Dylan Pahman

Dylan Pahman: Climate Change, the Green Patriarch, and the Disposition of Fear

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Source: Acton Powerblog | Dylan Pahman

Patriarch Bartholomew

Today at First Things’ On the Square feature, I question the tone and timing of Patriarch Batholomew’s recent message on climate change. While I do not object to him making a statement about the subject in conjunction with the opening of the Warsaw Climate Change Conference, his initial reference, then silence, with regards to Typhoon Haiyan while other religious leaders offered their prayer, sympathy, and support to those affected, is disappointing. I write,

While other religious leaders offered prayer and tangible support, all that has come from the Phanar is an environmental statement. Hurting people need practical and pastoral help, not politics.

An additionally troubling aspect of the problem comes from his clear implication that the typhoon was caused, or at least intensified, by anthropogenic climate change, using this tragedy to advocate for a political cause through a disposition of fear:

This week — even as the world mourns the tragic loss of life in the unprecedented Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippine Islands — political leaders have converged on Warsaw, Poland, in yet another anticipated meeting on climate change. Concerned citizens throughout the world are hoping and praying for prompt and practical results.

I wonder sometimes about the disposition behind connecting a natural disaster that has resulted in the loss of over 10,000 lives with a call for political activism.

That is, care for and cultivation of the creation are divine mandates. In this sense all Christians ought to be environmentalists, as his All-Holiness has pointed out in his extensive work on the subject.

On the other hand, as commands from God, we must not only look to the form but the motivation of our actions, “for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

In their recent monograph Creation and the Heart of Man, Fr. Michael Butler and Andrew Morriss outline three biblical and patristic dispositions of those who serve God: “those of a slave, a servant, and a son.”

Abba Chaeremon offers an excellent summary in the Conferences of St. John Cassian:

If then any one is aiming at perfection, from that first stage of fear which we rightly termed servile (of which it is said: “When ye have done all things say: we are unprofitable servants,”) he should by advancing a step mount to the higher path of hope — which is compared not to a slave but to a hireling, because it looks for the payment of its recompense, and as if it were free from care concerning absolution of its sins and fear of punishment, and conscious of its own good works, though it seems to look for the promised reward, yet it cannot attain to that love of a son who, trusting in his father’s kindness and liberality, has no doubt that all that the father has is his…. (emphasis added)

Notice that Abba Chaeremon outlines a progression of motivation, from fear of punishment for wrong (a slave), to hope for reward for doing good (a paid servant), to love alone (a son).

Regarding the first disposition, Butler and Morriss write, “The analog among environmentalists is the fearmongering language of crisis, catastrophe, apocalypse, global disaster, total destruction, cataclysm, and so forth, of which we often read.” The problem with this: “We acknowledge that fear can be a powerful incentive for action, but actions based on fear, because they are founded on emotion and not on clear reasoning, tend toward the irrational and are therefore untrustworthy.”

Thus, messages that focus almost entirely on the negative affects of poor environmental stewardship, such as the Patriarch’s recent message, run the risk of over-focusing on fear, endangering “clear reasoning,” as evidenced perhaps by his neglect of sympathy for those who suffer from this great devastation.

“We prefer that our witness not be a slavish one, borne out of fear,” Butler and Morriss write, “but a hopeful one grounded in a better rationale. The Orthodox should therefore reject the tendency toward apocalyptic rhetoric among many environmentalists.”

In His All-Holiness’s defense, not every message of his takes such a fearful posturing, but this is a worrying trend. Far better than acting out of fear of disaster — or even hope for the fruits of a cleaner, healthier earth, (which is not entirely absent from his message) — would be a return to advocating for love for God and for God’s creation.

As St. Isaac the Syrian wrote,

What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons, and for all that exists. By the recollection of them the eyes of a merciful person pour forth tears in abundance. By the strong and vehement mercy that grips such a person’s heart, and by such great compassion, the heart is humbled and one cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in any in creation. For this reason, such a person offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm her or him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner such a person prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns without measure in a heart that is in the likeness of God.

