St. Isaiah the Solitary, On Guarding the Intellect, Twenty-Seven Texts
10. If your intellect is freed from all its enemies and attains the sabbath rest, it lives in another age, a new age in which it contemplates things new and undecaying. For “wherever the dead body is, there will the eagles be gathered together.”
This third of three statements about the freedom of the intellect is transformative. First, a sing that sin has died in us. Second, that the breach with God has been healed. But those are both negative things. Now we hear of the positive.
The freed intellect lives “in another age”: in eternity. Our intellect is able to exercise its proper function, of the contemplation of eternal things. We are now light-years from what has come before: from the use of the intellect for self-assertion or self-defense. Free from all fear and risk, and no longer even needing to pursue the truth, the intellect is now in possession of the living Truth, God himself. And yet, this talk of possession now seems out-of-place; or rather, backwards: the intellect now knows itself to be possessed by the Truth.
The spiritual life is so often likened to a journey these days, but here St. Isaiah recalls to us the image of a sabbath rest, of the conclusion of our journey. The journey finds its meaning in the conclusion and not in the process of getting there; the process was valuable because of the conclusion. And here we do not find that the conclusion is empty, nor is it unspoken as the Buddhist nibbana. No, the conclusion is with activity, and indeed, the true and proper activity for which the intellect was created.
In the possession of the Truth is the consummation as well of Socratic (and thus, all) philosophy. The pursuit and love of wisdom was always for the sake of wisdom, the dialectic was hunting after the Truth. Plato’s mistake, and that of all the rest of philosophy through the ages, is to settle for half the truth instead of continuing to search. But the contrary mistake is also dangerous: to mistake the journey for the destination, and to be content merely with a pilgrimage that, ultimately, leads nowhere.
St. Isaiah here depicts then, the destination: a sabbath rest, but a rest of contemplation—a state in which the intellect is doing what it ought to have been doing all along.
Index of Comments on the Philokalia
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
St. Isaiah the Solitary 9
St. Isaiah the Solitary, On Guarding the Intellect, Twenty-Seven Texts
9. If your intellect is freed, the breach between it and God is eliminated.
The previous text explained that freedom of the intellect from hope in things visible is a sign that sin has died within. Here this is broadened in two ways.
First, the freedom described is not just freedom "from hope in things visible", but simply freedom, full stop. Freedom therefore not from mistaken hope in things not able to deliver, but freedom from whatever oppresses. Indeed, the primary oppression is sin, and so this follows on, rather than restates, the previous text.
It is as if we are told that the care expressed in text seven about the use of the senses was first said to play a role in the freedom of our intellect from sin, and then we are told that this freedom in turn eliminates "the breach between it and God". Our intellect is divided from God in so many ways. Divided in understanding of God and itself, divided in relating to the world, divided in its anxiety and confusion.
But still not clear here is the story about how our intellect is freed, how the death of sin is obtained, how the breach between it and God is eliminated. The ontological fact is that the breach has been eliminated, for the Christian, and for St. Isaiah and the rest of the hesychastic tradition, by the already present and active grace of God, the sacramental life of the church, and the prayer of our hearts. These are the operative means by which this occurs.
It is our subjective apprehension of this already-accomplished objective fact which is lacking, and so it is appopriate to focus so strongly in this way on the intellect. It is the intellect which is principally implicated in the gap between our subjective apprehension and the objective reality as things are. It is here that the practical strategies of St. Isaiah (and the rest) come to the fore: not as mechanisms to achieve the cure for sin, but as mechanisms to apprehend it, to know it to have happened.
We seek signs and signals to see this already-accomplished objective fact. This is the proper function of the intellect, to seek these things, and so here we are told the practical strategies for that seeking and that growing understanding.
Index of Comments on the Philokalia
9. If your intellect is freed, the breach between it and God is eliminated.
The previous text explained that freedom of the intellect from hope in things visible is a sign that sin has died within. Here this is broadened in two ways.
First, the freedom described is not just freedom "from hope in things visible", but simply freedom, full stop. Freedom therefore not from mistaken hope in things not able to deliver, but freedom from whatever oppresses. Indeed, the primary oppression is sin, and so this follows on, rather than restates, the previous text.
It is as if we are told that the care expressed in text seven about the use of the senses was first said to play a role in the freedom of our intellect from sin, and then we are told that this freedom in turn eliminates "the breach between it and God". Our intellect is divided from God in so many ways. Divided in understanding of God and itself, divided in relating to the world, divided in its anxiety and confusion.
