Reason, Intellect, and Understanding in Orthodoxy and Western Christianity

[Targaryen]

Ahhh the closed minded position.

Disappointing.

 

[gordonhooker]

I'm sorry if I misinterpreted what you said, but you are the one who wrote about us Catholics getting bogged down. Your words not mine.

Again you missed the point, read the post as a whole. If you still don't get it I am quite happy to leave it with you.

 

[Philip_B]

Again this is discussed in detail in the other thread on the Eucharist; but my criteria on what counts as a heresy here, is any teaching that opposes the teachings of the Catholic Church. It is these heresies before and from the Protestant Rebellion, which required to Church at the Council of Trent to define in the language that it used the doctrine of the Eucharist.

If you lay the Council of Trent as the line in the sand, and refer to the call for reformation of the 15th century as a 'Protestant Rebellion' you may be understood to be speaking without listening, and indeed may find yourself out of step with many contemporary theologians on both sides of the Tiber.

If you understand the Catholic Church as only that part of Christianity in communion with the Bishop of Rome, then I would see that as a limited understanding, and not really in keeping with Vatican II.

 

[Erose]

Ahhh the closed minded position.

Disappointing.

Actually no. When you are speaking on why the Church Fathers at Trent defined the doctrine of Transubstantiation in the detail in which they did, it was to counter several heretical (as viewed from a Catholic perspective) concepts. If those heretical teachings were not out there, then the Church Fathers would have had no need to define the doctrine more than was already done in the past.

 

[Erose]

If you lay the Council of Trent as the line in the sand, and refer to the call for reformation of the 15th century as a 'Protestant Rebellion' you may be understood to be speaking without listening, and indeed may find yourself out of step with many contemporary theologians on both sides of the Tiber.

I am not a contemporary theologian. And defining what happened in the 15th century as anything but a rebellion, is not looking at the historical data and consequences.

If you understand the Catholic Church as only that part of Christianity in communion with the Bishop of Rome, then I would see that as a limited understanding, and not really in keeping with Vatican II.

I disagree on both accounts. The Catholic Church has always been the Church in union with the Bishop of Rome. Orthodox Churches are Apostolic Churches that along with the Catholic Church can trace their origins without going through another particular Church to do so. If one uses the term liturgical Church then that would also include Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Old Catholic, etc. But being a liturgical Church or an Apostolic Church doesn't make you a Catholic Church. There is only one of those. And no Vatican II did not proclaim anything to the contrary.

 

[prodromos]

The Catholic Church has always been the Church in union with the Bishop of Rome.

That isn't how St Ignatius described the Catholic Church. In his letter to the Smyrnaeans he wrote:

"Where the bishop is present, there let the congregation gather, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church."​

https://www.orderofstignatius.org/files/Letters/Ignatius_to_Smyrnaeans.pdf

 

[Daniel Marsh]

This thread is at least interesting. Those who believes we should put our intellect on a shelf at the door are not allowed from here on to quote the Bible in English. Bible translations are from people's intellect.

 

[mark46]

I agree with all that you say.

So many of us forget what so many were taught as children, that "it's a mystery" is a fine explanation of many elements of our faith.

Most Westerners presume that we can solve a situation by comparing and discussing very detailed explanations.

I agree with the Eastern approach that many times it is NOT useful to discuss details. As has been pointed out so many times, this has been shown hundreds of times to be true of our explanations of the Eucharist.
I remember discussion this with a United Methodist (a branch that came for Anglicanism), and he had no problem when I asked details on his understanding of the mystery. In the end, we shared common ground, and beyond that common ground, "it's a mystery" served very well.

I wouldn't think of asking different groups of Orthodox details of their teachings on the Eucharist, and then presume 1) that there are significant differences, and 2) that I would understood the differences if they actually existed.
=======
I believe that this is true when comparing Orthodox doctrines to Catholic ones. I have found the many conference conclusions and discussions to be useful. At the core, there is but one faith. For example, I was especially interesting to see the Orthodox and Catholic having so much in common, even if their joint understanding of the role of the Bishop Of Rome.

