Steven Horst's Remarks

I referred to Steven Horst's remarks at one point and evidently forgot to post them. Here they are:

But I would note that some of the deeper concerns Sr. Martha expresses echo those that the Eastern Orthodox express about the effects of the Enlightenment on Western Christianity.  In a nutshell:  the Enlightenment understanding of the mind or soul acknowledges sensation, emotion, and reason.  But the older Christian spiritual tradition also holds that there is an additional faculty of the soul, whose function is apprehension of God and the true natures of created things.  (In Greek, it is often referred to as nous, which is unfortunately often translated as "intellect".  The exercise of the faculty is called noesis.)  In his Orthodox Psychotherapy, Vlachos opines that the soul is only in order when nous is awakened and orders the other faculties, and that nous is activated only by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  It was thus darkened and atrophied as a result of the Fall.  The Holy Spirit descends in baptism and chrismation, but the work of dethroning the lower parts of the soul and cultivating noesis requires much prayer and vigilance.  As Vlachos expresses it (and I take it this would be a common Eastern Orthodox viewpoint), the Enlightenment canonized a view of the soul that is completely oblivious to the highest part of the soul, and hence cultivating a Rationalist view of the person dethrones God in one's own soul by ignoring the nous and acting as though we were simply an amalgamation of beast and computer.

I think this view goes hand in hand with the fact that monasticism is still at the heart of Eastern Orthodoxy, and often a monasticism much closer to that of the solitaries and skete-dwellers of the Desert, whose words form the heart of so much of the spiritual tradition in Christianity.  I cannot help but note that it was Bishop Athanasius who appealed to Anthony of the Desert for validation, and not the other way around.

[Actually I see that I posted this without a name under 'A Rare Courage' but it's worth repeating with a name attached.]