where there’s a pre-social reified individual who is struggling to emerge from a tradition. Rather, people are inherently social, contextualized and historicized. There is no neutral individual. In the section I quoted, I take him to be simply describing the conditions for mastery of a practice, which does not entail arriving at a static point atop the practice, but rather the dynamic ability to make decisions/judgments about the good, which, he is adamant, can not be reduced to mere rule following. For MacIntyre, and Hadot, if I’m reading him rightly, mastery in practical rationality is ultimately about discerning the supreme good. He doesn’t get any more theological than that, unfortunately.
Thank you all for your kind welcome.
Janet, you said,
“The Renaissance humanists thought that mastering the conventions meant understanding them on a deep enough level to see how they could be and needed to be applied in a fresh and liberating way in a new situation, something Jesus was always doing in his ministry.”
C.S. Lewis, in his Preface to Paradise Lost, which I’ve only read the beginning of so far, talks about studying and becoming proficient in form and then being able to improve on content. That is in relation to art that one disagrees with I guess, but what I take from it and his example of being such a thorough and eclectic scholar is the development that occurs in an individual when one has learned traditional methods. Also in traditions that one does agree with, one can keep the content and put it in a more modern form. Would it be correct to say that traditions become the tools with which one then practices wisdom in new situations? Lewis, combined with some of the discussions on the blog Energetic Procession has motivated me to start studying the philosophers and poets from early times, when as a Sola Scriptura Protestant, I did not see the value in reading people I thought were “wrong”. I’ve even changed my mind, or at least started to open my mind, about that wrongness of late.
“The truly wonder-ful thing about Christian orthodoxy is that every truth is countered by another truth, so that it cannot be about literalism and memorization, so to speak, but is all about growing by plunging deeply into one truth and then regaining balance through another truth, over and over again, and thus being led deeper and deeper into the spiritual reality, by being dialectically and exegetically and conversationally expanded and corrected and re-centered and enriched.”
I have been going from a different definition of “dialectic” I think. I have seen it as placing things in opposition to each other in an antagonist way where one thing/rule ends up being elevated, at best, over another. The losing thing, annihilated at worst. Going to the example of Jesus healing on the Sabbath, I think some could say that Jesus removed the laws of the Sabbath. I think we agree that ‘Christ came to fulfill, not abolish the law.’, which goes to Matslacker’s emphasizing truth and virtue as the Person, Christ, which elevates the thinking about rules, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
I think there is also the definition of two opposing sides ending up with a third thing, a compromise that is neither true to the other two positions - rule breaking? What you are describing in the second part of the paragraph is not so much about bouncing off of “opposing” truths in a pinball type way, according to the changing needs of the moment, which seems a little traumatic, but perhaps more Incarnationally, having semi-permeable, but distinct truth “bubbles” (forgive me) joining with each other. Distinct and preserved atoms converging into molecules also comes to mind. So that the better one becomes one with tradition, the more molecular combinations, so to speak, one (using “she” is new to me!) becomes aware of, or is made one with, assuming all are already available in Christ to begin with. Sorry for how the analogy fails or is unclear.
I think my problem has been seeing these different truths, resting or helping another on the Sabbath, for instance, as two rigid, opposing, things that one has to commit to, or deliberate between. Tradition is supposed to facilitate our union with Christ where there is no deliberation, but pure confidence, peace, love, and oneness with God’s will in perfect obedience. St. Maximus talks about Recapitulation where, if I understand correctly, all these distinctions find their purposed end in Christ, while retaining their individuality.
I think I’ve also touched on Mat’s (correct name?) and Dan’s (the D in DWM?) points to. I welcome any feedback on if I’ve misrepresented or too hastily glossed anything.
I need to understand better or at least mature more into realizing this statement of Mat’s, “it’s about Christ becoming all in all, not about me going on and on about my experience of Christ. This sensibility means to guard against very subtle forms of self-aggrandizement.” At first I worry about the annihilation of self, or losing one’s distintiveness in Absolute Divine Simplicity, but I’m a novice to this stuff.
Another person a while back recommended Hadot to me, I’ll have to put him in my intimidatingly large “to read” pile.
Andrea,
Lewis is a great example, Andrea, as a Milton scholar, since Milton was the last great Renaissance humanist. They did believe, as you ask and say it so well: “Would it be correct to say that traditions become the tools with which one then practices wisdom in new situations?”