The Ravenna Document

.

I haven't asked A4C and OrthodoxyUSA but I'm willing to believe that we all believe the SAME THING about the Eucharist. You just happened to get different nuances from each of us. We replied according to what you were saying, trying to show the borders of our belief and extend and clarify what we could.

I think the particular difficulty is with the Eucharist, though there may well be other particular teachings as well that would develop the same problem.

In some things we are very precise, such as Christology. In some things we are given a particular framework and nothing must be added, such as the Eucharist. In some things we are simply given borders of the faith, and allowed to believe anything within that border, but nothing outside of it. Many, many things just "are" and are presented in the hymns, etc.
.

 

[Athanasias]

Hello all,

In this thread on the differences in the approach to the Eucharist in Catholicism and Orthodoxy, some of the posts from our Western Christian friends seem to show an understanding of Orthodoxy that supposes that Orthodoxy treats reason as something bad, or to be neglected, or to be mocked if someone should find some use of it.

I do not think that this is at all the case, and I believe that such things are a result of misunderstanding the emphasis in Orthodoxy vis-a-vis Western Christianity, such that the Westerners are "scholastic" while the Orthodox are "mystical" or whatever you'd like to call it. As easy as that is to say, I think it's much harder to substantiate in a way that makes sense to the Western Christian (if you're Orthodox and looking at Western Christianity) or to the Orthodox (if you're a Western Christian and looking at Orthodoxy), so it seems that we spend an awful lot of time talking past each other because we do not necessarily understand or connect with where the person from another tradition is coming from.

With that in mind, I thought it might be good to share things from our own traditions that address the mind, the intellect, understanding, and reason. My purpose here is only to show that, no, Orthodoxy is not in any way predicated on a deprecation of such things, only a different emphasis that is not dependent on them in exactly the same fashion as in certain forms of Western Christianity. I do not wish to denigrate Western Christianity, and would appreciate it if anyone posting here would not take this as an opportunity to do so.

As I am Coptic Orthodox, I will be offering examples from my own Church and communion. I welcome others to offer their own examples from their own.

+++

First I will point out something that is kind of a formulaic introduction by a certain point in medieval Coptic writings in Arabic, as you can find in, for example, books like Ibn Kabar's (14th century) The Lamp that Lights the Darkness in Clarifying the Service, which begins "Glory be to God who enlightens the minds, and guides the souls by His proof, and
cleanses the understanding by the teachings of his Church; and educates the intellect with the sciences of His laws..." (and on and on like this).

Earlier examples of similar preambles, such as is found in the great bishop Severus El Ashmunein (Severus Ibn Al Muqaffa') in his Lamp of the Intellect (10th century) appear to likewise take it as a given that God directly enlightens us to know what we may know, but do not necessarily mention proofs and sciences. HG writes, after bringing many examples from the scriptures of what he intends to prove (as a defense of the faith against the charges of those outside of the Church), "I have entreated God, blessed and exalted be His name, and I have told you what has been made known to me; I have informed you of that which I have been successful in [attempting] to understand and know. If it is right, it is from the Holy Spirit speaking through our mouths, and uttering by means of our tongues; and if it is wrong, it is our shortcoming, weakness, error, and heedlessness. But do not take offense at our error, and may our fault not be gross in your eyes. Be content with what we have set forth for you, for we have laboured, explained, condensed and expounded, and have refrained from arguing each point and refuting [our] opponents, for these things are mentioned in the books which are suitable for them; and from God comes success and support."

And earlier than either of these, and from the Syriac Orthodox rather than the Coptic tradition, we have the very interesting preamble to A Homily on the Blessed Mar Severus, Patriarch of Antioch by Mar George, Bishop of the Arabs (d. 724). It is interesting to consider that this is a hagiographical work, which you may conceivably think does not require a great recourse to anything outside of the received tradition concerning the saint in question, and yet its opening paragraphs contain the following prayer to the Lord Jesus Christ:

Behold, I dare to measure the waters of the sea in my hands, although the hollow of my hand could not even contain a cup of water. Now I plan to count the sand of the sea, although I am not clever in the counting of all the seas. Behold, I dare to measure in the palms of my hands the dust of the earth, although my palms cannot hold even a pound of soil. I am trying to count with my fingers the stars of the heights, although I have only ten fingers on my hands.

