13. IS THE BIBLE INSPIRED?

In our last post, I pointed out some inconsistences in Caleb’s Hebron.  These inconsistencies create trouble for the Inerrancy Warrant (If the Bible is inspired, then it must be free from errors).  Now I wish to propose new warrants that will cover divine inspiration and inconsistencies. 

Let’s first explore some ideas advanced by Basil Vellas.¹ 

According to Vellas, since there is no way for man to grasp what God  reveals to him, he must receive “internal illumination” which will help him to understand and record what has been revealed.  This process of inspiration “does not exclude free will, thought or conscience, because it does not bring a Scriptural writer into a state of ecstasy.”²

Vellas goes on to cite the Blessed Theophylact as saying that “the Spirit spoke to each of the prophets and they transmitted what was said by the Spirit in the way they could.”  Just as salvation is a question of cooperation between God and man, so too in the case of inspiration do we find that the prophets and apostles are allowed to participate in revelation. 

This view of revelation, says Vellas, “prevented the Ortho­dox church     . . .  from accepting the verbal inspiration of Holy Scripture, which denies the author's personality.”  This permits Vellas to conclude that divine inspiration does not affect “historical and scientific questions and knowledge of everyday life which could easily be obtained by the authors through their own mental powers.”  Rather, “revelation and the divine inspiration which is conne­cted with it can be applied only to dogmatic and moral truths.”  He adds that “consequently there is a distinction in Holy Scripture between the vital and the non-essential, the per­manent and the transient, the divine and the human element.”

We capture Vellas’ insights in three warrants.  The first is a Revelation Warrant:  Inspired men contribute to the revelation they proclaim.  A Biblical Errancy Warrant naturally follows:  If there are errors in the Bible, they reflect the human contributions made to the records of divine revelation.  The third is a new Biblical Inerrancy Warrant:  Dogmatic and moral truths in the Bible are inerrant.  Let’s apply these warrants to the case of Hebron.

We first ask whether the history of Hebron is something which a divinely inspired author could have provided from his own resources.  Certainly; this agrees with the Revelation Warrant.  Then, whether the muddled history of Hebron suggests errors.  It certainly seems like it, so the Biblical Errancy Warrant applies.  Finally, we ask whether Hebron’s history has a bearing on dogmatic or moral truths.  Of course not; if we wish to suggest that the history of Hebron cannot be accepted at face value as factually true, our new Biblical Inerrancy Warrant clears us to do so.    

By the application of these three warrants, we see that we do not have to treat Hebron as a divinely inspired history whose contradictions must be vigorously whisked away with the broom of piety, nor do we have to concede that the Bible is not inspired.  Rather, we candidly admit that Hebron poses an interesting problem of history and manuscript transmission, without having any bearing on divine inspiration or revelation.

All this goes to show the value of identifying and proposing warrants for our evidence. 

If we retain a warrant to the effect that Biblical inerrancy requires the Bible to have no errors, any evidence of inconsistency—really, the tiniest disagreements among the manuscripts—becomes grounds for dismissing the divine inspiration of the authors and the revelation they proclaimed. 

If we retain a warrant to the effect that Biblical inerrancy does not entail zero-tolerance for errors in the Bible, evidence of inconsistency does not even touch divine inspiration or revelation, let alone dismiss them. 

 

ENDNOTES

1.  All quotes in this essay are from Basil Vellas, “The Authority of the Bible according to the Eastern Orthodox Church,” in Ευχαριστήριον, τιμητικός Τόμος Αμίλκα Αλιβιζάτου (Athens: 1958), 490-503 (http://www.apostoliki-diakonia.gr/ index.html [accessed July 9, 2018]).  I hope in the future to have the hard copy of this book and provide more specific references.

2.  Here Vellas alludes to the kind of prophesy that involves what we would call ecstatic experiences.  Saul himself, when he was bent on killing David, was permitted by God to succumb to this when “he stripped off his clothes also, and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that night.  Wherefore they say, Is Saul also among the prophets?” (1 Sam. 19.24). 

 

12. OBJECTIONS TO BIBLICAL INERRANCY

The Inerrancy Warrant (If the Bible is inspired, then it must be free from error) can be objected to on several grounds.  I had not meant to explore this issue, but it seems promising.  Here are my objections in no particular order. 

