What a fantastic image flooded into my mind at the end! You've prompted something terrifying in my mind.
I imagine in the new heaven and earth after that bodily resurrection where the world remains divided between those whose carnal desires have tethered them to a misaligned relation of "breath to dust" and those whose new, recast unities delight in the revelation of God's life in the new earth.
Do the blessed remember the cursed? Do they see them roaming about in the deep carverns and tempestuous waters moaning, and gnashing teeth while the blessed do the work once meant for Adam to start of divinizing creation? Do their high terraces have the view of the rotting fleshing and darkened brows of the cursed ones? Do the blessed weep for them with mercy and love but praise God for his justice and love?
You are asking profound questions, for which I have seen conflicting and contrary answers in the Fathers. This is a great mystery, maybe something to write about at a later date.
What if I am both a pleasure-seeker and a pain-avoider, while also both too proud and too unfaithful to God, unable and unwilling to ask truthfully for mercy? What hope is there for sinners so depraved?
This is timely, thank you. In thinking about this, I struggle to understand how such a paradigm does not lead one to, even if in anticipation of the bodily resurrection, attempt a gnostical ecstasis from the flesh in its present state, so as not to be tormented later. So far as I understand it, our embodiment would necessarily become a constant threat. As you say, there is deep consolation even in the feeling of the intake of breath or the weight of one’s steps or in the feeling of fair weather. Do these need to be escaped in order for us to prevent ‘phantom-pains’? The soul is created as well, and not by nature immortal, so what makes it inherently spiritual as opposed to the body? I think you answered some of this already, but I’d appreciate it if you had more thoughts.
Thanks once again, Cormac, your articles are always very helpful! God bless and forgive my longwindedness.
“I struggle to understand how such a paradigm does not lead one to, even if in anticipation of the bodily resurrection, attempt a gnostical ecstasis from the flesh in its present state, so as not to be tormented later.”
The premises of this provocation seem so out of whack to me. You seem to be saying that the objective of life is to avoid torment. And that any sense activity discerning between pleasure and pain already sullies the soul, as if in despair of the soul relating to the body in any proper fashion. That second one is already quite gnostic and thus is begging the question. The first one is worth addressing.
That posture is indicative of a slave mentality. It has its place but is of relative value. There are those who serve God out of fear of punishment. They are not to be despised, as it is better to be an outcast in the house of God than to dwell in the tents of sinners. But they are like slaves, just as those who serve God out of hope for reward are like hired servants. Only those who serve God out of love alone are like sons and heirs and do not need to worry about the relative dangers of mere fear of punishment or hope of reward, the excess of either of which could lead one into the perils of self-interest, one’s fear or hope becoming mere reflections of one’s aversion to pain or attraction to pleasure. The practical gnosticism of which you speak would be such a peril, though it should probably be said that monastic saints are often referred to as living like angels, and this should not in any way be confused as gnosticism. If the Church were to define its way of life in dialectic opposition to gnosticism, it would lose its identity.
Anyways, the antidote to the peril is in the middle of the essay — humility. Those who are humble are willing to endure the torment consequent to the pleasure to which they have aforetimes attached themselves, and starting now. This repentance is indicative of someone who loves God more than themselves and is the path shown to us by Christ, who endured torment not even for His own sins but for those of others.
“So far as I understand it, our embodiment would necessarily become a constant threat.”
What? Embodiment a threat? There’s a gnostic idea. I hope I didn’t give it to you! Embodiment is the point of our existence. We are to mediate all material creation and make it spiritual by being material and yet living spiritually.
“As you say, there is deep consolation even in the feeling of the intake of breath or the weight of one’s steps or in the feeling of fair weather. Do these need to be escaped in order for us to prevent ‘phantom-pains’?”
What? No! To experience pleasure is not necessarily to be attached to it. Gratitude transforms all sense experience into spiritual activity. That’s precisely the mediation we’re aiming for.
