Spiritual Discernment In The Fog, At Night, and Without My Glasses

Passions are like some hard [dark] substances that, standing in the midst between the light and vision, prevent the latter from discerning the difference of things.
St. Isaac the Syrian  Homily 66

St. Isaac the Syrian speaks of noetic vision as natural knowledge, that is, knowledge of God, of one another and of created things that human beings in a healthy (not sinning) state would know, not rationally (by deduction) but by seeing with their noetic eyes, the eyes of their soul or mind.  In English we might refer to this kind of knowing as intuition or as spiritual knowledge, or we might use a phrase like “knowing something in your heart.”

St. Isaac likens this noetic or spiritual vision to physical sight.  Just as there are many factors that either enable or interfere with one’s ability to see things with the physical eyes, so there are many factors that influence our ability to see spiritually--what St. Isaac calls discernment.  

The two essential factors in spiritual sight, or discernment, are a sound mind (nous) and Grace, which is “the sun that enables discernment.”  I cannot help associating “sound mind” with 2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind (or self-control, sofronismos).  A sound mind, a healthy mind, is one that is under control.  Bringing our minds under control is healing our minds--it’s the same thing.  But if our minds continually wander and are easily caught up in arguments and “high things”(c.f. 2 Cor. 10:5 and Psalm 131:1), then no matter how much God shines His Grace upon us, our spiritual sight, or discernment, will be corrupt, fuzzy, and just plain wrong--like a blind man in full sunlight trying to guess the colour of the flower he smells.

A healthy mind is necessary for discernment, but so is Grace.  Grace, the light from God, does not always shine with the same intensity in our lives.  That is, sometimes God withholds a certain amount of Grace.  (Of course, God never completely withdraws His Grace, for then all creation would cease to exist.)  God may withdraw Grace for many possible reasons--or for no reason that reason can comprehend.  God is God.  However, one reason St. Isaac mentions for the withdraw of Grace is “stinginess,” and he even quotes a verse from the (Syriac) Old Testament: Ecclesiasticus (a.k.a. Wisdom of Sirach) 14:3 “Riches are not comely for a stingy man.”  

Riches here refer to the Grace of God, but stinginess, what can that be referring to?  After all, St. Isaac is a hermit writing to other hermits.  I don’t think he is referring to sharing your grace-filled insights with others.  In fact, I’m certain that is not what he is referring to because elsewhere he repeatedly exhorts his readers not to leave their cell on the pretext of edifying someone.  What then can this stinginess be referring to?  My best guess is that it is a reference to trying to save one’s own life (c.f. Matt. 16:25).  When we try to save our life, we lose it.  The riches of Grace are not comely for a person who is stingy with his or her life--trying to save it, not willing to lose what she or he thinks is important, not willing to die (spiritually) in secret, not willing to give up the delusion of control.  It is not comely for God to pour out much Grace (spiritual light) on those who hang on to life in this world (as it is) in a stingy manner, not wanting to give this paltry worldly existence completely over to God, not willing to let go in their hearts.

If this is what St. Isaac means, then no wonder I am so spiritually dense.  I am nearly blind wandering by the light of a crescent moon and a few stars.  Maybe the moon is the Theotokos, our Mother, shining with the reflected light of the Sun (Her Son), and the stars are the saints praying for us, the meandering ones.  But even the crescent moon and the stars are enough light to walk a well-trodden path.  It’s not enough light to see very far down the path or to see much of what’s off the path; but it is enough to put one foot in front of the other.  I know this is true physically for I have hiked in the dessert and mountains at night--it is possible, so long as the trail is well trodden.

I guess this is one of the main reasons why we need the Church--the well-trodden pathway to Christ.  St. Mary of Egypt gave herself completely to God and thus experienced tremendous Light, and as her mind healed, was able to live in the desert with God and without any direct, physical contact with the Church for 37 years (or was it 47, I don't remember).  I, however, hold back so much.  I fear so much.  Except for brief moments, my mind is a busy intersection of thoughts going this way and that.  It would not be comely for God to shine the riches of His Grace too brightly on me.  But I don’t despair.  I have a well-trodden path to follow.  I have enough Grace to see what is before me today: to say my prayers today, to control myself today, to manage my schedule so that I can go to Church on Sunday to receive the Precious Body and Blood of Christ.  One day at a time, one step at a time, through the prayers of our Immaculate, Most Blessed, and Glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary and all of the Saints.  One day at a time.