Lord of the Universe, of the seas and of the earth and also of the sky, my trust is in You; help me as You are accustomed to do; Oh He who perfects His strength in the weak, as He said, perfect Your strength in me, and I shall be made strong by You for the narration.
​

+++

What if anything can be made of these short examples, three among tens of thousands, concerning the attitude of those in these traditions towards the intellect, reason, and understanding? In all three it is by the direct intervention and guidance of God that we are capable of knowing or doing anything, whether that is by the "proofs" and "sciences" of Ibn Kabar, the measured successes and crowning humility of Severus El Ashmunein, or the daring reliance on the strength of God displayed by Mar George, who compares even speaking of the blessedness of his predecessor of some centuries to every impossible thing he can think of. And there is in these a sense of limitation, that the Lord should set before His holy ones that which may only be accomplished in their unceasing prayers to Him, and reliance directly upon Him, and their use as His instrument ("...speaking through our mouths, and uttering by means of our tongues").

Intellect, understanding, and reason are not necessarily in themselves the/a problem -- they are just not the focus of Christian prayer or life more generally. The focus is on supplication before the Lord and His direct guidance and sustaining of the life of the Church and its shepherds and believers. It is through Him and only Him that we have any understanding whatsoever, as we pray in the litany of the 9th hour prayer of Good Friday in the Coptic tradition "Let my supplication come before You O Lord; give me understanding according to Your word. Let my prayer come before You and revive me according to Your word." The understanding -- the illumination and transformation of our minds -- is according to the word of God, given by Him directly to us, not as mediated according to this or that school of philosophy or principle. (Which is not to say that such philosophical traditions don't exist or are somehow 'bad' for existing; to be sure, they have helped to shape the traditions of Alexandria, Antioch, and so on. But again, these are not to be held up as things; Christ our God is the One who gives light to every man that comes into the world, not "the Alexandrian tradition" as a thing...and I write this as someone of the Alexandrian tradition!)

So I would say that indeed there is a kind of reason(ing) and understanding that is not only accepted in Orthodoxy, but which is essential to the way that we are to live -- reason placed in submission to the Lord, and understanding following from that which He gives to us in response to fervent prayers. All else is at best speculation, and at worse heinous error.

And finally, a hopefully preemptive response to one possible question I could see to this, which would be very reasonable: "Then how do you know when you are receiving such direct guidance, and when you are suffering spiritual delusion/prelest?" Ah, but it is not you or I who receive it as individuals, but all of us who have received it from our fathers, within the bosom of the Church. The job of any one generation is only to guard and pass on, not to discover any 'new truths', even if there were any to discover (which there are not; Christ died upon the holy wood of the cross, He is risen, and He will come again in His glory to judge the living and the dead -- the end). This is why the prayers of the Church are its rule of faith/standard of belief, because the core anaphoras of all received traditions as found in, e.g., the liturgy of St. Basil, St. Cyril (in Greek, St. Mark), St. John Chrysostom, have remained remarkably stable through the centuries, and the Church and her people believe as they pray and pray as they believe. Hence I can pick up the Didache (1st century) and find my faith in it, or the Teaching of St. Gregory the Illuminator (early 4th century), and find my faith in it, or the Letters to the Orthodox in Persia (6th century) and find my faith in them, etc. So if a person will stick to the prayers and traditions of the Church, which are jealously kept to, intellectual pursuits will be given their proper place (i.e., not broaching matters of revelation but in a speculative, non-dogmatized fashion to the extent that such speculation may be allowed, depending on the form it takes and the matters it addresses) as at the most an aide in understanding, never the means to understanding.