“The soul is created as well, and not by nature immortal, so what makes it inherently spiritual as opposed to the body?”
I can’t imagine what you mean by immortal here. The word has such various uses. The all-purpose Patristic saying on this topic that I like is that man is created neither mortal nor immortal but capable of either. But in general it sounds like you need a more expansive exposition on the ontology of soul and body. I’ve written on the topic in various places, like in my St. Maximus articles. If you’ve read those and are still asking this question, maybe you need a better source than me (St. John Damascene is a good primer). But consider your question etymologically: what makes the psyche inherently pneumatic as opposed to the soma? Both the words psyche and pneuma already refer to breath/wind. Meanwhile, the use of the word dust struck me while writing this essay. Dust refers not just to earth but to particles of earth that are not held together. It’s the inbreathing of soul that holds the body together. When the soul departs, it’s back to dust for the body. The soul’s superiority is ontological.
Sorry to interject. When you write: "To experience pleasure is not necessarily to be attached to it. Gratitude transforms all sense experience into spiritual activity. That’s precisely the mediation we’re aiming for.", do I have to understand we are trying to achieve a form of 'equanimity' (I think the English word means the same thing as in French) that will permits us to perform thanksgiving to God (aka, the proper attitude)?
Equanimité? Peut-être. When some comfort comes to you, like fair weather or good hospitality, you take it as a symbol of God’s goodness and you offer gratitude in return, like a priest proclaiming, “Thine own of thine own we offer to Thee.” Alternately when we receive pain instead of pleasure, we accept it as correction for our sins, and we give thanks to God for that, too. Glory be to God for all things.
Or think of this: When I listen to a beautiful love song, I understand it anagogically as a story about God’s love for me or about my soul’s yearning for Him, and this way the pleasure becomes spiritual and not concupiscent. When we consume culture this way, we baptize the goodness of material creation in higher spiritual principles. Then the artists making the music are like Abraham and Sarah serving food to the angels, and we need to be like the angels mediating that which is lower with that which is higher.
I did not mean it to be a provocation, and I am sure that my premises are out of whack. I most definitely have been dialectically opposing myself to gnosticism, which you have helped me realize. For context, before I became Orthodox, I was an espoused Jungian gnostic, and when I did enter the Church, I read hesychasm very much through this lens, which led me to a suspicion of the body and sense experience, exercise, nature, etc. Of late it has become clearer to me that I have a lot more of these gnostical tendencies (including the avoidance of pain) than I realized, which has impacted how I related to others, how I write, how I pray, etc.
You are probably right that I have slave mentality, and, to clarify once more, I believe you to be correct in the rest of what you say. I am trying to find a way to articulate this for myself so that I can approach the tradition with more courage and humility. Basically what I was trying to get at is this: it seems to me still that even if one is humble and grateful, to a certain extent the feeling of the relaxation of one's neurons or the joy of having hands would still need to be expiated, somehow, in order for the soul to enjoy blessedness after death (which, you correctly make the point, is not necessarily the goal, but rather the love of Christ), which does not rely so much upon the avoidance of sin as avoidance of the body as such. If the claim is that the soul necessarily undergoes torment, whether it experiences blessedness or darkness, because of its separation from the body, that would make sense to me.
I think about St. Dismas, who at the last moment of his life repents. Is he then by necessity going to have to endure the torments consequent to a life full of passionate attachments even though Christ says to him that he will be that day in paradise?
You did not by any means give me that idea! And gratitude does seem to be the key, here. Mother Silouana Vlad talks about deepening our embodiment through attentive gratitude to our senses, the scent of flowers, etc. Is this a kind of spiritual mediation that is appropriate to this frame? By now you will have noticed, I am not so exact a framer of questions as you are a concise answerer of them.
Your last explanation on the soul makes perfect sense to me. I have St. John's Treatise on the Holy Icons: what further reading do you recommend? Forgive me the sinner, as always, and thank you for the alms of your replies.