Please note that Biblical inspiration and inerrancy are two entirely different concepts. 

Biblical inspiration is first of all an unsupported claim is a matter of faith.  In logic, we would say that Biblical inspiration is a given or an axiom which one does not prove.  Biblical inspiration only requires that Scripture not be exclusively human in origin.  Biblical inerrancy goes a lot further in ascribing total freedom from errors to the Bible.

So, then, here are my objections for readers to ponder if they wish, but which won’t figure (at this point) in any future posts.

1.  How do we know that divine inspiration frees the Bible from human errors?  There is no verse in the Bible which states the that the Bible is inerrant.

2.   Suppose that the Bible does provide us with some kind of Inerrancy Warrant.  Then its testimony could not be accepted, since it would be circular reasoning.

3.  How do we know that divine inspiration frees the Bible from human errors?  If a human source says that it does, then we must assess that claim on its own merits.  If our hapless opponent claims that it is free from error because it is divinely inspired, then he is assuming just what he is supposed to prove. 

4.  Even if the Bible’s claim to its own testimony were not circular, according to Dt. 19:15, we must have two or three witnesses for resolving any matter.  This verse is cited several times in the New Testament, of which John 8:17 is most relevant, where it is a question of testimony and not allegation.  What second or third witnesses could be brought forward to corroborate the Bible’s claim to be free from error?  Does the Bible have such peers?

5.  Why should the Bible be free of human frailties like errors?  When the Son of God was incarnate, he took on human frailties.  Why should the Bible be free of something which Christ gladly bore? 

11. THE BAFFLING HISTORY OF HEBRON

Let’s apply the notion of warrant to a common religious doubt, the inspiration of Scripture.

We read in Genesis that Hebron and Kiriath Arba are two names for the same place (35.27).  Kiriath Arba was named after Arba “the greatest man of the Anakim” (Jo 14:15).  Arba was “the father of Anak” (Jo 15:13, 21:11).  Anak’s three sons—Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai—feature prominently in the intelligence briefing which the spies gave Moses and the Israelites (Jo 13:22); the spies identified them as “the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim)” (Nu 13:23). 

However, when the narrator recounts the attempt of the five Amorite kings to attack the Gibeonites, who were allies of the invading Israelites, Hoham is identified as the king of Hebron (Jo 10:3).  Hoham is not said to be a descendant of Arba, nor are any of the Nephilim said to have been in the ranks of his army. 

After the execution of Hoham, we are told that Joshua sacked Hebron and “left none remaining” (Jo 10:37); then he wiped out all the Anakim, except in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod (11:20-21).

Nevertheless, after Joshua allotted Hebron to Caleb (14:13), Caleb still had to drive out the “three sons of Anak” (Jo 15:14). 

Later on we learn that Hebron is made a city of refuge and given to the Levites (Jo 21:13). 

To sum it up, Hebron, a city of the Anakim, ruled by the three sons of Arba, is paradoxically said to have an Amorite king named Hoham; it was sacked utterly.  When, however, Caleb selected Hebron as his portion, he had to drive out the Anakim violently, even though we had just been told that it had been sacked by Joshua.  Then Hebron was given to the Levites, even though we had been told that Hebron was Caleb’s.

On the face of it, not all the details in this summary can be true according to the Law of Contradiction (a statement and its contradiction cannot both be true).  For example, either Hebron was ruled by the three sons of Anak or by Hoham; either Hebron was a city of the Nephilim or of the Amorites; either Joshua utterly sacked Hebron or Caleb did; either Joshua wiped out all the Anakim except in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod or not; either Hebron was Caleb’s city or it was a Levite city. 

Here is what people normally often say when they are confronted with Scriptural inconsistencies:  “How can the Bible be true, if it is inconsistent with itself?  If it is not true, how can it be inspired?”  Here the implicit warrant may be supplied as, If the Bible is inspired, then it must be free from error.  Let’s call this the Inerrancy Warrant.  The exact wording of this warrant will vary with the exact shade of opinion different believers have, but you will see why the exact wording does not matter.  Naturally, once human errors are found in the Bible—whether they are disagreements as noted above or manuscript variants—either the errors have to be explained away by some incredible arguments or the deal is off.   