I like this post. its thoughtful. Thank you for it. I will give you my opinion. Its true there are different ways we explain the eucharist but we believe the same substantial truths on the Eucharist. We(Catholics and Orthodox) both hold its a divine mystery given by a real priesthood with apostolic succession that has authority to produce a miracle that cannot be fully comprehended. We both believe its sacrificial and we both believe the bread and wine become or are supernaturally transformed into the substantial mystical body and blood of Jesus Christ. While not dogmatic defined in orthodox circles often times orthodox theologians even use the term transubstantiation to describe it. I cannot speak for all orthodox but I also know the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia even uses the term transubstantiation on their website. Scholastic lingo aside I think we both know we teach the same thing. Eastern Catholics also understand this.

 

[zippy2006]

Then I actually started to read them and found things like "Control your eyes, tongue, and stomach", and thought "Well that makes sense." Whereas the Western sources I had been given (this was when I was still a Roman Catholic, but in the process of leaving) like Therese of Lisieux, John of the Cross, etc. were more difficult for me to understand or feel any real connection to.

Although I don't find Thérèse to be at all complicated, the general thrust of what you say here makes some sense. Granted, comparing 3rd century writers to modern writers is a bit like comparing apples to oranges, but some contemporary Orthodox writers are able to convey deep things directly and in a way that is able to reach a very large, diverse audience. Part of that might be a hesychastic emphasis and the retention of the integration between the monastic communities and the larger Church. On the other hand, intellectuals will gravitate towards Catholicism due to the simple fact that there is more food there.

I've noticed your point most clearly in Eastern Catholic liturgies. The preaching is better. It's hard to say exactly why, but it is apparently for the same reason that Bloom's book on prayer is better than Balthasar's. It is more organic, natural, unaffected, and relevant.

 

[All4Christ]

Although I don't find Thérèse to be at all complicated, the general thrust of what you say here makes some sense. Granted, comparing 3rd century writers to modern writers is a bit like comparing apples to oranges, but some contemporary Orthodox writers are able to convey deep things directly and in a way that is able to reach a very large, diverse audience. Part of that might be a hesychastic emphasis and the retention of the integration between the monastic communities and the larger Church. On the other hand, intellectuals will gravitate towards Catholicism due to the simple fact that there is more food there.

I've noticed your point most clearly in Eastern Catholic liturgies. The preaching is better. It's hard to say exactly why, but it is apparently for the same reason that Bloom's book on prayer is better than Balthasar's. It is more organic, natural, unaffected, and relevant.

Why do you think intellectuals primarily gravitate towards Catholicism?

In my personal experience, many intellectuals have become Orthodox - and there is no shortage of “food” in the Orthodox Church. The key is accepting that mystery is compatible with an intellectual approach. Admittedly, that is a challenge at times.

That said, I deeply appreciate that Orthodoxy reaches to people of all forms of piety, and that the faith is very holistic. I think this concept often applies to both Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Catholicism.

Ultimately, intellectualism isn’t what saves us, though it can lead us to seek God. Faith in and of itself involves accepting what may not always make sense.

 

[All4Christ]

...

 

[zippy2006]

Why do you think intellectuals primarily gravitate towards Catholicism?

Because it's a more intellectual religion. More than any other Christian body, it allows differences of opinion, engages the culture, applies theology to social issues, encourages historical and aesthetic theology, etc.

In my personal experience, many intellectuals have become Orthodox - and there is no shortage of “food” in the Orthodox Church.

I wouldn't say there is a shortage of intellectual food in Orthodoxy, but I also wouldn't say there is a surplus.

 

[All4Christ]

Because it's a more intellectual religion. More than any other Christian body, it allows differences of opinion, engages the culture, applies theology to social issues, encourages historical and aesthetic theology, etc.



I wouldn't say there is a shortage of intellectual food in Orthodoxy, but I also wouldn't say there is a surplus.

Personally, I believe that there is a good balance of intellect, theology and praxis in Orthodoxy.

I came to Orthodoxy through a search for knowledge, theology and philosophy with an “intellectual” approach, but I have found Orthodoxy to balance my desire for knowledge and theology with the practical every day living of the Christian life. I came from a very “experiential” background, but I did not fully fit in that framework. I still appreciate it though. Orthodoxy seems to easily mesh the two approaches.