Dialectic is such a rich word and practice in the tradition from Socrates through to the 17th century. It is not so oppositional as in modern Hegelian modes of dialectic. The best instance/example is Aristotle on the virtues, where he defines any virtue (power) as being the ability to discern the “mean” between extremes (in the Nicomathean Ethics, what a beautiful book). No simple rules can be written for finding this “mean” in any given situation, because so many factors are involved. So wisdom must weigh everything in arriving at the integrated and integrative virtuous decision of behavior in each case.
When Jesus plucked the wheat on the Sabbath or healed on the Sabbath, wasn’t he teaching by using a bit of shock value? The tradition had been encrusted to the point of literalism in following the letter of the law without any deeper searching for the why of the law, its underlying motivating values and goals. “The Sabbath was made FOR man, not man for the Sabbath,” he said. So if the intention of the Sabbath is man’s well-being, how do we keep Sabbath? Most of the time, by resting. But….
Which brings us to Mat’s comments on Orthodox “literalism.” I think that willing and glad submission to rules of practice that have holy ends and values is not literalism, at least not the kind I mean, which is always recognized by the pride and legalism it inspires in those who think the right answers are easy and obvious….
Still, I share Andrea’s concern about the individual’s autonomy as a participant in the divine love affair. Jesus called us friends, NOT slaves. Yet Paul says we cannot be free except by being slaves of Christ. This is a beautiful example of biblical dialectic. Both of these dictums have truth and value for edification. But wisdom is grown into, only as we learn (usually by trial and error and by going to extremes) that we cannot take the one truth at the expense of the other….
“Heresy” in the history of the early church did not mean error per se, as a positivity, but rather it meant emphasizing a truth (Christ’s humanity or God’s Oneness) out of proportion to another truth (Christ’s divinity or God’s Threeness). Heresy was a matter of disproportion in the complicated fabric of faith. This is also how any truth becomes error in the Socratic tradition of inquiry, because we simply receive it and cease to inquire into what it really means and is — and in Christian theology.
The law is a Great Truth, the Greatest Gift from God before Christ, and is “holy, just, and good.” But if we forget the grace that transcends the law BY FULFILLING its deepest meanings and intents, then we become pharisees and our hearts grow hard. Even in the Old Testament the prophets anticipated a new covenant when the law would be written in our hearts and not on tablets of stone….
We are soil and God ploughs us up by using the VARIOUS prongs of doctrinal truth to break up the hard clumps where the seeds of self-knowledge and humility cannot sprout….
So I’m worried about any kind of obedience that becomes masochistic rather than affirming of both the self and the other, partly because I fall into these legalistic slaveries so easily, and have been abused by them. This terminology of not me but Christ can be wonderful disciplines for people with a strong sense of self but devastating to those for whom God tends to be falsely seen as a dysfunctional parent anyway. Another instance of where one size never fits all and only wisdom or virtue can attempt to assess what remedy is spiritually nourishing for a person in a given state and situation or point in their journey…?
This whole matter of wisdom as opposed to simply obeying rules or knowing principles is what the philosophical way of life and the Christian way of life have in common. The journey of life is proceeded on through steps of interior growth in being given the capacity to love a truth that grows more Personal and flexible and inclusive as one moves closer to its Source. We come closer to Christ by becoming more like Him ourselves, and this can only be done by becoming more deeply aware of how we are not like Him…. To me it seems to be all dialectic and paradox; all Augustinian poetics as I wrote about in the conversation with Joshua….
Yeah, there’s lots of potential damage in every direction, so prudence and precaution–and a director–are always needed. Of course, just because someone has a bad exp. w/ a spiritual director or priest, it doesn’t mean those roles are unimportant.
Orthodoxy does not have a buddhist notion of the annihilation of the self. If that seemed to be implied in my comments, that was not intended. The iconographic tradition as well as the rememberance of various saints at the end of the liturgy point to the importance of personhood, of course. We don’t remember “the saints” but that woman, and that guy, and that one, and James, and Martha, and etc., etc. (etc.!). Also, each icon is to retain something of the uniqueness of each person’s visage. B/c we’re built to last.
That said, self-aggrandizement is never a virtue, and it can present itself in many subtle ways. I take it as a virtue that the tradition is sensitive to this dynamic.