Next time we will provide an alternative to the Inspiration Warrant which will free us from these difficulties.

10. ORIGINS OF CERTAINTY (2)

Now that we know why evidence imparts certainty to a claim, we need to know how evidence matters to a claim. 

What makes evidence matter, as Stephen Toulmin tells us, is its warrant.¹  Let’s define warrant as a rule which dictates what is allowed as evidence and how compelling it is.

Let’s look at a few examples of warrants.

Suppose that the Mr. Slaughter claims he could not have murdered Mr.  Corpus in London because Mr. Slaughter was in Gravesend at the time.  Here the accused appeals to the warrant that no man can be in two places at once.  This warrant makes Mr. Slaughter’s presence in Gravesend compelling evidence of his innocence.

If Mr. Fraile says he is sick, why does it matter if his temperature is 99 degrees?  It matters because of the rule that if someone’s temperature is above 98.6 degrees, he is sick.  If Mr. Fraile says he cannot go to work today, his fever is likely to persuade his boss.

Reverting to the Dover Restaurants problem, my warrant could be that if the owner of a restaurant cannot be bothered to maintain his building properly, he likely cannot be bothered to serve good food, either.  As warrants go, this warrant does not seem to be as persuasive as Mr. Slaughter’s warrant or the feverish warrant, but that is okay.  In a pinch, it could give me some quick way to make up my mind.

In all three examples, the warrant states or implies what sort of evidence must be introduced in order to confirm the claim.                 

How does warrant relate to certainty? 

I do not have a complete answer to this question, nor is it likely available, but we may make a start here by distinguishing important types of warrants which confer different degrees of certainty.²

If we return to the case of Mr. Slaughter, we see that his warrant confers necessity upon his innocence, since his warrant cannot conceivably be violated.  This kind of warrant is called a metaphysical warrant.  Similar warrants are A statement may not be false and true at the same time in the same sense; killing for no reason is morally right; whatever is, is; and so forth.  It is characteristic of metaphysical warrants that violating them drives us to either incoherence or madness.    

In Mr. Fraile’s case, the feverish warrant is a kind of physical necessity.  Physical necessities “are ultimate facts, which we take on the evidence of experience, without being able to give their final account.”³  Natural necessities are squishier than metaphysical warrants.  For instance, water may boil at 212º F for most people, but the inhabitants of the Mile High City know that a full statement of the facts must include air pressure to explain for when water boils.  Warrants involving natural necessities are not as conclusive as metaphysical warrants, but they are still sturdy.

Finally, we have moral warrants.  A moral warrant relies upon the moral character of the person involved.  This kind of warrant demonstrates in range of certitude exactly that range occupied by moral character.  

At one end of the range, Rickaby observes that “it is a sheer impossibility that historians should be deceiving us, when they narrate certain substantial events in the lives of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Charlemagne.”⁴  He can say this for a number of compelling reasons—the sheer abundance of evidence from the earliest times on, the consensus of the learned, the stigma (once) attached to mendacity among historians and so forth.

At the other end of the range, I would not ask a used car salesman to tell me the value of a car on his lot and pay that price with the conscience of a man who has done all he could to secure a fair deal; the salesman has too many reasons to inflate the price. 

In the Dover Restaurants problem, my warrant is a moral warrant.  The kind of person who keeps his restaurant looking spic and span is in my experience more likely to offer a decently and hygienically prepared meal, but I could not swear by it.  This illustrates why the moral warrant is tricky to apply.

In conclusion, if evidence is what leads us to the truth, warrant is what confirms the viability and weight of the evidence.  Warrants are not equally authoritative, so we have to pay attention to the type of warrant being used when we evaluate an argument.

ENDNOTES

1.  I rely throughout on the Toulmin Model Argument, as the perceptive reader will note.  For details, see Stephen Toulmin, Richard Rieke, Allan Janik, An Introduction to Reasoning, 2^nd ed. (NY:  MacMillan Publishers, 1984).

2.  The astute reader will note that I am using Rickaby’s discussion of the three kinds of certitude (The First Principles of Knowledge, 4^th ed. [London:  Longmans, Green & Co., 1901], 44) to provide a classification for Toulmin’s otherwise unwieldy concept of warrants.

