What does "nous" mean?

[Wryetui]

Hello! I have read that the Fathers often talk about "noetic knowledge of God" and that the soul is noetic. How is this knowledge obtained and what is it?

Thanks and Christ is risen!

 

[gzt]

It means "we" in French.

A loose translation of "nous" in the earlier philosophers would be "mind" or "intellect", it's kind of like the thing in the mind that does perception (ie, "the mind's eye") of mental objects (as opposed to sensory perception). The Orthodox use of the term is filtered through the Neo-Platonists who built on that basic notion. So knowledge of God is noetic knowledge because it isn't through sensory perception, but rather any experience we have of God is somehow through this immaterial perception in the mind.

 

[ArmyMatt]

gzt gave a good answer, and that is what you hear. it is the high point of man's intellect, where he can commune with God.

 

[Wryetui]

I understand, thank you, and how this knowledge occur? I mean, how can I commune with God through this noetic experience?

 

[jckstraw72]

a good article on the topic

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/79038.htm

 

[ArmyMatt]

I understand, thank you, and how this knowledge occur? I mean, how can I commune with God through this noetic experience?

you enter into the Life of the Church, God reveals in His good time

 

[Wryetui]

I thank all of you for your answers!

 

[Cappadocious]

A loose translation of "nous" in the earlier philosophers would be "mind" or "intellect", it's kind of like the thing in the mind that does perception (ie, "the mind's eye") of mental objects (as opposed to sensory perception). The Orthodox use of the term is filtered through the Neo-Platonists who built on that basic notion. So knowledge of God is noetic knowledge because it isn't through sensory perception, but rather any experience we have of God is somehow through this immaterial perception in the mind.

I'd add that "mental object" didn't mean "content that exists in the mind alone." Rather, it meant ideal/higher objects.

Furthermore, for the ancients, the mind was part of the soul. By contrast, in the modern folk view, the mind just is the soul.

I have other problems with the popular contemporary Orthodox view of the ancient view but we'll leave that for another time.

 

[Yeshua HaDerekh]

It is like "praying unceasingly". You live in a physical existence here, but your heart, soul and mind are always trying to be present in a spiritual existence with God.

 

[Ngav3]

Νους=Greek word for "mind" or more specifically "capacity of the mind"

 

[~Anastasia~]

Νους=Greek word for "mind" or more specifically "capacity of the mind"

Hello, Ngav3, and welcome to CF, and especially welcome to TAW! It's great to have you join us!

Always nice to "meet" more Orthodox brothers and sisters.

I pray that you are blessed by being here, and look forward to getting to know you better.

Again, welcome!

 

[ArmyMatt]

Νους=Greek word for "mind" or more specifically "capacity of the mind"

welcome to TAW!

 

[Arsenios]

Νους=Greek word for "mind" or more specifically "capacity of the mind"

The nous is that part of your mind that is prior to words,, prior to the concepts that originate the words, and prior to the percepts that are formed into concepts that are then given words...

The Fathers call it the Eye of the Heart, and it is capable of "directing traffic" in the realm of thoughts, and of perceiving God... Hence it looks both toward God and toward Creation...

The Fall of Adam "scattered" the nous into creation away from God, because Adam thought he could become as God by partaking of a part of creation forbidden to him by God...

Hence the Way of Discipleship in the Church is involved much in the recalling of the nous from its cares and concerns in the world, and focusing it instead on God alone...

We "gather the dispersed" to "power up" our nous for it to Commune with God...

It is YOUR primordial mind, and after Baptism with maturity in Christ, you can say with Paul:
"We have the NOUS of Christ." Because the Mystery of the Faith is Christ IN us...

Any help?

Arsenios

 

[Cappadocious]

The nous is that part of your mind that is prior to words,, prior to the concepts that originate the words, and prior to the percepts that are formed into concepts that are then given words...

I don't think this is the ancient or patristic view. The nous is not a part of the mind, it is the mind. And the second part, the ancients did not believe in percepts, and I don't think that we are pre-linguistic in what is our most linguistic ( λογική, rational) aspect.

 

[Arsenios]

I don't think this is the ancient or patristic view.

Well, this would not be the first time I had ever wandered wrongly into an understanding...

The nous is not a part of the mind, it is the mind.

OK - But it is hard to include nous under all the things the mind does...