Also, one simply cannot personally control the giving of control of one’s life to God. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” St John of the Cross, St Theresa of Avila, St Ignatius of Loyola, Theophan the Recluse, etc. (pretty much all of the spiritual writers) are everywhere clear that one of the primary lessons of spiritual life is learnin to give up control, to decrease that the Holy Spirit might find room to take up residence within us. This is why humility is often emphasized as the key virtue leading to faith, hope, and love (long discussion). Shortcut: Jesus said time and again, “It is not I who speak, but the Father in me”; “I have said nothing but what the Father told me to,” “Thy will, not mine, be done.” Christ did not consider equality w/ God something to be grasped, but gave up his high estate, to the point of becoming a scourge, falsely accused, not defending himself to the point of death. For us to “take up our cross” means also giving away our lives rather than trying to keep them. Fr Robert Imbelli (prof at Boston College) just gave a great lecture on his summary of the Christian life: “to have our lives, we must give them away. When we give them away, we find we have them in a fullness not had when we tried to keep them. That’s what Christ did, that’s what we’re called to do.”
Not to belabor the point, but another dimension is that we’re in the Church militant, not triumphant, so we don’t expect to “have” fame, riches, rewards, many consolations, cheers, but the opposite. A lot of the saints were persecuted even by the Church, and their sanctity wasn’t known until after their deaths! Ours is moreso a “time of fasting” than of feasting (a point that can be misinterpreted as well), moreso a time for vigilance than celebration. The time for rejoicing follows the great judgment. In the Orthodox daily morning prayers, a part of the “First Prayer of St. Basil the Great” sums this up:
“Grant us to pass the night of the whole present life with wakeful heart and sober thought, ever expecting the coming of the radiant day of the appearing of thy only-begotten Son, our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ, when the Judge of all will come with glory to render to each according to their deeds. May we not be found fallen and idle, but awake and alert for action, ready to accompany Him into the joy and divine palace of his glory, where there is the ceaseless sound of those keeping festival and the unspeakable delight of those who behold the ineffable beauty of Thy Face.”
Oh, one other note to Janet: you’re probably right on this point, but these days, I don’t like think about all of this as paradoxical. The more I’ve started to see how it all coheres together, the more simple it seems. More like a many-faceted diamond, which, for its complexity, isn’t paradoxical but just finely integrated, each facet leading to the next. Semantics, and not a key thought. But in moving from the Protestant to the ORthoodox Church, this has been one of my deeper experiences: the coherence and simplicity of Christianity, even as it out-deeps me in every direction. Oops, that sounded like a paradox. :)
Ok, I know I’m belaboring the point, but there’s nothing more irksome than a nice point poorly or meanderingly expressed. So I put all of this to a mentor, and she was able to capture the essence very succinctly:
At one point in the Divine Liturgy the priest says, of the Holy Gifts: “Holy things are for the holy.” To which the congregation responds: “One is holy, one is Lord, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father, amen.”
Here the priest is saying, in essence, that “the holy Gifts are for the holy *people*”, but the people immediately deflect the comment right back with the rejoinder “One is holy…,” b/c it’s not about them. I love that.
I do too.
And the prayer of St. Basil the Great is so beautiful. Thanks!
Hi Janet,
Which Milbank essay were you referring to, the one that is posted at the Centre of Theol. and Phil.?
Regarding theories of virtue; I wonder how we might think of invention (or inventive) as required for virtuous action? I don’t particularly like the term ‘creative’ because I reserve that for God’s action and not for any creature’s action; I happen to think that it is impossible for creatures to create anything. But I have a very particular notion of what ‘to create’ means.
In any case, I would think that being ‘inventive’ is not necessary for virtuous action considered as such, but that in certain circumstances it might be the thing to do. So far some have used the locution ‘rule breaking’ to address this kind of situation. But, I don’t know for certain that this is the best way to consider this kind of situation. One would need to ask whether ‘following given rules’ is virtuous action in every case. Given that there are so many circumstances, and even unforeseen circumstances, these might be the basis for saying there is some morally sufficient reason to act in a hitherto unexpected way.
I’m somewhat perplexed. On the one hand, it seems problematic to say virtuous action just is following certain practical and moral rules because given certain circumstances if one follows the rules this might turn out to be an immoral action; and on the other hand it seems equally problematic to say virtuous action just is doing an unexpected action because there are lots of unexpected actions that can be done — but there should be some basis to know that it is a morally good action, rather than a silly or immoral action. There should be some sort of rationality involved - both intellectual and volitional. Faced with this problem, Kant seems to have said the problem here is that we are basis moral decision making on any empirical data — rather the way forward is by non-empirical data (the categorical imperative). I find Kant’s resolution unsatisfying b/c it presupposes that a given situation (a peculiar set of circumstances) can in fact be universalized.