3.  Rickaby, 57.

4.  Ibid., 58.

9. THE ORIGINS OF CERTAINTY (1)

Now that we have examined the degrees of certitude, we will turn to the origins of certitude.  After all, it won’t do us any good to discuss doubts if we have no way of settling them. 

So, we last mentioned how ignorance gives way to doubt, doubt to suspicion and so forth.  What allows us to upgrade, say, doubt to suspicion?

Many years ago, I was passing through Dover, England, where, I was told by the tour guide, the only good places to eat at were two Chinese restaurants.  Let’s call them Chang’s Chow Fon and Eng’s Chow Fon.   Suppose I can put off eating for a bit, but not too long.  Short of eating in each restaurant in turn to decide where I should eat, how do I decide?

As a first approximation, I decide to judge them by appearances.  Suppose that I discover that Chang’s restaurant is obviously badly kept—the grass is knee-high, a window in front is broken, paint is peeling in giant flakes—and Eng’s has a neatly kept lawn, shining windows and an otherwise immaculate appearance.  For me, this decides where dinner will be. 

What’s happening in this story? 

I started off the evening in positive doubt, since the tour guide implicitly gave the two restaurants equally strong recommendations.  Figuratively speaking, the scales of judgment were level.  By finding out which one was more decently kept, I found something by which to tip the scales.  This something is evidence. 

Before we discuss the nature of evidence, we need to define the word claim:  a claim is any statement whose truth is in doubt.  If I say, “I should eat at the nicely kept Chinese restaurant,” that is a claim.  I can’t know which one offers better food until I have tried both, but the price of certainty—eating, say, the same dish at both restaurants—is too high a price for me to pay in terms of time, health and money. 

Many claims can be justified by experience and so become accepted as facts.  If I am ironing clothes, listening to music and using a fan, and suddenly everything goes dark, I claim that I tripped the circuit breaker.  When I go to the garage and find the relevant circuit breaker in the off position, my claim becomes a fact.

Other claims have a harder time becoming facts.  For instance, even if I ate at both restaurants, I might find that their dishes are equally good, so that I hesitate to regard either claim as fact.  Or I might find out that both restaurants have more than one cook, and the quality of your meal depends on which cook is on duty.  Or one chef is double-timing, and the quality of your meal depends only on the mood the chef is in and has nothing to do with the restaurant.  At any rate, the question When do I eat at both restaurants? becomes more useful than Which restaurant is better?

We may now turn back to evidence:  We define evidence as anything that confirms a claim.  If I make the claim to my poker pals that I cannot play poker anymore, I can corroborate that claim by showing them a bank statement which shows there is nothing in the vault.  I have verified that my claim is a fact.  This example shows how (as Rickaby says) evidence is the test of truth.¹   

We may now say that evidence is what we use to upgrade any level of certitude to a higher (or for that matter a lower) level.

The importance of the notion of evidence requires us to discuss it a little more next time.

ENDNOTES

1.  See John Rickaby, The First Principles of Knowledge, 4^th ed. (London:  Longmans, Green & Co., 1901), p. 222.

8. UP FROM IGNORANCE

We originally meant to review those states of mind which fall short of certitude but were delayed by a long examination of ignorance and its cure.  We now resume climbing the ladder of certitude.

According to Rickaby, after sheer ignorance comes doubt.¹  

Negative doubt is what we experience when “a question is proposed” and we have no “valid reasons” which would incline us one way or the other.²  Suppose a man, say, one Mr. Hartfeldt, walked into a room and out again.  Suppose further that someone asked me whether I noticed whether he was alright.  I review my memory.  Beyond the facts of his height, approximate weight and so forth, I cannot say that there was anything which would suggest that he was alright or not; that he was happy or not was not plain to me.  Therefore, I have no valid reasons to incline me one way or the other.³ 

“The first step out of doubt” is suspicion, which is the faintest “inclination to yield in one direction.”⁴  We may suppose that since doubt is a kind of evenly balanced scale, suspicion is the response to the addition of the weight of some reason to one side.  Yet this weight is very slight. 