At best, I think the Green Patriarch’s environmental activism comes from “one [who] cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in any in creation.” I only wish that the injury and sorrow of those created in God’s image would take priority for him and that such all-embracing love would be the Patriarch’s focus rather than a disposition of fear.

Read my full essay at First Things here.

William J. Abraham: The Treasures and Trials of Eastern Orthodoxy

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Source: Acton Institute | Dylan Pahman

Last night I attended an engaging lecture at Calvin College by Dr. William Abraham of the Southern Methodist University Perkins School of Theology. Abraham, whose religious background is Irish Methodist and who is now a minister in the United Methodist Church and the Albert Cook Outler Professor of Wesley Studies at Perkins, gave a presentation titled, “The Treasures and Trials of Eastern Orthodoxy.” As someone who was once an outsider to the Orthodox Church and is now an insider (as much as a former outsider can be, I suppose), I can say that Dr. Abraham’s lecture highlighted many things that I see in the Orthodox Church myself as well as bringing others into focus, in particular five treasures the Orthodox bring and four trials that they face in our current, global context.

Dr. Abraham began with his own background: how had he come to discover Eastern Orthodoxy? Years ago, when he first came to the United States, he experienced something of a scandal: his impression of the Methodism of America was that it significantly differed from that which he had grown accustomed to in Ireland. It was as if they had forgotten Charles Wesley’s rich, doctrine-laden hymns. He met people who did not believe in (or at least did not care about) the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation. The scholarly focus was entirely on discussions of method: epistemology and metaphysical questions, which though important failed to say anything positive about the God we worship, the Savior who gave himself for us, and the faith that we have inherited. In his assessment, the liberal Methodism he encountered, however, did not really lack piety — the people he met were quite sincerely religious — but rather they had burdened themselves with an impossible commitment to revisionism. As a result, they were “not only intellectually thin but spiritually hopeless,” said Abaraham.

It was in the midst of a personal, spiritual crisis at this time that he first encountered the Russian Orthodox Slavophile Alexei Khomiakov, in particular his work “On the Western Confessions of Faith.” Reading this had a profound effect on him. At this point his experience of Orthodoxy was that it was “a spiritual treasure trove.” He attended Vespers, and the services of Great Lent and Holy Week and was especially moved by the Lamentations service of Great and Holy Saturday (observed the previous night on Good Friday), which he described as like an Irish funeral for Jesus. Furthermore, he found that the iconographic tradition of the Orthodox helped him pull away from a purely intellectualized conception of his faith. In particular he mentioned his fondness for an icon of St. Seraphim of Sarov, who is known to have said, “Acquire the Spirit of Peace, and thousands around you shall be saved.”

Sometime after this he visited Russia and Romania and discovered — as many do — that there are differences between the Orthodox Church on paper and in actual fact. He saw a Church that was (and is still) struggling to rebuild after the devastation of communism, in which many were martyred and many clergy who remained in some cases unfortunately compromised their integrity with the regimes of the day. (Notably, Patriarch Alexei II of Moscow later publicly repented for the sins of the Russian Patriarchate during the Soviet era. Earning the trust of the Russian people once again has certainly been a struggle, however.) Nevertheless, Abraham also recounted his relationship with Archbishop Dmitri of Dallas of the Orthodox Church in America, saying that he was a true pastor and “a saint.” Thus, while he does not have any idealism about the Orthodox, he nevertheless has seen the tradition in its best light, not only on paper but in reality.