IN any case .. I digress.
Janet, I thought your above explanation was beautiful and it left me speechless.
Mat, if I may belabor the point further, :) Your two consecutive comments about self-aggrandizement put me in soul-searching mode. I have dialectical arguments with myself all the time about if I naval-gaze too much or what. I am introverted, so is that morally illegitimate? (rhetorical question, mostly).
“Here the priest is saying, in essence, that “the holy Gifts are for the holy *people*”, but the people immediately deflect the comment right back with the rejoinder “One is holy…,” b/c it’s not about them.”
I see it more as a loop, rather than a ricochet. You bring out acknowledging the Source who is also the End, Alpha and Omega, but how your explanation affects me, as Janet intuited above, is that I am traumatized by being left out. I don’t think God forgets us, or takes our blessings away. We humbly give glory and honor to Him and He blesses us and it continues in an overflowing type way all around. You probably weren’t meaning otherwise, but express it as you do maybe because you are more extroverted or have a better sense of self or because you’re a guy, or some other unknown reason. And I am no doubt too self-centered. Lord have mercy.
Scott,
I believe genuine union with Christ enables us to transcend rational arguments and a rational understanding of rules to be free to act virtuously which will have a certain uniformity with holiness, and will point to that instead of the letter of the law. Still, I don’t think one will lie, cheat, or steal to act in such a way. Well, Rahab did…
Didn’t Jesus say something like ‘which of you would not help his ox who fell in a ditch on the Sabbath’? I think he’s appealing to a deeper sense of right and wrong than a set of rules. It almost sounds like He’s saying to trust your intuition, not that our intuitions are always right. We need to be purified of selfishness to discern correctly.
Andrea,
That makes sense. In fact, I was going to add to my post on the liturgy that the dynamic might best be characterized as a “relational” vs. (in this instance) “paradoxical.” B/c God blesses us (truly), even as we then turn praise back to God. Which seems to be about what you expressed… Thanks for the helpful comment.
Thank you.
Andrea,
I think I understand what you are saying — but given that two people in the same tradition might have different intuitions — how would they decide what the moral thing to do is? If rational discussion is out of place, do we have an emotive basis? a consequentialist one?
Here’s my concern: if there is no self-explanation that is possible to someone else (that is- you can’t communicate it to someone else), then are we saying that we can and should live in a world where people do inexplicable things — like ’sacrifice’ their child, etc.?
Andrea,
This just struck me as I was walking home. I heard a lecture last week on St Maximos the Confessor. He lists 5 areas of “mediation” occurring in Christ, through which all of creation and reality is re-harmonized in Christ. They’re basically 5 themes that are out of balance and need regeneration. The first area is between the sexes. He says that “male” and “female” existed pre-fall, but in a sexless manner. Lots to debate about that, but not here, b/c that isn’t the point of this post. Rather, the point is that post-fall, he suggests that the primary fault of males is toward anger, of females toward concupiscence. Thus the mediation is for males to overcome anger, females concupiscence. Both need healing towards the mean, which for him is the living Logos, Jesus Christ.
I also know that a number of feminist theologians have been exploring the emphasis on kenosis in theology (kenosis refers to divine self-emptying–i.e., everything I was discussing above about humility and us “becoming less” that God might “be all in all”), and these theologians have been raising just your question: that kenosis seems to have something rather male about it, whereas for women, the issue might be something of the opposite: not needing a smaller ego, but reclaiming and claiming a ‘voice’. Very interesting suggestions in light of Maximos’ words on concupiscence, yes?
Its a tricky discussion, b/c no one wants to over-identify particular vices with particular sexes, right? It’s not like kenosis and humility are only for boys, and etc. And Maximos is clear that the *mean* is in Christ, which means that both need to be held in proper tension, but gosh, the line of thought seems like it’s at least got something to it.