Suppose I noticed that Mr. Hartfeldt’s eyes seemed a little bright.  That fact is in itself not decisive; he might be ill or I might just be imaginative.  I don’t want to act on my suspicion that he is upset, since error on my part could be awkward; I merely retain the suspicion as an unfounded possibility just in case more evidence comes in.

Perhaps, however, I notice later that when Mr. Hartfeldt returns to the room he is clearly agitated, that he stutters, that he drops hints about something unpleasant.  At this point I form an opinion—something is not right with the man.  Rickaby thinks of opinion as a probability maintained only “under restriction.”⁵  The probability of the opinion may range from “slender” to “very substantial.”⁶ 

In my case, all the facts could be explained by other means—perhaps Mr. Hartfeldt has a stutter, perhaps his agitation is just a feature of his character, perhaps he suffers from glaucoma—but it is easier for me with my experience to suppose that he is just upset. 

It is only when Mr. Hartfeldt candidly admits that he has undergone some terrible tragedy that we can elevate an opinion to the rank of certitude.

It is worth noting that a great deal of the wisdom of governing one’s thoughts and managing one’s affairs lies in being able to distinguish the various grades from ignorance to certainty.  It is altogether too common for people to admit only of ignorance and certainty, speaking emphatically of mere suspicions and dogmatically of probable opinions. 

ENDNOTES

1.  John Rickaby, The First Principles of Knowledge, 4^th ed. (London:  Longmans, Green & Co., 1901), p. 44.

2.  Ibid.

3.  So far Rickaby refers to negative doubt, but he then follows with a short review of positive doubt, which is what happens when our reasons on either side are exactly equal (ibid.).  This distinction may be useful later.

4.  Ibid., p. 45.

5.  Ibid.

6.  Ibid., p. 46.

7. THE FATHERS ON SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE (2)

Now that we have got it straight—that spiritual knowledge is not what we know but what we do—we can define it more exactly.

St. Diadochus puts it in a nutshell when he says that spiritual knowledge consists “wholly of love.”¹  

If this is so, the advice of St. Thalassius the Libyan is logical enough: “love God, and you will attain spiritual knowledge.”²  But how do we love God?

In answer to this question St. Diodochus says that if someone has become angry with us for no reason, “then spiritual knowledge bids us to visualize this person with an overflowing of compassion in our soul and so fulfil the law of love in the depths of our heart.  For it is said that if we wish to have knowledge of God we must bring our mind to look without anger even on persons who are angry with us for no reason.”³  So the person who is angry at us is exactly the occasion for the knowledge of God.

St. Maximus advances in essence the same opinion as that of St. Thalassius at a more abstract level when he says that spiritual knowledge is hidden in our hearts and can only be revealed “by means of the commandments.”⁴ Why is this? 

St. Mark the Monk says that “the Lord is hidden in His own commandments, and He is to be found there in the measure that He is sought.”⁵

This view evidently has nothing in common with the common opinions that we are earning God’s favor by keeping the commandments, or that we buy our way into Heaven by keeping the commandments, or that we have a duty to keep the commandments.⁶  All such opinions divorce Christ from his own commandments, and we want nothing without Christ.  St. Ignatius offered the Ephesians the finest praise in the world when he said to them, “You do all things in Christ.”⁷

Let’s summarize all that we have learned about spiritual knowledge.  “The practice of virtues constitutes the truest form of spiritual knowledge.”⁸  This spiritual knowledge is itself love, which we already have in our hearts, waiting to be revealed by the commandments of Christ.

How do we connect the commandments of Christ with the virtues?  St. Theodore of Sanaxar says that “virtue is the fulfilling of the commandments.”⁹  St. Theodore also rebuts the legalistic view of the commandments when he says that as we fulfil them, “we should have constant remembrance of God and prayer so as to receive the Lord’s help.”¹⁰

St. Maximus also says something very practical and simple:  that the New Testament “endows the man practicing the virtues with the principles of true knowledge,” since it “fires the mind with love and unites it to God.”¹¹  Note the condition that we practice the virtues in order to benefit from reading the New Testament—head-knowledge just has no value among the Fathers.  And, until we find someone who will be angry at us and so allow us to attain to knowledge of God, we can read the New Testament to acquire love for God.