After this introduction he went on to isolate what he sees as five treasures and four trials or challenges of the Orthodox today:

Treasures:

The Orthodox enjoy a close proximity to the Church fathers. They are not merely subjects of study but friends. The Orthodox read their works not idealistically but with a hermeneutic of gratitude and love. As Abraham put it, they “bind up the wounds of the fathers.”
The core of the Orthodox faith is the Holy Trinity. Questions of methodology and metaphysics are not elevated above their place (though perhaps they are valued too low [see Trial #4 below]). Instead, the Orthodox faith has preserved the importance and centrality of the question: who do we worship? And the answer is clear and uncontested: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Orthodox piety fosters a natural connection between knowledge of God and knowledge about God. That is, through the Orthodox spiritual tradition one’s relationship and communion with God is not disconnected from doctrinal teaching about God. Abraham especially noted the simple, meditative prayers “Lord, have mercy” and the Jesus Prayer. I would add that many of our prayers and hymns contain vitally important theological concepts (some of which were matters of piety before doctrine), such as homoousios, Theotokos, and Chalcedonian Christology, among others. These teachings are taught organically through the prayers of the Church just as much as through catechesis.
In theology, the Orthodox hold together a twofold emphasis on the kataphatic and apophatic methods (known as the via positiva and via negativa in the West). That is, after one has said all that can be said about God, the proper response is a silence in which “language will not work” anymore to describe the indescribable being of God. In Abraham’s experience, the liberal American Methodists he had encountered when he first came to the United States were too quickly kataphatic: they simply had nothing to say about God at all, yet the silence was not so much inspired by awe as methodological distress.
The Orthodox have a much broader understanding of the term “canon.” While the Greek word kanon can mean “list,” such as a list of the canonical books of the Bible, it also can mean a criterion or measurement. Thus, the Orthodox have not only a canon of Scripture but of doctrine, saints, icons, fathers, theologians, and so on. Abraham related this to his studies of the early Church in which there was no official canon of Scripture or revelation (or even of the Atonement or the relationship between faith and reason), but they did canonize an ontology: they cared above all about having the correct answer to the question, “Who is God?” They began with the Holy Trinity and other canonical areas unfolded from there.

From these five treasures of the Orthodox Tradition, he moved to four trials that he believes the Orthodox need to face, not only in the West but simply in our more globalized context in which all of us must interact with one another.

Trials:

In Abraham’s view, the Orthodox are underdeveloped in ethics and moral philosophy. While noting some positives, especially the Orthodox pastoral approach to divorce and marriage, he believes there is much work to be done here by modern Orthodox writers.
The relationship between Church and State needs a lot more attention. I have already noted the struggles of the Orthodox to rebuild after Communism, during which times there were many compromises made with the atheist, Soviet governments. Certainly articulating a healthy yet traditional and Orthodox understanding of the relationship between Church and State is something that deserves more thoughtful reflection and practice.
Abraham, who himself is an expert in the field, isolated evangelism as an area that the Orthodox need to focus more on today. In particular, he mentioned the post-Christian trends of Europe. “Europe needs to be re-evangelized,” Abraham said, and “we need all hands on deck.”
Lastly, in his assessment the Orthodox are “hopelessly behind the times” in the area of epistemology, another topic of his own research. In particular, he highlighted apologetic concerns: the challenge of an aggressive atheism and a new encounter with Islam in the West. The Orthodox have the resources to address these challenges, but “they need to get to work” according to Abraham. “I wish they’d help us,” he said. Too often, however, in his experience contemporary Orthodox writers tend to unfairly dismiss such important intellectual challenges related to epistemology as Western “rationalism,” and as a result they miss an opportunity to add their voices to a discussion that has radically changed since the 1970s, highlighting the work of the Reformed philosopher Alvin Plantinga in particular.

“You need to face up to these challenges,” said Abraham, “and join the conversation.” On the whole, I would agree. While work has been and is being done in these areas (the work of David Bentley Hart comes to mind with regard to Trial #4), we certainly could do a lot more, and living in the West as many of us do will require us to face these challenges, whether we are prepared to or not.