St. Isaac speaks of other ways our spiritual vision is obscured.  Passions, he says, are like dark objects or clouds that come between the Grace of God and our minds (our spiritual eyes).  God may be pouring out His Grace abundantly on us, but because of our passions, we cannot see a thing.  I have hiked mountain passes that were shrouded in fog so thick that you could barely see your own feet--a dangerous state of affairs when the wrong move can send you plummeting several hundred feet.  This is what the passions do to us spiritually.  God may be giving us all of the Light possible, like the midday sun, but our passions shroud us like a thick fog and we make stupid mistakes and are easily seduced off the trail to our own (and other’s) hurt.

Another factor affecting discernment is ability.  That is, just as people with healthy eyes still have different abilities, so people with healthy minds still have differing abilities (remember, St. Isaac is writing in the 7th century, before anything was known about lenses and how the eye actually works).  There are one talent, two talent and five talent minds.  Not everyone has the same capacity for spiritual discernment.  What’s important is not how much or how little one sees or knows in their hearts.  What’s important is what they do with what they do see and know, how their knowledge of God leads them to repentance, how their knowledge of God leads them to surrender everything--rather than trying to save their own life like the servant who buried his talent because he was afraid.

Other factors that influence one’s discernment are  “the hinderances of times, places, and means.”  This is referring, I think, to the seasons and circumstances of life.  A parent raising small children is laying down her or his life in an very Christ-like way, but not in a way conducive to developing the inner life and prayer to a large degree.  It is a season. It is a season during which desire and longing can build so that when the season changes, longing and desire will lead you into the life of prayer that you have been longing for.  But even as a busy parent (or business person or auto mechanic or school teacher or nurse), just the longing itself and the mere desire for prayer and peace and stillness have a wonderful way of creating opportunities even in the midst of the zaniness, like a quiet park in the middle of a city.  The inner hermit in the cell of your heart can pray even while the “wild beasts” roar around you.

There are other factors too that St. Isaac mentions affecting our ability to develop the knowledge of God.  A weak will, the lack of a spiritual father or mother, a disposition (temperament or personality) not suited for spiritual pursuit.  None of these are unchangeable conditions.  God’s in the miracle business.  But we all have to begin where we are, with the limited ability and Grace we have, to seek to know, to long to know, to strive to give our lives to God.  If we do our part, God will take care of the rest.   If we follow what we know, maybe God will reveal to us some of what we do not know.

St. Isaac and Theosis (and the Experience of Fear)

I am preparing now to give a presentation at the Antiochian Orthodox Institute in the Fall on the topic of divinization or theosis according to St. Isaac the Syrian.  I have been enjoying reading through the latest edition of St. Isaac’s homilies, and when I was asked to present a small lecture on some aspect of the topic of theosis, I suggested that my focus be St. Isaac.  Most of the time, when Orthodox Christian people speak about theosis, they focus on the language and patterns presented in the Philokalia.  Specifically, following St. Maximus the Confessor, we usually speak of three steps or phases in the process of theosis. [By the way, theosis--also sometimes called deification or divinization--refers to the process or experience by which one becomes, by Grace, more like Christ, that is more like God].  The three steps or stages of theosis according to St. Maximus the Confessor and the tradition of the Philokalia are these: purification, illumination and theosis.

In this most common way to look at or present the process or experience of theosis, purification generally refers to our cooperation with the Grace of God to purge passionate thoughts from our minds.  But purifying our minds of passionate thoughts begins with controlling our bodies through ascetic discipline.  Therefore, the beginning of theosis is often found in beginning to control oneself physically leading to a knowledge of oneself that makes the purification of the thoughts, by the Grace of God, possible.

Illumination refers to the knowledge of God, again and always granted by Grace, that transcends the rational aspect of our minds.  This knowledge of God is often referred to as noetic after the Greek word for ‘mind’; however, in this context it does not refer to ‘mind’ as we usually think of the word in English. It refers to the aspect of our mind that is open to and perceives spiritual, heavenly realities.  There is no equivalent word for this aspect of the mind in English, which is why the Greek word noetic is generally used, although the words ‘heart’ and ‘spirit’ are sometimes used in English to try to get at this higher or deeper knowledge: for example, we might say something like “knowing God in your heart”  or “to know God spiritually” to try to distinguish this kind of knowledge from merely rational knowledge, knowledge about God.  