Once again: Pleasure is not good or bad of itself. Attachment to pleasure is where the problems lie. (In writing the essay, I tried to be careful to discern the difference.) It is possible to endure pleasure without attachment such that no debt is accrued. Like St. Paul: He knows how to be abased (endure adversity) and how to abound (endure prosperity). Or like Christ: He ate food, enjoyed good weather; He knew rest. Do you think He needed to pay for these crimes? Ridiculous. You seem to keep asking questions that vilify pleasure of itself. The senses are natural, and their natural operation is to discern between pleasure and pain. They are all designed as teachers for us. When the Psalms say the Law of God is sweeter than honey, they are not chastising us for knowing what honey tastes like. They are merely drawing from the lessons we ought to be learning from the world of the senses.
About St. Dismas, the forgiveness of God is not subject to necessity. And anyways, it does appear as if the thief were already enduring the greatest purification while still on the cross, does it not?
I did not think you were provoking me; I thought, rather, that your thoughts were provoking you. It is good to ask others about them, and I’m glad you did.
I’ve been thinking about it too, and it occurs to me maybe my analogy of phantom limb pain has struck you in a way I didn’t intend. In the intermediate state of the soul after death, there is a sense, I believe, that separation from the body is in itself a source of pain and longing for the soul, regardless of personal accountability for carnal attachments. We have the image of the souls of the saints beneath the altar in the Book of Revelation, asking the Lord, How long?, yearning for the resurrection of the flesh, when all will be accomplished and they will worship God in the recomposed integrity of all their being. This pain is of an entirely different order from the torment of sinners who habituated themselves to love of created things rather than the Creator. My purpose for writing the article pertains to the latter, but I suppose phantom limb pain could work as an analogy of the former as well. Yet the two should not be confused.
What a fantastic image flooded into my mind at the end! You've prompted something terrifying in my mind.
I imagine in the new heaven and earth after that bodily resurrection where the world remains divided between those whose carnal desires have tethered them to a misaligned relation of "breath to dust" and those whose new, recast unities delight in the revelation of God's life in the new earth.
Do the blessed remember the cursed? Do they see them roaming about in the deep carverns and tempestuous waters moaning, and gnashing teeth while the blessed do the work once meant for Adam to start of divinizing creation? Do their high terraces have the view of the rotting fleshing and darkened brows of the cursed ones? Do the blessed weep for them with mercy and love but praise God for his justice and love?
You are asking profound questions, for which I have seen conflicting and contrary answers in the Fathers. This is a great mystery, maybe something to write about at a later date.
What if I am both a pleasure-seeker and a pain-avoider, while also both too proud and too unfaithful to God, unable and unwilling to ask truthfully for mercy? What hope is there for sinners so depraved?
It sounds like you’ve been talking to a certain Alexandrian shoemaker.
I'm sorry, I don't get the reference.
Search "st anthony the great shoemaker"
This is timely, thank you. In thinking about this, I struggle to understand how such a paradigm does not lead one to, even if in anticipation of the bodily resurrection, attempt a gnostical ecstasis from the flesh in its present state, so as not to be tormented later. So far as I understand it, our embodiment would necessarily become a constant threat. As you say, there is deep consolation even in the feeling of the intake of breath or the weight of one’s steps or in the feeling of fair weather. Do these need to be escaped in order for us to prevent ‘phantom-pains’? The soul is created as well, and not by nature immortal, so what makes it inherently spiritual as opposed to the body? I think you answered some of this already, but I’d appreciate it if you had more thoughts.
Thanks once again, Cormac, your articles are always very helpful! God bless and forgive my longwindedness.
“I struggle to understand how such a paradigm does not lead one to, even if in anticipation of the bodily resurrection, attempt a gnostical ecstasis from the flesh in its present state, so as not to be tormented later.”