Happily, I can say that nearly every one of these four trials were the subject of lectures at Acton University this year. Fr. Michael Butler talked on Orthodoxy, Church, and State as well as Orthodoxy and natural law, Fr. Gregory Jensen lectured on asceticism and consumerism, and Fr. Hans Jacobse’s session on the importance of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn had a clear emphasis on evangelism and apologetics. Those who are interested can stream those lectures at Ancient Faith radio here.

Abraham is very right that much more can be done, however. For my part I hope that the Orthodox will have ears to hear his call, not only here at the Acton Institute but through the work of the Sophia Institute in the United States, the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, and many other institutions and publications worldwide as well.

Dr. Abraham is the author of several books in the fields of philosophy, theology, and evangelism among others, which can be found here.

Dylan Pahman – Natural Law, Public Policy, and the Uncanny Voice of Conscience: An Orthodox Response to David Bentley Hart

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Source: Ehtika Politika |

David Bentley Hart

In his recent First Things article, “Is, Ought, and Nature’s Laws,” David Bentley Hart puts forth a formidable and subtle critique of the use, “by certain self-described Thomists,” of the natural law tradition in public discourse. While Hart does not deny “a harmony between cosmic and moral order,” he takes issue when “the natural law theorist insists that the moral meaning of nature should be perfectly evident to any properly reasoning mind, regardless of religious belief or cultural formation.”

He thus contends that (1) such natural lawyers, despite best intentions, ultimately fall prey to David Hume’s critique that one cannot derive an “ought” from an “is”; that (2) natural law reasoning depends upon a person’s prior acceptance of certain metaphysical commitments (e.g. a teleological world and a harmony between the cosmic and moral orders); that (3) universal moral norms are more often “artifacts of cultural traditions” derived from historical experience rather than dictates of reason discerned in nature; and that (4) due to the dissonance between the necessary metaphysical assumptions that make natural law compelling and the common, secular assumptions of our present age (i.e. “a mechanistic understanding of the physical world, a neo-Darwinian view of life, and a voluntarist understanding of the self”), natural law-based public discourse today “is a hopeless cause.”

On the one hand, I am sensitive to Hart’s critique—morality is more than solely what can be deduced by a properly reasoning mind, as some seem to believe. Nevertheless, while I would not necessarily describe myself as a Thomist (like Hart, I am an Orthodox Christian), I take issue with his critique for (1) failing to account for the role of conscience in traditional natural law theory and for (2) confusing the role of reason in natural law theory as a result.

That primarily conscience, in addition to reason, testifies to the dictates of the law of nature constitutes an essential presupposition of the natural law tradition. As St. Paul puts it, even apart from knowledge of any written, divine revelation, people “show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them” (Romans 2:15). According to St. John Chrysostom, the natural law is not so much something discerned outside of the self as within: “when God formed man, he implanted within him from the beginning a natural law.” He continues to note the testimony of conscience: “And what then was this natural law? He gave utterance to conscience within us; and made the knowledge of good things, and of those which are the contrary, to be self-taught” (Homilies on the Statues 12.9). He continues to argue—as is the classical understanding—that the content of the natural law accords, at least, with the second table of the Decalogue.

If Hart was correct that knowledge of the natural law comes only through reflection upon the natural world by reason, then Hume’s is/ought objection might apply. However, the traditional conviction is that—in addition, perhaps, to the “uncanny voices” of history that Hart highlights—there exists within the human heart the uncanny voice of conscience. Natural law begins here, with an “ought” of intuition, the “ought” of conscience.

Indeed, people do not need much explanation, if any, to agree that killing innocent persons, taking what is not theirs, deceiving the trusting, and so on—is wrong. People may disagree about the specific application of the dictates of natural law, but even our contemporary culture currently acknowledges the existence of conscience. People who live as if they had no conscience our modern society rightly classifies as sociopaths and, if necessary and possible, institutionalizes them.