I just raise this as a suggested line of thought–not to pronounce a word on it. It comes up from time to time in conversations w/ my wife, as well. So many of the spiritul writers (mostly males) say so much about humility, and this is an incontrovertible theme. Yet I wonder if there’s a gender sensitivity lacking in some regards. On the other hand, it wasn’t me who came up w/ the idea that Orthodoxy isn’t a “confessional tradition”–in fact I learned it from a very empowered female Orthodox theologian. All that to say, I have no idea how/what the Tradition did with Maximos’ insight on this point, or how to interpret it aright. It strikes me as the kind of subject matter best explored over time with one’s spiritual mother or father. But if you wanted references to Maximos’ texts on it, you could contact Dan and he could pass along my contact info.
Scott,
You bring up a very interesting point about rational discussions. I think that rationality and intuition/spirituality don’t have to be in opposition to each other with the result that one has to decide if they are going to ‘close their eyes and use the force’ or remember dogmatically explained tradition. Laws and rules are meant to educate us to what virtue should look like, and the example you site shows that fallen people cannot be left to themselves to make it up as they go. When people act in a fallen way there needs to be a rational explanation and plan for revealing and correcting that situation. But a virtuous and wise person will know how to apply the law with the benefit of experience and “intuition”. This is why we have judges to settle disputes between different people’s intuition and rationalities. They should be experts in the law, but have an extra element to their humanity that intersects the law with experience. This is why a computer cannot be programmed to “mediate” the law. This type of experience can be informed by study, but in a way, an inner sense guides the judge. We were involved in a visitation dispute with my husband’s ex, and I had the distinct impression that deciding “what is best for the children” depends a lot on how the judge is impressed by many factors including his past experience with parents and children, demeanor, associations, attitudes about behavior, and people’s sensitivities, not just past legal precedent. Decisions are made on multiple levels.
Another example is the Orthodox view of economeia and what I experience as a more rigid, rational Catholic view of rules. The Catholics have a very rigid stance about divorce, but yet people get divorced and the Catholics don’t want to excommunicate all of them, so they had to have a new rule of annulment. The Orthodox Church “allows”, with the advisement and clearance of a Bishop, three marriages acknowledging that people make mistakes and can repent. The canons should not be changed, but a person/Bishop should mediate them to the people in order to avoid legalism or binding the people too rigidly. Still a Bishop cannot be currently married and a Priest cannot have been divorced, not that none have ever been, I don’t know. Desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures.
But all this is to say that mature, virtuous people learn to walk by the Spirit, who will not lead them astray. As Mat said, it becomes relational, not legalistic. I worry that I’m downplaying the law too much, and maybe I do. I however very much respect it and see it as a vital necessity in our fallen world. I also don’t feel I’ve adequately covered the rationality of walking by the Spirit. Maybe someone else can.
Andrea,
Probably key to point out that “concupiscence” as Maximos uses it seems more a generalized reference to “desire”, vs. a term overly-related to “sexual desire.” In that sense, whereas the ‘male’ anger needs restraint and ‘humbling’, the ‘female’ desire needs not ‘humbling’ but ‘reorientation’ toward God, along these lines:
“For the mind of the one who is continually with God even his concupiscence abounds beyond measure into a divine desire and … is transformed into a divine love.” (Maximos)
Don’t know if that makes sense…
Mat, I totally agree with you, or the lecturer, that there are different measures called for that tend to fall along gender lines such that males may need more of a focus on humility and women finding a voice, though there have certainly been overcompensations especially in this day in age, or so it seems to me. I loved reading (I think it was in both St. Maximus’ Disputation with Pyrrhus and The Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ, about St. Maximus’ five points of reconciliation/recapitulation in Christ, and the one about men and women jumped out to me the strongest. It seems women have felt more on the bottom rung, and people on the top may enjoy it or not notice that there’s a problem. I really like how you bring about that Christ is the mean that both sides need to move toward as well.
I haven’t heard that concupiscence is necessarily a female-oriented problem though. It may however manifest itself differently in each gender.
I don’t think I caught what you meant about Orthodoxy not being a “confessional tradition”. I have heard experience being emphasized…
Just linking the notion of “one is holy” to the notion I expressed earlier that “Oxy is not a confessional tradition,” in the sense that a great emphasis has been put on not championing one’s own life and story of transformation in Christ. Mostly we have biographies, exceedingly few auto-biographies. The point being to hedge against subtle forms of self-aggrandizement. We know about St Mary of Egypt not b/c she told us how great her story of transformation was, but b/c the Abbot found her and recounted the tale. And so forth. I was pointing out how that emphasis is a characteristic spiritual practice aimed toward honoring the notion that “it is not he who commends himself who is just, but he whom the Lord commends” and “whatever is done for human praise has received it’s reward in full”. And so forth. ..