This completes our detour on the cure of spiritual ignorance.  We will next resume discussing those states of mind which fall short of certitude.

ENDNOTES

1.  The Philokalia, tr. G.E H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware, vols. 1-4 (London:  Faber & Faber, 1979-1995; reprint, New York:  Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983),

1:290.

2.  Palmer, 2:326; cf. 328.  

3.  Palmer, 1:290. 

4.  Palmer, 2:109.

5.  Palmer, 1:123. 

6.  Cf. St. Mark’s strictures on keeping the commandments (Palmer, 1:126).

7.  Eph. VIII.1.

8.  Palmer, 1:302.

9.  Little Russian Philokalia, (Platina, CA:  St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2000), vol. 5, Saint Theodore of Sanaxar, 79.

10.  Ibid., 80 f. 

11.  Ibid., 2:256.

6. THE FATHERS ON SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE

The cure for ignorance, say the Fathers, is spiritual knowledge.  What is spiritual knowledge and how do we get it?  Let’s start with defining knowledge first, since spiritual knowledge is evidently a kind of knowledge.

Knowledge is short for knowledge of truth.  We can also say truth instead.   When we say knowledge, we emphasize the fact that knowledge of truth is something we somehow have in us.  When we say truth, we emphasize that what we know is somehow verifiable outside of us.  Let’s take a few examples to make this clear.

If I say that a dog is a barking quadruped and someone asks me to verify that I know about dogs, I can take him to a dog and prove that my private conception of dogs corresponds to the reality of dogs in the world outside my mind. 

If, however, I say that a cat is a quadruped that barks, then I do not know about cats, since I cannot take a skeptic to a cat that will bark on demand.  My private conception of cats is not verified by any barking cats outside my mind.

It would seem to follow that spiritual knowledge is knowledge of spiritual things, but St. John begins by saying that spiritual knowledge is not “knowledge alone.”¹  He says that spiritual knowledge is “the practice of virtues.”²  This is why we had to discuss what virtue is first in our last post, so that “the practice of virtues” would refer to something specific, that is, the performance of the commandments.  St. John goes on to say, “We should make every effort to manifest our faith and knowledge through our actions.”³  He is implying of course that we should not make every effort to manifest our faith and knowledge through words.

St. Maximus identifies just what happens when we act and think as if spiritual knowledge is knowledge alone:  “spiritual knowledge that is not put into practice does not differ in any way from illusion.”⁴

In the same way, St. Mark the Monk tells us to “understand the words of Holy Scripture by putting them into practice” and not to “expatiate on theoretical ideas.”⁵  This is why we find that the saints and the elders often read the Bible and seek help from others in understanding the Bible but are not found conducting Bible studies as we in the West understand them. 

We may easily look elsewhere for additional corroboration of this practical view.  In David Mitchell James' A Psalter for Prayer, the prayer before reading the Psalms asks God to “direct my heart to begin with understanding and to end with good works this divinely inspired book.”⁷  The prayer further begs of God that the reader be “prepared for the doing of the good works which I learn.”⁸ 

In short, the Fathers insist that when it comes to spiritual knowledge, it is all about practice. 

We next define more positively what spiritual knowledge is. 

ENDNOTES

1.  The Philokalia, tr. G.E H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware, vols. 1-4 (London:  Faber & Faber, 1979-1995; reprint, New York:  Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983), 1:125.

2.  John Rickaby, The First Principles of Knowledge, 4^th ed. (London:  Longmans, Green & Co., 1901), p. 2.

3.  Palmer, 1:302.  

4.  Ibid. 

5.  Palmer, 2:257.
6.  Palmer, 1:116.

7.  David Mitchell James, A Psalter for Prayer, 2^nd ed. (Jordanville, New York:  Holy Trinity Publications, 2011), p. 53.
8.  Ibid.

5. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE (2)?

The Fathers tell us that the cure for ignorance is spiritual knowledge.  However, we must first clear up the Patristic concept of virtue before we can even approach spiritual knowledge. 