Thus, already, I am not convinced that Hart’s objections hold up. (1) Natural law, known through the “ought” of conscience, does not, therefore, require deriving an “ought” from an “is”; (2) on the same basis, natural law does not require any further prior metaphysical commitments, only an acceptance of the basic reliability of the voice conscience in the human heart; (3) since conscience testifies to universal moral norms, such norms cannot wholly be reduced to cultural and historical factors; and lastly, (4) since there is no insurmountable barrier of metaphysical perspective in our contemporary context to acknowledging the existence of conscience, there is, therefore, no contextual barrier to appealing to the dictates of natural law in public policy discussions. Of course, in our sin we are capable of ignoring and dulling the sense of conscience within us, but that does not negate its usefulness.

But what of reason? To be charitable, Hart may still, at this point, have a case to be made. What relation does reason have with natural law, given the primacy of conscience?

In this case, I find the analogy of vision to be quite helpful. There are many reasons why I may be incapable of seeing something accurately in the physical world. For example: I may be nearsighted; I may be colorblind; or I may be entirely blind. In fact, I actually have firsthand experience with the first two. In the case of my nearsightedness, the deficiency could be remedied with corrective lenses or, perhaps, with Lasik eye surgery. (I am content with my glasses.) In the case of my colorblindness, barring a miracle I must rely upon the judgment of others to gain accurate knowledge of the world I observe in its chromatic element—my wife helps me match my clothes, for example. Lastly, if I were totally blind, it would, indeed, take supernatural intervention alone for me to see anything at all.

Much as, according to Philo of Alexandria, “encyclical knowledge of music and logic” is the “handmaiden” of virtue and wisdom (On Seeking Instruction 2), so also reason is the handmaiden of conscience. Like corrective lenses for deficient vision, reason can help guide some people to see the truth of the moral order more clearly. This is precisely what Hart’s “self-described Thomists” seek to do, to guide people with the aid of reason to see how the dictates of conscience apply in some specific area of public policy. Whether or not they take the time to focus on the role of conscience at all does not negate their tacit reliance on it, consciously or not. They are, thus, justified in doing so, so far as deficient moral vision is a problem of insufficient understanding.

However, I see no reason why the problem, in some cases, might be otherwise. For example, I can rationally understand that purple is the combination of blue and red; and I can know, by the testimony of others, that certain objects are, in fact, purple; but I am nearly—if not wholly—incapable of seeing the color purple with my own eyes. To extend the analogy to morality and public discourse, a person may first need to be shown that their moral vision itself is irreparably deficient. This, again, might be able to be done with the aid of reason, but not with the same line of argumentation typically taken by Hart’s unnamed natural lawyers. To do so would be like offering a colorblind person corrective lenses. For that he would be right to criticize them, but he does not take such a line of objection.

Finally, one may, like the sociopath, be morally blind, deaf to the uncanny voice of conscience within the human heart. In this case Christians know the answer, and it is not a matter of rational discourse. In most cases, there is no operation or device by which the blind can see—typically only the power of God can open the eyes of the blind. In this case Hart’s criticism stands, but, given the existence of conscience, his argument would require that such blindness be far more widespread, when, in fact, some may simply be morally colorblind or nearsighted.

In this light, contra Hart, I would argue that Christians ought to affirm the natural law on the basis of conscience and employ well-reasoned arguments in support of the specific application of its dictates in areas of conflict in the public square with the hope that some may be able to see the truth or, at least, their own deficiency. However, with Hart, I would also affirm the need for supernatural enlightenment. We must not neglect evangelism but testify through our lives to the Truth incarnate with both hope and caution, recalling the words of Christ himself: “For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind” (John 9:39).

Dylan Pahman

Dylan Pahman is a contributing editor at Ethika Politika. He is also assistant editor of the Journal of Markets & Morality and for Christian’s Library Press and research associate at the Acton Institute. He has his MTS in historical theology with a concentration in early Church studies from Calvin Theological Seminary. He is a regular contributor to Acton’s blog and has additionally been published in the Calvin Theological Journal and Touchstone Magazine. He has previously written on the spiritual life from an Orthodox Christian perspective in Theosis and continues to do so at everydayasceticism.com.