Hi Matslacker,
I’m sorry to say the following, but I feel compelled. It is difficult not to hear discussion of male-sin and female-sin as though being male necessarily means having a given kind of vice, and being female necessarily means having another kind of vice — both of which need to be restored. It is difficult not to perceive this as sexist.
I realize that this is one difference btwn. many EO people and Western folk - that is, many EO people really like established gender roles, which is a condition for thinking that men a like this, and women are like that. Besides, what is the aim of such an analysis of sin? Is it to find one foundational vice, which if discovered and healed, the rest of the vices will come crashing down? It would seem this kind of analysis of sin and vice is rhetorical and not … practical.
Does that make sense?
Andrea,
I get what you are saying about the wise person. For example, Aristotle certainly talks about this person and that we learn how to be wise by learning from wise people. So, my question is this: suppose you live in parish A, and there is some dispute and the Bishop is called in to make a practical decision to settle the dispute and then gives his judgment. But then for some unrelated reason you and all those involved in the dispute move to parish B, and then a new Bishop is called in to settle the same dispute, but the second Bishop gives a very different judgment. Suppose both Bishops are very wise, educated, sensitive, etc. Is there any way to decide which judgment is better?
This scenario is not so peculiar — for example, in the Episcopalian world if you live in one diocese you’ll get one ‘wise judgment’ and in another diocese you’ll get another ‘wise judgment’. What would one do in such a situation?
The point re kenosis as male, and women perhaps needing to start from a more affirmative stance is made at length by Rosemary Radford Ruether as well as a number of other second and third generation feminist thinkers. They characterize the strong emphasis upon humility/kenosis in Xn tradition as reflecting an overly male bias, and seeking for another starting point as a distinctive feminist insight. I learned about this from a second/third generation feminist theologian.
To my knowledge, the discussion has nothing distinctive to do w/ EO Church. Except that Maximos raises it–but like I said in my post, I have no idea how/what the EO Church has done with that part of his work, if anything. My sense is they’ve made very little of it.
But I appreciate your concern for women! What I can say, and I’d stand by this, is that in certain respects the EOC is much more open to womens’ roles than the RCC. After all, St Gregory of Nazianzus says of his parents (his father was also Bishop of Nazianzus), that the mother was the spiritual leader in the household, and he praises her highly for it. And his work on gender roles has been, acc. to Fr. John McGuckin, determinative for EO understandings of the family. But that’s a whole other discussion.
Hey Matslacker,
What _institutional_ changes do you think the EO patriarchs have made so as to support your claim that EO is more sensitive toward woman than the RCC. I can think of one counter-example that shows RCC is more sensitive — head-coverings. I don’t suppose anyone here has read a certain article about historical medical background to Paul’s discussion of head-coverings (or as the author would have put it ‘genital coverings’)?
I don’t mean to be crass. I had a certain theological mentor once who told me that if he had to choose btwn. RCC and EO, he’d go with RCC b/c it is more sensitive toward woman — and the reason is b/c RCC historically has gone through and survived the Enlightenment, but EO hasn’t had to go through such a purge/challenge.
Dear All, I just want to let you all know that I’ve been following this discussion. I’m a little concerned that the conversation is moving a direction that is going to get confrontational, and over a topic only tangentially related to the original post. In that case, I’ll cap this discussion and the interested parties can continue it via email.
I’m not trying to squash the productive conversation that is happening right now. Just hoping to head off any heated language or language that would provoke heated language that might be coming down the pike.
Besides, many of really should be focusing on term matters anyway.
A whole other conversation–one I don’t suspect will be profitable at present…
But please do recall that in my first post re kenosis/women, I said:
“Its a tricky discussion, b/c no one wants to over-identify particular vices with particular sexes, right? It’s not like kenosis and humility are only for boys, and etc.”
Peace,
Matslacker
Dan -
so typical of your maleness to step in and cut off an interesting conversation….
I think it’s wiser if you “annul” the conversation rather than divorcing it from its participants.
Anyway, that’s what I believe would be the most reasonable thing to do, and since reason is universally extensive….
Great stuff all.
Too bad I got here after last call.
BS
Hope everyone doesn’t think I’m trying to cut off the conversation. Just encouraging all to love one another… break bread before bones… all that.
Hey, Dan. I didn’t feel it was veering towards mayhem, but given that you don’t seem to have actually cut us off, I want to continue (but not on the male-female thread).