The premises of this provocation seem so out of whack to me. You seem to be saying that the objective of life is to avoid torment. And that any sense activity discerning between pleasure and pain already sullies the soul, as if in despair of the soul relating to the body in any proper fashion. That second one is already quite gnostic and thus is begging the question. The first one is worth addressing.
That posture is indicative of a slave mentality. It has its place but is of relative value. There are those who serve God out of fear of punishment. They are not to be despised, as it is better to be an outcast in the house of God than to dwell in the tents of sinners. But they are like slaves, just as those who serve God out of hope for reward are like hired servants. Only those who serve God out of love alone are like sons and heirs and do not need to worry about the relative dangers of mere fear of punishment or hope of reward, the excess of either of which could lead one into the perils of self-interest, one’s fear or hope becoming mere reflections of one’s aversion to pain or attraction to pleasure. The practical gnosticism of which you speak would be such a peril, though it should probably be said that monastic saints are often referred to as living like angels, and this should not in any way be confused as gnosticism. If the Church were to define its way of life in dialectic opposition to gnosticism, it would lose its identity.
Anyways, the antidote to the peril is in the middle of the essay — humility. Those who are humble are willing to endure the torment consequent to the pleasure to which they have aforetimes attached themselves, and starting now. This repentance is indicative of someone who loves God more than themselves and is the path shown to us by Christ, who endured torment not even for His own sins but for those of others.
“So far as I understand it, our embodiment would necessarily become a constant threat.”
What? Embodiment a threat? There’s a gnostic idea. I hope I didn’t give it to you! Embodiment is the point of our existence. We are to mediate all material creation and make it spiritual by being material and yet living spiritually.
“As you say, there is deep consolation even in the feeling of the intake of breath or the weight of one’s steps or in the feeling of fair weather. Do these need to be escaped in order for us to prevent ‘phantom-pains’?”
What? No! To experience pleasure is not necessarily to be attached to it. Gratitude transforms all sense experience into spiritual activity. That’s precisely the mediation we’re aiming for.
“The soul is created as well, and not by nature immortal, so what makes it inherently spiritual as opposed to the body?”
I can’t imagine what you mean by immortal here. The word has such various uses. The all-purpose Patristic saying on this topic that I like is that man is created neither mortal nor immortal but capable of either. But in general it sounds like you need a more expansive exposition on the ontology of soul and body. I’ve written on the topic in various places, like in my St. Maximus articles. If you’ve read those and are still asking this question, maybe you need a better source than me (St. John Damascene is a good primer). But consider your question etymologically: what makes the psyche inherently pneumatic as opposed to the soma? Both the words psyche and pneuma already refer to breath/wind. Meanwhile, the use of the word dust struck me while writing this essay. Dust refers not just to earth but to particles of earth that are not held together. It’s the inbreathing of soul that holds the body together. When the soul departs, it’s back to dust for the body. The soul’s superiority is ontological.
Sorry to interject. When you write: "To experience pleasure is not necessarily to be attached to it. Gratitude transforms all sense experience into spiritual activity. That’s precisely the mediation we’re aiming for.", do I have to understand we are trying to achieve a form of 'equanimity' (I think the English word means the same thing as in French) that will permits us to perform thanksgiving to God (aka, the proper attitude)?
Equanimité? Peut-être. When some comfort comes to you, like fair weather or good hospitality, you take it as a symbol of God’s goodness and you offer gratitude in return, like a priest proclaiming, “Thine own of thine own we offer to Thee.” Alternately when we receive pain instead of pleasure, we accept it as correction for our sins, and we give thanks to God for that, too. Glory be to God for all things.
Or think of this: When I listen to a beautiful love song, I understand it anagogically as a story about God’s love for me or about my soul’s yearning for Him, and this way the pleasure becomes spiritual and not concupiscent. When we consume culture this way, we baptize the goodness of material creation in higher spiritual principles. Then the artists making the music are like Abraham and Sarah serving food to the angels, and we need to be like the angels mediating that which is lower with that which is higher.