Acton Blog: Dunn, Oikonomia, and Assault Weapons: Misappropriating a Principle?

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For better or for worse (probably better) discussion of Orthodox teaching to cultural issues and every day life takes place more often on public blogs than anywhere else. Some critics deride the development of a virtual public square but how does it differ from essays written on paper except that delivery is faster?

Moreover, the quality of the writing is often good and sometimes excellent. The communications revolution is changing the Church as it has every other institution. Sharpening ideas by offering them for public critique is a good thing overall. People engaged in public life who know that ideas are important have been doing it for centuries.

Below is a response to David J. Dunn’s essay An Eastern Orthodox Case for Banning Assault Weapons by Dylan Pahman published on the Acton Institute Power Blog.

Fr. Gregory Jensen also crafted a response to Dunn that published immediately below this post.

David J. Dunn yesterday wrote an interesting piece arguing for a ban on assault weapons from an Orthodox Christian perspective (here). First of all, I am happy to see any timely Orthodox engagement with contemporary social issues and applaud the effort. Furthermore, I respect his humility, as his bio statement reads: “his views reflect the diversity of Orthodox opinion on this issue, not any ‘official’ position of the church.” The same applies to my views as well.

I take issue with Dunn, in particular, in his use of the Orthodox principle of oikonomia. As he frames it, it would appear that he has not taken the time to understand it in historical context, distorting his application of the principle to the debate of firearm regulation. Indeed, he appears to have entirely misappropriated this principle, applying it in precisely the opposite manner in which it is traditionally intended.

When it comes to government intervention in the market, I tend to err on the side of freedom, as I have recently expressed with regards to the issue of smoking (here). Now, to be clear, my point in that post was that I was unsure what good any further regulations on smoking would bring, not that we ought to lift all that are already in place. The central question in that case, I stated, is “to what extent should the state be able to intervene into the market when a company’s or industry’s product can and tends to, but does not necessarily, endanger our natural rights?”

Now, when it comes to firearms, I think this is an even stickier situation. Many people own and operate firearms perfectly safely, whereas most people who smoke at least endanger their own health, not to mention the health of others through second hand smoke.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that firearms are actually made to kill, calling to question whether the state has a role, for the sake of protecting the right to life of its citizens, to regulate—or perhaps to promote, as some would argue—the availability of different types of firearms. All that is to say, this is a difficult question of ethics, economics, and constitutional law and not as simple as some may want it to be.

Dunn argues for banning “assault weapons” (a rather ambiguous legal term) on the basis of the Orthodox principle of oikonomia. In response to Wayne LaPierre of the NRA, he writes,

Wayne LaPierre needs a little oikonomia because oikonomia demands we value people more than ideology. The “letter of the law” in the NRA is to oppose any regulation on the sale and manufacture of firearms. But holding fast to one’s ideals can make a person blind to their human cost, leading to irrational behavior. Thus, in the wake of shootings like Sandy Hook Elementary, LaPierre refuses to admit the obvious fact that a shooter with a smaller clip can kill fewer children. Instead he says that we should focus on the root causes of the problem. But the root causes are not always the ones that need to be addressed. In the Orthodox Church, oikonomia is a kind of spiritual triage: First save the patient! ButLaPierre is like a doctor, who comes across a person in cardiac arrest, and scolds her about proper diet and exercise.

What I take issue with here is Dunn’s understanding of the principle of oikonomia. He defines it as follows:

Oikonomia comes from the word oikos, which means “household” or “family.” When it comes to the canons, oikonomia means that, just as parents do not enforce the rules in every situation, neither do priests. The canons are what the Orthodox theologian, Fr. John McGuckin, calls a “pastoral instrument.” If a priest knows someone is sinning, the canons might dictate a particular course of action, and the priest might choose to ignore it. The letter of the law is subordinate to the needs of the soul. If enforcing a canon is going to make someone feel ashamed, despair, or leave the church, the most responsible thing the priest can do is to suspend the “letter of the law” for the sake of the immediate need.