The third step or experience of theosis in this philocalic pattern is to actually participate in the Grace of God to such an extent that one becomes, as the Fathers say, a god by Grace: that is, one acquires the Mind of Christ (to use St. Paul’s expression), or partakes of the divine nature (to use St. Peter’s expression), or one loves as God loves (to use St. John’s oft repeated expression).  Another way the Fathers talk about this final stage of theosis is that one shines with or reflects the Grace of God without ceasing to be oneself; without ceasing to be a creature, one shines with or reflects the uncreated Light of the Creator.  This Grace or Light is also sometimes referred to as the Energies of God by the Greek Fathers.

Certainly this way of speaking about thesis (purification, illumination and theosis) as it is found in the philocalic tradition is useful and thoroughly Orthodox, but it is not the only Orthodox way to speak of this process or experience of becoming more and more like Christ.  St. Isaac the Syrian (+700) was a near contemporary of St. Maximus the Confessor (+662), but he lived in a very different part of the world--outside the Byzantine Empire--and he did not write in Greek (he wrote in Syriac).  Although St. Isaac does not use the same vocabulary or the same imagery that many of the Greek Fathers use to speak of the experience of theosis, he nonetheless speaks of a transformation or transfiguration that one goes through as one draws nearer to God.  St. Isaac uses several different images to speak of this process or experience.  One image he uses (in Homily 62) is that of three different kinds of knowledge: Carnal knowledge, natural knowledge and knowledge of the truth.

I find this particular image or way of speaking about our transfiguration in (and into) Christ to be particularly helpful because St. Isaac uses this image to speak directly about the Christian experience of fear.  Many Protestant and Catholic converts to Orthodox Christianity have a very perverted understanding of the fear of God that torments them to no seeming end.  Unfortunately, for some converts the only way they have been able to deal with the pain that their perverted understanding of fear has caused them has been to reject completely the notion of fear in relation to God.  Of course this is not a very helpful strategy because we do actually experience a kind of fear in our relationship with God and denying its existence leads only to delusion or worse.  But St. Isaac can help us here.   In many of St. Isaac’s images of the Christian journey, he speaks of the transformation of fear, and of the various kinds of fear we experience as we grow in our relationship with God, and of how all of these fears eventually dissolve or transform into love.  This particular image of the three knowledges, or kinds of knowledge, is no exception.  St. Isaac speaks of two kinds of fear linked to the first two kinds of knowledge.  These fears, however, are “swallowed” by love as one comes into the third kind of knowledge.  

The first kind of knowledge is called knowledge of the flesh, or carnal knowledge.  Carnal knowledge, according to St. Isaac, refers to a subhuman knowledge:  knowledge of oneself, of the world and of God in a way that is sub-natural, or not according to nature, or not according to reason.  When one knows with carnal knowledge, one perceives according to the impulses of the flesh, of the fallen nature, or in accord with the temptations of the demons. One who knows according to carnal knowledge, St. Isaac says, fears death “as an animal fears slaughter.”  For someone with this kind of knowledge, the fear of God consists mostly in the fear of death, and in the fear of losing those things that one has come to associate with power over death: political power, the perception of control, wealth, authority, etc.  Thus, the fear of God, when one knows only according to the knowledge of the flesh, is a fear that God will take something away from us, a fear that God will kill us or diminish our lives in some way.  A carnally minded person is often superstitious in his or her relationship with God. It is a relationship that is full of fear and appeasement because, as we all know, death is inevitable; and so long as one fears death “as an animal fears slaughter,” one is in a kind torment trying desperately to postpone the unavoidable.

The second kind of knowledge comes as one draws near to God with what St. Isaac calls natural or reasonable knowledge.  When we begin to overcome animal appetites and urges through reason and begin to perceive through observation of the world and of ourselves that A) there is a Creator and B) I am not Him, then we also begin to know naturally that this Creator will demand from us an account for what we have done with our lives.  Thus the fear that is associated with this second kind of knowledge, this rational knowledge, is the fear of judgement.  According to St. Isaac, this rational knowledge is our natural knowledge, or our natural way of knowing reality; and the fear of judgement that comes from this natural knowledge is the initial motivation or the “rod” we use to control ourselves.  The fear of judgement, then, is the kind of fear St. Isaac associates with the natural or rational knowledge of God, ourselves and of the world.  Although there is a kind of fear associated with this kind of knowledge, St. Isaac points out that rational or natural knowledge is the “proper” and “fit” place or condition from which we can begin to actually draw near to (and thus become more like) God.