This is quite the proclamation! I'll have to ponder on this. It sounds true, but integrating it will be more difficult.
I did not mean it to be a provocation, and I am sure that my premises are out of whack. I most definitely have been dialectically opposing myself to gnosticism, which you have helped me realize. For context, before I became Orthodox, I was an espoused Jungian gnostic, and when I did enter the Church, I read hesychasm very much through this lens, which led me to a suspicion of the body and sense experience, exercise, nature, etc. Of late it has become clearer to me that I have a lot more of these gnostical tendencies (including the avoidance of pain) than I realized, which has impacted how I related to others, how I write, how I pray, etc.
You are probably right that I have slave mentality, and, to clarify once more, I believe you to be correct in the rest of what you say. I am trying to find a way to articulate this for myself so that I can approach the tradition with more courage and humility. Basically what I was trying to get at is this: it seems to me still that even if one is humble and grateful, to a certain extent the feeling of the relaxation of one's neurons or the joy of having hands would still need to be expiated, somehow, in order for the soul to enjoy blessedness after death (which, you correctly make the point, is not necessarily the goal, but rather the love of Christ), which does not rely so much upon the avoidance of sin as avoidance of the body as such. If the claim is that the soul necessarily undergoes torment, whether it experiences blessedness or darkness, because of its separation from the body, that would make sense to me.
I think about St. Dismas, who at the last moment of his life repents. Is he then by necessity going to have to endure the torments consequent to a life full of passionate attachments even though Christ says to him that he will be that day in paradise?
You did not by any means give me that idea! And gratitude does seem to be the key, here. Mother Silouana Vlad talks about deepening our embodiment through attentive gratitude to our senses, the scent of flowers, etc. Is this a kind of spiritual mediation that is appropriate to this frame? By now you will have noticed, I am not so exact a framer of questions as you are a concise answerer of them.
Your last explanation on the soul makes perfect sense to me. I have St. John's Treatise on the Holy Icons: what further reading do you recommend? Forgive me the sinner, as always, and thank you for the alms of your replies.
Once again: Pleasure is not good or bad of itself. Attachment to pleasure is where the problems lie. (In writing the essay, I tried to be careful to discern the difference.) It is possible to endure pleasure without attachment such that no debt is accrued. Like St. Paul: He knows how to be abased (endure adversity) and how to abound (endure prosperity). Or like Christ: He ate food, enjoyed good weather; He knew rest. Do you think He needed to pay for these crimes? Ridiculous. You seem to keep asking questions that vilify pleasure of itself. The senses are natural, and their natural operation is to discern between pleasure and pain. They are all designed as teachers for us. When the Psalms say the Law of God is sweeter than honey, they are not chastising us for knowing what honey tastes like. They are merely drawing from the lessons we ought to be learning from the world of the senses.
About St. Dismas, the forgiveness of God is not subject to necessity. And anyways, it does appear as if the thief were already enduring the greatest purification while still on the cross, does it not?
I did not think you were provoking me; I thought, rather, that your thoughts were provoking you. It is good to ask others about them, and I’m glad you did.
I shall ruminate. Thank you again for taking the time!
I’ve been thinking about it too, and it occurs to me maybe my analogy of phantom limb pain has struck you in a way I didn’t intend. In the intermediate state of the soul after death, there is a sense, I believe, that separation from the body is in itself a source of pain and longing for the soul, regardless of personal accountability for carnal attachments. We have the image of the souls of the saints beneath the altar in the Book of Revelation, asking the Lord, How long?, yearning for the resurrection of the flesh, when all will be accomplished and they will worship God in the recomposed integrity of all their being. This pain is of an entirely different order from the torment of sinners who habituated themselves to love of created things rather than the Creator. My purpose for writing the article pertains to the latter, but I suppose phantom limb pain could work as an analogy of the former as well. Yet the two should not be confused.
That clarification helps a lot. Thank you for continuing to think about it.