While this is more or less true, what Dunn does not explore, and what clouds his application, is when and for what reason a priest may act out of oikonomia.

Historically, with regards to the canons, at least, the principle of oikonomia can be summarized by Canon 74 of St. Basil the Great:

[The one] that has the power of binding and loosing, may lessen the time of penance, to an earnest penitent.

Now notice that, as Dunn has recorded, the canons do allow for oikonomia, an overlooking of a canon in a special circumstance. But what is that special circumstance? The good behavior of the one under the sentence of the canon.

While I am not even so sure that expanding this principle to the ideology of the NRA is appropriate at all, if one wishes to do so, as does Dunn, it would seem that the above point would be crucial. Dunn wants LaPierre to relax the NRA’s principles because of the bad behavior of people who tragically misuse firearms. This would appear to be precisely the opposite of oikonomia.

Ironically, the NRA’s position of less regulation would fit oikonomia far better (though I am not too fond of comparing NRA members or legislators to priests and bishops). They want less of the law, not more of it.

No, whatever merits Dunn’s position may have, his application of this Orthodox principle seems entirely backwards. My advice would be that oikonomia is simply a non-starter for engagement with this issue from an Orthodox perspective.

As for how best to address it, well, I admit I am still personally working that out. However, when it comes to such a practical matter, there is something at the root of oikonomia that is much needed: the virtue of prudence. And I do not see how anyone can hope to act in prudence in this matter without engaging the issue from all sides and, importantly, considering any relevant data regarding the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of limiting the market in any way for the purpose of achieving a desired moral end, as well as minding the unintended consequences that surely will result as well—something that Dunn regrettably neglects to do.

Asceticism and the Free Society

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The underlying thesis in the essay below is that 1) man is fundamentally a moral being, and 2) the restoration of culture is fundamentally a moral enterprise. The essay is reproduced by permission of the Acton Institute but note something about that: There is more interest in the Orthodox contribution about the intersections of faith and culture outside of Orthodox circles than within it. What does that say about us, that we are asleep at the switch? Yes, maybe it does. Apart from the boutique issues we don’t really say much.

The author brings forward the necessity of ascetic discipline (think of it as self-discipline as an exercise not only of body but also the soul) as an ordering principle not only for the self, but the larger culture as well. No man is an island which is also to say that no man is an individual. Conservatives are correct in resisting the collectivist impulse of secular liberalism but if they think that individualism is the antidote they are mistaken and will end up living in the same arid lands of dehumanization that foster a greater loss of human dignity and ultimately liberty. A fuller vision of the human person is required and the author starts making the case for it below.

Source: Acton Institute Blog

Dylan Pahman

This past Friday, I had the opportunity to present a paper at the Sophia Institute annual conference at Union Theological Seminary. This year’s topic was “Marriage, Family, and Love in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition.” My paper was titled, “What Makes a Society?” and focused, in the context of marriage and the family, on developing an Orthodox Christian answer to that question. The Roman Catholic and neo-Calvinist answers, subsidiarity and sphere sovereignty, respectively (though not mutually exclusive), receive frequent attention on the PowerBlog, but, to my knowledge, no Orthodox answer has been clearly articulated, and so it can be difficult to know where to begin. To that end, it is my conviction—and a subject of my research—that a historically sensitive, Orthodox answer to this question can found be in the idea of asceticism, rightly understood.

While I will not reproduce my paper here, I wanted to briefly summarize two of its main points that might have broader interest. First of all, what is asceticism? Second, how can asceticism be viewed as an organizational principle of society? Lastly, I want to briefly explore—beyond the scope of my paper—the relevance of this principle for a free society.

