2-1-2

It’s a very good question, the role of intellectual activity and work in the life of faith. Off the bat I can think of two “bad” ways to use the intellect, two “good” ways, and one “neutral” way that can go in either direction.

The two “bad” ways would easily lead to either leaving the faith and/or to becoming stunted (as to spiritual growth) within the faith. The first bad way is to try to create “system” at all costs, i.e. a “system of belief” (a “worldview”?) that is entirely logical, based on unquestioned or unquestionable foundational assumptions, that derives everything from those assumptions, that claims to be “complete” with respect to all necessary beliefs (“truths”), and so on. Why is the mania towards “system” bad? Put simply, because God won’t fit into a box. Neither will people, individually or as collectives. Neither will the Church. Neither will history. Neither will life — much less eternal life! Human brains are amazing, but they aren’t omnipotent. Of course, in no way am I saying faith is *irrational*. But a rational *system* is not going to be possible, to create, to live in, to know in. By its very nature as a “system,” it would have to be too simple, too limited, too uni-directional, too narrow, without enough facets to do justice to Scripture, to Christian experience, to the fullness of Christian life as it is known by the saints of the Church, to do justice to Christ Himself. And isn’t He what we’re after?

Second “bad” thing. It is to think we are capable of stepping up and outside and judging from a universal standpoint — a “view from everywhere”; or (and this is virtually equivalent) a “view from nowhere.” It is to think we can be completely “objective.” Scholars of “comparative religion” easily take such a stance, or people who have studied lots of religions and denominations and who can “compare and contrast” them. Because they know a lot and can bring an intellectual analysis and evaluation to a variety of different faiths, they find it impossible to actually commit to any one of them. They stand above. They are “cats who walk alone.” And they like it this way. (I’m sure all of us know someone like this… I have a wonderful man in our parish who is like this. I like him a lot, and I respect him. But ultimately I worry that he is missing out on so much…) Why stand aloof? Apparently, it is either because such people “find truth in ALL religions” or because they “find truth in NONE of them,” supposedly being able to “explain them away” (from a “naturalistic” perspective). Witness the recent spate of books (given much media attention lately) that claim to debunk Christianity or religious belief or the existence of God. The truth is that we are all highly situated beings, with pasts, with presents, with expectations about the future. We live in places. We live with people. We feel things, know things, worry about things. Life impacts us and forms us in a myriad variety of ways. We can’t BE “objective.” There simply is no such thing for a human being. We are born and live and die inside “skins.” We don’t have a God’s eye view — of anything. We have to interpret our experiences and thoughts and feelings, and we have them! They are unique, not like anyone else’s. Sure, we can share a lot, empathize, relate to each other. But ultimately we are who we are. We can’t stand above and understand everyone ELSE (and act as if we have no self of our own). My guess is that whether we choose a faith or not, and which faith we choose to use as a guide to reality (who is God, what is the world, what is man, what is salvation, all those fundamental questions); however we select a Way as to how to live that points us onward to what “the goal” is, it will depend largely (wholly!) on our lived-in realities, with God guiding us. No doubt we will move from one thing to the next, from faith to faith or within a chosen Way. People are religiously mobile today. The person who stands outside or “above” (and I don’t mean the genuine atheist if such becomes his commitment) is simply failing to commit to a view of anything. He sets himself above judging, above making any choice, above taking any responsibility for HIS life, his own existence, in his own “skin,” the one that has been given him, within which he has been asked to LIVE.

Neutral intellectual activity: critique or criticism. Our world makes much of “critical thinking.” It can be good, and it can be bad. We are called to “discern the spirits,” but we can also analyze and criticize the beauty, depth, truth, and goodness right out of everything. The bad form of criticism tends toward over-systemization, or, to the reverse extreme, to “deconstruction” and a “view from nowhere.” It is to come to believe in nothing, because nothing is “worthy” of being believed in, because all can be criticized and torn down or “explained away.” One begins to feel very superior — and also very despairing. It’s a lonely way to live. On the other hand, in today’s pluralistic world, if we do CARE to believe in SOMETHING, we don’t have any choice but to be critical, to think hard, to search, to research, to question, to grow, and to use our MINDS as best we can — along with our hearts, feelings, senses, experience, and all of our whole en-skinned beings. I think it’s important to keep due proportion. Spend more time on important things and far less time on unimportant things. People get critical (with a death grip!) on the stupidest things… and then they let the biggest gaffs in sense and logic slide through unquestioned! They will have five-hour (five week, five month!) conversations about things that deserve five minutes, and vice versa. Know when to let things go. Sometimes there isn’t any answer, or an any answer that you can know…. yet. Learn how to ask good questions, and then re-ask them, reformulate them. Questions grow just as knowledge and understanding does. Most importantly? Know how to hold out for the truth. If an answer really isn’t good enough, don’t accept it! Or, give it credit only for what is due. Accept partial truths as partial. People love to jump to The Truth — so they think they HAVE it — when they have barely scratched the surface. Is this an uncomfortable place to be? To be waiting? Holding out? Not yet having a full-blown opinion? Especially in today’s sound-byte world? YES. But it is worth it to HOLD OUT for what is really true and not commit oneself whole-heartedly or whole-mindedly to what is not worthy of that commitment. So there is balance to critical thinking.