As we proceed forward, “guided by [natural] knowledge and discipline” we draw near to God and begin to know “the truth by the active participation of the mysteries of God, and [we] become steadfast in [our] hope in things to come, [and thus we are] swallowed up by love.”  Not only are our fears swallowed up by love, but our whole being is swallowed by love.  The trials and tribulations of life, our continual experience of fall and repentance, and the continual judgement of ourselves by our own conscience followed by the sweetness of forgiveness that we experience as we over and over again confess our sins, all of this experienced again and again throughout a lifetime convinces us, not by theory but by actual experience, that we are indeed sons and daughters of God, that we are indeed among the beloved, that we have indeed passed from judgement into Life.  Fear of judgement slips away as we judge ourselves.  The Love of God swallows us as we perceive within ourselves the action of Grace and as our hearts swell with pity, with the compassion that God Himself has and has shown through the Incarnation and the Cross for all creation.  Here there is no fear--only love consumes everything.  And for St. Isaac, as I read him, to love as God loves is to be what God is, in as much as it is humanly possible by Grace.

I want to stop here, on the mountain top, at the crescendo;  but I must go on.  I must explain two more things before we end.

First I want to be clear that this is only one of the ways St. Isaac talks about the process or experience of theosis, of becoming more like Christ.  He uses other images, types and patterns, some of which I hope to present in my little speech next Fall.  

Second we must also understand that although these three ways of knowledge that I have presented here represent a kind of progression, they by no means represent distinct steps or states or experiences.  Movement from the knowledge of the flesh to natural knowledge is not like crossing a line: it is not as though one moment you are on one side of the line and the next moment you are on the other side.  Rather, the progression that St. Isaac seem to be envisioning is more like a sunrise.  The light of a higher knowledge begins to dawn even while we are still surrounded by the darkness of a baser perception of reality.  And even as the light of a higher knowledge shines with noonday brightness, still there are shadows, still there are animal appetites and broken memories and demonic arrows that assail us, sometimes it seems, like the constant dripping of a rainy day.  Throughout his homilies, St. Isaac warns us never to think we have arrived.  The greatest ascetics fall, how much more must we then be aware of our own shadows.

But even a fall, even a great fall is not the end.  St. Isaac tells us that a great fall, if we confess our sin, then even this can be the beginning of a new humility, a new knowledge of the mystery of God’s love.

Hiding From God

I got to go up to spend a night at the monastery this week, and while there, Br. Samuel shared the following with me.
In the Septuagint version of Genesis Adam and Eve, after eating the forbidden fruit, hide “themselves within the tree in the middle of the garden from the presence of the Lord” (3:8). This tree in the middle of the garden is none other than the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from which they had eaten. Some of the fathers speculate that the fruit itself was a fig (not an apple, as is common in the western tradition). If the forbidden tree was a fig (or fig-like) tree, then we can better understand the Septuagint’s “hid within the tree.” Unpruned fig trees grow to be massive bushes with large leaves providing an airy, cool interior area where one is hidden from those outside. In other places in the Scripture reference is made to people resting or hiding under fig trees—it was apparently a common thing in Middle East. It also makes sense that in covering their nakedness, Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves, if this is the tree they are hiding within. In a sense, clothing themselves in fig leaves is that same thing as hiding from God within the tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Perhaps one way this story can be understood is that mankind’s fundamental sin is to hide from God within the knowledge that man has seized for himself. Men and women construct theories and philosophies, fantasies and explanations of all sorts to quiet their consciences and explain away the voice of God calling out to them through all creation: “Adam, where are you?” The serpent’s guile, or deceit, enables us to take what God has created to reveal Himself and to twist it in ways that appear wise to us and yet hide us—or better, hide from us—the God that the whole creation exists to reveal. We are still hiding from God within the tree.

This reading of Genesis chapter three brings insight into a hard to interpret passage in the Gospel of John. When Nathaniel is brought to Jesus by Philip, Jesus says to Nathaniel, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.” When Nathaniel asks how Jesus knows him, Jesus says, “When you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” I wonder if Nathaniel represents all men and women who are without guile and so are willing to leave the false security of the fig tree—the theories and theologies that keep God at a safe, mostly irrelevant distance. Nathaniel’s first response to Philip’s exclamation that he had found the Messiah was that it couldn’t be true, it didn’t fit into his preconceived mental picture of the Messiah: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” he says. But what shows Nathaniel to be free from guile is that at Philip’s “come and see,” Nathaniel went and saw. Nathaniel did not allow his own mental image or framework, his own theory, knowledge or philosophy to keep him from going outside the comfortable world of his own knowledge to see what others had seen but what he had not yet seen.