Would you agree that the nous is the eye of the heart...

That we understand with the heart...

And that it is the movement, the descent, of the nous into the heart, that constitutes the Way of Salvation?

And the second part, the ancients did not believe in percepts,

OK - Would you settle for images? I did go a tad technical-philosophic with percepts... eg Where a percept is a product of perception...

and I don't think that we are pre-linguistic in what is our most linguistic ( λογική, rational) aspect.

Understanding is not in the logike, but en ton kardion, and until the logike descends into ton kardion, it is just intellect, as in intellectual... The understanding of the heart is totally rational, and indeed forms the rationality of the person, but the encounter with God comes with the nous turned toward God and the senses, the aesthanomae, set aside, and is ultimately without words at all, but can be described, after a fashion, with words... Which is why Orthodox Theology is empirical and descriptive, and not rational and linguistic...

Back at ya!

Arsenios

 

[Cappadocious]

Well, this would not be the first time I had ever wandered wrongly into an understanding...



OK - But it is hard to include nous under all the things the mind does...

Would you agree that the nous is the eye of the heart...

That we understand with the heart...

And that it is the movement, the descent, of the nous into the heart, that constitutes the Way of Salvation?



OK - Would you settle for images? I did go a tad technical-philosophic with percepts... eg Where a percept is a product of perception...



Understanding is not in the logike, but en ton kardion, and until the logike descends into ton kardion, it is just intellect, as in intellectual... The understanding of the heart is totally rational, and indeed forms the rationality of the person, but the encounter with God comes with the nous turned toward God and the senses, the aesthanomae, set aside, and is ultimately without words at all, but can be described, after a fashion, with words... Which is why Orthodox Theology is empirical and descriptive, and not rational and linguistic...

Back at ya!

Arsenios

Ahhh, are you drawing from metropolitan Heirotheos Vlachos?

 

[Cappadocious]

OK - Would you settle for images? I did go a tad technical-philosophic with percepts... eg Where a percept is a product of perception...

A percept is a supposed object generated in or by perception (or in or by the senses, whether the familiar five or by some 'noetic' or 'noetic-cardiac' sense in your case). Some early modern thinkers posited that we cannot really perceive the world or God; rather we can only encounter a percept of the world or God, a separate object generated in us by the world or God.

Whether or not these percepts are called percepts, sensations, content, etc. They are all problematic for the Christian. I contend that when the premodern Fathers said images in this context, they did not mean percepts in the above sense, but meant what really appears to us in our interaction with God and the world.

 

[Arsenios]

Ahhh, are you drawing from metropolitan Heirotheos Vlachos?

And from my personal conversion...

And Fr. John Romanides...

And the modern "talk-about-its"...

And on and on...

I was an atheist who would not tolerate a Christian in my presence...

So God Himself did the conversion, and I did not forget the state of mind I had in those encounters...

And especially the bypass of the intellect encountering God AS God...

Arsenios

 

[Cappadocious]

And especially the bypass of the intellect encountering God AS God...

I'm for encountering God as God (as opposed to, I dunno) but I don't think one has to shed or bypass the intellect to do so.

Now, if you mean intellect as in, the modern understanding which is something like data processing plus an empirical filter, then I agree with you.

 

[Arsenios]

A percept is a supposed object generated in or by perception (or in or by the senses, whether the familiar five or by some 'noetic' or 'noetic-cardiac' sense in your case). Some early modern thinkers posited that we cannot really perceive the world or God; rather we can only encounter a percept of the world or God, a separate object generated in us by the world or God.

There are Cartesian Box issues, OK... But that IS the Fall... We are cut off from the world apart from God... We belong in that box, where we will surely die... Until we re-connect with God...

Whether or not these percepts are called percepts, sensations, content, etc. They are all problematic for the Christian. I contend that when the premodern Fathers said images in this context, they did not mean percepts in the above sense, but meant what really appears to us in our interaction with God and the world.

Christ Himself sort of agrees with you, when He says: How can I speak of Spiritual matters if you do not understand even the non-spiritual ones? So that the logic of the material and psychological world does form a king of worldly training - indeed a discipline - needed to approach Divine matters...

But the nous - even in the Liturgy - joins the Cherubim in the quiet solemnity of "Let us set aside all earthly care..."

Arsenios