But still not clear here is the story about how our intellect is freed, how the death of sin is obtained, how the breach between it and God is eliminated. The ontological fact is that the breach has been eliminated, for the Christian, and for St. Isaiah and the rest of the hesychastic tradition, by the already present and active grace of God, the sacramental life of the church, and the prayer of our hearts. These are the operative means by which this occurs.
It is our subjective apprehension of this already-accomplished objective fact which is lacking, and so it is appopriate to focus so strongly in this way on the intellect. It is the intellect which is principally implicated in the gap between our subjective apprehension and the objective reality as things are. It is here that the practical strategies of St. Isaiah (and the rest) come to the fore: not as mechanisms to achieve the cure for sin, but as mechanisms to apprehend it, to know it to have happened.
We seek signs and signals to see this already-accomplished objective fact. This is the proper function of the intellect, to seek these things, and so here we are told the practical strategies for that seeking and that growing understanding.
Index of Comments on the Philokalia
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
St. Isaiah the Solitary 8
St. Isaiah the Solitary, On Guarding the Intellect, Twenty-Seven Texts
8. If your intellect is freed from all hope in things visible, this is a sign that sin has died in you.
From the previous text, which advises a training exercise of closing the “gates of the soul,” we now have a brief discussion of why this is good and important.
This shows us what we heard before, in a broader sense. We were told in the last text to close attention to the senses to prevent the intellect not to be lured astray, until it has learned that it is not dominated by anything, and then a process of integration and wholeness can take root.
Now there is a broader description here, which undergirds and licenses that strategy. The false view would be that the world and sensible things are evil and we must remain pure from them. Here the reason given is quite different. It is that we must not hope in the things of the world. The reason for the sensory restraint advised in the previous text is here explained more fully: we will be given experience in recognizing that the things of this world are not necessary to us.
And once we see that we may stop hoping in them. This is then a sign that sin has died in us. But once more, we are thrust back on the anti-stoic point that this does not depend on us. We might have thought, “oh, I stop hoping in things visible, and that will make sin go away.” No. It is a sign that sin has died, but not the cause. The cause is something quite different: the redemption earned by Christ, and received through grace.
Index of Comments on the Philokalia
8. If your intellect is freed from all hope in things visible, this is a sign that sin has died in you.
From the previous text, which advises a training exercise of closing the “gates of the soul,” we now have a brief discussion of why this is good and important.
This shows us what we heard before, in a broader sense. We were told in the last text to close attention to the senses to prevent the intellect not to be lured astray, until it has learned that it is not dominated by anything, and then a process of integration and wholeness can take root.
Now there is a broader description here, which undergirds and licenses that strategy. The false view would be that the world and sensible things are evil and we must remain pure from them. Here the reason given is quite different. It is that we must not hope in the things of the world. The reason for the sensory restraint advised in the previous text is here explained more fully: we will be given experience in recognizing that the things of this world are not necessary to us.
And once we see that we may stop hoping in them. This is then a sign that sin has died in us. But once more, we are thrust back on the anti-stoic point that this does not depend on us. We might have thought, “oh, I stop hoping in things visible, and that will make sin go away.” No. It is a sign that sin has died, but not the cause. The cause is something quite different: the redemption earned by Christ, and received through grace.
Index of Comments on the Philokalia
Monday, September 25, 2006
St. Isaiah the Solitary 7
St. Isaiah the Solitary, On Guarding the Intellect, Twenty-Seven Texts
7. The monk should shut all the gates of his soul, that is, the senses, so that he is not lured astray. When the intellect sees that it is not dominated by anything, it prepares itself for immortality, gathering its senses together and forming them into one body.
It is interesting that the language of the senses as gates is one which the Pali canon of Buddhism also shares. In any event, the gates here are shut because through them the soul sees things which may lure it astray. A sort of mental “ooh, shiny thing!” and the soul is out the gate and gone.
But this is merely training, and it is here identified even as strictly monastic training. While certainly St. Isaiah intends a monastic audience for the whole work, here he calls attention to that fact. The monk is one who is consciously in training, and so here that highlights the way in which this is a training rule.
The things the senses show us are lures, attractions, which can pull us away. Away from what we ask? No answer here given. But we do not want to be astray, certainly, and the language of being “led astray” is very close to the language of error or sin, while not being quite the same thing. This is not, however, the condition of holiness, this living with the gates shut. The gates are shut, the senses are closed, not as if the world were a stained or unclean or unpure thing, still less as if the world were unholy. This is not Platonism. The gates are shut because the senses present to us temptations.