St. Maximus says that “virtue may be defined as the conscious union of human weakness with divine strength.”¹  This union requires us to make an “effort to transcend the weakness of human nature.”²  These rather vague remarks are brought into sharp focus by his comment that “the soul . . . acquires the virtues by keeping the commandments.”³  If this is so, then the commandments are not legalistic requirements.  Neither are they a list of duties we must keep only because God told us to.  Instead, they have a substantial and practical value to us.  As St. Paisios the Athonite says, “by observing the commandments of God we cultivate virtue and acquire health of soul.”⁴ 

Which commandments?

One of the interesting differences between Orthodoxy and the Western churches is their understanding of the commandments.  At least in the English-speaking West, most people think the commandments are the Ten Commandments.  However, when the Fathers talk about the commandments, they mean the commandments of Christ.  For example, when St. Peter of Damascus writes about the commandments, he does not write about the Ten Commandments but the Seven Commandments—i.e., the Beatitudes.⁵  St. Macarius of Egypt takes a broader view:  “the abode and resting-place of the Holy Spirit is humility, love, gentleness and the other holy commandments of Christ.”⁶  

So how do we know which of these commandments to keep in the course of our daily lives?  How do we know what God wants of us? 

St. Theophan the Recluse replies that “we certainly know this from the commandments he has given us.  Is someone seeking help?  Help him.  Has someone offended you?  Forgive him.  Have you offended somebody?  Rush to ask forgiveness and make peace.  Did somebody praise you?  Don’t be proud.  Did somebody scold you?  Do not be angry.  Is it time to pray?  Pray.  Is it time to work?  Work.  Etc. etc. etc.”⁷  It is clear from St. Theophan’s words that it is “the individual events with which each of us meets” which inform us of which commandments to keep.⁸ 

Another way of looking at the commandments is provided by St. Paisios.  When a nun asked him how she could be saved, he replied decisively, “with love and humility.”⁹  They are, he adds, “the easiest means to salvation; they are what we will be judged for.”¹⁰  So not only are love and humility the only questions on the final exam, so to speak, but they are the easiest ones we could ask for.  Every final should be so easy.

To sum up, any virtue is the union of divine strength with human weakness.  If we read the New Testament closely and live our lives attentively, we will know which commandments to keep and thereby acquire the virtues proper for us.  St. Paisius emphasizes love and humility; if we humbly keep the two great commandments, we will naturally want to glorify God and intercede for our fellow men. 

Now we may answer the question of how spiritual knowledge is the cure for ignorance.

ENDNOTES

1.  The Philokalia, tr. G.E H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware, vols. 1-4 (London:  Faber & Faber, 1979-1995; reprint, New York:  Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983), 3: 230. 

2.  Ibid.

3.  Ibid., p. 129. 

4.  The Rev. Fr. Peter Chamberas, trans., Saint Paisios of Mount Athos:  Spiritual Counsels (Souroti, Thessaloniki, Greece:  Holy Hesychasterion, 2006), vol. 5, Passions and Virtues, p. 157. 

5.  Philokalia, 3: 93-100. 

6.  Ibid., 346. 

7.  St. Theophan the Recluse, The Spiritual Life and How to be Attuned to It, tran. Alexandra Dockham, 3^rd ed. (Safford, Arizona:  St. Paisios Serbian Orthodox Monastery, 2003), p. 74.

8.  Ibid., p. 75.

9.  Passions, p. 212.

10.  Ibid., p. 213. 

4. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE?

The general purpose of this blog is to explore religious doubts.  In order to do this, we have explore those states of mind which fall short of certitude.  So what are they?

According to Rickaby, the first is sheer ignorance.¹  The only question about ignorance is, as Rickaby observes, culpability:  “A surgeon need not know what the eccentric of a steam engine is, but he ought to know what a tourniquet is.”²  Rickaby’s example implies that blameworthy ignorance depends on whether something is relevant to us.  Therefore, if our doubts about the faith are due to ignorance, we must learn things that are relevant to our faith.  But relevance depends on purpose, so we must first ask what is the purpose of the Christian life. 