With regards to the first question, it is very important to recognize that there are many forms of asceticism. Asceticism comes from the Greek word askesis and basically means exercise. Applied to our spiritual lives, it carries the connotation of denying our bodily comforts in order to train our souls through prayer, fasting, almsgiving, etc. Often, however, people only think of the negative forms when they hear the word, such as, for example, the sort of asceticism that St. Paul denounces in his Epistle to the Colossians, writing,

If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence. (2:20-23)

The problem with this sort of asceticism was that it confused means with ends. The ascetic disciplines (prayer, fasting, almsgiving, simplicity, etc.) are not ends in themselves, not for Christians anyway. This attitude toward them can be seen in the many sayings of the desert fathers, in which, for example, they criticize those who refuse hospitality for the sake of their fast.

Rather, according to St. Moses the Ethiopian, the disciplines “are to be rungs of a ladder up which [the heart] may climb to perfect charity [i.e., love].” And according to Fr. Georges Florovsky, “True asceticism is inspired not by contempt, but by the urge of transformation.” Rather than viewing the body as something evil that deserves to be mistreated, it views it as the means by which we improve our souls, training ourselves in the virtues and, ultimately, love. It is the means by which we put to death our members on the earth and set our minds on things above (cf. Colossians 3:1-11). In this way, Christian asceticism actually has an exceptionally high view of the body: it is not evil or devoid of spiritual worth but rather essential to our spiritual development.

But how can asceticism, often associated exclusively with monks and mystics, be a societal principle? As I write in my paper,

[W]e can confirm this by reflecting on the everyday habitus of the family. Do we not call dysfunctional a family in which the children are allowed to eat ice cream for breakfast, where the family spends no intentional time together, and disobedience is never disciplined? Do we not rightly call deadbeat a parent who abandons his/her children, refusing to sacrifice in order to provide for them, instead pursuing a selfish existence? Healthy families, on the other hand, eat meals together according to their own established dietary limitations (“eat your vegetables, then you can have dessert,” for example); they share time and space with one another; the parents sacrifice their time and desires in order to work to provide for the children; the children are required to do chores to contribute to the household; and so on. Society simply does not “work” apart from ascetic self-renunciation.

I go on to clarify: “True, such asceticism may be quite light by most standards and not the perfect embodiment of the ideal, but the basic principle must, nonetheless, be present.” Understood in this way, there is no society that can survive apart from some degree of asceticism.

I find this to be a perspective particularly suited to the Orthodox tradition because there is still an expectation there that everyone would take part in asceticism to some extent. Wednesdays and Fridays are fast days, and the periods of Advent and Lent, among others, are periods where greater emphasis is not only put on fasting, but prayer, almsgiving, simplicity, repentance, etc. Intentional asceticism is still an integral part of the Orthodox ethos, and the Orthodox tradition is full of wisdom regarding the ascetic way of life.

All of this is well and good, but what does it mean for a free society? According to Edmund Burke,

Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

Asceticism is historically the means by which Christians train themselves, in cooperation with divine grace, to put “a controlling power upon will and appetite.” The more self-restraint people have within, the more limited government they can afford to have. The more austere people are with themselves, the more they will have to give to others, thus reducing the need for government assistance. Thus government austerity requires a culture of austerity (and generosity).

In our nation today, both are needed to a great extent. We have a problem with debt that is only getting bigger by the day, and a significant portion of it is due to making promises to future generations that we cannot realistically keep if our attitudes and practices toward debt and deficits do not change. We are simultaneously promising our children all sorts of entitlements, many of which are in fact laudable things and worth trying to save, but all of which together are economically unsustainable at our current rate. Yet if we want our government to be more austere for the sake of fiscal responsibility—and we should—then we also ought to encourage a more ascetic culture, where austerity for the sake of generosity and love, i.e. true asceticism, is seen as a way of life, what holds our society together, and the means by which we are truly free. Otherwise it will be our own passions that “forge [our] fetters,” and we will only need to look in the mirror to see who to blame.

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