This is there for the purpose of training the intellect. The intellect then comes to see that it is not dominated by anything. The experience of living with the senses closed, not being lured away, shows the intellect that it can be quite secure without those external things; that they are not the substance or the essence of its life. So many live as if their intellect is subject to external sensory things, “things passing away” in the language of the collect. The intellect then seems to be dominated by them, unable to be free. And if we think it is dominated by sensible things, we will not be able or willing to submit it to God.
So this training exercise is a way of practicing the independence of the intellect from sensible things. When the intellect knows this independence, it can now prepare for immortality. Why? Because immortality is the condition of life with things eternal and invisible, in place of things transitory and visible. The intellect’s learning that it stands independent of the sensible things of the world enables the intellect to train itself and learn about immortality.
That training, in turn, is a return to the senses. In no way are they rejected, or is the world rejected. Just as fasting does not deny the goodness of food, the “sensory fast” here is also not a denial of the goodness of sensible things. But instead of the senses being disunited and at war, the intellect, once it sees that they do not dominate it, can enable them to become unified, as parts of one single body.
Index of Comments on the Philokalia
7. The monk should shut all the gates of his soul, that is, the senses, so that he is not lured astray. When the intellect sees that it is not dominated by anything, it prepares itself for immortality, gathering its senses together and forming them into one body.
It is interesting that the language of the senses as gates is one which the Pali canon of Buddhism also shares. In any event, the gates here are shut because through them the soul sees things which may lure it astray. A sort of mental “ooh, shiny thing!” and the soul is out the gate and gone.
But this is merely training, and it is here identified even as strictly monastic training. While certainly St. Isaiah intends a monastic audience for the whole work, here he calls attention to that fact. The monk is one who is consciously in training, and so here that highlights the way in which this is a training rule.
The things the senses show us are lures, attractions, which can pull us away. Away from what we ask? No answer here given. But we do not want to be astray, certainly, and the language of being “led astray” is very close to the language of error or sin, while not being quite the same thing. This is not, however, the condition of holiness, this living with the gates shut. The gates are shut, the senses are closed, not as if the world were a stained or unclean or unpure thing, still less as if the world were unholy. This is not Platonism. The gates are shut because the senses present to us temptations.
This is there for the purpose of training the intellect. The intellect then comes to see that it is not dominated by anything. The experience of living with the senses closed, not being lured away, shows the intellect that it can be quite secure without those external things; that they are not the substance or the essence of its life. So many live as if their intellect is subject to external sensory things, “things passing away” in the language of the collect. The intellect then seems to be dominated by them, unable to be free. And if we think it is dominated by sensible things, we will not be able or willing to submit it to God.
So this training exercise is a way of practicing the independence of the intellect from sensible things. When the intellect knows this independence, it can now prepare for immortality. Why? Because immortality is the condition of life with things eternal and invisible, in place of things transitory and visible. The intellect’s learning that it stands independent of the sensible things of the world enables the intellect to train itself and learn about immortality.
That training, in turn, is a return to the senses. In no way are they rejected, or is the world rejected. Just as fasting does not deny the goodness of food, the “sensory fast” here is also not a denial of the goodness of sensible things. But instead of the senses being disunited and at war, the intellect, once it sees that they do not dominate it, can enable them to become unified, as parts of one single body.
Index of Comments on the Philokalia
Sunday, September 24, 2006
St. Isaiah the Solitary 6
St. Isaiah the Solitary, On Guarding the Intellect, Twenty-Seven Texts.
6. If your heart comes to feel a natural hatred for sin, it has defeated the causes of sin and freed itself from them. Keep hell’s torments in mind; but know that your Helper is at hand. Do nothing that will grieve Him, but say to Him with tears, “Be merciful and deliver me, O Lord, for without Thy help I cannot escape from the hands of my enemies.” Be attentive to your heart, and He will guard you from all evil.
Some points to note: the hatred for sin we should feel is a natural hatred, that is, it is not contrary to our nature. But it may well be unusual or extraordinary or unworldly to have such a hatred. More normally, we would speak that our nature is a sinful nature, which is the more normal Western way to talk. But St. Iasiah and the Eastern Christians tend to use “nature” more specifically to refer to our nature before sin, without sin, what we were created to be. That nature is obscured and hidden perhaps, oppressed and beaten about, but not gone or in itself damaged. This is quite different from the Western way of talking, which produced in Calvin a doctrine that our nature is itself fallen.