This exchange on how to know WHEN to BREAK the rules has been helpful to me in trying to explain to myself the structural ways that modern rationalism differs so much from premodern rationalism, quintessentially Greek (and early Christian) rationalism. The contrast involves the loss of something like Aristotle’s “four causes” and something like a depth dimension that constitutes all things in their thinghood….
In other words, in the older worldview a rule is given for “reasons” (causes)! It is not arbitrary, but has a deeper multi-faceted level of explanation and justification, if you will. So we MUST always ask why the rule is as it is given — i.e. what is its telos and what are the means to that telos and why are we seeking that telos and not some other? In a nutshell, in the Socratic tradition of the liberal arts prior to early modern rationalism, we must engage in dialectic about what is “essential” to any given kind of thing and distinguish this from what is relatively “incidental” to it.
The “letter” of the law can be moribund, but the deeper structure of its spiritual goals and principles originally gave life to the rule and that same deep structure can be explored and engaged within the Christian disciplinary community, and this can cause the individual person to choose to transcend the rule, in a given situation. And wise persons may well disagree, as Scott points out, but for their own substantial reasons of giving emphasis, when genuine priorities conflict. That is part of the dialectic that is always going on in the human journey of knowing more deeply aobut anything. We can always be wrong in these judgments at any point in our lives or in the journey of the Church, but through faith we have the hope that the journey is worthwhile. God, in every age, looks upon the heart.
So our God always sees beneath the relatively superficial level of external rules. God looks into the interior motivations of our hearts, our deepest values and goals, and our willingness to jeopardize our certainties if it deepens holiness and love — and no doubt God always sees very foolish persons and rejoices in very wise persons who are on both sides of any historical Church controversy.
After all, Jesus did not mean to stand up in favor of prostition, when he refused to condemn the women taken in adultery. He was not abolishing the “rule” that prostitution is destructive to human well-being. But he was taking the rule back to its deeper spiritual roots (its archai) and challenging those who had stones in their hands (and hatred and fear and self-righteousness in their hearts) to examine themselves as regards their own motives and their willingness to be spiritually honest about their own sexual and moral struggles and failures.
This matter of discerning the most essential elements of something from incidental elements is always an ongoing process, because, as Aristotle says, “in human affairs, things are always changing….” The laws are enduring in their deeper sense, but situations are always changing and to preserve the deep truth the surface recipe has to change. This is really what the precious sphere of “freedom” is in the philosophical and in the Christian traditions. Freedom is the growth of the unique individual insight and volition to act in unprescriptable ways to conform to an underlying spiritual reality. It takes a disciplinary tradition and community for any individuals to reach this point, and they won’t all choose to do the same things, either, on the surface level….
So we learn from the rules an experiential wisdom that will help us to discern when and how to apply the rules. (And we learn it most from our mistakes!) None of this learning and growing is ever ended or can ever be finalized in a single overt prescription for what “wisdom” is. As time goes on in our journeys, we hope to gain a deeper and deeper apprehension of what are the more essential elements and what are the relatively incidental, vis-a-vis entering into any given situation with our Christian teloi in our hearts.
In other words, in the older tradition every-thing had a relational structure or organization on a deeper level than the overtly given (the appearances) and therefore its real structure could be explored dialectically. In modern logic and Newtonian-era scientific rationalism, things are simply “lumps,” either physical lumps (”objects”) or mental lumps (”ideas” or “concepts”)and accordingly a “rule” too is just overtly what it “is,” a formula or presecription, rather than being arisen out of a deep-structure that causes them to be what they are.
This is why the modern “concept” of “existence” is misleading us, in the kinds of questions it conditions us to ask. “Is” did not mean merely “to exist” in its flat and barren modern sense. Moderns ask, “Does God exist?” Premoderns asked: “What does it mean to be the alpha and the omega, or to be the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, or the water of life?” “What does it mean to be the origin of the originating principles?” (Aristotle).
This older under-standing of being involved the opportunity to look into what stands-under the being of each kind of thing. It was incommensurate with our notion of mere inert existence. What the ancients meant by being (to on) and by the kinds of beings (ta onta) meant that the liberal arts could study each of the ta onta because there was a formal structure or organization there to be explored in terms of what was more essential to this kind or mode of being and what was less. “Is” was able to refer to the distinctive structure of a given kind of being, including its various causes that participated in that organization.