There are many Fathers to whom we could turn for this purpose.  I happen to like St. Theophan the Recluse, who says that our purpose in life is to attain to the “blessed life beyond the grave.”³  It follows that we must use every means necessary to secure it.  “The means are the works [done] according to the commandments.”⁴  How do we select these works?  They are presented to us “by each instance of life.”⁵  St. Theophan sternly admonishes us that “it is a great error to think that you must undertake important and great labors.”⁶  He goes on to say that “everything that you do here, no matter what it is, will be a work; and if you do it with the consciousness that such a work is according to the commandments and that God wants such a thing, then the work will be pleasing to God.  So it is with every small thing.”⁷  How small?  “Each step, each word, even each movement and glance—everything may direct one to walk in God’s will and consequently to move each moment toward the ultimate goal.”⁸    

If the purpose of the Christian life is to attain to Heaven, then what we must know at all costs is the means which will serve our purpose.  There is no shortage of opportunities, as St. Theophan says, so why do more people not go to Heaven?  The answer is ignorance of the commandments that turn our daily chores and random circumstances into God-pleasing labors.  Because we do not understand how to look at our daily routine, not realizing that (in the words of Archimandrite Vasileios of Iveron Monastery) we can “in a single moment . . . find eternity.”⁹

Therefore, we can well believe St. Mark the Monk when he ranks ignorance as “the first among all evils”¹⁰ and “the mother and nurse of every vice.”¹¹  In his most vivid language, he says that “Hell is ignorance, for both are dark.”¹²  For if we do not know that it is life beyond the grave that matters, how will we avoid wasting all the time of this life?  If we do not know that “every small thing” is important to God and to our salvation, how will we avoid squandering innumerable opportunities for our salvation and for the salvation of those around us?  How many people hate their jobs because they would rather be at church, not knowing that, as Fr. Vasileios says, “the effort that [they] put into making a living . . . is in itself a prayer”?¹³  

In short, we want to cure the ignorance which makes Christians indistinguishable from nihilists and atheists.  What is its cure? 

ENDNOTES

1.  John Rickaby, The First Principles of Knowledge, 4^th ed. (London:  Longmans, Green & Co., 1901), p. 43 f.

2.  Ibid.

3.  St. Theophan the Recluse, The Spiritual Life and How To Be Attuned To It, 3^rd ed., tr. Alexandra Dockham (Safford, Arizona:  St. Paisius Serbian Orthodox Monastery, 2003), p. 74.  Three caveats follow.  First, St. Theophan is not the only Father whom I could have cited; my choice is to some degree arbitrary.  Second, the letters which I have quoted contain a good deal of information not here noted but which I urge the reader to read carefully to get a fuller picture.  Finally, St. Theophan is not a pietist; he tacitly assumes on the part of his correspondent dogmatic agreement.  Later on, he reminds his correspondent that “the entire order of Christian life is thus:  believe in God, in the worshipful Trinity that saves us in the Lord Jesus Christ through the benevolence of the Holy Spirit; receive beneficial powers through the Divine Mysteries of the Holy Church; live according to the commandments of the Gospel, being inspired with the hope that God, for the smallest, feasible labor of ours, for the sake of faith in the Lord Savior and obedience to him, will not deprive us of heavenly blessings.”

4.  Ibid., p. 75.

5.  Ibid.

6.  Ibid., p. 74.

7.  Ibid., p. 77.  Here as everywhere else in the Fathers, the commandments are short for the commandments of Christ.  The prominence of the Ten Commandments in Orthodox confession manuals seems to be due to modern reliance on Catholic sources. 

8.  Ibid., p. 79.  Cf. Archimandrite Vasileios, who described an old monk at work in his garden thus:  “His digging was a prayer.  Each step, everything he was doing was a prayer.  The dirt—everything—was a prayer” (Archimandrite Vasileios, p. 167).

9.  Archimandrite Vasileios, “Everything Is Prayer,” The Orthodox Word 279 (July-August 2011), p. 164.

10.  The Philokalia, tr. G.E H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware, vols. 1-4 (London:  Faber & Faber, 1979-1995; reprint, New York:  Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983), 1:133.  But ignorance does not act alone.  In St. Mark’s view, ignorance, forgetfulness and laziness are the “three powerful and mighty giants of the Philistines, upon whom depends the whole hostile army of the demonic Holofernes” (1:158 f.)  The three giants are mutually reinforcing, but laziness “supports and strengthens the other two” (1:159). 

11.  Ibid., p. 157.

12.  Ibid., p. 114.

13.  Archimandrite Vasileios, p. 171.