Also, we cannot get the first sentence backwards here: the statement is not that we should cultivate a hatred for sin, and then we will defeat the cause of sin and be free of it. Rather, if we have that natural hatred, then we know that we are free, but the cause of feeling that natural hatred is not just a matter of choosing to feel it. Instead, St. Isaiah gives us a recipe for our salvation: he gives us a prayer, and attributes the action of salvation to Christ, not to our own willpower.
A difficulty is this language that the redeemed heart has defeated the causes of sin and freed itself. Isn’t that Christ’s doing? Indeed it is, and the heart which does this is only a heart so infused by the Holy Spirit that it cannot but will what God wills. This is what is filled out by the prayer St. Isaiah gives. We are told to be attentive to our heart, to listen to it, and to look in it for the signs of our salvation. It is Jesus Christ then who guards us from evil.
What we find in St. Isaiah’s text then is intended to be intensely practical. It is the methods and tools we should know in order to engage in this task of attentiveness to our hearts. But if we look at our hearts, what will we see? Will we see a heart with a natural hatred for sin, or will we not rather see a heart still bound by attachments to sin? So if we follow his prescription, we throw ourselves on God’s mercy all the more, and pray all the more this prayer he gives.
We become moved to seek the tools by which we can cultivate this attentiveness and pray more genuinely the prayer for God’s salvation, and it is this which he seeks to teach us.
Index of Comments on the Philokalia
6. If your heart comes to feel a natural hatred for sin, it has defeated the causes of sin and freed itself from them. Keep hell’s torments in mind; but know that your Helper is at hand. Do nothing that will grieve Him, but say to Him with tears, “Be merciful and deliver me, O Lord, for without Thy help I cannot escape from the hands of my enemies.” Be attentive to your heart, and He will guard you from all evil.
Some points to note: the hatred for sin we should feel is a natural hatred, that is, it is not contrary to our nature. But it may well be unusual or extraordinary or unworldly to have such a hatred. More normally, we would speak that our nature is a sinful nature, which is the more normal Western way to talk. But St. Iasiah and the Eastern Christians tend to use “nature” more specifically to refer to our nature before sin, without sin, what we were created to be. That nature is obscured and hidden perhaps, oppressed and beaten about, but not gone or in itself damaged. This is quite different from the Western way of talking, which produced in Calvin a doctrine that our nature is itself fallen.
Also, we cannot get the first sentence backwards here: the statement is not that we should cultivate a hatred for sin, and then we will defeat the cause of sin and be free of it. Rather, if we have that natural hatred, then we know that we are free, but the cause of feeling that natural hatred is not just a matter of choosing to feel it. Instead, St. Isaiah gives us a recipe for our salvation: he gives us a prayer, and attributes the action of salvation to Christ, not to our own willpower.
A difficulty is this language that the redeemed heart has defeated the causes of sin and freed itself. Isn’t that Christ’s doing? Indeed it is, and the heart which does this is only a heart so infused by the Holy Spirit that it cannot but will what God wills. This is what is filled out by the prayer St. Isaiah gives. We are told to be attentive to our heart, to listen to it, and to look in it for the signs of our salvation. It is Jesus Christ then who guards us from evil.
What we find in St. Isaiah’s text then is intended to be intensely practical. It is the methods and tools we should know in order to engage in this task of attentiveness to our hearts. But if we look at our hearts, what will we see? Will we see a heart with a natural hatred for sin, or will we not rather see a heart still bound by attachments to sin? So if we follow his prescription, we throw ourselves on God’s mercy all the more, and pray all the more this prayer he gives.
We become moved to seek the tools by which we can cultivate this attentiveness and pray more genuinely the prayer for God’s salvation, and it is this which he seeks to teach us.
Index of Comments on the Philokalia
Saturday, September 23, 2006
St. Isaiah the Solitary 5
St. Isaiah the Solitary, On Guarding the Intellect, Twenty-Seven Texts
5. When the intellect hears these words of reassurance, it says boldly to its enemies, “Who would fight with me? Let him stand against me. And who would accuse me? Let him draw near to me. Behold, the Lord is my helper; who will harm me? Behold, all of you are like an old moth-eaten garment.”