Good things — I am waxing long here, so I’ll try to be briefer. The first is to use the mind to construct, not deconstruct or destroy, and not to build whole “systems.” Rather, the intellectual task is smaller. It is to build pictures, thought pictures, truth-pictures, of a certain aspect of the faith, or life, or God, something to help one navigate intellectual, emotional, and spiritual realms. Cognitive psych folks would probably call them “heuristics” or interpretive tools. We can use our minds actively to construct mental tools to help us believe, to help us know God, to help us function and live and grow in the faith. These are NOT strangle-hold items; they are mental tools. This is how Scripture itself works, through narratives, prophecy, proverbs, parables, exhortations, and so on. There is a complete rhetorical package folded in, rich and diverse. One doesn’t need a neat, deductive, exhaustive “system” to be able to draw on a rich, meaning-filled, repertoire of guarding and guiding thought-pictures. There is truth that can reach deep into a person’s soul. Liturgies are full of such pictures. They can be grasped on many levels. And it is the job of the mind — along with the senses and feelings — to search them out, take them in, make them conscious, use them to “talk to ourselves” when necessary. Probably the most important truth-picture I can think of is Christ descending into Hades and pulling Adam and Eve from their graves. He conquers death, trampling down death by death, as we say at Pascha. Such a picture isn’t going to reduce to a “dogma” or any kind of rational “system.” In literary form, it’s more like a myth, a story, even some sort of prophetic vision. And yet, for Christian belief — FAITH — there is no deeper truth or source of our love for God, that He rescues US from death. Christ dies to “give the devil his due” (which is to be trampled on, and to vomit out the living whom he has swallowed, literally choking on having taken a man and having swallowed GOD). The Fathers use graphic imagery, rhetorical, exhortatory, to paint pictures for childlike and mature believers alike. There are unfathomable depths of meaning folded in, and in the folds of which we spend a lifetime as Christians continuing to probe.

The second good intellectual activity is closely tied to the first, and that is, to try to find words to express our faith. We need to be able to “talk to ourselves” about what we believe, what we experience, what we desire. We need to be able to tell God in prayer. We need to be able to appreciate the words of the Fathers and of the Liturgy — i.e. receive expressions as well as generate them. At times we require to be able to talk with others. There is a genuine mental exercise here, to put faith into words that can be shared, even if only with ourselves or our confessor or God Himself. The truth-pictures that we need to cultivate to deepen and give fulness to our faith — as human beings (and therefore cultural beings) — find spoken and artistic expression in words and icons, in Scripture, in hymns, and so forth. There is a definite mental component (but not only mental!) in this search for expression and to appropriate the Church’s way of speaking and knowing.

We can’t, therefore, set our intellects aside, or leave them behind when we enter into faith, or search out faith, or critique the faith-proposals of the world (and of God) that come at us. There is NO SUCH THING as faith “versus” reason. That whole dichotomy makes zero sense. I simply do not understand how the west has been so hung up on it for centuries. We are whole persons. We have minds, bodies, souls, hearts, emotions, senses, attachments, “skins” that we live in, deep cultural, mental, and experiential “skins.” To live as Christians “in our skins” requires all we have to give in terms of intellectual — and all other ways of being and knowing — effort and work. We are whole people. Christians, of all people, are called to be whole.

Wanting, Working, and Joy

Dear N —

Our conversation from yesterday has been rattling around in my head ever since. I know we talked about “goals” for the parish and so on. What do people “need” and so forth? How are people’s talents to be melded together? I think, most of all, if we want things to be better — in whatever department, worship, Church school, parish council, money, volunteering, cleaning, A&E, whatever it is — I think the key is for people to WANT what’s really good. People have to WANT to worship, to learn, to work, to give, to cooperate, to know God, to pray, to fast, to be saved! That’s what God wants, for us to WANT Him!

Now, how do you “make” somebody “want” something? You can’t! There’s no way. All I think you can do is to WANT the right things yourself and, hopefully, somehow, God willing, that desire and love and zeal will overflow onto others. People will see OUR love and our joy and our desire to worship, and they will wonder what’s that all about? And hopefully they will come to want it, too. It’s like a kid with an iPod. Soon all the kids want an iPod. Why? Because the kid who has it wears it all the time and thinks it’s COOL. He is totally into it. :)

Unless ye become like little children… :) We heard that today. Kids so easily WANT stuff. And what are we supposed to want? The Kingdom. Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.

Just think if people wanted the Kingdom like they want to watch sports, or they want a new outfit or a tasty meal, or an iPod, or whatever else it is that people want today. Isn’t God even better than all those things?? Uh, Yeah! Way better!

So, we really can’t “do” anything about other people. There they are. All we can want for them is that they will come to WANT the best things. In the meantime, what do WE do? Well, I think we have to work. We work as hard as we can, AND we work as hard as we can at the most important things (i.e. worthwhile things, desirable things, things worth wanting), AND we work as joyfully as we can. The joy is key, because that is what will make people want to work at those worthwhile things also and to give their life to them.

So, want the best things and work at the most worthwhile things and be joyful. And let God take care of everything else! Let Him take care of everybody else! Love people, forgive them, help them when we can. Commend them to God. What else can we do??

Now if only I could want and work better and more joyfully… <sigh>. What a struggle that can be.

The Straight Rod

 The canons of the Orthodox Church may be viewed as a subject for an academic discipline… Canonical literature may also be viewed as a set of rules governing the lives of the faithful… Both these views fail to consider the fundamental nature of the canons as the Church’s ministry…

 The word “canon” is derived from a word that originally denotes a means to measaure wood or stone for construction and, when used for the Orthodox Church’s ecclesiastical legislation, implies a standard for behavior. In the words of Matthew Blastares, a late Byzantine scholar, “The Fathers who used this figurative expression, named their own decrees canons, from the metaphor of a stright rod, which was customarily used by those that pursued the arts of craftsmanship for the straightness of woods or stones or whatever else. For when place upon materials that were being finished, it made these straight and even for their accurate joining together.” In contrast to civil law, theh penalties for canonical transgression are medicinal and directed towards the spiritual state of the violator as well as the well-being of the Body of Christ, the Church…

~ Fr. Patrick Viscuso, Orthodox Canon Law, p. 2-3