To ask ti esti, “what is (Justice), or “what is (Humanity)?” was to ask what elements of the constitutive structures and functionings we find grouped under this “name” need to be taken as being formally essential to its being-what-it-is and which safely can be taken as relatively incidental. In a dialectical tradition, this remains open to reconsideration, and we are not trapped into the modern bogey-man of “essentialism.”
That we can explore the inherent deeper structures of all things is what Socrates called attention to and what the liberal arts then came into “existence” to pursue and exploit. In other words, the liberal arts could not “exist” or “be” unless there was a structure there within the rich appearances themselves to be formalized by the discipline. So a genuine discipline does not “exist” because it has faculties and departmental letterhead and publications. It exists or has its distinctive mode of being insofar as its formal discovery procedures and its methods of validity testing and its formalizations of its subject-matter open up ways for its community into deeper knowing of that subject-matter, based on the distinctive identity of what that subject-matter actively continues to be.
I think that “to ask the question of Being,” or to ponder the ontological difference, was Heidegger’s way of re-covering the Greek dis-covery of the structural-functional character of all beings, that they always “are” kinds of beings in order to be at all — and the inevitable implications of that for the metaphysical mind.
It is the dropping out of that deep structure of active constitutive relationships and ongoing mutual-reciprocal organizations, in order to deal instead with “things” (lumps”) and “rules” (one-dimentional linear operations like “Given an A, Do B”) that causes the modern consternation.
But why do we want to impose an artifical separating out of a lump of being from its own processes and purposes of being? The reduction of organized and on-going relational structures to isolated lumps (archetypally of matter) that are governed by (immaterial) laws simply didn’t enable us to deal with the complex realities of the physical world — or of the social and spiritual worlds embedded in the physical world.
Things are ever structured on several levels, that is to say. And each of those levels will be functioning and organized differently from the others, while sustaining and constituting the WHOLE. “Wholes” and not “objects” are the key units of structure for the premodern disciplines of knowing. And wholes are always potentially open and porous to other wholes, as Plato’s Sophist so brilliantly advances…. Godel’s theorums only shock when there is a cultural expectation of closed and hermetically sealed systems….
This is why I wanted to open a conversation about the intellectual expectations or principles that would prepare us for following the kind of thinking that Bulgakov is doing with the Trinity and the Oneness of its divinity, for example, or for thinking the divine and creaturely Sophia, who are one — the very divinity or life of God — and are mediative through being not one…. Not to mention the hypostatic union of two natures in the one unique person of Jesus Christ….
Fascinatingly, the human word as a “whole” is structured in exactly this same way, of course, since it is a (porous) whole on the level of the sign (morpheme), for instance, and then again it is composed, on the deeper level of the phoneme, or letter, by several constitutent wholes. (Stoicheia was the Greek word for the letters of the alphabet AND for the elements out of which it seemed to them that the natural world must be composed.) The notion that anything-that-”is” must be constituted — in its congoing be-ing — on a deeper level by other, quite different wholes that add together into that kind-of-thing is everywhere in Plato and Aristotle….
And I got off onto a riff on a Saturday afternoon….
Mat, regarding confessionals, I think that you state the rule, but one notable exception is Elder Porphyrios in his book, Wounded by Love. In it he discusses his reticence to talk about his personal experience, but so many, including me, are glad he did.
Scott, regarding differing Bishops, the idea of the local Church comes to mind. There aren’t supposed to be overlapping jurisdictions as the Orthodox currently have in America, which makes Church hopping for that sake a sad reality, though you weren’t speaking to that but to moving to a different diocese for another reason. A local Bishop, while maintaining the unchanging tradition, is called upon to decide certain issues that come up, and his flock are to abide by them. For instance, some jurisdictions re-baptize converts and others don’t. I think obedience to one’s local Bishop keeps you under grace, unless there is some other more extreme problem is going on. But hopefully even then, following proper channels will restore peace in that parish without anyone having to move.
Janet,
Thanks for your reflections. Nothing to add, just wanted to say that I love how you expressed this:
“After all, Jesus did not mean to stand up in favor of prostition, when he refused to condemn the women taken in adultery. He was not abolishing the “rule” that prostitution is destructive to human well-being. But he was taking the rule back to its deeper spiritual roots (its archai) and challenging those who had stones in their hands (and hatred and fear and self-righteousness in their hearts) to examine themselves as regards their own motives and their willingness to be spiritually honest…”