The reassurance referred to is presumably that in the previous text, that God’s presence will be always with us, which is promised when we have submitted our intellect entirely to God. The fear I spoke of commenting on Text 4 was about the fear that the intellect’s own purposes and nature would be subverted by being subjected. The fear then was that an untrammeled intellect seems to be necessary for it to achieve its purpose of seeking truth, and that binding it to God might block the goal of the intellect. But, once we realize that God is truth, we hear the promise, the reassurance, that God will always be with the intellect, and will not abandon it, and the intellect is strengthened, not weakened, by its submission to God.
The strengthening now is broader in Text 5. Not only is it guarded against an apparent loss of its own function, but it is able to stand firm more solidly than before, with God as helper. Challenges to our ideas, to our thoughts, to our knowledge and our wisdom, are the sort of thing we would normally meet with a challenge back. The intellect asserts itself to defend our ideas in a sort of combat with opposing ideas, or worse, the people who express them. St. Isaiah, again quoting his namesake the prophet Isaiah, accepts the martial metaphor, but turns it on its head.
The intellect is strengethened here not to better argue against its enemies, or oppose them intellectually. But rather, by resting in the confidence of God’s presence, it has nothing to fear. There is no mention here of defeating the intellectual opponent, but only of withstanding because that opponent can do nothing. Indeed, the opponent need not be fought because he is only an “old moth-eaten garment.”
The intellect, secure in its knowledge that God is present and will always be present, confident in its submission to God, has nothing to fear either from a subversion of its purpose of seeking truth, or from a need to defend itself against enemies. God has promised help, and there is no need for combat or defense any longer.
This is thus quite different from Socratic dialectic, which must always be tested in discussion. (See the Crito!) Instead, the truth is not known because it is hard-won through struggle with competing visions of other people; the truth is known in a relationship of submission and loving adoration of God. The dialectic is thus perhaps exposed to be what Socrates’ opponents always thought it was: self-assertion.
Index of Comments on the Philokalia
5. When the intellect hears these words of reassurance, it says boldly to its enemies, “Who would fight with me? Let him stand against me. And who would accuse me? Let him draw near to me. Behold, the Lord is my helper; who will harm me? Behold, all of you are like an old moth-eaten garment.”
The reassurance referred to is presumably that in the previous text, that God’s presence will be always with us, which is promised when we have submitted our intellect entirely to God. The fear I spoke of commenting on Text 4 was about the fear that the intellect’s own purposes and nature would be subverted by being subjected. The fear then was that an untrammeled intellect seems to be necessary for it to achieve its purpose of seeking truth, and that binding it to God might block the goal of the intellect. But, once we realize that God is truth, we hear the promise, the reassurance, that God will always be with the intellect, and will not abandon it, and the intellect is strengthened, not weakened, by its submission to God.
The strengthening now is broader in Text 5. Not only is it guarded against an apparent loss of its own function, but it is able to stand firm more solidly than before, with God as helper. Challenges to our ideas, to our thoughts, to our knowledge and our wisdom, are the sort of thing we would normally meet with a challenge back. The intellect asserts itself to defend our ideas in a sort of combat with opposing ideas, or worse, the people who express them. St. Isaiah, again quoting his namesake the prophet Isaiah, accepts the martial metaphor, but turns it on its head.
The intellect is strengethened here not to better argue against its enemies, or oppose them intellectually. But rather, by resting in the confidence of God’s presence, it has nothing to fear. There is no mention here of defeating the intellectual opponent, but only of withstanding because that opponent can do nothing. Indeed, the opponent need not be fought because he is only an “old moth-eaten garment.”
The intellect, secure in its knowledge that God is present and will always be present, confident in its submission to God, has nothing to fear either from a subversion of its purpose of seeking truth, or from a need to defend itself against enemies. God has promised help, and there is no need for combat or defense any longer.
This is thus quite different from Socratic dialectic, which must always be tested in discussion. (See the Crito!) Instead, the truth is not known because it is hard-won through struggle with competing visions of other people; the truth is known in a relationship of submission and loving adoration of God. The dialectic is thus perhaps exposed to be what Socrates’ opponents always thought it was: self-assertion.
Index of Comments on the Philokalia
Friday, September 22, 2006
St. Isaiah the Solitary 4
St. Isaiah the Solitary, On Guarding the Intellect, Twenty-Seven Texts
4. If God sees that the intellect has entirely submitted to Him and puts his hope in Him alone, He strengthens it, saying, “Have no fear Jacob my son, my little Israel,” and, “Have no fear, for I have delivered you, I have called you by My name; you are Mine. If you pass through water, I shall be with you, and the rivers will not drown you. If you go through fire, you will not be burnt, and the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, who saves you.”
The three preparatory texts have counseled us about things secondary to the intellect: about anger, good or bad, about spiritual pride, and about the moral prerequisites of holy fear, virtuous life, and a well-nurtured conscience. Now on to the topic of the piece, the intellect.
The submission of the intellect is perhaps one of the hardest things to deal with as a modern. We are supposed to use our minds; the Episcopal Church loves the tagline that in our churches you are not expected to “check your mind at the door.” The intellect is, for us, a great defense. It is how we understand and appropriate the world, how we manipulate the world to achieve our goals and avoid harm. But I don’t think this is distinctively modern. It sounds modern, but human nature has not changed all that much.
St. Isaiah is addressing then a fear that we may have if we proceed on the course of submission of the intellect to God. The fear is that we will no longer be safe. The things that the intellect is good for will be subverted if we do not remain solidly in control of it. But this isn’t so, is it? If we believe that Jesus Christ is the Truth, then what exactly do we have to fear by submitting the intellect to truth? Nothing! And isn’t a person supposed to submit their minds to the truth, in preference to all attachments, all ego, all desire?
The fear then that by submitting our intellect to God we will lose our greatest tool for approaching the world gets entirely wrong the relation between the world, the intellect, and God. God cannot lead us astray; if we submit our intellect to God, we improve our safety, not the opposite. We find our true security, and our true needs met. St. Isaiah knows and presumes all this. Only one thing remains: to overcome our fear and anxiety about losing control. We ought to use our intellect to seek the truth, but in fact we so often use it to preserve control, or the illusion of control.
This is the real spiritual problem, so it’s right here that St. Isaiah goes, by quoting his namesake the prophet Isaiah and declaring that a strong intellect, and strong defense come from God. It is our fear that must be quelled in this process, and so the reassuring and ancient words of God are called for, who loves and cares for us, who has gone to such long straits to redeem us.
One further note: see the tense of the prophet’s words as St. Isaiah quotes them. Our future is secure, because our redemption has already been accomplished, and our salvation is occurring now, as we speak.
Index of Comments on the Philokalia
4. If God sees that the intellect has entirely submitted to Him and puts his hope in Him alone, He strengthens it, saying, “Have no fear Jacob my son, my little Israel,” and, “Have no fear, for I have delivered you, I have called you by My name; you are Mine. If you pass through water, I shall be with you, and the rivers will not drown you. If you go through fire, you will not be burnt, and the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, who saves you.”
The three preparatory texts have counseled us about things secondary to the intellect: about anger, good or bad, about spiritual pride, and about the moral prerequisites of holy fear, virtuous life, and a well-nurtured conscience. Now on to the topic of the piece, the intellect.
The submission of the intellect is perhaps one of the hardest things to deal with as a modern. We are supposed to use our minds; the Episcopal Church loves the tagline that in our churches you are not expected to “check your mind at the door.” The intellect is, for us, a great defense. It is how we understand and appropriate the world, how we manipulate the world to achieve our goals and avoid harm. But I don’t think this is distinctively modern. It sounds modern, but human nature has not changed all that much.
St. Isaiah is addressing then a fear that we may have if we proceed on the course of submission of the intellect to God. The fear is that we will no longer be safe. The things that the intellect is good for will be subverted if we do not remain solidly in control of it. But this isn’t so, is it? If we believe that Jesus Christ is the Truth, then what exactly do we have to fear by submitting the intellect to truth? Nothing! And isn’t a person supposed to submit their minds to the truth, in preference to all attachments, all ego, all desire?
The fear then that by submitting our intellect to God we will lose our greatest tool for approaching the world gets entirely wrong the relation between the world, the intellect, and God. God cannot lead us astray; if we submit our intellect to God, we improve our safety, not the opposite. We find our true security, and our true needs met. St. Isaiah knows and presumes all this. Only one thing remains: to overcome our fear and anxiety about losing control. We ought to use our intellect to seek the truth, but in fact we so often use it to preserve control, or the illusion of control.
This is the real spiritual problem, so it’s right here that St. Isaiah goes, by quoting his namesake the prophet Isaiah and declaring that a strong intellect, and strong defense come from God. It is our fear that must be quelled in this process, and so the reassuring and ancient words of God are called for, who loves and cares for us, who has gone to such long straits to redeem us.
One further note: see the tense of the prophet’s words as St. Isaiah quotes them. Our future is secure, because our redemption has already been accomplished, and our salvation is occurring now, as we speak.
Index of Comments on the Philokalia
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